Ten Objections To Sola Scriptura

Over the years, Catholic apologetics has raised a number of objections to sola Scriptura. Let's run through the major objections and rebut them one by one.

Catholic apologists often point to the proliferation of Protestant denominations as proof that the right of private judgment is infeasible (cf. Vatican I, preamble). This objection rests on two or three related assumptions: (i) this is an intolerable state of affairs which God would not allow to go unchecked; (ii) God has made provision for some instrumentality that would guard against such disunity, and (iii) the Roman Church does not suffer from this internal strife since it is the repository of this unifying instrumentality. That is perhaps the major objection to the right of private judgment, and therefore calls for the most detailed reply: (a) The Catholic apologist is taking his own denomination as the standard of comparison, and then pointing as accusing finger at the "schismatics." While this is a natural starting-point for him, it assumes the very claim at issue. I, as a Protestant, do not regard the Roman Church as the yardstick. Otherwise I would be Catholic! Rather, I regard the Roman Church as just one more denomination, and hardly the best. (b) God put up with a wide diversity of sects and schools of thought in 1C Judaism. We read of Pharisees, Sadducees, Samaritans, Essenes, Zealots, Therapeutae, Jewish Gnostics, Jewish Platonists, Qumranic separatists, as well as the Rabbinical parties of Hillel and Shamai. Doubtless there were many additional groups that our partial and partisan sources have failed to preserve for posterity. Yet God never saw fit to install an infallible Jewish Magisterium in order to prevent this plurality of viewpoints. So the objection is based on nothing more than a seat-of-the-pants hunch about what God is prepared to permit. It doesn’t appeal to any of God’s revealed purposes—the disclosure of his decretive or preceptive will in Scripture. It doesn’t bother to anticipate any concrete counter-examples. Far from there being a presumption in favor of the Catholic claim, the precedent of God’s former dealings with his people goes against that expectation. If we find all this diversity and dissension under the OT dispensation, why assume that the NT economy must operate according to a contrary set of priorities? Wouldn’t the Catholic rationale apply with equal force to OT church? If Christians require the services of a living Magisterium, wouldn’t the Old Covenant community be under the same necessity? Yet it’s clear from the Gospels that none of the rival parties spoke for God in any definitive sense. The priesthood was the only faction with any institutional standing under the Mosaic Covenant, and its members were frequently and fundamentally mistaken in their construal of its ethical obligations, such as the matter of putting to death their prophesied Messiah. So much for a divine teaching office to ensure unity and fidelity.

One of the problems with these utopian scenarios is that they’re premature, reflected a realized eschatology. Utopia awaits heaven and the final state. So much of Catholic apologetics has this armchair quality to it. It makes such large assumptions about what God would never allow to happen. Get up of your chair and take a look out the window! When I observe at the world around me I see that God allows quite a lot. If you want to know what God would allow, you should start with what he has allowed. We can only anticipate the future on the basis of what God has said and done in the past.

As a rule, you can’t disprove a position just because you don’t like the consequences. I’m struck by how many otherwise intelligent, educated people take this solipsistic approach to truth-claims. Most people don’t like cancer, but that doesn’t make it go away. Rather, our attitude should be to study what God has said and done, and then find the wisdom in it. A "dire" consequence may disclose a deeper wisdom in God’s plan for the world. (c) By excommunicating dissident members, an organization can enforce as much internal unity as it pleases since—by definition—the only people left are likeminded types. So the Catholic appeal is circular. The Magisterium has not succeeded in preventing internal dissension. But its solution has been to externalize some of its internal dissension by exiling certain factions while defining other schools of thought as falling within the bounds of Catholic tradition—even though there’s no real harmony between the respective parties (e.g. Thomists and Molinists), not to mention varieties within a given school. (E.g. versions of Thomism: traditional [Bañez, Scheeben]; transcendental [Marechal, Rahner]; existential [Maritain, Gilson, Rahner], analytical [Geach, Kenny).] So the unity of faith maintained by the Magisterium is a diplomatic and definitional fiction.

I am not denying the right of a denomination to set doctrinal standards and enforce them. But when the Roman Church draws invidious comparisons between its superior unity and the "scandal" or "tragedy" of Protestant sectarianism, this is an illusion fostered by the way in which the Roman Church has chosen to draw the boundaries in the first place. By setting itself up as the point of reference, by glossing over internal divisions and by classifying anything that falls outside its chosen touchstone as beyond the pale it can—no doubt— present an impressively self-serving contrast. By casting the terms of the debate it has rigged the outcome in its favor. It is only because the Catholic apologist is conditioned by this provincial mindset that he finds such an appeal persuasive. (d) Furthermore, Paul indicates that God deliberately allows for a competition of viewpoints so that the position he himself approves of will emerge by process of comparison and contrast (1 Cor 11:19). One of the unintended services rendered by infidels is in forcing believers to become more thoughtful about their faith. If Voltaire didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him! So the true Church refines its theological understanding by having to fend off infidels from within and without. (e) I don’t regard the "scandal" of denominationalism as all that scandalous. Granted that all Christians belong to the same family, but in the interests of domestic tranquility many parents have found it necessary to put the boys in separate bedrooms. I’m not endorsing all these denominations. I’d prefer to see everyone in the Calvinist camp. But even Christians who share an identical creed may have differing priorities when it comes to the work and worship of the Church. If all the Reformed bodies were to merge, the style, staffing, message, administration, fellowship and outreach would remain much the same at the level of the local church. They’d just take down the sign outside and put up a new one. (f) It’s my impression that denominationalism owes less to the Reformation than to nationalism and liberalism. There were many nominal Christians as well as closet heretics, atheists and dissenters in the Medieval Church, but when the Church still enjoyed a measure of temporal power and could enforce the party line on pain of torture, death, dispossession or exile, there was naturally an impressive show of outward conformity. But with the rise of nation-states, monarchs resented a rival power-center meddling in their internal affairs. So this nostalgia for the golden age of undivided Christendom— which Luther supposedly wrecked—rests on an ironically profane foundation.

I don’t see that the Roman Church’s rate of retention or recruitment during the modern era is markedly superior to that of the Protestant "sects." Once it lost its power to coerce dissidents into submission, the Magisterium found that it was limited to the same sanction as its Protestant counterparts— excommunication. (This was also the primary sanction for the OT Church—to be "cut off" from the covenant community.) No more than the Protestant branches does it enjoy absolute sway over its membership. It can’t prevent members from breaking away and forming their own churches. And to a great extent it staves off further schism in its ranks by exceedingly indulgent terms of membership. It opposes abortion but never excommunicates Catholic politicians who are complicit in our public policy. It opposes divorce, yet annulments are freely granted to the rich and famous. It opposes homosexuality but then opposes those who oppose homosexual "rights" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, ¶2357-2358). It opposes the death penalty, but has never excommunicated a Mafia Don.

