Audio only:
In this episode Trent examines a common argument for sola scriptura and shows how New Testament scholarship undermines the common Protestant use of a single word to justify this core doctrine of Protestantism.
Links Mentioned:
When Protestants Argue Like Muslims: https://youtu.be/i46qnP2afvc
Responding to Fr. Casey on the Gospel’s historicity: https://youtu.be/_eNW6MQ348U
John C. Poirier – The Invention of the Inspired Text: https://a.co/d/5jZ42Fi
Transcript:
Welcome to The Counsel of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Speaker 2:
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Council of Trent podcast. I’m your host Catholic Answers apologist, Trent Horn. There are a lot of definitions of sola scriptura, but one popular definition says that scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith for the church. There can be other rules of faith like traditions and church councils, but they’re always subordinate to scripture. Of course, what this really means is that they’re always subordinate to an individual’s interpretation of scripture. Since it’s the individual who decides which traditions on baptism or salvation cohere with scripture. But regardless, scripture is the only infallible rule of faith. But why should we believe that’s true? Scripture never says it’s the only infallible rule of faith, and the arguments given for this position often engage in circular reasoning. In today’s episode, I want to show that one of the key pieces of evidence for sola scriptura comes from massive assumptions about a single word in the New Testament, and that when you look at the actual evidence, the case for sola scriptura collapses as a result.
But before I do that, I want to thank all of our supporters at trenthornpodcast.com. You make the podcast possible and I really enjoy chatting with all of you every Wednesday night at 8:15 PM Eastern at our patron only live stream. You can check that out at trenthornpodcast.com. Also, liking this video and subscribing to our channel, it helps us to grow and I really appreciate everybody who does that. All right, so what is the one-word Protestants overly rely on to defend sola scriptura? It’s the Greek word theopneustos. It’s found in 2 Timothy 3:16 which says, “All scriptures theopneustos.” Translated God-breathed or inspired. “And profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” The RSV Catholic Editions’ translation is similar to the Protestant King James Bible, which says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness.”
But other Protestant translations differ. The ESV says, “All scripture is breathed out by God.” And the NIV says, “All scripture is God-breathed.” Some translators choose to use the word inspire instead of God-breathed because inspired means to breathe into. That’s why when we say someone expired, we mean they breathed their last, expired. One argument I hear from Protestant apologists is that scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith for the church because it’s ontologically unique. As far as we know, only scripture is theopneustos. These apologists claim that if something is theopneustos, it comes directly from God. And because it comes directly from God or is breathed out of His mouth, it must be an infallible rule of faith for the church. More importantly, these apologists claim that if something is not theopneustos, it cannot be an infallible rule of faith for the church. But this argument rests on the assumption that theopneustos just means God-breathed, and that’s an assumption we should question.
A quick note. You’ll hear a lot of people in the clips I’m about to show you pronounce this word theopneustos, and that’s how I’ve often pronounced it in the past, but in researching for this episode, I came to see that the correct pronunciation is theopneustos. The P or pi in Greek is not silent. It’s easy to think it is because in English we say words like pneumatic drill, the P is silent. But the well-respected Greek scholar Bill Mounce says, “Remember in Greek there are no silent consonants, so the pi is pronounced. Unlike in English, where for example, the P is not pronounced in the word pneumatic.” End quote. All right, so why should we think theopneustos means God-breathed? Well, here’s what some Protestants say.
Speaker 3:
That scripture is God-breathed. It is breathed out by God.
Speaker 4:
That the scripture possesses this kind of God-breathed, unbreakable, divine authority.
Speaker 5:
Scripture as 2 Timothy 3:16 says, is breathed out by God.
Speaker 6:
Theopneustos, it is breathed out by God.
Speaker 7:
All scripture, the whole Bible is God-breathed. It is breathed out by God. It is inspired directly by God.
Speaker 2:
I don’t mean to be offensive with the last clip. I just think Muppets are really fun. In any case, the Greek word theopneustos is a compound formed from two words. A lot of Protestants just say the word must have this meaning because that’s what theos and pneuma mean. But that is what the Protestant scholar DA Carson called the root fallacy. You can’t determine a word’s meaning only from the meaning of its root or constituent parts. Hippopotamus means river horse, but a hippo is not a horse. Lady killer means female charmer, not female murderer. Carson uses the example of the Greek word apostolos, apostle, and that it’s cognant with the verb apostello, I send. That the word apostolos doesn’t mean one who is sent, it’s actually usage, it means a messenger or representative. So here it’s common usage in the New Testament does not match its etymological or root parts of the word.
