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A Defense of Sola Scriptura

Here is a fundamental question of (the methodology of) theology: According to what rule, or rules, should we determine our doctrines about the things of God? This question asks about our regula fidei, Latin for “rule of faith.”

The classical Protestant answer is: Our regula fidei is sola scriptura, also from Latin, meaning “Scripture alone.” The Bible and only the Bible tells us what our doctrines about the things of God should be.

Now, in some of my interminable debates with Catholics (or Catholic bots; sometimes one can’t tell) on social media, someone challenged me to defend sola scriptura. As a student of the Bible, I thought: challenge accepted. In this essay, I will defend sola scriptura by demonstrating that Scripture itself mandates that doctrinal positions must be grounded solely in the word of God.

What Sola Scriptura Means, Briefly

The place to begin is by explaining what sola scriptura entails. It does not mean that “everything we believe can only be found in the Bible,” obviously; that would be a straw man. We can believe many things about many topics the Bible never explicitly addresses. Nor does it mean that all our doctrines should be found, word for word, in the Bible. This is simply not the claim.

The formula concerns the propositions we should include in our Christian doctrine. This is not to say that these are the things we “take on faith”; that is yet another straw man. It is to say that these are the things that are part of our personal “confession,” or the things regarding God (or theology more generally) that we accept as true.

I think we may gloss the formula this way:

Sola scriptura: We should not advance doctrinal positions without scriptural support.

In other words, if something counts as Christian doctrine, and we accept it, then we—or someone properly trained, who takes our position—should be able to defend it on the basis of the Bible. Now, since we are discussing the interpretation of the Bible, that means we are discussing hermeneutics, and therefore we cannot really dispense with linguistic data, as well as common sense and rules of logic, because of course such things are needed to construct many Bible-based theological arguments. Now, if I were writing this for philosophers, I might pretend to be surprised and concerned about these additions, and I might go into them in more depth; but I’m not, so I won’t. The Bible serves not just as the strict guardrails for our doctrine, but also as its only acceptable foundation. Any proposition that is not grounded in the text of the Bible is, for that reason, probably not Christian doctrine. This does not mean that it is false; it means only that it is not peculiarly Christian.

But with this, I do not mean to rule out tradition per se. Traditions can be explorations, summaries, and modest outgrowths of Scripture, such as the broadly-supported doctrine of the Trinity, the very shape of the cross (i.e., that it is not merely a tall stake in the ground), and certain broadly accepted ideas about angels and demons that are difficult to support by the Bible alone.

You might notice, next, that sola scriptura is itself a theological doctrine. So we should not advance it without scriptural support. Catholics treat this observation as a “gotcha” for Protestants. They are correct to notice that the doctrine must apply to itself. But this is obvious and not exactly news. They are right that the defender of sola scriptura has a special burden of proof. But, in what follows, I am happy to do what I can to meet that burden.

One more thing: sola scriptura is not just a point of doctrine, it is a doctrine about doctrine, so we might call it a meta-doctrine. In defending the doctrine, we apply it to itself and affirm: sola scriptura may be supported with the Bible, of course.

Biblical Warnings Against Adding to God’s Word

There are at least five main places in which Scripture makes direct restrictions on our adoption of, or general characterizations about, doctrines concerning God. We will introduce the first four and discuss them together, as they all make similar points; in the next section, we will discuss the fifth.

The first two are warnings from the fifth book of the Pentateuch (or Torah), Deuteronomy, against going beyond what Moses has declared:

You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. (4:2)

Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it. (12:32)

The second is from the last chapter of the Bible, in the book of Revelation:

For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life and from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. (22:18-19)

These warnings may be understood to apply, respectively, to the deuteronomic law and to the contents of Revelation. Critics will immediately point to this limited scope. So, what follows? How does this support sola scriptura? We will soon see.

My third citation is a declaration of Paul’s to the Galatians about the accursedness of someone who preaches “any other gospel” than that which Paul and his confreres have taught:

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. (1:8-9)

Now, although this is about the Gospel, it falls into the same category as the others: it is a warning by the prophet (for though Paul is an Apostle, he here plays a role very similar to the prophets) that there is a well-understood body of doctrine, and adding to it will bring curses. This is not, of course, the only place where someone warns against preaching “another Christ.”1

The fourth is an even more general principle from Proverbs, a warning that we might take as a summary of the foregoing:

Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.

Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. (30:5-6)

Now, Moses, John, and Paul obviously were not saying that only their personal words could be taken as expressions of the words of God. For example, there were others who came after Moses (like Solomon, Isaiah, John, and Paul) who did add to what was later accepted as the word of God. Nor did anyone ever accuse those later writers of violating Moses’ warnings. So what were they saying?

We can infer that these warnings were specifically against a specific kind of heresy: syncretic, doctrinal accretions not directly inspired by God. Syncretism is the practice—common throughout Biblical times and today as well—of combining the accepted declarations of God’s prophets with foreign elements, typically from other traditions, but sometimes from teachers who have not been approved and who make significant additions and changes to the approved traditions. The verse from Deuteronomy 12 puts it well: “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.” In other words, the claim is not, “I am done making my commands,” but “do not take your own commands, or those of some false prophet, as mine; wait for the reliable word of the Lord.”

This warning against going beyond the reliable and established word of the Lord appears again and again, so that it becomes fairly clear that in the above four instances, these are more of the same: we are not to extend our doctrine-building beyond explicating what is directly given by the Lord. Thus the thing being warned against, the practice being explicitly rejected, is the invention of new doctrine, described variously as “precepts of men,” “deceits of the heart,” “commandments of men,” and “doctrines of devils.”

For example, Isaiah quotes the Lord as saying, “Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.” (29:13) Jeremiah quotes the Lord this way: “they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.” (14:14; cf. 23:16) The warning, then, is against dictates of men and imaginative additions to doctrine.

Along these lines, more famously, Jesus took the “lawyers” and Pharisees to task for this: “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” (Mt 15:9; cf. Mk 7:7-9)

Paul’s warning to the Galatians against “any other gospel” (the third citation above) identifies a closely related problem: heresy. Here is Paul to Timothy: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.” (1 Tim 4:1-2)

So far, all we have shown is that the Bible is replete with warnings against false additions to the word of God. This, by itself, does not establish sola scriptura, does it? It does not, but read on. As it turns out, Scripture contains much that is highly suggestive of just when innovators may be said to “add to the word.”

When Do We “Add to His Words”?

Next we must take up the question of how members of the church are to know when somebody is sharing a “precept of men,” “the deceit of their heart,” “the commandments of men,” “doctrines of devils,” etc. This has not really been clarified, so far. When do we “add to his words”?

I submit that, generally speaking, this would have been clear to the prophets and apostles themselves. They declared that they spoke on behalf of God himself, according to the prophetic refrain, “Thus saith the LORD.” Prophets, for their part, were identified as such based on whether their prophecy had come to pass, at least in part.2 The early Christian church seems to have adopted as a rule that only those Gospel reports that recorded the events surrounding Jesus’ ministry faithfully (obviously, according to those witnesses who were still alive), and only the words of doctrine shared by those who were taught by the Lord himself, and in the case of Paul who had visions and did miracles in his name over the period of many years.

In this way, all of Scripture claims to be imparting the words of God, along with a minority of material that concerned the history of Israel, the early church, and related issues that gave essential context and reference. Even in this case what we have is the divinely-inspired history and writing of witnesses of the Lord.

Here then is the point. If someone presumes to declare, as doctrine of the church, anything that extended beyond the words of prophets and apostles—again, beyond those who literally spoke on behalf or in direct witness of God himself—then he would be understood to be doing precisely what Moses, Solomon, Jesus, Paul, and John warned against.

