Replies

Since that is a simple question, my point is this. The notion of Sola Scriptura is false. It was not a belief of the Early Church nor can you find it in the NT. So my point is when someone today says I read the Bible and I deduce that it means 1 and someone says oh I think is means 2 and the Church’s Faith says no, it is not 1 or 2 because the Church’s Faith is, for the sake of argument, 3. Then you have a problem.

As Pelikan {Written while he was a Protestant; he later returned to his Slavic roots and became Orthodox] notes “The List of canonical or apostolic books continued to fluctuate for centuries, what did not fluctuate was Doctrine, precisely formulated [he is referring to Doctrine] against the heresies prescribed in this chapter” [The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition. pp. 114-115]

Pelikan continues and notes that the notion of sola scriptura is not found in the anti-Nicene Church, but neither was there Sola Tradition. Still, Pelikan points out as the same time, it is essential to note that doctrinal, liturgical and exegetical material of quite different sorts were all lumped into the term tradition, from the Christological interpretation of certain OT passages and other interpretations and the process of accretion continued beyond the anti-Nicene Church.

Pelikan states regarding St. Ireneaus that for him God in Christ was both the origin and content of tradition. And with respect to this Tradition, Pelikan [p.116] continues with stating that so palpable was this apostolic tradition that even if the apostles had not left behind the Scriptures as normative evidence of their doctrine, the Church would still be in position to follow “The structures of tradition handed on to those to whom they had committed the Churches[Iren, Against Heresies 3.4.1]

So my logic is I believe Christ founded a Church and that the Holy Spirit would guide the Apostles to carry on the message of Christ and that the successors of the Apostles, who received the message from the Apostles [those men reported in Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Ireneaus, and those men themselves given they believed the same Apostolic Tradition] and then those same Church Fathers cited previously, etc would still be guided by the Holy Spirit to preserve the orthodox faith.

“Since that is a simple question, my point is this. The notion of Sola Scriptura is false. It was not a belief of the Early Church nor can you find it in the NT. “

1. You don’t seem to understand what Sola Scriptura actually means.
2. Sola Ecclesia isn’t in the Bible.

“So my logic is I believe Christ founded a Church and that the Holy Spirit would guide the Apostles to carry on the message of Christ and that the successors of the Apostles,”

1. So your “logic” and “belief” are the basis of truth? Your Own Personal Interpretation of Truth (YOPIT).

2. Christ founded an “assembly” a “gathering”. Church is a concept of Germanic origin.

Perhaps this will contribute to accuracy in discussing Sola Scriptura in this thread...

Credit all to JAMES KIEFER...

OBJECTION: The doctrine of Sola Scriptura contradicts itself. For if the doctrine is true, then it ought itself to be stated in Holy Scripture. But in fact it is not.
REPLY: We are offered an argument of the following form:
(1) Sola Scriptura = “All true propositions are stated in Holy Scripture.”
(2) Sola Scriptura is not stated in Holy Scripture.
(3) Therefore, Sola Scriptura is not a true proposition.
But in fact, the argument should be of the form:
(1) Sola Scriptura = “All truths necessary to salvation are stated in Holy Scripture.”
(2) Sola Scriptura is not stated in Holy Scripture.
(3) Therefore, Sola Scriptura is not a truth necessary to salvation.
And to this conclusion I, for one, have no objection. I cheerfully look forward to seeing many of my Roman Catholic friends in Heaven, despite their regrettable error in holding certain propositions to be true, and their still more regrettable error in holding them to be essential parts of the Catholic faith. My comments on Line (2) of the argument appear below.

OBJECTION: The proposition Sola Scriptura contradicts church history, in that no one ever asserted the doctrine before Martin Luther invented it.

REPLY: I propose to provide, in the following lines, evidence to the contrary.

