Audio only:
Joe Heschmeyer examines many of the Protestant arguments in favor of Sola Scriptura, how it changed over time and why “un-Biblical” doesn’t mean “anti-Biblical.”
Transcript:
Joe:
Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer and today I want to explore seven Bible verses that I’ve heard Protestants use to support the idea of sola script Torah or the Bible alone. And then why I don’t think any of them actually work if you read them in their proper biblical context. Now, before I go any further, I should really quickly clarify what do we mean by sous scriptura? Because I know different Protestants use this term in different ways, and particularly nowadays, many modern Protestants will try to narrow the idea down to something a little easier to defend. So for example, Dr. Gavin Orland says
CLIP:
Solos scriptura does not require that every doctrine must be explicitly taught in scripture. Even the strongest articulations of the related doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture allow for doctrines to be deduced from scripture by good and necessary consequence. Solos scriptura is often caricatured on those points and many others, but stated responsibly, it’s a very modest and reasonable claim. It simply means that popes counsels and other post apostolic organs of the church are fallible.
Joe:
Now, I don’t know who is caricaturing so script to say everything has to be explicit in scripture, but in any case, historically solo script meant much more than what Dr. Orland just defined as Jimmy Aiken points out in his article, the shifting definition of Solo scriptura, the doctrine historically meant not only that the church may air, but also, and this is the really important part of the positive case, that all doctrine must come from scripture alone or at least all necessary or saving doctrine. As Dr. Matthew Barrett of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary puts it. Solas script also means that scripture alone is our sufficient authority. This isn’t just, in other words, a related doctrine. As Dr. Orland says, it’s part of the doctrine of Solas script. Not only is the Bible our supreme authority, it is the authority that provides believers with all the truth that they need for salvation and following Christ and Barrett’s definition of soul script rather than orland’s is the one we find in traditional Protestant confessions of faith.
For instance, the Westminster Confession, which Orland cites to claims that 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 that’s saying a lot more than the church can air. And while Orland is right, that it’s not just saying it has to be explicit, it does say it has to either be explicit expressly in scripture or necessarily deduced from which is much closer to the things he’s calling a caricature than his own position from at least the short bit that he kind of defines it. The definition clearly includes more than the church may air and Westminster’s not alone on this. Dr. Stephen Park quotes the early Lutheran reformer, Martin Kim is saying the Holy Spirit included in scripture the sum of the whole heavenly doctrine as much is necessary for the church and suffices for the faith by which believers obtain life eternal.
So everything you need for salvation is going to be in scripture necessarily. Modern Lutherans agree with this. For instance, Stephen Mueller argues that since the scriptures are our only reliable source of true knowledge about God, they form our theology and as a formal principle, the scriptures are the only source and norm of our theology. So Westminster, you’ve got the Calvinist side, you’ve got the Lutheran side, you also have the Baptist side, the 1689 Baptist Confession of faith claims. The holy scripture is the only sufficient. So notice it’s not just the only infallible, but the only sufficient certain and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. Again, that’s much more than just saying the church can air because it goes on to say that because the seven disputed books that Catholics have in their Bible Protestants don’t which Protestants called the apocrypha because it says they’re not of divine inspiration. Therefore, it says they’re of no authority in the church of God nor to be any otherwise approved or made use of than other human rights. So that’s obviously saying much more, and it’s not just the historic Protestant confessions or modern theologians, it’s also the way ordinary Protestants tend to use the term sola s scriptura, which is saying again, much more than I think the church can air
CLIP:
Sola. S scriptura is the belief that scripture alone is the final authority in matters of Christian faith and practice, right? Christian belief, Christian faith, Christian practice. The scripture alone is the final authority in these matters. In addition to that, scripture alone is in errant that is is without error, it is infallible, and scripture is also sufficient to fully instruct us in every good work in relation to the Christian faith and life.
Joe:
That last claim is really important because it’s making the positive case that all doctrine, or again, at least all necessary doctrine, comes from scripture alone, either directly or by necessary deduction if you want to use Westminster’s language. So if that’s true, we should be asking, well, where is the doctrine and soul, the scriptura itself found? Because if it’s not biblical, if the doctrine is not found explicitly or by necessary deduction from scripture, then it would certainly appear to be a self-refuting doctrine. Now with that in mind, just a couple words I should stress. I’m not going to make in this video a positive case for what else you should believe besides scripture alone. That’s not what I’m trying to do. If an atheist says, I think the universe came from nothing, and you say That’s illogical, you don’t have the burden of proof to say the God of the Bible is true.
You can just say, Hey, the positive claim you’re making doesn’t work. Likewise, all I’m doing here is saying the positive case for Sola scriptura, at least on the biblical grounds that I’ve seen doesn’t work. Maybe Catholicism is still false, maybe orthodoxy is true, maybe orthodoxy is false. You can still make a number of arguments. I’m not doing any of that. I’m just saying I case for Sola Scriptura appears illogical and on a very weak or non-existent biblical foundation that leaves a lot of alternatives open, but we can at least close the door on solo script Protestantism. So that’s all I’m doing. Just like you might with an atheist, examine, could atheism logically be true and come out with no that doesn’t do all the work for Christianity, but it’s a good starting point. All I’m doing here is a similar kind of starting point. Could solo scriptura be true if we’re looking at the biblical evidence and I don’t know how we get to a yes on that.
