- Apr 26, 2010
- 128
- 42
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Eastern Orthodox
- Marital Status
- Married
I have written this because of my love for you all. I have written this because I have prayed to the Lord Jesus with profuse tears on account of desiring the solidarity of believers who confess Jesus as Lord and Christ and believe in His name. I have written this because I desire that we may be one as the Holy Trinity is One.
I am addressing the doctrine of Sola Scriptura today, which is captivated in the following way by Martin Luther:
“Unless therefore I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture, or by the clearest reasoning, unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted, and unless they thus render my conscience bound by the Word of God, I cannot and will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other; may God help me! Amen!”
Another believer named Matthew Barrett says this about it:
“...only Scripture, because it is God’s inspired Word, is our inerrant, sufficient, and final authority for the church.”
If you google Sola Scriptura and read "Got Questions?" on the topic, you'll find that the writer argues that tradition is not worthless so long as it is supported by the Scriptures. He further maintains, as I'm sure many others do, that the reason that Protestants reject the Traditions of the Roman Catholic Church is because they were not based on the truth of God's word but rather on the traditions of men. With regards to this charge, I do not completely disagree, as I myself do not find in the writings of the Church Fathers, nor in the Holy Scriptures, nor in the history of the Church, any dogmatic teaching on papal supremacy and papal infallibility, nor do I find any basis for the immaculate conception as it is defined by the Roman Church, nor do I find basis for purgatory, nor is there any support for selling indulgences and applying the merits of saints towards other people so that their sins can be forgiven and be granted passage to heaven.
Of course, I do not say these things to attack the Catholics. I also don't say them so that I am communicating that I support the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura as purported by Luther. I am merely saying that I can sympathize with some of the objections that the reformers had towards the problematic dogmas and practices of the Roman Church during their lifetime.
Returning to the issue at hand: Sola Scriptura, which purports that only the Scriptures can be appealed to as being authoritative on matters of dogma and praxis.
I have to say, I am somewhat comforted by the view that the writer of Got Questions takes. He says this, "The Bible declares itself to be God-breathed, inerrant, and authoritative. We also know that God does not change His mind or contradict Himself. So, while the Bible itself may not explicitly argue for sola scriptura, it most definitely does not allow for traditions that contradict its message. Sola scriptura is not as much of an argument against tradition as it is an argument against unbiblical, extra-biblical and/or anti-biblical doctrines."
I am okay with the underlying premise of sola scriptura if it does not oppose traditions that are inspired by the Holy Spirit.
I have a few questions for you.
1) Explain to me how people were able to live righteously in the sight of God, prior to Moses, without the Holy Scriptures we have canonized today. Most scholars say that Job was the earliest text of Scripture, followed by Genesis. Who wrote the core of the Old Testament? Moses. Thus, I ask you, if people were deprived of any written text known as the Holy Scriptures of God prior to the time of Moses or Job, how did they manage to live righteously, that is to say, in a manner that was pleasing to God? What scriptural authority did they appeal to with regards to walking by faith? How were they saved without the scriptures? What we see in the Biblical text is that people lived in godliness for thousands of years prior to the first Scripture ever being written down.
2) From whom do the Scriptures originate? From man or from God? Or is it both? I would say that it is both, obviously. Nevertheless, for clarity’s sake, it is evident that the Holy Spirit inspired men to write the truth about the Gospel, His Church, and His Godhead as well as other topics. Thus, if the Holy Spirit is the originator of the Divine Scriptures, do you limit the Holy Spirit by saying that He cannot also be the originator of Divine Traditions?
