Transcript

In today's episode, I'll be reviewing Dr. Michael Horton's criticism of my recent episode on Sola Scriptura and the church fathers.

Dr. Horton is a well-known figure in reform circles and currently teaches at Westminster Seminary in California.

To give some background, in a recent episode, I posed a dilemma for Protestants who claim that the church fathers believed in the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

First, I noted that Protestant apologists rarely cite the fathers prior to the Council of Nicaea in AD 325.

As can be seen in my debates with James White and Gavin Ortlund on Sola Scriptura, the lack of witnesses to the central pillar of Protestantism in the first 300 years of church history is very telling.

The other horn of the dilemma, if you will, admits there are testimonies from fathers in the fourth and fifth centuries that exalt scripture, use it to settle disputes, and teach what Catholics call the material sufficiency of scripture.

This is the idea that the material theology, such as the dogmas God has revealed, can all be found in scripture, at least in an implicit form, but the church is still needed to put that theological material into its final proper form for people to believe.

But let's suppose Christians in the late 300s and the 400s did believe in Sola Scriptura.

That's even worse for Protestantism, because these same Christians also believed in uniquely Catholic doctrines like the sacerdotal priesthood, the sacrifice of the mass, confession of sins to a priest, baptismal regeneration and infant baptism, purgatory, seeking the intercession of the saints, the perpetual virginity and sinlessness of Mary, and the need for bishops and the pope to oversee the church.

If those Christians of the fourth and fifth centuries are role models for Dr. Horton because they allegedly believed in Sola Scriptura, then why not follow their example and conclude that Catholic doctrines have a solid biblical foundation?

Now, in his reply to me, Dr. Horton claims he isn't trying to engage in a bunch of cherry-picking.

That's another important thing.

How did scripture function?

It's not just quotes, cherry-picking quotes.

How did scripture function?

Except Dr. Horton does just that, especially in the second half of his reply where he just reads off a bunch of citations from post-Nicene fathers like Jerome, Cyril, and Augustine that he claims prove these men believed in Sola Scriptura.

I'm not going to address those citations because Dr. Horton doesn't address my core objection: Should we believe these fathers when they taught that Catholic doctrine is biblical?

And if you, Dr. Horton, think they got those Catholic doctrines wrong, how do you know that they got Sola Scriptura right?

Now, when it comes to the other horn of the dilemma, Dr. Horton claimed that there's plenty of evidence of church fathers before the Council of Nicaea affirming Sola Scriptura.

There's a lot to respond to here.

There's plenty of pre-Nicene testimony to Sola Scriptura.

Trent Horn contends that, uh, n- apologists on the Protestant side just really can't go to pre-Nicene sources.

They're just not there.

Well, that's, that's not true.

Before we get to his examples, though, we need to define Sola Scriptura, because this will show what's wrong with Dr. Horton's response.

Traditionally, Sola Scriptura was a doctrine or approach to revelation that claimed scripture was the only infallible rule of faith for the church.

Dr. Horton also mentions the sufficiency of scripture in his reply, and he seems to conflate that with Sola Scriptura.

In this video, he's trying to debunk the notion that the church fathers held to Sola Scriptura, the sufficiency of scripture.

The sufficiency of scripture goes beyond minimal definitions of Sola Scriptura in saying that everything we need to be saved, or even everything God wants us to believe, can be found by an ordinary person in scripture alone.

The 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith, which is the standard for the school where Dr. Horton teaches, puts it this way: The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture.

But where does the Bible say all of that?

I'll get to the church fathers shortly, but I need to say something about two of the biblical passages Dr. Horton gave in defense of Sola Scriptura, because they do absolutely nothing to prove Sola Scriptura.

The first is Galatians 1:8.

The first thing we have to recognize is that the apostle Paul, uh, in, in Galatians, his letter to the Galatians, said that even he as an apostle is subordinate to the gospel.

Even if I or another apostle or an angel from heaven preaches another gospel, than the one I preached, let him be anathema.

See, what happened was the canon emerged around a gospel.

It's like a pearl, uh, in a, in an oyster.

It formed, it germinated because of the apostles' testimony to Jesus Christ, that he was risen.

The resurrection of Jesus, uh, is, uh, uh, of course attested very early, probably three years after the crucifixion itself.

Paul i- is saying that there is a tradition already in the church that Jesus was crucified, buried.