So that’s all I’m doing. And then the final kind of preliminary remark, just to be clear, to make sure can we know where everybody is on this? There’s actually a lot Catholics, Orthodox Protestants, Coptic Christians have in common and in terms of how we view scripture, so four things we share. Number one, a belief that scripture is divinely inspired. Number two, belief that scripture is the word of God. Now, we would say scripture isn’t exclusively the word of God. We would also use the word of God to describe for instance Jesus himself, number three, but nevertheless, scripture is the word of God. Number three, scripture is written for our salvation. And number four, scripture derives this inspiration from God and not from the church. Sometimes people will respond to the case against solo script Torah with the mistaken assumption either that telling us, look at all these Bible verses saying Scripture is divinely inspired, is going to prove.
So script Torah, we actually agree on that. Or they’ll say, well, you think the Bible takes its authority from the church. It actually takes its authority from God. That is a conflation. The Catholic church, and I know the Orthodox would agree on this, the Catholic church explicitly teaches, no, we don’t think the Bible derives its authority from the church. It gets its authority from God. We know which books are in the Bible in part through the work of the church. That’s a totally separate kind of question. It doesn’t mean the authority comes from the church. Hopefully that’s clear. So that’s where we agree scripture is divinely inspired. It’s the word of God. It’s written for our salvation and its authority ultimately comes from God, certainly as inspiration comes from God, not from the church. Where do we disagree then? Well, we disagree on one or two questions.
Is scripture the only source of dogma or doctrine? Another way to word this would be to pose the question, could an unbiblical doctrine still be binding on Christians or is saying that a doctrine is unbiblical? Is that automatically going to disprove it? So we’ll get more into the nature of unbiblical doctrine a little bit, but I just wanted to make sure we understood where we were at the outset. So with that in mind, let’s finally jump into the meat. What can we say about these seven Bible verses? What are they and what is kind of the biblical weight to them? The first one we have to talk about is second Timothy chapter three verses 14 to 17. This is without a doubt the single most cited to passage in trying to defend Solo S script biblically, and I know Protestants like Dr. James White would say the same thing.
CLIP:
I would assume that most people when challenged on the subject of Solo s scriptura would default to the citation of the Apostle Paul. All scripture is the toss. It is profitable for doctrine and teaching re reproof and correction that the man of God may be sufficient is actually an appropriate translation. The term there thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Joe:
And likewise, when costi, he is arguing for the sufficiency of scripture. The idea that all doctrine has to come from scripture alone, this is precisely where he turns.
CLIP:
I want to walk you through tonight four facts about the Bible’s sufficiency straight from God’s word. Let’s read the text together and jump in two Timothy three 16 and 17. Paul writes, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness. Then he goes on to end it that the man of God may be adequate equipped for every good work.
Joe:
So depending on how you translate the first word of the sentence, two Timothy three 16 either begins by saying that all scripture or every scripture is inspired by God either way. So far so good Catholics and Protestants agree on this. Remember, this is one of those areas where we don’t disagree. Scripture is divinely inspired, but the fact that scripture is divinely inspired does not mean that it’s all we need that does not logically follow. So why do so many Protestants think that this passage proves so is script? Well, because the passage goes on to say that scripture is profitable, that the man of God may be complete or it’s maybe sufficient equipped for every good work, but complete is what everybody wants. So if you’re not reading carefully, you might think that Paul just said scripture is all you need to be complete or that scripture is all you need to be equipped for every good work, but that is neither grammatically nor theologically sound grammatically if I said it is necessary for you to catch Pikachu if you want your Pokemon set to be complete.
I know nothing about Pokemon. I have no idea why. This is the example that came to me. It would be ridiculous to say therefore Pikachu is all unique. Pikachu is necessary. Yes, Pikachu is sufficient. No, there were like 150 other Pokemon you needed. I think it’s a lot more than that. Now I’m a nerd, but this is not the kind of nerd. But in any case, what we can say from this is that even if Paul had said that scripture was necessary that the man of God be complete, those words would not mean that scripture by itself was sufficient, that the man of God be complete. That’s a very obvious logical fallacy, but in fact, St. Paul doesn’t even say that much. He says Scripture is profitable, not necessary for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness. Now to be clear, St.
Paul clearly has a high view of scripture. He’s literally writing scripture as he’s talking about scripture, but he’s not claiming that illiterate people or people without the Bible can never have teaching reproof correction or training in righteousness. He’s not claiming that illiterate people can never be equipped to do any good works. He’s simply saying, having scripture is profitable for all of those things that you can be complete. Again, not saying it’s necessary for your completion, certainly not saying it’s sufficient for your completion, simply that it is profitable for your completion. That’s the first glaring red flag. If the number one place you’re going to support solo script, Torah doesn’t say the thing you want it to say about so script Torah, unless you conflate profitable with necessary with sufficient, that’s a big red flag. But it gets even worse when you look at the broader context.
If you go back a couple verses, St. Paul is very explicitly talking to St. Timothy about the scriptures with which he’s been acquainted from childhood. That is he is explicitly talking here about the Old Testament scripture. So does St. Paul believe that the Old Testament scriptures are all that a Christian needs? Of course not. He’s literally writing New Testament scripture. He wouldn’t be doing that if he thought the Old Testament was all we needed. He certainly believes the Old Testament is useful, that’s what profitable means, but he clearly doesn’t believe that the Old Testament scriptures are sufficient. I mean, imagine is St. Paul saying, Timothy, please ignore everything that I’ve told you. Just listen to the Old Testament scriptures alone. That’s all you’re going to need to be spiritually complete. Of course not. Could you reject the resurrection of Christ because it isn’t found explicitly in the Old Testament scriptures or biological deduction thereof and or ignore the Sermon on the Mount, ignore all of Jesus’s oral teaching and be spiritually complete and just go with the scriptures you had as a child.