Given a choice I much prefer a plethora of smaller denominations, some good and some bad, to one big bad church. At least with the Protestant tradition you have an avenue of escape. Far better that than a system that generates the Catholic sex scandal. Once you're committed to your church as the one and only true church, you'll put up with anything, however horrendous. And that is the history of Roman Catholicism. (g) Likewise, many new denominations are formed as a result of the liberalization of preexisting denominations. Liberals rarely if ever form their own denomination. How could they? Barren theology begets no life. Rather, their modus operandi is to infiltrate and infect a preexisting church and thereby drive out the true believers. Were it not for liberal parasitism, there would be far fewer breakaway denominations.

But that doesn’t represent a novel disagreement. It is only because the faithful continue to believe what they have always believed that they find it necessary to split with a preexisting denomination which has been overrun by a liberal faction that no longer believes the same thing. Schism is as much a mark of doctrinal continuity as it is of superficial disunity. They leave a church because it first left them. Anyone who knows his church history will instantly recognize how true that is. (h) If denominationalism is such a problem, then the Roman Church is a very large part of the problem since—from my standpoint—it’s just one more denomination. The very phenomenon of the Protestant split to which Catholic apologist points only proves that a Magisterium was unable to prevent dissention and schism. The relation between Catholic and Protestant is often represented as analogous to the relation between the trunk and its branches. But both Catholicism and Protestantism represent offshoots of the Latin Church. Trent is not just a linear continuation of the Medieval Church. The Western Church before Trent was more pluralistic in doctrine than the Roman Church between Trent and Vatican I. For example, the Augustinian tradition, though always a minority report, had enjoyed an honored and distinguished representation in the Medieval Church. Luther himself, as we all know, had belonged to a religious order based on that tradition. But in censuring the Protestants, Trent dismantled some cornerstones of Augustinian soteriology (e.g. total depravity, the efficacy and particularism of grace). (i) There are Protestant denominations (Lutheran and Reformed) that have retained a far more substantive degree of continuity with Reformation theology in its classic creedal expositions (e.g. The Westminster Confession of Faith; The Three Forms of Unity; The Book of Concord) than Vatican II and post-Vatican II theology can honestly claim in relation to Trent. So it’s very misleading to say that Protestants have gone every which way while Rome has stayed the course. Certainly we see many modern Protestant denominations that are unrecognizable in relation to the theology of the Protestant Reformers. But, of course, one could say the same thing about many Catholic scholars and theologians in relation to Trent. The difference is that Catholics who still believe in Trent are excommunicated (e.g. Lefevbre) whereas there is a continuous tradition of unreconstructed Reformed and Lutheran theology extending from the Reformation down to the present day. (j) So the right of private judgment did not set a domino effect into motion. And it doesn’t mean that everyone is entitled to his own opinion. Rather, it was set over against blind faith in a self-appointed authority. The principle at stake was that only God’s word enjoys dogmatic authority, and the sense of Scripture has to be established by verifiable methods. It doesn’t cut it to say that Mother Church knows best. Instead, a Bible scholar or theologian should be willing and able to take a layman through the process of reasoning by which he arrived at his interpretation so that the layman can follow the argument and see the conclusion for himself. Invoking sacred tradition is no substitute for responsible exegesis. The right of private judgment is the very opposite of individual autonomy—it’s all about accountability. To be sure, this principle can be abused by the willful. But abusing God’s word carries its own inevitable penalty. (k) Theologians like Brunner have contributed to the confusion by pretending that it was inconsistent of Protestants to liberate themselves from the tyranny of the papacy—only to turn around and elevate the Bible to the role of a "paper pope." This little jingle is very quotable, but it distorts the motives of the Protestant Reformers. Luther and Calvin were concerned with fidelity, not freedom. They were fighting for the freedom to serve God according to his Word. The magisterial Reformation (as opposed to the Radical Reformation) was never an attack on external authority, per se. Rather, it was an issue of submission to a properly constituted authority—God speaking in his word.

Related to Brunner’s charge is the accusation that conservative Protestants are guilty of "bibliolatry." This is a clever attempt to put conservatives on the defensive. But it’s a self-defeating allegation. Idolatry is a Biblical category, and therefore presupposes Biblical authority and Scriptural definition. So it is nonsensical to claim that allegiance to Scripture conflicts with Scripture. Bible-believing Christians simply pattern their attitude towards Scripture on the attitude modeled by Christ and his Apostles (Cf. B.B. Warfield, Revelation & Inspiration [Baker 2003], Works, vol. 1.) When, conversely, the liberal denies the absolute authority of Scripture, he is absolutizing his own powers of judgment. As such, he’s guilty of auto-idolatry. (l) Every denomination doesn’t represent a different interpretation of Scripture. And every difference doesn’t represent a disagreement. Many of the different denominations are due to different nationalities. When they all troop over to America it presents quite a spectacle of diversity, but they didn’t all arise due to differences of interpretation. And as I've argued elsewhere, the superficially vast range of doctrinal and denominational diversity is reducible to how you answer four basic questions: (i) Is the Bible the only rule of faith? (ii) Does man have freewill? (iii) How is the OT fulfilled in the NT? (iv) Are the sacraments a means of grace? (m) Moreover, these don’t all present a contrast to Catholicism. There are charismatic Catholics. There are Arminian elements in Catholic theology. There are Anglican and Lutheran elements in Catholic theology. There are liberal elements in Catholic theology. So some of these interpretations agree with Catholicism rather than representing schismatic aberrations. Of course, I might view these points of commonality as common errors. But the Roman Church can’t stigmatize them save on pain of self-incrimination.

Quantity makes quality possible. Out of the diversity of denominations it is possible to find a number of good churches. Better to have a lot of lifeboats, some of which are seaworthy, and others leaky and listing, than to be trapped aboard a burning and sinking ship. (n) Appeal is sometimes made to Jn 10:16 and 17:20-21. But the unity envisioned here is ethnic and diachronic rather than institutional and synchronic, as the Gentiles are inducted into the covenant community (cf. 10:16a) and the faith is passed on from one generation to the next (17:20). (o) The right of private judgment has undoubted generated a great diversity of theological opinion, which is—in turn—reflected in a diversity of denominations. But we’ve always had this. It’s easy to forget about Donatists and Montanists, Novatianists and Waldensians, to name a few pre-Reformation movements, because they were on the losing side of the debate and tended to dissipate over time. So it’s not as if sola scriptura in-traduced a radically destabilizing dynamic into an otherwise cohesive church.

