White Man’s Burden Redux

Right from the wery start of the Dividing Line last Thursday, Dr.* James White (Th.D., D.Min., etc., etc.), of Alpha & Omega Sophistries (he calls it “Ministries”), seemed ’plexed about this article of mine in a way that, frankly, ’plexed me. He began, as one should, at the end: by reading his audience the wery last sentence of my post:

Answers to these ques­tions will cer­tainly help me greatly in my ongo­ing look at the issues of sola scrip­tura, the canon of Scrip­ture, and ecclesiology.

The good Dr.* White seemed to think that the words “my ongoing look” meant that I was “still examining these issues.” Somehow, I had not yet made up my mind. Somehow, I was still undecided on the whole question of sola scriptura. And he found all that to be incongruous with my earlier plea that sola scriptura is a “false doctrine.” What, then, could I possibly have meant by that last sentence?

i.

Let me help the poor lost man. What I meant is that I am writing about the topic of sola scriptura. (See how easy truth is!) I had written a few blog articles prior to the one that came under the radar of Dr.* White’s substantial pate; I have more to write. I made no secret about that on the blog. You won’t find a page, for members only, entitled “Things I Hide From Dr.* White.” The expression “look at” to mean “write about” or “talk about” is used all the time. It is no obscure language. Dr.* White. himself used those wery words at the wery start of this wery Dividing Line: “Today we are going to be looking at an article.” I did not think—I can’t imagine anyone would have thought—that Dr.* White’s mind was not yet made up about what I had written. Why, then, would he take the wery same words from myself and think that I was yet unsure? The mind doth reel but no fish doth bite.

Another point on which Dr.* White left me in a ’plexity more deep than degrees: his discussion of my reference to the Hendrickson set of the 38-volume Church Fathers. Dr.* White says that his first reaction to the picture was to make query with himself, thus: Is this guy going to do what Jason Stellman did, and pretty much limit the early Church Fathers to this particular edition? It hath been a while since I’ve listened to Jason Stellman’s podcast with Bryan Cross, or Dr.* White’s epic Dividing Line response to it. I would be surprised, though, if Mr. Stellman really is unaware that there are other editions of the Fathers, or that the 38-volume set is not exhaustive. I know I am aware of all the other editions Dr.* White and his prime toady, the glib and anonymous TurretinFan, brought up. (For that worthy gentleman did join the show.) One such set is being published by the Catholic University of America Press, and it would be ’stonishing indeed if Catholic apologists were not familiar with it.

But there are many reasons, in the context of my discussion at that moment, and having to do with shorthand, why I would cite “the 38 volumes.” One is simply that, for converts or Catholics who have never read the Church Fathers—who may even be unable to afford a copy of any set—the 38 volumes are the obvious place to begin, since they are easily available to be read and searched online (such as here and here). To be sure, an academic, a scholar, a cyclist, a professional apologist, a worthy blogger, a man of degrees (like Dr.* White, Th.D., D.Min., etc., etc. ) must make himself know the full range of available editions. But at this point I was not addressing myself to scholarship in the Fathers. There are contexts—that let me tell you—outside the one where Dr.* White (Th.D., D.Min., etc., etc.) lives and moves and has his being.

The second reason to include a picture here is—in context—to impress upon the reader my point about how extensive these writings are. One need not necessarily gather together every last set known to Dr.* White, like a Great Wall of China, and stage a photo shoot from a high crane with a strong lens. A picture of 38 volumes does that job well enow, I trow. (I should point out that it doesn’t hurt that the picture is a link to the Amazon page where the set can be bought—click and ye shall see—and, since I’m an Amazon affiliate member, I receive a commission in such cases. It costs you nothing extra, and helps me greatly in meeting the costs of running this blog. Commercial over.)

Now, of course, I know that Dr.* White wants to make Catholic apologists look as superficial and unaware of the depth of patristic scholarship as possible. Such is the very ground upon which his being trods. But the assumption that, if you mention a particular translation of a text, you are therefore necessarily unaware of other translations which also exist, is a non sequitur that, I must confess, leaves me rolling on the floor in a baffled stupor.

ii.