Indeed, appropriately, it is not Jesus’ words so much as his actions that demonstrate how to apply this rule. He had no issues with what might look, to us, like creative interpretations of the Old Testament. Think of what he said about David and the shewbread: “But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him; How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests?” (Mt 12:3-4) What he had issue with, rather, were called “commandments of men” and “traditions of men” which were not to be found in the clearly God-breathed Scripture. We will return to the notion of “God-breathed Scripture” in the next section. How could Jesus take the Pharisaical traditions to task if he were not teaching something very like sola scriptura?

Similarly, when Paul and Peter observed the early gnostics and others teaching “another Gospel,” they were observing that they said things that extended beyond the divinely-inspired words of Jesus’ hand-picked apostles.

Now, you might point out that in Acts 15 there was a church council that declared new doctrine. Putting aside the fact that it was not, in fact, new (i.e., beyond what can be clearly inferred from Jesus’ own words), we can observe that this falls into the same category as the epistles: the council in question featured key apostles, like Peter and John, who, being filled with the Holy Spirit from the mouth of Jesus himself, were uniquely qualified to clarify doctrine (which, it can be argued, was also firmly rooted in the combination of the Old Testament law and what had already been revealed by Jesus).

By contrast, the early church wisely did not include Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, etc., in the Bible. This seems to be because, as wonderfully wise and edifying as the writings of these Apostolic Fathers are—I recommend that you read them if you have not done so yet—they are not words of those who claimed to be sent by Jesus or inspired to speak by God the Father. Indeed, some (not many) of their statements are frankly questionable. They are simply not reliable on the (doctrinally, rather random) points where they extend beyond firmly accepted Scripture of the Septuagint, the Gospels, and the authoritative (i.e., actually quoted) letters of Paul and Peter. Again, the early church had the option to include these writings in the first canons, and, for the most part,3 they did not. If they were wholly reliable, why not include them?

The most fundamental explanation is that the Apostolic Fathers did not necessarily speak for God. Nor did they claim to, which is perhaps the crucial point, and one that Roman Catholics really do not like to hear—but it is true. The Apostolic Fathers were not prophets or apostles. They knew it; unlike today’s popes, they knew they could not speak for God. Paul, however, could and did. In fact, in one place (see below), he explicitly distinguishes between doctrines that are of God and doctrines that are merely his own opinion.

In keeping with this, later ecumenical church councils were not added to the Bible as new books, though they could have been. This simple fact suggests that the members of the ecumenical councils at that time refused to pretend that their words were as reliable as, and on a par with, Scripture. Again, if they had regarded them as such, the councils would have been added.

An interesting example of a doctrine adopted by the Catholic Church that, in my opinion, illicitly extends beyond Scripture and the word of God is the notion that demons especially fear Mary. It seems that, according to tradition and practice, when priests perform exorcisms, the demons often say they fear Mary. (I am afraid I cannot confirm this; I am only reporting what I have been told.) It is Catholic doctrine that demons are not permitted to lie when they are bound by the priests to tell the truth. On this, I would like to point out, gently, that this notion that demons fear Mary is a doctrine; that it is a doctrine that avowedly, according to Catholic exorcists, comes from “devils” (demons); hence it appears to be a “doctrine of devils”! Paul warned Timothy against those, you know. This sounds like a joke, but if so, it is a serious joke and a rather good illustration of the concepts in play.

Further Issues and Arguments

Furthermore, the sufficiency of Scripture for doctrine is not just implied but explicitly stated in one place. On sola scriptura, a fifth, often-cited text is in a letter from Paul to Timothy:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly [thoroughly, completely] furnished unto all good works. (2 Tim 3:16-17)

This can be used to develop a straightforward argument: If Scripture makes a person thoroughly prepared for “all good works” including the teaching of doctrine, then no later church councils or ex cathedra papal declarations are necessary for doctrinal preparation. In other words, Roman Catholics would indeed seem to contradict Paul when they hold up certain church councils and ex cathedra statements as being required for proper teaching of doctrine. If extra-Biblical “tradition” were essential for justifying important doctrines, as the RCC also holds, then we would not be “throughly furnished” by mere Scripture alone, would we?

Now, this argument by itself does not establish sola scriptura. It only lends support to the notion. I do not believe in proof texts,4 generally speaking. But the argument does support sola scriptura because, quite simply, if a teacher may be “complete” and “equipped for every good work” with the help of Scripture, that strongly suggests (but does not by itself prove) that nothing would be missing that would be supplied by, say, the utterances of demons about the scariness of Mary.

More and perhaps even a stronger support can be found in how Paul treats his own opinions in the following:

Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be [a virgin, i.e., unmarried]. (1 Cor 7:25-26)

Now, the notion here is clear enough: Paul himself distinguishes between a “commandment of the Lord” and “my judgment,” the former being indisputable and binding, the latter being friendly advice that the faithful may set aside. This serves as a good example of a certain tendency in the Roman Catholic Church: it has made church doctrine even out of a clear disavowal. That is, they have proceeded to enforce a doctrine of priestly celibacy even though the statement is explicitly disavowed as a commandment of the Lord. By contrast, we defenders of sola scriptura may see in this a perfect instance of the problem I have set myself in this essay, namely, how we may know that some doctrine goes beyond the word of God. The short answer is that no mere opinion or speculation, even if from the likes of Paul, should be taken as a “commandment of the Lord.” Rather, we are to seek what God reveals to his prophets and what God in the flesh revealed to his disciples.

One argument that Roman Catholics like to make is that Jesus and Paul did indeed accept non-Biblical oral and written traditions, which is true; but Jesus is God. Jesus’ endorsement of a tradition constitutes it as truth. He also rejected other traditions as merely human inventions. As God—unlike, say, the Pope—he could declare certain traditions acceptable. The highest-ranking Pharisees and Sadducees could not do this, and they were rebuffed sternly by Jesus on certain points. Thus the verse in Proverbs that I quoted earlier: “Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” As to Paul, the situation is similar, except that, like the prophets, it is accepted by Christians that he was divinely inspired. Paul was powerfully inspired by the Holy Spirit and was God’s instrument for establishing the church among Gentiles in Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome. So, if he declared in a doctrinal epistle to the church that some tradition was correct, then the Holy Spirit has declared it to be so, through him.

Here is one final speculative but (I think) interesting argument, for what it is worth, against what is supposedly tradition-based extensions of scripture. If God had intended us to accept such supposed “traditions” (which are, in many cases, merely later fabrications), Jesus could have been expected to have said several things. There are three related points here. First, he would have set a very clear notion of church leadership. He did not: he explicitly disavowed the request to name a leader among them.5 Second, he would have defined the constitution of the future church much more clearly, so that we could identify what are, indeed, church-approved traditions. Again, he did not. Instead, the Bereans were shown searching the scriptures to determine whether the things Paul told them were true. Third, on the assumption that certain traditions would be expected, by the Lord, to emerge later and to have every bit as much authority as the text itself, he would have clarified on what grounds we can distinguish between such approved traditions and the mere “traditions of men” and “doctrines of devils.”

Instead what we see is the very opposite of these expectations. On the first point, it is not at all clear that Peter was the head of the church; James, the brother of Jesus, seems to have been equally important if not more so, and he had not even been an apostle. And while we have evidence of Peter and John (and to a lesser extent, others) traveling outside of the former Israel, the most pre-eminent church-founding role apparently fell to Paul, “as of one born out of due time”, who had not even known Jesus except by later visions. No one man or formally organized group of men were ever held up as the unique bearers of a tradition. The early church began organically, as well one might expect it to be, given all that Jesus had said about servant leadership. How, then, could a tradition be proven to be rooted in an early-established formal Church, as Catholics claim them to be? In other words, there was no formal, centrally organized Church to put its imprimatur on traditions.

