Lutheran Contra-Catholic Potpourri: Reply to Jordan Cooper

Incl. Bible-Tradition Relationship; Fathers & Conciliar Infallibility; Popes & Early Councils; Perspicuity (Luther vs. Erasmus); Communion in One Kind; “Late” & Supposedly Unbiblical Dogmas

Rev. Dr. Jordan B. Cooper is a Lutheran pastor, adjunct professor of Systematic Theology, Executive Director of the popular Just & Sinner YouTube channel, and the President of the American Lutheran Theological Seminary (which holds to a doctrinally traditional Lutheranism, similar to the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod). He has authored several books, as well as theological articles in a variety of publications. All my Bible citations are from RSV, unless otherwise indicated. Jordan’s words will be in blue.

This is my 7th reply to Jordan (many more to come, because I want to interact with the best, most informed Protestant opponents). All of these respectful critiques can be found in the “Replies to Lutheran Theologian / Apologist Jordan Cooper” section on the top of my Lutheranism web page.

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This is a response to the first 40 minutes of Jordan’s YouTube video, Sola Scriptura: Scripture Alone (The Five Solas) (2-24-24).

13:54 what we see is that the earliest Christians do use language of tradition but when they define tradition, they’re defining tradition really as things that are also clearly taught within the word of God, not not some kind of separate dogma or separate theological claims that have no basis in the word of God.

There is a middle position (which is the Catholic one). The fathers, I contend, adhered to a three-legged-stool rule of faith: Bible / Tradition / Church, in which all operate in non-contradictory harmony with each other. Martin Luther appeared to accept something like this:

I do enough if I prove that it is not contrary to God’s Word, but consistent with Scripture. (That These Words of Christ, “This Is My Body,” etc., Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics, March 1527, Luther’s Works, vol. 37)

In almost all cases, Scripture can be brought to bear. But in a few instances, beliefs that are not explicit in Scripture, such as, for example, infant baptism, were accepted as true on the basis of the authority of the Church and apostolic tradition and succession (in complete opposition to sola Scriptura). This was St. Augustine’s view, and he also wrote more generally:

[T]here are many things which are observed by the whole Church, and therefore are fairly held to have been enjoined by the apostles, which yet are not mentioned in their writings. (On Baptism, v, 23, 31)

Likewise, Luther wrote about infant baptism:

We, however, are certain enough, because it [infant baptism] is nowhere contrary to Scripture, but is rather in accord with Scripture. (Concerning Rebaptism, Jan. 1528, Luther’s Works, vol. 40)

[C]hild baptism derives from the apostles and has been practiced since the days of the apostles. . . . It came to me by tradition and I was persuaded by no word of Scripture that it was wrong. . . . Baptism did not originate with us, but with the apostles and we should not discard or alter what cannot be discarded or altered on clear scriptural authority. . . . Were child baptism now wrong God would certainly not have permitted it to continue so long, nor let it become so universally and thoroughly established in all Christendom, but it would sometime have gone down in disgrace. . . . Just as God has established that Christians in all the world have accepted the Bible as Bible, the Lord’s Prayer as Lord’s Prayer, and faith of a child as faith, so also he has established child baptism and kept it from being rejected . . . You say, this does not prove that child baptism is certain. For there is no passage in Scripture for it. My answer: that is true. From Scripture we cannot clearly conclude that you could establish child baptism as a practice among the first Christians after the apostles. But you can well conclude that in our day no one may reject or neglect the practice of child baptism which has so long a tradition, since God actually not only has permitted it, but from the beginning so ordered, that it has not yet disappeared. (Ibid.)

Here, Luther accepts infant baptism based on ancient tradition, and states outright that “there is no passage in Scripture for it.” Therefore, he has accepted a principle utterly contrary to sola Scriptura; namely, that something can be regarded as infallibly true, not on the basis of Scripture, but rather, apostolic tradition. Sola Scriptura holds that only Scripture is such an infallible authority. Augustine and Luther in these excerpts also contradict Jordan’s claim above. Luther felt so strongly about infant baptism, that he and his successor Philip Melanchthon consented to executing Anabaptists for denying it (a doctrine and practice not even explicitly biblical).

