Audio only:
In this episode Trent reveals a fallacy in a common argument for sola scriptura.
A Neglected Argument against Sola Scriptura: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YklJ4lx_Xg
Jimmy’s Video: https://youtu.be/i2jKCCxVrkA
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Trent Horn (00:00):
Recently Protestants have moved away from defending sola scriptura with Bible verses and instead make a logical argument for this doctrine. For example, here’s how Wes Huff defends sola scriptura.
Wes Huff (00:10):
The defense of the idea goes something like this. Scripture is ontologically unique. It is the direct speech of God. Nothing we possess as a rule is akin to it.
Trent Horn (00:20):
Gavin Ortlund makes a similar argument,
Gavin Ortlund (00:22):
Put plainly. We can say scripture is divine speech or the words of God. That is exactly how scripture speaks of itself and Jesus quotes the Old Testament as God speaking. This explains why scripture is infallible or as Jesus puts it, it cannot be broken because God is infallible and scripture is God’s speech.
Trent Horn (00:46):
So according to them, scripture has unique authority because it is the spoken word of God. Scripture is the direct word of God and since nothing else has this unique ontological status, it follows that scripture has more authority than anything else, or scripture is the only infallible rule of faith for the church. But as you’ll see in today’s episode, this argument has a fatal flaw that undermines the very concept of soul scriptura. Before I reveal what that flaw is, I hope you’ll not be fatally flawed and choose to subscribe to our channel and support us@trenthornpodcast.com to help us keep creating edifying content. Alright, so here’s the fatal flaw. The first premise in this argument that scripture is the direct speech of God is either assumed to be true or it’s defended with irrelevant examples. Of course, I agree with the Catholic church’s teaching in Dave Aba of the Second Vatican Council that scripture is part of the word of God along with sacred tradition.
(01:42):
But how do we know scripture has this quality? If we know this apart from scripture such as through sacred tradition or the Teaching Office of Christ Church, then that means another infallible authority exists apart from scripture, since this authority provides the foundation for believing in an infallible rule like scripture in the first place, but the existence of another infallible rule of faith, nullies the doctrine of Sola s Scriptura scripture alone. So how would a Protestant answer this question? Well, he might say, we know scripture is the word of God because scripture tells us it is the word of God. But aside from being a circular argument, this explanation doesn’t work because there is no passage of scripture that says any human writings are the word of God, even though scripture calls other human realities the word of God in the Bible, the phrase word of God occurs about 50 times, almost always in the New Testament.
(02:41):
In the Old Testament, the word of God usually refers to a message God spoke to a prophet like Nathan in one Chronicles 17, three or Shamiah in one Kings 1222. The same description is found of John the Baptist in Luke 3, 2, 1 Samuel 9 27 records. Samuel telling Saul he would make known to you word of God and then proceeds to anoint him with oil, not read from scripture. In the New Testament, the term word of God usually refers to a message about God being preached or spoken by an apostle or someone with apostolic authority. Word of God is never used in either the Old Testament or the New Testament in reference to a particular human writing, even though that term is used to describe particular human speech. In one Thessalonians two 13, Paul says, and we also thank God constantly for this, that when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really is the word of God, which is at work in you.
(03:40):
Believers, the Bible contains no similar description of the written words of men being the word of God. It only uses the term word of God to refer to spoken words. In other passages we see the term word of God that refers to specific words that God spoke in salvation history, like the 10 Commandments that God recited to Moses or the term word of God refers to Christ himself. The word made flesh also keep in mind that First Thessalonians was probably the first book of the New Testament to be written. So the word of God preached to the Thessalonians was not a mere recitation of scripture. The word of God Paul spoke was a message about God and it was received as such because it came from people with divine authority, namely the apostles and those commissioned by them. The New Testament author who uses the phrase Word of God the most is Luke, and in his writings, the word almost always refers to an undefined message about God or what God has revealed.
(04:37):
For example, Luke records people expecting to hear Jesus preach the word of God. Jesus says, members of his family are not just biological relatives, but those that hear the word of God and keep it. This cannot refer only to those who heard the Old Testament scriptures, but it must refer to those who heard the preaching of the gospel, the orally proclaimed word of God and responded to it. When it comes to the follow-up to Luke’s gospel, the acts of the apostles biblical scholar, Jerome Kodel says The following in acts, the apostolic preaching about Jesus, the message of the whole Christ event becomes the word of God. This is the third step in the development. The word of God is first God’s promise in the Old Testament, then the preaching of Jesus himself, and finally the preaching about Jesus. Luke also uses the term word of God to refer to the church since on three occasions Luke says the word of God grew without saying this was in Revelation or in relation to divine revelation being given according to Cadel and his article on Luke’s use of this phrase, after the resurrection, the word of God is embedded in the Christian community.
