Refuting Sola Scriptura - Why the Bible Alone is Not Sufficient

[BobRyan]

I've never insisted any such thing. I believe that Scripture says what it says. It's the context and interpretation where we disagree.
Bob keeps talking about Mark 7:7-10, insisting it proves Sola Scriptura

When we bring ourselves to look at the actual details in the Mark 7:6-13 text - that is what we see.


Mark 7

7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
8 For laying aside the Commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.
9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
10 For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:
11 But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.
12 And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother;
13 Making the Word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

That is a case of Christ demonstrating the way that the magisterium is hammered "sola scriptura" in the cases where it's traditions and "doctrines of men" are at odds with scripture.


The other option is to entirely ignore those Bible details.

, yet before that, in verses 1-6, he's speaking to the Pharisees specifically about some Pharisaic law, which has no basis in Scripture

I have repeatedly stated that the magisterium of the one true church started by God at Sinai - were in error on a few points of their tradition, doctrine, teaching etc.

Not convinced that this point is where we differ at all.

red herring?

, and ignoring the commandment to Honor your Father and Mother. That's a tradition of men, not a Sacred Tradition. So, we're arguing about what Sacred Tradition is, now.

Your circular reasoning merely begs the question rather than addressing it.

Christ by contrast - proves his point with scripture. You merely resort to the circular argument "you are using the traditions of men not sacred tradition since you are using the traditions of men".

Which is not a proof that Christ gives at all. Rather it is the conclusion that is derived from the proof presented "sola scriptura".

Your circular solution would be like me saying to you "your view is in error because it is in error - I am talking about truth instead".

Such circular arguments do not serve to convince anyone of anything generally speaking, I seriously doubt that you would be convinced by my making such a point in response to your posts.

=============================================

Having said that - my argument here has never been that all doctrine, all tradition, all practice is in error.

I think we all know that.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Goatee]

See, problem with people who use the Bible alone is that they pick and choose verses to suit their own needs, they interpret verses to suit their own needs! They also don't read things in context.

Look at all the 1,000s of different churches that have sprouted up since Luther!! Lots of them are lost! They all interpret in different ways and different meanings!

I am so glad that the Catholic church can guide its flock through 'tradition' through the 'Holy Spirit'.

http://catholicsilentcrusade.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/why-protestant-bible-has-only-66-books.html

 

[Goatee]

Those extra books has been proven that it contains absolutely no pattern found in the 66 books. I've seen the numbers. I took my calculator and checked it out. The numbers match the same as in the original language of the 66 books. No authority required to use a calculator. See for yourself. Nobody is stopping ya. The extra books are absolutly dead in not having any matching patterns of the numerical facts at all. I've seen the matching numbers cause I care enough to learn the truth. You don't care. You blindly follow anything they tell ya. Your authority talk are slick words to scare people back to RCC. I don't need to follow the RCC denomination, the offspring church. I am a member of the universal Catholic church. They don't have the papal systems. The universal church is the true church. Those extra letters claims to be inspired but there's proof now before your very eyes that the holy spirit wasn't among them during writing those letters. Forget the reason why your have 73 books and the papal systems and start over and fresh and catch up with the holy spirit. I think you're a dead horse and I have no need to beat another one.

Waw!!! I didn't realise that God wanted every word in the Bible to be mathematically correct!! Phew! Amazing!

 

[Root of Jesse]

If you think so, show it to us; and don't try that business of taking the word "traditions" and saying this is a blank check for inventing anything that the church wants, out of thin air.

When have I ever said or implied that "saying the word [traditions] is a blank check for inventing anything the church wants, out of thin air."? When has the Church ever said any such thing? The fact is, I haven't, and the Church hasn't.

Fine, but there is no reason for you to claim that you know more about Catholicism than I do. Especially, when you make mistakes about it often.

I don't claim to know more than you do, nor do I boast about my knowledge of my faith. You boast that you know it all, but I can show that you don't.

This isn't about anyone taking gratuitous potshots at the Roman Catholic Church. THE THREAD itself is a denunciation of Protestant belief! You say you aren't putting down or criticizing Protestant beliefs but that's exactly what you are doing (logically enough, considering the topic) and what the thread is all about. You aren't in the habit of starting hostile threads yourself, but neither am I.