But to turn to the heart of Dr.* White’s critique. He and TurretinFan were confused—though by this point, I’m getting used to that—by my use of this quotation from the Holy Father:

The novelty of biblical revelation consists in the fact that God becomes known to us through the dialogue which he desires to have with us. (Verbum Domini 6)

The anonymous TurretinFan—call him Mr. X, I pray you—rightly notes in his response that my point was “that one can take Benedict XVI out of context to suggest he holds to sola scriptura.” But he wonders whether I might not have chosen a better to make the same point. Here Mr. X plays writing teacher looking at a student’s draft, and directs me to this other one, also from the pope: “[Scripture is not] an inert deposit within the Church [but the] supreme rule of faith and power of life.”

(Incidentally, as an aside: Mr. X seems to prefer that his readers click through a series of links to trace this quotation back to the original source, a brief article in L’Osservatore Romano, which itself is a secondhand source of a few brief quotations from the pope. I, who make no such hunting demands upon the reader, present to you the full text of the pope’s words here. Rorate Caeli reproduces the full text of the pope’s letter to William Cardinal Levada, president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. You will observe that Mr. X rather sloppily reproduced the pope’s words, which were these: “the Word of God fixed in the sacred texts is not an inert deposit inside the Church but becomes the supreme rule of her faith and power of life.” The pope goes on immediately, in the next sentence, to clarify that the “sacred texts” are to be understood only through the Tradition of the Church and the teaching of its bishops. “The tradition that draws its origin from the Apostles,” he says, “progresses with the assistance of the Holy Spirit and grows with the reflection and study of believers, with personal experience of the spiritual life and the preaching of Bishops.”)

But at any rate, before I turn to whether or not Mr. X’s choice is in truth a closer approximation to sola scriptura, let me point out why I chose the quotation I did. I thought I had said so in the first place, but I’ll clarify again, since Mr. X seems to be in especial need of help: It bears a striking similarity to some words by the Church Father Hippolytus, which Dr. Joseph Mizzi quotes here in defense of the idea that the Church Fathers believed in sola scriptura. Here is Hippolytus:

There is, brethren, one God, the knowl­edge of whom we gain from the Holy Scrip­tures, and from no other source.

And here again is Benedict XVI, from the quotation I chose:

The nov­elty of bib­li­cal rev­e­la­tion con­sists in the fact that God becomes known to us through the dia­logue which he desires to have with us.

In Hippolytus, “the knowledge of [God]” is attained from the Scriptures; in Benedict XVI, the Scriptures are the source through which “God becomes known to us.” They sound near-identical to me; Dr.* White (Th.D., D.Min., etc., etc.) saw nary a likeness. He’ll have to explain that. But here was my point: If Hippolytus’ words support sola scriptura—and Dr. Mizzi claims they do—then so do the pope’s. One must take care, in other words, when claiming to have found support for a doctrine among men who were wholly unfamiliar with it.

Dr.* White and Mr. X then fell into a discussion about the “no other source” part of the Hippolytus quotation. My Bible, Dr.* White says, tells me otherwise, and therefore Hippolytus does not support sola scriptura—at least, not here. Dr.* White also would not read sola scriptura into the pope’s words, nor assume that he believes that the knowledge of God comes only from the Bible. On these points, Dr.* White and I agree. But Dr. Mizzi—whose selection of Hippolytus I was discussing at this point—certainly does seem to think that the “no other source” clause implies sola scriptura. That is what I was addressing at the moment: Dr. Mizzi’s use of Hippolytus, not what Dr.* White may or may not have concluded from either that passage or Benedict’s.

Let us turn, then, to the words that Mr. X thinks may be closer to a sola scriptura statement from the pope: that Scripture is “the supreme rule of faith.” According to Mr. X, in order to determine that Benedict is not advocating sola scriptura, you have to look further into the context to see that he defines tradition as also “the supreme rule of faith.”

