Monday, November 19, 2018

How James 1:4 Destroys the Common Protestant Eisegesis of 2 Timothy 3:16-17

I have written a great deal critiquing the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, including a lengthy article (which is, as far as I can ascertain, the most thorough refutation of the doctrine by a Latter-day Saint):


In this paper, I have a full exegesis of 2 Tim 3:16-17 and rebuttal to the eisegesis one finds from Protestants to use this as the “proof-text” for this doctrine, so for those interested, one should peruse that section as well as the entire article itself.

A common text used to neutralise 2 Tim 3:16-17 is that of Jas 1:4:

And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (NASB)

The Greek terms "perfect" and "complete" are τελειος and ολοκληρος. These are very strong adjectives to be used to describe something. The problem here is that they are used to describe, not Scripture, but endurance. Absolutising Jas 1:4 in the way that Protestants absolutise 2 Tim 3:16-17, endurance/patience is all that is needed to live a Christian life to the exclusion of Scripture, which, of course, is absurd, but is a strong warning against the eisegesis apologists like Webster, King, White, and others engage in, as I document in my essay.

On this topic, Catholic apologist Trent Horn wrote the following in his The Case for Catholicism:

In 2 Timothy 2:21 Paul says that if Timothy keeps himself from bad influences, “he will be a vessel for noble use, consecrated and useful to the master of the house, ready for any good work.” The Greek phrase “every good work” (pan ergon agathon) is identical to what is used in 2 Timothy 3:17, but not Protestant would claim that a Christian only needs to stay away from bad influences in order to live the Christian life. James 1:4 uses stronger language to describe how endurance makes one “perfect” (teleioi) and “complete” (holokeroi) rather than “equips” believers but of course our faith does not rest on the virtue of patience alone. (Trent Horn, The Case for Catholicism: Answers to Classic and Contemporary Protestant Objections [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017], 27)

In a footnote (Ibid., 27 n. 42), Horn refutes an attempted “counter” to an appeal to Jas 1:4 by Eric Svendsen (a 4 1/2-point Calvinist) in his hit-and-miss book Evangelical Answers:

Svendsen objects, saying, “The Greek word used here is different than that found in [2] Tim 3:17 ([teleos] is used, not [artios]” (Ibid., 138), but this is actually worse for the Protestant apologist because teleos communicates a stronger sense of completeness than artios (which the New American Standard Bible renders in 2 Timothy 3:17 as “adequate”). Svendsen then comments that James 1:4 only says that patience perfects a man of God in relation to “the ‘testing of your faith’ whereas Scripture makes the man of God ‘fully equipped’ to ‘teach, rebuke, correct, and train’” (Ibid. 139). But a person’s faith can certainly be tested by someone who challenges it and requires correction or proper teaching in response Therefore, this does not change the fact that Protestant arguments for sola scriptura based on 2 Timothy 3:16-17 can also be applied, in the style of argumentum ad absurdum, to James 1:4 and show that if patience is not a role rule of faith despite its ability to perfect us in the ace of trials, then Scripture is not a sole rule of faith despite its ability to equip us to teach and correct others.