No, of course not. Timothy needs more than that and likewise, we need more than that. So I want to propose here a pretty simple test. Whenever you hear a passage that somebody cites in support of solo scriptura, you somebody you’re listening to, whatever a really easy test is. This was solo script, excuse me, was solo scriptura when those words were written because Catholics and Protestants should both agree that solo scriptura wasn’t true during the time of the Apostles, right? Even if you think that all revelation is contained in the old and New Testament together, you have to at least admit that for a very long time the New Testament message hadn’t been written down, including or hadn’t, certainly hadn’t been written down in its completeness even while parts of the New Testament are being written. That was a kind of a bumbled presentation. So let me be clear, 27 books make up the New Testament when the first 26 books are being written.
There’s clearly more to the Christian message than has been written down unless you think the biblical books are just redundant. So a Christian couldn’t just reject the orally proclaimed portions of the gospel or portions of Christian teaching in favor of either the Old Testament alone or the Old Testament in the partial New Testament just on the grounds that the rest of the New Testament hadn’t been written yet. When Jesus rises from the dead, that is not initially something written down, and so Solo s scriptura is not true on Easter morning solo. S scriptura is not true for however many decades it takes between Easter and when John writes the book of Revelation or whichever book is last written, but most people think John’s revelation. So given that an important question we should have in mind as I say is, was Solis scriptura true when these words were written?
Because if it wasn’t true, then clearly the author isn’t teaching solis scriptura because they wouldn’t be teaching a false teaching. So as you’re thinking about two Timothy three 16 to 17, either one of two things is true. Either one St. Paul is claiming all we need is scripture. Therefore he’s teaching what was then a false teaching solo scriptura because we know solo scriptura wasn’t true While he’s writing or second he’s not teaching solo scriptura, and if Paul isn’t teaching solo scriptura in two Timothy three 16 to 17, don’t have that be the primary text you lean on to try to prove solo scriptura. Okay, let’s move on. So that as I say, is without a doubt far and away the number one passage I see Protestants rely on to try to prove soul. The scripture and the fact that they’re looking to one passage and a passage that doesn’t teach soul.
The S script when you actually carefully read it again should be a red flag, but it’s not the only passage I’ve seen. So let’s turn to the one that is probably the second most often cited and often misused one. This is Mark chapter seven, verses eight to nine when Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for elevating their traditions over the commandment of God. Now the error here I think is so obvious that I’m not even going to give you a lengthy kind of takedown because I think it is very simple. Jesus is clearly speaking of the tradition of men or manmade tradition and refers to it as your tradition, but the Catholic claim is not that all traditions are good, nor is it that manmade tradition is on the same level as God’s commands or on the same level as scripture. The Catholic claim is instead that there are traditions which aren’t manmade, that they’re not of human origin, they’re of divine origin, and you can think about this in a really simple way.
In Second Thessalonians chapter two, St. Paul warns the Thessalonians not to believe false teachings which are being circulated both by word or by letter, by epistle purporting to be from us. It would be wrong to say that, okay, well because Paul is demean some epistles, therefore all epistles are bad. That would be very clearly a false conclusion to draw from them. You can’t go from, there are some bad traditions to all traditions are bad or even all traditions are below scripture. Likewise, you can’t go from some epistles are bad to therefore all epistles are bad. It doesn’t fall logically. Instead, St. Paul reminds the Thessalonians, and we’re going to get back to this passage later, but he reminds them in Second Thessalonians to stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us either by word of mouth or by epistle. So if it helps, you can think about it like this when the biblical text refer to other texts as scriptures, the word being used there literally just means writing.
That’s what scripture means. We use the word scripture to mean like sacred writing. The New Testament doesn’t, it just uses a word that generically means writings clearly. Not all writings are sacred. You have the sacred writings. These are the ones St. Paul’s talked about in a second Timothy chapter three, but you’ve also got manmade writing. These are, some of them are good. Think that all the great theological works that you like that may help you in your spiritual life. Think about non-religious books that are still good for any number of other purposes. We’re not bashing other writing. So those are in that kind of middle tier. They’re good manmade writings. They’re not on the same level of scripture though, but they’re good. And then beneath that, you have wicked. It’s like the false teachings going around falsely purporting to claim to be by St. Paul.
These are the false epistles he’s warning about. So writings you’ve got divine, you’ve got good manmade ones, you’ve got evil manmade ones. The Catholic claim is very simply likewise with tradition. There is apostolic and divine tradition. The teachings, there’s the traditions you receive from us that St. Paul referred us to in Second Thessalonians, but then you also have manmade tradition. Not all manmade tradition is bad, but it’s not on the same level as scripture. And then you also do have wicked manmade traditions. There are some traditions that are actually evil. So saying that there are inferior to scripture, manmade traditions and that some them are even bad is true, but totally misses the argument because you could make the same point about writings and it wouldn’t be an argument against scripture. So hopefully that’s clear enough. This is an objection that just completely misses the mark.