Well, I didn't start the thread, so it's not about me. But the thread has made its point, and you (not you personally, necessarily) turn it around to criticize the Church's belief in "Sacred Tradition" (which is different from 'traditions'), so it has become an attack thread. Personally, I could care less if you Protestants want to limit what part of the word of God you take as your belief. But we can show Biblically where Sacred Tradition comes from and why it is valid. If you're going to criticize Catholicism, and there is a lot to criticize, I believe, criticize what deserves to be-bad popes, bad priests, people who take the faith out of context, those who abuse children, and so on. (We're canonizing Junipero Serra this week, and while some think this is because the Church thinks he's perfect, it's not. He was human, but he lived his faith radically, and sacrificed himself in doing so.) Just as we can show Biblical proof of the Marian dogmas, and you like to disagree with our proof, that puts us in a place where the argument is "They put too much emphasis on Mary", which becomes an argument of "How much is "too much" when it comes to the mother of God?".

 

[Albion]

I've been thinking about this subject and about our discussions, and here's the thing, my friend...

Sola Scriptura means taking the Bible and only the Bible as our definitive authority on essential doctrine. It includes reason and experience, but those are only tools to understand the Bible which is the authority. Holy Tradition is something in addition to that.

You persist in saying that believers in Sola Scriptura actually follow some of their own traditions as well, despite what they say...but this is false. They have some traditions, but this is not "Holy Tradition." Those are terms with different meanings.

And you also are apparently of the opinion that if anything in the Bible refers back to something earlier that was not explicitly defined in Scripture, that it's perfectly all right for the institutional church to decide what it would like that to have been and, therefore, make it dogma. There's no basis for doing that, even if it were possible to know what that was all about or whether it should be a dogma.

Unless and until Sola Scriptura is understood for what the term really means, all I'm doing with this is trying to bat down incorrect assumptions on your part about what you mistakenly think it to be or else what you want it to be.

 

[Root of Jesse]

You're NOT saying that Sola Scriptura is insufficient for us to ascertain essential doctrine? Really?

That's a different statement than the post I replied to. SS is not sufficient, based on how many different interpretations there are of so many passages.

Shall we all agree that it is sufficient, then, and all go onto something else?

We can agree that the Word of God is sufficient. Then it's up to someone to determine what makes the Word of God. That's really the problem.

That's between you and him; I have not commented on any of those details.


Actually, it's neither.


Maybe that's what you think you're doing with Bob, but I'm still on the subject of this thread and your difficulty in understanding what Sola Scriptura means and what it does not mean. If that were resolved, we could move to whether Sola Scriptura is adequate for God's purposes or not. Then only would whatever Bob is pointing to be taken up. Maybe. But we're a long way from there.

I have yet to get a universal definition of what Sola Scriptura is, so I take it at face value "Scripture Alone" That's what it was when I was a Protestant.

This isn't "Sacred Tradition." If it's IN the Bible, it's included in Sola Scriptura; and "Sacred Tradition" doesn't come into play.


It's not "oral tradition" or "Sacred Tradition" either. It's IN THE BIBLE. There is nothing we need add to that.

But it's not in the Bible, Albion. Jesus never said "It is more blessed to give than to receive.", at least it wasn't given in the Gospels. Yet Paul says he said it, so how did he receive it from Jesus, if not by word, or revelation? That's the point, you don't know what "Sacred Tradition" is, just as you say I don't know what Sola Scriptura is...

But it's referred to right here and you're quoting a Bible verse. So it's Scripture. The fact that it may refer back to something else doesn't change a thing about it. Everything we know about this dispute we know from Scripture Alone and there is nothing to invent in addition to this.

It's referring to something that's not in Scripture.

And so on. If it's in the Bible, the Scriptures have answered the matter, hence Sola Scriptura.

The Scripture references things that are not Biblical, therefore, based on SS, you need to throw them out. The fact is, we know these things are in extra-Biblical texts, and thus we see where our Sacred Tradition comes from. So, as surely as Bob can quote Mark 7 vs 7-10 as pointing to SS, we can point to those I listed that they fall on "extra-Scripture" for Truth.

 

[Root of Jesse]

Josephus states emphatically that no books were added to the Jewish canon for 400 years since the time of Malachi.

That alone ends the discussion on the late-comer texts that are highly apocryphal.

http://blogs.blueletterbible.org/bl...storical-evidence-of-the-old-testament-canon/

Why would we fall on Josephus as authoritative? In other ways, you discount what he's written, don't you?