On the second point, similarly, we observe that the church was given no methods for revealing new doctrine via Church “tradition.” Paul and Peter spoke as they were taught by the Lord himself, and all Christians agree that their authority came directly from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in ways made clear by Scripture itself. They did not get their authority from the Church, of which they were members, but from God. When there are so many cautions against going beyond the approved words of the Lord, how on earth could we, his loyal followers, be expected to judge among proffered traditions that can not in any clear way be shown to be inspired by the Holy Spirit? To be clear, this is not at all to deny that the Holy Spirit inspires all of us in various ways. Indeed, the Catholic notion of an inspired tradition has it that such traditions come to us through approved Church teaching. Yet the point remains is that we were never given a way to identify such traditions and teachings by the Lord. You might want to believe the Catholic claims that Peter was the first Pope and that the authority of the Roman church was always regarded as supreme, indeed, but these claims of Roman supremacy are themselves later traditions (centuries later); those not already convinced of them cannot find support for such traditions in the historical record.

On the third point, Jesus told the apostles, especially in the Upper Room Discourse, John 13-17, that he would send the Holy Spirit who would “teach you all things” (John 14:26), including things not revealed by him. That would been the place where he might say, “And you will pass along words that you will not write down, through a succession of apostles, but which later generations may trust, because they will be held faithfully by the Church.” He said no such thing. He does not authorize an apostolic succession. Never once did he give us this or any other way to distinguish true from false traditions. Nor is there any approval of traditions, per se, in the Old Testament, apart from what is specifically revealed to be the words of the Lord.

We are left to conclude that any later words—like the very words of this essay—are, being merely the works of men, not to be trusted in the way in which we may trust Scripture. We might speculate, debate, and reason, but we are indeed not to “add to his word.”

Conclusion

Sola scriptura may be understood as the view that we should not advance doctrinal positions without scriptural support. There are many warnings in the Bible itself not to extend our doctrine-construction beyond the word of God. Such warnings are often broad and seem to depend on a pre-existent notion of what is the word of God. So what was meant?

Both Scripture and early Christian practice has much of relevance on this point. The Bible consists of the writings of prophets, apostles, and their close associates, who were thought to speak on behalf (or as messengers) of God, or as witnesses and disciples of the Son of God. By contrast, the writings of the early Christians who were directly taught by the apostles, such as Clement and Ignatius, were not adopted into the canon of Scripture. Indeed, even today we can read these writings and see some things that clearly extend beyond the Bible on certain points. In many cases, such points were not made into doctrines, according to scripture, because these men neither said they spoke on behalf of God—nor did others claim this of them. Similarly, the conclusions of the first ecumenical councils of the church, such as the A.D. 325 Council of Nicaea, were defended not as inspiration, nor as tradition, but on the basis of Scripture. These councils were not adopted into the Bible, though they could have been, if they had been regarded as inspired and reliable as Scripture itself. This suggests that the later Roman Catholic Church at some point changed its view on the relative reliability of church pronouncements.

We need not, of course, conclude that all Roman Catholic distinctives, which cannot be adequately defended on the basis of Scripture—such as doctrines of Purgatory, indulgences, and the Assumption of Mary, to take the relatively obvious examples—are “doctrines of devils.” But Protestants are well within their rights to rest on sola scriptura, firmly rejecting such doctrines as later accretions of an all-too-human tradition that became comfortable with adding speculative doctrine uninspired by the word of God.

Footnotes

  1. “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” (Mt 24:24) “For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.” (2 Cor 11:4) “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” (2 Jn 1:7) There are other similar warnings as well.[↩]
  2. The central text: “And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.” (Dt 18:21-22[↩]
  3. Some included 1 Clement, which is a very fine letter. But ultimately there was a consensus that it did not belong with the words of those who had received the Holy Spirit from Jesus himself.[↩]
  4. This is a technical term in Bible study: a proof text is a verse or short passage that is taken, by itself, to justify a position on some controversial doctrine, especially one on which other texts may also be cited, with various other implications.[↩]
  5. See Matthew 20:25-28 and 23:8-11. I take the usual Protestant views on the Peter as “Rock”: no, the Rock is Jesus himself, and the authority he spoke of he later gave to all his disciples. He was naming Peter after himself and using him as an example of all the apostles as his emissaries.[↩]

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Larry Sanger

“Internet Knowledge Organizer.” Currently President of the Knowledge Standards Foundation, started Wikipedia and various other educational and reference sites. Ph.D., Philosophy, Ohio State, 2000. [read more]

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17 responses to “A Defense of Sola Scriptura”

  1. Lloyd

    Thank you, Mr. Sanger, I enjoyed this read. I’m a Protestant in full agreement with this doctrine, and I think it is patently obvious. There is no way to believe the Bible as the Word of God, and then put anything over it or even next to it. In every other part of life, any instruction heard directly from the source would be regarded higher than those heard second-hand. One of the best examples of this is 1 Kings 13, where the Lord condemns the man of God for listening to an old prophet rather than obeying His direct command. The scriptures are God’s voice; it is the Holy Spirit speaking (Heb 3:7). Everything outside of scripture is second-hand at best, and most church traditions are not even fourth- or fifth-hand. If we claim to be following God, we must put His voice above all else.

    Reply
    1. Larry Sanger

      Exactly!

      Reply
  2. Alain

    The blog post essay at first blush seemed fairly convincing and for many I’m sure it conforms their current thoughts. Taking a look at it I personally found issues and wish not to change the mind of any explicit reader, but rather suggest the case is not open and shut as it seems. I’d like to note that “In a lawsuit the first to speak seems right, until someone comes forward and cross-examines.”(Proverbs 18:17) Here is something of a poor attempt at a cross-examination.

    “What Sola Scriptura means, briefly”
    ‘That we should not advance doctrinal positions without Scriptural support.’
    -The later discussion includes that Trinity is Scriptural. This leads me to believe it is an implicit Scriptural support is what is required, not explicit. Example Jesus rising from the dead is explicit. The Trinity is not as explicit. This is fine. Another position would be ‘not contrary to implicit or explicit scripture.’ This might for instance be the idea of praying every morning at 7 am. There are not to my knowledge explicit commands to pray at that exact time, although there are probably implicit commands from the bible. And then even those who disagree with Sola Scriptura but would sign on to the idea of contradicting scripture is not permitted. So this sort of frames the meaning. Only that which can be drawn from the scriptures can be doctrine.

    “Biblical warnings against adding to God’s Word.”
    -Two verses from Dueteronomy, while interesting I wonder the value, after all there are many old conventional laws that are no longer followed, food, clothing, etc. And they are described in these same scriptures. This leaves me wondering how much direct evidence we need that a particular verse in the Bible is to be universally applied. While I can see that kosher meat laws are reformed (see Galations 2 and Acts 10 and Acts15). I’m not sure that the other laws can so easily be removed if we take these verse as that explicit. The verse in Revelation, again this might only apply to the book of Revelation.
    But lets assume that for the moment that these are true on their face, that man is to not add or remove from the writing of God. This will get into a question of how to know the rule of the scripture, also called the Canon. Looking Codex Sinaiticus on line (Hat tip to Wes Huff videos where he talks about it) [https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/codex/content.aspx] notice that it has old testament books that neither the Catholic Bibles (4 Maccabees- although maybe a name change?) , nor the current Protestant bibles has in it. What I’m getting at is knowing what belongs or not, which makes the adding or removing prohibition difficult at best. The codex is thought to be from about AD325
    There is the 3rd citation of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. This could cut both ways. It says ‘preach any other gospel’ in fact the several times in it it uses the world ‘preach’ not ‘write’ or ‘wrote’. I point this out because it leans towards a verbal presentation, not a written one. If verbal presentation is not permitted (see assumption of Sola Scriptura at the start) the why does this passage say preached instead of wrote?
    The fourth passages is from Proverbs where it says “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. (30:5-6)“
    Words as the author should know come generally two forms spoken and written. Well in the new testament, a third, the divine Logos, that is to say the 2nd person of the Trinity Jesus Christ. So word is not necessarily written.
    These passages are not as conclusive to me as they are to the original author.