We both agree that some manmade traditions contradict scripture that doesn’t prove all doctrine must come from scripture. Alright, the third passage that I see referred to is Revelation chapter 22, verse 18 to 19, and this passage warns against adding to or removing from the words of the prophecy of this book. Now there’s two obvious problems with trying to use this to prove solo script. First, the book in question isn’t the 66 book Protestant Bible, which didn’t exist yet. The book in question is the Book of Revelation, which was originally a standalone book. So if the warning not to add or remove anything means that we can only believe the prophecies found in that book, we’re going to have a very small and strange Bible consisting only of the book of Revelation, which would make for some pretty interesting theological conversations reading revelation with no other biblical context.
But of course, revelation 22 simply is not seen. It is not saying you can’t believe anything other than the book. It’s saying don’t tamper with the text, don’t add or remove words. You don’t do what Martin Luther did to Romans 3 28 where he openly admits to adding the word alone because it agrees with his theology. Don’t do that. Leave the biblical text alone. That doesn’t mean you can’t believe things other than that book. In fact, revelation 22 literally couldn’t be saying that unless it’s denying the inspiration of all of the other books of scripture, which it’s not. It cites to it quotes from Psalms for instance. It’s clearly not saying that. Alright, the fourth passage that I see people refer to is Acts chapter 17 verse 11 about the noble or noble minded berean. And so the idea here is that the Jewish audience in Berea listens to Paul’s teaching and then they eagerly examine the scriptures every day to see if his teaching is true.
So the protestant ministry got questions.org in a fascinating admission, kind of acknowledges that in what they call the shallowest sense. It is true that so s scriptura is not directly taught in scripture, but nevertheless they claim the principle is strongly indicated by verses such as Acts 1711, which commends the berean for testing doctrine taught by an apostle no less to the written word. So they’re going to claim this shows apparently the superiority of the written word even over the oral proclamation of the gospel by the apostle Paul. They don’t say that. That seems to be the argument they’re making that we should test doctrine by the written word rather than the spoken word, even if it’s an apostle speak. Likewise, in his debate with Trent Horn, Gavin Orland also cite to the Bereans in his opening argument and seems to make a similar sort of argument for why this somehow supports Sola scriptura.
CLIP:
Why are the berean called noble In Acts 17? Frequently it will be proposed. There’s some other reason, but in the text, the testing of the apostolic preaching by the scripture is portrayed positively as a reason for their nobility.
Joe:
And look, Catholics and Protestants actually agree it’s really good to see if a proposed particular doctrine has biblical support, but the noble berean are a strange place for Protestants to turn for support. For starters, they’re Greek speakers. Berea is in the heart of griefs and as Timothy Michael law points out in his book when God spoke Greek, the Tugen and the making of the Christian Bible, the Greek speaking Jews had more books that they regarded as scripture. Then do modern Jews or Protestants including these books that we call de canonical Protestants call apocrypha. Now that was certainly true in the days of Jesus and in the days of Acts 17 in the first century, law argues that probably continue to be true for centuries afterwards. That’s not particularly important for our purposes. My point is simply when the Bereans are reading scripture, they’re reading the longer form of the Old Testament scriptures that many Protestants today reject.
So if you’re someone who thinks Catholics shouldn’t be able to point to two Maccabees as support for purgatory, you’re someone who believes that these books are of no authority to the church of God as the 1689 Baptist Confession says, then you probably shouldn’t cite the Bereans as an example of how to approach doctrine. But the second and in my view maybe more important point is simply the Berean are not practicing sola script and this becomes immediately clear when you read the verse in context. First of all, act 17 contrast two groups of Jewish listeners, those in Thessalonica and those in Berea. And while we’re not told exactly what St Paul preached to the Berean, it seems from context that it was the same thing he preached to the Thessalonians when he went in as was his custom and for three weeks argued with them from the scriptures explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and arise from the dead and saying this Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ.
Okay, so what is Paul doing here? Well, he’s doing what any good evangelist does. He starts with what the listeners already believe and works with them to lead them into what they don’t yet believe. In the case of a Jewish crowd, they already believe in the Old Testament scriptures and so he starts there. That’s totally appropriate, not because the scriptures are the only thing we know to be true or because all doctrine must come from that because that’s what his listeners already accept. When I’m speaking to a Protestant audience, I will do exactly what I’m doing right here. Say, what do we know from scripture? Not because I believe in soul s script, because they do or you do well, likewise, Paul isn’t someone who believes only in the Old Testament, but he knows his audience does. So he starts there, but significantly he doesn’t stop there.
He’s preaching to them about new information. He draws out what they could have gotten with a proper reading of the Old Testament that the coming Messiah was going to suffer and then rise again. But then he gives them new information nowhere found in the Old Testament, namely the identity of Jesus of Nazareth and the details of the resurrection like that is not found in the Old Testament and I don’t think any reading of scripture would say otherwise. Clearly the New Testament includes new information, so we should take from this a really important principle that I see Protestants get wrong very often, namely Unbiblical does not mean the same thing as anti-biblical that got questions.org article I cited earlier says Sola scriptura is not as much of an argument against tradition as it is an argument against unbiblical, extrabiblical and or anti-biblical doctrine, but there’s a huge difference between those things.
