Hey, I'm Doug Beaumont. Welcome to my channel. It's all about Christian theology, philosophy,
and apologetics. Today is actually Reformation Day, the day that Martin Luther nailed up
his 95 theses in Wittenberg, and that's kind of considered the official launch of
the Reformation, for better or for worse. Everybody else pretty much knows it as All
Hallows' Eve or Halloween. Now, it is said that there are two major things that drove
the Reformation, the material and the formal principles of the Reformation, the formal
principle being sola scriptura, the idea that the Bible alone is the ultimate authority
for the Christian in matters of faith and morals. Well, I decided it would be interesting
to see what is being offered out there on the Internet in defense of sola scriptura,
and so I typed in a defense of sola scriptura, clicked on the very first one, and discovered
Dr. Jordan B. Cooper and his video called A Defense of Sola Scriptura. Now, Dr. Cooper
is a fairly popular YouTuber. I've seen him before just searching around, so I know
this guy's legit. He is a Lutheran scholar, and so I decided I would have a look at his
video and see how it is that he defended sola scriptura and offer my responses.
Now, when setting up his video, he doesn't go into a lot of discussion over what sola
scriptura actually is. In fact, he actually refers to it later as the Bible is the only
authority, which is not usually what Protestants want to say about scripture, but rather that
it's the ultimate authority or something like that. In order to set themselves apart
from what is sometimes called solo scriptura, which is more of your Baptist fundamentalist
type view. Now, he doesn't really spell that out, but he does make an interesting statement
with regard to tradition, which is kind of the opposition to sola scriptura, and this
is what he has to say.
But for a Lutheran or Anglican, it's, I think, quite a bit different in the way that we look
at the Fathers because we do see, hey, this is very similar to what we're saying and teaching
and how we're worshiping today as well.
Okay, so this is not super important to Dr. Cooper's response, but since he brings it
up, I do want to point out that a lot of your more traditional Protestants do want to distance
themselves from this idea that the Bible is the only source of authority. And although
he actually will say that in the video, I don't think that's exactly what he meant.
And what he is getting out, I believe, with this reference to the Lutheran and Anglicans
is that they have a respect for tradition. They have a respect for the Church Father.
In fact, if you look behind him on his bookshelf, he's got the writings of the Church Fathers.
Mine is right here and up here. So I do want to respond to this, though, because many times
Protestants seeing the trap that they are going to fall into if they deny Christian
tradition will give sort of a disclaimer, a little asterisk, a little qualification
regarding the fact that, oh, you know, we respect the Church Fathers. We believe a lot
of the same things the Church Fathers do. They teach a lot of the same things we do.
And the idea seems to be to kind of soften this idea of sola scriptura because, well,
sola scriptura doesn't mean that we don't respect tradition. The problem is, what it
really boils down to is that this respect for tradition is simply saying that where
the Church teaches and what I believe Scripture teaches overlaps, we are in agreement.
Well, of course, that's just true by definition. Anybody can say that they respect some other
tradition or some other source of authority if the only time they have to respect it is
when they agree with it. I mean, I agree with Mormons and Satanists on some things,
but that doesn't mean that they are in any way functioning as a religious authority for me.
So the fact that Anglicans and Lutherans might agree with more of what the Church Fathers said
than, say, a Baptist or an Evangelical doesn't really change things in an important way because
really both groups are doing the same thing. They're just agreeing with what they agree with,
and that is not answering the issue of authority, which is what sola scriptura is really about.
Okay, so then Dr. Cooper goes into his actual defense of sola scriptura,
and the first thing that he is going to go after is this idea that the Bible
has to teach sola scriptura in order for sola scriptura to make sense.
If you're talking to a Roman Catholic apologist when they're speaking about sola scriptura,
they're always going to raise the same statement over and over again. You're going to hear this
if you're looking at Roman Catholic apologetics or recent converts to Rome,
and that is Scripture never teaches sola scriptura. So you are holding Scripture
as the ultimate authority, however Scripture itself never says that it is the only authority,
therefore you're contradicting yourself. Okay, so first off, he doesn't really go into this,
but I think that what he is getting at is this idea that I don't have to have a rock-solid,
single-proof text that spells out sola scriptura in order for the Bible to teach it, and of course
Catholics would agree with that. I mean, anybody that knows anything about theology would agree
with that because many times a theological position is built up from the data of Scripture
and not just a single verse. In fact, typically when a theological position is based on a single
verse, it is often wrong because it isn't balanced out by statements from other verses.