3) Numerous orthodox dogmas are not explicitly found in the Bible. For example, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Another example: Christ is fully God and fully man. Another example: Mary’s title of Theotokos, or Mother of God, or God Bearer. Another example: Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Solus Christus, Sola Gratia, and Soli Deo Gloria. How about this? Christ has two natures since He is fully God and fully Man. How about this? Christ has two wills since He has two natures, being fully God and fully Man. How about this? Christ is co-eternal and consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and there was never a time in which the Son did not exist since there was never a time in which the Father did not exist, nor was there ever a time in which the Holy Spirit did not exist. Before I go on with Trinitarian theology, I’ll stop there and mention one more dogma not explicitly taught in the Scriptures. The Lord Jesus, when St Luke says that Christ increased in wisdom and in stature, he did not mean to communicate to the reader that the King of kings and Creator of all was deficient in wisdom or in stature, for such an interpretation would be utterly blasphemous. Rather, St Luke meant to explain that the Lord Jesus’s wisdom and stature gradually increased and was not all at once made manifest. And this is no surprise because Christ did not immediately ascend the Cross when He began His ministry, but He patiently awaited the appointed time; neither did He perform miracles such as raising the dead prior to beginning His ministry, although who would deny that He, by His mere will, was more than capable of not only raising someone from the dead but also of resurrecting all who ever were dead? Forgive me, I’ll include one more dogmatic teaching. When the Lord was baptized and the Holy Spirit descended from Heaven to rest upon Jesus, and when the Father said, “This is my beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased”, we should not understand that it was only at this moment that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit, nor should we foolishly believe that prior to this event He was not the Son of God, for in truth He was filled with the Holy Spirit and entirely the Son of God pre-eternally prior to His conception, during His gestation, after His birth, and forevermore.
4) If you think that the above-mentioned dogmas are blatantly obvious from the Scriptures, you are wrong, as this is evident by the manifold heresies that have surfaced throughout the last 2000 years. These dogmas were established by holy men of God who were led by the Holy Spirit into all Truth, whereas the teachings that oppose them were inspired by the spirit of error, that wicked serpent that desires division, strife, and all manner of confusion. Do you suppose that those heretics omitted the Divine Scriptures or that they neglected to appeal to them as the authority for their blasphemous doctrines? Are you not aware of how many faithful of the Church were led astray by wolves to believe that the Son of God was lesser than the Father in that He was not consubstantial or co-equal with the Father? How many, by a wrongful interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, believed that the Christ was not fully man, but only in appearance was the Son of God a man? Others taught that Christ was half man and half God. Others deceived many by saying that Jesus was inhabited by the Word of God only some time after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Still, others foolishly proposed that Christ’s natures, and therefore His wills also, were comingled and confused so that Christ only had 1 nature and 1 will. As a side note pertaining to this last heresy, we reject this notion because comingling the human nature of Christ with His Divine nature would equate to destroying the Divinity because it would mean that God was subject to change! But we know that God, being perfect and therefore impassible, cannot change, which is why His nature cannot change also. And since Christ is God, it is impossible that God’s nature became confused with a human nature.
5) Having said all of this, if Scripture is the authoritative standard by which we discern dogma, that is, the Truth of our faith, then we will never be able to know what is dogmatically true, since the Divine Writings can be misinterpreted so that they support heresies just as much as they support genuine doctrine. And in the same way that the heretics falsely accused true believers to be deceived and deceivers themselves, the elect of Christ’s Church also levied the same charge against the real brood of vipers sent by that ancient serpent, the devil. But we know that, by the Holy Spirit, the true disciples of Christ emerged victorious against those liars and ungodly men carried away by every wind of doctrine who followed their own bellies and passions rather than the Spirit of Truth. However, although this is the case (for we would not know orthodox dogma without the aforementioned claim being true), in these last times we clearly see more tares emerging in the vineyard of the Lord, striving to choke the Word with crafty lies by utilizing the Scriptures to support their demonic deceptions. Some of them are now teaching that the Holy Trinity is not a true doctrine, instead saying that there is only One Person of the Godhead manifested in three different ways. Others teach that no one can be saved unless they are baptized in the Holy Ghost, which is evidenced by speaking in tongues. And others teach that Jesus Christ was not God but a prophet, but they still consider themselves Christians. All of these liars use the Divine Scriptures to persuade ignorant people to follow them into a pit of destruction, and they are truly the blind leading the blind, are they not?