Unbiblical just means it’s not found in scripture. The resurrection of Christ was unbiblical at first because it hadn’t been written down yet on Easter Sunday. Again for many years after those details were not found in any Bible, they were not found in any writings that didn’t make it anti-biblical. The berean realized this. They could check for themselves and realize that the scripture does in fact say the Messiah is going to come and that he’s going to suffer and rise again. But that by itself does not lead you into Christianity. It just leads you into an expectant form of Judaism. You know more of what to look for with the Messiah. What you also have to know is that in fact the Messiah has come and that he’s Jesus of Nazareth. Now, what I’m saying here should not be controversial. It is very explicit in the New Testament that the New Testament teachings include new things that weren’t knowable from the Old Testament alone.
Literally in Mark 1 27, 1 of the first reactions people have to Jesus is what is this a new teaching? Jesus is teaching new things like the Sermon on the Mount that weren’t just deducible from the Old Testament principles, but also the details of his life weren’t just deducible from even the Old Testament prophecies. There’s a lot more than the broad outlines we get from implicit and explicit information from the Old Testament. So hopefully that’s clear enough. I mean, if you’re someone who doesn’t think Christianity adds any doctrinal content to the Old Testament, we probably need to be having a different conversation. My point is simply that the Berean are right in rejecting anti-biblical teaching. They want to make sure that Paul isn’t preaching a false version of the Old Testament and that what he’s saying about the Old Testament is actually true. They want to make sure they’re not accepting something.
In other words, that contradicts what God has said in the Old Testament and they’re right to do that, but they’re also right for then accepting what was then an unbiblical teaching, namely that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead, so reject anti-biblical teaching, but if there’s a true unbiblical teaching, accept it. That’s what the Bereans point to not So s scriptura, if they were following scripture alone and they only had the Old Testament scripture, they would not become Christians. Hopefully that’s sufficiently clear. Let’s move on to the fifth of the seven verses that I see misused. This is one Corinthians four verse six in which St. Paul writes not to go beyond what is written and I see this one used radically out of context.
CLIP:
I hear this a lot and my response to them is always one Corinthians four, six, do not go beyond what is written so you will not be puffed up as a follower of one of us over the other, specifically within scripture itself it says, do not go beyond what is written so you will not be puffed up. The point is to be a follower of God over a follower of men.
Joe:
Once again, this only looks like a proof for solo s scriptura. If you take scripture out of context, in this case, if you literally just take the second half of a sentence beginning with Paul says not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. And you might notice, hey, that’s a sentence fragment and doesn’t make much sense. And then if you read the full sentence, you’ll be even more confused because Paul begins by saying, I have applied all this to myself and Apollos for your benefit, P, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written and then the rest. So what is he talking about? What is the this that he and Apollos have been practicing and what does any of that have to do with being puffed up in favor of one against another?
Well, to make sense of the verse, don’t start with trying to desperately find soul scripture in scripture. Actually read one Corinthians four six in context, St. Paul, if you go all the way back to one Corinthians one, the very first time he mentions Apollos, he explains what the controversy it is that they’re facing. He says in verse 11, it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is correlating among you my brethren. What I mean is that each one of you says, I belong to Paul or I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Kaphas or I belong to Christ. Now notice this is not a controversy about solos scriptura at all. Paul is worried that the Corinthians are becoming sectarian and that they’re becoming proud and their pride again is not rooted in whether or not they follow solo scriptura. It’s because these different Corinthians sects are boasting about who they’re connected to or as he points out in verses 14 to 15 who baptize them or which teachers they think are the wisest.
And so Paul wants to put a stop to this and one of the ways he does so is by an appeal to certain passages from the Old Testament. So for instance, he quotes to them, Isaiah 29 verse 14, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart. Then he goes on two chapters later I’m jumping forward obviously to say, let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise for the wisdom of this world is folly with God. So what’s he worried about there? Is he worried about solo s scriptura? No, it’s not the controversy at all. He’s worried about pride in puffing oneself up in response to this problem, though he does Old Testament scripture, he quotes Job five 13 that God catches the wise in their craftiness.
And Psalm 94 11, the Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile and he concludes from this that we shouldn’t boast of men because all things are yours including Paul Paulo’s PHAs and the whole world since you were Christ and Christ is God. So that is the principle Paul is laying out. That’s what he and Paul are living by, not solicit script Torah but biblical humility. So read in that context, going beyond what is written means becoming puffed up, becoming arrogant in the way scripture warns against, which makes complete sense of what the verse is talking about. Going beyond what is written doesn’t mean believing in something not written in the Bible. It means acting in an anti-biblical kind of way because you’re doing the sort of things that God forbids. So add to this once again that at the time that he’s writing this much of the New Testament hasn’t been written yet.
So if you seriously believe that, don’t go beyond what is written means. Don’t believe any doctrines not yet in scripture. You would have to assume Paul is telling you to reject many of the doctrines taught in the books that hadn’t been written yet, which would mean that he’s telling them to believe a different doctrine than we should believe as Christians than modern Protestants believe. Right? So it leads to an obviously absurd conclusion. Remember the earlier test I proposed was solo scripture true when that verse was written? Well, when First Corinthians four, six is written solas scriptura wasn’t true. This is certainly before second Corinthians, whatever you believe about any of the other orders of biblical writings, we know this is not the last book written. He clearly is not teaching Solis script. Alright, what about the six passage? This is Galatians one sort of surprised to see people using this one because I think it’s actually a better case against Sila scriptura, but that, I mean St. Paul is warning the Galatians not to accept a gospel contrary to what they’ve already received from him by preaching. And yet I’ve seen Protestants like Mike Winger and Gavin Orland uses to argue against the idea of sacred tradition in favor of solo scriptura
CLIP:
More basically in Galatians one eight, Paul goes so far as to command that not only his own apostolic teaching, but even angelic teaching must be tested according to the deposit of divine revelation given in the apostolic age. This is the heart cry impulse behind solo scriptura.