Remember, too, that in Reformed theology, all this diversity is a providential diversity. Catholic apologists have traditionally treated the Reformation as if it were a runaway train. But in the plan of God, everything that happens is either good in itself or a means to an ulterior good. There is wheat among the tares. The field exists for the sake of the wheat, not the tares. But in this dispensation you cannot weed out all the tares without uprooting the wheat in the process (cf. Mt 13:24-30). We don’t judge the condition of the field by the presence or even prevalence of the tares. What matters is the state of the wheat. (p) Related to (o), critics of the Reformation often appeal to the Vincentian canon as some sort of living ideal which the Reformation violated. This appeal assumes a continuity and commonality of belief throughout the history of the Church, up until the Reformation. But isn’t that an illusion? What was the express creed of your average medieval peasant? Or, for that matter, of the village priest? It is natural to form our impression of the Middle Ages from Medieval writers. But that is hardly representative of popular belief. At a time when illiteracy and folk religion were the rule, it isn’t very authentic or meaningful to speak of a core creed shared by the masses. An Athanasius or Aquinas, A Kempis or Dante by no means stands for a popular consensus. Such an identification leaves the laity entirely out of view, and a large chunk of the lower clergy as well. If anything, it was the Reformation, with its emphasis on Bible literacy, which brought the masses on board. There can be no majority report when the majority is too illiterate and ignorant to exercise explicit faith.

A Catholic apologist might object that my whole critique represents a tendentious exercise in the right of private judgment, assuming one of the principal points dividing Catholic and Protestant. When we quote Scripture against the Roman Church we’re taking for granted our competence to interpret Scripture aright quite apart from the Magisterium. But Rome denies that very premise. It must be established before it can be utilized. By way of reply: (i) Even if this represented a genuine problem, and even if there were such a thing as the Magisterium, appealing to that office only relocates the original problem, for unless the laity are competent to interpret magisterial teachings, they cannot comply with them. Whatever complications are involved in exegetical and systematic theology are dwarfed by the scope of canon law. To plow through the Fathers, Doctors, Councils and Popes, reading them against a historical backdrop (minutes, correspondence, &c.), producing critical editions (textual criticism), collating the material and sifting it all according to degrees of normativity—is quite beyond the resources of a full time research scholar or professional theologian—much less a busy bishop or his parish priest. Even if the Pope were ordinarily immunized from doctrinal error in his public teaching, that instruction must still be popularized at the seminary and parish level. So it still amounts to a trickle down process, with the mass inculcation and application delegated to an army of fallible foot-soldiers. Again, Catholic scholars write commentaries too. They bring to this task the same set of fallible faculties as their Protestant counterparts. They have to exercise private judgment. While their publications must pass muster with an official censor, that, too is a form of fallible peer review. The same applies to Catholic theologians. The exercise is especially lame when the censor is not in the same intellectual league as the scholar or theologian under review. (ii) The right of private judgment wasn’t some apologetic ruse invented by the Protestant Reformers. The Bible is a public revelation, addressed to the common people (e.g. Exod 24:7; Deut 31:11; Neh 8:3; Jer 36:6; Lk 4:16; Acts 13:15; 15:21; Col 4:16; 1 Thes 5:27; 1 Tim 4:13; Rev 1:3-4), and adapted to popular understanding (2 Cor 1:13; Eph 3:4). The OT prophets make direct appeal to the Mosaic Covenant when addressing their remarks to the congregation of Israel. Christ and the Apostles so the same. All this assumes that the rank-and-file are able to follow an exegetical argument. Indeed, they are held no less accountable for misunderstanding the message! Christ often pulled rank on the religious leaders as he addressed the masses and called on them to judge the doctrine of the religious establishment by straightforward appeal to Scripture. The same practice operates in the Book of Acts. As a review of Luke-Acts also makes plain, religious instruction in the synagogue followed a fairly informal arrangement. There was no elaborate command-structure corresponding to the Catholic hierarchy. And that’s because the Mosaic code itself did not deem it necessary to make any such provision, even though it can get very detailed when it needs to be. (iii) For that matter, even councils like Trent, Vatican I & Vatican II cite Scriptural prooftexts in support of their dogmas. Isn’t this an appeal to the reader? To a reader who is not a member of the Magisterium—since these documents are generated by the Magisterium and addressed to the church at large? Doesn’t such an appeal assume that the reader is able to connect the content of the prooftext with the content of the dogma? The same applies to papal pronouncements like "Munificentissimus Deus." And doesn’t that comparison invite the possibility of falsification? Unless these prooftexts do, in fact, implicate the dogmas to which they’re assigned, their citation is duplicitous. (iv) One of the standing ironies in Catholic apologetics is the spectacle of ordinary priests and laymen in lay organizations churning out books by and for laymen, sternly admonishing the laity that laymen are incompetent to speak with authority on matters of faith and morals. Here we have priests and laymen who—by definition—fall outside the ranks of the Magisterium, making a case on behalf of the Magisterium. Isn’t this a self-refuting exercise? Shouldn’t the hierarchy be left to speak for itself? The irony is never more acute than when a renegade Protestant tries to justify his defection. Shouldn’t he refer all inquiries to his bishop? Shouldn’t he let Mother Church do all the talking and speak on his behalf, rather than vice versa? While he now claims to be a Catholic, he still acts like a Protestant! A Catholic apologist never makes a more compelling case for the Protestant rule of faith than when he takes it upon himself to pen a popular apologetic against our rule of faith!

