Let's get something straight. Prior to your involvement, I initiated the discussion on a thread summarized in a
16-point rebuttal of Sola Scriptura. You then claimed to rebut MY 16 points but what you actually did was copy/paste copious amounts of verses unjustifiably presumed to support Sola Scriptura. In all the verses that mention "The Word", you indiscriminately conflate the written Word with the divine Word of Direct Revelation (see Isa 55:11), for example the revelatory vision at Gen 15:1 (you even went so far as to conflate the divine Word of John 1 with the (written?) Word of Sola Scriptura):
"The Word of the Lord came to Abram in a
vision [speaking promises]" (Gen 15:1).
By equating the Voice of the Lord with Sola Scriptura
whenever it suits you, you thereby claim that all biblical data points to Sola Scriptura. How convenient for you - but that is not a real rebuttal. It just makes you a moving target (read this as self-contradictory). Your posts also indiscriminately refer to "praying to God for understanding" without clarifying how such is materially different than I myself asking for divine illumination of the written Word (Direct Revelation). I'll say it again: I don't see much of anything in your posts that is either clear or worth responding to.
So let's try this again. I'm going to post here a summary of my 16-point summary, as it were, consisting of approximately 10 salient points. And then I'm going to let the readers of this thread decide for themselves whether your responses directly address the full force of my 10 arguments.
(Point 1)
How do we test a voice? From Genesis to Revelation, the biblical test is everywhere IMPLIED to be the Spirit convicting us. Meaning, if the Spirit - during the Direct Revelation - leaves us feeling 100% certain/persuaded of the message/Voice, we are morally obligated to it. In this way His Voice is self-authenticating. That's the only reasonable explanation as to why:
(A) Adam and Eve were obligated to obey the Voice (with no Scripture to test the voice or distinguish it from satan's voice).
(B) Noah obeyed the Voice (with no Scripture to test the voice).
(C) Abraham tried to kill his son in response to a voice (with no Scripture to test the voice)
(D) Moses and Joshua slaughtered nations in response to a voice (with no Scripture to test the voice)
(E) Saul and Samuel slaughtered the Amalekites per the Voice
(F) David slaughtered Philistines per the Voice
(G) Paul instantly forsook 20 years of Sola-Scriptura-conclusions when he heard the Voice on the Road to Damascus (previously he already HAD tested Jesus by Scripture, unsuccessfully).
(H) Peter shunned the Gentiles, for exegetical reasons, until a vision persuaded him to go preach to them (Acts 10). In a word, the vision told him to REJECT what he had learned from Scripture.
(I) The prophets sucessfully wrote the Scriptures per the Voice (even when the voice said something non-testable such as a foretelling)
When I point out such examples, for example
at post 530, you move the goalposts. You claim that all these examples of a self-authenticating Voice are actually examples of Sola Scripura. You put it like this - here's your exact words:
"Already answered see previous post. Before the written word was the spoken Word of God."
Huh? At what point in human history did Sola-Voice (Direct Revelation) suddenly become the same thing as Sola Scriptura? This makes you a moving target.
(Point 2)
It's absurd to claim that all voices can be tested by exegesis. For example if someone gives you a word of encouragement, "You will receive a new job offer within 7 days", or an exhortation, "The Lord says to pack up your bags and move to Africa to preach the gospel", there's no verse of Scripture that could prove that statement true or false.
Nowhere does Scripture claim that exegesis is the test of a voice. The appeal to the Bereans proves nothing because the Bereans pesumably examined Scripture under the Light of the Holy Spirit (Direct Revelation), not by exegesis (human reasoning). Likewise the appeal to 2 Timothy 3:16-17 proves nothing because Timothy was almost certainly a prophet (Paul mentored him after all) who, as such, definitely relied on divine illumination.
Rather, the biblical references to "testing" typically allude to the Anointing (1Jn 2:20-23;26-27;compare 1Jn 3:24 with 4:1). The clear implication is that the test is to ask the spirit whether it agrees, or disagrees with, those things already learned from the Anointing's self-authenticating Voice. Jesus said:
“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
Because His Voice is self-authenticating, the above passage nowhere mentions the need to first put the Voice to the test of exegesis, whenever you seem to hear it.
(Point 3)
As suggested in point 1 of my original 16-point rebuttal, the following "rule of conscience" properly governs us in all scenarios and thus overrides any (fallible) conclusion drawn from biblical exegesis:
"If I feel certain that action-A is evil, and B is good, I should opt for B".
You can complain about the unreliability of conscience all you want, but the fact is that neither you nor anyone else has risen to my challenge of postulating even one single scenario that warrants deliberate departure from the above maxim. And I went further than that:
(A) I noted that the above maxim finds support in Paul's discussion of conscience at 1Cor 8:1-13 and the parallel chapter Romans 14.
(B) I showed,
at post 539, that the above maxim is tautological because it defines justice. I showed that if God were to dishonor the maxim, it would classify Him as an evil, unjust judge.
Direct Revelation ALWAYS operates via the above maxim - that's how it self-authenticates. Direct Revelation works like this:
(1) The Spirit conveys a message to us.
(2) He convicts our conscience, causing us to feel certain that the message is true.
(3) Feelings of certainty must be heeded, per the maxim (per the rule of conscience).
(Point 4)
Points 1 to 3 laid out a system defining how Direct Revelation operates. In the 3,000 years since Moses wrote, no theologian has provided an alternative system that arguably always "works" - a theory of divine-human communication fully viable in all possible scenarios. This is the only known system of divine-human communication that
actually makes sense.