In fact, however, there is no need to go further into the context. Even if Pope Benedict did not include the additional statement about tradition, all Mr. X needs to consult in order to know that he is not advocating sola scriptura is the dictionary. Benedict calls Scripture the “supreme rule of faith.” That’s different from calling it the “sole rule of faith.” “Supreme” and “sole” do not mean the same thing. That may be news to Mr. X; and it is an important point, because therein lies the very error that Reformed apologists make, time and again, when appealing to texts from the Bible or the Church Fathers. They will take statements about the Bible that use proximate words, and treat them as though they are somehow synonymous with “sole.” Catholics who dialogue or debate with Reformed Christians need to point such things out when they happen. Sola scriptura can not be justified by redefining words.

iii.

In his article, Mr. X quotes Hippolytus at greater length in an attempt to show that, in context, he views Scripture as “the sole source for theological debate and dogma.” Here is the full quotation that Dr. Mizzi merely began [italics mine]:

There is, brethren, one God, the knowledge of whom we gain from the Holy Scriptures, and from no other source. For just as a man, if he wishes to be skilled in the wisdom of this world, will find himself unable to get at it in any other way than by mastering the dogmas of philosophers, so all of us who wish to practice piety will be unable to learn its practice from any other quarter than the oracles of God. Whatever things, then, the Holy Scriptures declare, at these let us look; and whatsoever things they teach, these let us learn; and as the Father wills our belief to be, let us believe; and as He wills the Son to be glorified, let us glorify Him; and as He wills the Holy Spirit to be bestowed, let us receive Him. Not according to our own will, nor according to our own mind, nor yet as using violently those things which are given by God, but even as He has chosen to teach them by the Holy Scriptures, so let us discern them. Against Noetus 9)

Hippolytus draws an analogy here between the man who attains his wisdom from “the dogmas of the philosophers” and the man who attains his piety from “the oracles of God.” But look at the claim: “Those who wish to practice piety will be unable to learn its practice from any other quarter than the oracles of God.” Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Hippolytus does not say that “the oracles of God” are to be found only in Scripture, all he claims in this passage is that one may derive the practice of piety from Scripture. But the claim of sola scriptura is that Scripture alone contains all that a Christian must believe and all that a Christian must practice in his worship. It claims nothing about where piety is to be derived. Here, again, we find the Reformed apologist playing a shell game with sola scriptura—shifting its meaning to suit whatever text from Scripture or the Fathers happens to be under discussion at the moment.

Let us take another passage from Against Noetus, which Mr. X also cites.

Now they seek to exhibit the foundation for their dogma by citing the word in the law, I am the God of your fathers: you shall have no other gods beside me; and again in another passage, I am the first, He says, and the last; and beside me there is none other. Thus they say they prove that God is one. And then they answer in this manner: If therefore I acknowledge Christ to be God, He is the Father Himself, if He is indeed God; and Christ suffered, being Himself God; and consequently the Father suffered, for He was the Father Himself. But the case stands not thus; for the Scriptures do not set forth the matter in this manner (§2).

I’m truly lost as to how this passage has anything at all to do with sola scriptura. Hippolytus is writing about errors that some have made in their exegesis of Scripture. These are not errors that they have made because they followed the traditions of men. No; indeed, his opponents do try to derive their denial of the Trinity from the very pages of Scripture alone. Hippolytus replies that “the Scriptures do not set forth the matter in this manner.” Their interpretation is false, but Hippolytus and his opponents both argue from the Scripture. It is not as though his opponents have tried to derive their doctrine elsewhere, and he has to direct them back to “the Bible alone.” They already are using “the Bible alone”—just falsely exegeted.

Mr. X looks upon these words and cries: See, Hippolytus is refuting error from Scripture alone! But apart from the fact that Hippolytus could hardly argue the question at hand other than by scriptural exegesis, one could more easily claim that the text highlights one of the key problems with sola scriptura. Unless one has an interpretive authority who is understood to be infallible, you can argue about the proper exegesis of Scripture until the sun goes down; it’s possible your interpretation is wrong, and you have no way to know that. Hippolytus’ opponents believed they were arguing soundly from Scripture. They were not. Scripture alone is no haven from error.