    “When do we add to His words?”
    This section doesn’t directly quote scripture. Rather it argues that to the writer many of the statements of Catholics seem contrary to scripture. I’m going to leave that aside for two reasons. First there are Catholic apologists who can make most of the agreement for Catholic doctrines from scripture [FN1] And second this can be leveled at Protestant, Orthodox and Oriental Christians also. Which is to say that many practices and doctrines of the faith by a group of Christians come from scripture that could be read in different ways, or that has ‘dueling verses’ Look at who will ‘be saved’ AI when asked gave 6 verses which included ‘By Grace’ (Ephesians), ‘confessing with your mouth’ (Romans), Believing (John), Believing and you and your whole house will be saved (Acts 16), Desiring (1 Tim) ‘ believing and being baptized’ Mark16. So none of these is exclusive, that is they could all be joined by an and statement, but some in Christianity have joined them by “ors” and others by “xands” and “xors”. The greater point of this is that these things need some form or harmonization. This set left out are all the verses that are like Matt 25:31 to 46 which implies actions and not beliefs save. Matt25:31ff is one of the best but not only example needing action and not simply belief.
    There is a discussion about traditions and I think there are times Jesus doesn’t condemn what is tradition as “traditions of men.” He did after all participate in the annual Passover – prescribed in Exodus but also in John 10:22 Jesus is present in Jerusalem for the Feast of Dedication, which is also known as Hanukkah, the very event told about in first and second Maccabees. It also to me seems from scripture that there is such a thing as good traditions. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 “Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.” Given that epistle is called out directly I propose that word in this verse is verbal not just written. Other translations use ‘word of mouth’ instead of ‘word.’
    Lastly I won’t flog it because others have so much so that one Protestant theologian and pastor (now passed I think) has summed up the Protestant Canon issue as “We have a fallible collection of infallible books.” or another way perhaps “we don’t know which books belong, but all the books that do belong are God’s Truth.” [FN2]

    “Further issues and Arguments”
    2 Tim 3:16-17 is quoted “16. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17. so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
    But this would seem to ignore Ephesians 4:11-13 which says almost the same thing with one change. “11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (from NIV at biblegateway.)
    The change being not scripture but people. I’d suggest this is at least as strong, if not stronger than the 2 Tim 3:16-17 verses. But I admit others will not be so convinced. At the least this should be discussed as why these verses doesn’t cast doubt on Sola Scriptura. Notice referring back to the prior section which in the original essay mentioned the apostles, these three verses mention not just apostles and prophets, but evangelists, pastors and teacher to equip His people for works of service and obtain the whole measure of fullness of Christ

    Thought experiments of the “what do I think it should look like” are fun to do, and form a lot of the alternative history. They also should be challenged for the correctness of the thought experiments presuppositions and follow through conclusions. And so the idea that it is ‘clear’ depends on which examples and how the question is framed.
    The essayist gives a thought experiment Worth quoting.
    ` “Here is one final speculative but (I think) interesting argument, for what it is worth, against what is supposedly tradition-based extensions of scripture. If God had intended us to accept such supposed “traditions” (which are, in many cases, merely later fabrications), Jesus could have been expected to have said several things. There are three related points here. First, he would have set a very clear notion of church leadership. He did not: he explicitly disavowed the request to name a leader among them.5 Second, he would have defined the constitution of the future church much more clearly, so that we could identify what are, indeed, church-approved traditions. Again, he did not. Instead, the Bereans were shown searching the scriptures to determine whether the things Paul told them were true. Third, on the assumption that certain traditions would be expected, by the Lord, to emerge later and to have every bit as much authority as the text itself, he would have clarified on what grounds we can distinguish between such approved traditions and the mere “traditions of men” and “doctrines of devils.” `
    This can be flipped…
    If God had intended us to accept sola Scriptura, Jesus could have been expected to have left written words or statements in the Gospel of “be sure you write that down”, and at the Ascension or some other time to say “Don’t forget to read my book”. The apostles could have said “Read only what I’ve written” Not as John puts it in John 21:25 “There are also many other things that Jesus did which are not written in this book; if each of them were written, the whole world would not be able to contain the books that would be written”
    Or 3 John 13 and 14 “13 I have much to write you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink. 14 I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.” This is not the sort of “only follow what I write” there is no sense of getting everything down.
    Instead of Jesus defining Church structure, He could have defined what is to be considered Scripture, not implicitly with quotes but explicitly.
    I dispute the Bereans as support to Sola Scriptura as the Bereans were not Christians but Hellenistic Jews who themselves did not have a doctrine of Sola Scriptura although they did hold scriptures in very high regard. But even they needed a teacher – Paul – to explain the meaning. IDK if Jews of today are that way, but the Talmud is about 250 or more years in the future. Rather I would look at a different passage in the book of Acts 8:26-40 – Phillip and the Ethiopian where the Ethiopian asks Phillip something like “how am I to understand without someone to teach me”

    And then lastly there are questions. Do the verses quoted in the original blog post mean what the author claims? Are there other interpretations that also fit? Is the whole of scripture considered on this? What other pieces of scripture suggest towards something other than Sola Scriptura? Ephesians 4 11-13 quoted above seems to suggest otherwise and so does 2 Thessalonians 2:15. And then what does Scripture is our sole source of truth. What does scripture itself say?

    1 Timothy 3:15 “if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.”

    So according to Paul, under the ruberic of Sola Scriptura taking from the beginning of the blog post – ‘That we should not advance doctrinal positions without Scriptural support.’ – I advance that the foundation of the truth is “the Church of the living God.” Thus going further it would appear from 1 Tim 3:15, the security of the bible rests upon the Church of the living God. And I further conclude that Sola Scriptura as defined here tells us this, and thus there is a church which is the foundation support, and it is our obligation to figure out where that Church is.

    Now I will concede that each of us is a blind man touching some part of the elephant insisting on each of our own descriptions of the elephant (it is like paper[ear] or a snake[trunk], boulder [body] and tree trunk[leg]) Therefore do not expect to have changed anyone’s position. I have concluded that there is a best fit of the evidence that makes the best fit to me, and others I trust will come to their own understanding of what evidence they have and make a best fit. And I hope this gives some food for thought only.
    And if you’ve read all this way, thank you for your time.

    FN1 – one Protestant to Catholic convert noted that in Protestantism something is either a doctrine or non religious. He then noted that Catholics had what he called 5 D’s (he also noted he was showing his Protestant mnemotic trainings). These D’s are Deposit, Dogma, Doctrine, Discipline and Devotion. And then he defined them as thus.
    Deposit of the faith is all that the has been revealed to mankind by the Spirit. It is Dei Verbum that is the Word of God understood to be verbal and written and second Person of the Trinity. (John 1:1)
    Dogma are those things told to all and derived from the Deposit. These have been formally declared.
    Doctrine are those things which are generally derived from the Deposit of the faith but have no formal Church statement. Much of the writings of the Saints and Church might fall into this. As such it is thought to be generally true but in times might be in error. It should be given deference in absence of teaching otherwise. And example of this might be usury which in Thomas Aquinas was understood to be the charging of any interest at any time. Where as today, things like usury would fall under what might be called preditary type lending.
    Discipline these are things the Church requires us of under its authority to do so, as a Coach requires athletes to practice a certain way. These are not in and of themselves necessarily right or wrong, but failing to follow a lawfully recognized authority (such as the RCC for Catholics) would make them a sin.
    Last is Devotion, these are personal disciplines one takes up and puts down. Where a person who makes a vow might be obligated the typical person is not. Consider using the sports Coach, he requires athletes to be at each practice, a devotion might be the athlete who decides to come early and leave late, or change diet habits.

    FN2 There are lots of youtube videos around Jan 2025 debating Canon and how to know it (council of trent, Gospel simplicity, Truth Unites, etc) Both Catholic and Protestant. Watching them there are arguments on each side, but the feel I got was that either you think one way or the other, and no argument will shift a person. Given this, I don’t bother here trying to present further thoughts on the Canon

    Reply
  3. Peter

    Thanks for the thoughtful post. Catholic but with Protestant kin, so I’ve seen both sides of this.

