1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000 Hey, I'm Doug Beaumont. Welcome to my channel. It's all about Christian theology, philosophy, 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:10,520 and apologetics. Today is actually Reformation Day, the day that Martin Luther nailed up 3 00:00:10,520 --> 00:00:16,160 his 95 theses in Wittenberg, and that's kind of considered the official launch of 4 00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:20,840 the Reformation, for better or for worse. Everybody else pretty much knows it as All 5 00:00:20,840 --> 00:00:26,000 Hallows' Eve or Halloween. Now, it is said that there are two major things that drove 6 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:31,680 the Reformation, the material and the formal principles of the Reformation, the formal 7 00:00:31,680 --> 00:00:37,139 principle being sola scriptura, the idea that the Bible alone is the ultimate authority 8 00:00:37,139 --> 00:00:42,200 for the Christian in matters of faith and morals. Well, I decided it would be interesting 9 00:00:42,200 --> 00:00:46,599 to see what is being offered out there on the Internet in defense of sola scriptura, 10 00:00:46,599 --> 00:00:52,759 and so I typed in a defense of sola scriptura, clicked on the very first one, and discovered 11 00:00:52,759 --> 00:00:59,279 Dr. Jordan B. Cooper and his video called A Defense of Sola Scriptura. Now, Dr. Cooper 12 00:00:59,279 --> 00:01:04,040 is a fairly popular YouTuber. I've seen him before just searching around, so I know 13 00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:09,639 this guy's legit. He is a Lutheran scholar, and so I decided I would have a look at his 14 00:01:09,639 --> 00:01:15,440 video and see how it is that he defended sola scriptura and offer my responses. 15 00:01:16,120 --> 00:01:27,120 Now, when setting up his video, he doesn't go into a lot of discussion over what sola 16 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:32,400 scriptura actually is. In fact, he actually refers to it later as the Bible is the only 17 00:01:32,400 --> 00:01:38,360 authority, which is not usually what Protestants want to say about scripture, but rather that 18 00:01:38,360 --> 00:01:42,839 it's the ultimate authority or something like that. In order to set themselves apart 19 00:01:42,839 --> 00:01:48,239 from what is sometimes called solo scriptura, which is more of your Baptist fundamentalist 20 00:01:48,239 --> 00:01:53,680 type view. Now, he doesn't really spell that out, but he does make an interesting statement 21 00:01:53,680 --> 00:02:00,040 with regard to tradition, which is kind of the opposition to sola scriptura, and this 22 00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:02,680 is what he has to say. 23 00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:08,119 But for a Lutheran or Anglican, it's, I think, quite a bit different in the way that we look 24 00:02:08,119 --> 00:02:12,119 at the Fathers because we do see, hey, this is very similar to what we're saying and teaching 25 00:02:12,119 --> 00:02:13,600 and how we're worshiping today as well. 26 00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:18,759 Okay, so this is not super important to Dr. Cooper's response, but since he brings it 27 00:02:18,759 --> 00:02:25,000 up, I do want to point out that a lot of your more traditional Protestants do want to distance 28 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:29,679 themselves from this idea that the Bible is the only source of authority. And although 29 00:02:29,679 --> 00:02:34,360 he actually will say that in the video, I don't think that's exactly what he meant. 30 00:02:34,360 --> 00:02:38,240 And what he is getting out, I believe, with this reference to the Lutheran and Anglicans 31 00:02:38,240 --> 00:02:43,440 is that they have a respect for tradition. They have a respect for the Church Father. 32 00:02:43,440 --> 00:02:48,399 In fact, if you look behind him on his bookshelf, he's got the writings of the Church Fathers. 