The last two texts Mr. X cites are indeed evidence that Hippolytus refutes his opponents from Scripture. “The Scriptures themselves confute their senselessness, he says in the one (§3); “they mutilate the Scriptures,” he says in the other (§4). But in neither of these does Hippolytus claim what Mr. X wants him to. Hippolytus refutes his opponents from Scripture, but nowhere does he say that only Scripture is capable of refuting error. The Catholic Church has no problem with error being refuted from the Bible. It hath done so from the start; we impose no choice between “the Bible alone” and “never the Bible.” That’s a false dichotomy. To find error being refuted from the Bible proves nothing.

iv.

Mr. X next turns to some long passages from St. Basil, but the only thing he derives from any of them is a single empty platitude: “We ought to make an examination of Rome’s doctrines by Scripture.” At this point I’m going to turn writing teacher on Mr. X (I’ve actually been one) and note that, if he’s going to quote such long extracts, it would be best if he spent some time analyzing them. Do not just assume that their meaning will somehow stand on its own. Else there’s really no point in writing your own blog; you’d be better off saying, “Read Basil, folks.” Indeed, it is as though Mr. X hopes that the sheer length of the extracts, of itself, will convey the idea of some massive learning on his part. But no. It proves that he can type.

Here is the passage from Basil which I used in my earlier blog article:

The hear­ers taught in the Scrip­tures ought to test what is said by teach­ers and accept that which agrees with the Scrip­tures but reject that which is for­eign (Moralia 72:1).

In paraphrasing Basil, I said that the only guide he gives is that doctrines contrary (or “foreign”) to Scripture be rejected. He says nothing about those not to be found in Scripture but not contrary either. In other words, Basil is not addressing sola scriptura, which holds that only doctrines expressly (or by just inference) found in Scripture are binding upon Christians. Mr. X seems to think that his lengthier excerpts from Basil, by their mere presence, will show that that my paraphrase is false.

He starts with an excerpt wherein Basil explains why he wrote the Moralia. Because Mr. X gives no analysis of any of these passages, it is hard to know what he wants us to see. Basil says that he went searching about the New Testament for “prohibitions or commended acts” (in Schopp, ed., vol. 9, 1962, p. 68). That would imply that he seeks to derive a moral system from the Bible. Of course, Basil does not say that he went looking about the New Testament for “prohibited or commended dogmas,” which would be more pertinent to the question of sola scriptura. He says later that he tried to harmonize the morality of the New Testament with that of the Old. Again, since the discussion is about moralia rather than dogma, I’m not sure what bearing any of this has on Reformed claims about the Bible.

Mr. X’s remaining quotations involve a selection of moral precepts in Basil, and Basil’s reference to where in the Scripture he found that particular principle. Again, since the topic under discussion here is morality rather than dogma, I’m not clear what relevance all this has to sola scriptura, nor how my own paraphrase of Basil is false. Mr. X does not say. He just writes down many words as though their sheer number were a great and silencing rejoinder.

On the Dividing Line, Dr.* White and Mr. X spoke well of Basil’s model for moral conduct. But then they claimed, oddly, that the Catholic Church has failed his test because, in its long, long history, many popes and bishops have been sinners. Well, that certainly is a shock, though the same could be said about many Protestant church leaders. Is every last one of you the pink of perfection? (I was waiting for Dr.* White to make his standard allusion to the “pornocracy,” but my hopes were rudely dashed.)

In any case, I am not sure how it is that, if sin is found in Church leaders, then their authority to teach is somehow tainted. Calvinism teaches the doctrine of total depravity, even in teachers; so how it is that Dr.* White can cry foul when he finds total depravity in a Catholic bishop is a point upon which I can only claim confusion. Dr.* White and Mr. X say that Catholic leaders fail Basil’s test, but all they really mean by that is that Catholic leaders throughout the ages have been sinners. And all that proves is that they are human and do sin. There is none righteous but God: Am I supposed to be shocked by that? Next I’ll be told that popes breathe the same air as mere men. (None of this has anything to do with sola scriptura, by the way; Dr.* White and Mr. X are playing a game of avoidance here. We have gone down another trail and must go back.)

