Defending Sola Scriptura by Poisoning the Well

In an article by Keith Mathison, Dear Enemies of Sola Scriptura, we read the following:

The first recorded words of the serpent were “Did God really say?” (Gen. 3:1). This question was designed to instill doubt and uncertainty about the trustworthiness and authority of God’s words. God had spoken clearly to our first parents; they were obliged to believe and obey. Then the serpent appeared, and the authority of God’s word was his first target.

This shows the fallacious lengths defenders of sola scriptura will engage in to defend it; in this case, poisoning the well.

Those who reject sola scriptura, unlike the serpent in the Garden of Eden, do not doubt the Word of God. Instead, based on the overwhelming biblical and historical evidence, reject sola scriptura as a tradition, not of God, but of men, similar to the Korban rule that Jesus Christ rejected in Matt 15//Mark 7. Apart from poisoning the well, Mathison also has to compare apples with oranges from the get-go.

Furthermore, Mathison begs the question on an essential issue: he seems to be operating under the false a priori assumption that "God's words" and inscripturated revelation (which, in his view, is exhausted by the 66 books of the Protestant canon) to be one-to-one equivalent to one another. However, as another defender of sola scriptura correctly states:

[T]here is a difference between the Word of God, which is eternal (Psalm 119:89, 152, 160), and the Bible, which is not. The Bible is the Word of God written. If one were to destroy one paper Bible, or all paper Bibles, he would not have destroyed the eternal Word of God. One such example is given in Jeremiah 36. The prophet was told by God to write His words in a book, and to read it to the people. Wicked king Jehoiakim, not comfortable with what had been written, had the written Word destroyed. God then told the prophet to write the Word down again. The king had destroyed the written Word, but he had not destroyed God's Word. God's Word is eternal propositions that find expression in written statements. (W. Gary Crampton, By Scripture Alone: The Sufficiency of Scripture [Unicoi, Tenn.: The Trinity Foundation, 2002], 156)

Again, we see the utter desperation defenders of sola scriptura are forced to engage in to defend this false doctrine. Please remember, this is the formal doctrine of Protestantism: this doctrine falls, the whole system falls.