Every attempted defense of Sola Scriptura falls flat. That's why it must be the starting point.
- sonlitknight
- 6 days ago
- 11 min read
In a discussion between protestants and Catholics, a hundred doctrines and issues can be raised, and each one can splinter off into a hundred rabbit trails. It is very easy to quickly lose control of the discussion if you are not careful.
Conceding up front that most non-Catholic Christians are genuine in their desire to love Jesus, they also, often, are very misled in both their perceptions of Catholicism and in the shortcomings of their own faith traditions. This can be manifested in dozens of ways on dozens of topics but all of them- every single one- grow out of the most flawed and indefensible foundation in the history of Christian thought, discussion and debate. This is the bedrock foundation of all of Protestantism- the Doctrine of Sola Scriptura or "The Bible alone"
It wasn't hyperbole to call it indefensible. It literally cannot be defended. If the Catholic can maneuver the debate strategy into making the protestant defend this foundation, the protestant will ultimately give up in frustration or will begin seriously considering Catholicism. Those really are the only 2 possible outcomes.
Why? Simply put, a logical mind will pretty quickly understand that what Sola Scriptura posits is absurd and what it promises is unworkable.
This seems like a pretty bold statement, I'll admit, but I wouldn't make it if I couldn't prove it. So, I'm going to do 3 things.
First, I'm going to define what Sola Scriptura is as it is classically defined and what, specifically it posits.
Second, I'm going to give a few classic examples of the sleight of hand arguments some will use and why they fall short.
Finally, I will present some very straightforward arguments that prove Sola Scriptura is unworkable in every way.
Sola Scriptura defined
This definition from Wikipedia is largely consistent with any source defining this doctrine (emphasis mine)
Sola scriptura (Latin for 'by scripture alone') is a Christian theological doctrine held by most Protestant Christian denominations, in particular the Lutheran and Reformed traditions, that posits the Bible as the sole infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice. The Catholic Church considers it heresy and generally the Orthodox churches consider it to be contrary to the phronema of the Church.
While the scriptures' meaning is mediated through many kinds of subordinate authority—such as the ordinary teaching offices of a church, the ecumenical creeds, councils of the Catholic Church, or even personal special revelation—sola scriptura in contrast rejects any infallible authority other than the Bible. In this view, all non-scriptural authority is derived from the authority of the scriptures or is independent of the scriptures, and is, therefore, subject to reform when compared to the teaching of the Bible.
These reformers, such as Luther, went on to expand that any individual with his/her own Bible could easily read, understand and interpret the scriptures with such ease and clarity, as to apprehend everything needed for salvation, through their own efforts and without need of the assistance of any Pope, Priest or Council.
It is important to understand that Sola Scriptura did not break any ground in declaring the Scriptures to be Inspired, inerrant, profitable, authoritative and sacred. All Christians have believed all those things from day 1.
Sola Scriptura goes beyond that in positing Scripture to be;
Infallible rather than merely inerrant.
Authority rather than Authoritative.
Materially sufficient to satisfy all requirements of Salvation
Practically sufficient due to its Perspicuity and ease of interpretation.
The Sole rule of faith.
The literal Word of God rather than merely an image of God's Word.
In conclusion, Sola Scriptura asserts that any and all truths unto salvation are found in Scripture, explicitly or implied, in such a way that any believer can extract those truths by only his/her own efforts.
Nowhere does Scripture even suggest this but some people are misled into believing it by faulty but good-sounding arguments.
The bad arguments and why they fail.
The concession approach.
It goes something like this-
"I will only agree to debate you if you agree to use only the Bible"
Why it fails.
It's a circular argument fallacy. The premise is found in the conclusion. He is literally asking you to enter into a debate on whether or not the Bible is the only source, by expecting you to concede the premise before the debate starts.
It's a burden of proof fallacy. The person making the assertion must prove the assertion, not expect his opponent to disprove it. It would be like him expecting me to prove that I have never owned a pair of brown shoes.
His own syllogism falls apart if he cannot prove it. A = B and B = C, thus A must equal C. If Sola Scriptura is a necessary rule of faith and all necessary rules of faith are found in Scripture, the concept of Sola Scriptura must be shown from Scripture! It's his own rule!
Ask me to concede your premise up front is a tacit admission that you cannot make your case.
The Word of God argument
Scripture is the only Word of God we have so only Scripture can be relied on as the final authority.
Why it fails.
This is a classic example of a fallacy of Equivocation. It is a clever turn of language that conflates a single use of a term into the exclusive use of that term. It turns a figurative use into a literal use.
Let's look at an example.
What is this?
Most people would have no problem saying, "This is John in front of the Eiffel tower" and it would not have to be explained to them that, literally speaking, this is a picture of John in front of the Eiffel tower. It's a very good picture, clear and good definition.
It's still just a picture. It has all the limitations a picture has.
