Sola Scriptura Doesn't Make Sense

[redleghunter]

Clear?

This much is clear. Your OP belongs on the Non Christian World Religions forum and not controversial Christianity. Nothing you wrote about the Buddhist “Voice” and other stuff is anything close to Christianity.

 

[redleghunter]

The premise is false - meaning the one for which you can find not even a single exception, 140 posts deep? That's the premise you had in mind?

The premise is false to those viewing it. Perhaps have a conversation with that inner voice to see what others are explaining to you.

 

[JAL]

See, my friend. The problem I have with your position is that when you speak against God's Word (the Bible) as an authority and you argue for other authorities (like voices, conscience speaking moments, etc.) you make for a faith that is no different than biblical cults.

So in your view, I am telling you to behave like cults do. Here is what I've asked you to do:

"If I feel certain that action-A is evil, and B is good, I should opt for B".

Your advice, apparently, is to disregard this admonition, dismissing it as the behavior of cultists. Can you provide some specific examples of when it is clearly appropriate to disregard the rule of conscience? I mean, I've only been requesting such examples for 140 posts now.

See, my friend. The problem I have with your position is that when you speak against God's Word (the Bible) as an authority and you argue for
other authorities (like voices, conscience speaking moments, etc.) you make for a faith that is no different than biblical cults. They play it footloose and fancy free with the Scriptures and make something else on equal authority with God's Word. Your argument against the Bible as an authority for our life can lead a person to just throw their Bible in the trash and thus demolish their faith.

Every position can be misrepresented, misextrapolated, and taken to an extreme. That POSSIBILITY isn't sufficient to impugn it.

For example it is POSSIBLE that someone today could interpret the Bible as advocating slavery, white supremacy, or some other evil. Does that specter, in of itself, warrant throwing out the Old Testament? Must we throw out the baby with the bathwater?

You cannot speak against God's Word and elevate other things above it as if they are on the same level.

You are so terribly confused. You don't even realize that you advocates of Sola Scriptura are doing precisely the KIND of thing that you are forewarning me of. By elevating the written Word (the law !!!) above all, you sustain a bibliolatry that inadvertently and unavoidably deprecates the divine Word (of Direct Revelation - see Gen 15:1). You insinuate that I've dishonored God's book. Meanwhile you dishonor God Himself.

Stop dishonoring God's Word - the divine Word, that is.

To say that the voices in your head or your conscience is better or on the same level as Scripture is shaky at best because voices have to be tested (1 Timothy 4:1-3), and our hearts have to be checked by God's Word (the Bible). For men can defile their mind and conscience (Titus 1:15).

The rule of conscience is shaky? Then your job is easy it seems to me. If it is so shaky, it should be exceedingly easy for you to postulate at least one clear exception to the rule:

"If I feel certain that action-A is evil, and B is good, I should opt for B".

 

[JAL]

The premise is false to those viewing it. Perhaps have a conversation with that inner voice to see what others are explaining to you.

(Yawn). Not one exception to the rule...

 

[JAL]

This much is clear. Your OP belongs on the Non Christian World Religions forum and not controversial Christianity. Nothing you wrote about the Buddhist “Voice” and other stuff is anything close to Christianity.

Buddhism? This seems to be blatant misrepresentation and intellectual dishonesty. I certainly did mention a voice:

27My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

I'm sorry that you don't believe the words of Jesus. Not much I can do about it.

 

[redleghunter]

Buddhism? This seems to be blatant misrepresentation and intellectual dishonesty. I certainly did mention a voice:

27My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

I'm sorry that you don't believe the words of Jesus. Not much I can do about it.

That was clever but you are fooling no one.

 

[JAL]

So what if you convince me? What then? I throw my Bible in the trash and I just listen to some voice in my head and some guy's vision. Great job! You have helped me to throw away the faith (Which is the Bible).

Convinced you of what exactly? My claim is that Direct Revelation refers to the Holy Spirit speaking through conscience. Are you worried that He will direct your conscience to throw the Bible in the trash?

