I'm never opposed to a debate. I don't always have time to respond thoroughly enough to make it worth anyone's while but I'm sure we'll get into it some day.
A lot of times we just ping each other in comments that seem relevant. Neither of us has spent as much time here as of late, but if we get into it, I'll give you a shout.
My problem with sola scriptura is that no where in Scripture is this doctrine contained, which it would have to be in order for sola scriptura to be true. We can't just say that sola scriptura is a presumed axiom or an article of faith since sola scriptura itself denies that there can be any articles of faith not contained within Scripture.
But it isn't just a matter of the doctrine being absent from Scripture. Scripture speaks quite clearly against the possibility of sola scriptura.
Notably, 2 Thes 2:14 (biblegateway.com) beseeches Christians to hold to traditions passed down to them, whether by word or by epistle. This "word or epistle" dichotomy clearly suggests an oral / written dichotomy, and therefore affirms not just the Scriptural teaching, but that which is passed down through the Apostles to our own age outside of what was written down. And we know that there were things that Jesus taught that were not written down, since Scripture tells us as much:
"And without parable he did not speak unto them; but apart, he explained all things to his disciples." Mark 4:34 (biblegateway.com)
As for sola fide, Scripture gives us a case of a eunuch requiring help from an Apostle in order to understand what Scripture is saying (Acts 8:29-35 (biblegateway.com)). So the million dollar question is, how can man be justified by faith alone if man does not even know what the "faith" constitutes? Is it mere belief in a name? Belief in an essence? Belief in seven articles of faith? Twelve? Belief in every factoid of the Bible, even those whose meaning as either literal or metaphorical is ambiguous? Are the billions of people who populate this Earth supposed to crack open the Good Book and give it their best go? Maybe here or there they'll interpret a metaphor as something literal, or something literal as merely metaphorical; maybe they'll see symbols where there are sacraments, or counsels where there are precepts. Clearly the eunuch needed help. Don't we? At least some of us? Are we to suppose Christ left us to our own devices? Or did He in His wisdom establish, not just an abstract Church, but a living Church with a temporal hierarchy (what are bishops if not members of a temporal hierarchy?), one that would not just provide us with sound exegesis on the Scriptures, as Phillip did for the eunuch, but one that would also preserve those extra-Scriptural traditions (the "word" traditions, as distinguished from the "epistle" traditions) about which St. Paul speaks?
If one is going to assert that man is justified by faith alone, one ought to know - with clarity and certainty - what that faith even is.
Jesus Christ did not leave us with a Bible - that came centuries after His ascension. What He did leave us with, before ascending into heaven, was a Church, and He gave that Church the ability to "bind and loose" - and in obedience to Him, I am obedient to His Church.
EDIT: I left out of this analysis the fact that Luther added "alone" to Romans 3:28 (biblegateway.com), and attempted to remove the epistle of St. James from the Bible, since it contradicted his teachings.
See Op? I told you he liked to debate. :)
I have been through this ringer with him for weeks and weeks, and he's made the points above in responses to me from the past. I, for one, find these convincing cases.
For my part, I'd just say that it occurred to me that for the full splendor of the good news, as in a full appreciation for the consummation of the arc that Christ represents, one has to treat the New Testament along with the Old Testament. The full significance of the New Covenant is simply not possible to fully understand without the totality of scripture.
When we bring the OT into the fray, it simply becomes an impossibility NOT to approach it without a traditional hermeneutic. It cannot be done. For one obvious reason, in literary terms, the Jews wrote it to require such a hermeneutic, or perhaps I should say with one in mind.
If one considers stories such as Jonah and the whale, it's outside of common sensical bounds to think that we could approach such things at face value. In fact, I have to believe that most protestants don't - even if they say they do. If we accept sola scriptura, there is no way to make the assertion that this story is in any way metaphorical or allegorical. It has to be taken at face value. Any license one takes to 'read into' this scripture is not justified in itself. If we do acknowledge that such stories require an interpretative hermeneutic, then we've already broached the necessity of a teaching tradition.
If one takes this teaching tradition seriously, insofar as the significance of scripture must be honored by the utmost caution and curation of the teaching, this suggests against the kind of broad latitude of denomination we see in Protestantism, rather favoring the longer tradition of Catholicism itself, whose patristic lineage goes back to the time of Christ directly. It's impossible for Protestantism to flout that history, because they shared it for 1500 years. Moreover, at no point in that tradition was the doctrine of sola scriptura supported by any of the earliest church fathers. Literally, the disciples of Christ made no such claim, which makes sola scriptura a child of the Renaissance.
Thanks for the ping and the discussion. I'll read through it and the passages you reference. It might take me a while but I'll do my best next weekend to put a response together that's not just me throwing sources at you.
It's a little funny since this exact debate has been ongoing for centuries now and men much smarter and more learned than I have spent lifetimes discussing and writing about it.
It is important though to be able to explain what you believe and why you believe it, and to check it for consistency. So I appreciate the challenge.
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