    There’s an element of circularity to the sola scriptura argument. If one were to randomly come across the Bible, say, in the woods, ignorant of its contents…what would one make of it? It would seem like a giant batch of craziness. Without the traditional doctrines—articulated outside of scripture but drawing from it—it would not cohere. Thus it seems belief informed by these traditions brings us to scripture, which further refines belief.

    My issue is less with the idea of sola scriptura than with the (apparent?) Protestant belief that they are coming to the text “pure,” from a tabula rasa, untainted by the stain of any tradition. This leads, IMO, to the wholesale rejection of tradition, but also ultimately of catholicity with a small “c” (note the endless fragmentation endemic to the Protestant world), and furthermore to a deprecation of the sacraments (which, I suspect, has rather grave consequences).

    Now I admit that may not be what YOU mean by sola scriptura (it may be closer to the “straw man” you identified), but that is sometimes how it seems to me. Thanks for the provocative post and God bless you.

    Reply
  4. Charlton Hillis

    Thank you so much for this. I just read your “How a skeptical philosopher becomes a Christian” and now this defense.
    Many problems would be erased with sola scriptura. Just one example is church hierarchy. Scripture stresses there is but one head of the church, and that is Jesus Christ. After the apostles, the only examples of human leaders are (a plurality of) elders, also called bishops, or shepherds of the flock, in every congregation – never one person.
    Thank you again.

    Reply
  5. Chris

    Welcome home Larry – I was deeply encouraged to read your testimony.

    On the points you raise above. I think there are a few challenges one has with the *sola scriptura* argument. The first is, what is scripture? For 1200/ish years the Christian bible included the deuterocanonical components. Obviously this changed during the reformation but who is to say the Reformers had it more correct than the Church Fathers? And by what authority does one even make this decision, pro-or-contra? How do you lean on scripture “alone” if the groups don’t even agree on what scripture is? And how do you get scripture at all, if not for some kind of authority structure to define what scripture is? And does the authority to define scripture bleed over to be able to define other doctrine and heresy which is simply how scripture is applied? This is a microcosm of the whole debate in some ways. Who has the authority to say what scripture is, and why? And isn’t this in a sense an acknowledgement to some kind of transcendent authority by both Protestants and Catholics? Protestants deny Catholic’s scripture thus basically making the Reformers an “authority” structure and vice-versa.

    I’m not Catholic, but I think the Catholics would say that the main points mentioned in this article of purgatory, mariology, authority, etc are all biblical themes and biblically sourced. Even if they are extrapolated out by the Catholic church to relay in more detail what that doctrine means for the Church. Luther specifically, and Calvin more generally held to many of the traditional dogmas of Mary for instance. While I think attempting to use the rock of Peter to justify Rome and the pope is a stretch, the foundational idea comes from the Pharisees who sat on the seat of Moses to establish spiritual life in Israel through their authority. This is a theme that has carried on into Christian life. Authority and tradition, though equally dangerous when it goes bad, is very useful for crushing heresy and unifying doctrine. Protestantism is extremely fractured, for better or for worse, and this creates it’s own challenges.

    I’ve generally found Catholic theology to be extremely sound, it’s more their ecclesiology that I could never jive with. Their theology is probably so rich because they lean into 2,000 years of tradition. Protestants worship in old strip malls and pizza huts and many times mock tradition. Concerning Catholicism, I could never get over the Pope/Rome issue but I see why it exists. At the same time the problem with “sola scriptura” is that in the right hands, scripture can be twisted to mean any crazy thing. More important than scripture being the only thing, is also how it is exegetically applied and hermeneutically viewed which is why church councils existed. When you are a singular pastor outside of any authority structure whether you mean evil or are just ignorant, this unaccountable pastoring can be a source of deep wounding for that Church. Protestantism experiences much difficulty because of this.

    Chesterton (admittedly Catholic) but brilliant said this, “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.”

    Reply
    1. Larry Sanger

      I wanted to respond to this, at least (sorry to the others—I have sooo much to reply to!).

      “The first is, what is scripture? For 1200/ish years the Christian bible included the deuterocanonical components. Obviously this changed during the reformation but who is to say the Reformers had it more correct than the Church Fathers?”

      It is essential to have all of the relevant facts here. Here are some you might not be familiar with:

      1. The Apocrypha are not quoted in the NT.
      2. They were written in the 400 year “silent period,” i.e., when God spoke to no prophet, and even (in one or two cases) after the time of Christ.
      3. There is no evidence that they were included in the earliest versions of the Septuagint. There is no evidence that they were not, either, but the point is that you cannot simply assume that because later Greek versions of the Bible included them, it follows that they were in the original LXX. This completely defangs the argument from the Septuagint.
      4. They were never, for a moment, regarded as canonical by any branch of the Jewish religion, however valuable they might have been regarded as, as supplementary literature. Even when quoting Greek translations of these books, they were explicitly rejected by the Talmud.
      5. Perforce, and as far as we can find any evidence of, they were never regarded as scripturally authoritative to any degree by the first century Church. This point is debated, but clear evidence is wholly lacking.
      6. They are not included in the earliest lists of canonical books. GPT helped me with details: Melito of Sardis (~170 AD), Origen (~250 AD), and Athanasius (367 AD) left them out of their OT lists.
      7. They are not quoted by the Apostolic Fathers; possibly there was a vague allusion. They are certainly not cited as Scripture.
      8. They were not listed among the canonical books of the Bible in any ecumenical Church council (i.e., the first seven). If there were some important controversy about their status within the Church during that time, you’d think that would have been noted. But it wasn’t. The Church did make a ruling on the “borderline texts” of the NT. It never even deemed the Apocrypha worthy of a ruling!
      8. Jerome, who compiled the first Latin Bible in the late 300s A.D., included the Apocrypha in a special appendix. He expressed strong reservations as to their authoritativeness, and prefaced individual books noting their disputed status.
      9. The practice of placing the Apocrypha in a separate appendix, in a way so as to acknowledge their canonical inferiority, continued for many centuries; even when they were integrated with the rest of the text, they continued to have prefatory notes as to their uncertainty up until the Council of Trent.
      10. In short, western Church theologians debated their status right up until the Council of Trent.

      Those are all objective facts. To this I add an application of the argument I made in the essay above, namely: The Lord’s command not to add or subtract from his words (Deut. 4:2, Rev. 22:18-19) sets a boundary: only prophets, and later Apostles, deliver his doctrine. That then is the argument in the above essay, reworded. Applied to the Apocrypha, we need only observe that no one believes those books were written by prophets. The people who wrote them did not claim to be inspired by God. The Apocrypha authors were literally writing down the words of tradition or recording history. But at no point did they say, nor was it said on their behalf by anyone, that they were the word of God. They were at best a traditional supplement, not unlike the later Talmud. For over 1000 years, that is how they were typically treated. They were not relegated to infamy the way the Talmud was, among Christians, because they were (mostly!) written before the Christian era. But that does not mean they were immediately elevated to Scripture just because they happened be in the tradition. If that’s all that were going on, why not add everything else written in the intertestamental period? Why not accept the larger Orthodox body of Apocrypha as suitable for justifying doctrine? For over a millennium, few saw them as much more than an appendix, not Scripture. They were honored, that is all. Why should that have changed?

      “And by what authority does one even make this decision, pro-or-contra?”

      By what the canonical Bible says (see the above arguments in my piece), and by the latter 10 points. That’s not good enough for you?

      “How do you lean on scripture ‘alone’ if the groups don’t even agree on what scripture is?”

      This is a dangerous argument considering that it would undercut any grounds you would have for rejecting the Koran or the Book of Mormon, for example, as authoritative. Sure you want to go there? We could though.

      “And how do you get scripture at all, if not for some kind of authority structure to define what scripture is?”