Let us consider the view of St. Thomas Aquinas, the theologian whom most Roman Catholics regard as the greatest systematic expounder of their position. In discussing the Creeds, he writes as follows:

Objection: It would seem that it is unsuitable for the articles of faith to be embodied in a creed. Because Holy Writ is the rule of faith, to which no addition or subtraction can lawfully be made, since it is written (Deut. 4:2): “You shall not add to the word that I speak to you, neither shall you take away from it.” Therefore it was unlawful to make a creed as a rule of faith, after Holy Writ had once been published.
Reply: The truth of faith is contained in Holy Writ, diffusely, under various modes of expression, and sometimes obscurely, so that, in order to gather the truth of faith from Holy Writ, one needs long study and practice, which are unattainable by all those who require to know the truth of faith, many of whom have no time for study, being busy with other affairs. And so it was necessary to gather together a clear summary from the sayings of Holy Writ, to be proposed to the belief of all. This indeed was no addition to Holy Writ, but something gathered from it. (Summa Theologica, Second Part of the Second Part, Question 1, Article 9)

Thomas, you will notice, does not say that in order to learn the truth of faith from Holy Writ, one needs to have an infallible or authoritative interpreter, but only “long study and practice.” His position seems clear enough. We gain our knowledge of the revealed truth from the Scriptures, just as we gain our knowledge of, say, the facts of chemistry by experiment and observation. And someone might argue that, ideally, the best way to teach someone chemistry is to hand him some beakers and test tubes and Bunsen burners and say, “Go to work. Examine things. Observe them. Heat them and chill them and combine them and weigh and measure them and draw your own conclusions.” And the speaker would have a point. However, since life is short, we provide the student with a short-cut in the form of a textbook which contains a summary of the results of centuries of experiment and observation by thousands of chemists. Similarly, it might be argued that the ideal way of teaching someone the truth of faith is to hand him a Bible and say: “Start reading. See what it says, and draw your own conclusions.” However, since life is short, we provide a summary of the Christian faith in the form of the Apostles’s Creed or the Nicene Creed.

But note that if the student asks, after reading the text, “How do we know that an atom of oxygen has a nucleus with eight electrons surrounding it, two in the inner shell and six in the outer?”, the answer must ultimately take the form of an appeal to experiment and observation. Simply saying, “We know because the text says so,” is not good enough. The authority of the text rests on its claim to be a faithful summary of the results of experimentation. Similarly, the validity of the Creed rests upon its being an accurate representation of the truth of faith as taught in Holy Scripture. And this, according to Thomas, because the truth of faith is revealed to us nowhere else. Sola Scriptura!

Again, in another place, Thomas writes as follows:

Some say than even if man had not sinned, the Son of Man would have become incarnate. Others assert the contrary, and seemingly our assent ought rather to be given to this opinion.
For such things as spring from God’s will, and beyond the creature’s due, can be made known to us only through being revealed in the Sacred Scripture, in which the Divine Will is made known to us. Hence, since everywhere in the Sacred Scripture the sin of the first man is assigned as the reason of the Incarnation, it is more in accordance with this to say that the work of the Incarnation was ordained by God as a remedy for sin; so that, had sin not existed, the Incarnation would not have been. And yet the power of God is not limited to this; – even had sin not existed, God could have become incarnate. (Summa Theologica, Third Part, Question 1, Article 3)

Here also, the position of Thomas seems clear. Some truths we can know simply by “figuring them out.” (Thus, although we learn from Numbers 7:86 that 12 times 10 = 120, and from the rest of the chapter some other parts of the 12 times table, we would be able to figure them out without a special revelation!) Other truths we can know only if God reveals them to us. And if a truth is of the second kind, we can know it only if God has revealed it in the Holy Scriptures, since that is where His revelation of His will to us is to be found. Sola Scriptura!

I might rest my case here, since Thomas Aquinas is certainly earlier than Martin Luther. However, there are Roman Catholics who do not find Aquinas to their liking, and some of them might be tempted to say that they have always suspected Thomas of being a Protestant at heart, and that all I have shown is that the Lutheran heresy was already at work a few centuries before Luther himself arrived on the scene. Accordingly, I present a few quotations from Christian writers of an earlier period, to show that the view known as Sola Scriptura is very early and widespread indeed. An asterisk by a name as printed below marks the writer as a Universal Doctor (more or less the theological equivalent of a Nobel Prize winner).

I confess that I have not gathered these quotations myself, but have relied on the work of others.