Perhaps Dr.* White and Mr. X might want to consider these words from Basil, which are pertinent to the discussion at hand:

In answer to the objection that the doxology in the form ‘with the Spirit’ has no written authority, we maintain that if there is not another instance of that which is unwritten, then this must not be received [as authoritative]. But if the great number of our mysteries are admitted into our constitution without [the] written authority [of Scripture], then, in company with many others, let us receive this one. For I hold it apostolic to abide by the unwritten traditions. “I praise you,” it is said, “that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I handed them on to you” (1 Cor. 11:2), and “Hold fast to the traditions that you were taught whether by an oral statement or a letter of ours” (2 Thess. 2:15). One of these traditions is the practice which is now before us, which they who ordained from the beginning, rooted firmly in the churches, delivering it to their successors, and its use through long custom advances pace by pace with time. (De Spiritu Sancto 71)

Here we find that Basil defends tradition and “mysteries” which are extra-biblical, and from the very same texts (1 Cor. 11:2 and 2 Thess. 2:15) that Catholic apologists use. We find that he defends apostolic succession as well, when he refers to the “successors” of the apostles who “ordained from the beginning.” If Dr.* White and Mr. X want to claim sola scriptura for Basil merely on the basis of passages that talk about the moral teaching of Scripture, they might want to explain how that squares with these words. If they say, in response, that “sometimes the Fathers were inconsistent” (for Mr. X said that on the Dividing Line), it yet behooves them to explain how they know which passages in the Fathers are normative and which are not.

v.

If Dr.* White is piqued by what he thinks of as an attempt to turn St. Athanasius into a Roman Catholic, then I can only confess that I am piqued by the attempt to turn him into a carbon copy of Dr.* White solely on the basis of the fact that he defended the Trinity from Scripture. As I say, the Catholic Church is in no way opposed to defending dogmas from Scripture. It is not as though the Church says that, since we deny sola scriptura, we may never appeal to the Bible.

Mr. X made a very strange claim, on the Dividing Line, concerning what he thought to be my own definition of sola scriptura—namely, that sola scriptura means that Scripture alone is sufficient for all knowledge. Perhaps Dr.* White or Mr. X can point out where I said any such thing. I often hear Dr.* White charge that Roman Catholic apologists “don’t understand the issues,” or that they “don’t understand what sola scriptura is.” But in my own case here, Dr.* White and Mr. X slap the charge down before a court of yeasayers without so much as an Exhibit A or a by’r leave yer honor.

For the record: Sola scriptura, according to Dr.* White and his co-laborers in the schismatic vineyard, is the doctrine that the Bible alone is the “sole infallible rule of faith and practice.” Any doctrines that cannot be found in Scripture, either explicitly or by logical inference, are not binding upon Christians. (See, I told you so here. Do ye not read the posts to which I link ye?)

Mr. X makes another strange claim, which is this: that I believe that Athanasius wrote Contra Gentes because the Scriptures were insufficient. Again, I would appeal to him to point out where in my blog post I said any such thing. I would, in fact, appeal to him to point out where in my blog post I said anything at all about Athanasius’s purpose in writing Contra Gentes. Such words are simply not there.

And I must confess, at this point if at no other, that what dumbstruck me the most about both the Dividing Line broadcast of January 17, and Mr. X’s written reply, is the consistent lack of care both he and Dr.* White seem to have taken with reading what I actually wrote and what I actually meant. I don’t take either one of them to be poor readers—I think—so my amazement cannot be more vast.

In his reply, Mr. X suggests that I read Athanasius’s Letter to Marcellinus for its testimony about the sufficiency of Scripture. Of course, the link he provides does not take me to Athanasius (the full text of whose Letter can easily be found here), but to an earlier blog post by he himself. (Perhaps Athansisus is not strictly a carbon copy of Dr.* White alone, but of both Dr.* White and X.) In his blog post, Mr. X—very, very oddly—quotes Athanasius to the effect that the knowledge of God is “in the Church.” If that is how he begins an article attempting to prove that Athanasius held to sola scriptura, he is in for some difficulty.

