Protestants and Sola Scriptura

Scripture, our Evangelical friends tell us, is the inerrant Word of God. Quite right, the Catholic replies; but how do you know this to be true?

It's not an easy question for Protestants, because, having jettisoned Tradition and the Church, they have no objective authority for the claims they make for Scripture. There is no list of canonical books anywhere in the Bible, nor does any book (with the exception of St. John's Apocalypse) claim to be inspired. So, how does a "Bible Christian" know the Bible is the Word of God?

If he wants to avoid a train of thought that will lead him into the Catholic Church, he has just one way of responding: With circular arguments pointing to himself (or Luther or the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries or some other party not mentioned in the Bible) as an infallible authority telling him that it is so. Such arguments would have perplexed a first or second century Christian, most of whom never saw a Bible.

Christ founded a teaching Church. So far as we know, he himself never wrote a word (except on sand). Nor did he commission the Apostles to write anything. In due course, some Apostles (and non-Apostles) composed the twenty-seven books which comprise the New Testament. Most of these documents are ad hoc; they are addressed to specific problems that arose in the early Church, and none claim to present the whole of Christian revelation. It's doubtful that St. Paul even suspected that his short letter to Philemon begging pardon for a renegade slave would some day be read as Holy Scripture.

Who, then, decided that it was Scripture? The Catholic Church. And it took several centuries to do so. It was not until the Council of Carthage (397) and a subsequent decree by Pope Innocent I that Christendom had a fixed New Testament canon. Prior to that date, scores of spurious gospels and "apostolic" writings were floating around the Mediterranean basin: the Gospel of Thomas, the "Shepherd" of Hermas, St. Paul's Letter to the Laodiceans, and so forth. Moreover, some texts later judged to be inspired, such as the Letter to the Hebrews, were controverted. It was the Magisterium, guided by the Holy Spirit, which separated the wheat from the chaff.

But, according to Protestants, the Catholic Church was corrupt and idolatrous by the fourth century and so had lost whatever authority it originally had. On what basis, then, do they accept the canon of the New Testament? Luther and Calvin were both fuzzy on the subject. Luther dropped seven books from the Old Testament, the so-called Apocrypha in the Protestant Bible; his pretext for doing so was that orthodox Jews had done it at the synod of Jamnia around 100 A. D.; but that synod was explicitly anti-Christian, and so its decisions about Scripture make an odd benchmark for Christians.

Luther's real motive was to get rid of Second Maccabees, which teaches the doctrine of Purgatory. He also wanted to drop the Letter of James, which he called "an epistle of straw," because it flatly contradicts the idea of salvation by "faith alone" apart from good works. He was restrained by more cautious Reformers. Instead, he mistranslated numerous New Testament passages, most notoriously Romans 3:28, to buttress his polemical position.

The Protestant teaching that the Bible is the sole spiritual authority--sola scriptura --is nowhere to be found in the Bible. St. Paul wrote to Timothy that Scripture is "useful" (which is an understatemtn), but neither he nor anyone else in the early Church taught sola scriptura. And, in fact, nobody believed it until the Reformation. Newman called the idea that God would let fifteen hundred years pass before revealing that the bible was the sole teaching authority for Christians an "intolerable paradox."

Newman also wrote: "It is antecedently unreasonable to Bsuppose that a book so complex, so unsystematic, in parts so obscure, the outcome of so many minds, times, and places, should be given us from above without the safeguard of some authority; as if it could possibly, from the nature of the case, interpret itself...." And, indeed, once they had set aside the teaching authority of the Church, the Reformers began to argue about key Scriptural passages. Luther and Zwingli, for example, disagreed vehemently about what Christ meant by the words, "This is my Body."

St. Augustine, usually Luther's guide and mentor, ought to have the last word about sola scriptura: "But for the authority of the Church, I would not believe the Gospel."

Teaching authoritatively is different than the preservation of the Word.

Point granted. What I should have said was "If we reject the Tradition of the Church today..." I don't think it changes the crux of my reasoning though. See below.

It is to our great convenience, and to the RCC's credit, that they did preserve the Holy Text, confining their 'changes' or elaborations to their traditions and extra-canonical documents.