So if a Roman Catholic apologist attacks a Protestant on the notion of sola scriptura
because there's no verse that says that, that's a problem. However, usually Roman
Catholic apologists are well aware of this, and what they are getting at is that there isn't
the teaching of sola scriptura in Scripture. It's a much more robust claim. So what do we do with
that? And I think the question that we have is, do we have to find a particular Scripture that
says Scripture is the only authority? And I just don't think we have to. We don't. There's nothing
in, you know, you can't find, you know, in any of Paul's letters, for example, it's like he says
to the Romans, by the way, Scripture is the only authority and traditions are not an authority and
there is no magisterium that has given some kind of infallible authority to pass on infallible
teachings. Which it seems like a lot of Roman Catholic apologists think that for Protestants to
defend their position that they have to find a text that says that. I don't know how many times
a Protestant has said, well, where is blank in the Bible with regard to Roman Catholic teaching? So
it's funny that he's kind of going after Roman Catholic apologists, but this is really one of the
only times that a Protestant would use this particular tactic because they know it doesn't
work very well. And Cooper basically admits that that is not the case. Instead, what he does is he
brings up the closest thing. He says this twice. It's the closest thing to a proof text that you're
going to get, and that is 2 Timothy 3.16 through 17. No, I think more so what we have to do is just
speak about the unique authority of Scripture and the unique nature of Scripture. And just to say
that Scripture does present itself as God-breathed. 2 Timothy 3.16 is kind of the famous text that
says this, that all Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and
training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly or sufficiently equipped for
every good work. Okay, so this is an interesting tactic and one that unfortunately is doomed to
failure. Now, I know that Dr. Cooper made this video, you know, it looks like without editing.
I think he went straight through. He definitely makes a couple of misstatements here and there,
but he says this one over and over and over again. He frames the debate as if the Catholic Church
thinks that Scripture and tradition are both inspired. And then he goes on from there to
make this pretty lengthy argument about the fact that Scripture does not identify anything outside
of itself as inspired. And then he goes on after that to talk about how argumentation should work
and how the debate should work. The fact that the burden of proof is on the Catholic to show that
anything is inspired other than Scripture. Okay, the problem with all of this is that the Catholic
Church does not teach that the magisterium, or the pope, or the councils, or the creeds,
or anything is inspired outside of Scripture. We are in agreement that that is the case. In fact,
the claim is so strange to me that I actually thought, gosh, I guess some Roman Catholic
apologist must have said this. So I got on the internet trying to find some reputable Catholic
website that says that the magisterium, or the church, or the pope, or anything outside of
Scripture is inspired. I could not find one. So, you know, mea culpa, Dr. Cooper, if you actually
have an example of this, but I can assure you the Catholic Church does not teach that tradition is
inspired. Only the Scripture is inspired. We use the word infallible for other sources that are not
inspired, but still are protected from error. That's a completely different claim though.
And since he bases everything on this inspiration coming from 2 Timothy 3.16,
basically this entire section of his video is moot. So first he argues from 2 Timothy 3.16 that
Scripture has this unique status, and we agree, so there's nothing else to say there. Second,
he says that it has a particular sufficiency, and that because it has this sufficiency,
that puts it in a position to be the Christian's ultimate authority. The other thing that is
important in that text is it does say that Scripture is sufficient to equip one in every
good work. Scripture has a sufficiency, or the sufficiency of Scripture, to equip for every
good work to its sufficiency in equipping one for good works. Now the trouble is, although he says
it over and over and over and over again in the video, 2 Timothy 3.16 and 17 don't use the word
sufficient or sufficiency at all, and in fact I think a careful reading of it shows that it's not
even making that claim in the first place. Now a lot of Catholic apologists will point out that
sufficiency actually kind of comes in two flavors. Even if the Bible, even if the Word of God is
sufficient to function as the Christian's highest or sole authority, that doesn't mean that it
doesn't have to be interpreted, because although the words materially might be there, until they
are interpreted they really don't have anything to say. And so the formal sufficiency the Catholic
might argue comes from the Church, even if the material sufficiency comes from Scripture. But
again, we don't even really need to go there with this verse, because the verse doesn't say
Scripture is sufficient. Rather what it says is that Scripture is useful, profitable, helpful.
There's a couple different ways that this word might be translated, but the point is that the
Scripture here is said to be contributing to the man of God becoming prepared for every good work.