33 00:02:48,399 --> 00:02:55,440 Mine is right here and up here. So I do want to respond to this, though, because many times 34 00:02:55,440 --> 00:03:00,000 Protestants seeing the trap that they are going to fall into if they deny Christian 35 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:06,559 tradition will give sort of a disclaimer, a little asterisk, a little qualification 36 00:03:06,559 --> 00:03:10,320 regarding the fact that, oh, you know, we respect the Church Fathers. We believe a lot 37 00:03:10,320 --> 00:03:15,160 of the same things the Church Fathers do. They teach a lot of the same things we do. 38 00:03:15,160 --> 00:03:19,759 And the idea seems to be to kind of soften this idea of sola scriptura because, well, 39 00:03:19,759 --> 00:03:25,880 sola scriptura doesn't mean that we don't respect tradition. The problem is, what it 40 00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:31,880 really boils down to is that this respect for tradition is simply saying that where 41 00:03:31,960 --> 00:03:38,039 the Church teaches and what I believe Scripture teaches overlaps, we are in agreement. 42 00:03:38,039 --> 00:03:43,479 Well, of course, that's just true by definition. Anybody can say that they respect some other 43 00:03:43,479 --> 00:03:48,360 tradition or some other source of authority if the only time they have to respect it is 44 00:03:48,360 --> 00:03:53,800 when they agree with it. I mean, I agree with Mormons and Satanists on some things, 45 00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:58,520 but that doesn't mean that they are in any way functioning as a religious authority for me. 46 00:03:59,160 --> 00:04:04,759 So the fact that Anglicans and Lutherans might agree with more of what the Church Fathers said 47 00:04:04,759 --> 00:04:10,839 than, say, a Baptist or an Evangelical doesn't really change things in an important way because 48 00:04:10,839 --> 00:04:15,720 really both groups are doing the same thing. They're just agreeing with what they agree with, 49 00:04:15,720 --> 00:04:22,119 and that is not answering the issue of authority, which is what sola scriptura is really about. 50 00:04:22,119 --> 00:04:26,920 Okay, so then Dr. Cooper goes into his actual defense of sola scriptura, 51 00:04:26,920 --> 00:04:30,839 and the first thing that he is going to go after is this idea that the Bible 52 00:04:30,839 --> 00:04:35,959 has to teach sola scriptura in order for sola scriptura to make sense. 53 00:04:35,959 --> 00:04:39,880 If you're talking to a Roman Catholic apologist when they're speaking about sola scriptura, 54 00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:45,320 they're always going to raise the same statement over and over again. You're going to hear this 55 00:04:45,320 --> 00:04:48,679 if you're looking at Roman Catholic apologetics or recent converts to Rome, 56 00:04:48,679 --> 00:04:54,600 and that is Scripture never teaches sola scriptura. So you are holding Scripture 57 00:04:54,600 --> 00:04:59,160 as the ultimate authority, however Scripture itself never says that it is the only authority, 58 00:04:59,720 --> 00:05:05,480 therefore you're contradicting yourself. Okay, so first off, he doesn't really go into this, 59 00:05:05,480 --> 00:05:11,959 but I think that what he is getting at is this idea that I don't have to have a rock-solid, 60 00:05:11,959 --> 00:05:18,279 single-proof text that spells out sola scriptura in order for the Bible to teach it, and of course 61 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:22,440 Catholics would agree with that. I mean, anybody that knows anything about theology would agree 62 00:05:22,440 --> 00:05:29,000 with that because many times a theological position is built up from the data of Scripture 63 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:35,399 and not just a single verse. In fact, typically when a theological position is based on a single 64 00:05:35,399 --> 00:05:40,679 verse, it is often wrong because it isn't balanced out by statements from other verses. 65 00:05:40,679 --> 00:05:46,279 So if a Roman Catholic apologist attacks a Protestant on the notion of sola scriptura 66 00:05:46,279 --> 00:05:51,320 because there's no verse that says that, that's a problem. However, usually Roman 67 00:05:51,320 --> 00:05:56,040 Catholic apologists are well aware of this, and what they are getting at is that there isn't 68 00:05:56,760 --> 00:06:03,480 the teaching of sola scriptura in Scripture. It's a much more robust claim. So what do we do with 69 00:06:03,480 --> 00:06:08,920 that? And I think the question that we have is, do we have to find a particular Scripture that 70 00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:15,640 says Scripture is the only authority? And I just don't think we have to. We don't. There's nothing 71 00:06:15,640 --> 00:06:20,040 in, you know, you can't find, you know, in any of Paul's letters, for example, it's