 

[Goatee]

I've been thinking about this subject and about our discussions, and here's the thing, my friend...

Sola Scriptura means taking the Bible and only the Bible as our definitive authority on essential doctrine. It includes reason and experience, but those are only tools to understand the Bible which is the authority. Holy Tradition is something in addition to that.

You persist in saying that believers in Sola Scriptura actually follow some of their own traditions as well, despite what they say...but this is false. They have some traditions, but this is not "Holy Tradition." Those are terms with different meanings.

And you also are apparently of the opinion that if anything in the Bible refers back to something earlier that was not explicitly defined in Scripture, that it's perfectly all right for the institutional church to decide what it would like that to have been and, therefore, make it dogma. There's no basis for doing that, even if it were possible to know what that was all about or whether it should be a dogma.

Unless and until Sola Scriptura is understood for what the term really means, all I'm doing with this is trying to bat down incorrect assumptions on your part about what you mistakenly think it to be or else what you want it to be.

So, you are saying that 'anyone' can read scripture and interpret it as they see fit? So, give 1,000 people the same verse and they may all come up with a different interpretation of that verse! Which interpretation would be correct?

 

[Root of Jesse]

I've been thinking about this subject and about our discussions, and here's the thing, my friend...

Sola Scriptura means taking the Bible and only the Bible as our definitive authority on essential doctrine. It includes reason and experience, but those are only tools to understand the Bible which is the authority. Holy Tradition is something in addition to that.

You persist in saying that believers in Sola Scriptura actually follow some of their own traditions as well, despite what they say...but this is false. They have some traditions, but this is not "Holy Tradition." Those are terms with different meanings.

And you also are apparently of the opinion that if anything in the Bible refers back to something earlier that was not explicitly defined in Scripture, that it's perfectly all right for the institutional church to decide what it would like that to have been and, therefore, make it dogma. There's no basis for doing that, even if it were possible to know what that was all about or whether it should be a dogma.

Unless and until Sola Scriptura is understood for what the term really means, all I'm doing with this is trying to bat down incorrect assumptions on your part about what you mistakenly think it to be or else what you want it to be.

If that's what SS means, then the Catholic Church holds the same standard. There is nothing in Catholic doctrine or dogma that goes against what the Bible says, and the Bible is the ultimate authority for what we believe. The problem is that, as long as there's been a Bible, there have been off-the-wall interpretations of what the Bible says. Look at all the various heresies, whether or not you agree with them. When such happens, we turn to the authority Christ gave us, the Magisterium, to accept or refute what's been proposed. They look at all the writings of the Church, and weigh their authority, and determine whether (or not) the proposed viewpoint is acceptable. Some have said, in this thread, that priestly celibacy and indulgences (or what they think indulgences is) are part of Sacred Tradition, but they're not. I'm really arguing to clarify what is Sacred Tradition, just as you are trying to clarify what is Sola Scriptura. Slogans often are inaccurate.

 

[BobRyan]

Josephus states emphatically that no books were added to the Jewish canon for 400 years since the time of Malachi.

That alone ends the discussion on the late-comer texts that are highly apocryphal.

http://blogs.blueletterbible.org/bl...storical-evidence-of-the-old-testament-canon/

And in that case - the Jews are historically accurate.

Even if some find that inconvenient at times.

 

[BobRyan]

So, you are saying that 'anyone' can read scripture and interpret it as they see fit? So, give 1,000 people the same verse and they may all come up with a different interpretation of that verse! Which interpretation would be correct?

Give 1000 people their own church leadership - their own magisterium to tell them what to think - instead of going directly to the New Testament writers and the 66 books of scripture for their doctrine - and they will come up with a different interpretation for that verse.

 

[Goatee]

Give 1000 people their own church leadership - their own magisterium to tell them what to think - instead of going directly to the New Testament writers and the 66 books of scripture for their doctrine - and they will come up with a different interpretation for that verse.

Give 1,000 people, the true church, the Church of Jesus Christ, the Catholic church a verse from the Bible and they will all be given the Divinely inspired, translation that comes direct from the Holy Spirit brought to them through Tradition as laid down by Our Lord!!

 

[BobRyan]

Give 1,000 people, the true church, the Church of Jesus Christ, the Catholic church a verse from the Bible and they will all be given the Divinely inspired, translation that comes direct from the Holy Spirit brought to them through Tradition as laid down by Our Lord!!