The lay apologist is having to exercise the right of private judgment in the very act of denying it. How does his position differ in practice from the practice of the Protestant apologist? Why can’t the Pope fight his own battles? Why did the bishops at Vatican II require the services of the periti? (v) If the Bible can’t be interpreted without benefit of a living teaching office, why bother with a "dead" book at all? What function does the Bible perform if you have a hotline to God via the living voice of Mother Church? (vi) Rome herself recognizes the validity of the Orthodox communion. No less a spokesman than Cardinal Ratzinger grants that while "the West may point to the absence of the office of Peter in the East—it must, nevertheless, admit that, in the Eastern Church, the form and content of the Church of the Fathers is present in unbroken continuity" (Principles of Catholic Theology [Ignatius, 1987], 196). That being so, a papal Magisterium is superfluous to the preservation of faith and morals. (vii) Karl Rahner freely concedes the right of private judgment in submitting to the Church in the first place: ...We may not of course obscure the obvious fact that the free acceptance of the church and its authority is itself once again an act of freedom and decision for which every Christian including a Catholic Christian has to take responsibility in the loneliness of his own conscience. Nor can he depend on the authority of the church as such at this point in the history of his freedom. Moreover, the fact that the authority of the church does become effective for an individual Christian always remains based upon this "lonely" decision. There is no essential difference on this point between a Catholic Christian and an Evangelical Christian who recognizes any authoritative instance at all, for example, Holy Scripture, as coming "from without" and hence binding, Foundations of Christian Faith, (Seabury 1990), 346.

Sola Scriptura is obviously backwards since the Church preexisted the NT and indeed gave us the NT. Why, Paul himself even refers to the Church as the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim 3:15). Or so goes the argument. This popular objection betrays the absence of any historical consciousness. It begins with the Church as a finished product, instead of considering the formative phases of the Church and canon alike. So the objection is equivocal: (i) While the NT Church preexisted the NT canon, it didn’t preexist the word of God, for the NT Church was constituted by apostolic preaching. So both in terms of historical and causal priority, the Word preceded the Church. The only difference is a merely modal rather than substantive distinction between the spoken and written word. (ii) Of course, it is a non-sequitur to assert that priority in time implies priority in rank. Moses lived before the advent of Christ, but that doesn’t make Moses superior to Christ. (iii) It fails to distinguish between the individual origin of the canon and its final formation. In terms of their origin, the books of the NT were enjoined on the NT churches. When James or John, Peter or Paul wrote a gospel, epistle or apocalypse, this was sent to a local church or directed to the church at large and circulated widely (Gal 1:2; Col 4:16; Jas 1:1; 1 Pet 1:1). The church was obliged to submit to the authority of this document. It didn’t issue from the Church but was issued to the Church. The Church was the addressee. The NT documents are the work of inspired individuals. They are not conciliar documents. The Church has a role in the general dissemination of the NT, but that is not at all the same thing as a productive role. Without the Post Office I might not get my mail, but that doesn’t make the Post Office prior to the mail it delivers—not in any relevant or important sense of priority.

When copies of various NT writings were made and distributed, this marked out an informal stage of canonization. But the collective authority of the canon presupposes its distributive authority: there would be no motive for compiling the NT documents absent prior recognition of their normative status. So the principle of canonicity is not a gradual process. Rather, that principle is there at the outset and drives the process. (iv) The passage in 1 Tim 3:15 probably has the local rather than the universal church in view. As Catholic scholar J.N.D. Kelly has pointed out, As in 3:5, there is no definite article before "church," and this suggests that Paul is thinking primarily of the particular local community...What Paul is saying is that it is the function and responsibility of each congregation to support, bolster up, and thus safeguard the true teaching by its continuous witness. We should note (a) that "buttress" is probably a more accurate rendering of the Greek endraiwma (nowhere else found) than "foundation" or "ground" (AV), and (b) that the local church is described as "a pillar," etc., not "the pillar," etc., because there are many local churches throughout the world performing this role (A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles [Baker, 1986], 87-88).

There is, of course, a part/whole relation between the local and the universal church, so that ultimately we’re talking about a single entity. But one can’t equate Paul’s reference to a local church situation with a centralized and pyramidal agency where truth is vested in a top-down teaching office. Rather, this passage has in view the informal witness of the local church membership. Paul is talking about "a" church as "a" pillar of truth. (v) Before the NT canon you had the NT church, but before the NT church you had the OT canon. And the Mosaic canon constituted the covenant community. It supplied the charter documents. It preceded and created the priesthood and high holy days, rites, rituals and canon law.

Sola scriptura isn’t feasible since many extraneous conditions must be met for Scripture to be God's word or to be perceived as such by us. The Bible must be interpreted, which introduces an outside agent is into the process. You can’t break into the circle of sola scriptura without breaking out of it. Or so goes the argument.

Before proceeding with a reply, we need to define our terms. Sola scriptura doesn’t mean that Scripture is the only source of knowledge. What it does mean, at least as I’m using the expression, is that Scripture is the only source of dogma, and the only source of saving knowledge, as well as the supreme source and standard of human knowledge generally—regardless of its subject-matter. It also follows from this that there can be no higher authority or equipollent authority to authorize the authority of Scripture.

Now it’s true that in order for Scripture to function as the rule of faith, a number of extraneous conditions must be met. But the fact that the reader stands outside Scripture, and must be brought into the interpretive loop, does not compromise the hegemony of Scripture, for this principle was never designed to operate in a vacuum, but presupposes a larger theological framework. The Catholic satisfies this condition with a high doctrine of the church. But the Calvinist satisfies this condition with a high doctrine of providence. The Catholic has a low doctrine of Scripture because he has a low doctrine of providence. So he must compensate with a high doctrine of the church. But the Calvinist can maintain a high doctrine of Scripture because he has a high doctrine of providence. The God of revelation is also the God of providence. The God who inspires the prophets is also in charge of the interpretive process. This doesn't mean that the reader is rendered infallible. But both true and false interpretations are under God's control and subservient to his designs. If individuals or multitudes stray into heresy and apostasy, that is not a historical accident but the outworking of reprobation.

Protestants are guilty of applying a double standard when they accept Scriptural appeals to tradition (e.g. Acts 7:38,53; Gal 3:19; 2 Thes 2:15; Heb 2:2; 11:34ff.) while rejecting Patristic appeals to tradition. Or so goes the argument. By way or reply: (i) Since the sacred authors are inspired, their appeal to tradition automatically validates the tradition in question. But it hardly validates every tradition to which they do "not" appeal. Even the Roman Catholic is far from equalizing every tradition as normative. He is quite selective about which traditions he privileges.