like he says 72 00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:24,839 to the Romans, by the way, Scripture is the only authority and traditions are not an authority and 73 00:06:24,839 --> 00:06:29,399 there is no magisterium that has given some kind of infallible authority to pass on infallible 74 00:06:29,399 --> 00:06:35,079 teachings. Which it seems like a lot of Roman Catholic apologists think that for Protestants to 75 00:06:35,079 --> 00:06:40,200 defend their position that they have to find a text that says that. I don't know how many times 76 00:06:40,200 --> 00:06:45,720 a Protestant has said, well, where is blank in the Bible with regard to Roman Catholic teaching? So 77 00:06:45,720 --> 00:06:50,600 it's funny that he's kind of going after Roman Catholic apologists, but this is really one of the 78 00:06:50,600 --> 00:06:56,679 only times that a Protestant would use this particular tactic because they know it doesn't 79 00:06:56,679 --> 00:07:02,920 work very well. And Cooper basically admits that that is not the case. Instead, what he does is he 80 00:07:02,920 --> 00:07:08,119 brings up the closest thing. He says this twice. It's the closest thing to a proof text that you're 81 00:07:08,119 --> 00:07:16,200 going to get, and that is 2 Timothy 3.16 through 17. No, I think more so what we have to do is just 82 00:07:16,200 --> 00:07:23,320 speak about the unique authority of Scripture and the unique nature of Scripture. And just to say 83 00:07:23,320 --> 00:07:30,760 that Scripture does present itself as God-breathed. 2 Timothy 3.16 is kind of the famous text that 84 00:07:30,760 --> 00:07:34,519 says this, that all Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and 85 00:07:34,519 --> 00:07:39,160 training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly or sufficiently equipped for 86 00:07:39,160 --> 00:07:45,640 every good work. Okay, so this is an interesting tactic and one that unfortunately is doomed to 87 00:07:45,640 --> 00:07:51,399 failure. Now, I know that Dr. Cooper made this video, you know, it looks like without editing. 88 00:07:51,399 --> 00:07:55,559 I think he went straight through. He definitely makes a couple of misstatements here and there, 89 00:07:55,559 --> 00:08:01,799 but he says this one over and over and over again. He frames the debate as if the Catholic Church 90 00:08:02,279 --> 00:08:08,200 thinks that Scripture and tradition are both inspired. And then he goes on from there to 91 00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:14,440 make this pretty lengthy argument about the fact that Scripture does not identify anything outside 92 00:08:14,440 --> 00:08:20,359 of itself as inspired. And then he goes on after that to talk about how argumentation should work 93 00:08:20,359 --> 00:08:24,679 and how the debate should work. The fact that the burden of proof is on the Catholic to show that 94 00:08:24,679 --> 00:08:28,839 anything is inspired other than Scripture. Okay, the problem with all of this is that the Catholic 95 00:08:28,839 --> 00:08:36,280 Church does not teach that the magisterium, or the pope, or the councils, or the creeds, 96 00:08:36,280 --> 00:08:42,760 or anything is inspired outside of Scripture. We are in agreement that that is the case. In fact, 97 00:08:42,760 --> 00:08:47,719 the claim is so strange to me that I actually thought, gosh, I guess some Roman Catholic 98 00:08:47,719 --> 00:08:54,679 apologist must have said this. So I got on the internet trying to find some reputable Catholic 99 00:08:54,679 --> 00:08:59,080 website that says that the magisterium, or the church, or the pope, or anything outside of 100 00:08:59,080 --> 00:09:04,359 Scripture is inspired. I could not find one. So, you know, mea culpa, Dr. Cooper, if you actually 101 00:09:04,359 --> 00:09:10,520 have an example of this, but I can assure you the Catholic Church does not teach that tradition is 102 00:09:10,520 --> 00:09:17,799 inspired. Only the Scripture is inspired. We use the word infallible for other sources that are not 103 00:09:17,799 --> 00:09:24,039 inspired, but still are protected from error. That's a completely different claim though. 