6) And tell me, what evidence is there that this doctrine of Sola Scriptura is valid? Does not the Lord plainly tell us, “And when the Holy Spirit comes, He shall lead you into all Truth”? I beg you, show me the proof of this prophecy’s fulfillment within the Protestant Reformation. You cannot. I beg you, show me the proof of this prophecy’s fulfillment within the Roman Catholic Church. You cannot. And why do I say that you cannot? Because it is as evident as the Sun shining on a cloudless day that the dogmas in each of these churches has not remained static. It is also irrefutable that dogmas have changed within each of these churches. This is particularly apparent within the Protestant sphere, for we have major irreconcilable differences between Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. And for simplicity’s sake, I only mention but three men since time would fail me to list the hundreds and thousands of others who have devised other dogmatic schisms, all of whom claim to be led by the Holy Spirit into all Truth, all of whom believe themselves to be true disciples of Christ, all of whom consider themselves to be part of His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. For those who would argue, “We major on the majors and minor on the minors”, you must realize that this statement is unacceptable so long as you believe contradictory doctrines about Christ, His work on the Cross, the Holy Trinity, the sacraments (especially the Eucharist and baptism), apostolic succession, and soteriology, just to name a few major items.
7) But my last objection is this: I often hear from Protestants that there is no man who is perfect and infallible and always rightly dividing the Word of Truth, except Christ Jesus. To this, I say, “Amen!” Yet, how is it, my brethren, that you followed one man, a disobedient monk who disregarded his vows to God as if they meant absolutely nothing, who rebelled against the mother that bore him—that is, his church—and against his brethren and against God by issuing a public rebuke to those who were superior to him in rank, thereby exalting himself as something when he was nothing and no one. Nonetheless, this man, deluded by his insatiable pride and arrogance, making himself to be somebody, an ambassador of truth, and someone supposedly illumined by the Holy Spirit to see the truth, raised himself higher than all ecclesial authorities and deemed them erroneous and heretical, meanwhile he mocked them with his hypocritical hubris by asserting that his doctrines (as supported by his flawless understanding of the Divine Scriptures as well as his genius reasoning) were in every way more orthodox and dogmatic than what had been universally taught in the church he belonged to. This poor and exceedingly prideful man could not but attract the father of lies with the foul stench of arrogance, for he had trusted that his conscience and his reasoning were in all respects more legitimate and righteous than those that generated the doctrines of his own church for centuries. And so, instead of being humble and receiving grace from God, he rightfully received deception and delusion from the deceiver and author of confusion, Satan. What a spectacle this man was with his audacity, that he even attracted others more audacious and more cunning than himself, so that instead of unity grounded by faith and universal dogma held in unanimous agreement, we find that the hydra— which was spawned by the seed of a pawn of that wicked one, not merely possessing only a few heads, but now hideously showing itself to possess tens of thousands of heads, each of which spews out the poison of heresy throughout the world. And the tragedy of all of this is that many multitudes of people throughout the generations (not knowing that the devil’s craftiness had deceived a few most exceedingly prideful men, beginning with Luther, so that they would consider themselves special vessels of grace being led by the false brilliance of the darkened and fallen angel), have been led away by the reformers from one set of errors into another multitude of falsehoods, perhaps ones even more foolish than the first. What could be more tragic than this, since men of God, so they called themselves, considering themselves led by the Holy Spirit have perpetuated falsehoods rather than dogmatic truth? Moreover, they would emphatically affirm to all who would listen to their madness that they considered the lies they taught to the masses to be definitively supported by the Divine Scriptures.