Not according to brilliant Catholic scholars like Wycliff, Huss, Calvin, Luther...

They found the problem in the gap between what the Bible says and a few doctrines and traditions of the RCC -- while never even suspecting that there would be an issue.

 

[BobRyan]

It works out in real life - just as Christ demonstrated for us in Mark 7


Mark 7

7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
8 For laying aside the Commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.
9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
10 For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:
11 But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.
12 And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother;
13 Making the Word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

That is a case of Christ demonstrating the way that the magisterium is hammered "sola scriptura" in the cases where it's traditions and "doctrines of men" are at odds with scripture.

 

[hedrick]

No Calvinist ever said that.

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/calvinism-the-gospel.1461594/page-3#post-65415646

 

[hedrick]

Unfortunately there are differences among both Protestants and Catholics in use of authority.

Protestants vary in how much weight they give tradition. Some claim not to use it at all (though I don’t believe their practice matches their claim). The magisterial Reformers and the more traditional Reformation churches use it as a secondary authority. For them it is a tradition of understanding Scripture. It’s understood that it may well be wrong, and thus challenges are permitted.

Catholics vary in how independent they think tradition is from Scripture. Historically there have been at least two views, often called “tradition 1” and “tradition 2.” The question is whether tradition is based on Scripture, and thus is authoritative interpretation of Scripture, or whether it is a genuinely independent source of public revelation.

Many Protestants consider tradition to have a significant role as a secondary authority, only rarely rejecting their tradition’s authoritative interpretations. This has a significant overlap with Catholics who don’t see tradition as an independent source of public revelation. The main difference is that in principle Protestants consider tradition as fallible, and Catholics do not. But in practice many confessional Protestants don’t really accept challenges. And it’s clear that Catholic doctrine does change over time, that errors have happened at times, and that Scripture is often key to correcting them.

So I would claim to you that there’s a fair amount of overlap in how authority operates for the more traditional Protestants and many Catholics. There are, however significant differences in the traditional interpretations of Scripture. This can’t be reduced entirely to a disagreement over the authority of Scripture. Rather, it’s two traditions that have developed separately, and at times in opposition to each other, which have simply come to different conclusions.

 

[hedrick]

It is probably the case the the first generation Reformers operated in a more pure sola scriptura sense than their followers. While both Lutheran and Reformed have established traditions that have a fairly high weight, Luther, Calvin, and that whole generation gave the tradition in which they grew up less weight than their followers gave theirs. I can only say that this is because they thought the Church was in desperate doctrinal disarray (not just corruption) in a way that the Protestant traditions haven't seen happen again. I'm inclined to agree. I don't think the Catholic suggestions that it wasn't really so bad that it couldn't be handled by appealing to the Pope take account of the realities, at least as a number of otherwise reasonable people saw them at the time.

While traditional confessional Lutherans and Reformed may not be that different from some Catholics in the way they treat their traditions, there was a period when that was not the case. Was there a doctrinal emergency to justify it? Opinions obviously differ. In such a situation differences which are minor most of the tine can become major. I claim that normally the confessional Protestant feeling that the tradition can be challenged and the Catholic feeling that it can't doesn't matter all that much. Confessional Protestants set the bar for a successful challenge quite high, and Catholics have de facto ways to make changes and deal with problems.

But in the 16th Cent that difference wasn't so minor. Because at that point the Reformers thought that many of the challenges did succeed, and the Catholic authorities dug in their heels on using existing mechanisms for reform.

 

[Goatee]

Nice posts ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[tulipbee]

Give 1000 people their own church leadership - their own magisterium to tell them what to think - instead of going directly to the New Testament writers and the 66 books of scripture for their doctrine - and they will come up with a different interpretation for that verse.

Tell us how your denomination aggreed the bible should have 66 books instead of the RCC 73 books. How did that develop?

 

[Albion]

Tell us how your denomination aggreed the bible should have 66 books instead of the RCC 73 books. How did that develop?

Actually, just about EVERY denomination agrees on those 66 books. A few churches have 7 more, some have 1 in addition, another few have some other book or books the other churches don't have, but the 66 are nearly universal. We're talking about books that would belong in the Old Testament if they were included, and the decision is based upon what the Jews of Jesus' own time accepted.