104 00:09:24,119 --> 00:09:28,200 And since he bases everything on this inspiration coming from 2 Timothy 3.16, 105 00:09:28,840 --> 00:09:35,000 basically this entire section of his video is moot. So first he argues from 2 Timothy 3.16 that 106 00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:40,840 Scripture has this unique status, and we agree, so there's nothing else to say there. Second, 107 00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:47,159 he says that it has a particular sufficiency, and that because it has this sufficiency, 108 00:09:48,119 --> 00:09:53,400 that puts it in a position to be the Christian's ultimate authority. The other thing that is 109 00:09:53,400 --> 00:09:58,440 important in that text is it does say that Scripture is sufficient to equip one in every 110 00:09:58,440 --> 00:10:05,239 good work. Scripture has a sufficiency, or the sufficiency of Scripture, to equip for every 111 00:10:05,239 --> 00:10:10,520 good work to its sufficiency in equipping one for good works. Now the trouble is, although he says 112 00:10:10,520 --> 00:10:16,760 it over and over and over and over again in the video, 2 Timothy 3.16 and 17 don't use the word 113 00:10:16,760 --> 00:10:22,280 sufficient or sufficiency at all, and in fact I think a careful reading of it shows that it's not 114 00:10:22,280 --> 00:10:27,320 even making that claim in the first place. Now a lot of Catholic apologists will point out that 115 00:10:27,320 --> 00:10:32,599 sufficiency actually kind of comes in two flavors. Even if the Bible, even if the Word of God is 116 00:10:32,599 --> 00:10:40,599 sufficient to function as the Christian's highest or sole authority, that doesn't mean that it 117 00:10:40,599 --> 00:10:45,320 doesn't have to be interpreted, because although the words materially might be there, until they 118 00:10:45,320 --> 00:10:51,960 are interpreted they really don't have anything to say. And so the formal sufficiency the Catholic 119 00:10:51,960 --> 00:10:57,400 might argue comes from the Church, even if the material sufficiency comes from Scripture. But 120 00:10:57,400 --> 00:11:01,239 again, we don't even really need to go there with this verse, because the verse doesn't say 121 00:11:01,239 --> 00:11:06,679 Scripture is sufficient. Rather what it says is that Scripture is useful, profitable, helpful. 122 00:11:07,559 --> 00:11:11,559 There's a couple different ways that this word might be translated, but the point is that the 123 00:11:11,559 --> 00:11:18,520 Scripture here is said to be contributing to the man of God becoming prepared for every good work. 124 00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:24,200 But of course that's a very different claim than that Scripture is the sole or highest authority 125 00:11:24,760 --> 00:11:30,919 for the Christian. And in fact the very phrase prepared for every good work is not unique to 126 00:11:30,919 --> 00:11:35,719 this verse. St. Paul talks about this several times, and in the other verses where he talks 127 00:11:35,719 --> 00:11:41,880 about it he doesn't even mention Scripture. So the trouble is there's obviously several things 128 00:11:41,880 --> 00:11:48,119 that St. Paul thinks contribute or help a man of God become prepared for all good works, 129 00:11:48,119 --> 00:11:52,919 interesting, it's about good works by the way, but none of them imply in any way that 130 00:11:53,559 --> 00:11:58,280 it is the only thing that does that function. So again, there's a couple problems here. Number one, 131 00:11:58,280 --> 00:12:03,719 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17 does not even use the word sufficient. Second, the words that it does 132 00:12:03,719 --> 00:12:09,239 use are insufficient. It's actually using words like helpful or profitable or, you know, that 133 00:12:09,239 --> 00:12:17,640 kind of thing. And the object of those words is not dogma or orthodoxy, it's preparing a man of 134 00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:23,400 God to do good works. So this is really nothing like the claim of sola scriptura, which pits 135 00:12:23,400 --> 00:12:28,440 Scripture against tradition. In fact, one of the verses actually talks about sufficiency 136 00:12:28,440 --> 00:12:32,919 with that word in that verse, and it still doesn't mean what Dr. Cooper seems to think 137 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:39,799 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 are saying. Okay, now he is going to turn to what he sees as the prime 138 00:12:39,799 --> 00:12:47,159 Roman Catholic apologist response to this argument. Now, the rebuttal to that from Rome is 139 00:12:47,159 --> 00:12:51,960 always going to be the same, which is, well, when that particular text was written, the entirety of 140 00:12:51,960 --> 00:12:59,159 the New Testament was being written, so it's not yet totally written. Therefore, he's speaking only 141 00:12:59,159 --> 00:13:03,080 of the Old Testament, and if you take that to be speaking about the sufficiency of Scripture, 142 00:13:04,119 --> 00:13:09,479 then it's only speaking about the sufficiency of the Old Testament and not at all the New Testament. 