ST. IRENAEUS OF LYONS (130-202)

We have known the method of our salvation by no other means than those by whom the gospel came to us; which gospel they truly preached; but afterward, by the will of God, they delivered to us in the Scriptures, to be for the future the foundation and pillar of our faith. (Adv. H. 3:1)
Read more diligently that gospel which is given to us by the apostles; and read more diligently the prophets, and you will find every action and the whole doctrine of our Lord preached in them. (Adv. H. 4:66)

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (150?-213?)
They that are ready to spend their time in the best things will not give over seeking for truth until they have found the demonstration from the Scriptures themselves. (Stromata 7:16:3)

ORIGEN (185?-252)

In which (the two Testaments) every word that appertains to God may be required and discussed; and all knowledge may be understood out of them. But if anything remain which the Holy Scripture does not determine, no other third Scripture ought to be received for authorizing any knowledge or doctrine; but that which remains we must commit to the fire, that is, we will reserve it for God. For in this present world God would not have us to know all things. (Orig. in Lev., hom. 5, 9:6)
We know Jesus Christ is God, and we seek to expound the words which are spoken, according to the dignity of the person. Wherefore it is necessary for us to call the Scriptures into testimony; for our meanings and enarrations, without these witnesses, have no credibility. (Tractatus 5 in Matt.)
No man ought, for the confirmation of doctrines, to use books which are not canonized Scriptures. (Tract. 26 in Matt.)
As all gold, whatsoever it be, that is without the temple, is not holy; even so every notion which is without the divine Scripture, however admirable it may appear to some, is not holy, because it is foreign to Scripture. (Hom. 25 in Matt.)
Consider how imminent their danger is who neglect to study the Scriptures, in which alone the discernment of this can be ascertained. (in Rom. 10:16)

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE (200?-258)

Whence comes this tradition? Does it descend from the Lord’s authority, or from the commands and epistles of the apostles? For those things are to be done which are there written. ... If it be commanded in the gospels or the epistles and Acts of the Apostles, then let this holy tradition be observed. (Ep. 74 ad Pompeium)

HIPPOLYTUS ( -230?)

There is one God, whom we do not otherwise acknowledge, brethren, but out of the Holy Scriptures. For as he that would possess the wisdom of this world cannot otherwise obtain it than to read the doctrines of the philosophers; so whosoever of us will exercise piety toward God cannot learn this elsewhere but out of the Holy Scriptures. Whatsoever, therefore, the Holy Scriptures do preach, that let us know, and whatsoever they teach, that let us understand. (Hip. tom. 3, Bibliotheque Patrium, ed. Colonna)

ST. ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA* (300?-375)

The Holy Scriptures, given by inspiration of God, are of themselves sufficient toward the discovery of truth. (Orat. adv. Gent., ad cap.)
The Catholic Christians will neither speak nor endure to hear any thing in religion that is a stranger to Scripture; it being an evil heart of immodesty to speak those things which are not written. (Exhort. ad Monachas)

ST. AMBROSE OF MILAN* (340?-396)

How can we use those things which we do not find in the Holy Scriptures? (Ambr. Offic., 1:23)
I read that he is the first, I read that he is not the second; they who say he is the second, let them show it by reading. (Ambr. Offic., in Virginis Instit. 11)

ST. HILARY OF POITIERS (315-367)

O emperor! I admire your faith, which desires only according to those things that were written. ... You seek the faith, O emperor. Hear it then, not from new writings, but from the books of God. Remember that it is not a question of philosophy, but a doctrine of the gospel. (Ad Constant. Augus. 2:8:2)

ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA (330?-395)

Let a man be persuaded of the truth of that alone which has the seal of the written testimony. (De Anima et Resurrectione, 1)

ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM (315?-386)

Not even the least of the divine and holy mysteries of the faith ought to be handed down without the divine Scriptures. Do not simply give faith to me speaking these things to you except you have the proof of what I say from the divine Scriptures. For the security and preservation of our faith are not supported by ingenuity of speech, but by the proofs of the divine Scriptures. (Cat. 4)

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM OF ANTIOCH AND BYZANTIUM* (347-407)