After three days, he rose again and was seen by the apostles, and then as one untimely born, I saw him, uh, on the road to Damascus.

So we have the canon of scripture emerging from a gospel, from Genesis to Revelation.

What does any of this have to do with Sola Scriptura?

Seriously, what does this even have to do with scripture?

I have no idea how Dr. Horton got from Paul saying, Believe the gospel I preach to you and not any other gospel, even if I were to preach a false gospel, how did he get from that to the claim that scripture is the completely sufficient, only infallible rule of faith for the church?

Once again, nothing in this passage is even talking about scripture.

Dr. Horton makes the unwarranted assumption that the gospel, the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ, is a reference to all of inspired scripture.

Galatians 1:8 is just saying you must never reject the gospel that the apostles preached, even if an angel or another apostle preaches a false gospel.

Once again, this isn't about scripture.Paul even wrote in First Thessalonians 2:13, 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 believers.

This shows the word of God is not confined to the written word alone or that scripture is the only infallible authority.

Next, Dr. Horton cites First Corinthians 4:6.

And then Paul instructs in First Corinthians 4:6 that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying do not go beyond what is written.

So there's already a saying in the church.

I like tradition.

This is a good tradition.

There's already a tradition in the church of, of saying do not go beyond what is written.

Then you will not be puffed up in being a follower of one of us over against the other.

See?

You, you'd pick out an apostle and he, I really side with Peter, or I really side with James, or I really si- I'm of Paul or Apollos.

No.

Actually it's sola scriptura that creates unity rather than division.

This is a terrible verse to ground the doctrine of sola scriptura because scholars don't even know what Paul was referring to here.

Don't go beyond what is written where?

In all human writing?

In all Christian writing?

In all scripture?

In the Old Testament?

Don't go beyond just what is written in First Corinthians?

Once again, here's the verse.

Every man will receive his commendation from God.

I have applied all this to myself in Apollos for your benefit, brethren, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.

Dr. Horton quoted the verse as saying, So that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying do not go beyond what is written, but I've only found this rendering in The Christian Standard Bible and The New International Version or the NIV.

The NIV is also notorious for translations that undermine Catholic doctrine.

For example, most Bibles translate Second Thessalonians 2:15 as, Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions handed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

But the NIV renders the Greek word paradigmos as teachings rather than tradition, because tradition apparently is a bad thing to many evangelicals.

The phrase meaning of the saying is not found in the Greek of First Corinthians 4:6.

It may have been a saying Paul is quoting, but scholars don't agree on what it means.

Ronald Tyler says it may refer to the practice of school children who were taught to trace letters as they learned to write and were told to not go beyond what was written in imitation of learning how to write properly.

This makes sense in Paul's context where he's trying to teach the Corinthians to follow his example.

Just a few verses later, Paul speaks of being a father to his children in the Corinthian church, and he implores his children to be imitators of him.

Or the phrase could be a warning to not go beyond the five Old Testament passages quoted in the previous chapters of First Corinthians, which is a view John Calvin held of the passage.

In his commentary on First Corinthians, Protestant scholar Anthony Thisleton offers seven possible interpretations of this phrase, none of which correspond to the modern doctrine of sola scriptura.

According to Bradley Bittner in his study of First Corinthians, In many ways, the history of scholarship on this verse resembles a demolition zone, littered with the debris of collapsed and tottering hypotheses.

The phrase not beyond what is written is surely the stone over which most interpreters have stumbled, and the one that has crushed the most hypotheses in the history of scholarship.

If your plan to prove sola scriptura is to cite a verse that baffles Protestant scholars and doesn't even mention scripture at all, then all I can say is-

Not a great plan.

Okay, so now let's go through Dr. Horton's survey of the church fathers before the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 and see if he can show that any of them taught sola scriptura.

First, he starts with Clement of Rome writing in the first century.

Clement, uh, I refer to, uh, Clement in his letter to the Cor- uh, so the, the Corinthians were still a mess, just as they were in Paul's day.

Uh, Clement is writing really on the heels of Paul, and, uh, he is upbraiding the Corinthians now because a bun- a bunch of young guys in the church have overthrown the presbytery, the elders, the, the, the ruling council of elders.

They, they have deposed them illegally, uh, contrary to the word of Christ.

So it's a disciplinary letter, um, and, and, and h- here he says, Let us put aside empty and vain cares and let us come to the glorious and venerable canon of our tradition.

He doesn't say canon and tradition.

He says the canon of our tradition.