Joe:
Okay, the first problem should be obvious here. St. Paul is not appealing to anything that he’s written to them as far as we know. Galatians is his first letter to the Galatians. Instead, what is he appealing to their knowledge of apostolic teaching that’s been orally transmitted. In fact, he explicitly appeals to them to hold fast to what was preached to you, not what you read. So that’s hardly a knock against orally transmitted apostolic teaching. Now it’s true Catholics and Protestants and Orthodox would agree whether it’s by tradition or by scripture, everything has to be from this first century deposit. Faith, we agree that you can’t have some later revelation like you might have in Mormonism. That’s not the Catholic playing, but clearly St. Paul is not teaching go by the written word alone because he’s appealing to what was preached to you to a group of people. He has not written anything yet to as far as we know. But there’s a second problem, I think you’ll notice it if you pay careful attention to the case being made from Galatians one by Mike Winger.
CLIP:
The idea is that the gospel goes out and once the gospel’s gone out, the gospel that Paul taught and he taught the same gospel as the apostles, as he says in one Corinthians 15, he delivered to them that was he also received and he goes through it, the death burial, resurrection of Christ, faith in him for salvation. The long explication of all this is in Romans where Paul says, here’s my knowledge in the gospel, and he writes the book of Romans and it’s this careful thought out. Boom, here’s his gospel presentation in great, great detail. But he says once that message goes out, once that message goes out, nobody has the authority to change it. Think about that for a second. Nobody has the authority to change it. This is a denial of other authorities. That’s the idea. This is inherently that denial. In fact, Paul’s really extreme with it because he says, even if it’s me, Paul v Apostle commissioned and called by God, if I came back to you and I said something other than the gospel I had already given you, then you were to reject even what I’m saying. In fact, I’m to be anathema is the term in Greek a cursed to hell? That’s the concept.
Joe:
So I don’t know if you caught that, but I think Mike Winger subtly, and I’m pretty sure unintentionally alters what St. Paul said in a way that materially changes it because he says that St. Paul taught that if anyone teaches including himself something other than what the Galatians have already received, there’re to be a cursed, damned anathema. But that’s not in fact what St. Paul said. He said that they weren’t to accept anything contrary to what they received. Remember Unbiblical doesn’t mean anti-biblical. Paul is worried about them turning from the gospel to another gospel and he warns them not to accept a gospel contrary to that which we preached and he warns them not to accept a gospel contrary to that which you received. In other words, don’t accept something anti-biblical. Don’t accept something contrary, contradictory, but that does not mean you can’t accept something unbiblical.
To put it another way, Paul is not telling the Galatians, they’re only allowed to believe the things that he’s already told them. Now, at least in terms of everything Paul wrote, we know there’s a good deal of doctrinal information that we don’t find in his letters. To give just one example, the virgin birth is never referred to and yet it’s still something we believe as Christians and treat as a very important doctrine. So we can believe things and should believe things that aren’t in Paul’s writings. But moreover, Paul said that we should reject either him or even an angel from heaven giving them contrary doctrine, something contrary to what’s been preached. But that doesn’t mean we should reject an angel from heaven if they give us additional doctrinal information because that in fact literally happened. The book of Revelation opens by declaring itself the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants that must soon take place.
And he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testament of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw so clearly there is additional doctrinal information, namely the entire book of Revelation that is given by an angel and is beyond what St. Paul had already preached back when he wrote Galatians. If everything St. Paul said to the Galatians was also everything that was in the Book of Revelation, there would seemingly not be a need for the book of Revelation. So revelation is not a new gospel, but it does include new details about Christian revelation. Something other than what St. Paul had already been preached was in fact presented by an angel of light. It just wasn’t something contrary so well, it’s true that no one, not an apostle, not an angel, not a pope can preach something contrary to the gospel that the Galatians had already received.
It is nevertheless true that you might have other information than what the Galatians had received or what’s included in the letter to the Galatians or in fact what’s included in the entirety of the Bible. So you can’t use Galatians one to argue for solo scriptura. That leaves us with one final passage. This is two Peter one verse 19, and I admittedly was a little hesitant to include this one. I was asked about it recently on my Patreon, shameless joe.com strong hand 10 where I do a weekly live stream answering questions and somebody asked about the way that the popular Protestant Bible, the MacArthur study Bible treat second Peter one verse 19. So in context, Peter is describing how he heard the voice of God in the transfiguration and then he says something that is initially confusing. He says, and we have the prophetic word made more.
Sure you’ll do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in the dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart. The question is, what does he mean about the prophetic word made more Sure. Well, the MacArthur study Bible claims that what he means is that Peter is ranking scripture over experience and that the word of God is a more reliable verification of the teachings about the person atonement and second coming of Christ than even the genuine firsthand experiences of the apostles themselves that isn’t directly arguing for PS S but seems to pretty clearly flow from a certain way of viewing scripture. You might call it a kind of end point to a certain kind of solo s script. The study Bible capitalizes the W in word of God got questions, did the same thing, and it treats scripture and word of God as co-terminus that scripture means written word of God or no just means word of God and word of God just means the written scripture.