[The Scripture], like a safe door, denies an entrance to heretics, guarding us in safety in all things we desire, and not permitting us to be deceived. ...Whoever uses not the Scriptures, but comes in otherwise, that is, cuts out for himself a different and unlawful way, the same is a thief. (Homily 59, in Joh. 2:8)
Formerly it might have been ascertained by various means which was the true church, but at present there is no other method left for those who are willing to discover the true church of Christ but by the Scriptures alone. And why? Because heresy has all outward observances in common with her. If a man, therefore, be desirous of knowing the true church, how will he be able to do it amid so great resemblance, but by the Scriptures alone? Wherefore our Lord, foreseeing that such a great confusion of things would take place in the latter days, ordered the Christians to have recourse to nothing but the Scriptures.
The man of God could not be perfect without the Scriptures. [Paul says to Timothy:] “You have the Scriptures: if you desire to learn anything, you may learn it from them.” But if he writes these things to Timothy, who was filled with the Holy Spirit, how much more must we think these things spoken to us. (Hom. 9 in 2 Tim. 1:9)
It is absurd, while we will not trust other people in pecuniary affairs, but choose to reckon and calculate for ourselves, that in matters of far higher consequence we should implicitly follow the opinions of others, especially as we possess the most exact and perfect rule and standard by which to regulate our several inquiries: I mean the regulation of the divine laws. I, therefore, could wish that all of you would reject what this or that man says, and that you would investigate all these things in the Scriptures. (Hom. 13, 4:10 ad fin. in 2 Cor.)

THEOPHILUS OF ALEXANDRIA ( -412)

It is the part of a devilish spirit to think any thing to be divine that is not in the authority of the Holy Scriptures. (Ep. Pasch. 2)

ST. JEROME* (342?-420)

The church of Christ, possessing churches in all the world, is united by the unity of the Spirit, and has the cities of the law, the prophets, the gospels, and the apostles. She has not gone forth from her boundaries, that is, from the Holy Scriptures. (Comm. in Micha. 1:1)
Those things which they make and find, as it were, by apostolical tradition, without the authority and testimony of Scripture, the word of God smites. (ad Aggai 1)
As we deny not those things that are written, so we refuse those things that are not written. That God was born of a virgin we believe, because we read it; that Mary did marry after she was delivered we believe not, because we do not read it. (Adv. Helvidium)

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO* (354-430)

In those things which are clearly laid down in Scripture, all those things are found which pertain to faith and morals. (De Doct. Chr. 2:9)
Whatever you hear from them [the Scriptures], let that be well received by you. Whatever is without them refuse, lest you wander in a cloud. (De Pastore, 11)
All those things which in times past our ancestors have mentioned to be done toward mankind and have delivered unto us: all those things also which we see and deliver to our posterity, so far as they pertain to the seeking and maintaining true religion, the Holy Scripture has not passed over in silence. (Ep. 42)
Whatever our Saviour would have us read of his actions and sayings he commanded his apostles and disciples, as his hands, to write. (De Consensu Evang. 1:ult.)
Let them [the Donatists] demonstrate their church if they can, not by the talk and rumor of the Africans; not by the councils of their own bishops; not by the books of their disputers; not by deceitful miracles, against which we are cautioned by the word of God, but in the prescript of the law, in the predictions of the prophets, in the verses of the Psalms, in the voice of the Shepherd himself, in the preaching and works of the evangelists; that is, in all canonical authorities of the sacred Scriptures. (De Unit. Eccl. 16)

ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA (380?-444)

That which the Holy Scriptures have not said, by what means should we receive and account it among those things that are true? (Glaphyrarum in Gen. 2)

THEODORET OF CYRRHUS (393?-458?)

By the Holy Scriptures alone am I persuaded. (Dial. 1, Atrept.)
I am not so bold as to affirm anything which the sacred Scripture passes in silence. (Dial. 2, Asynchyt.)
We ought not to seek those things that are passed in silence, but rest in the things which are written. (in Gen. Q. 45)

ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS (675?-749?)

We receive and acknowledge and reverence all things which are delivered in the law, the prophets, the apostles and evangelists, and we seek after nothing beyond these. (de Fid. Ortho. 1:1:1)

CONCLUSION: The doctrine of Sola Scriptura, far from being an invention of Martin Luther, is taken for granted by St. Thomas Aquinas, and is a point agreed upon by the writers of the patristic age.

Since that is a simple question, my point is this. The notion of Sola Scriptura is false. It was not a belief of the Early Church nor can you find it in the NT.

Who know what your idea of Sola Scriptura is, but what i hold and can substantiate is that it is abundantly evidenced that in Scripture we see that as written, Scripture became the assured Word of God and the transcendent standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims.

Under the Roman Catholic model, despite your idealism, the Roman magisterium is the supreme authority which defines what Scripture is and means, and those is rejects are to be rejected, under the premise that she is the steward of Scripture.

But which is not what Scripture teaches, as instead the church began in dissent from those who were the stewards of Scripture, following a holy man in the desert who are insects, and an Itinerant Preacher, both of whom were rejected by the magisterium. Whom the Lord reproved by Scripture, and established His claims upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power.