The other problem with determining what theopneustos means is that it only appears once in the Bible. Greek scholars use the fancy term hapax legomena, but you can just call it a one of a kind. So we don’t have anything else in the Bible to make a comparison in order to show what the word means. Saying theopneustos just means God-breathed is not helpful, because theopneustos could be translated with the active God breathing instead of the passive God-breathed. The primary sense of the word then would be on what scripture does to us, not where it comes from or what authority it has in the church. The property of being God breathing will be understood to mean that scripture is spiritually life-giving or salvivic.
Just as God-breathed life into Adam to make him a living being in Genesis 2:7, scripture has a God breathing quality that gives us spiritual life as God’s children. Most Protestant sola scriptura arguments though use the word in this way, in order to be an infallible rule of faith, X must be theopneustos. Only scripture is theopneustos. Therefore, only scripture is an infallible rule of faith. One Protestant apologist puts it this way, unless tradition is also theopneustos, it cannot be equal to the rest of the word of God, for there can only be one ultimate authority. And that is why the evangelical supreme authority is without question or reservation, the God-breathed scriptures and nothing more.
Speaker 5:
It’s inspired of God. Then it carries authority because of its connection to God.
Speaker 3:
That scripture is God-breathed, it is breathed out by God. That in and of itself is not said of anything else. So it inherently gives scripture a uniqueness that nothing else has.
Speaker 4:
Well, what else could there be that has that level of divine unbreakable, spirit-carried authority?
Speaker 8:
The scriptura is sola, because there’s nothing else like it. It is theopneustos.
Speaker 3:
We are never told that there is a tradition or a set of traditions or a magisterium that are God-breathed.
Speaker 8:
Is your tradition theopneustos? Is your church theopneustos?
Speaker 9:
Only scripture is God-breathed. That’s the only type of literature that we have that is said to be breathed out by God.
Speaker 3:
Well, the burden of proof is on you to say there’s nothing else that’s God-breathed or nothing else that has this unique authority.
Speaker 10:
So if someone wants to claim that, for instance, the Pope speaking ex cathedra or an ecumenical council’s pronouncements are God’s divinely breathed out words, the burden of proof is on them to prove that.
Speaker 2:
But as we’ve seen, this rests on the questionable assumption that what is God-breathed is an infallible rule of faith. Which itself rests on another questionable assumption, that scripture is God-breathed instead of God breathing or life-giving, salvivic. The biblical scholar John C Poirier recently produced the most in-depth study of theopneustos, and he argues that the word describes the thing’s divine effects, not its divine origin, meaning in 2 Timothy 3:16 would be about what scripture does to us and the body of Christ, not its origination, and especially not its role of being an infallible rule of faith in the church or the sole infallible rule of faith. Now, I believe scripture is inerrant as the doctrine is laid out in the Second Vatican Council, but I don’t believe inerrancy is explicit in scripture and the way Protestants often claim it is.
Here’s what the Second Vatican Council’s document on divine revelation, Dei Verbum, says, “Since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers, must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit. It follows that the books of scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully, and without error. That truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.” The fact that magisterial documents render this word inspired does not mean a Catholic cannot argue that in the literal sense theopneustos is referring to scriptures being God breathing, spiritually life-giving. Dei Verbum even includes a clause relating inerrancy to our salvation saying this was done for the sake of our salvation.
Dei Verbum does refer to the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, because tradition does not include specific words that have the property of being theopneustos. But just because revelation is given in a special way in the inspired biblical text, it does not mean scripture is the church’s only infallible rule of faith. It’s a logical fallacy to say scripture is ontologically unique, and because it is unique, it is the only infallible authority. You have to prove the uniqueness has something to do with the authority claim.
So why should we understand theopneustos as being God breathing in the act of sense focused on salvivic effects instead of God-breathed in the passive sense focused on divine origins? Well, first we can examine how early Christians and Jews used theopneustos in the active sense rather than the passive sense. This is helpful because once again, scripture only uses theopneustos one time, so we don’t have any other way to really compare its usage. The first and second century Jewish Sibylline Oracles refers to a city by theopneustic springs, that is now ironically considered to be a corpse of a city. The water isn’t a divine authority or divine in origin. The water is rather life-giving. So we see theopneustos being used in the active sense to refer to God breathing or life-giving. The Sibylline Oracles also refer to how God is not an inanimate stone idol, but that God is begetter of all that is theopneustic, with majestic sacrifices.
