This is a transcript of the initial main presentation of the video, Ortlund Cooper and Horton try to Prove Sola Scriptura [and Fail!] [Catholic Bible Highlights with Kenny Burchard, 12-14-25].
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It seems to me the most self-evident thing in the world that if the Bible were in fact the only infallible authority in the Christian faith (that’s what sola Scriptura means), the Bible itself would make this clear beyond all dispute. Yet we find again and again, that when Protestant apologists attempt to defend sola Scriptura: one of the two “pillars” of the so-called “Reformation” along with faith alone, they often wind up presenting either irrelevant Bible passages that prove no such thing, or, remarkably enough, none at all.
A classic case of this occurred recently, when three Protestants, all with doctorate degrees in theology, got together: Baptist Gavin Ortlund, Lutheran Jordan Cooper, and Michael Horton, who is Reformed. The video is called, “Is Scripture the Only Infallible Rule?” (11-25-25). Basically, all we got was the ad hominem fallacy known as “your dad’s uglier than mine”. It’s a very common Protestant tactic when addressing disagreements with Catholicism.
Rather than defend their own view, and from the Bible, they deliberately change the topic and attack opposing Catholic positions (the “uglier dad” so to speak). But this helps no one to understand why they ought to believe in sola Scriptura. It reminds one also of the old saying in legal circles: “If the facts aren’t on your side, pound the law. If the law is against you, pound the facts. If neither are on your side, pound the table.”
Gavin gets the ball rolling by stating:
1:26 our purpose is to respond to various criticisms of the Protestant Reformation. We believe the Reformation was a good thing and we want to defend it and celebrate the goods of it. The focus here is on scripture and the Protestant emphasis upon scripture, specifically the doctrine of sola scriptura.
Then they launch into a discussion of the Catholic view of tradition. This is at least related to the topic at hand, but again, whatever we Catholics believe doesn’t help a Protestant know how and why sola Scriptura is worthy of acceptance. That must proceed on a different basis than examining the view of someone outside the fold. But they dig in, and here’s what Dr. Horton says:
7:11 That’s why Calvin said to Sadoleto, “We’re assailed by two sects, the Pope and the Anabaptists.” Because they both share in common a belief in continuing office of apostle who speaks the very word of God and receives new revelations and therefore bury the word of God. It’s basically circumventing both scripture and tradition.
Now, if the topic were apostolic succession or the papacy, this would be relevant. But when the topic is defending sola Scriptura it’s irrelevant in the final analysis. And we even have the obligatory misrepresentation of infallibility. It’s so bad that Ortlund had to jump in and clarify. Here’s what he said:
7:38 They will of course not say that the pope is, you know, speaking new revelations. They will not use this language.
Okay, so if this is understood, why say the misguided thing in the first place, and why wasn’t it edited out? Or is it assumed – I hope not — that Catholics are being deceptive when they deny this? Then within ten minutes, Marian doctrine inevitably gets mentioned and they go even further afield, with Dr. Ortlund saying this,
8:51 There’s a difference between a group of Christians saying, “Hey, the Apostle Paul told us to do X, Y, and Z three weeks ago, and so that’s a tradition that we are obeying, right?” That’s different from me trying to sort through the immaculate conception of Mary.
Okay, Kenny, if I had a dime for every time I’ve seen a Protestant switch the topic to Mary when they were supposedly defending their own view, I’d be richer than Elon Musk. It’s also inevitable in Protestant discussions of sola Scriptura that they will cite Church fathers talking about the material sufficiency of Scripture. And so Dr. Horton – at 12:05 in the video — quotes Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, and John Chrysostom, which is perfectly irrelevant because we agree with all of what they wrote about the uniqueness of the Bible, and none of it comes within a million miles of proving sola Scriptura.
On my Church Fathers web page I have articles about all six of those men [follow the links to their names above to get to them], alongside almost all the major fathers, proving from many of their own words that none of them believed in sola Scriptura, because they accepted other infallible authorities. But those documented facts are always, for some reason, ignored. I’ve observed this over and over, too, in my 35 years as a Catholic apologist. And these are professors doing this. It’s indefensible. Dr. Ortlund then argues:
15:36 we believe scripture is the inspired speech of God. And there’s so many passages we could go to, to develop the language for this. I think one of the strongest is to go to Jesus himself and his ways of describing the Old Testament, . . . so what do we want to say about this? This is one of — to me — the building blocks that gets to sola Scriptura.