(05:44):
It lives in the church in a community of life with the believers. Luke sees the word so bound up with the community life and witness that he can say the word of God grew when the church adds new members. A 1995 dissertation on Luke’s use of the phrase word of God also concludes that quote in the Luke, in use of the word of God, the majority of occurrences appears in the second volume acts, the author applies the idea of the word of God primarily to the apostolic period for the Christian proclamation rather than to Jesus’s own message. At this point, a Protestant might say the Bible refers to scripture as the word of God in Mark seven, Matthew 15 and John 10. So let’s go through each one of these passages. Mark seven in Matthew 15, do not contain the Greek word for scripture grafe.
(06:35):
In these chapters, Jesus criticized the Pharisees for elevating human traditions over God’s word, but what is the word the Pharisees contradicted? It was the orally spoken words God revealed to Moses in Exodus 20 that we now call the 10 Commandments, specifically the commandment to honor one’s father and mother as well as Moses’s reiteration of the commandments that he orally proclaimed and were recorded in the book of Deuteronomy. Jesus’s argument was that the Pharisees defense of giving money to the temple over one’s aging parents made void the command. God spoke to Moses to honor one’s parents and the command Moses spoke in Deuteronomy to not curse one’s parents. Matthew 15, six even contains a textual variant with some manuscripts recording Jesus saying, the Pharisees make null the law or command of God, not the word of God. This underscores Jesus identifying the word of God with Yahweh’s orally delivered commands to Moses and Moses’s delivery of God’s message to the people is recorded in Deuteronomy, not the written words themselves describing these events in Exodus and Deuteronomy.
(07:43):
Now to be clear, I believe books like Exodus, Matthew, and the other canonical scriptures are the written word of God, but I don’t know this truth through scripture alone, which is fine for me as a Catholic, but fatal to a soul script or a Protestant. I’d also point out that Gavin’s citation of Romans three, two in his video uses the NI’s translation, the actual words of God. However, the Greek word in this passage is logia, not the more common logos or word. So most translations render it the Oracles of God rather than the words of God. N Nt Wright says, nowhere else in early Christian writings are Israel’s scripture designated as God’s Oracles Israel was entrusted with what the gentile nations might have perceived as divine Oracles and Protestant scholar a t Robertson says, this may refer to the commands and promises of God rather than scripture itself.
(08:38):
Finally, in John 10, Jesus uses the term word of God when he says the following, is it not written in your law? I said, you are Gods if he called them Gods to whom the word of God came and scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, you are blaspheming because I said, I am the son of God. First, the passage I said you are Gods is a reference to Psalm 82, 6, which Jesus called your law rather than scripture. That’ll be important in a moment. Second, Jesus makes a distinction between the scripture that records God doing this and the word of God itself, which was the prophetic message, the identity of the recipients of that message, either angelic rulers or overseers of foreign nations or ancient rulers of Israel has been debated for centuries. But Jesus’s message is simply that if these creatures can be called Gods, whatever they may be, then why can’t he receive the same title given Jesus’ far superior credentials of having been consecrated by the Father?
(09:43):
Finally, as biblical scholars like Pore and Douglas Pharaoh, note the Greek term Jesus uses that is often translated broken in verse 35 is better translated as nullified. The passages referring to scripture’s legal status as having an unrepeatable quality, not at being free from error or being infallible. Pharaoh writes, Christ was not concerned here with the factual ity or accuracy of scripture, but with the authority of its voice and the binding nature of its testimony. This makes sense given that Jesus introduces the evidence for his argument by calling it your law rather than the scriptures. The debate between Jesus and the Pharisees was not on the truth of the Psalmist declaration. I said, you are Gods, but on this declaration, still having a normative status Jesus could appeal to in defense of his own divine identity. But the most important element of John 10 is that the term word of God is not used to describe scripture.
(10:40):
Jesus is referencing an event in history when God delivered a prophetic message to the gods, something that happened long before the writing of Psalm 82. It is that message that Jesus identifies with the word of God, not the Psalm itself. Another verse that’s cited comes from James Scott who writes the following in his essay, defending scripture is the word of God, but the Bible is more than a book of important spiritual information. It is the very word of God. Hebrews four 12, Hebrews four 12 also pops up in many memes identifying it with the Bible because the verse says, for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword piercing to the division of soul and spirit of joints and marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. But this verse isn’t talking about scripture. Instead, it’s referring to God’s commands that require our obedience or even to Christ himself because the next two verses say before him, no creature is hidden but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
(11:44):
Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our confession. This corresponds to Revelation 19 thirteens description of Jesus as a kind of ruler riding a white horse, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God. I’d also note that the catechism says through all the words of sacred scripture, God speaks only one single word, his one utterance in whom he expresses himself completely, namely Jesus himself. The word made flesh the perfect revelation of the Father. This corresponds to the opening verse of Hebrews which says, in many in various ways, God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by a son. Of course, human beings can’t fully comprehend this single perfect representation of the Father, so we need God’s word broken down into human constructs like sentences for us to better understand this divine reality.