Is your claim that we should NOT look to the Holy Spirit for understanding - that we should only look to human reasoning - for fear that the Holy Spirit will lead us to throw our Bibles in the trash?

 

[JAL]

That was clever but you are fooling no one.

So I'm a Buddhist in disguise? Can you even cite any evidence for this outlandish claim?

 

[swordsman1]

"Is Christianity true? Is the Bible true? I don't know. According to Swordsman1, God certainly isn't going to speak to me about it. I guess I'll have to rely on my own human reasoning. No, I can't do that either, because Swordsman1 says "It's a pretty obvious deduction" that Scripture is the only revelation of truth.

People do not come to faith by hearing a voice, nor do they come to faith by their own reasoning. The option you missed is the biblical one. They come to faith by hearing the gospel (Romans 10:17).

Your position makes zero sense. To resolve that quandary, Calvin came up with a theory known as the Inward Witness - and pretty much every evangelical theologian in church history has agreed with him on this point. The Inward Witness is a Direct Revelation of the gospel.

Calvin's inward witness is simply an internal conviction that scripture is true.

“God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not find acceptance in men’s hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit.” - Institutes 1.7.4

It is nothing more than that. It is not direct revelation. It is not God audibly speaking to us. It is not God giving extra-biblical revelations via our thoughts or feelings. It is not God giving us a convincing opinion.

For example:
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day." (John 6:44).

Tell me, what do you think it means when God "draws" people? A fuzzy feeling? A well reasoned opinion?

"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." (Jn 10:27).

And what is your understand of "my voice"? A literal voice in your head? A thought placed in your mind?

If God were to honor YOUR claim that exegesis is the sole means of divine-human communication, it would spell disaster for anyone incapable of reliable exegesis - they could not be saved, or at least could not be expected to SUSTAIN saving faith reliably:

The vast majority of scripture does not require extensive exegesis, Most of it, and certainly the passages that can bring people to salvation such as John 3:16, only requires a simple understanding of plain English. Even the more complex passages, where disputes occur, can be resolved by a basic understanding of hermeneutics (eg. not taking verses out of context, not reading your own ideas into the text, recognising genre etc)

(1) The majority of adolescents

Why can't adolescents receive the gospel?

(2) The mentally handicapped (viz. Alzheimers, autism, brain damage, etc)

People who are brain damaged, or severely mentally handicapped are treated as children. Not guilty until they knowingly and willingly sin.

(3) The physically handicapped (mute, deaf, blind, etc).

The deaf can read, the blind can hear.

(4) Those too poor to receive bibles, or living in countries that ban them.

If it God's will for them to be saved, God will find a way to get them the gospel.

The Inward Witness cuts through all those issues - with perfect reliability.

No it doesn't. Inward Witness only tells you that scripture is true.

Direct Revelation is the ONLY fully reliable revelation of truth. God is a little wiser than you are. Thus while you are quick to deprecate Direct Revelation, God, in His wisdom, stakes the entire Kingdom on it.

Direct revelation, as described in scripture, is God speaking directly to people with actual words. If that is your understanding, you haven't given us any evidence that God speaks in such a manner today. But my guess is your understanding of direct revelation, which you haven't fully explained, is something completely unbiblical.

 

[redleghunter]

So I'm a Buddhist in disguise? Can you even cite any evidence for this outlandish claim?

You could have easily straight off come out and say your beef with Sola Scriptura was that it excludes inspiration of the Holy Spirit with the believer.

First you would have admitted you were employing an erroneous definition of Sola Scriptura and two you realize what you presented was a needless or even false dichotomy.

Instead you chose world religion jargon and that immediately sends off alerts.


So back to your premise. The “Voice” which you now say is the Holy Spirit speaks to the believer and one can rely on this Voice to make moral determinations. You pit this against Holy Scriptures as if there is some dichotomy, “either or” decision to make. Since the Holy Spirit is the Author of Inspired Holy Scriptures, then that voice you speak of better line up or you are following a different voice.