So my point is when someone today says I read the Bible and I deduce that it means 1 and someone says oh I think is means 2 and the Church’s Faith says no, it is not 1 or 2 because the Church’s Faith is, for the sake of argument, 3. Then you have a problem.

Indeed you have a problem. The magisterium says Jesus did not have valid authority, and thus you must obey it, while those who believed Scriptural substantiation followed Him and thus the church began, but not one under the premise of the magisterium having assured veracity as the supreme authority over Scripture.

The magisterium says Mary was sinless, a perpetual virgin, and bodily assumed into Heaven, and we are to pray to her, but none which the Scripture teaches about Mary. But you must obey it, and are not to engage in objective examination as to ascertain the veracity of Rome's official teaching. Thus you are like a cult.

As Pelikan notes ... what did not fluctuate was Doctrine...

Which can be good or bad, good as holding to Scriptural truths, bad as in perpetuating extraScriptural traditions as doctrine.

Pelikan continues and notes that the notion of sola scriptura is not found in the anti-Nicene Church, but neither was there Sola Tradition.

Which was a problem, and since you invoke Pelikan then why not give him the same weight when he says (in "The Riddle of Roman Catholicism"),

"Recent research on the Reformation entitles us to sharpen it and say that the Reformation began because the reformers were too catholic in the midst of a church that had forgotten its catholicity..."

“The reformers were catholic because they were spokesmen for an evangelical tradition in medieval catholicism, what Luther called "the succession of the faithful." The fountainhead of that tradition was Augustine (d. 430). His complex and far-reaching system of thought incorporated the catholic ideal of identity plus universality, and by its emphasis upon sin and grace it became the ancestor of Reformation theology. … All the reformers relied heavily upon Augustine. They pitted his evangelical theology against the authority of later church fathers and scholastics, and they used him to prove that they were not introducing novelties into the church, but defending the true faith of the church.”

“...To prepare books like the Magdeburg Centuries they combed the libraries and came up with a remarkable catalogue of protesting catholics and evangelical catholics, all to lend support to the insistence that the Protestant position was, in the best sense, a catholic position.

“If we keep in mind how variegated medieval catholicism was, the legitimacy of the reformers' claim to catholicity becomes clear. (Pelikan, pp. 46-47).

"Substantiation for this understanding of the gospel came principally from the Scriptures, but whenever they could, the reformers also quoted the fathers of the catholic church. There was more to quote than their Roman opponents found comfortable" (Pelikan 48-49).

No wonder that no less an authority than Manning, when faced with appeal to antiquity, states,

It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine.... I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. — Most Rev. Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, “The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation,” (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, reprinted with no date), pp. 227-228.

He does not deny Rome has antiquity, but it is what she says it is, regardless of counter claims by the Orthodox or whoever. Which is contrary to your minimization of the magisterium and rosy picture of Catholicism.

so palpable was this apostolic tradition...

That depends upon what is meant. We pass on Scriptural truths, and would continue to do so even if all the Bible's were confiscated. But the problem is that when something assumes a higher authority an Scripture, so that doctrines such as seen in Mariology can be binding, but which are not based upon the weight of Scriptural warrant, but upon the authority of the church.

And again Roman Catholics arguments from tradition to argue in favor of things the EOs reject

So my logic is I believe Christ founded a Church and that the Holy Spirit would guide the Apostles...

But by making the church itself the supreme authority so that extraScriptural traditions can be taught as doctrines, then you assume am assured veracity and power that you do not possess, and which presumption the church began in dissent from.

Correction, my statement "Which is contrary to your minimization of the magisterium and rosy picture of Catholicism" was due my having confused you with another opposing poster beginning with C, and who did minimize of the magisterium and painted a rosy picture of Catholicism. Sorry. .

Thanks for the response. If we look at Luke 24 we see Christ firmly rooting His disciples and opening their minds to Moses, the Prophets and Psalms. We also see in Acts 17 the Bereans searching the Scriptures to examine Paul’s message of salvation.

Fast forward a bit and we see Polycarp in his epistle to the Philippians that what we call the NT Canon today fully exercised in the letter. I am not a fan of posting links but found the below interesting regarding how much Polycarp used the works of the apostles in this letter:

http://www.ntcanon.org/Polycarp.shtml