This is the exact point I found myself when I first was investigating the Church with a critical eye. I had to conclude from history that the Church did indeed at least "preserve" Scripture. However, what I still had to reconcile with the concept of "corruption" (and at the time, I too believed that the Traditions of the Church were "extra Biblical", "un-Biblical", "contrary to Scripture" and all those other buzzwords) was the fact that from the 1st (and early 2nd centuries) up until the time of the 4th century when the canon was finally closed, that it was tradition itself that kept alive which was Scripture and which wasn't (at least for the majority of the books). So, IOW, if "tradition" wasn't corrupted between the 1st and 4th centuries, why should we believe it would be corrupted after that? This is the main question that really I had to ask myself, after realizing the Church did preserve Scripture.

I would be happy to stand upon that claim. There are two witnesses bound within the Book. The Prophecy and the Word. They are inextricably bound together with such an intricacy that the only way to explain them otherwise is to assume a conspiracy spanning thousands of years, and working in the world, even unto this very day. With such a ludicrous suggestion set aside, the Prophecy proves the Word, and revelation in the Word proves the Prophecy.

To be sure, again, we can be reasonably sure (independently) that the OT wasn't corrupted from the 1st century onward because of the witness of the DSS. As an aside however, this only pushes the question of "living witness" (tradition) back a few centuries as we don't have any copies (at least none as full as the DSS) of the OT any older than the DSS, thus, as NYer pointed out in her reply to me, how do we know that, say, the 10 Commandments are accurately represented? We know because of the tradition the Jews kept, the practice of oral transmission (and not just the 10 Commandments and entire Torah, but the entire Tanakh) centuries before the LXX, the Tanakh was preserved accurately. Now, of course God wrote the 10 Commandments on stone, but those are lost as the Ark of the Covenant is lost. Also, of course, the Torah was written down prior to the LXX, but we don't have those (complete) copies, much less the supposed "original" that Moses traditionally wrote with the inspiration of God.

Generally speaking, all these facts point to the *equal* importance of tradition with regards to Scripture. Without Tradition (Jewish) we wouldn't have assurance that what was listed in the 1st century (the DSS) was the OT, and without Tradition (Christian), we wouldn't have assurance that what was listed in the 4th (the Council of Carthage in 397) was truly an accurate representation of NT Scripture. At least IMO.

So again, the "Prophets and the Word" could be both corrupted, if we reject the role of Tradition in preserving their true message, thus, any "self authentication" that one attempts invariably relies on the traditional preservation of the Scripture in question.

One might also suggest that Protestant forces, no friend to the RCC in such matters, have largely served as an external sourceof confirmation- Taking what extant ancient sources as do exist and subjecting them to translation and interpretation outside of the control of the RCC. In doing so, the result was largely the same as that of the RC determination.

An interesting assertion, to which I don't particularly find too much objection. I suppose it's entirely possible (if not probable) that the Holy Spirit did help the Protestants from questioning the very Canon they claim as inspired, since if to reject Church Tradition in one area (Indulgences, the Pope) would seem to reject (or at least question it) in all. As a side note, this is perhaps an example of Mormon error, in that they even reject the idea that the Canon is even closed. However, this still points back to the fact that it was originally Catholic Tradition that gave witness to the authenticity of the Scriptures. Again, I see no reason to reject one Tradition while adhering to another.

We all do agree wrt the Scripture, albeit not perfectly, though sufficiently.

At this point, I'm reminded of the formation of the Canon in the early centuries, specifically the fact that the book of Hebrews was, for a time, rejected by some of the early churches. Perhaps, at some point, Protestants will come to accept the deuterocanonicals as Scripture, the same way some early Churches came to accept Hebrews. ;)

My contention lies in the Traditions of the RCC, their supposed infallibility, and certainly, and most rigorously, in their elevation to the authority of Scripture by the RCC.

Here, there's a point that begs to me made, although I fear it may take us off track, I feel I should at least make it briefly. There are many traditions in the Church, however the only ones that are infallible are the ones that have been defined as such (the Canon, the Trinity, Theotokos, the Assumption of Mary, etc.). IOW, not all traditions are infallible. I would ask that we focus on the Tradition that preserved Scripture for any future discussions here. Suffice it to say though, that again, if one has no problem accepting the role of Tradition in preserving (and accurately transmitting) Scripture, I see no reason to reject any of the other dogmatically defined Traditions above.