      Question: Are you ignorant of the thinking about the process of how the Church determined the canonicity of the books? Do you think they weren’t canonical until the Council of Nicaea declared them so?

      “And does the authority to define scripture bleed over to be able to define other doctrine and heresy which is simply how scripture is applied?”

      Sounds like an excellent argument against any authoritative “body” of mere men standing in judgment over the word of God. Didja notice that the Council of Nicaea did not cite tradition for its rulings, but only Scripture itself?

      “This is a microcosm of the whole debate in some ways. Who has the authority to say what scripture is, and why?”

      Once you realize that the answer is “God,” and that God repeatedly commanded us not to add to his words, “the whole debate” takes on whole new color, doesn’t it?

      “And isn’t this in a sense an acknowledgement to some kind of transcendent authority by both Protestants and Catholics?”

      Well, I should hope so. Do you deny it? There is only one transcendent authority.

      “Protestants deny Catholic’s scripture thus basically making the Reformers an “authority” structure and vice-versa.”

      You’ve basically asked a bunch of rhetorical questions, which have answers that I suspect you’ll be surprised by, and then drawn a wildly controversial conclusion. As to this conclusion, it is simply not the case. Protestants never convened a separate authority or council, did they? (Maybe you didn’t know. They didn’t.) There is a reason they agree on the books of the Bible, though: those are precisely the ones that Christians came to agree upon from the earliest time they agreed on such things. If there is an ecumenical authority Protestants can agree to (and not all will), it would be the first, or sometimes the first three, or sometimes the first seven ecumenical councils. Definitely the first, anyway; and by then, the canon was set.

      “I’m not Catholic, but I think the Catholics would say that the main points mentioned in this article of purgatory, mariology, authority, etc are all biblical themes and biblically sourced.”

      Indeed, and they’d be wrong. Indeed they can’t get Purgatory off the ground without 2 Maccabees, their Mariology is extremely speculative (that’s one of the nicer things you can say), and they made their wretched doctrines about authority practically out of whole cloth.

      “Even if they are extrapolated out by the Catholic church”

      The Devil’s in the extrapolations.

      “…to relay in more detail what that doctrine means for the Church. Luther specifically, and Calvin more generally held to many of the traditional dogmas of Mary for instance.”

      Nobody’s perfect. You can’t expect him single-handedly to spot all the insupportable doctrinal accretions.

      “While I think attempting to use the rock of Peter to justify Rome and the pope is a stretch, the foundational idea comes from the Pharisees who sat on the seat of Moses to establish spiritual life in Israel through their authority. This is a theme that has carried on into Christian life.”

      Er, and you know what Jesus said about the Pharisees; see my argument above (maybe you didn’t?).

      “Authority and tradition, though equally dangerous when it goes bad, is very useful for crushing heresy and unifying doctrine.”

      Do you mean personal authority or Biblical authority? See, I am on board when it comes to the authority of the word of God.

      “Protestantism is extremely fractured, for better or for worse, and this creates it’s own challenges.”

      I never saw this as a particularly worrisome problem. Protestants actually agree on much more than they take issue with Catholics. Plot the sola scriptura positions on a graph, you’ll find a tight cluster, because of the inherent coherence of the Bible itself; you’ll find Orthodoxy off in the distance, having added quite a bit, and RCC even farther off, having added far more. They are the true schismatics, I’m sorry to say; they are the ones who added the doctrines of man to the doctrines of God. All we Protestants are doing is debating what the doctrines of God are.

      “I’ve generally found Catholic theology to be extremely sound”

      Oy vey.

      “it’s more their ecclesiology that I could never jive with.”

      But you can’t justify their theological speculation except by reference to their Church, which you can’t respect without their ecclesiology, and that is the only way you can bother to care about the “2,000 years of tradition” that occurred long long after the prophets and apostles stopped speaking!

      “Their theology is probably so rich because they lean into 2,000 years of tradition.”

      I don’t call speculation and transparently bad exegesis and reasoning “rich.” Well, I suppose it is in one sense: “that’s rich…”

      “Protestants worship in old strip malls and pizza huts and many times mock tradition.”

      I submit that you’re persuaded by their fancy hats, wealth, power, and grave looks. Assure me I’m wrong.

      Some Protestants worship in old strip malls and Pizza Huts. Many worship in beautiful old churches. So, after all your arguments and clever questions, it comes down to aesthetics? Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?

      You know who else mocked the empty traditions of men? Jesus. (And before him, the prophets, quoting the Lord.)

      “At the same time the problem with ‘sola scriptura’ is that in the right hands, scripture can be twisted to mean any crazy thing.”

      This isn’t a problem with sola scriptura. It’s a problem with bad exegesis. Yes, ordinary people who don’t understand that interpreting the Bible is harder than it looks need to be better trained, at least well enough to understand what they don’t understand. But that is not a problem about sola scriptura but about pastoring. If that’s a problem about sola scriptura, it’s also a problem about magisterial authority, which has certainly gone off the rails. Even sensible Catholics recognize that in the wake of Vatican II. And besides: Catholic leaders have contradicted themselves over time! That’s gotta be a problem.

      “More important than scripture being the only thing, is also how it is exegetically applied and hermeneutically viewed which is why church councils existed.”

      Meh. That’s not why the councils existed. They existed to rein in heretics and to keep a widespread, decentralized Church reasonably unified on doctrine. That is a different matter from stopping people from bad exegesis. The councils certainly didn’t stop that. There was all sorts of adventuresome exegetical and doctrinal weirdness in the history of the church, even when it didn’t come up against Church discipline.

      “When you are a singular pastor outside of any authority structure whether you mean evil or are just ignorant, this unaccountable pastoring can be a source of deep wounding for that Church. Protestantism experiences much difficulty because of this.”

      That’s on them and on the people dumb enough to follow them. The Bible warned often enough against false teachers, you know.

      “Chesterton (admittedly Catholic) but brilliant said this, ‘Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.’”

      Clever but misleading. Long strands of craziness, enforced against common sense and even against Scripture by authority, does not constitute independent exegetical opinions. It’s not a bunch of voters offering opinions about debated exegetical questions. It’s a creeping totalitarian blob.

      Meanwhile, the Bible itself stands pure, strongly constraining the views of those who take it to be the only authoritative source of doctrinal truth.

      Reply
      1. Alain

        “It is essential to have all of the relevant facts here. Here are some you might not be familiar with:”
        -But are they really the facts? I put in responses that I think dispute the reported facts. These are of varying quality following each point. Some will find one stronger or weaker. And I admit at the start I might be mistaken, that is to say my sourcing could have been wrong, or given that at least one or two are piece of knowledge I picked up from sources over 20 years old, the understanding of the them may have changed in that time.

        1. The Apocrypha are not quoted in the NT.
        -Depends on what you mean by quoted- certainly referred to with the book of Tobit and the woman who married 8 brothers, whose wife is she in heaven (Matthew 22:23-34).
        or Hebrews 12:9 mentions the importance of discipline and suffering, which aligns with themes found in 2 Maccabees 12, particularly the account of the seven brothers and their mother who endured extreme tortures rather than disobey God’s law.
        Not a lot, but more than Song of Solomon(Song of Songs) which isn’t quoted at all.

        2. They were written in the 400 year “silent period,” i.e., when God spoke to no prophet, and even (in one or two cases) after the time of Christ.
        -This seems circular or question begging (I get my error types confused sometimes), what is the proof that it is silent? That nothing is written. What about these books? No they aren’t inspired. Why? Because they were written in that ‘silent period.’ So this seems to assume the thing to to be shown, or I’m missing something.

        3. There is no evidence that they were included in the earliest versions of the Septuagint. There is no evidence that they were not, either, but the point is that you cannot simply assume that because later Greek versions of the Bible included them, it follows that they were in the original LXX. This completely defangs the argument from the Septuagint.
        -So this one both gives and takes away in the same breath. And I’ve no better info that the author. We probably don’t have original LXX from Alexandria in pre AD 1 (c 3rd century BC for originals). Or anything close. The argument is that at some point some Jewish scholars thought the books belonged and so included them.

