The Single Best Argument Against Sola Scriptura

 (The following is an excerpt from my book-length work, Not By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura)

Falling at the First Hurdle: Why Sola Scriptura is an exegetical impossibility

Before I begin exegeting the relevant texts, one has to realise that the defender of sola scriptura is in an impossible bind, exegetically and logically speaking if/when they attempt to use biblical texts (e.g., 1 Cor 4:6) to “prove” the formal sufficiency of the Bible. Why? Simply because that, regardless of the text one cites, it was written at a time of special revelation, and during such times, even according to defenders of sola scriptura, sola scriptura was not the normative rule of faith for the people of God as there was no totality of scripture (tota scriptura has to be in place for there to be sola scriptura).

 The following comment shows the impossible situation defenders of sola scriptura are in:

Evangelical James White admits: “Protestants do not assert that Sola Scriptura is a valid concept during times of revelation. How could it be, since the rule of faith to which it points was at the very time coming into being?” (“A Review and Rebuttal of Steve Ray's Article Why the Bereans Rejected Sola Scriptura,” 1997, on web site of Alpha and Omega Ministries). By this admission, White has unwittingly proven that Scripture does not teach Sola Scriptura, for if it cannot be a “valid concept during times of revelation,” how can Scripture teach such a doctrine since Scripture was written precisely when divine oral revelation was being produced? Scripture cannot contradict itself. Since both the 1st century Christian and the 21st century Christian cannot extract differing interpretations from the same verse, thus, whatever was true about Scripture then also be true today. If the first Christians did not, and could not extract sola scriptura from Scripture because oral revelation was still existent, then obviously those verses could not, in principle, be teaching Sola Scriptura, and thus we cannot interpret them as teaching it either. (“Does Scripture teach Sola Scriptura?” in Robert A. Sungenis, ed. Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura [2d ed: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2009], pp. 101-53, here p. 118 n. 24)

The defender of sola scriptura, even if successful at showing the Bible represents the totality of written revelation still has to show that the Bible is formally sufficient and the sole, infallible rule of faith. Ultimately, until they can do such, their argument simply begs the question on this point, among others.

During the cross examination period of a debate between Roman Catholic (now Sedevacantist) apologist Gerry Matatics and James White on the topic of sola scriptura, the following exchange took place:

Gerry Matatics (M): Did the people in Jesus' day practice sola scriptura? The hearers of our Lord?

James White (W): I have said over, and over, and over again that sola scriptura is a doctrine that speaks to the normative condition of the Church, not to times of inscripturation.

M: So your answer is "no"?

W: That is exactly what my answer is--it is "no"

M: Did the apostles practice sola scriptura, Mr. White? Yes or no

W: No

M: Thank you; did the successors to the apostles practice sola scriptura; only believing that Timothy [in 2 Tim 3:16-17] only believed what Paul had written him?

W: Eh, what do you mean? The first generations who were alive during the time of inscripturation?

M: Titus . . .

W: Again, as you should know as a graduate of Westminster theological seminary, you are asking every question of a straw-man--it [sola scriptura] speaks of times after the inscripturation of Scripture.

M: Thank you Mr. White

W: So I am glad to affirm everything you said.

M: So, Mr. White; you admit then that Jesus didn't practice sola scriptura . . .

W: I asserted it

M: . . . His hearers do not; the apostles do not and their successors do not; and yet you want to persuade this audience that they should depart from this pattern for reasons you believe are sufficient and now adopt a different methodology . . .

This is yet another nail in the coffin of sola scriptura, as it shows that the doctrine could not have been practised during the time of the New Testament Church and, as a result, cannot be proven from the Bible itself.