Sola scriptura, in the Protestant sense, does not suggest '*only* Scripture', as is often tossed about, but instead demands that nothing can rise to the authority of Scripture. No tradition, Protestant, Catholic, or otherwise, may trump that authority.

Oddly enough, the contention among the Protestant branches lies mainly in how much of the RCC tradition to adhere to- Those things which the various denominations cling to that are extra-Biblical (Sunday Sabbath, baptism by sprinkling, infant baptism, ad etcetera), as well as extra-Biblical Protestant ideas (Calvinism, etc) are the cause of disunity among the Protestants as well as the disunity between the Protestants and the Catholics.

You stated the situation very well here, I commend you. This is indeed the situation that is faced today. You are correct that the historic definition of sola scriptura does not wholly reject a role for tradition, but rather, doesn't put it on the same plane as Scripture. At this point, you may object and say, "Well if you realize that, what's been the point of this entire exercise? Don't you see that (we) historic Protestants don't reject the role of tradition in preserving Scripture? We just don't think it should ever contradict it!".

I can see that, however, for the reasons following it doesn't seem to really respect the role of Tradition in the time period mentioned. We must realize that during the time period mentioned (from ~AD 90 to ~AD 300), it wasn't the practice to make multiple copies of Scripture to ensure their preservation in written form. (more on that in the next paragraphs) Indeed, as I pointed out in my original post (#145), most likely due to Roman persecution, any original documents were lost. We can also reasonably infer that it wasn't the practice to "replace" the originals with exact copies during this period of persecution, since the word of mouth was considered just as reliable. Now, as we all know, the word of mouth isn't as reliable as writing something down, *normally speaking*. However, as Christians, we are free to believe (and I think should believe) that the Holy Spirit can guide men and protect them from error, thus, I believe it's reasonable to conclude that during the time of persecution (and relative disorganization of the Church, a period of about AD 100 to AD 300), that after any original documents were lost due to persecution, that the men of the Church kept a "record" of the Gospels and Epistles through word of mouth, that is, through teaching it to new converts, then they taught it to new ones, and so on. Then later, as the Church became more organized and was able to preserve some written history (AD 300-AD 350) the Gospels and Epistles that were committed to memory during all that time were finally written down. I believe this is a reasonable conclusion since, IMO at least, it's unreasonable to believe that during the time of intense persecution and relative disorganization in the early Church, while people were literally running and hiding for their lives, that they would take the time to meticulously write something down that would probably end up being destroyed anyway once they were caught. At this time, it's more reasonable to believe that they were more interested in spreading the Good News than recording it. A time ripe for corruption of the Word of God, without the protection of the Holy Spirit. Without the protection of Tradition by the Holy Spirit during this time, the Word might very easily have been corrupted. But this was not the case, praise the Lord.

Now, one might argue that this "protection" came in the form of "protected documents", but we have no evidence of this, and indeed, wouldn't it be reasonable to expect that if these "protected documents" survived the greatest assault on Christianity in toto, that they would have survived past the 4th century, when Christians were no longer persecuted? I think it is, thus, since we have very few documents from the period in question (~AD 100 to AD 300), we must conclude they were destroyed, and the only way during that time period to preserve their message was through word of mouth.

One may question, "Well if the word of mouth was good enough during times of persecution, why isn't it good enough today? Why did the Christians at the time (AD 300-350) write them down then?" I would say that was done to doubly preserve their message, not as a primary source of knowledge. That is, if my conclusions above are reasonable (and I believe they are), the Christians at the time already knew the Message, they just chose to write it down because during that period (AD 300-350), since persecutions were mostly gone, they had the time to actually look at the works they had, and, during that period, they began to argue which were actually Scripture and which weren't. Thus, to foster profitable dialog to that end, the Scriptures were written down, so they could be compared to one another with relative ease. It wasn't for the purposes of primary knowledge however, as again, they were all known already by word of mouth by that time.