17:10 Read Athanasius’s works against the Arians; he is just expositing Scripture. He’s looking at the text trying to explain the text, trying to demonstrate how the text shows his point.

Of course, the Bible will be his primary argument. No one is denying that in the first place. Refuting Jehovah’s Witnesses (modern-day Arians) was, in fact, my first major apologetics endeavor, back in 1981-1984 (the product of that research is on my blog today). I argued against them almost always from Scripture. I was a Protestant then. Now that I am Catholic I would do the same thing if I set out to refute them.  This doesn’t prove that Athanasius had a Protestant rule of faith (nor that I do now; I argue from Scripture virtually every day in my apologetics writing). St. Athanasius also accepted the infallible authority of ecumenical councils, contrary to sola Scriptura:

. . . the Synod which was held at Nicæa. For the Faith there confessed by the Fathers according to the divine Scriptures is enough by itself at once to overthrow all impiety, and to establish the religious belief in Christ. . . . a monument of victory over all heresy, but especially the Arian, . . . (Letter #59 to Epictetus, 1)

17:59  the foundation of the argument is always the text of Scripture and other figures or authorities are used secondarily.

Largely, yes, but not always (and Jordan used the word “always” and attempted to make a universal claim. St. Basil the Great thought that the Nicene Council was infallible, and arguably inspired as well:

. . . you should confess the faith put forth by our Fathers once assembled at Nicæa, that you should not omit any one of its propositions, but bear in mind that the three hundred and eighteen who met together without strife did not speak without the operation of the Holy Ghost, . . .  (Letter #114 to Cyriacus, at Tarsus)

St. Gregory Nazianzen appeared to believe the same:

I never have and never can honour anything above the Nicene Faith, that of the Holy Fathers who met there to destroy the Arian heresy; but am, and by God’s help ever will be, of that faith; . . . (Letter #102: Second to Cledonius the Priest, Against Apollinarius)

As did St. Cyril of Alexandria:

[H]e opposes the truth and the very symbol of the Church’s Faith, which the fathers once gathered together at Nicea through the illumination of the Spirit defined; he, fearing lest any should keep whole the Faith, instructed unto the Truth by their words, endeavours to calumniate it and alters the significance of the words, . . . against the holy fathers who have decreed for us the pious definition of the Faith which we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast, as it is written. (Tomes Against Nestorius: I, 5)

. . . the holy Churches in every region under Heaven, and the venerable Fathers themselves who put forth unto us the definition of the right and undefiled Faith, viz. (the Holy Ghost speaking in them) that the Word of God was made flesh and became Man, . . .(Tomes Against Nestorius: IV, 2)

19:00 The other thing that I think really important here is . . . the question of how is it that the church looked at the councils. If you look at something like the Council of Nicaea, the question is: did the church at the time believe that the Senate of Nicaea was necessarily the final arbiter of what was actually true? . . . It’s not the understanding at the time that whatever happened in this Council was necessarily declaratively true forever because of the authority of a church Council.

My citations above regarding Nicaea, from four Church fathers, contradict Jordan’s “take.” Sola Scriptura requires a denial of the infallibility of ecumenical councils. But many Church fathers agree with the high Catholic view of such councils.

20:13 the bishop of Rome actually doesn’t have really any significant role within the Council of Nicaea at all.

A plausible case can be made that he did:

Pope Silvester and the Council of Nicaea [August 1997]

Council of Nicea: Reply to James White: Its Relationship to Pope Sylvester, Athanasius’ Views, & the Unique Preeminence of Catholic Authority. [4-2-07]

20:19 It’s not really until Pope Leo with Caledon that the bishop of Rome has any significant say within these ecumenical councils.