In other words, God is the God of the living, not the God of the dead, as our Lord would say. In the Testament of Abraham, Abraham has died and it says the angels tended the body of the righteous one with theopneustic ointments, then perfumes until the third day after his death. These aren’t inspired or infallibly authoritative ointments or ointments that come straight from God’s breath. They’re life-giving or God breathing ointments. We know this because three days was considered the limit that one could come back from the dead, and so in hopes Abraham, we brought back to life, he is given theopneustic or life-giving ointments. For only three days to preserve his body in case his soul returns. When we go to the church fathers, we see that Irenaeus does not use the word theopneustos. But notice what Irenaeus does say about the nature of scripture and what it does for us.
He talks about the gospel and the spirit of life. Consequently, it has four pillars, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and that they are breathing in corruption from every side and giving life to humans. Once again, notice the life-giving theme related to scripture’s inspiration. However, Irenaeus never says scripture is the only infallible rule of faith. In contrast, Irenaeus’s rule of faith is found in sacred tradition and the authority of the apostles handed down through their successors. That’s why Irenaeus wrote the following. Suppose there a rise of dispute relative to some important question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question? For how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings. Would it not be necessary in that case to follow the course of the tradition which they handed down to those whom they did commit the churches?
And here’s how Clement of Alexandria used the word theopneustos. For truly holy are those letters that sanctify and deify. And the writings are volumes that consist of those holy letters and syllables. The same apostle consequently calls theopneustic, being profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished to every good work. No one will be so impressed by the exhortations of any of the saints, as he is by the words of the Lord Himself, the lover of man. For this, and nothing but this, is His only work, the salvation of man, therefore He Himself urging them onto salvation, Christ, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Once again, a writing being theopneustos has nothing to do with its status as an infallible rule of faith. Instead, the writing is capable of making something sacred in the same way it is sacred and giving its spiritual life and salvation.
And we know the early Christians did not consider theopneustos to be a sign something was so ontologically unique, it must be an infallible rule of faith. Because they said non-biblical writings of the saints were theopneustos. Once again, if we say the word means God breathing, there’s no contradiction in saying these non-biblical saintly writings are spiritually life-giving. The Protestant scholar Lee Martin McDonald in his book the Biblical Canon, writes, “There are in fact many examples of non-canonical authors who claimed or were acknowledged by others to have been filled or inspired by the spirit in their speaking or writing. The point is that the scriptures were not the only ancient writings that were believed to be inspired by God.” Generally speaking, in the early church, the common word for inspiration, theopneustos, was used not only in reference to the scriptures, Old Testament or New Testament, but also of individuals who spoke or wrote the truth of God.
For example, Gregory of Nyssa describes Basil’s commentary on the creation story and claims that the work was inspired, and that his words even surpassed those of Moses in terms of beauty, complexity and form. It was an exposition given by inspiration of God admired no less than the words composed by Moses himself. Kalin notes that the famous Epitaph of Abercius from about the fourth century was called an inspired inscription, theopneuston epigramma, and that a synodical letter of the council of Ephesus describing the council’s condemnation of Nestorius was termed their inspired judgment or decision, tes auton theopneustou kriseos. In a chapter he wrote for the anthology, The Canon Debate, McDonald says, “The ancient church did not limit inspiration to the scriptures or even to literature alone.” From his own investigation of the church fathers up to 400 CE the Canon scholar, Everett Kalin, failed to turn up one example where an Orthodox but non-canonical writing was ever called uninspired.
Such a designation was reserved for heretical authors, which makes sense because inspiration involves being spiritually life-giving and only heresies are spiritually life taking by the way. Back to what McDonald says, he writes, Kalin concludes, if the scriptures were the only writings the church fathers considered inspired, one would expect them to say so at least once in a while. He adds that in the early church inspiration applied not only to all scripture but also to the Christian community as it bore living witness of Jesus Christ. Only Heresy was considered to be non-inspired. Kalin could find no evidence that the early church confined inspiration to an already past apostolic age, or even to a collection of sacred writings. The traditional assumption that the early Christians believed that only the canonical writings were inspired is highly questionable.
