Is Sola Scriptura Self-refuting?

[Clare73]

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It worked for the NT Christians.

 

[zippy2006]

That said, the argument Jimmy Akin gave is succinct and incisive:

P2. Sola Scriptura is a doctrine.

Austin Suggs and Gavin Orlund both attack this premise. Jimmy Akin has another interesting video responding to that approach:

 

[WarriorAngel]

It worked for the NT Christians.

How when scriptures of the NT didn't exist until the council of Hippo and the canon was given the imprimatur.

As far as 'scriptures' noted in the NT - it refers to the OT and the prophecies to Christ.
AND furthermore; Philip was sent to teach the OT to the Eunuch...
Peter warned wresting the scriptures or epistles... for ourselves.
Doesn't that make you wonder about the reformers who left the successors of the Apostles?

 

[Clare73]

How when scriptures of the NT didn't exist until the council of Hippo and the canon was given the imprimatur.

What did they use to make up those NT Scriptures?

As far as 'scriptures' noted in the NT - it refers to the OT and the prophecies to Christ.
AND furthermore; Philip was sent to teach the OT to the Eunuch...
Peter warned wresting the scriptures or epistles... for ourselves.
Doesn't that make you wonder about the reformers who left the successors of the Apostles?

It's not about successors, it's about the written word of God, identified by the early Christians, as the only authority for faith.

 

[WarriorAngel]

What did they use to make up those NT Scriptures?

It's not about successors, it's about the written word of God, identified by the early Christians, as the only authority for faith.

They were not deciding their writings were scriptures.

The Church council 393 AD decided they were canon for the Churches to all have the same copies.
All the Churches came together to sift through all the writings they had, including heresies such as gnostocism, judaizers, etc etc.

The Church with the given authority choose the correct writings.
The Church called them scriptures.

What the Apostles referred to as scriptures, were the prophecies of the OT

 

[WarriorAngel]

What did they use to make up those NT Scriptures?

It's not about successors, it's about the written word of God, identified by the early Christians, as the only authority for faith.

Without successors - the writings would not have been preserved, nor known which were correct.

ALSO the Church almost decided the Didache and writings of Pope Clement i should be included but then decided not to do so.
The writings of the Church fathers were still maintained, but wanted the basics in scriptures.

 

[Clare73]

Without successors - the writings would not have been preserved, nor known which were correct.

ALSO the Church almost decided the Didache and writings of Pope Clement i should be included but then decided not to do so.
The writings of the Church fathers were still maintained, but wanted the basics in scriptures.

They were not deciding their writings were scriptures.

That is precisely what it was about--deciding which writings were authentic and authoritative, and would be made part of the canon.

 

[Clare73]

Without successors - the writings would not have been preserved, nor known which were correct.

Without Christians, the writings would not have been preserved.

The churches of the NT have always had authorized leadership established by Paul.

 

[FredVB]

How when scriptures of the NT didn't exist until the council of Hippo and the canon was given the imprimatur.

As far as 'scriptures' noted in the NT - it refers to the OT and the prophecies to Christ.
AND furthermore; Philip was sent to teach the OT to the Eunuch...
Peter warned wresting the scriptures or epistles... for ourselves.
Doesn't that make you wonder about the reformers who left the successors of the Apostles?

It did not matter when a council "gave" the canon of the new testament to the churches, the writings of the apostles were already distributed to churches, and copies made to reach other churches, from very early on, and, they were read to those there.

 

[FredVB]

The apostles themselves were teaching the earliest believers and it would basically have been the teachings of Christ, that being of the new testament.

 

[The Liturgist]

It did not matter when a council "gave" the canon of the new testament to the churches, the writings of the apostles were already distributed to churches, and copies made to reach other churches, from very early on, and, they were read to those there.

The problem with that statement is that not all churches had all copies, and there were spurious epistles and spurious Gospels, and also there was material circulated that was theologically correct, some of it important Patristic material, but not of Apostolic origin, for example, 1 Clement, and many felt this should be a part of the Bible whereas others disagreed.

If you want to see what the New Testament could have been, were it not for the Athanasian, look at the the 22 original books of the Peshitta, which are the only ones found in East Syriac copies such as those used by the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldeans (the Syriac Orthodox and various churches that separated from them such as the Maronite Catholics gained access to the rest of the Athanasian Canon through the translation of the remaining books by St. Thomas of Harqel). A Bible with no 2 Peter, no Jude, no 2 John, no 3 John and no Apocalypse (Revelation) is interesting to consider, but I prefer the Athanasian version.

Conversely, and much worse a prospect than that, or Luther’s proposed removal of four books he incorrectly regarded as spurious (fortunately, regarding the Antilegomenna, Luther was persuaded to back down), is what we see if we look at the actual ancient manuscripts of the oldest extant bibles, such as the Codex Sinaiticus, which have some books widely regarded as spurious in addition to the 27 books of the Athanasian canon. If we had spurious epistles like 1 Barnabas or the spurious Patristic letter 2 Clement in every New Testament, that would have had a profound adverse effect.

Fortunately, while the early church did not come to a conclusion on the Old Testament (other than that it was different and at least slightly larger than the 66 book NT canon of the Masoretic text), it did regarding the New Testament, and that was our New Testament canon, which exists as a matter of Holy Tradition, which we are obliged to follow according to 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and 1 Corinthians 11:2 (1 Corinthians 11 also contains the core of the Eucharistic liturgy and the warnings of the dangers of partaking unworthily not discerning the Body and Blood of Christ our God).