I am the
Latter-day Saint apologist who has written, as far as I can ascertain, the most
on Sola Scriptura, including the following exhaustive (book-length) refutation using
the Bible and the historical-grammatical method of exegesis on the relevant texts (e.g., 1 Cor 4:6; 2 Tim 3:16-17, etc):
I will note
here that it has been over 3 years since I wrote this article and it still has
yet to be touched meaningfully by a Protestant apologist.
To
understand why Sola Scriptura is so central, consider the following from one
long-standing anti-Mormon who argues it is not improper to reject the Book of
Mormon in light of an Evangelical’s a
priori assumption of sola scriptura:
The matter of the expanded LDS canon of
scripture goes to the heart of the theological challenge posed by the Book of
Mormon. If its claim to be inspired scripture is true, then not only is the
canon open but that canon in its expanded form reveals Joseph Smith to be a
prophet of God—and by implication the LDS Church to be the true church. As with
the matter of the inerrancy of Scripture, it is possible and reasonable to
reject the LDS claim of extrabiblical scripture theologically on the basis of
its incompatibility with the orthodox canon of Scripture, which traditionally
and properly understands the canon to be closed (see C. Hill 2009;
Köstenberger, Kellum, and Quarles 2009, 3-31). (Robert M. Bowman Jr., "The
Sermon at the Temple in the Book of Mormon: A Critical Examination of its
Authenticity through a Comparison with the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of
Matthew" [PhD Dissertation; South African Theological Seminary, 2014], 95)
It is possible and legitimate to critique the
Book of Mormon on purely theological grounds in order to show its
incompatibility with evangelical theology. In particular, evangelicals rightly
insist that only the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments are the
written word of God (see above, §3.2.2). Thus the Bible, as true Scripture, is
properly regarded as the authoritative norm by which the doctrines and claims
of any other writings should be judged. Such a dogmatic critique has value for
the purpose of showing evangelical Christians that they should not accept the
Book of Mormon as the word of God. (Ibid., 104)