        4. They were never, for a moment, regarded as canonical by any branch of the Jewish religion, however valuable they might have been regarded as, as supplementary literature. Even when quoting Greek translations of these books, they were explicitly rejected by the Talmud.
        -By this reasoning, Yeshua is not the Messiah either. The Talmud is from the 3rd to 6th Century AD. So long after the time of Jesus. At the time of Jesus there were 3 Jewish ‘schools’ that I’m aware of, others may know of more. First is the Pharisees, they seemed to accept most of what we consider the old testament, but it was in flux in AD 30. Second are the Sadducees, they only accepted the Pentateuch as inspired, so by this reasoning, we should jettison all of the rest of the old testament after the Pentateuch. Third were the Essenes. They are hinted at in the bible, the man carrying water in the Palm Sunday narrative is thought to be an Essene. The Essenes often had men doing what was considered ‘woman’s work’ largely because women or one reason or another did not join the Essenes, or not in large numbers. The Essenes are thought to be the source of the dead see scrolls To date, Tobit, Sirach, and Baruch have been found in the dead sea scrolls.
        Of these 3 schools only one survived past AD70 and the Jewish revolt – the Pharisees. And it was they who jettisoned the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books.

        5. Perforce, and as far as we can find any evidence of, they were never regarded as scripturally authoritative to any degree by the first century Church. This point is debated, but clear evidence is wholly lacking.
        -Other than being quoted by early church fathers(see below #7) I don’t know how we would resolve one way or the other the authority in the early church. The point admits it is debated and author expresses his doubt that they were. But when one begins to delve into the whole of Christianity it perhaps takes a more probably/statistical feel based on the reviewers interpretation rather than objective standard, at least on this side of the vale. More like ‘how hot or cold’ something is not ‘is the light on or off.’ And to this the debate might have arguments on both sides. Perhaps a civil court case where a preponderance of the evidence standard should be considered.

        6. They are not included in the earliest lists of canonical books. GPT helped me with details: Melito of Sardis (~170 AD), Origen (~250 AD), and Athanasius (367 AD) left them out of their OT lists.
        – Well an early bible – Codex Sinaticus c AD 315 has these included “ Those present in the surviving part of the Septuagint in Codex Sinaiticus are 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach.” from https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/codex/content.aspx
        Also Melito of Sardis from one source I found had Wisdom of Solomon. So some of the books perhaps were recognized by earlier, and GPT might have errors. (Melitos’ list at bible cannon.org) Origen also has Maccabees and Epistle of Jeramiah (Lamentaitons?) – same source. So some books are both included and not included in early cannon lists.

        7. They are not quoted by the Apostolic Fathers; possibly there was a vague allusion. They are certainly not cited as Scripture.
        -Well I’ll borrow from AI with the same “it’s source could be crap” and say that someone on the internet thinks that they were quote by the early church fathers.
        ‘was deuteralcanonical quoted by early chruch”
        reply
        “AI Overview
        Yes, deuterocanonical books were frequently quoted and used by early Church Fathers as part of their Old Testament canon. While some Church Fathers, like Jerome, initially had reservations, the majority accepted them as authoritative Scripture. For example, Clement of Rome, a bishop in the late first century, cited from the deuterocanon. Many Church Fathers, including Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, also used these books” Examples were provided.

        8. They were not listed among the canonical books of the Bible in any ecumenical Church council (i.e., the first seven). If there were some important controversy about their status within the Church during that time, you’d think that would have been noted. But it wasn’t. The Church did make a ruling on the “borderline texts” of the NT. It never even deemed the Apocrypha worthy of a ruling!
        -The ecumenical councils were called to answer questions at the time. A review from AI results on “what were the first 7 ecumenical councils about” – Occurring from AD325 to AD 787 all seven of them dealt with an issue around Christology. That is the nature of Christ or Christ adjacent (is Mary the mother of Jesus or the Theotokos?). So at the time, there was no question about the books of the scripture, rather there were questions about Trinity (Arianism) or nature of Christ (Nestorianism, Monophysitism, etc). Earliest council which was regional was the North African council or Synod of Carthage from AD397 where the canon of the bible was listed.

        8. Jerome, who compiled the first Latin Bible in the late 300s A.D., included the Apocrypha in a special appendix. He expressed strong reservations as to their authoritativeness, and prefaced individual books noting their disputed status.
        -Jerome lived in the area near Jerusalem and all tradition of the 7 Dueterocanonical books in Hebrew had been lost (see note on dead sea scrolls above). He thus may have been acting as a wise apologist saying something like “we shouldn’t include these so we can better convince the Hebrews” Much as today, I and others would be wise to stay away from the bible to convince the Atheist that God exits. He did however include them in the Latin Vulgate translation he did, so make what you will about that.

        9. The practice of placing the Apocrypha in a separate appendix, in a way so as to acknowledge their canonical inferiority, continued for many centuries; even when they were integrated with the rest of the text, they continued to have prefatory notes as to their uncertainty up until the Council of Trent.
        -The order of the text of scripture has been more fluid that we think. In some cases the New Testament goes Gospels, Paul’s letters, Acts, Universal letters, Revelation. I’ve seen similar for the orders of the Old Testament. Thus one order for the Vulgate put the books as Pentateuch, Historical books, Wisdom, Major and Minor prophets, with the Dueteraconanical books placed according to type, history, wisdom or prophet. So I’m not sure this ‘order/separate appendix’ is an argument. Or maybe it is.

        10. In short, western Church theologians debated their status right up until the Council of Trent.
        -It might be better to say that the debate about what scripture was scripture kicked off again sometime after AD1500 because prior disputes (nature of God, etc) had been affirmatively resolved. Typically until the question became so important that it had to be addressed, it wasn’t. What scripture composed the Bible was generally accepted in about AD 400, but not formally declared as such until Trent after the debates started post 1500 had started. If someone has a source on dispute post AD500 I’d love to see it, I’m unable to find such a record.

        Again my responses may be totally false. If that is so, then disregard, if they seem plausible, then maybe investigate.

        Reply
        1. Larry Sanger

          On “quotations” from the Apocrypha:
          First, in general, it is possible to quote a source without treating it as authoritative scripture, as Matthew does repeatedly when referring to various prophecies. Certainly, a hypothetical posed by Pharisees seeking to entrap Jesus can hardly be counted as Jesus’ endorsement of a source! As to Hebrews 12:9, thematic similarity is not a quotation much less an assertion of authority.

          On the “circularity” of the silent period:
          This is incorrect. The argument is not that there was nothing similar to scripture written for 400 years, but that nothing that claimed divine provenance was written during that period. The authors of these texts did not claim to speak for God, nor was it said on their behalf by anyone that they were prophets. Not only that, but Josephus said, in Against Apion 1.8:

          For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another, but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine. And of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life.

          It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time.

          As you probably know, Josephus was a Jew, and not a Christian, and this was his (very early attested) judgment of the Apocrypha. This goes to show you that just because something was written by ancient Jews, it does not somehow follow that it was, possibly, Scripture.

          The silent period was silent, again, because it lacked prophets. That’s what it means.

          On the LXX, you say, “The argument is that at some point some Jewish scholars thought the books belonged and so included them.” Actually, even this wouldn’t follow. As with the Vulgate, some Greek editions did include them as being of national interest, but in a separate section, as not being inspired by God. Remember, there were books now lost referred to in the OT, like the Book of Jasher.

          I argued that the Jews never regarded the Apocrypha as canonical, and you responded, “By this reasoning, Yeshua is not the Messiah either.” But this is an unserious point. I would not refer to the judgment of the Jews about the Messiah precisely because they reject him, but I would refer to what they say about their own scriptures because it is on their judgment that we originally rest our notions of what is canonical—at least with regard to the 39 OT books. In other words, we don’t rely on Jews to give us theological judgments on Christ, but we can (and did) rely on them when it came to their own historical canon.