Since the Fathers are uninspired, the parallel between canonically sanctioned tradition and extra-canonically sanctioned tradition falls apart at the critical point of comparison. (ii) The role of angels in the giving of the law isn’t even dependent on tradition extra-canonical tradition. Rather, it goes back to the angel of the Lord and the Lord’s angelic retinue (cf. Exod 3:2; 23:20-23; 33:18-23; Deut 33:2; Ps 68:17; Isa 63:9; Mt 10:14; Jn 13:20; Acts 7:35). (iii) This objection trades on an equivocation of terms. The Protestant never denied the principle of apostolic tradition or oral instruction. It’s just that oral transmission suffers from a high decay rate. Word-of-mouth may be adequate when it comes straight from the mouth of an Apostle to the ear of a contemporary. But there’s a categorical difference between the viva voce of the Apostles and a "process of living Tradition" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, ¶83.). Oral tradition is no substitute for a permanent record. It was never intended to supply a common norm for future reference. That’s precisely why revelation was committed to writing (cf. Exod 17:14; Deut 31:9,13,26; Ps 102:18; Isa 30:8). Human memory is too untrustworthy to rely on oral transmission over the long haul. The rediscovery of the written law code (2 Kgs 22:8ff. 2 Chron 34:14ff.) powerfully illustrates the inadequacies of unaided memory in keeping a people from apostasy—a point made by R. Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church (Eerdmans, 1986), 66. To take another example, (a) Papias was, according to Irenaeus, a younger contemporary of the Apostle John. He made an earnest effort to collect the agrapha of Christ. Yet despite his proximity to primitive recollection, his gleanings are remarkably meager, and have an unmistakably derivative flavor. Owing to the short shelf-life of oral tradition, as well as the incentive to fabricate tradition (e.g. the NT apocrypha), no formal authority attaches to mere tradition, although some of it may afford probative evidence for past practice.

(iv)Moreover, Sacred Tradition, as currently redefined, is not the same as an oral mode of transmission. It ceases to be a conservative force and becomes a revisionary dynamic. Again, Jesus warns us against the dangers of man-made tradition, and judges that tradition by the standard of Scripture (Mt 7:7-8,13). But when human tradition comes to be identified with a divine teaching office, it is then impervious to the correction of Scripture, and we’re right back to the situation that summoned forth our Lord’s reproof.

(v) Sometimes a Catholic apologist will caricature sola scriptura as implying that Apostolic tradition was valid right up until the moment the ink dried on Rev 22:21, at which point it instantly ceased to be authoritative. Of course the oral teaching of the Apostles was normative for those who got it straight from the horse’s mouth or their associates. The real issue concerns the preservation and verification of authentic tradition for later generations.

(vi) Furthermore, Catholic apologists play a bait-and-switch scam. For they lure the Protestant by appealing to examples where the Bible refers to an oral source, and then shift to a lax principle of dogmatic development in order to justify the Assumption of Mary or the treasury of merit. Now in the nature of the case, the present derives from the past. Hence it is always possible to plot a historical trajectory from any past belief to a present-day belief. But this either proves too much or too little inasmuch as a Protestant apologist could deploy the very same theological method to validate his own tradition.

Catholic apologists might object that I’ve been assuming the principle all along without bothering to establish it in the first place. Where does Scripture teach sola scriptura? Where does it rule out sacred tradition? Let’s consider some half dozen replies.

(I) Even on its own terms, the Roman Church has failed to offer a coherent alternative inasmuch as the concept of tradition has become a plaything in the hands of the Magisterium. What is meant by sacred tradition? Is it oral tradition? Early tradition? The consent of the Fathers? The consent of the Doctors? The consent of the faithful? The charism of the Magisterium? The concept has mutated from being a body of unwritten instructions that Christ committed to the Apostles to a "process of living Tradition." This is not a natural evolutionary continuum, but rather a revolutionary break with the original point. Just consider the historical revisionism of Ratzinger: "Before Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven was defined, all theological faculties in the world were consulted for their opinion. Our teachers’ answer was emphatically negative... ’Tradition’ was identified with what could be proved on the basis of texts. Altaner, the patrologist from Würzburg...had proven in a scientifically persuasive manner that the doctrine of Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven was unknown before the fifth century; this doctrine, therefore, he argued, could not belong to the ‘apostolic tradition.’ And this was his conclusion, which my teachers at Munich shared. This argument is compelling if you understand ‘tradition’ strictly as the handling down of fixed formulas and texts...But if you conceive of ‘tradition’ as a living process whereby the Holy Spirit introduces us to the fullness of truth and teaches us how to understand what previously we could still not grasp (cf. Jn 16:12-13), then subsequent ‘remembering’ (cf. Jn 16:4, for instance) can come to recognize what it had not caught sight of previously and yet w as handed down in the original Word," Milestones (Ignatius, 1998), 58-59. Aside from reversing the traditional basis of Catholic apologetics, hindsight presupposes a sighting; absent historical documentation, there is nothing to remember and reflect on.

Such a ductile definition, which resembles the house that Jack built, may save appearances, but the reluctance to stake out a firm position means that your position never takes the shape of an identifiable alternative. And so it doesn’t challenge people to believe otherwise. (ii) It is instructive to observe how even Leo XIII must fall back on the Protestant rule of faith in order to establish the Magisterium: Since the divine and infallible Magisterium of the Church rests also on the authority of Holy Scripture, the first thing to be done is to vindicate the trustworthiness of the sacred records at least as human documents, from which can be clearly proved, as from primitive and authentic testimony, the Divinity and the mission of Christ our Lord, the institution of a hierarchical Church and the primacy of Peter and his successors," The Papal Encyclicals (Perian 1990), 2:333b. (iii) The principle of sola scriptura is implicit in the finality of the canon. There is always more that could be said. Scripture itself concedes this possibility (cf. Jn 20:30-31; 21:25; Eph 6:21-22; Col 4:7-9; Heb 9:5b). In that respect there is never any absolutely natural cut-off point. But for that selfsame reason, a somewhat arbitrary line has to be drawn, for a complete record would be completely unmanageable. To admit an element of arbitrariness here is not to say that it’s unreasonable or unnecessary. The point is not to say everything, but to say enough.

Scripture is the necessary and sufficient source of saving knowledge (2 Tim 3:15-17). Not only is further information gratuitous, but Paul expressly warns the Church not to go beyond what is written—employing a stock citation formula for Scripture (1 Cor 4:6). This is, of course, pegged to progressive revelation, but the canon is closed.