In the January 4, 2020 episode of his "The Dividing Line" podcast, in response to Eastern Orthodox apologist Jay Dyer, White again admitted that 2 Tim 3:16-17 and like-texts cannot support sola Scriptura as they were all written before tota scriptura was in effect:

So when you hear that, what is the assumption that you need to identify? Well, first of all, it is not Paul's intention to be addressing the canon of scripture in writing to Timothy. He's writing to Timothy during a period of inscripturation. Was Titus written after this? Did Paul even recognise which of his books, because we know he wrote other letters, did he himself know which would be in the canon of scripture if he even was thinking of a canon of scripture? There's no way he could even be communicating with Peter or with Jude or with John or with Matthew or Mark, or Luke (well, with Luke he could). So he doesn't know what the apostles, he didn't go say [on phone] John, where are you, just working on Colossians here, alright, thanks [off phone]. That wasn't a possibility. Couldn't be done. So he's not talking about the canon of scripture. So, if you use 2 Timothy 3 to establish canon of scripture, you would be in error. And what they're doing is they're making you defend that by the way they make the statement. Now, that is what Karl Keating did, and I just saw so many Christians getting pushed into defending something, that's something what happened when Gerry [Matatics] and I debated the Papacy in Denver and Keating and Madrid debated two Fundamentalist Baptists the same night. (beginning at the 1:31:43 mark)

Commenting on White’s admission that Sola Scriptura was not operative during the apostolic era, Joe Heschmeyer in "Was Sola Scriptura True During the Apostolic Age?” wrote the following with respect to how this actually undermines Sola Scriptura (emphasis in original):

James White quite reasonably notes that sola Scriptura cannot be true while new revelation is still being transmitted.  After all, even if every prophet shared their revelations via text, they didn’t receive them from God that way.  He’s absolutely right on this.  But it leaves him in an awkward position.

White’s really conceding something rather jaw-dropping: sola Scriptura wasn’t true when the Bible was being written. So the Bible obviously doesn’t teach sola Scriptura (since it wasn’t true then).  This means three things:

1. All of the Protestant proof-texts that supposedly “prove” sola Scriptura from the Bible are false.  If sola Scriptura wasn’t true when Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy, then clearly, 2 Timothy 3:15-17 doesn’t teach sola Scriptura.

2. It shows sola Scriptura to be un-Scriptural and self-refuting. White’s admitting that sola Scriptura (which holds that all doctrines must come from Scripture) is a doctrine that doesn’t come from Scripture.

3. It shows sola Scriptura to be contrary to Scripture.  In 2 Thessalonians 2:15, St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, saying, “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the Traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.”  This pretty clearly shows that there were Apostolic Traditions passed on by letter (what we would today call the New Testament), and other Apostolic Traditions passed on only by word of mouth.  At the time Paul was writing, there were teachings which were only contained in the oral teachings of the Apostles, and were not at that time written down (otherwise, Paul’s instructions are redundant).  White’s admission solidifies this: the Bible at that time did not contain the full revelation.

So this leaves Protestants in a truly bizarre position.  In order to affirm the un-Scriptural doctrine that all doctrines have to come from Scripture, Protestants have to nullify the word of God found in 2 Thessalonians 2:15.   So I wholeheartedly agree with James White that sola Scriptura wasn’t true during the Apostolic age.  But given that, it can’t suddenly become true on its own later.  In defending the truth of the Gospel, White is showing the hollowness of the doctrine of sola Scriptura.

Anytime one is in a discussion with a Protestant and they make an assertion about where truth is to be found, one should ask (as I do), "Where does the Bible teach that a doctrine must come from the Bible?" If they point to a certain verse or pericope, they have trapped themselves two-fold: (1) for Protestants, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING they claim as truth on faith and morals must come from the Bible and (2) any verse of the Bible that they claim teaches that the Bible is the only source of doctrine means that the verse was teaching Sola Scriptura to the first century Christians who were alive at a time of inscripturation, forcing them to either [a] reject it as an uninspired text or [b] abandon it as a valid passage in support of sola scriptura and reject sola scriptura! They are in an unenviable position to be in.