Constantinople, 381 [no pope and no legates]

No bishops from the west were present, nor was the Pope represented. Therefore, this was not really an ecumenical council, though due to later historical confusion and the enthusiastic acceptance by the whole Church of its strongly orthodox creed, including an explicit confession of the full divinity of the Holy Spirit, it came to be regarded and numbered as such. (Dr. Warren Carroll, The Building of Christendom, Christendom College Press, 1987, 62)

With the First Council of Constantinople (381) we are dealing with another case in which there are not extant acts. This council also was convoked by an emperor, Theodosius I. [Ibid.] The language of his decree suggests he regarded the Roman see as a yardstick of Christian orthodoxy. He commands all his subjects to practice the religion which Peter the apostle transmitted to the Romans. In calling the Council, Theodosius did not envisage the assembled bishops debating Roman doctrine as thought it were an open question.

The fact that Meletius of Antioch presided at Constantinople I, and the absence of any Roman legates, might appear to be evidence against the Roman primacy. It must be remembered that the Council was not originally intended to be ecumenical in the same sense as Nicaea.

It included, after all, only 150 bishops from Thrace, Asia Minor, and Egypt and was convoked to deal with certain Eastern problems.[New Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. “Constantinople, First Council of.”] In fact, it was not recognized as ecumenical by the Council of Ephesus half a century later, and it was left to Pope Gregory the Great to elevate it to that status. (“Papal Authority at the Earliest Councils,” Brian W. Harrison, This Rock, Jan. 1991)

Ephesus, 431 [papal legates Arcadius, Projectus, and Philip]

The pope . . . sent two bishops, Arcadius and Projectus, to represent himself and his Roman council, and the Roman priest, Philip, as his personal representative. Philip, therefore, takes the first place, though, not being a bishop, he could not preside. It was probably a matter of course that the Patriarch of Alexandria should be president. The legates were directed not to take part in the discussions, but to give judgment on them. It seems that Chalcedon, twenty years later, set the precedent that the papal legates should always be technically presidents at an ecumenical council, and this was henceforth looked upon as a matter of course, and Greek historians assumed that it must have been the case at Nicaea. (Catholic Encyclopedia: “Council of Ephesus”; written by John Chapman)

[Y]ou only show that you are nourishing in your heart a Lucian, or some other hog of the Epicurean sty, who, having no belief at all of a God himself, laughs in his sleeve at all those who believe and confess one. (pt. 1)

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Assuredly, any Jew or Heathen, who had no knowledge at all of Christ, would find it easy enough to draw out such a pattern of faith as yours. You do not mention Christ in a single jot of it; . . .  (Pt. I)

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[Y]our words sound as though, like Epicurus, you accounted the word of God and a future state to be mere fables . . . (Pt. I)
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What say you, Erasmus? Is it not enough that you submit your opinion to the Scriptures? Do you submit it to the decrees of the church also? What can the church decree, that is not decreed in the Scriptures? If it can, where then remains the liberty and power of judging those who make the decrees? As Paul, I Cor. xiv., teaches “Let others judge.” Are you not pleased that there should be any one to judge the decrees of the church, which, nevertheless, Paul enjoins? What new kind of religion and humility is this, that, by our own example, you would take away from us the power of judging the decrees of men, and give it unto men without judgment? Where does the Scripture of God command us to do this? . . .