143 00:13:09,479 --> 00:13:14,039 Okay, so here I'm just going to say I agree. I don't think this is a tremendously powerful 144 00:13:14,039 --> 00:13:19,239 argument. I think there are some versions of it that are nuanced a bit that, you know, maybe take 145 00:13:19,239 --> 00:13:24,599 the discussion a little farther down the field than is being admitted here, but I'm willing to 146 00:13:24,599 --> 00:13:31,000 concede that this just is not a great argument. I do think that we could take St. Paul's words to 147 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:36,679 Timothy as a statement about the nature of Scripture, and so whatever counts as Scripture, 148 00:13:36,679 --> 00:13:42,440 whenever it begins being counted as Scripture, fulfills the function that St. Paul's talking 149 00:13:42,440 --> 00:13:48,119 about. The fact that some of the New Testament wasn't done yet, the fact that the canon wasn't 150 00:13:48,119 --> 00:13:52,840 defined yet, I don't think any of that really makes too much of a difference, so I'm willing 151 00:13:52,840 --> 00:13:58,039 to concede this, but I also want to point out that good Catholic apologists have a lot more to say 152 00:13:58,039 --> 00:14:04,280 about this verse than just that. Now that, I think, is as close of a text as you're going to get that 153 00:14:04,280 --> 00:14:09,159 proves sola scriptura. If there's any proof text for sola scriptura, that would be the closest one 154 00:14:09,159 --> 00:14:13,400 that there is because of the uniqueness and the sufficiency of Scripture that is taught there. 155 00:14:13,400 --> 00:14:19,239 Okay, then Dr. Cooper moves on to his second major scriptural argument, which comes from Matthew 15. 156 00:14:19,239 --> 00:14:25,000 So the other place that I would go is from Matthew 15, and this is a text that is cited 157 00:14:25,799 --> 00:14:30,520 many times in the relationship between Scripture and tradition. This is a text that speaks 158 00:14:30,520 --> 00:14:35,479 about the relationship between Scripture and tradition, and it speaks about the relationship 159 00:14:35,479 --> 00:14:39,559 between Scripture and tradition in relation to the teaching of the scribes and the Pharisees. 160 00:14:39,559 --> 00:14:46,119 So what we have here is a claim about an infallible tradition that is passed down from Moses 161 00:14:46,919 --> 00:14:51,559 and its relationship to Scripture. There's a lot of similarity between 162 00:14:52,679 --> 00:14:58,119 the claims of an infallible tradition passed on through the magisterium and the claims of an 163 00:14:58,119 --> 00:15:02,520 infallible tradition being passed on through the scribes and Pharisees that come down from Moses. 164 00:15:02,520 --> 00:15:08,599 There's several things here that I find somewhat troubling. I probably need to do more research on 165 00:15:08,599 --> 00:15:16,119 this, but I am not aware that the Jews considered the traditions of the Pharisees to be infallible. 166 00:15:16,919 --> 00:15:21,640 Dr. Cooper says this over and over and over and over again, trying to kind of, I think, 167 00:15:21,640 --> 00:15:26,520 force a parallel between the situation of the Pharisees in the Old Testament and the Catholic 168 00:15:26,520 --> 00:15:33,559 Church and the Scripture. Where did he get this idea that this was considered an infallible 169 00:15:33,559 --> 00:15:39,239 tradition? There may have been some people that thought that, but I don't see that anywhere in 170 00:15:39,239 --> 00:15:43,960 Scripture, so I'm not sure why he's even making that claim, other than to try to make it seem 171 00:15:43,960 --> 00:15:48,200 more like the situation with the Catholic Church. Second, we have to be very careful here that 172 00:15:48,760 --> 00:15:52,359 when Jesus makes a qualification of a term, we need to pay attention to that. 173 00:15:53,080 --> 00:15:58,760 Jesus doesn't just refer to tradition here. He refers to them as traditions of men. That is 174 00:15:58,840 --> 00:16:04,840 because traditions of men and traditions are two different things. Now, Dr. Cooper admits this, 175 00:16:05,559 --> 00:16:13,320 but