But of course that's a very different claim than that Scripture is the sole or highest authority
for the Christian. And in fact the very phrase prepared for every good work is not unique to
this verse. St. Paul talks about this several times, and in the other verses where he talks
about it he doesn't even mention Scripture. So the trouble is there's obviously several things
that St. Paul thinks contribute or help a man of God become prepared for all good works,
interesting, it's about good works by the way, but none of them imply in any way that
it is the only thing that does that function. So again, there's a couple problems here. Number one,
2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17 does not even use the word sufficient. Second, the words that it does
use are insufficient. It's actually using words like helpful or profitable or, you know, that
kind of thing. And the object of those words is not dogma or orthodoxy, it's preparing a man of
God to do good works. So this is really nothing like the claim of sola scriptura, which pits
Scripture against tradition. In fact, one of the verses actually talks about sufficiency
with that word in that verse, and it still doesn't mean what Dr. Cooper seems to think
2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 are saying. Okay, now he is going to turn to what he sees as the prime
Roman Catholic apologist response to this argument. Now, the rebuttal to that from Rome is
always going to be the same, which is, well, when that particular text was written, the entirety of
the New Testament was being written, so it's not yet totally written. Therefore, he's speaking only
of the Old Testament, and if you take that to be speaking about the sufficiency of Scripture,
then it's only speaking about the sufficiency of the Old Testament and not at all the New Testament.
Okay, so here I'm just going to say I agree. I don't think this is a tremendously powerful
argument. I think there are some versions of it that are nuanced a bit that, you know, maybe take
the discussion a little farther down the field than is being admitted here, but I'm willing to
concede that this just is not a great argument. I do think that we could take St. Paul's words to
Timothy as a statement about the nature of Scripture, and so whatever counts as Scripture,
whenever it begins being counted as Scripture, fulfills the function that St. Paul's talking
about. The fact that some of the New Testament wasn't done yet, the fact that the canon wasn't
defined yet, I don't think any of that really makes too much of a difference, so I'm willing
to concede this, but I also want to point out that good Catholic apologists have a lot more to say
about this verse than just that. Now that, I think, is as close of a text as you're going to get that
proves sola scriptura. If there's any proof text for sola scriptura, that would be the closest one
that there is because of the uniqueness and the sufficiency of Scripture that is taught there.
Okay, then Dr. Cooper moves on to his second major scriptural argument, which comes from Matthew 15.
So the other place that I would go is from Matthew 15, and this is a text that is cited
many times in the relationship between Scripture and tradition. This is a text that speaks
about the relationship between Scripture and tradition, and it speaks about the relationship
between Scripture and tradition in relation to the teaching of the scribes and the Pharisees.
So what we have here is a claim about an infallible tradition that is passed down from Moses
and its relationship to Scripture. There's a lot of similarity between
the claims of an infallible tradition passed on through the magisterium and the claims of an
infallible tradition being passed on through the scribes and Pharisees that come down from Moses.
There's several things here that I find somewhat troubling. I probably need to do more research on
this, but I am not aware that the Jews considered the traditions of the Pharisees to be infallible.
Dr. Cooper says this over and over and over and over again, trying to kind of, I think,
force a parallel between the situation of the Pharisees in the Old Testament and the Catholic
Church and the Scripture. Where did he get this idea that this was considered an infallible
tradition? There may have been some people that thought that, but I don't see that anywhere in
Scripture, so I'm not sure why he's even making that claim, other than to try to make it seem
more like the situation with the Catholic Church. Second, we have to be very careful here that
when Jesus makes a qualification of a term, we need to pay attention to that.