But if knowledge of grammar alone removes all obscurity from Sacred Scripture, how did it happen that St. Jerome, who knew all the languages, was so often at a loss and had to labour mightily to explain the prophets? Not to mention some others, among whom we find even Augustine, in whom you place some stock. Why is it that you yourself, who cannot use ignorance of languages as an excuse, are sometimes at a loss in explicating the psalms, testifying that you are following something you have dreamed up in your own mind, without condemning the opinions of others? . . . Finally, why do your ‘brothers’ disagree so much with one another? They all have the same Scripture, they all claim the same spirit. And yet Karlstadt disagrees with you violently. So do Zwingli and Oecolampadius and Capito, who approve of Karlstadt’s opinion though not of his reasons for it. Then again Zwingli and Balthazar are miles apart on many points. To say nothing of images, which are rejected by others, but defended by you, not to mention the rebaptism rejected by your followers but preached by others, and passing over in silence the fact that secular studies are condemned by others but defended by you. Since you are all treating the subject matter of Scripture, if there is no obscurity in it, why is there so much disagreement among you? On this point there is no reason for you to rail at the wretched sophists: Augustine teaches that obscurity sometimes arises from unknown or ambiguous words, sometimes from the nature of the subject matter, at times from allegories and figures of speech, at times from passages which contradict one another, at least according to what the language seems to say. [De doctrina christiana 2.6.7, 2.9.15] And he gives the reason why God wished such obscurity to find a place in the Sacred Books. [De doctrina christiana 4.8.22] (pp. 130-131)

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Furthermore, where you challenge me and all the sophists to bring forward even one obscure or recondite passage from the Sacred Books which you cannot show is quite clear, I only wish you could make good on your promise! We will bring to you heaps of difficulties and we will forgive you for calling us blinder than a bat, provided you clearly explicate the places where we are at a loss. But if you impose on us the law that we believe that whatever your interpretation is, that is what Scripture means, your associates will not put up with such a law and they stoutly cry out against you, affirming that you interpret Scripture wrongly about the Eucharist. Hence it is not right that we should grant you more authority than is granted by the principal associates of your confession. (p. 132)

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But still, if I were growing weary of this church, as I wavered in perplexity, tell me, I beg you in the name of the gospel, where would you have me go? To that disintegrated congregation of yours, that totally dissected sect? Karlstadt has raged against you, and you in turn against him. And the dispute was not simply a tempest in a teapot but concerned a very serious matter. Zwingli and Oecolampadius have opposed your opinion in many volumes. And some of the leaders of your congregation agree with them, among whom is Capito. Then too what an all-out battles was fought by Balthazar and Zwingli! I am not even sure that there in that tiny little town you agree among yourselves very well. Here your disciples openly taught that the humanities are the bane of godliness, and no languages are to be learned except a bit of Greek and Hebrew, that Latin should be entirely ignored. There were those who would eliminate baptism and those who would repeat it; and there was no lack of those who persecute them for it. In some places images of the saints suffered a dire fate; you came to their rescue. When you book about reforming education was published, they said that the spirit had left you and that you were beginning to write in a human spirit opposed to the gospel, and they maintained you did it to please Melanchthon. A tribe of prophets has risen up there with whom you have engaged in most bitter conflict. Finally, just as every day new dogmas appear among you, so at the same time new quarrels arise. And you demand that no one should disagree with you, although you disagree so much among yourselves about matters of the greatest importance! (pp. 143-144)

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Certainly no one after the apostles claimed that there was no mystery in Scripture that was not clear to him. (pp. 153-154)

You stipulate that we should not ask for or accept anything but Holy Scripture, but you do it in such a way as to require that we permit you to be its sole interpreter, renouncing all others. Thus the victory will be yours if we allow you to be not the steward but the lord of Holy Scripture. (pp. 204-205)

We were talking about your spirit and that of your followers, who profess that there is nothing in Holy Scripture which is obscure to you as long as you know grammar, and we demanded that you establish the credibility of this certainty, which you still fail to do, try as you may. (p. 219)

[I]n Acts, when Paul had taught and admonished them, they compared the scriptural passages with what had been carried out and what had been propounded to them; and there was much they would not have understood if the apostle had not supplied this additional light. Therefore I am not making the passages obscure, but rather God himself wanted there to be some obscurity in them, but in such a way that there would be enough light for the eternal salvation of everyone if he used his eyes and grace was there to help. No one denies that there is truth as clear as crystal in Holy Scripture, but sometimes it is wrapped and covered up by figures and enigmas so that it needs scrutiny and an interpreter, either because God wanted in this way to arouse us from dullness and also to set us to work, as Augustine says, or because truth is more pleasant and affects us more deeply when it has been dug out and shines forth to us through the cover of darkness than if it had been exposed for anyone at all to see . . . (pp. 219-220)