The very fact that, unlike some other religions and cults, Christianity does not have an open canon implies that ongoing revelation or its functional equivalent (the Magisterium) is both unnecessary and presumptuous. God himself drew the boundaries by withholding further revelation. (iv) It should go without saying that sola scriptura is mainly a norm for the readers of Scripture and not the writers of Scripture. An inspired author doesn’t have to appeal to Scripture in order to advance a claim since his own words enjoy canonical authority. This is where Scripture comes from. He is making up inspired Scripture as he goes along. Again, it is obviously anachronistic to expect that a NT writer would make systematic appeal to the NT. When, therefore, it is asked, Where does Scripture teach sola scriptura?—we have to keep these elementary distinctions in mind. What is remarkable is how often the sacred authors do invoke prior revelation, even though they could speak on their own authority. In so doing they are conditioning the reader to honor the principle of sola Scriptura. (v) Loyalty to God’s revealed will, and not tradition, is always made the acid test of religious fidelity in sacred history. As John Frame has remarked, after copious citation, "The whole OT history is a history of obedience and disobedience: obedience and disobedience to what? To God’s commands; and after Exod 20, to God’s written word!" ("Scripture Speaks for Itself," God’s Inerrant Word, J.W. Montgomery, ed. [Bethany, 1974], 199). Some of its contents originally took the form of oral address, but that doesn’t amount to oral tradition since the practice was to immediately commit such disclosures to writing (e.g. Exod 17:14; 24:3-4; Deut 33:9,22,24-28; Josh 24:26; 1 Sam 20:25; Rev 1:11,19; 21:5). (vi) Since so much of Christian doctrine consists in truths that are far removed from us in time and space—from events in the distant past or future, the invisible present (E.g. spiritual warfare; the intermediate state), and God’s delitescent decree, to the afterlife and age to come—our only access to such information is via a public revelation. So the principle of sola scriptura is also rooted in the principle of a revealed religion. (vii) The burden of proof doesn’t rest on the Protestant. All the major branches of Christendom—Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant—at least pay lip-service to the supreme authority of Scripture. And they all formally deny the continuance of revelation—at least of the canonical variety. That being the case, the Protestant doesn’t even have to show where Scripture itself expressly or implicitly rules out such a role for sacred tradition. It is sufficient for him to show that, as a matter of inevitable practice, this appeal interferes with the authority and authentic interpretation of Scripture. It subordinates the voice of Scripture to the voice of tradition.

One should add that the antiquity of tradition is no evidence of apostolicity, for orthodoxy and heresy coexisted in the apostolic churches. The bulk of the NT correspondence was addressed to doctrinal and disciplinary crises that arose in Apostolic sees. So even if we could trace a tradition all the way back to Apostolic times, or to an Apostolic See, no less, that wouldn’t be the same as tracing it back to Apostolic teaching, for as soon as an Apostle was away from one church to minister to another, error could quickly flare up in his absence. This lies on the face of many NT letters. So it is quite blind to contend that the antiquity of tradition carries any presumption in favor of its apostolic pedigree. By that measure, Simon Magus was a greater champion of orthodoxy than Athanasius!

Sola scriptura is obviously not a sufficient rule of faith since we are constantly confronted with many moral issues not addressed in Holy Writ, such as those raised by bioethics. Or so goes the argument. By way of reply: (i) The ethical instruction of Scripture is based on general norms, case studies and priority structures. The answers are not all preformulated. Rather, the Bible supplies us with sufficient criteria to acquit our obligations. (ii) The Protestant position is that Scripture is sufficient to instruct us in our du-ties before God and man. The fact that there are questions not answered by Scripture does not imply that sola scriptura is inadequate, but only that we're in a condition of diminished responsibility on questions outside the purview of Scripture. Our responsibility is limited to what God holds us responsible for. (iii) As I've said before, a high doctrine of Scripture goes hand-in-hand with a high doctrine of providence. I can do God’s will without necessarily knowing his will. God doesn’t dump the Bible in our lap and then retire to Mt. Olympus. (iii) The Catholic Church doesn’t offer any alternative. While a popular apologist may make grandiose claims for his Church and hold the Protestants to inhuman standards of confidence, the senior policy-makers at the Vatican are more chaste and chastened in their ambitions. Consider Cardinal Ratzinger’s humble admission: We are in fact constantly confronted with problems where it isn’t possible to find the right answer in a short time. Above all in the case of problems having to do with ethics, particularly medical ethics...We finally had to say, after very long studies, "Answer that for now on the local level; we aren’t far enough along to have full certainty about that."

Again, in the area of medical ethics, new possibilities, and with them new borderline situations, are constantly arising where it is not immediately evident how to apply principles. We can’t simply conjure up certitude...There needn’t always be universal answers. We also have to realize our limits and forgo answers where they aren’t possible...it simply is not the case that we want to go around giving answers in every situation..." (J. Ratzinger, Salt of the Earth [Ignatius, 1996], 100-101).

One has only to consider the rival schools of casuistry that arose in the history of Catholic discussion (e.g. probabilism, probabiliorism, equiprobabilism) to recognize that the Magisterium does not serve up ready-made answers on a wide range of pressing problems in moral theology. So the romantic notion, so popular in Catholic apologetics, that the Roman church is a rock of moral assurance in an otherwise uncertain world is simply out of step with own tradition. The extraordinary Magisterium is extremely selective about its moral pronouncements, and even then it contents itself with general norms, while leaving the concrete application to fallible judgment.

Not only did Christians have to rely on oral tradition before the NT was written, but for a long time afterwards inasmuch as it took centuries before the NT canon was finalized. Or so goes the argument. By way of reply: (i) As we know from such well-traveled Christians as Apollos, Paul, Philip, Priscilla and Aquilla, the early church enjoyed an extensive communications network. So there’s no reason to suppose that the NT literature either could not or did not circulate widely and rapidly. (Cf. R. Bauckham [ed.], The Gospels for All Christians [Eerdmans 1998]).

Indeed, our Patristic and MS tradition—which is both chronologically primitive and geographically diverse—testifies to just such a circulation. And for the generation right after the Apostles, a reliable source of oral tradition was also available from insiders likeTimothy, Titus and the Ephesian elders—to name some of the few we know about. By the time the second generation died off the dissemination of the NT would have been quite widespread. (ii) It’s an elementary mistake to confuse the time-frame for distributing the NT books with the time-frame for their initial reception and acceptance. Any standard work on the NT canon will document an early and diverse representation for most of the NT books.

