Rebut 1

Julie has not answered my question. My question was: HOW can a Church that is the pillar and foundation of truth err? Julie merely states, “Nowhere in the verse is an infallible church assumed.” For some reason, she cannot give a reason to back her statement up. I agree in her statement that God is the protector and rock. However, for some reason, she does not think this is infallibility. If God protects them from erring, isn’t this infallibility? As John Pacheco states,

“�the very nature of �truth’ is that it does not contain any error, or else it would not be �truth’ at all, but only �some truth’ or �much truth’ but not the �truth’ in its totality. Hence, when St. Paul claims that the Church is the �pillar and foundation of truth,’ you have two possible interpretations of this passage, namely, that St. Paul meant the truth in its entirety or only �much truth with some error.’”

Of course, Paul meant truth that does not contain any error. Therefore if the Church proclaims the Truth, it is infallible. Therefore when the Church binds, and since God binds as well, and God is infallible, then when the Church binds, it is infallible. I have given Julie the chance to prove me wrong. If she can tell me how a Church that is the pillar and foundation of truth err, then she has her point.

By this admission, she basically has proven that Sola Scriptura is not true. We have to know that this isn’t really a Catholic vs. a Protestant viewpoint debate, but Julie defending Sola Scriptura itself. Disproving the Catholic Church would not make Sola Scriptura true. Julie has admitted that oral traditions have not ceased. If this is so, can she tell me where it is? Since she agrees with me that we have to stand firm to it, then she has to know where it is as well. If Tradition does not exist today, the Holy Spirit would not command us to stand firm to it. Since it exists, and it is the Word of God, then that means there is another transmission of the Gospel, and therefore Sola Scriptura is not true. It cannot be in Scripture since the Holy Spirit commands us not only to stand firm to written tradition, but to oral tradition as well. The Holy Spirit is telling us to stand firm to two rules of faith.

Julie has not answered my question. From her response, I am assuming that a person can know the Truth from their teachers. However, how do the teachers know what has been taught in the books that are missing? The answer is, which Julie cannot admit is from the Traditions that were handed to them. For example, traditionally, Thomas evangelized in India. However, Thomas did not write anything down. How would the Indians know the Gospel? The answer of course, is preserving traditions that were handed to them by Thomas. Oral tradition is what they most had in apostolic times, and it was very reliable, according to Dr. Blomberg (Case for Christ by Lee Strobel). One cannot assume that this type of transmission ended when the Apostles died. Nowhere does it say that all of oral traditions have been written. One example is written by Greg Krehbiel when he points out,

“In 1 Cor. 11:2 and 34, Paul refers to instructions he gave to the Corinthian church about the Eucharist. We have no reason to believe that those instructions were ever written down.”

To say however, that the message was the same is to make up a man made tradition since nowhere does it say that the instructions given to the Corinthians were written down.

Julie has not answered my question. First, all it says about Scripture in the passage is that it is profitable. There is no possible way of getting Sola Scriptura from this verse. For a refutation of Sola Scriptura regarding this passage see http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/2tim316.htm. However, as I have stated, she has not answered my question. She claims that Sola Scriptura was not valid during inscripturation. Robert Sungenis writes:

“....for if it cannot be a "valid concept during times of revelation," how can Scripture teach a doctrine since Scripture was written precisely when divine oral revelation was still being produced? Scripture cannot contradict itself. Since both the 1st century Christian and the 21st century Christian cannot extract differing interpretations from the same verse, thus, whatever was true about Scripture then must also be true today. If the first Christians did not, and could not, extract Sola Scriptura from Scripture because oral revelation was still existent, then obviously those verses could not, in principle, be teaching Sola Scriptura, and thus we cannot interpret them as teaching it either.” (Not by Scripture Alone, page 128)

The reason why I asked which early Church Father taught Sola Scriptura AFTER inscripturation only is because this is another man made tradition that nullifies the Word of God. It was actually just out of curiosity since “Sola Scriptura AFTER inscripturation” sounds new to me.