The danger zone you enter is pitting the Holy Spirit indwelling the sealed believer and the very Scriptures He Inspired to be written. And I think you come to this false tension by confusing the Inspiration of Holy Scriptures with man’s interpretation of Scriptures. There is a difference.

 

[swordsman1]

You're still trying to divorce opinion from conscience. That makes no sense. You are evidently picturing an individual who says to himself:
(1) I know it is okay to murder. Morally, it is the right thing to do. That is my opinion.
(2) I know, by my conscience, that murder is wrong. That is my conviction.

They are divorced because they are two completely different things.

An opinion is your own personal judgement on a matter based on your own fallible reasoning.

The conscience is the mechanism God has pre-programmed into every human to tell him whether a particular action or thought is morally wrong or not.

If someone decided it was ok to murder, it wouldn't be from their conscience would it. If would be from their own faulty reasoning. That is why reliance on your own opinion is a dangerous thing, even more dangerous if you think that is God speaking to you and must therefore be obeyed!

 

[swordsman1]

And how did you reach the opinion that scripture is true? Oh, that's right, you benefited from a Direct Revelation known as the Inward Witness, speaking through your sense of opinion/conscience, causing you to feel certain of the gospel.

Inward witness, yes. Direct revelation, no.

Let me get this straight. In your view, God's master-plan was to stake the salvation, sanctification, and evangelism of His people upon a book that wasn't printing-pressed for 90% of church history, on behalf of a Sola Scriptura ideology self-contradictory in nature and incapable of conferring salvation.

You don't have to have a bible in your hands in order to be saved. You can hear the gospel message of scripture preached. That's how the vast majority of Christians are saved. "It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe" 1 Cor 1:21

Therefore the Inward Witness - as Calvin and other scholars have noted - must provide a mental picture (vision) - a Direct Revelation - of the true God.

That is not the inward witness. Nor direct revelation.

When Christians say things like, "I was an atheist until 2 years ago, when I finally met the Lord", this is precisely what they are referring to.

If that was the sum of their Christian testimony I would seriously doubt their conversion.

In effect, ALL of us had the Damascus-road experience usually ascribed to Paul, even if our vision was incredibly dim compared to that blazing Light.

Is that how you claim to be converted? You had some kind of vision? No gospel preaching? It wasn't mine.

Thus, you based the biggest decision of your life - the decision to convert - on Direct Revelation. Are we to entertain seriously the notion that Direct Revelation, having been entrusted with life's biggest decision, should NOT be entrusted with life's smaller decisions?

Your idea of direct revelation is not biblical.

You do realize, don't you, that the biggest pushers of Sola Scriptura - both in ancient times and today - PROFIT FINANCIALLY from that ideology? They literally have a hundred thousand incentives (counted in actual dollars) per year to keep brainwashing us to their mentality. Imagine what would happen to their careers - and their pocketbooks - if the church accepted the absolute primacy of Direct Revelation in all matters. In light of this fact, you need to think carefully about what you've bought into.

And who might they be? Bible publishers and sellers? I've never heard a publisher or seller give me a sermon on Sola Scriptura. Come to think of I haven't bought or even touched a physical bible in years.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Convinced you of what exactly? My claim is that Direct Revelation refers to the Holy Spirit speaking through conscience. Are you worried that He will direct your conscience to throw the Bible in the trash?

Is your claim that we should NOT look to the Holy Spirit for understanding - that we should only look to human reasoning - for fear that the Holy Spirit will lead us to throw our Bibles in the trash?

Whenever you speak against the Bible as a primary authority... it will lead others here to think you do not think the Bible is authoritative and should be followed alone as a guide. They will seek out other voices thinking it is God when it is not. They will seek out visions that are not God. They will seek out near death experiences that are not of God. They will seek to follow a false Christ. They will seek to follow some new holy book or writings when they are not of God or in line with His Word. So yes. I believe your speaking against the Bible in some small fraction or way. When you speak against Sola Scriptura you are speaking against the Bible because the Bible is sufficient for salvation, instruction in righteousness, learning about the Trinity, the blood atonement, and many other things in the faith.