If Holy Scripture is perfectly clear in all respects, where does this darkness among you come from, whence arise such fights to the death about the meaning of Holy Scripture? You prove from the mysteries of Scripture that the body of the Lord is in the Eucharist physically; from the same Scripture Zwingli, Oecolampadius, and Capito teach that it is only signified. (p. 222)

But if you attribute a total understanding of the Holy Scripture to the Holy Spirit, why do you make an exception only for the ignorance of grammar? In a matter of such importance will the Spirit allow grammar to stand in the way of man’s salvation? Since he did not hesitate to impart such riches of eternal wisdom, will he hesitate to impart grammar and common sense? (p. 239)

If you contend that there is no obscurity whatever in Holy Scripture, do not take up the matter with me but with all the orthodox Fathers, of whom there is none who does not preach the same thing as I do. (p. 242)

See my entire seven-part series, “Luther Meets His Match,” which documents this dispute, with Erasmus’ replies (and see more from this particular installment). Erasmus’ replies are generally not available online (I had to pay good money to purchase this book), whereas Luther’s Bondage of the Will is online. So, as usual, folks are usually far more familiar with Luther’s argument against Erasmus, than vice versa (most have never heard of this book from Erasmus). And that is rather one-sided, as I think fair-minded readers would agree.

Luther never responded to Erasmus’ 1526 work in reply to him, Hyperaspistes (“A Defensive Shield”). What a surprise . . . That would have made it a true debate, where both sides interact with each other and respond to counter-replies. Luther was scarcely even capable of that: at least not when he met his match with Erasmus (considered perhaps the greatest Christian scholar of his time), and was way over his head. He could rant and rave, rail and thunder, as he always eventually did in controversy (being a rather excitable sort), but he couldn’t overcome Erasmus’ reasoning, and so once that was fully laid out, he didn’t even try. At least he had wits enough to know when he was bested in debate.

See my related article, 25 Brief Arguments Regarding Biblical “Clearness” [2009].

37:03 What Rome has often done historically [is to] say, “look, when we’ve got a competition between Scripture as the Word of God and tradition we go with [tradition].” Here’s an example . . . communion in both kinds in the medieval church . . . this is a very very late development. There was a lot of superstition that developed around the sacrament of the Eucharist to such an extent that there was this fear of spilling the blood of Christ so that it was taught that only the priests should consume the blood of Christ and the lay person should not receive it at all.

First of all, how it is “superstition” to be concerned about what both sides agree is the Blood of Christ not spilling on the floor? I must confess that I have no idea what he means here, and it’s rather shocking. It seems to me that we can agree that Jesus’ Blood spilled on the ground is not a good thing. The medieval Church was concerned about that. Secondly, Jesus can’t be technically separated under symbols of wafer and wine. Jesus is present Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in both of what were formerly bread and wine. No one need take my word for that. It’s biblical teaching:

1 Corinthians 11:27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.

Note the bolded “or” and “and.” The way that Paul phrases this proves that he believes that the Body and Blood are present in both species. It’s all in the word “or”. The logic and grammar require it, so that the above can also be expressed in the following two propositions:

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.

Whoever, therefore, drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.

I’m glad both kinds are offered in the Catholic Church now, but there is no necessity to receive both, in order to receive Jesus Christ. I myself have received the cup, I think, two times in my entire 33-year Catholic life: when I was received into the Church and once when the consecrated hosts ran out during Mass. My practice has nothing to do with theology; it’s merely a “hygienic” objection. The Catholic Church makes no claim that no one will ever contract a germ, drinking from a common cup with scores or hundreds of others. In any event, no one is “missing” anything. I would throw this objection back onto Jordan, having explained our position, and ask him: what is worse: not receiving the chalice when the host contains all of Christ, or receiving no Body and Blood at all, as in Zwingli’s view, and that of most Protestants besides Lutherans?

