Replies

OK, we seems to be going in circles on this. That’s fine. I’m not offended. However, as you know, my time is not unlimited, so I must resist the temptation to stay on one point indefinitely, especially when past the point of diminishing returns. Are we there yet?

Anyway, a few remaining points to consider:

1. I have only provided extended exegesis for your convenience. It is not unusual for RC readers come to this passage with such powerful filters in place that what should be obvious from the ordinary rules of language is very hard for them to see. I hope I will not be penalized by you for my extraordinary efforts to work past these unfortunate barriers that lie between us.

2. As for 2 Tim 3:16-17, you are hung up on profitable. There is no reason for that. None. It is nothing but a necessary middle link in the chain of Paul’s logic: You have Scripture. It’s God speaking. It gives you benefit in Doctrine, Reproof, Correction, Instruction. In fact, it gives you so much that you will have absolutely everything you need to be a man of God.

So however you want to construct it, that’s what Reformers mean when they say Sola Scriptura.

See, this is why I think we may be done here. This is so obvious to me that I cannot comprehend your problem with it. That’s fair enough. I have my filters too. The difference is, I know I have filters, and I try to see around them. It has led to some significant and occasionally life-changing insights. Just sayin …

3. In James 1:4, the expressions “teleion” and “teleioi kai holokle¯roi” are not, as standalone words, particularly stronger or weaker than “artios” and the intensified “exaridzo”; they are simply different, and differently used. “artios” deals with qualification, proficiency, sufficiency for a task. The expressions in James are focused on maturity. The scope and focus are different.

Certainly God wants both for us. The Scriptures provide us all we need in terms of content from God, in doctrine, evidence, correction, and instruction. But having all that without the personal patience to learn how to apply it during the difficult times in our life would be worthless.

On the other hand, if we were as patient as Job, and as mature as Methuselah, yet had no teaching content from the mouth of God, what good would our patience do us? I think this is a false dichotomy. The two passages are talking about two different kinds of completeness, and that is why the difference in terms. There is no conflict. The ideas complement each other, and as Spurgeon once said, one should never try to reconcile those who are already good friends.

4. You cite 1Thess 2:13 as if it were a problem for Sola Scriptura. This reflects one of your filters at work. Sola Scriptura does not teach that the spoken word of the Apostles was less authoritative than the written record of their words. That is a misconstruction imposed on us by those who either don’t understand what we are saying or those who wish to knowingly make a straw man. I hold my friends here at FR to be of the former category. I have no doubt you have been told, by people you trust, that we reject all oral tradition. This is a simple falsehood. Consider the passage:

1Thess 2:13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

Who is speaking? Paul. What is he speaking about? Direct, in-person Apostolic teaching. That’s the strongest possible recommendation for the authority and authenticity of a teaching. But the apostles are no longer among us. God has left us with a written record of their teaching. And the doctrines in the Bible have been taught in all the churches from the beginning until this very moment in time. He has not left us without his word. Nor has he buried parts of his word in some remote Central American desert for later discovery. Nor has he left out anything we need for a rule of faith by hiding it away in some lost then rediscovered apostolic oral tradition.

So when he says:

2Th 2:15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.

… he is talking about direct apostolic teaching which he personally delivered. Traditions in RC parlance have evolved to specifically infer certain arcane doctrines patently missing from the public record of the early church. It was a secret? Even though the people of God need to know it to be saved?

No, the burden is on the RC expositor here to show that tradition means anything other than the recorded corpus of apostolic teaching which came to be the canon of Scripture. “Canon,” BTW, means rule of faith. As I said, we do not deny all tradition a priori. But we do believe in the self-consistency of God. He will not tell us one thing in the canonical Scriptures, only to contradict it through some allegedly apostolic whispers “discovered” centuries later.

Furthermore, there is evidence Paul was actively concerned about this possibility and sought to foreclose it:

2Th 2:1-2 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, [2] That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

Here Paul is explicitly providing a principle by which to reject false teaching, whether it comes in “spiritual,” written or oral form. What is the principle? Resonance with known apostolic teaching. To paraphrase, “If what you hear doesn’t line up what you already know from my being with you in person, or this authentic letter from me, don’t believe it.”

Sola Scriptura uses the same, exact principle. We will accept as potentially valuable any tradition, written, oral, or spiritual, as long as it harmonizes well with apostolic teaching as recorded in Scripture. To say otherwise is to misrepresent Sola Scriptura as it is understood by those who profess it. We embrace all valid knowledge. We just give Scripture top billing. Like Athanasius:

“For even the notorious Aetius, who was surnamed godless , vaunts not of the discovering of any mania of his own, but under stress of weather has been wrecked upon Arianism, himself and the persons whom he has beguiled. Vainly then do they run about with the pretext that they have demanded Councils for the faith’s sake; for divine Scripture is sufficient above all things; but if a Council be needed on the point, there are the proceedings of the Fathers, for the Nicene Bishops did not neglect this matter, but stated the doctrine so exactly, that persons reading their words honestly, cannot but be reminded by them of the religion towards Christ announced in divine Scripture.”

See http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2817.htm

Don’t worry. It’s safe to go there. It’s one of your sites. I think.

Peace,