 

[swordsman1]

Feeling certain is the ONLY issue here. I can act only according to my current convictions, regardless of what the truth ACTUALLY is.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but your idea of direct revelation is for you to have an idea and if in your own mind you feel certain it is true, then it must be God speaking to you? If that is so, I cannot think of many other such unbiblical and dangerous false teachings.

 

[JAL]

People do not come to faith by hearing a voice, nor do they come to faith by their own reasoning. The option you missed is the biblical one. They come to faith by hearing the gospel (Romans 10:17).

Romans 10:17 is exemplified at Gen 15:1. And please stop contradicting John 10:27. Thirdly, as I warned you earlier, if you're going to keep discussing voice, please provide clear definitions, for example does it include voices heard in a dream.

Calvin's inward witness is simply an internal conviction that scripture is true.

Calvin called it a feeling of certainty given by the operation of the Holy Spirit. And?

“God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not find acceptance in men’s hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit.” - Institutes 1.7.4

It is nothing more than that. It is not direct revelation. It is not God audibly speaking to us. It is not God giving extra-biblical revelations via our thoughts or feelings. It is not God giving us a convincing opinion.

You are flatly contradicting what Calvin taught.

Tell me, what do you think it means when God "draws" people? A fuzzy feeling? A well reasoned opinion?

What Calvin said. A feeling of certainty, first and foremost, triggering the conversion dynamic via conscience:

"If I feel certain that action-A is evil (i.e. rejecting the gospel), and B is good (i.e. accepting it), I should opt for B".

And what is your understand of "my voice"? A literal voice in your head? A thought placed in your mind?

First and foremost, the function of the divine Voice indicated over the last 140 posts is a God-given imposition of feelings of certainty.

I didn't discuss the issue of audibility in detail on this thread because I see that topic as possibly tangential to the main issues. At some point I might discuss it.

The vast majority of scripture does not require extensive exegesis, Most of it, and certainly the passages that can bring people to salvation such as John 3:16, only requires a simple understanding of plain English. Even the more complex passages, where disputes occur, can be resolved by a basic understanding of hermeneutics (eg. not taking verses out of context, not reading your own ideas into the text, recognising genre etc)

Scripture cannot bring someone to salvation. As Calvin held, we need a vision of God to replace our conceptual idolatry. This is Direct Revelation.

Why can't adolescents receive the gospel?

When Calvin formulated the doctrine of the Inward Witness it was in answer to the question, how can we reliably and unfailingly identify the true religion and sustain saving faith - without slipping in and out of saving faith? By convictions based on exegesis? How can fallible exegesis be reliable? And how many adolescents have mastered Hebrew and Greek, as to be experts in exegesis? You're in denial. Your whole position doesn't make any sense.

People who are brain damaged, or severely mentally handicapped are treated as children. Not guilty until they knowingly and willingly sin.

The claim that people can goto heaven without saving faith is an unsupported assumption that flies in the face of everything that Paul taught. The need here is not to deny the need for saving faith in the elderly (viz. Alzheimers), for example, but to ACCOUNT for it. Calvin's doctrine of the Inward Witness (Direct Revelation) is the only solution.

The deaf can read, the blind can hear.

And how many of them have mastered Hebrew and Greek? Your position doesn't make sense.

Sola Scriptura is the ridiculous claim that God's master plan centers on a book that wasn't even printing-pressed for 90% of church history. Totally absurd - and beset with numerous logical difficulties. Such as:
(1) It predicates knowledge partly on the wisdom of men. How so? Because the only way to learn Hebrew and Greek is via a man-made lexicon.
(2) Exegesis consists of proofs designed to demonstrate the plausibility of one reading of Scripture over another. The problem is that all proofs are based on assumptions which in turn need to be proven, leading to an infinite regress of unproven assumptions. The only way to break out of the loop is to dogmatically STIPULATE some unproven assumptions as a starting point. Here too, it always involves human wisdom in the final analysis. Sola Scriptura is a lie because, for the reasons just stated, Scripture affords you no direct access to the truth - only to humanly biased/colored interpretations.