Luther himself said he’d rather partake of the Holy Eucharist with Catholics, than drink “mere wine” with the Zwinglians and others who denied the Real Presence. He didn’t deny that Catholics were Christians, but he denied that Zwingli and his followers were. Thus, in light of these considerations, Jordan is majoring on the minors and knocking the Catholic Church, when the vast majority of his fellow Protestants don’t even believe they are truly receiving Jesus at all (and indeed they aren’t, and Catholics contend that Lutherans and the few Anglicans who still believe in Real Presence aren’t, either, since they broke the line of valid ordination). Which is the more important of the two things?

A Calvinist apologist wrote:

I openly challenge the Roman apologists to bring forth any example of a church father who says that after the consecration the bread is the blood of Christ (bolding his own)

I’m happy to oblige, by providing two examples of the logically equivalent converse: the cup described as Christ’s Body:

[W]hen the great prayers and the holy supplications are sent up to God, the Word descends upon the bread and the cup, and they become His body. (St. Athanasius, Sermon to the Newly Baptized, PG 26,1325)

So now repeatedly the bread and wine, sanctified by the Word (the sacred Benediction), is at the same time changed into the Body of that Word; and this Flesh is disseminated among all the Faithful. (St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism, 37)

The Catholic Encyclopedia article, “Communion under Both Kinds” makes further biblical arguments and provides a detailed history of many instances in the early Church in which the cup or the host only was distributed, such as the faithful receiving at home (thus implying indirectly that both Body and Blood and the whole Christ were contained in either kind). Example:

It is recorded of St. Basil that he received Holy Communion several times on the day of his death, and under the species of bread alone, as may be inferred from the biographer’s words . . .  These testimonies are sufficient to establish the fact that, in the early centuries, reservation of the Eucharist for the sick and dying, of which the Council of Nicaea (325) speaks (can. xiii) as “the ancient and canonical rule”, was usual under one kind. The reservation of the species of wine for use as the Viaticum . . .  was never the general practice. . . .

I could also bring up the issue of adoration of the consecrated wafer and wine. If indeed Jesus Christ is truly present, then wouldn’t it follow that He should be adored in the sacrament?  That’s what Martin Luther — in consistency — thought:

Now to come back to the sacrament: he who does not believe that Christ’s body and blood are present does well not to worship either with his spirit or with his body. But he who does believe, as sufficient demonstration has shown it ought to be believed, can surely not withhold his adoration of the body and blood of Christ without sinning. For I must always confess that Christ is present when his body and blood are present. His words do not lie to me, and he is not separated from his body and blood. (The Adoration of the Sacrament, 1523, Luther’s Works, vol. 36)

[O]ne should not withhold from him such worship and adoration either . . . one should not condemn and accuse of heresy people who do adore the sacrament. For although Christ has not commanded it, neither has he forbidden it, but often accepted it. Free, free it must be, according as one is disposed in his heart and has opportunity. (Ibid.)

Lutherans do not, however, practice eucharistic adoration now. Why? Jesus is present, so why would they not worship Him? On what basis is the practice neglected? And is this not a far greater omission than merely partaking in one kind (when Jesus is fully present in both kinds)? Catholics worship Jesus in the consecrated elements and receive Him. Lutherans only do the second. Again, I ask: why? So they won’t be too much like Catholics?

Jordan is now almost two-thirds through his talk on sola Scriptura and he has scarcely defended it at all (so I had to change my title). Certainly nothing he has presented in the first 37 minutes presents undeniable arguments that sola Scriptura is true, and that only Scripture is an infallible authority in Christianity. But lots of potshots against the Catholic Church! This is a form of the old “your dad’s uglier than mine!” tactic. When some folks have insufficient arguments to make their own case, they go after the other guy and hope that no one notices.

37:47 This has no precedent in Scripture whatsoever. [When] Jesus talks about the sacrament what does he say?: “take eat, take drink” . . . 