Jesus doesn't just refer to tradition here. He refers to them as traditions of men. That is
because traditions of men and traditions are two different things. Now, Dr. Cooper admits this,
but then he gives this kind of almost strange response to that by saying that, well, how would
you know? What is the standard for knowing the difference between a tradition and a tradition
of men? What Roman Catholic apologists do when they approach this text is they're always going
to say, well, this is just condemning a particular kind of tradition, and that is
the traditions of men, because that's the phrase that Jesus uses. So the difference is Rome doesn't
teach the traditions of men, but the Jews, who had supposedly had this infallible set of teachings
and interpretations of Scripture, they were teaching traditions of men. And that leaves a
question, though, which is to say, well, according to what? How do you judge one as a tradition of
men and the other not as a tradition of men? I suppose if Jesus had not said anything further,
that might be a legitimate question, but he does. Jesus specifically says that they have made void
the Word of God by their traditions. So if there's a tradition that voids what the Word of God teaches,
then that could be considered a problematic tradition of men, and that's when whatever
principle Dr. Cooper thinks is being instantiated here comes into play. You can't just use that for
any tradition, because there are traditions that are to be obeyed. This is stated several
times in Scripture. You look at 2 Thessalonians 2.15. You look at 1 Corinthians 11.2. In fact,
we can even look at the fuller context of 2 Timothy 3, where St. Paul says that Timothy
should believe what he was taught because he was taught it by St. Paul, and this was before
Scripture was written. The fact is, Scripture is very pro-tradition. In fact, St. Paul specifically
says you need to follow the traditions, whether they're written or not. It's the traditions of
men that are a problem, and it's not fair to try to make a principle out of a passage about a
specific kind of tradition as if it applies to all traditions. And if we look at Matthew 23,
we can actually see this very thing in action, where Jesus himself says,
follow the traditions of the Pharisees. So Jesus is not making a blanket condemnation of
traditions here. He is not setting up a principle by which we judge all tradition. If you want to
argue that the Catholic Church is teaching a tradition of men, well, then you need to find
something that voids the Word of God. And I know Protestants think that there are Catholic traditions
that do that, but as I showed in another video, it's pretty easy to show Protestants doing the
same thing. So at worst, we're probably on equal footing here. I won't go any deeper into this issue,
but merely to say that already he's kind of setting this up problematically. And the principle
is that there can be indeed opposition between tradition and Scripture. And when Scripture and
tradition are at odds, it is Scripture that is the thing that gets the final say. The third problem I
see with this line of argumentation is that Dr. Cooper has picked Matthew chapter 15 as what he
thinks is kind of the seminal passage for establishing a principle of what happens when
tradition and Scripture don't seem to agree. But what if we picked a different passage? What if we
picked Acts chapter 15? Here we have a disagreement between people that are now called the Judaizers
and the Church where there was a live question about whether or not Gentiles needed to follow
Jewish law, specifically by being circumcised when they became Christian. Now what's interesting is
that if you actually read how this went along, there were some verses tossed out there, but they
were never treated as proof texts. They were never treated as definitive sola scriptura authoritative
arguments one way or the other. The only thing the verse that was quoted showed was that Gentiles
were going to come into the kingdom. It said nothing about whether or not they needed to
follow Jewish laws. And in fact, I don't know that you could get the final answer from Scripture
because the Old Testament, which are the only scriptures they had at the time, very clearly
argues for circumcision. Rather, what happens is the apostles come in, they give arguments based on
their experience and what they think about the whole situation, and then when Peter gives his
talk, James, who was kind of running the meeting because he was the bishop of Jerusalem, it was
his city, stands up and says, well, there you go. And he doesn't say, Peter proved this from
Scripture. He doesn't say, oh yeah, that verse from the Old Testament has convinced me. He doesn't say
here I stand, I can do no other. Rather, he says, you know what, it seemed good to us, the apostles
and the Holy Spirit, to give this answer. And then he gives it, and that is the end of the discussion.
So what's interesting about the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 is that I think it shows an example of
what the church was supposed to do going forward, because this is actually in a section where we're
learning what the church did going forward. If there was a doctrinal dispute, those in charge
of the church, what we might call the magisterium today, got together in a council, considered
Scripture, considered their own thoughts, and then came up with what they thought the Holy Spirit was
teaching. That is very, very different than the kind of sola scriptura procedure you see most
Protestants referring to, where basically you open your Bible, you find the verse that sounds like it
agrees with what you think, and then you slam the Bible shut, and you say, well, there you go, that's it,
and anything else is a tradition of men. So I think there's a number of problems with trying to use
Matthew 15 as definitively for a supportive sola scriptura as Dr. Cooper makes it sound like.
Okay, well, this has been a pretty short video, but I'm responding to a pretty short video, and I don't
think it would be fair for me to go on and on and on and go into great detail in a response to a
video that was fairly off the cuff and obviously not meant to give us Dr. Cooper's entire corpus
of thought on the matter, but that is my response to the number one video that YouTube suggests
when I type in defensive sola scriptura. So I hope that this has helped you out. If it has,
why don't you give the video a like, subscribe to Douglas Beaumont if you are interested in
Christian philosophy, theology, and apologetics, and until next time, God bless.
you