In conclusion, to me, this points to the role of Tradition in those times as of equal importance (if not arguably greater importance, although, to be clear, I'm not making that assertion, I conclude it was of equal importance) to Scripture. One can argue that this "tradition" became corrupted in later centuries, but the only way one could make such a claim would be to use, IMO, circular logic, i.e. point to Scripture and say, "That Tradition violates Scripture", when it was "that Tradition" that preserved Scripture in the first place.

So, if Tradition played a role equal to Scripture in the early Church, why shouldn't it continue to do so today? This is the question I still am left with, whenever someone says, "Tradition X violates Scripture".

Me: How do we know any Bible we have today is an accurate representation of what was written in the first and second centuries? We have no “original documents” to verify such a claim, independently, apart from the Church. I do believe that the oldest existing document we have from the first century is a fragment of the book of Matthew. (or some Gospel, I can’t remember which one with 100% accuracy).

Quix:

We can know that by several means . . . .

1. Holy Spirit within us is our witness.

This is a fair point, I will (must) grant, however, by your own post, this cannot be the only reason, since, as you (seem to) know innately, as human beings created by God with the capacity to reason, we must have reasons that convince us apart from this. That is, anyone can claim the Holy Spirit "witnesses" to anything. Anyone can claim the Holy Spirit teaches, literally, anything. It's an easy claim to make, but not one that should be taken lightly, especially if there are no other reasons to believe in something other than, "The Holy Spirit tells me so".

This isn't to diminish the role of the Holy Spirit. It's actually meant to take the inspiration thereof seriously, for if one casually assigns authority to something simply because of the claim of inspiration, and no other reasons, then it actually cheapens God's work in us, here on Earth.

2. There is adequate scholarship to demonstrate that what we have is QUITE CLOSE ENOUGH to the original artifacts that we can be confident that what the Scriptures we have tell us about forming an eternal relationship with God are reliable.

To which scholarship do you refer? Does this scholarship rely upon independent sources, apart from any testimony of the Church?

3. It IS logical, as well, that God would protect HIS WRITTEN WORD sufficiently to show us how to relate to Him; gain eternal life and relate to one another.

I agree that God has done a perfect job in protecting His Written Word throughout the centuries. But again, this doesn't really address the fundamental point, "How did God protect His Written Word during the time of persecution of the Romans?"

We certainly can't point to any "protected copies" during that time period (AD 100-AD 300), as that was the point of my original question: There exist no complete copies of the Canon of Scripture during that time period. So, God must have protected His Word in oral form, transmitting it via the traditional teachings of the early Christians, until the time period of the 4th century (AD 300), when it was finally written down, in complete form.

4. It is plausible, given His fierce exhortations against idolatry that He would have caused the original artifacts to disappear lest they become idols as well.

That's a very interesting point, one that seems to agree with what I wrote earlier, to whit, "I believe everything happens for a reason, God’s reasons, and the fact that the originals were lost (probably due to persecution by the Roman Empire during that period), is, IMO, God’s message to us today to not rely on the “Bible alone”, but rather, to rely on the men and women He has chosen to teach us about the faith, through various charisms, for our PERFECTION (cf Eph 4:1-13)."

5. It is logical that He would have insured that there were a diversity of secondary artifacts, fragments of some diversity of location and origin so that no one little clubby clique could claim any RELIGIOUS NOR SPIRITUAL monopoly.

Which, I believe, is what happened. It's just how we define "clubby clique" here which seems to be the point of dispute. What we can see from the historical record is, that during the 4th century (AD 300-399), there were a diversity of churches spread out all throughout the known world at the time, some of which had copies of some books/epistles, some of which had copies of others. They all had their own opinions about which were Scripture and which weren't. It doesn't appear that until the year 397, at the Council of Carthage, did there come to be any agreement about which ones of these books were actually Scripture. But that's really a side issue (as we aren't really discussing the formation of the Canon, rather, the accuracy of Scripture). The point is that, I believe, we don't have any one local church possessing the entire Canon during the time period AD 100-AD 397, thus, we have no way of verifying that all those Scriptures that composed the Canon were indeed an accurate representation of what was taught during the time period of AD 100-AD 300. IOW, there don't exist any copies during the time period AD 100 - AD 300 (especially not during the time period AD 100-AD 200) that we can go back and verify are the same as what we had after AD 397. The only way we can know the Scriptures after the 4th century are the same Scriptures taught during AD 100-AD 300 is through the living witness of the Church. It's either that, or again, we are left with nagging doubt if we reject the Tradition of the Church in that regard.