I already mentioned 1 Corinthians 11:27, so there is indeed relevant Scripture. And the second claim isn’t true, either. In John 6:58, Jesus mentions eating His Flesh as salvation-giving, without mentioning drinking His Blood: “he who eats this bread will live for ever” (cf. 6:33, 50-51). Nice try, though.

38:27 here is a very clear example where you have the entirety of Scripture and the entirety of the testimony of the church fathers . . . 

It is true that the Church for its first twelve centuries offered both kinds. But it also offered only one kind in several different instances, as the Catholic Encyclopedia I linked to, documents, thus implying that either element is sufficient. And I have shown how this has scriptural support, in at least five passages.

40:15 You don’t find the bodily Assumption of Mary in the early church; you don’t find the Immaculate Conception of Mary in the early church; you don’t find the dogma of papal infallibility in the early church.

Most doctrines take many centuries to develop. One didn’t have the complete canon of Scripture until the late 4th century. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity was developing in key respects up through the 4th century, and in more particulars even a few centuries more. The view of religious image took many centuries to sort out (with Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, and Anglicans coming down on one side and Calvinists and some fundamentalists on the other). So that’s a given. And it’s true for doctrines that we believe in common.

The Blessed Virgin Mary’s Assumption and Immaculate Conception can be strongly deduced from Scripture and by analogies in Scripture. The primacy of St. Peter is very strongly indicated in the Bible and even strongly backed up in many particulars by Protestant scholars. Then we also have solid Protestant scholars noting how sola Scriptura and sola fide were both profoundly absent not only in the fathers but all the way up till Luther. See my article: Bible / Faith “Alone” vs. The Fathers (vs. Gavin Ortlund) [2-13-24]. We can defend our views on these matters (I just gave links where I have done so). Protestants can’t, and usually won’t, when scrutinized and pressed, in depth (as I am doing right now). Jordan has that choice. We’ll see what he decides.

40:27 There are many things that are declared dogma that actually don’t have any roots in Tradition. It’s just traditions that they happen to grab on to [with] many of them being very late . . . 

This is one of those hyper-polemical statements that take a lot of time and effort to refute. Fortunately, I have already done so, in my 33 years of Catholic apologetics writing (now available in 4,500+ articles — on this blog — and 55 books). In all of that work I have offered biblical and traditional arguments for virtually all major Catholic dogmas and doctrines. I’ve never found a single one that had didn’t “have any” biblical or patristic support. I’d be happy to discuss any of them with Jordan or Gavin Ortlund or any other active Protestant apologist.

40:43 infallibility isn’t declared Dogma until 1870 . . . 

That’s right, which means that Catholics were required to believe it after that time. It doesn’t follow that it wasn’t entrenched in Catholic tradition long before. I found a statement from St. Francis de Sales in the 16th century that is identical in many ways to the dogma of 1870. It was clearly believed. Luther makes many statements where he says that such-and-such a doctrine is good and pious but that it’s not required. That’s how Catholics were regarding papal infallibility before 1870. But then it was required, just as Luther would say about the Holy Eucharist or baptismal regeneration. It’s a debate about the precise nature of the level of authority any given doctrine has. Not one Protestant in a hundred understands these distinctions, and even Jordan seems not to (by the way he frames his statement).

One could say the same about the canon of Scripture, which was largely held with more and more certitude for 350 years, and then the church decreed that various books were certainly canonical and everyone accepted it, for the most part. It was fairly certain and then it became certain In terms of the faith of Christians). No one identified all 27 New Testament books as Scripture until 367, when Athanasius did it. Within 30 years, the Church at large agreed and proclaimed these books canon, along with the Old Testament (including the seven deuterocanonical books). So “late” dogmatic proclamations are no new concept with medieval Catholics. Protestants should be the last people to even bring such a thing up, seeing that their two pillars (sola Scriptura and sola fide) are scarcely found at all in the Bible, nor the fathers, nor the medieval Church. It’s a case of “log-in-the-eye disease.”