I have written much, and I hardly expect that anyone will actually respond to my post, point for point. I also doubt that I will not be reported for “goading” or “flaming”. I do not consider my post to be this. Rather, my post is meant to spark a healthy theological debate. I raised strong points for the weak foundation for sola scriptura. It is now the incumbent’s responsibility to strongly defend their position. In order to do this, they must disprove my arguments.
First, they must provide evidence for the dogmatic doctrine of sola scriptura in light of the evidence that the Scriptures did not even exist prior to Moses or Job. And since dogma is impassible, inasmuch as God is impassible since He is the source of Truth, you must prove how this dogma existed and was necessary to live righteously during these times without the Scriptures.
Secondly, proponents of sola scriptura must prove why the Holy Spirit, who inspired the Scriptures, is limited and unable to inspire the members of the Church to institute Holy Traditions, which are not necessarily based on the Scriptures but which are not necessarily opposed to the Scriptures either.
Thirdly, proponents of sola scriptura must prove how it is valid outside of Holy Tradition since numerous heresies have originated from deceivers who relied solely on the Scriptures as their basis for generating falsehoods. Arius, Nestorius, Pelagius, all of whom were heretics: they all appealed to the authority of Scripture to conjure and support their deceptions. If the scriptures alone are the only authoritative source of truth, who determines or what is the standard by which we discern orthodox interpretations of Divine Writ versus those which are counterfeits and of the devil? You must provide an adequate answer to this question to validate sola scriptura.
Fourthly, if the Scriptures alone are the authoritative source of truth, and if a Christian can only understand the word of God by the leading of the Holy Spirit, how then are we able to determine who is truly led by the Spirit into all truth and who is led by the spirit of error into all falsehood? Sola scriptura is unable to compensate for this flaw and proponents must prove the case to be otherwise.
Fifthly, the chief mark of Christ’s Church is its unity, since it is written, “And when the Holy Spirit comes, He shall lead you into all truth”, and, “Father, I pray that they may be one as We are One”, and again, “Upon you shall I build my Church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it”, and lastly, “Be of one mind, one heart, one voice” because there is only “one baptism, one resurrection” and One Church, since the body of Christ is only one. Tell me, my brethren, how is it that you believe the body of Christ to be united in Spirit while it is torn asunder by irreconcilable differences in dogmatic theology? The tens of thousands of denominations that supposedly are not different from one another (which is quite untrue!), are they not all the offspring of Luther, all of which affirm that they proclaim the truth of God’s word but which differ from other denominations, sometimes even in monumental ways? Will you not admit that sola scriptura has a major flaw in that it has the potential to spark schism and divisions, not to mention heresies?
My last point, which is not so much a question as it is an observation, is this. This doctrine of sola scriptura originated from Martin Luther. As I have explained above, this man was not credible, nor should he have been followed. Thus, to put it concisely, his doctrines are also not credible. Why, then, do you accept this doctrine of his? Do you not realize that the Church of Christ, for 15 centuries and even until now, has never believed or taught such a doctrine? Does that mean nothing to you? Do you consider the Holy Spirit not to have led the Church rightly until Martin Luther was born and decided to rebel? For over 2000 years, the Eastern Orthodox Church (although it has never known itself by this name but rather by the name of Christ’s Church, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church), has remain static in its dogma! If you don’t believe me, look it up. Who can claim this but Christ’s Church? Not the Romans, not the Protestants; no, my friends, none of them can claim that their dogma has never changed or been amended. We, on the other hand, can emphatically assert that the Holy Spirit has revealed the True Light to Christ’s Church. Did the Roman Pope initiate a schism? Yes, although the Catholics would say contrariwise. What happened after that? Along comes another pope, Mr. Luther, and he then initiates another schism. And as I said, this abominable hydra now possess tens of thousands of heads. Nonetheless, the true Church of Christ remained unscathed by heresies, retaining its dogmas unchanged and static, retaining its unity and unanimity, and certainly rightly dividing the Word of Truth, since it was not possible that the author of confusion could ever prevail over the Author of peace and His Body. What is more evident than that? What is more valid?