This is a very confused response.

I think Dr. Horton is conflating Clement's use of the Greek word for rule or canon with the entire canon of scripture for the New Testament.

He seems to be saying that Clement was identifying the canon of scripture with tradition as if the two things, the canon of scripture and tradition, were synonymous.

This wouldn't be surprising because many Protestants claim without evidence that the unwritten traditions Paul mentions in Second Thessalonians or the traditions mentioned in the fathers are all identical to scripture, so appeals to tradition don't disprove sola scriptura in their paradigm.

But there is no way Clement was talking about the canon of scripture.

The Greek word canon just means rule, and it can refer to the rule of sacred writings, the canon of scripture, or to many other rules of faith.

Here's the passage in Clement.

Wherefore, let us give up vain and fruitless cares and approach to the glorious and venerable rule of our holy calling.

The original Greek says Ɣράμματοσ ἡμῶν κάνωνα.

Literally, rule tradition of us.

Clement was not saying the canon of scripture and the rule of tradition were the same thing.Clement doesn't even testify to the existence of a New Testament canon of writings, which contradicts what Dr. Horton says next.

He doesn't say canon and tradition, he says the canon of our tradition, the canon of the Christian faith.

He exhibits this by drawing support from Matthew, Luke, First Corinthians, Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Titus, First Timothy, and Hebrews with allusions to Acts, calling them Scripture.

And again, this is in the late first century.

This is absolutely false.

Clement only ever calls the Old Testament Scripture.

He never calls the New Testament writings Scripture and he never introduces a New Testament passage with the formula, It is written like he does for the Old Testament.

And his use of the New Testament is very limited.

According to Andrew Gregory in his article, First Clement and The Writings That Later Formed The New Testament, quote, The author of First Clement used First Corinthians and very likely indeed that he used Romans and Hebrews.

He appears also to have drawn on Jesus' traditions, but not in the form preserved in the Synoptic Gospels.

Beyond this, no firm conclusions may be drawn on the basis of evidence from the text of First Clement.

He also writes in another article, The author of First Clement appeals to words that he ascribes to Jesus, but he seems more likely that he draws on oral tradition than on a written source.

Clement quotes the words of the Lord Jesus, but he never says that those words come from a piece of Scripture or even a written document.

For Clement of Rome, the source of apostolic authority wasn't found in apostolic Scriptures.

It was found in the people the apostles chose to carry on their ministry.

Clement writes in section 44 of his letter, Our apostles also knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife on account of the office of the episcopate.

For this reason therefore, inasmuch as they had obtained a perfect foreknowledge of this, they appointed those ministers already mentioned and afterwards gave instructions that when these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed them in their ministry.

Clement of Rome is a horrible witness for Protestants to call upon in defense of sola Scriptura because Clement never attributes the revelation of the New Covenant to any form of writing.

Instead, the authority of the New Covenant lies with the very spoken words of Jesus Christ and the teachings of those who were the successors of the apostles.

We see something similar with Ignatius of Antioch, writing in AD 107, who I described in a previous episode as the Church Father Protestants fear the most.

Dr. Horton doesn't bother citing him, and with good cause, because instead of telling his audience to go to the Scriptures, Ignatius of Antioch tells them to, Follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles, and reverence the deacons as being the institution of God.

Let no man do anything connected with the church without the bishop.

Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist which is administered either by the bishop or by one to whom he has entrusted it.

Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude of the people also be, even as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.

I, I can move on to the Muratorian fragment in, uh, 170 AD which provided a list of canonical Scripture allowed to be read in church.

Now, there was no reason for a, a list until heretics came along and liked to add their own cartoonish versions of the Gospel.

And so now churches had to say, No, those have never been allowed to be read in church.

Allowed to be read in church in public worship was a sign that it's the word of God.

Remember, Paul told Timothy not only to preach the Word but to read the Scriptures.

And so the public reading of the Scriptures was a very important part of liturgy and that w- that already is a canon.

It's a working, functioning canon.

Defining what Scripture is doesn't mean a Church Father or the entire church at a point in history believed in sola Scriptura.

This is a problem that will come up again and again in Dr. Horton's critique.

Any time he finds in the Church Fathers a mention of Scriptura, he assumes the person endorses sola Scriptura.

The argument goes like this: Hey, this Church Father said go to the Scriptures for truth, or even, This Church Father called a New Testament writing 'Scripture,' therefore he believed in sola Scriptura.