then he gives this kind of almost strange response to that by saying that, well, how would 176 00:16:13,320 --> 00:16:18,119 you know? What is the standard for knowing the difference between a tradition and a tradition 177 00:16:18,119 --> 00:16:22,599 of men? What Roman Catholic apologists do when they approach this text is they're always going 178 00:16:22,599 --> 00:16:28,280 to say, well, this is just condemning a particular kind of tradition, and that is 179 00:16:28,280 --> 00:16:32,440 the traditions of men, because that's the phrase that Jesus uses. So the difference is Rome doesn't 180 00:16:32,440 --> 00:16:38,840 teach the traditions of men, but the Jews, who had supposedly had this infallible set of teachings 181 00:16:38,840 --> 00:16:43,159 and interpretations of Scripture, they were teaching traditions of men. And that leaves a 182 00:16:43,159 --> 00:16:48,359 question, though, which is to say, well, according to what? How do you judge one as a tradition of 183 00:16:48,359 --> 00:16:53,559 men and the other not as a tradition of men? I suppose if Jesus had not said anything further, 184 00:16:53,559 --> 00:16:59,320 that might be a legitimate question, but he does. Jesus specifically says that they have made void 185 00:16:59,320 --> 00:17:07,719 the Word of God by their traditions. So if there's a tradition that voids what the Word of God teaches, 186 00:17:07,719 --> 00:17:11,640 then that could be considered a problematic tradition of men, and that's when whatever 187 00:17:11,640 --> 00:17:17,560 principle Dr. Cooper thinks is being instantiated here comes into play. You can't just use that for 188 00:17:17,560 --> 00:17:23,560 any tradition, because there are traditions that are to be obeyed. This is stated several 189 00:17:23,560 --> 00:17:30,280 times in Scripture. You look at 2 Thessalonians 2.15. You look at 1 Corinthians 11.2. In fact, 190 00:17:30,280 --> 00:17:36,280 we can even look at the fuller context of 2 Timothy 3, where St. Paul says that Timothy 191 00:17:36,280 --> 00:17:41,160 should believe what he was taught because he was taught it by St. Paul, and this was before 192 00:17:41,160 --> 00:17:47,160 Scripture was written. The fact is, Scripture is very pro-tradition. In fact, St. Paul specifically 193 00:17:47,160 --> 00:17:52,119 says you need to follow the traditions, whether they're written or not. It's the traditions of 194 00:17:52,119 --> 00:17:57,319 men that are a problem, and it's not fair to try to make a principle out of a passage about a 195 00:17:57,319 --> 00:18:03,000 specific kind of tradition as if it applies to all traditions. And if we look at Matthew 23, 196 00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:07,959 we can actually see this very thing in action, where Jesus himself says, 197 00:18:07,959 --> 00:18:14,359 follow the traditions of the Pharisees. So Jesus is not making a blanket condemnation of 198 00:18:14,359 --> 00:18:19,160 traditions here. He is not setting up a principle by which we judge all tradition. If you want to 199 00:18:19,160 --> 00:18:22,920 argue that the Catholic Church is teaching a tradition of men, well, then you need to find 200 00:18:22,920 --> 00:18:28,040 something that voids the Word of God. And I know Protestants think that there are Catholic traditions 201 00:18:28,040 --> 00:18:33,640 that do that, but as I showed in another video, it's pretty easy to show Protestants doing the 202 00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:39,079 same thing. So at worst, we're probably on equal footing here. I won't go any deeper into this issue, 203 00:18:39,079 --> 00:18:45,079 but merely to say that already he's kind of setting this up problematically. And the principle 204 00:18:45,079 --> 00:18:53,640 is that there can be indeed opposition between tradition and Scripture. And when Scripture and 205 00:18:53,640 --> 00:19:01,000 tradition are at odds, it is Scripture that is the thing that gets the final say. The third problem I 206 00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:07,719 see with this line of argumentation is that Dr. Cooper has picked Matthew chapter 15 as what he 207 00:19:07,719 --> 00:19:13,000 thinks is kind of the seminal passage for establishing a principle of what happens when 208 00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:18,439 tradition and Scripture don't seem to agree. But what if we picked a different passage? What if we 209 00:19:18,439 --> 00:19:24,920 picked Acts chapter 15? Here