One Protestant (Church of Ireland) historian, R.P.C. Hanson, wrote the following about the reception of oral tradition in early Christianity and the utter uncertainty he, as an informed Protestant theologian and historian, has that the oral traditions spoken positively about in the New Testament were all inscripturated (a view he seriously doubts):

[I]t is possible that, though oral tradition must have been to a large extent written down during the first Christian century, inasmuch as all the written tradition which we now possess must at one time have been oral, yet some of this oral tradition may have survived. It may have been handed on from generation to generation in their Church, without being written down, and may either have been written down centuries after the Church’s official writing down of tradition which we call the New Testament, or may never have been written down at all, and may still be preserved and available in the Church, oral but intact. Possible instances of such a tradition as this are the number, names, and authorship of the books of the New Testament, the practice of baptizing infants, and some primitive traditions forming the basis of dogmas later officially adopted in the Christian Church, or in parts of it, such as the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the doctrine of the Prerogatives of Peter, and the doctrine of Purgatory. (R.P.C. Hanson, Origen’s Doctrine of Tradition [London: SPCK, 1954], 32)

Robert M. Bowman jr., in an attempted critique of Jaxon Washburn's article, My Answers to "A Defense of Sola Scriptura", wrote, in part, the following to Jaxon which was shared with me, which mirrors the admission of White:

Second, the doctrine of sola scriptura maintains that the *whole* Bible as a body of scriptural texts functions for the Christian church as a complete written standard for Christian doctrine and practice. This does not mean we think (for example) that Abraham or Moses had that same complete collection of Scripture; Abraham probably had no scripture at all.

Interestingly, this same apologist is forced to deny total scriptura in order to defend sola Scriptura. In an article attempting to defend Sola Scriptura (Understanding Sola Scriptura: The Evangelical View of the Authority of the Bible; cf. Mormonism and Alleged “Lost Books” of the Bible also by the same author—a wonderful case of question-begging and special pleading), Bowman tries to defend the doctrine in such a manner:

Objection: God may have inspired writings in the past to which we no longer have access. For example, we don’t have all of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians.
Answer: Sola scriptura does not claim that all inspired writings of the past must exist and be accessible to us today. Might any of Paul’s missing letters to the Corinthian congregation have been inspired? Sure, but since we don’t have them, the point is moot. Scripture is by definition whatever extant writings there are qualifying as the word of God.

The definition of sola scriptura is a novelty (that the Bible possibly lacks inspired books and that “scripture” is not one-to-one equivalent to the Bible). Such flies in the face of the Westminster Confession of Faith, for example. In chapter 1 paragraph 2, where “the name of holy Scripture, or the Word of God written are now contained all the Books of the Old and New Testament” (the WCF then lists all 66 books of the Protestant canon) and that, speaking of these 66 books:

The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men . . . (WCF 1:6)

Bowman, in an attempt to defend the anti-biblical doctrine of Sola Scriptura must present a novel (I am sure those at Westminster would say “perverted”) understanding of the various elements making up the doctrine. His approach, not only leads to a rejection of tota scriptura but ultimately will also lead one to a rejection of the formal sufficiency of the Bible.

Many Protestants are coming to realise the precarious nature of Sola Scriptura. Richard Swinburne, at the time of writing, a Protestant (he would later convert to Eastern Orthodoxy in 1996), wrote the following caution about those wishing to accept rather uncritically this doctrine:

The slogan of Protestant confessions, “the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself” (e.g. Article 1 of the Westminster Confession) is quite hopeless. The Bible does not belong to an obvious genre which provides rules for how overall meaning is a function of meaning of individual books. We must have a preface. And if not a preface in the same volume, a short guide by the same author issued in the same way as the Bible, providing disambiguation and publicly seen by the intended audience to do so. Such a guide would be an extension of the original work. And that said, there is of course such a guide. It is the Church’s creeds and other tradition of public teaching of  items treated as central to the Gospel message . . . the Bible. . . . must therefore be interpreted in the light of the Church’s teaching as a Christian document. (Richard Swinburne, Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy [Oxford: Clarendon, 1992], 177).