Michael Graves in his book The Inspiration and Interpretation of Scripture: What the Early Church Can Teach Us, writes the following, “The concept of scripture is God-breathed was as important to the church fathers as it is to Christians today. It is interesting to note however that early Christian interpreters did not invest as much energy as modern Christians have in working out a precise definition of the term God-breathed, theopneustos. Rather for the church fathers, the most important term in this passage is ophelimos, which means profitable or useful.” End quote. Now, when we get to origin in the third century, the word takes on more of a meaning related to inspired or having a divine origin. But even then, origin never considered scripture to be the only infallible rule of faith. He writes, “The teaching of the church transmitted an orderly succession from the apostles and remaining in the church to the present day, is still preserved.” That alone is to be accepted as truth which differs in no respect from ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition. Scripture is unique, but just because something is unique does not mean it’s an infallible rule of faith.
I believe scripture is in errant, but that truth is not explicitly found in scripture. It belongs to the deposit of faith that’s given to us in sacred scripture and sacred tradition. The second way we can know this is that the salvivic meaning of theopneustos better fits the context of 2 Timothy 3. In this section, Paul is warning Timothy about imposters in the church, Paul is talking about people who seem to be spiritually alive, but they’re really spiritually dead. In order to not be like them, Paul offers his own model for Timothy to follow. He writes, “Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, my sufferings, what befall me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra, what persecutions I endured. Yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted while evil men and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceivers and deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed knowing from whom you learned it.”
So we see Paul sets himself as an example for Timothy to follow, just as he does for the Corinthians, in 1 Corinthians 11:1 when he writes, “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.” Paul then says the following in 2 Timothy 3:15-16, to provide another source of spiritual strength for Timothy. And notice what happens when we render theopneustos God breathing or spiritually life-giving, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is God breathing, life-giving, salvivic, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Once again, the context is not about where scripture comes from or its role of authority. It’s about what scripture does to the person who hears it. Paul says that even the Old Testament scriptures can instruct Timothy to salvation in Christ because every scripture is God breathing, every scripture is spiritually life-giving. And in the Christian community, scripture gives life through the functions of teaching, reproof, correction and training and righteousness. Scripture instructs us to salvation because scripture itself is salvivic or God breathing. It gives spiritual life to the spiritually dead. Also, the active reading explains the fact that 2 Timothy 3:16 can be translated, all scripture is inspired or every scripture is inspired. The non-Catholic scholar, JND Kelly notes that, “There is no definite article here in the Greek, and where pass, all or every is used with a noun and the singular without the article. It usually means every, rather than whole or all. The balance of argument seems in favor of every scripture.”
If scripture’s inspiration means it is salvivic, and so it is useful for teaching. Then saying all scriptures inspired is the same as saying every individual book of scripture is inspired. Each book of the Bible, as well as the Bible as a whole, is spiritually life-giving, and so it’s useful to Christians. Notice 2 Timothy never says scripture is sufficient. It only says scripture is a ophelimos, useful or helpful. Scripture is useful because it equips the man of God to teach and correct others and to do every good work. Of course, other things like staying away from bad influences also make us ready to do every good work, as Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:21. But that doesn’t make those things sufficient or all we need is a source of authority, but they all are spiritually life-giving. If scripture is God breathing in the act of salvivic sense, then we could say both that all scripture is life-giving and that every individual scripture is life-giving.
The problem for Protestant apologists is that they claim something being theopneustos, means it’s an infallible rule of faith breathed out by God. Protestants also say that because scripture is breathed out by God for us, it will contain everything God wants the church to know for faith and practice. That’s why the Westminster Confession of Faith says, “The whole council of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture.” But if something being theopneustos means it will contain everything God wants the church to know for faith and practice, then this cannot be true of every scripture. Philemon doesn’t contain that. 3 John doesn’t contain that. No individual book of the Bible contains all that God wants the church to know for faith and practice.
In this context, theopneustos can only apply to scripture as a whole, all scripture, but the grammar of 2 Timothy 3:16 includes each individual book of scripture. Theopneustos cannot have one meaning for the individual books of the Bible like they’re helpful, and another meaning for the whole collection. It’s the soul and fallible rule of faith in this one usage of the word in a single verse, I discussed this meaning of theopneustos in my debate with Gavin Orland, and James White commented on that later on the dividing line. His objection was basically, I’m just quoting some random liberal scholar to make my point. So let me play a clip of White’s response to me after I use this argument in the debate.