we have a disagreement between people that are now called the Judaizers 210 00:19:24,920 --> 00:19:30,040 and the Church where there was a live question about whether or not Gentiles needed to follow 211 00:19:30,040 --> 00:19:34,680 Jewish law, specifically by being circumcised when they became Christian. Now what's interesting is 212 00:19:34,680 --> 00:19:39,640 that if you actually read how this went along, there were some verses tossed out there, but they 213 00:19:39,640 --> 00:19:46,280 were never treated as proof texts. They were never treated as definitive sola scriptura authoritative 214 00:19:46,280 --> 00:19:51,479 arguments one way or the other. The only thing the verse that was quoted showed was that Gentiles 215 00:19:51,479 --> 00:19:55,160 were going to come into the kingdom. It said nothing about whether or not they needed to 216 00:19:55,160 --> 00:20:01,719 follow Jewish laws. And in fact, I don't know that you could get the final answer from Scripture 217 00:20:01,719 --> 00:20:06,680 because the Old Testament, which are the only scriptures they had at the time, very clearly 218 00:20:06,680 --> 00:20:13,719 argues for circumcision. Rather, what happens is the apostles come in, they give arguments based on 219 00:20:13,719 --> 00:20:19,800 their experience and what they think about the whole situation, and then when Peter gives his 220 00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:25,239 talk, James, who was kind of running the meeting because he was the bishop of Jerusalem, it was 221 00:20:25,239 --> 00:20:31,959 his city, stands up and says, well, there you go. And he doesn't say, Peter proved this from 222 00:20:31,959 --> 00:20:36,680 Scripture. He doesn't say, oh yeah, that verse from the Old Testament has convinced me. He doesn't say 223 00:20:36,680 --> 00:20:42,359 here I stand, I can do no other. Rather, he says, you know what, it seemed good to us, the apostles 224 00:20:42,359 --> 00:20:48,040 and the Holy Spirit, to give this answer. And then he gives it, and that is the end of the discussion. 225 00:20:48,040 --> 00:20:54,040 So what's interesting about the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 is that I think it shows an example of 226 00:20:54,040 --> 00:20:58,599 what the church was supposed to do going forward, because this is actually in a section where we're 227 00:20:58,599 --> 00:21:03,640 learning what the church did going forward. If there was a doctrinal dispute, those in charge 228 00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:09,400 of the church, what we might call the magisterium today, got together in a council, considered 229 00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:15,880 Scripture, considered their own thoughts, and then came up with what they thought the Holy Spirit was 230 00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:23,959 teaching. That is very, very different than the kind of sola scriptura procedure you see most 231 00:21:23,959 --> 00:21:29,079 Protestants referring to, where basically you open your Bible, you find the verse that sounds like it 232 00:21:29,079 --> 00:21:33,719 agrees with what you think, and then you slam the Bible shut, and you say, well, there you go, that's it, 233 00:21:33,719 --> 00:21:39,479 and anything else is a tradition of men. So I think there's a number of problems with trying to use 234 00:21:39,479 --> 00:21:47,719 Matthew 15 as definitively for a supportive sola scriptura as Dr. Cooper makes it sound like. 235 00:21:47,719 --> 00:21:51,800 Okay, well, this has been a pretty short video, but I'm responding to a pretty short video, and I don't 236 00:21:51,800 --> 00:21:57,079 think it would be fair for me to go on and on and on and go into great detail in a response to a 237 00:21:57,079 --> 00:22:06,040 video that was fairly off the cuff and obviously not meant to give us Dr. Cooper's entire corpus 238 00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:11,800 of thought on the matter, but that is my response to the number one video that YouTube suggests 239 00:22:12,599 --> 00:22:17,319 when I type in defensive sola scriptura. So I hope that this has helped you out. If it has, 240 00:22:17,319 --> 00:22:21,959 why don't you give the video a like, subscribe to Douglas Beaumont if you are interested in 241 00:22:21,959 --> 00:22:33,880 Christian philosophy, theology, and apologetics, and until next time, God bless. 242 00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:37,079 you