So what’s the problem with this? Well, I want you to pay careful attention because MacArthur is specifically arguing that when Peter is ranking scripture over experience, that he’s suggesting that scripture trumps not just genuine like human experience as a general thing, but specifically his argument is that Peter is saying scripture is superior to the eyewitness account of Christ’s majesty at the transfiguration. That’s his argument in the footnote. And what would be the reason for that? He doesn’t really explain. It just is what he claims The Greek says the argument if you’re going to make it one contextually seems to be okay. Well scripture has its authority because St. Peter says in second Peter two verse 1920, that scripture isn’t just man’s own interpretation, but instead is men moved by the Holy Spirit who spoke from God. So the problem is that position makes no sense.
No, lemme be clear. It’s true. Scripture is divinely inspired. It’s been moved by the Holy Spirit who spoke from God, but St. Peter in second Peter one is talking about how we were eyewitnesses of his majesty specifically as a case for why you can trust what he is saying. And then he talks about how he didn’t just see it, he literally heard God talking to him when he says, we heard this voice born from the heavens. What he’s reminding us is that when God says, this is my beloved son with whom I’m well pleased at the transfiguration, God isn’t just speaking generically, he’s not just speaking to future readers of scripture. He is literally speaking directly to Peter. God the father spoke to Peter. And so Peter is able to point to this as part of his authority in presenting the gospel. He’s not just an eyewitness, he’s an ear witness.
So if you’re going to say, Peter thinks you should trust scripture because it’s people moved by the spirit to write, but then you can’t trust when God directly and vocally speaks to you and gives you doctrine, that seems like an obviously absurd position. So you might say, okay, well if that’s the case, what does Peter mean in verse 19 about the prophetic word made more? Sure the solution is stop thinking of the word as the 66 book Protestant Bible and read these verses in context more sure than what is what you should be asking about verse 19, not more sure than God the Father speaking directly on the transfiguration more sure than what he describes as the cleverly devised myths that their opponents have. In other words, at the time Peter is writing, you have the first rumblings of the heresy of gnosticism and the gnostics were big on kind of an invented mythology and Peter says all they have are cleverly devised myths.
What do the Christians have in response? Well, they have two things. They have eyewitness testimony like God speaking directly to Peter and they have the Old Testament prophecies as Douglas Herink points out in the Brazos theological commentary when God speaks to Peter at the transfiguration, this is the prophetic word. The prophetic word isn’t just the written Old Testament scriptures, it’s also God giving prophetic knowledge at the transfiguration directly. And it would be insane for Peter to say, sorry, God, I kind don’t want to trust you when you’re telling me Jesus is your son. But unfortunately I have to see it in writing because I believe in soul scripture. That would be absurd, right? Peter has to trust this direct revelation of God at least as much as he trust the indirect revelation of God that we read the prophet Isaiah and believe Isaiah was a direct witness.
And so we believe that Isaiah got it right, but when you cut out the middleman, it’s not just God speaking to a prophet, it’s God speaking directly to you in this kind of undeniable way. Like the transfiguration of course that is non-inferior to scripture. The prophetic word only means the 66 books of the Protestant Bible. If you assume it does, if you realize it means spoken prophecy, that’s literally happening at the transfiguration. So anyway, any case I mentioned this not because I think that this is a commonly used verse. I know of no one besides Makar there who interprets this passage in this way, but that is a popular Bible study and I think it highlights a certain tendency where many times people will point to passages that they think support so scriptura when really the passage says something like the word of God or the prophetic word or sometimes even like the law and they’ll mentally substitute in the Bible or the 66 book canon.
And so if you’re someone who believes in soul of scripture, watch out for that. And in either case, whenever you see someone present a piece of evidence, pay careful attention. Does it say the written scriptures or does it just say revelation or the word of God? Because the whole debate is the entirety of God’s revelation can confine to scripture alone and pointing to things, talking about the goodness of revelation. Don’t prove that you’re assuming a conclusion becomes a circular argument. As I said before, my goal here is not to give you a bunch of passages disproving so scripture or to show that you can trust tradition or the Catholic church or anything like that. Someone who is orthodox, someone who is Coptic could easily accept everything I’m saying here. My point is much narrower. The verses that I see Protestants use to support solos scriptura simply don’t.
They’re obviously taken out of context When you read them in their biblical context, they don’t say anything like their proponents are kind of twisting them to mean. Nevertheless, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least point out a couple of places in which solo s scriptura seems to be positively precluded seems to be directly sort of rejected. The first is from First Thessalonians chapter two in which St Paul praises the Thessalonians that when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really is the word of God, which is at work and you believe it. So if you’re someone who associates the word of God with just the written word of God, well you have your biblical evidence that you are mistaken the word of God, at least at the time the New Testament is being used in its New Testament usage.
It does not include only the written transmission of revelation. It also includes the oral transmission of revelation. So when you cite to Catholics all of these passages about how we need to hold to the word of God and therefore we should have scripture alone, well, the obvious counter is one Thessalonians two 13, which the word of God is bigger than the Bible. The word of God is bigger than written revelation. Now, a Protestant could respond, well, okay, it was bigger than the Bible at the time one Thessalonians is written, but maybe the Bible caught up to it. Maybe eventually all of the word of God is written down in the scriptures. That is the very claim soul s scriptura is trying to prove. But you can’t just assume that and then work backwards from there. You need to give some biblical evidence. And nothing in the Bible says that the only things we find in the Bible are these clear indications that the word of God is bigger than the Bible alone.