(12:39):
But our knowledge of these sentences in scripture being the word of God does not come from scripture alone in the sense that this knowledge is explicitly located in scripture. Scott continues. God is clearly the speaker in much of the Old Testament where Moses and the prophets often quote him directly. Such passages are often cited in the New Testament with such introductory words as God said, the Holy Spirit says. But as po notes, the difficulty with Scott’s argument is that every one of these New Testament references to the Old Testament appeals to a prophetic passage. Two Corinthians six 16 refers to Leviticus 26 12. Hebrews three seven refers to Psalm 95, 7 through 11. Scott thinks that Psalm 1610 quoted in Acts 1337 stands out as a passage in which God is not the speaker, but the New Testament writers clearly did not regard it, so David was widely viewed as prophetically inspired.
(13:35):
Poirier also says, the problem with referring to scripture as the word of God of course, is that that convention is wholly out of keeping with how scripture itself uses that term. Scripture uses word of God or word of the Lord in two ways as a reference to prophecy. For example, the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite saying, or as a reference to the apostles preaching, the phrase Word of God never appears as a reference to scripture itself. I also asked my colleague, Jimmy Aiken to review this issue and he reached at least tentatively a similar conclusion. Scripture never unambiguously calls. Human writings the word of God, though it does unambiguously call human speech the word of God as we saw in one Thessalonians two 13. If you want a comprehensive treatment of this issue, see Jimmy’s new episode on the subject link below.
(14:25):
So when did believers first start saying Scripture is the word of God? As I noted in a previous episode I’ll link to below. Prior to Justin Martyr, the church fathers don’t even call the New Testament writing scripture. They identified scripture with the Old Testament and the word of God with Christ himself. Clement says The apostles were established in the word of God similar to Luke’s description of their having received the Christian message. The Diday describes the word of God as a spoken reality about the faith, and the epistle of Barnabas tells its audience. You shall not let the word of God issue from your lips with any kind of impurity. For these early Christians, the word of God was similar to the Corma or the gospel. It was a message about the faith and not a set of written texts or as I said, the word of God was Christ himself.
(15:16):
Ignatius of Antioch says He wishes the Ian’s abundance of happiness through the immaculate spirit and word of God, which is probably a reference to Christ. Justin Martyr repeatedly uses the term word of God to refer to the person who created the world, which echoes two Peter three, five. In Hebrews 11, three’s use of the term word of God, though in some cases Justin May be saying the Old Testament recorded by Moses is the word of God or that it records the word of God speaking at creation, the meaning isn’t clear. S uses the term word of God to refer to Christ in dozens of places, like when he talks about the word of God made man. He also says of the Eucharist that the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the word of God, Christ, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made in another passage says the scriptures are indeed perfect since they were spoken by the word of God and his spirit.
(16:12):
Notice EU doesn’t say scripture is perfect because it is the word of God. Scripture is perfect because the word of God produced it primarily through a prophetic utterance that was recorded in human writings. We can also see this in Tertullian who says that his audience read the word of God spoken to Jeremiah, which could mean the book of Jeremiah is the word of God or that it contains the word of God. But another passage, Tertullian distinguished the word of God, Christ from the Old and New Testaments that doubly sharpened him later. Church fathers like Basil, the Great in the fourth century do offer clear statements identifying scripture as being the word of God. But this seems to be common more among later fathers than earlier ones. I will add a caveat that my investigation of this phrase among the fathers is preliminary, so my results will be somewhat tentative, but it appears that referring to scripture as the word of God represented a gradual recognition of a sacred tradition about God’s revelation.
(17:13):
So just as we know which human writings are scripture through the sacred tradition of the canon of scripture, which represents an infallible rule of faith beyond scripture, we know that scripture is the word of God through sacred tradition as well, and our reliance on the unwritten word of God for our confidence in the written word of God means that God’s revelation was never confined to the written word of God, and so scriptura is false. Instead, the teaching authority of the apostles has continued in their successors and it clearly reveals to us that scripture is the word of God. The second Vatican Council said this teaching office or magisterium is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on listening to it, devoutly, guarding it, scrupulously, and explaining it faithfully in a core with the Divine Commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith.
(18:08):
Everything which it presents for belief is divinely revealed. It is clear therefore that sacred tradition, sacred scripture, and the teaching authority of the church in a core of God’s most wise design are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit, contribute effectively to the salvation of souls. If you’d like to learn more about this topic, check out Catholic Answers new book, souls Scriptura Doesn’t Work, or the first few chapters of my 2017 book, the Case for Catholicism published by Ignatius Press. Thank you also much for watching, and I hope you have a very blessed day.