Please, please, please, for the love of Christ, forgive me if I have grieved or offended you in any way! I am very sorry!
I am addressing the doctrine of Sola Scriptura today, which is captivated in the following way by Martin Luther:
“Unless therefore I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture, or by the clearest reasoning, unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted, and unless they thus render my conscience bound by the Word of God, I cannot and will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other; may God help me! Amen!”
Another believer named Matthew Barrett says this about it:
“...only Scripture, because it is God’s inspired Word, is our inerrant, sufficient, and final authority for the church.”
If you google Sola Scriptura and read "Got Questions?" on the topic, you'll find that the writer argues that tradition is not worthless so long as it is supported by the Scriptures. He further maintains, as I'm sure many others do, that the reason that Protestants reject the Traditions of the Roman Catholic Church is because they were not based on the truth of God's word but rather on the traditions of men. With regards to this charge, I do not completely disagree, as I myself do not find in the writings of the Church Fathers, nor in the Holy Scriptures, nor in the history of the Church, any dogmatic teaching on papal supremacy and papal infallibility, nor do I find any basis for the immaculate conception as it is defined by the Roman Church, nor do I find basis for purgatory, nor is there any support for selling indulgences and applying the merits of saints towards other people so that their sins can be forgiven and be granted passage to heaven.
Of course, I do not say these things to attack the Catholics. I also don't say them so that I am communicating that I support the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura as purported by Luther. I am merely saying that I can sympathize with some of the objections that the reformers had towards the problematic dogmas and practices of the Roman Church during their lifetime.
Returning to the issue at hand: Sola Scriptura, which purports that only the Scriptures can be appealed to as being authoritative on matters of dogma and praxis.
I have to say, I am somewhat comforted by the view that the writer of Got Questions takes. He says this, "The Bible declares itself to be God-breathed, inerrant, and authoritative. We also know that God does not change His mind or contradict Himself. So, while the Bible itself may not explicitly argue for sola scriptura, it most definitely does not allow for traditions that contradict its message. Sola scriptura is not as much of an argument against tradition as it is an argument against unbiblical, extra-biblical and/or anti-biblical doctrines."
I am okay with the underlying premise of sola scriptura if it does not oppose traditions that are inspired by the Holy Spirit.
I have a few questions for you.
1) Explain to me how people were able to live righteously in the sight of God, prior to Moses, without the Holy Scriptures we have canonized today. Most scholars say that Job was the earliest text of Scripture, followed by Genesis. Who wrote the core of the Old Testament? Moses. Thus, I ask you, if people were deprived of any written text known as the Holy Scriptures of God prior to the time of Moses or Job, how did they manage to live righteously, that is to say, in a manner that was pleasing to God? What scriptural authority did they appeal to with regards to walking by faith? How were they saved without the scriptures? What we see in the Biblical text is that people lived in godliness for thousands of years prior to the first Scripture ever being written down.
2) From whom do the Scriptures originate? From man or from God? Or is it both? I would say that it is both, obviously. Nevertheless, for clarity’s sake, it is evident that the Holy Spirit inspired men to write the truth about the Gospel, His Church, and His Godhead as well as other topics. Thus, if the Holy Spirit is the originator of the Divine Scriptures, do you limit the Holy Spirit by saying that He cannot also be the originator of Divine Traditions?