Julie cites Against Heresies III, 1.1 then quotes William Webster. It’s funny however, how people read into the passage what they want to see than interpreting it in context. Irenaeus says,

“But, again, when we refer them to that tradition which originates from the apostles, and which is preserved by means of SUCCESSIONS of the presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the apostles, because they have discovered unadulterated truth.” (Against Heresies, III, 2.2)

Note how successions are how tradition is preserved, not Scripture, according to this passage. There are a lot more quotes from Irenaeus that speaks of him talking about Tradition as another rule of faith. I don’t think I need to give more quotes that show that the early Church Fathers did not teach Sola Scriptura. Protestant scholars state:

Philip Schaff, Presbyterian/Reformed, History of the Christian Church

"The church view respecting the sources of Christian theology and the rule of faith and practice remains as it was in the previous period, except that it is further developed in particulars. The divine Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as opposed to human writings; AND the ORAL TRADITION or LIVING FAITH of the catholic church from the apostles down, as opposed to the varying opinions of heretical sects -- TOGETHER FORM THE ONE INFALLIBLE SOURCE AND RULE OF FAITH. BOTH are vehicles of the same substance: the saving revelation of God in Christ; with this difference in form and office, that the church tradition determines the canon, furnishes the KEY TO THE TRUE INTERPRETATION of the Scriptures, and guards them against heretical abuse." (volume 3, page 606)

JND Kelly, Anglican, Early Christian Doctrines

"It should be unnecessary to accumulate further evidence. Throughout the whole period Scripture AND tradition ranked as complementary authorities, media different in form but coincident in content. To inquire which counted as superior or more ultimate is to pose the question in misleading and anachronistic terms. If Scripture was abundantly sufficient in principle, tradition was recognized as the SUREST CLUE TO ITS INTERPRETATION, for in TRADITION the Church retained, as a legacy from the apostles which was embedded in all the organs of her institutional life, an UNERRING GRASP of the real purport and MEANING of the revelation to which Scripture AND tradition alike bore witness." (page 47-48)

"Thus in the end the Christian must, like Timothy [cf. 1 Tim 6:20] 'guard the deposit', i.e. the revelation enshrined in its completeness in Holy Scripture and CORRECTLY interpreted in the Church's UNERRING tradition." (page 51)

Jaroslav Pelikan, Lutheran (now Orthodox), The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine

"The catholic response to this claim [of the Gnostics], formulated more fully by Irenaeus than by any other Christian writer, was to appeal to 'that tradition which is derived from the apostles.' Unlike the Gnostic tradition, however, this apostolic tradition had been preserved publicly in the churches that stood in succession with the apostles....Together with the proper interpretation of the Old Testament and the proper canon of the New, this tradition of the church was a decisive criterion of apostolic continuity for the determination of doctrine in the church catholic. Clearly it is an anachronism to superimpose upon the discussions of the second and third centuries categories derived from the controversies over the relation of Scripture and tradition in the sixteenth century, for 'in the ante-Nicene Church...THERE WAS NO NOTION OF SOLA SCRIPTURA, but neither was there a doctrine of traditio sola.'...So palpable was this apostolic tradition that even if the apostles had not left behind the Scriptures to serve as normative evidence of their doctrine, the church would still be in a position to follow 'the structure of the tradition which they handed on to those to whom they committed the church.' This was, in fact, what the church was doing in those barbarian territories where believers did not have access to the written deposit, but still carefully guarded the ancient tradition of the apostles, summarized in the creed -- or, at least, in a very creedlike statement of the content of apostolic tradition....The term 'rule of faith' or 'rule of truth' did not always refer to such creeds and confessions, and seems sometimes to have meant the 'tradition,' sometimes the Scriptures, sometimes the message of the gospel." (volume 1, page 115-117)

"Fundamental to the orthodox consensus was an affirmation of the authority of tradition as that which had been believed 'everywhere, always, by all [ubique, semper, ab omnibus].' The criteria for what constituted the orthodox tradition were 'universality, antiquity, and consensus.' This definition of orthodox Catholic tradition was the work of Vincent of Lerins... To identify orthodox doctrine, one had to identify its locus, which was the catholic church, neither Eastern nor Western, neither Greek nor Latin, but universal throughout the civilized world (oikoumene). This church was the repository of truth, the dispenser of grace, the guarantee of salvation, the matrix of acceptable worship. Only here did God accept sacrifices, only here was there confident intercession for those who were in error, only here were good works fruitful, only here did the powerful bond of love hold men together and 'only from the catholic church does truth shine forth.'...[It was] the tendency of heretics to teach doctrines that were not contained either in Scripture or in tradition. But the church of the four Gospels and the four councils [Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon] was faithful to Scripture and to tradition and was universal both in its outreach and in its authority." (volume 1, page 334-335)

See Julie's Answers Here

A.L.