Speaker 8:
Now, when I look at the conclusions that this author’s coming to, what I discover is he doesn’t believe that Paul wrote these words. He doesn’t believe that the pastoral epistles are Pauline. Well, that makes him part of mainstream scholarship today. But I have to think back and so I want everybody to ask a question of Trent Horn, because I’d be interested in knowing what his answer is. Does Trent Horn believe that Matthew wrote Matthew? One of the default questions from Catholic answers was, how do you know Matthew wrote Matthew?
Speaker 2:
First, something can be apostolic even if it was not written by an apostle. White knows this. Mark and Luke are apostolic writings. Hebrews is apostolic, even though almost everyone today, maybe White, not sure, but almost everyone today would say that Hebrews is anonymous. Pope Benedict XVI has argued the Gospel of John comes from a figure in the early church named John the Presbyter, who was the custodian of John the Apostle’s Revelations. Number two, my position on a Christian’s ultimate authority does not depend on traditional attributions of biblical authorship. I believe the Apostle Matthew wrote Matthew, I’ve argued that in my video on Father Casey Cole’s views of scripture, but my position on the church’s authority would not change if the evidence turned out to show one of Matthew’s disciples wrote the Gospel of Matthew and attributed to him, the church teaches that the Gospel of Matthew is scripture.
It does not make infallible judgments on which individuals authored particular documents or parts of documents in the Bible. Moreover, I’m grateful that my position on the authority of the New Testament does not rely on a narrow view of biblical authorship. For example, Protestants will say the Paul line letters are scripture because Peter calls them scripture in 2 Peter 3:16. But what do you do when biblical scholars tell you not all of Paul’s letters were written by Paul, or that Peter probably didn’t write 2 Peter. Without an external authority like the church to confirm the canonical status of these books. You’re left with the books themselves and whatever biblical scholars tell you about them and their authors. Of course, you could just ignore these mainstream Bible scholars when they make points that undermine Protestant doctrine, like sola scriptura, and then pay attention to them later when they have something negative to say about the history of Catholic doctrine.
In fact, this brings me to my third point. James White loves to quote “liberal Catholic scholars” to make his arguments against Catholicism. So this is an inconsistent objection from him that I’m quoting “a liberal Protestant.” I’ve covered this in a previous video showing how it’s hypocritical for James White to complain about Muslim apologists who quote “liberal scholars” like Raymond Brown on the Virgin Birth or The Jerome Biblical Commentary, but then White uses Brown and The Jerome Biblical Commentary to argue against Catholic doctrine. So he’ll condemn some people for using liberal scholarship, whether it’s me or Shabir Ally, for citing liberal scholars against White’s views. But White will cite liberal scholars to argue against other people’s views. And if you want to listen to that for yourself, click the link below in the description to the episode when Protestants argue like Muslims that I published a year ago, and that includes clips of James White doing this very thing that I’m describing.
Fourth, this is ultimately the genetic fallacy. Even if Poirier is wrong about the authorship of the pastoral letters, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong about the meaning of theopneustos. This is the equivalent of someone saying James White is wrong about sola scriptura or sola fide, because White believes in the errors of Calvinism, even if James White were wrong about Calvinism, which he is, but that’s an episode for another time, that would not prove he’s wrong about Protestantism, in general. Poirier’s argument stands or falls on the evidence he’s presented from the text of 2 Timothy, as well as the external sources that use the word theopneustos, and he does a good job of going through, war field’s work, for example, and the errors made in the analysis of this word in the past 100 years. And finally, I didn’t realize solely on Poirier, I also cited Lee Martin McDonald, who’s an excellent scholar in this field.
So yeah, keep all this in mind the next time someone says 2 Timothy 3:16 shows sola scriptura is true, because it does not prove scripture is the only infallible rule of faith. To reach that conclusion, you have to overextend the biblical evidence and make assumptions that we’ve seen from the biblical and historical evidence are simply unwarranted. And with that, I just want to thank you guys so much for watching, and I hope you have a very blessed day.
If you like today’s episode, become a premium subscriber at our Patreon page and get access to member only content. For more information, visit trenthornpodcast.com.