          On whether the first century Church regarded the Apocrypha as authoritative, I simply repeat what I said before, namely, that people (like Paul and Jude) were capable of quoting or referring to sources that they did not regard as Scripture, just as modern pastors quote even unbelievers without treating them as Scripture.

          On Codex Sinaiticus including some of the Apocrypha, it might well have done so for similar reasons to Jerome, i.e., to share what was of general interest. That that was definitely the case can be seen by the fact that CS also had the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas, and the latter in particular was never regarded as Scripture. Or do you want to add them to the canon, too?

          Also, may I also point out that if the list of those included was only 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach, that suggests it’s missing 1 Esdras, 2-3 Maccabees, Baruch, and the additions to Daniel and Esther. This suggests such books were not taken as seriously.

          On the argument I made regarding the silence of the first seven ecumenical councils on the issue regarding the Apocrypha, my point was that they were not deemed worthy of a ruling, despite the fact (as historians tell us) that the status of the Apocrypha remained in doubt and debated right up to the Reformation, which Luther forced the Magisterium’s hand. In other words, they were not definitively declared to be Scripture, period, until Reformation times. The issue was regarded as not serious enough to regard settling finally. This does not determine the matter but it is certainly a point in the Protestant column.

          On Jerome, there were no Hebrew texts of the Apocrypha; they were all written in Greek. Yes, Jerome had the Greek. He wasn’t chary because he lacked the original Hebrew; there was no original Hebrew. He was chary for reasons similar to what I’ve already given: “As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not admit them among the canonical Scriptures, so also it reads these two volumes [Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus] for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church.” (Prologus Galeatus)

          On the order of the Apocrypha, yes, there is an argument. It is that no other body of Scripture was prised apart and placed in their own special section. The upshot is something already mentioned, namely, that many medieval monks refused to consider them as on a par with Scripture.

          You claim, “What scripture composed the Bible was generally accepted in about AD 400, but not formally declared as such until Trent after the debates started post 1500 had started.” But this begs the question, and you haven’t given enough reason to think it is true. The Church allowed many things up to the judgment of the individual. Whether the Apocrypha should have been regarded as Scripture was, evidently, one of those things.

        2. Alain

          I respond to myself as the ‘leave a comment’ after four layers is gone.

          Let me begin with this. THANK YOU! 🙂 I am truly honored that you would spend the time to respond to me. I know you don’t know me and I don’t know you. For you to have spent time responding is truly a privilege in these days. Second let me say I do not expect to change you conclusions. I merely in the prior post, and in this one am suggesting that the data employed and therefore the reasoning from it is not as strong as it appears at first blush, and give reasons why I say that. Third, I’ve decided that a back and forth through the posts here does over longer term neither party either good and so I will abstain from replying to any further posts on this discussion reply thread. No Columbo’ing by me.

          In my initial reply I should have more strongly put that I was not arguing directly for the 7 books to be included or not. Just that the ‘facts’ stated might be mistaken, and that the reasoning might therefore be wrong. Or as I allowed before, maybe my data points are incorrect. My broader point was that many wouldn’t find those 10 items as established facts and that there might be others that should be included. This gets into a ‘why should they be included or excluded.’

          I was initially thinking of responding to the points in general. However as an internet conversation lurker and follower, I realize that won’t be profitable. I shall simply say that I either disagree with some of the presented data as being facts – consider that in the last 20 years fragments of Tobit and Sirach have been found as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Hebrew and therefore using the ‘they were never in Hebrew’ is a poor argument. Others may yet be found, or not. And being in Hebrew is no big settling point as some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are the ancient equivalent of shopping lists. So at best inconclusive. The evidence as if this were a trial is not to be excluded, but to say maybe it isn’t the kill shot people think it is. The same on all the other points.

          And neither my statements nor the others are going to move anyone on these 10 points, or say another bunch more points that could be brought up.

          Rather I’m going to suggest two things. First that I think anyone when coming to something like this should go in with humility and look to really steel man all positions. Taking into account that almost all the arguments for any spot in this debate have been formulated long ago and new data might show up (see point on Hebrew versions above). An example of this sort of steel manning – I read somewhere about a philosophy professor who knew the arguments for God’s existence or not that when the professor taught a class with God’s existence as part of the course, by the end of the class the students didn’t know the professor’s position.

          Second how one judges such statements is in part decided by what one brings to the decision. I think it comes down to the idea that including or excluding comes down to a judgment and most of the arguments for or against are very weak. I don’t see one reason anywhere, not just here, that is particularly good for or against the 7 books and the mass of all of them together leaves one with conflicting data. It really leaves it in the hands of the person making the judgment as things are not as clear as desired. If one trusts the past then it would seem including might make the best sense. If one doesn’t trust the past then excluding. At best we have what in law would be the “preponderance of the evidence” standard of which claim is true, but honestly I don’t think our decisions on this are even that strongly backed.

          PS. Thank you again. I was forced to do at least a wiki level dive into why the Jewish people post first Jewish war settled on the 24 books (39 titles). To me this was fascinating! TLDR, the Pharisee party,/group were the ones left after the fall of Jerusalem. They had been thinking for a long while on the 24 books, but the others like the Sadducees only went with the 5 books of the Pentateuch. What the Esseenes or other schools of Jewish thought is not known. I’ve done similar work on the other points. It has left me with the impression that there is a tangled set of data that has to be meditated on, not glibly ‘this is the answer.’

  6. Stephen Funck

    Premise: God wants to communicate with us. Creation reflects His abilities but does not reveal His will, love for us. The human being is “hard wired” with certain personality traits among them distinguishing right and wrong, sense of time and purpose. The spirit is real but inherently obscure, inadequate foundation. Oral traditions are unstable and subject to misuse, abuse. Only written Scripture has potential for lasting influence. Therefore God inspired, directed His message to us in written form when in human history that became possible. Before that only spirit lead oral traditions were possible. “God wrote the Bible confusing on purpose” posted on The Sign of Concord.com All creation is exactly what the almighty, all wise God willed, including the damage by evil. The repair, victory over evil demonstrates His power, wisdom and love. Jesus says that not one jot or tittle will pass away from the law. The almighty, all wise God knows Scripture is the best, surest way for a foundation of communication.

    Reply
  7. Wernher

    What do you think of William Millers rules for interpreting scripture?

    Reply
    1. Larry Sanger

      Not being a Seventh-day Adventist, I wasn’t familiar with them. I asked ChatGPT about them, and based on its summary, I dare say most Bible students would agree that most of them are quite orthodox, but some are a little dodgy.

      Reply
  8. Patrick

    I’m a Christian in the Reformed tradition, so I would defend sola Scriptura as well! 🙂 That said, I noticed a fellow philosopher named Bill Vallicella recently made the following post contra biblical inerrancy and verbal plenary inspiration, which are part and parcel of sola Scriptura.

    https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2025/03/biblical-inerrancy-and-verbal-plenary-inspiration.html

    Reply
    1. EoD

      Good to see another Reformed brother! And I too enjoy Prof. Vallicella’s work; he has a very sharp mind, and I almost always invariably learn from him. He continues his analysis of Sola Scriptura in a recent post “Back to Inerrancy: A Note on Vanhoozer“.

      Reply
  9. Beromoho

    Welcome to the Body of Christ, brother!

    Ultimately, in your journeys, I would encourage you to contemplate joining a Confessional Lutheran (aka, ‘Evangelical Catholic’) parish. There, I propose, you will find a healthy balance between Roman Catholicism and Evangelicalism.

    May God richly bless you on your journey!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgOkBvHUfiI

    Reply
  10. Catholics may dispute *sola scriptura* but are the – SangerFeed

    […] A Defense of Sola Scriptura […]

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