Direct revelation, as described in scripture, is God speaking directly to people with actual words. If that is your understanding, you haven't given us any evidence that God speaks in such a manner today. But my guess is your understanding of direct revelation, which you haven't fully explained, is something completely unbiblical.

Questions about "words" and "audibility" are not the primary bone of contention here (although I'll likely comment on it since you keep bringing it up). The main bone of contention is whether God can give us feelings of certainty and, once received, are they authoritative. I'd like to think that He HAS that ability, and I've already proven that conscience is authoritative, at least proven in the sense that we cannot imagine any exceptions to that rule.

 

[JAL]

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but your idea of direct revelation is for you to have an idea and if in your own mind you feel certain it is true, then it must be God speaking to you? If that is so, I cannot think of many other such unbiblical and dangerous false teachings.

No. My position is tautological.

"If I feel certain that God is speaking to me, then I do indeed believe that God is speaking to me."

All my main assertions are based on tautologies. That's why no one, over the years, has managed to postulate any plausible exceptions to my fundamental beliefs.

 

[Hillsage]

JAL,

But you need not answer me and this post JAL, I see the blood in the water has brought the feeding frenzy to the thread. So I do wish you the best with 'them' and this, your ....third thread???.... along these lines. I prefer moving on.

Do you believe in prophetic words from the Holy Spirit JAL?

~Wisdom from the Spirit 1CO 2:6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age.....

A direct 'paragraph heading' and 'bible verse' quote above....which goes along with a teaching I received decades ago...called 'The law of the bush'. I'd share it with you...offline.

 

[JAL]

Whenever you speak against the Bible as a primary authority... it will lead others here to think you do not think the Bible is authoritative and should be followed alone as a guide. They will seek out other voices thinking it is God when it is not. They will seek out visions that are not God. They will seek out near death experiences that are not of God. They will seek to follow a false Christ. They will seek to follow some new holy book or writings when they are not of God or in line with His Word. So yes. I believe your speaking against the Bible in some small fraction or way. When you speak against Sola Scriptura you are speaking against the Bible because the Bible is sufficient for salvation, instruction in righteousness, learning about the Trinity, the blood atonement, and many other things in the faith.

You're putting the cart before the horse. You haven't provided any VIABLE ALTERNATIVE to revelatory epistemology. What I mean, I already ruled out Sola Scriptura as internally self-contradictory (at post 101 for example), and neither you nor anyone else has resolved those allegations.

So if you want to plausibly disdain Direct Revelation, please provide a different epistemology as an alternative. You don't have one. Period.

 

[swordsman1]

You're distorting the paradigm. At Gen 15, alluded to at Gal 3:2-6, the Voice/Word/Spirit constituted one package. The HEARING referred to RECEIVING the spoken divine Word constituting an OUTPOURING of the Spirit. That's the paradigm. Abraham received the Spirit through THAT hearing of faith. Anything else is your own fabrication - has nothing to do with what Paul actually wrote.

THAT is the paradigm presented to us by Paul. If that's not the model that he wanted to convey to the Galatians, he should not have pointed them to that passage.

I'm not interested in your fabrications. I'm interested in what Paul had to say.

That 'paradigm' is one straight from your own imagination, not from scripture.

Gal 3:2 "Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? "

Of course the the Galatians received the Spirit by believing what they heard (hearing with faith). Remember the word 'hearing' is the normal Greek word for audible hearing. What they heard was the gospel as preached by Paul.

Gal 3:6 "just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness."

And that was the same way Abraham was saved. God spoke to him audibly, and Abraham believed what he heard.

 

[LoveGodsWord]

I wonder why people are so anti God's Word?