In fact, I know I’ve mentioned this before, but Second Thessalonians St. Paul goes back to the Thessalonians and reminds them to hold to the traditions which they received from them with those which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter. So once again, you see that he’s not saying that the only binding traditions are in written form, they’re just the biblical traditions. He’s also claiming they’re the ones transmitted by word of mouth. Now, a couple things to point out there. If Solis Spector was something St. Paul believed in, he would never have said that. So clearly he didn’t first because we know it wasn’t true at the time he’s writing. Remember the earlier test I proposed, but second, if he thought the written word is all they needed, he would’ve just said, stand firm and hold to the traditions, which you were taught by us by letter alone.
But he says the opposite. He says either by word of mouth or by letter. If those are exactly the same, if there’s no information in one that’s not found in the other, why is he telling them they need both? So that certainly points to solo scriptura not being true when St. Paul is writing Second Thessalonians. Again, maybe it becomes true later, but if so, when and where and what is the biblical evidence for that? Because all the biblical evidence points in the other direction. Additionally, while we’re on this verse, notice that he describes scripture itself. The New Testament writings as traditions. The tradition is simply a thing handed on and as we saw before, that could be something of divine origin like the scriptures, or it could be something of manmade origin like the traditions of men that Jesus decries. So you can’t say tradition is bad. Certainly you don’t want to make arguments like this one.
CLIP:
The scripture is very clear that scripture alone is sufficient for me to be fully instructed for and complete in every good work. I don’t need tradition. None of us need tradition.
Joe:
It’s hard to square that with actually reading the Bible in particularly those passages like two Thessalonians two 15 where St. Paul says, yes, you do need tradition, you need to stand firm and hold to it. And even the scripture itself is a form of tradition, but not the only form of binding tradition. Okay, so that then leads to the final point. Can an unbiblical doctrine be binding? Remember unbiblical does not mean, so could there be a binding doctrine that’s important for Christian life that is not found or logically deduced from the written scriptures? Now, many Protestants, I think when they hear, imagine the kind of Catholic beliefs that they object to things like praying to Mary. So I think that this is a pretty standard argument against unbiblical teachings like praying to Mary
CLIP:
Jeff, God wanted me to bow to Mary or pray to Mary or the saints. He would’ve told me to do so in his word, but since he hasn’t told me to do so, I don’t have to do it. In fact, if he’s not told me to do it, it shouldn’t be a part of our faith and practice, right? If you’re adding to the word of God, you’re really in sin. The book of Proverbs warns us about that. Don’t add to God’s word. It also says in Deuteronomy, and also at the end of Revelation, don’t add to God’s word. The Bible is very clear. It even speaks about a curse that will come upon you if you add to God’s word.
Joe:
Leave aside the merits of praying to Mary, which is obviously a whole other question. And we don’t need to make this a longer episode than it’s, is it true that we are in sin if we believe in teachings not found in scripture alone? Now, as you might imagine, none of the verses he refers to there actually say what he claims they do. They’re all about tampering with the biblical text. They’re not saying you can’t believe anything other than what’s already been written in Deuteronomy, for instance. That would be a very short Bible. And then the last one he referred to appears to be an illusion to Revelation 22, which was the third misused biblical text that we looked at on this list. The others are all kind of similar. I want to make a different point. When Protestants think about unbiblical doctrines, they tend to think of things like that Catholic doctrines they reject, they should think about the canon of scripture, meaning claims like the Gospel of Matthew is divinely inspired scripture and we should listen to it as the word of God.
That is not a teaching found either directly or by necessary consequence from either the gospel of Matthew or any of the other books. And you can go on down the list. There are occasionally references. For instance, two, Peter refers to Paul’s writings as scripture, but then who’s to say second Peter is scripture, not scripture itself. And so you can see the problem there. The New Testament texts will refer to the Old Testament, but how do we know the New Testament texts our inspired scripture? They don’t claim, by the way, I’m St. Mark writing the gospel and I’m divinely inspired scripture. So you can’t draw that from the text or even necessary consequence from the text. The mere fact somebody wrote about Jesus doesn’t automatically prove that it’s scripture. So where are we finding out which books belong in the Bible? It’s not something within the Bible itself implicitly or explicitly.
Very clearly. The way we’re coming to our knowledge about which books make up the Bible is from extra biblical information like the testimony of the earliest Christians, which means the inspiration of the books of the Bible and the contents of the Bible are literally unbiblical doctrines. So I would suggest that this is itself a pretty strong argument against Sola script Torah, that not only does the Bible not teach Sola script Torah, but from the Bible alone, you can’t know which books are in the Bible alone and you can’t know that you should only know things from the Bible alone about binding doctrine. And the Bible directly teaches the opposite of solo script Torah at multiple points. And you have to add an unbiblical teaching that for instance, first and second Thessalonians no longer apply in the post apostolic age. All of that, it’s a house of cards.
None of the passages that I see supporting solo script Torah turn out to be good or defensible. And there seem to be very clear reasons like the direct scriptural evidence and the necessity of extra biblical knowledge to know the canon to argue against solo script. So if I missed anything first, I humbly apologize. And second, I would love it if you would tell me in the comments like, Hey, there is this really good biblical passage supporting solo scriptura and you totally missed it. Please tell me that in the comments below and I look forward to hearing from you whether you agree or disagree with the doctrine. Shameless Popery, I’m Joe Heschmeyer. God bless you.