3) Numerous orthodox dogmas are not explicitly found in the Bible. For example, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Another example: Christ is fully God and fully man. Another example: Mary’s title of Theotokos, or Mother of God, or God Bearer. Another example: Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Solus Christus, Sola Gratia, and Soli Deo Gloria. How about this? Christ has two natures since He is fully God and fully Man. How about this? Christ has two wills since He has two natures, being fully God and fully Man. How about this? Christ is co-eternal and consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and there was never a time in which the Son did not exist since there was never a time in which the Father did not exist, nor was there ever a time in which the Holy Spirit did not exist. Before I go on with Trinitarian theology, I’ll stop there and mention one more dogma not explicitly taught in the Scriptures. The Lord Jesus, when St Luke says that Christ increased in wisdom and in stature, he did not mean to communicate to the reader that the King of kings and Creator of all was deficient in wisdom or in stature, for such an interpretation would be utterly blasphemous. Rather, St Luke meant to explain that the Lord Jesus’s wisdom and stature gradually increased and was not all at once made manifest. And this is no surprise because Christ did not immediately ascend the Cross when He began His ministry, but He patiently awaited the appointed time; neither did He perform miracles such as raising the dead prior to beginning His ministry, although who would deny that He, by His mere will, was more than capable of not only raising someone from the dead but also of resurrecting all who ever were dead? Forgive me, I’ll include one more dogmatic teaching. When the Lord was baptized and the Holy Spirit descended from Heaven to rest upon Jesus, and when the Father said, “This is my beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased”, we should not understand that it was only at this moment that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit, nor should we foolishly believe that prior to this event He was not the Son of God, for in truth He was filled with the Holy Spirit and entirely the Son of God pre-eternally prior to His conception, during His gestation, after His birth, and forevermore.
4) If you think that the above-mentioned dogmas are blatantly obvious from the Scriptures, you are wrong, as this is evident by the manifold heresies that have surfaced throughout the last 2000 years. These dogmas were established by holy men of God who were led by the Holy Spirit into all Truth, whereas the teachings that oppose them were inspired by the spirit of error, that wicked serpent that desires division, strife, and all manner of confusion. Do you suppose that those heretics omitted the Divine Scriptures or that they neglected to appeal to them as the authority for their blasphemous doctrines? Are you not aware of how many faithful of the Church were led astray by wolves to believe that the Son of God was lesser than the Father in that He was not consubstantial or co-equal with the Father? How many, by a wrongful interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, believed that the Christ was not fully man, but only in appearance was the Son of God a man? Others taught that Christ was half man and half God. Others deceived many by saying that Jesus was inhabited by the Word of God only some time after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Still, others foolishly proposed that Christ’s natures, and therefore His wills also, were comingled and confused so that Christ only had 1 nature and 1 will. As a side note pertaining to this last heresy, we reject this notion because comingling the human nature of Christ with His Divine nature would equate to destroying the Divinity because it would mean that God was subject to change! But we know that God, being perfect and therefore impassible, cannot change, which is why His nature cannot change also. And since Christ is God, it is impossible that God’s nature became confused with a human nature.
5) Having said all of this, if Scripture is the authoritative standard by which we discern dogma, that is, the Truth of our faith, then we will never be able to know what is dogmatically true, since the Divine Writings can be misinterpreted so that they support heresies just as much as they support genuine doctrine. And in the same way that the heretics falsely accused true believers to be deceived and deceivers themselves, the elect of Christ’s Church also levied the same charge against the real brood of vipers sent by that ancient serpent, the devil. But we know that, by the Holy Spirit, the true disciples of Christ emerged victorious against those liars and ungodly men carried away by every wind of doctrine who followed their own bellies and passions rather than the Spirit of Truth. However, although this is the case (for we would not know orthodox dogma without the aforementioned claim being true), in these last times we clearly see more tares emerging in the vineyard of the Lord, striving to choke the Word with crafty lies by utilizing the Scriptures to support their demonic deceptions. Some of them are now teaching that the Holy Trinity is not a true doctrine, instead saying that there is only One Person of the Godhead manifested in three different ways. Others teach that no one can be saved unless they are baptized in the Holy Ghost, which is evidenced by speaking in tongues. And others teach that Jesus Christ was not God but a prophet, but they still consider themselves Christians. All of these liars use the Divine Scriptures to persuade ignorant people to follow them into a pit of destruction, and they are truly the blind leading the blind, are they not?