By way of contrast, advocates of Sola Scriptura have, for at least 500 years, utterly failed to provide a clear, coherent theory on divine illumination. Supposedly God is supposed to teach me about Scripture - the problem is that Sola Scriptura presses me to test His voice exegetically. But if I already understand Scripture well enough to test His voice exegetically, why do I need His voice? There is nothing clear about the Sola Scriptura position. This is a real problem. As I recall, one theologian "solved" it by claiming that God no longer illuminates the mind, since we have the written Scriptures today.
(Point 5)
How do we know that Scripture is inspired? This itself is a Direct Revelation. The Spirit convicts us of this truth (Point 3 explained how Direct Revelation works). The Protestant Reformation crystallized this Reformed doctrine under the rubric "The Inward Witness" - they rightly claimed that the Spirit reveals to us that Scripture is inspired by causing us to
feel certain about it. Since this revelatory influence DICTATED whether or not to accept the book, it is a higher authority than the book.
Even if you don't accept the Reformed doctrine of the Inward Witness, the fact remains you accepted the book on SOME basis (such as Reason). This positions Reason as a higher authority than the book, since it dictated your decision to accept or reject the book. In a nutshell, the book cannot be our highest authority, since we had to accept the book based on some other authoritative basis.
(Point 6)
Scripture is babes-milk-revelation, not solid-food-revelation. This is clear because Paul often handed out epistles (such as 1Corinthians) INSTEAD of solid food - see 1Cor 3 (and see point 14 in my 16-point summary for a set of posts on 1Corinthians that, by themselves, adequately refute Sola Scriptura). The writer of Hebrews did the same (Heb 5) - he handed out the Epistle to the Hebrews INSTEAD of solid food. This flatly contradicts the notion that the canon contains all the revelation intended for us. And I'm not alone in this thinking: the church father Chrysostom remarked on solid food that not even “Scripture hath anywhere discoursed to us of these things" (NPNF, Part 1, Vol 12, Homily 34).
(Point 7)
Exegesis is inevitably tainted with man-made opinions, for at least two reasons:
(A) A man-made lexicon and/or grammer book is the only way to learn Hebrew and Greek.
(B) All exegetical proofs are based on assumptions that, in turn, need to be proven. This leads to an infinite regress of unproven assumptions. The only way to break out of the infinite loop is to provisionally STIPULATE some man-made presumptions.
As a result, there is no such thing as "testing against Scripture" - the best we can do is study, and test against, a somewhat man-made version of Scripture.
(Point 8)
The epistles do not command the churches to practice exegesis (regardless of whether the prophet Timothy was so commanded). Even in those few passages that do mention "The Word", the question remains whether:
(A) Is it talking about the written Word or the divine spoken Word (Gen 15:1, Isa 55:11) - you can't just assume one or the other, nor indiscriminately equate both with Sola Scriptura - as you have been so fond of doing in our debate.
(B) Nor can you presume these verses to advocate studying the written Word without recourse to divine illumination (Direct Revelation). As mentioned earlier, there is no basis for assuming that Paul counseled Timothy to study the Scriptures without divine illumination.
To summarize, Sola Scriptura is a theological construct, not an exegetical datum. It has no clear support in Scripture, it seems to contradict Scripture at every turn, and it seems to be a man-made doctrine from first to last. Just because a tradition is longstanding in the church, doesn't prove it true. The Reformers already demonstrated that traditions persisting for 1500 years in the church
need not be true.
On the other hand, what IS clearly articulated, nay,
commanded, to the churches is the
primacy of prophecy - and Paul closely associated the term prophecy with the word revelation. Paul puts prophecy on the very top rung of the priority-ladder alongside love:
"Eagerly desire the greater gifts" (1 Cor 12:31)
"Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual things,
especially the gift of prophecy" (1Cor 14:1).
29Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.
30And if a
revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop.
31For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. (
39Therefore, my brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues
There you have it - multiple clear references to prophecy and, as usual, not a single clear reference to exegesis.
(Point 9)
Paul gave us his definition of a church:
28And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues (1Cor 12:28).
Every alternative definition - every subsequent definition - is a deviation from Paul's definition and is thus man-made. To embrace a definition of the church other than Paul's is itself a violation of Sola Scriptura. And note that Paul's definition already stands in stark contrast to the Sola-Scriptura mentality:
(1) In the Sola-Scriptura mentality (exegesis), Bible-scholars are the leaders of the church.
(2) In the Pauline mentality, apostles and prophets (recipients of Direct Revelation) are the leaders of the church.
(Point 10)
Christ's entire ministry was a rebuttal of the Sola Scriptura parties of His day (the Pharisees, Sadducces, and teachers of the law). He made it clear that HIS teaching came directly from the Father, literally speaking with Him face to face, and thus by Direct Revelation. He made it clear that it was Direct Revelation that veered Him away from the myriad exegetical errors of the Bible scholars. And He made it clear that, for us too, Direct Revelation proves to be a more reliable interpreter of the Scriptures than Bible scholarship:
"At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and
revealed them to babes".
A babe lacks the scholarly skills to test his father's voice exegetically. Thus he accepts the message based on the perceived authority and reliability of the father - in a word he
feels certain that his father's voice is trustworthy.
Bonus Point: The NT defines evangelism as prophetic utterance (
see post 179 on another thread,
and post 180).