From the Letter, Mr. X quotes another passage, in which Athanasius cites 2 Tim. 3:16. Mr. X calls this Athanasius’s “substantive comment” on the issue. Here is what he says:

Son, all the books of Scripture, both Old Testament and New, are inspired by God and useful [Only “useful”?  not “sufficient”?] for instruction (2 Tim. 3:16), as it is written; but to those who really study it the Psalter yields especial treasure.

I have already written here regarding how 2 Tim. 3:16 is not a sufficient text with which to defend the doctrine of sola scriptura. And although I directed the reader of my blog article—the very one to which Dr.* White and Mr. X were responding—to that earlier article for its discussion of what I mean by the term “exclusivity,” at no point do either of them address my discussion of that text. Simply put, 2 Tim. 3:16 says that “all” Scripture is inspired by God; it does not say that “only” Scripture is. The Reformed apologist who tries to read sola scriptura into this passage is guilty of a faulty syllogism, along the lines of saying that if all apples are fruit, therefore only apples are fruit. Dr.* White can use the word theopneustos all he wants to, but it doesn’t change the definition of the word “all.” Earlier, we saw Mr. X try to redefine “supreme” to mean “sole”; here he tries to redefine “all” to mean “only.” It is this basic error that shapes his entire analysis of the Letter.

vi.

I am going to write a later article concerning my claim that sola scriptura is “the bias of a print culture.” In the article Dr.* White was responding to, that was a passing remark. However, I should point out—merely because Dr.* White did address the subject—that, though I am familiar with the expression “manuscript culture,” I have never heard it used to refer to the first centuries of the Church. Rather, the expression “manuscript culture” refers to the culture of the Middle Ages, in which Benedictine monks started the tradition of copying classical texts that were in danger of being lost after the fall of Rome. It was this manuscript culture that was later supplanted by print culture after the invention of the printing press in 1440. The early centuries of the Church were an oral culture.

I do not think it was any accident that the printing press was invented in 1440 and Martin Luther affixed his 95 Theses to the church in Wittenberg in the closely subsequent year of 1517. This is not historical coincidence. I am not sure whether or not Dr.* White is familiar with any of the groundbreaking scholarship that has been done on the subject of print culture ever since the publication of Elizabeth Eisenstein’s The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. He may be. Suffice it to say that this scholarship—taken up later by such giants as Marshall McLuhan and Walter Ong—was very important in developing an appreciation for the changes brought upon society by the printing press.

Eisenstein and others do not specifically apply their work to the question of sola scriptura—that was a realization I myself made while I was in the process of converting to Catholicism—but that is what my article will attempt to do. For my belief is that the printing press also changed epistemological assumptions (or “interpretive paradigms,” to use Dr. Liccione’s words) such that it is the text that is now thought to be the standard locus of proof, rather than the spoken word. There is a reason why in the Bible you constantly read words like “when they heard that saying, they were deeply troubled” or “you have heard that it was said.” Authority at that time is in the spoken word more than in the text.

vii.

I do want to turn to Dr.* White’s and Mr. X’s discussion of these words from Dr. David Anders, which I quoted in my post:

The Reform­ers had no defense for sola scrip­tura; they merely asserted it. They had a few argu­ments here and there, but they basi­cally were things like, “Well, we should lis­ten to the voice of God and not men”—truisms that don’t amount to real argu­ment, that prove noth­ing. Or, “Jesus con­demned tra­di­tion when he assaulted the Phar­isees and rab­bis.” But no sus­tained argu­men­ta­tion in favor of it: We know from divine author­ity that the Bible alone is the sole rule of faith. … Of course, today in the 20th cen­tury, 21st cen­tury, you do find Evan­gel­i­cal the­olo­gians who real­ize they finally have to tackle this sub­ject and deal with how do we really know that the Bible is the sole rule of faith. Very big, ironic dis­cov­ery: They appeal to tra­di­tion. To jus­tify the notion that the Bible is the sole rule of faith, they appeal to tra­di­tion. They find some Church Father who gets in a the­o­log­i­cal debate and appeals to Scrip­ture. … Or they point to Luther and Calvin. Or they point to their own expe­ri­ence. But their main argu­ment in favor of the Bible is an appeal to tradition.