I mean, look what Dr. Horton says about Saint Polycarp.

Polycarp, a disciple of John, quotes many passages of Scripture, especially Ephesians and the Psalms, as equal.

Ephesians, New Testament, Psalms, of course Old Testament, quotes them as Scripture.

The same is true of the letters of Clement.

I quote lots of things as Scripture, but that doesn't mean I believe in sola Scriptura just because I believe in Scriptura.

Aside from that, in my book The Case for Catholicism, I argue that the Muratorian fragment probably comes from the fourth century, but even if it's earlier, it lacks James, First and Second Peter, and Hebrews.

It also includes the Wisdom of Solomon from the Catholic Old Testament, as well as the Apocalypse of Peter, noting there was a debate over whether it should be read in churches.

First Clement itself was read in the churches, so there was no universal consensus on the canon in the second century for Protestants to go back to to show our knowledge of the canon does not require binding church authority.

This is why when he was a Lutheran, the scholar Jaroslav Pelikan said, In the ante-Nicene Church, there was no notion of sola Scriptura.

What about Saint Irenaeus who writes at the end of the second century?

I showed in my original episode that Irenaeus says the apostles preserve the true Gospel and this is found in Scripture, but Irenaeus never said doctrine is only found in Scripture.

Neither did he articulate anything resembling sola Scriptura.

Here's what Dr. Horton said in his reply.

In fact, Irenaeus goes on to say it's the Gnostics who proffer oral tradition.

Jesus spoke to our favorite apostle, Mary Magdalene, or Judas, or Peter.

Uh, and, and we have this oral tradition and Irenaeus says, There is No, we have the scriptures.

Now, the tradition is laid down in the written word, the Holy Scriptures, and don't go beyond that.

So we have the canon of scripture emerging from a gospel, from Genesis to Revelation.

That's what Irenaeus emphasizes more than anything else, that, that, uh, the whole Bible he says is a mosaic.

He also uses the analogy of a symphony.

Whereas the Gnostics, all they do is a cacophony.

Uh, the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation, you piece it together and it's a mosaic of Christ.

Except Saint Irenaeus said that the heretics were really good at taking scripture and rearranging it to mean something else in the same way that a vandal can rearrange a sacred mosaic.

Here's what Irenaeus wrote, By transferring passages and dressing them up anew and making one thing out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions.

Their manner of acting is just as if one when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skillful artist out of precious jewels should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox.

Irenaeus did not believe that Christians should follow scripture alone as their ultimate authority.

He said that the Gnostic heretics, quote, Consent neither to scripture nor to tradition, and, quote, We refer them to that tradition which originates from the apostles and which is preserved by means of the successions of presbyters in the churches.

Irenaeus then tells his readers, quote, It is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the church, those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the apostles, those who together with the succession of the episcopate have received the certain gift of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father.

The historian Ellen Vleeswet van Leer, who is often quoted by Protestant apologists, says that for Irenaeus, quote, Tradition and scripture are both quite unproblematic.

They stand independently side by side, both absolutely authoritative, both unconditionally true, trustworthy, and convincing.

Clement of Alexandria in the second century said, The ecclesiastical canon is the concord and symphony of the law and the prophets in the covenant delivered at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here's what Clement of Alexandria wrote, You may take music in another way, as the ecclesiastical symphony at once of the law and the prophets and the apostles along with the gospel.

Yeah, the Bible is music to my ears too, but that isn't sola scriptura.

In fact, Clement of Alexandria said it was necessary, quote, To ascertain by way of demonstration by the scriptures themselves how the heresies failed and how in the truth alone and in the ancient Church is both the exactest knowledge and the truly best set of principles.

Even Origen, not my favorite theologian, says, We understand the truth if we listen to Paul's words as the very words of God.

And he says, Do not go beyond the canon even through teachers like me.

If I stray from the canon, then I stray from the rule of faith.

And that's the thing, rule of faith, it was like an early creed, a summary of the Bible.

It wasn't another authority alongside the Bible.

It was only authoritative because it was the consensual reading of the Bible by the Church, over against the heresies who were contradicting it.

The fact that the Bible is so clear that it can be summarized by the whole Church.

Ironically, Dr. Horton exalts the early creeds in the Church and he even wrote an entire book on the Apostles' Creed called We Believe: Recovering the Essentials of the Apostles' Creed.