6. The Scriptures we have are congruent with the Old Testament description of God The Father.

As I pointed out to roamer, the OT comes under similar scrutiny as, when NYer pointed out "How do we know the 10 Commandments are accurately represented?" in her reply to me. That is, certainly we have the DSS to verify the OT independent of any Tradition from the 1st century onward, however, BEFORE the 1st century, we only have Jewish tradition to verify their (and therefore the entire OT's) veracity. So again, if one rejects the equal role tradition has played in the preservation of Scripture, one must also reject Jewish tradition for similar reasons, and thus, we have no way of knowing for certain that the NT "represents the OT description of God the Father" accurately.

7. The Scriptures we have are congruent with reality about man; the heart of man; man's tendencies in relationships; man's tendencies toward arrogance and idolatry . . .

True, however there are many works throughout the centuries that also bear accurate witness about the realities of man, but are not necessarily inspired. Simply accurately describing the state of man, his wretched tendency towards evil, and evil practices, doesn't necessarily mean, by itself, a work is divinely inspired.

8.The Scriptures we have are congruent with history and prophetically have been validated repeatedly in terms of fulfilled prophecy.

Congruent with history, when such comparisons can be made, yes. But this merely makes it a good history book, not necessarily inspired.

As far as fulfilled prophecy goes, yes, that's true with regards to Christ if one again assumes in the first place, the OT is accurate (an assumption one cannot make if one throws out the tradition of the Jews, for reasons I explained above). As far as present (current) events fulfilling NT prophecy, (if you are implying that at all, I can't be sure), well quite frankly that's really such a nebulous claim it's not really relevant to the discussion of the historical accuracy of the NT itself, as it begs the question.

Actually, I'm much more shocked that any group of people with IQs above that of a slug could even FANTASIZE OR PRETEND that the RC edifice and magicsterical has had any serious semblance of a "continual witness" even from 400 AD on. And the idea that they did from Christ chatting with pebble Peter on is beyond hysterically ludicrous.

It is also hysterically ludicrous that any rational RC folks would really buy into the utter unmitigated farce that the RC magicsterical has been a seamless, homogeneous, UNIFIED, STRICTLY KOSHER AND RIGHTEOUS WITNESS even from AD 400 to this . . . in the face of an abundance of historical record to the contrary.

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean here, as even the most radical anti-Catholic states that "the RCC began in the 4th century under Constantine". So even they admit that the Church has been in continuous operation from at least then.

Holy Spirit has been more than adequate in my life to fulfill that role. Sorry so many RC's are so disinclined/unable/unwilling to ear HIM on such scores. Christ died that we might have 1:1 direct fellowship with The Father.

As I pointed out above, one cannot simply rely on the claim, "The Holy Spirit teaches me this", to ground one's faith in something. It invariably makes Him the author of confusion, as anyone can claim that. I believe we are to use our reason as a method of faith, that is, the method of faith is reason, for indeed, as St. Peter exhorts, (1 Peter 3:15) "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:" We must be ready with a (many) *reason* for our faith, which implies a necessity for a fact. The Holy Spirit is not a fact for those who don't believe. Thus, we cannot rely on the simple claim "The Holy Spirit shows me" to convince anyone, of anything, on its own.

It seems to me that the RC magicsterical and edifice have been concocting and fabricating out of thin air all manner of rationalizations to do the opposite--tu construct untold numbers of layers between the individual and God; to construct untold layers of hierarchy and fantasized jr god personages to get between the individual and God.

And on top of such blasphemous heresies as that--they expect us to think that THEIR interpretation of Scripture is the more SOUND one!????

That's about like putting the most faith as young parents in a Jeffry Dahlmer book on the care and feeding of sons to prevent child abuse and canibalism.