Any criteria the Protestant uses to define and defend sola scriptura are necessarily man-made, and therefore the whole exercise is self-defeating inasmuch as it violates the very principle it is advancing. Or so goes the argument. By way of reply: (i) The Bible is a self-contained revelation. So the Protestant is simply starting with what God has given us. God chose to commit certain revelations to writing. God chose to preserve certain written revelations. It is God who set these concrete boundaries. The Bible is tangible and accessible whereas tradition is an abstract construct. It requires an external standard to isolate and identify "Sacred Tradition" and extract it from the swamp of raw materials and rival traditions. And it takes still another standard to apply the external standard to the interpretation of Sacred Tradition. If you deny the self-evidentiary character of Scripture, then you’re left with a vicious critical regress. But the definition of sola scriptura is secondary insofar as it presupposes the public, existential event of Scripture. The definition doesn’t constitute the fact. It is God who has drawn these lines in history. (ii) In fairness, this reply depends on the identity of the canon. That demands a separate argument, to be made on a separate occasion. But even on this level, it should be kept in mind that Rome did not have an official canon before Trent, and only defined the Catholic canon in reaction to the Protestant canon. This was not a settled question in Catholic dogma, but merely reopened an old debate between the Church Fathers (e.g., Jerome v. Augustine), such that Rome could not invoke the universal consent of the Fathers. The Protestant canon is prior to the Catholic canon.

History proves that sola scriptura is not a sufficient rule of faith. On the one hand, Protestants disagree with each other over the meaning of Scripture. On the other hand, Catholics disagree with Protestants over the meaning of Scripture. Or so goes the argument. By way of reply: (i) What we should ask ourselves at the outset is, What purpose is served by a rule of faith? What is it supposed to do? A rule of faith isn’t a substitute for sanctification or church discipline. A rule of faith is not a trouble-shooting device for every ill afflicting the Church. The fact that Christians may misapply the rule of faith no more invalidates that rule than blaming the multiplication tables if a crook uses a calculator to cheat on his taxes. And the further fact that the reprobate twist the Scriptures to their own destruction is a sign of poetic irony and divine justice. I’m no less answerable to God if I twist the Scripture than if submit to them.

No rule of faith can guarantee compliance. And the history of the Magisterium certainly doesn’t present an exception to this. The Roman church never relied on its own rule of faith ensure doctrinal conformity. To the contrary, it is notorious for its apparatus of enforced conformity (e.g. interdict; ex communication; the Index; the Inquisition). And even its most Draconian measures failed to secure uniform acquiescence.

God sent prophets to testify against Israel. Yet that didn’t keep the nation from falling away. So did the prophets fail? And if God commissioned them, does this implicate a failure on the part of God himself? But we know that national apostasy was instrumental in God’s redemptive plan by throwing emphasis on the necessity of a Savior to come. (ii) Catholics keep judging sola scriptura by some utopian ideal. But I’m in no position to say what represents an idea state of affairs since that requires a retrospective standpoint. I would have to be able to see the present in the light of the future fulfillment of God’s design for history. The Fall, the Flood, the Egyptian bondage, the Babylonian Exile, and Good Friday didn’t look like an idea state of affairs at the time, but each event had a role in God’s redemptive purpose for the world.

Catholics approach this issue as if we were debating a hypothetical question, viz. What are the respective advantages or disadvantages of sola scriptura over against a Magisterium? But the real question comes down to an a posteriori and not an a priori question, viz. What rule of faith has God, in fact, imposed on his Church? That is the question. It is not an abstract conjecture or comparative judgment. (iii) The Catholic objection proves too much. For if sola scriptura were such an inadequate rule of faith, then the alternative is certainly not to be found in the direction of interposing multiplied layers of bureaucracy and tradition between the individual believer and the will of God. That would render God’s will less accessible to the believer, and not more so. Rather, if we accept the premise of the objection, that would be an argument for daily private revelation. But the very existence of Scripture as a public revelation stands against that presumption. So there isn’t any objection to sola scriptura that couldn’t be turned against the Magisterium. The presence of a Magisterium hasn’t prevented internal dissension in the Catholic Church or massive defection (e.g. the Great Schism; the Reformation).

Wow, there is so much to say here. I have to commend the author of this article though. He has not resorted to some of the false hoods that are normally a part of this debate. I think thats a good sign that the level of discourse has risen on this issue. Both Catholics and Protestants have very much oversimplified this whole issue in the past. A couple of points on this that I find the weakest.

(1) When I converted to Catholicism the Church Fathers were a large part of it. I know there has been an effort by some to make the Church fathers all very pro sola scriptoria. At this point after examining their arguments I find them wanting. Esp when I look at the debate in the Early Church and the Trinity. If you find an Pentecostal in the oneness tradition who knows his stuff for instance debating a Trinitarian on the basis sola scriptoria those debates often can end in almost a draw. In fact, in those same debates I have heard the Evangelical for instance resort back to Tradition. Its like the 3rd and 4th century again

(2) This communications systems between the churches and how all these writings were dispersed I think is a little naive. Case in point. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is mention here. In fact this article is quite wrong about the about the dates where this dogma was first practiced by early Christians. We know the Syrian Church had a very early tradition of this . In fact, we know that it was a major event there locally. But I digress. The book of Revelation was a late comer on the scene. In fact by many it was distrusted. Even Martin Luther had problems with it. This was a book that primarily came out of the East. Once the persecutions stopped the Church as a whole considered the significance of this book. In fact much of the Marian Dogma such as the assumption can be glimpsed here esp when comparing it to the opening Chapters of the book of Genius. Its important to remember the God Head itself was under attack so Marian Doctrine by necessity took a back seat. It really wasn't until we had a collection of Eastern Popes that this very valid tradition came forth to be seen by the Church Universal. Anywho thats alot to write. The point being that to believe that the Canon of Scripture was pretty much decided by the death or even some years after the death of the Apostle John I think is wrong. Scripture of course is the primary font but Scripture interpretation can not go against the constant Christian teaching. Finally this argument is coming up with more frequency. To say that the Canon was really in practice not closed before Trent is a little misleading. Pretty much the Canon was closed at the Council of Rome in I believe 393. There was really no further serious debate. As to this Universal Consent of the Fathers. That has never been understood that all the Church Fathers had to agree on a subject before it was accepted. That would fly in the face of Catholic Doctrine in giving almost some sort of Infalliabilty to each of these Fathers on a particular issue. I suppose the above is referencing the Deutro Canonincals thats of course an entirely different debate that could take up endless posts in itself. The interesting Elephant in the room for those that wish to endorse this view is why did the Eastern Church end up having the same Canon as the Western Church that declared the Canon finally and forever closed at the Council of Trent. Its not because Trent declared it. Anyway, glad to give my thoughts on this issue. I find that the debate on this issue has really opened up God's Word to me and my Protestant friends since the level of discourse has been elevated in recent years. Of course if its against "tradition" on FR for a Catholic to try to respond to a sola Scriptoria thread just let me know. LOl I always try to be respectful. Its just a topic that I have had an interest in since I had to grapple and pray over it for about a year. Peace in Christ

Scripture never says that Scripture is the sole infallible authority for God's Word. Scripture also mandates the use of tradition. This fact alone disproves sola Scriptura.