6) And tell me, what evidence is there that this doctrine of Sola Scriptura is valid? Does not the Lord plainly tell us, “And when the Holy Spirit comes, He shall lead you into all Truth”? I beg you, show me the proof of this prophecy’s fulfillment within the Protestant Reformation. You cannot. I beg you, show me the proof of this prophecy’s fulfillment within the Roman Catholic Church. You cannot. And why do I say that you cannot? Because it is as evident as the Sun shining on a cloudless day that the dogmas in each of these churches has not remained static. It is also irrefutable that dogmas have changed within each of these churches. This is particularly apparent within the Protestant sphere, for we have major irreconcilable differences between Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. And for simplicity’s sake, I only mention but three men since time would fail me to list the hundreds and thousands of others who have devised other dogmatic schisms, all of whom claim to be led by the Holy Spirit into all Truth, all of whom believe themselves to be true disciples of Christ, all of whom consider themselves to be part of His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. For those who would argue, “We major on the majors and minor on the minors”, you must realize that this statement is unacceptable so long as you believe contradictory doctrines about Christ, His work on the Cross, the Holy Trinity, the sacraments (especially the Eucharist and baptism), apostolic succession, and soteriology, just to name a few major items.
7) But my last objection is this: I often hear from Protestants that there is no man who is perfect and infallible and always rightly dividing the Word of Truth, except Christ Jesus. To this, I say, “Amen!” Yet, how is it, my brethren, that you followed one man, a disobedient monk who disregarded his vows to God as if they meant absolutely nothing, who rebelled against the mother that bore him—that is, his church—and against his brethren and against God by issuing a public rebuke to those who were superior to him in rank, thereby exalting himself as something when he was nothing and no one. Nonetheless, this man, deluded by his insatiable pride and arrogance, making himself to be somebody, an ambassador of truth, and someone supposedly illumined by the Holy Spirit to see the truth, raised himself higher than all ecclesial authorities and deemed them erroneous and heretical, meanwhile he mocked them with his hypocritical hubris by asserting that his doctrines (as supported by his flawless understanding of the Divine Scriptures as well as his genius reasoning) were in every way more orthodox and dogmatic than what had been universally taught in the church he belonged to. This poor and exceedingly prideful man could not but attract the father of lies with the foul stench of arrogance, for he had trusted that his conscience and his reasoning were in all respects more legitimate and righteous than those that generated the doctrines of his own church for centuries. And so, instead of being humble and receiving grace from God, he rightfully received deception and delusion from the deceiver and author of confusion, Satan. What a spectacle this man was with his audacity, that he even attracted others more audacious and more cunning than himself, so that instead of unity grounded by faith and universal dogma held in unanimous agreement, we find that the hydra— which was spawned by the seed of a pawn of that wicked one, not merely possessing only a few heads, but now hideously showing itself to possess tens of thousands of heads, each of which spews out the poison of heresy throughout the world. And the tragedy of all of this is that many multitudes of people throughout the generations (not knowing that the devil’s craftiness had deceived a few most exceedingly prideful men, beginning with Luther, so that they would consider themselves special vessels of grace being led by the false brilliance of the darkened and fallen angel), have been led away by the reformers from one set of errors into another multitude of falsehoods, perhaps ones even more foolish than the first. What could be more tragic than this, since men of God, so they called themselves, considering themselves led by the Holy Spirit have perpetuated falsehoods rather than dogmatic truth? Moreover, they would emphatically affirm to all who would listen to their madness that they considered the lies they taught to the masses to be definitively supported by the Divine Scriptures.
I have written much, and I hardly expect that anyone will actually respond to my post, point for point. I also doubt that I will not be reported for “goading” or “flaming”. I do not consider my post to be this. Rather, my post is meant to spark a healthy theological debate. I raised strong points for the weak foundation for sola scriptura. It is now the incumbent’s responsibility to strongly defend their position. In order to do this, they must disprove my arguments.