It cannot walk
It cannot talk
It cannot explain itself
It cannot answer questions or settle disagreements.
In short, this picture is of no value to you at all if you don't know who John is or what the Eiffel tower is, and you cannot get that information from the picture. It sounds like I'm making silly arguments here, but people often are not willing to make the same distinctions about Scripture.
This is a picture of me in front of the Eiffel tower but if someone photoshopped a Zebra into the picture, they have changed the picture from what it originally was.
How does all this extrapolate to Scripture?
In Christian parlance, Scripture is often described as the inspired Word of God. It's a nice rhetorical device that people draw all kinds of absurd conclusions from. One of those conclusions is that Scripture is the only means by which God's Word is transmitted to us. There is not one verse of scriptural support for that contention. Don't believe me? Ask anyone to produce a single verse of Scripture that states that God's Word is expressed only through Scripture? I will give $1000 to anyone who can produce such a verse.
Your Bible, is text on a page, bound by a leather cover. It is not God. It is not alive. It is not Divine and it is certainly not the Word of God in the literal sense. The Word of God is only extracted from Scripture, from Books that are written by the Church, canonized by the church, translated by the church and exegeted by the church. In ever way, at every step, the church stands as the witness and the Bible stands as testimony. The Bible, itself tells us this.
Revelation Chapter 1
1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants what must soon take place; and he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written therein; for the time is near.
4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia:
Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. 7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, every one who pierced him; and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
9 I John, your brother, who share with you in Jesus the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet 11 saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Per′gamum and to Thyati′ra and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to La-odice′a.”
Never before Sola Scriptura or since, has it ever been suggested that the testimony outranks the witness. That is what Sola Scriptura, as a doctrine, does.
So, what does the Bible actually tell us about the Word of God?
First, the Word of God, ultimately, is a person.
John 1
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God; 3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.
9 The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. 11 He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. 15 (John bore witness to him, and cried, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.’”) 16 And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only Son,who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.
Secondly, the Word of God is, many times, referred to as something spoken and heard rather than written and read.
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Matthew 4:4
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.
Matthew 7:24
But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.
Luke 11:28
1 Thessalonians 2:
13 And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.
Luke 10:16
16 “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
Thirdly, the notion that everything taught by Jesus is only in the Bible is refuted by the Bible itself.
John 21
24 This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things; and we know that his testimony is true.
25 But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
Fourth, The Bible says that the Church is the final authority.
Matthew 18
15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
1 Timothy 3
15 if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.
The 2 Timothy 3 Non Sequitur
16 All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Usually, someone will just drop this quote, claim it proves Sola Scriptura and call it a day. It doesn't. In fact, this prooftext doesn't prove anything that Catholics do not already believe.
Scripture is inspired by God (the phrase used is God-breathed)? Yea, we already know that.
Profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and training and equipping? Yea, we were using it for that for 1500 years before the first protestant even came along.
Thanks for giving us a prooftext that confirms what we already know.
Now, please produce one that shows that Scripture is materially and practically sufficient. That doesn't just mean that we don't need a church to interpret Scripture. It means we don't need one to write it, translate it, index it, canonize it and exegete it.
Good luck.
Before the First Bible was even made, there were 38 Popes. Before the last book was even written, there were 4 Popes.
If the Bible is the sole rule of faith, how did we have a church for 350 years before we had a Bible?
Straightforward arguments against Sola Scriptura
How can the Bible alone be the sole rule of faith when the church existed for 350 years before the first Bible and for about 65 years before the last book to make it into the Bible were even written?
Using Scripture alone, tell me the authors of the Gospels and Hebrews?
Using Scripture alone. tell me the 27 canonical books of the New Testament in order.
Using Scripture alone, defend the protestant canon of 66 books.
Using Scripture alone, defend protestant translations such as the KJV and the NIV that don't appear until hundreds of years later. Explain why the KJV has had so many revisions.
Using Scripture alone, explain Matthew 18:15 and 2 Timothy 3:14. Explain 1 Timothy 3:15-16 and 1 Thessalonians 2:13 and 2 Thessalonians 2:15.
Explain why you follow so many things that came from the Catholic church that cannot be found explicitly in Scripture.
The Word Trinity
The Word Bible
The dates to celebrate Christmas and Easter
The chapters and verse designations in Scripture
Explain how Scripture acts as a Divine authority when it cannot speak, decide, rule, reward or give consequences. How is giving human and Divine attributes to a printed page not idolatry?
Was John inspired or only his pen? Was Paul inspired or only his pen?
Sola Scriptura fails historically because it was never believed or practiced by the early church and the church gave us a canonized, indexed, translated Bible. Sola Scriptura fails logically because an inanimate object cannot settle disputes between persons over that object. Sola Scriptura fails Biblically because there is zero Scriptural support for this doctrine.
Sola Scriptura is false, heretical and unworkable.
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