This is completely irrelevant to the topic, again, because Catholics fully agree with everything he said there. It does nothing whatever to prove that no infallible authorities exist other than the Bible.
At 18:33 Dr. Cooper brings up the matter of capital punishment, and implies that the Catholic Church has massively contradicted itself on this score. It hasn’t, and I’ve written about that, too. But in the time we have we can’t go off on another tangent, like our three friends do the whole time in their video. Needless to say, this false, “ugly dad” polemical claim against us won’t prove that sola Scriptura is true, either. They’re a million miles away from doing that.
At 22:47 Dr. Ortlund brings up the obligatory topics of Mary’s immaculate conception and bodily assumption (both of which Martin Luther accepted, and to his credit, Dr. Horton mentioned the former), and the papacy and papal infallibility. And how does that prove sola Scriptura? It doesn’t, of course. It’s simply an evasive technique – probably unconscious – to avoid defending one’s own position, by employing “ugly dad” examples. At this point we are more than halfway through the video and three Protestant professors and Bible experts have given us zero evidence from the Bible that it’s the only infallible authority. And – what a surprise! — they ain’t gonna do it in the rest of the tape, either.
Then they go on to another inevitable thing when critiquing the Catholic Church: attacking St. Cardinal Newman and development of doctrine, which is very far from their ostensible topic. This begins at 24:43 and goes on until 30:35. So it’s now three-quarters through the video and not a word about how Holy Scripture supposedly teaches that it only is infallible and nothing else is. These guys are non sequitur machines. That’s a fancy Latin term for arguments that are irrelevant to the topic.
Then Dr. Horton brings up faith alone at 30:58 and moves on to the invocation of saints at 31:51, up through 34:29, with Dr. Cooper joining in the fun. Anything but the topic, huh? Then they go to the canon of Scripture, which is much closer, at least (like the moon going around the earth) but still won’t prove sola Scriptura for them. That takes them to the end of the video, without – amazingly enough, given their title and statement of purpose — even remotely offering any biblical proof of sola Scriptura.
I grant that some of the topics involving Catholicism that they brought up have some bearing on the overall discussion. But my point is that they can’t simply throw mud pies at the great big barn of Catholicism and do nothing else, and call that a defense of sola Scriptura. It’s not building a positive scriptural case or providing anyone a compelling reason to believe this.
So in the end it’s a case of the emperor having no clothes. But this really shouldn’t surprise us, because in fact there is no proof to be had. Dr. Cooper himself almost admits this in a roundabout way, because he made the following statement in his video called, “A Defense of Sola Scriptura” (from 12 March 2019), from 1:39 to 2:14 on the tape:
Do we have to find a particular Scripture that says Scripture is the only authority? And I just don’t think we have to. We don’t. There’s nothing in — you can’t find — in any of Paul’s letters, for example, . . . “by the way, Scripture is the only authority and traditions are not an authority and there is no magisterium that is given some kind of infallible authority to pass on infallible teachings.” It seems like a lot of Roman Catholic apologists think that for Protestants to defend their position, that they have to find a text that says that.”
Dr. Cooper would probably go on to say that even though sola Scriptura isn’t explicitly stated, it can still be deduced or indirectly derived from various statements in Scripture. I vigorously disagree, and I continue to maintain that if indeed it can’t be found in the Bible at all, and if contrary statements are in the Bible, we must conclude that it’s self-defeating and a fatally flawed premise regarding the rule of faith.
The serious difficulties remain and are no closer to being solved than they ever have been, these past 500 years. And I submit that they never will and never can be solved, because sola Scriptura is an unbiblical point of view from the get-go.
Related Books
100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura (May 2012 / second revised edition: Aug. 2025)
Pillars of Sola Scriptura: Replies to Whitaker, Goode, & Biblical “Proofs” for “Bible Alone” (Sep. 2012)
Related Article
Sola Scriptura is Self-Defeating and False if Not in the Bible (vs. Kevin Johnson) [5-4-04]
Related Web Page
Bible, Tradition, Canon, & “Sola Scriptura”
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