Matt. 28:20 - "observe ALL I have commanded," but, as we see in John 20:30; 21:25, not ALL Jesus taught is in Scripture. So there must be things outside of Scripture that we must observe. This disproves "Bible alone" theology.

Mark 16:15 - Jesus commands the apostles to "preach," not write, and only three apostles wrote. The others who did not write were not less faithful to Jesus, because Jesus gave them no directive to write. There is no evidence in the Bible or elsewhere that Jesus intended the Bible to be sole authority of the Christian faith.

1 Thess. 2:13 – Paul says, “when you received the word of God, which you heard from us..” How can the Bible be teaching first century Christians that only the Bible is their infallible source of teaching if, at the same time, oral revelation was being given to them as well? Protestants can’t claim that there is one authority (Bible) while allowing two sources of authority (Bible and oral revelation).

BTW - drstevej is no longer a member of FR.

tradition says Timothy became the bishop of Ephesians, which through succession, is now part of the Greek Orthodox church headed out of Constantinople?

The schism between East and West happened in 1054, long after the events and people described in 2 Tm. Ephesus, actually, has no bishop and was in ruins long before the Schism. (Its harbor silted up due to an earthquake and it was abandoned.) 2 Tm 2:2 is not only specific to Ephesus.

And I don't believe Timothy was bishop of Ephesus, at least not at the time 2 Tm was written. 2 Tm was written around AD 60-65, and the Apostle John was in charge at Ephesus until his death in the 90's.

If 2 Timothy 2:2 proves succession, doesn't this prove the Roman Catholic church is not part of that succession?

Not at all. BTW, we would agree that the Greek bishops are also in valid succession from the Apostles, and at least some of the Orthodox would agree that our bishops are also.

"Matt. 28:20 - "observe ALL I have commanded"

Do you know what the word "command" means? In John 20:30 and 21:25 the Apostle is referring to things which Jesus did and said, not things that he cammanded them to teach.

Mark 16:15 - Jesus commands the apostles to "preach," not write, and only three apostles wrote.

Hummm. There would be Matthew, John, Paul, Peter and probably James. Which of these five do you not consider Apostles.

"not ALL Jesus taught is in Scripture. So there must be things outside of Scripture that we must observe."

And what would these ascrptural things be and how do you know if they are of the truth or not? The Apostles were guided into ALL truth (John 14:26). They were not guided to proclaim a Pope so the Pope must not be of the truth.

"There is no evidence in the Bible or elsewhere that Jesus intended the Bible to be sole authority of the Christian faith."

You argue from silence. Where in the Bible does it say that priest should not dress as nuns? Where in the Bible does it say that the head of the Roman Catholic church should be called a Pope? Indeed, where in the Bible is the Roman Catholic church even mentioned? In addition you need to read and understand John 12:48. Now where, beside in the Bible, are you going to find "Jesus' words?"

1 Thess. 2:13 – Paul says, “when you received the word of God, which you heard from us..”

Paul started the church at Thessalonica. He taught them orally then later wrote two letters back to them. Why do you have a problem with this?

"How can the Bible be teaching first century Christians that only the Bible is their infallible source of teaching if, at the same time, oral revelation was being given to them as well?"

Oral revelation ended in the first century. (I Cor 13:9-10)

If we can"t trust God's writen word Then where can you put your faith?

No knowledgeable Catholic would ever say that we can't trust Scripture. We ought to love Scripture with our whole heart, mind, and soul, and read it and meditate on it every day.

What we can't always trust is our own understanding of Scripture. Plenty of people have read the Bible and gone astray by misunderstanding it -- don't believe me on that, believe the Apostle Peter, who directly warns about it in one of his epistles.

Name one sure way or method, that a new believer in Christ, can know that the Roman Catholic church is the one true church. (The challenge: make sure this method cannot apply also to the Orthodox church.)

The Orthodox vs. Catholic issue is the tough one. Building a strong case that the True Church is either Rome or Constantinople is relatively easy by comparison. Scripture+history+logic does it. The main difference that separates Rome from the Orthodox is the Papacy. (There are others, but the Papacy is the 800-pound gorilla.) The best book I know defending the Papacy is "Jesus, Peter, and the Keys" by Butler, Dahlgren, and Hess.

Trust me, bremenboy, if you announced you were becoming Orthodox, I'd celebrate almost as much as the Orthodox would. :-)

Peter must not have known this because in I Peter 5:1, written about 30 years after you say he became the Pope, Peter refers to himself as an "elder."

The word "elder" (presbyter in Greek) came into English as "priest". Peter didn't stop being a priest/elder when he became Pope, any more than Benedict XVI did.

I am just showing you how rediculas it is to base a belief on what the Bible "does not" say rather than simply following what it "does" say.

Nobody "simply follows what the Bible says" because nobody agrees on what that is. As to what beliefs you think I have that are based on what the Bible does not say, I have no idea what you're talking about.

This is totally wrong. Please point to any scripture where presbyter is translated "Priest."

LOL. Open a dictionary, any unabridged English dictionary, and it will tell you that the word "priest" comes from "presbyter," just as it will tell you that the word "bishop" comes from "episcopos" (overseer).

How about the perpetual virginity of Mary, Apostolic succession and the oral tradition for openers.

The Bible teaches apostolic succession in 2 Tm 2:2 among other places. The PVoM isn't based on anything the Bible "doesn't say" but is based on the tradition of the Church. In fact, St. Jerome said flatly that the error that Mary was not a virgin after Christ's birth was something that Catholics were not permitted to believe "because we do not read it" -- IOW, we accept the PVoM because the contrary position is not found in Scripture.

And if you're thinking about bringing up Matthew 1:25 as your counterexample, please recall that Jerome knew the verse well, and knew Greek better than most of us know English, and knew very well that heos hou ("until") did not imply a reversal of the situation.

On the PVoM question, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Bollinger, and Cranmer all agree with us and flatly reject your position. Why should we listen to you when all of the Catholics and all of the great Protestant reformers reject your position? Did none of them know what the Bible said?

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