Mr. X finds such words “shocking,” though he leaves a key part of them out. He quotes only the opening sentence, and fails to mention Dr. Anders’ later words that clarify that he was referring to a lack of defense for the doctrine on the basis of divine authority. Dr. Anders does not claim that the Reformers had no defense at all; in fact, he refers to one.

Mr. X also says that, though he is a frequent reader of Called to Communion, he never read these words there. There would be a very simple reason for that: Dr. Anders did not write them for the Web site, but spoke them during an episode of The Journey Home. It would not have been difficult for Mr. X to have figured this out, for I included a link, which takes the reader directly to the YouTube video of that episode. I even mentioned that the relevant audio begins 34 minutes into the program. Perhaps, if Mr. X can look at the word “supreme” and see “sole,” and look at the word “all” and see “only,” then it’s not too far a stretch to understand how he might look at the word “audio” and see “text.”

Mr. X says further that “Dr.” is a title that I have appended to Dr. Anders’ name, and he does not know what Dr. Anders actually has his degree in. For someone who claims to be a regular reader of Called to Communion, I find this to be truly “shocking.” Dr. Anders’ vita is here. He holds his degrees in theology, Church history, and biblical studies from Wheaton College, Trinity Evangelical, and the University of Iowa: all of them top-notch, accredited schools. He successfully defended his dissertation, which was on the subject of John Calvin, at Iowa. So it is not I who gave Dr. Anders his title; The University of Iowa did that.

I rather suspect Dr. Anders (Ph.D., Iowa) can hold his own against claims of ignorance from Dr.* White (Th.D., D.Min., etc., etc., of CES) and Mr. X (identity and credentials unknown).

viii.

We come to the questions I asked Dr.* White (Th.D., D.Min., etc., etc.). They are these:

First, who was the first per­son to artic­u­late a defense of sola scrip­tura by speak­ing of it as a “nor­ma­tive con­di­tion” of the Church? Who first defined sola scrip­tura in these terms?

Sec­ond, who was the first per­son to artic­u­late the doc­trine of sola scrip­tura itself—and I’m not talk­ing about Church Fathers who use the Bible to prove a the­o­log­i­cal point, or who speak highly of the Scrip­tures. Any Catholic worth his blessed salt will do the same, and has. No. I’m talk­ing about a Church Father, or any­one, who cred­i­bly and demon­stra­bly speaks of the Scrip­tures in terms of exclu­siv­ity as a “sole rule of faith.” One might want to look at my pre­vi­ous arti­cle here for a fuller dis­cus­sion of what I mean by “exclusivity.”

Third, if sola scrip­tura is not to be found in the Bible, and it is not to be found in the Church Fathers, then how—outside of an appeal to tra­di­tion or “nor­ma­tive conditions”—is it to be defended? And how is that not self-contradictory?

Dr.* White accuses me of asking him to “prove a universal negative.” The accusation is the same as the one he tried to use in his 1993 debate with Patrick Madrid on sola scriptura. Dr.* White complained that, in order for him to prove how unique is the Bible, he would have to scour the entire universe in search of something exactly like it and come up empty. (Sola scriptura does not say that the Bible is “unique,” but never mind. If that’s all it said, who could deny it?) Mr. Madrid replied that Dr.* White need do no such thing. All he had to do was find one verse in the Bible that taught sola scriptura. Just one. If Dr.* White could do that one thing, the debate would be over; he would win. Mr. Madrid later referred to all this—playing off the title of a poem by Rudyard Kipling—as “The White Man’s Burden.”

In asking my questions, I sought but to extend White Man’s Burden to passages from the Fathers. It was my own variation on Mr. Madrid’s theme. For the Catholic position is that sola scriptura was unknown to the early Church. To prove that wrong, all a Reformed apologist needs to do is to cite one passage. Just one. It is not a “universal negative”; it is a bibliographical reference. It is not a “universal negative”; it is a singular positive.

Can Dr.* White, with the help of Mr. X, meet White Man’s Burden? Let’s see.

ix.