First, they must provide evidence for the dogmatic doctrine of sola scriptura in light of the evidence that the Scriptures did not even exist prior to Moses or Job. And since dogma is impassible, inasmuch as God is impassible since He is the source of Truth, you must prove how this dogma existed and was necessary to live righteously during these times without the Scriptures.
Secondly, proponents of sola scriptura must prove why the Holy Spirit, who inspired the Scriptures, is limited and unable to inspire the members of the Church to institute Holy Traditions, which are not necessarily based on the Scriptures but which are not necessarily opposed to the Scriptures either.
Thirdly, proponents of sola scriptura must prove how it is valid outside of Holy Tradition since numerous heresies have originated from deceivers who relied solely on the Scriptures as their basis for generating falsehoods. Arius, Nestorius, Pelagius, all of whom were heretics: they all appealed to the authority of Scripture to conjure and support their deceptions. If the scriptures alone are the only authoritative source of truth, who determines or what is the standard by which we discern orthodox interpretations of Divine Writ versus those which are counterfeits and of the devil? You must provide an adequate answer to this question to validate sola scriptura.
Fourthly, if the Scriptures alone are the authoritative source of truth, and if a Christian can only understand the word of God by the leading of the Holy Spirit, how then are we able to determine who is truly led by the Spirit into all truth and who is led by the spirit of error into all falsehood? Sola scriptura is unable to compensate for this flaw and proponents must prove the case to be otherwise.
Fifthly, the chief mark of Christ’s Church is its unity, since it is written, “And when the Holy Spirit comes, He shall lead you into all truth”, and, “Father, I pray that they may be one as We are One”, and again, “Upon you shall I build my Church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it”, and lastly, “Be of one mind, one heart, one voice” because there is only “one baptism, one resurrection” and One Church, since the body of Christ is only one. Tell me, my brethren, how is it that you believe the body of Christ to be united in Spirit while it is torn asunder by irreconcilable differences in dogmatic theology? The tens of thousands of denominations that supposedly are not different from one another (which is quite untrue!), are they not all the offspring of Luther, all of which affirm that they proclaim the truth of God’s word but which differ from other denominations, sometimes even in monumental ways? Will you not admit that sola scriptura has a major flaw in that it has the potential to spark schism and divisions, not to mention heresies?
My last point, which is not so much a question as it is an observation, is this. This doctrine of sola scriptura originated from Martin Luther. As I have explained above, this man was not credible, nor should he have been followed. Thus, to put it concisely, his doctrines are also not credible. Why, then, do you accept this doctrine of his? Do you not realize that the Church of Christ, for 15 centuries and even until now, has never believed or taught such a doctrine? Does that mean nothing to you? Do you consider the Holy Spirit not to have led the Church rightly until Martin Luther was born and decided to rebel? For over 2000 years, the Eastern Orthodox Church (although it has never known itself by this name but rather by the name of Christ’s Church, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church), has remain static in its dogma! If you don’t believe me, look it up. Who can claim this but Christ’s Church? Not the Romans, not the Protestants; no, my friends, none of them can claim that their dogma has never changed or been amended. We, on the other hand, can emphatically assert that the Holy Spirit has revealed the True Light to Christ’s Church. Did the Roman Pope initiate a schism? Yes, although the Catholics would say contrariwise. What happened after that? Along comes another pope, Mr. Luther, and he then initiates another schism. And as I said, this abominable hydra now possess tens of thousands of heads. Nonetheless, the true Church of Christ remained unscathed by heresies, retaining its dogmas unchanged and static, retaining its unity and unanimity, and certainly rightly dividing the Word of Truth, since it was not possible that the author of confusion could ever prevail over the Author of peace and His Body. What is more evident than that? What is more valid?
Please, please, please, for the love of Christ, forgive me if I have grieved or offended you in any way! I am very sorry!
Last edited:
The connection is never made; it is just stipulated.