This portion of your reply, with all due respect, to me is a self serving diatribe, that has no bearing on the original question, "How do we know the Scriptures we have today are an accurate representation of what was taught back in the 1st century?". IOW, you seem to be saying here that "I refuse to entertain the question anymore, as it forces me to look harder than I'd like at the reality of what faced early Christians". For the same reason, I shall not reply to your post 1310, as anything there that did address my original question is answered here, and anything that didn't, seems to be the same kind of obfuscation described above.

Why would God allow his Word to be corrupted to the point that people had to rely on the RCC to interpret it for them?

It appears that my original question may have been a bit ambiguous, as roamer also had a similar question. The crux of my question is this, "How do we know that the Scriptures we have today are accurately preserved (not taught about), if we reject the testimony of the Church?" That is, during the time period of AD 100-AD 300, we don't have full copies of the written Word, so how can anyone independently verify their veracity?

If God can give the RCC divine direction to interpret his Word correctly, then he certainly can give those copying the NT source documents divine direction to avoid corruption.

I agree. However, again, we have no way of independently verifying the Scriptures we have today. So, if we are to believe the NT we have today is an accurate representation of what was taught (believed) between AD 100- AD 300, then we must either just accept it as an axiom (a rather weak claim), or accept the witness of the Church. IOW, we have to find a church that has existed since AD 90, and the Catholic Church is only a handful of such churches that could possibly make such a claim.

If God allowed the NT source documents to be corrupted, how do you know he isn’t allowing the RCC to misinterpret it?

But that's really the point. I don't believe the NT is corrupted, but I must have a *reason* to believe this. I can't simply claim, "the Holy Spirit tells me so", for anyone can make that claim. And indeed, as I pointed out earlier, St. Peter exhorts us to have a *reason* for our faith (cf 1 Peter 3:15) , which necessarily implies a fact. For those who don't believe, the Holy Spirit isn't a fact. Thus, to convince anyone of anything with regards to theology, we must have a reason apart from this relatively simplistic claim.

If the NT source was corrupted and the RCC was misinterpreting it unknowingly, how would you know the truth?

An interesting question. I must admit, I don't have an answer to that one at this time, however, this doesn't negate my original question (at least for me). For myself, I cannot simply just put the question (How do I know that the Scriptures we have today are accurate?) down, simply because of the possibility that the only institution I can historically see preserving it at the time (AD 100-AD 300) might have corrupted it. To me, while the point you make is a valid one, it doesn't get me any closer to the the answer to the question, "How do I know the Scriptures are accurate?", since the point you raise could also be used against any verification scheme I may posit. That is, let's say the "RCC" did corrupt the NT during the period of AD 100- AD 300, do I have any other way of verifying it?

I certainly can't verify it relying solely on the reason, "The Holy Spirit tells me so", for reasons I explained above. I also can't rely on the claim "it's self authenticating" because of the reason I explained in my #145, which was, that if the entire NT is corrupted, then it could still "authenticate itself", it would simply be "authenticating error" though.

If you cannot trust the foundation a tower is built on, you cannot trust the tower.

Very true. This is why I believe God inspired the human author to write, "But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." (1 Tim 3:15)

If God has given the RCC the divine direction necessary to interpret corrupted NT sources, then the RCC has enough divine direction that they don’t need the NT sources.

Again, I'm not talking about "interpretation" of the Scriptures, I'm merely talking about preservation thereof here. However, you do raise a salient point in the portion, "then the RCC has enough divine direction that they don’t need the NT sources."

Two points to consider here. The Church never claims to be "based on" the Scriptures, for the Church claims that She came before the Scriptures (at least the NT portion). So, the Church doesn't "need" the NT sources, insomuch as She isn't based on them.

But the Church does teach that we "need" the NT, for many long and complex reasons, but for what can simply be defined by what St. Paul wrote already to St. Timothy, in the (now famous, if not hotly debated passage) 2 Tim 3:16-17. She teaches that the Scriptures are for our edification and learning, and that they do indeed "complete" us. So I'm not trying to suggest that the Church teaches the Scriptures aren't necessary; I was only questioning how one can know they are accurate apart from the witness of the Church.

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