On question number one, Dr.* White and Mr. X cite this passage from St. Irenaeus:

Since, there­fore, the tra­di­tion from the apos­tles does thus exist in the Church, and is per­ma­nent among us, [Oops.] let us revert to the Scrip­tural proof fur­nished by those apos­tles who did also write the Gospel, in which they recorded the doc­trine regard­ing God, point­ing out that our Lord Jesus Christ is the truth, John 14:6 and that no lie is in Him. (Against Heresies III:v:1)

This, Mr. X claims, establishes sola scriptura as a “normative condition” in the Church. (Even though the phrase itself is Dr.* White’s.) The interesting thing to note is that, if Irenaeus speaks of anything as a “normative condition,” it is tradition. Irenaeus says that it is tradition which is “permanent among us.” “Permanent among us” is the only phrase here that would be synonymous to “normative condition.”

Apart from that, if one were to look merely one chapter earlier, he would find these words:

Since therefore we have such proofs, it is not necessary to seek the truth among others which is easy to obtain from the Church; since the apostles, like a rich man depositing his money in a bank [There’s that “deposit of faith” the Church talks about, right there.] lodged in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth: so that every man, whosoever will, can draw from her the water of life. For she is the entrance to life; all others are thieves and robbers. On this account we are bound to avoid them, but to make choice of the things pertaining to the Church with the utmost diligence, and to lay hold of the tradition of the truth. (loc. cit.)

If Mr. X wants to claim that the pope’s words (that Scripture is “not an inert deposit” but “the supreme rule of faith”) must be set next to his other ones (that tradition is likewise a “supreme rule of faith”), then he should follow the same advice with Irenaeus. For in the text Mr. X does not mention, Irenaeus writes about obtaining truth, not from the Scriptures, but from the Church. He refers to the Church, not the Scriptures, as the entrance to life. He pleads that his readers be diligent in pursuing the things of the Church, because therein is to be found “the tradition of truth.”

x.

With respect to my second question, Mr. X points me to Origen:

All who believe and are assured that grace and truth were obtained through Jesus Christ, and who know Christ to be the truth, agreeably to His own declaration, I am the truth, derive the knowledge which incites men to a good and happy life from no other source than from the very words and teaching of Christ. (De Principiis 1; emphasis belongs to Mr. X)

The “no other source” part that Mr. X emphasizes is nothing more than Dr. Mizzi’s same ruse with the passage from Hippolytus. I was not aware that sola scriptura meant that the Bible alone is our source for “a good and happy life.” I thought it meant that the Bible alone is our source for whatever doctrines are binding upon us as Christians. Once again, a shell game is being played with the meaning of sola scriptura: It means whatever it needs to to suit the particular passage that is being hijacked to its support.

xi.

Finally, Dr.* White and Mr. X cop out on the third question on the premise that they do not agree that sola scriptura is not in the Bible. They cite (once again) 2 Timothy 3:16 (a text I have already discussed and need not go into again). Dr.* White (Th.D., D.Min., etc., etc.) has yet to refute my exegesis, and I guess I may wait until Calvinists cease to be totally depraved. But he also quote Christ’s words in Matthew 15 regarding the Corban rule. Here is the text:

Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; and honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. (Matt. 15:1-6)

Note that Jesus does not charge the Pharisees with adding to the word of God. Rather, he accuses them of transgressing the word of God—specifically, the fourth commandment. The Corban rule was a method by which people could forgo the duty to take care of parents in their old age. They would give that portion of their inheritance to the Temple. Because the money was then God’s, it no longer could be used to take care of one’s parents. It was a shiftless attempt to avoid the fourth commandment; and it is that to which Jesus’s wrath is addressed. The text says nothing whatever about traditions outside of Scripture, but only with traditions that violate a specific command of Scripture.

The reason I asked the questions I did was to show, once again, that while the Reformed apologist may claim to find support for sola scriptura in the Bible, or the Fathers, the texts they cite prove no such thing. When pressed, the Reformed apologist digs into his bag of quotations and comes up with a different set of inadequate texts.

The White Man’s Burden remains unmet. Sola scriptura remains a false doctrine.

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