But while the Apostles' Creed mentions the necessity of believing in the Holy Catholic Church, the Apostles' Creed never mentions believing in scripture, which is strange if the apostles thought that scripture was the Church's ultimate rule of faith.

Origen and the early Church valued scripture, but in First Principles, Origen also said this, The teaching of the Church transmitted in orderly succession from the apostles and remaining in the churches to the present day is still preserved.

That alone is to be accepted as truth which differs in no respect from ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition.

And he wrote, We must point out the ways of interpreting them, the scriptures, which appear correct to us, who cling to the standard of the heavenly Church of Jesus Christ according to the succession of the apostles.

The Bible is clear in many parts, but it also lacks clarity on very important questions.

For example, are we obligated as Christians to baptize infants?

Protestants don't agree, which shows the Bible is not clear on this important issue.

But Origen had clarity because he did not rely on the Bible alone as his ultimate authority.

Origen writes, The churches received the tradition from the apostles to give baptism even to little children for they to whom the secrets of the divine mysteries were committed were aware that in everyone was original sin's innate defilement which needed to be washed away through water and the Spirit.

Tertullian says that, Scripture itself is not obscure.

Here's what he says, When you read Talking to laypeople, When you read, you can have my same level of understanding of the mystery of Christ.

We have, however, put these opinions of the heretics to the test, both of the arguments which sustain them and of the scriptures which are appealed to, and this we have done abundantly.

Notice both the orthodox and the heretics appealed to the scriptures.

Even the heretics had to appeal to the scriptures in order to twist them.

The scriptures had a place in the true Church that was su-So distinct from any authority that even the heretics had to use Bible verses to try to prove their theories.

Of course they did, and that's the problem with sola scriptura.

Just because you have the Bible doesn't mean you have a complete theology, because a heretic can just manipulate the Bible to say all kinds of nutty stuff.

That's why Tertullian also said when debating heretics, quote, Our appeal, therefore, must not be made to the scriptures.

And he said, We, without the scriptures, prove that these heretics have nothing to do with the scriptures.

The Protestant historian J. N. D. Kelly said, Tertullian did not confine the apostolic tradition to the New Testament.

This unwritten tradition he considered to be virtually identical with the rule of faith, which he preferred to scripture as a standard when disputing Gnostics.

The problem of heretics twisting scripture, and thus the need for an ultimate authority beyond scripture, comes up all throughout church history.

There is the Mosaic example from Irenaeus that I mentioned earlier, but also consider this quote from Saint Jerome on debating the Luciferian heretics.

He wrote, Let them not flatter themselves if they think they have scripture authority for their assertions, since the devil himself quoted scripture, and the essence of the scriptures is not the letter, but the meaning.

In the 16th century, Johann Eck, who debated Martin Luther at Leipzig, told Luther, Martin, there is no one of the heresies which have torn the bosom of the church which has not derived its origin from the various interpretation of the scripture.

The Bible itself is the arsenal whence each innovator has drawn his deceptive arguments.

This is why in the fifth century, Saint Vincent of Lorenz wrote the following.

Therefore, it is very necessary on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation.

And while Dr. Horton cites Jerome in favor of sola scriptura, consider this passage from Saint Jerome about the authority of the universal church in matching the authority of scripture.

Jerome wrote, Even if it did not rest on the authority of scripture, the consensus of the whole world in this respect would have the force of a command, for many other observances of the churches, which are due to tradition, have acquired the authority of the written law.

Finally, Dr. Horton makes this analogy to the US Supreme Court that completely undermines his case for sola scriptura.

So you have a teaching authority, it's ministerial, and you have a canonical authority.

It's sort of like the Constitution and the courts.

Uh, in our country, you know, we have courts that, that, that consider cases, actual cases of, uh, of, uh, challenges to the, the Constitution.

It's the Constitution that literally constitutes the people, and then the courts don't make up the Constitution.

The courts interpret the Constitution and apply it.

And that's what we have church courts doing.

It's not like everybody, uh, uh, each one of us running around, uh, deciding what we're gonna believe, uh, how we're going to live.

Have you seen modern Protestantism?

This analogy would only work if we said the Constitution is alone the ultimate authority for our country, and no institution has a unique authority to interpret it.

So yeah, under that view, maybe the Supreme Court says the Constitution means this, but my state or even my household says the Constitution means that instead.

And so we're just gonna ignore what the Supreme Court said and follow our own court's interpretation of the document.

You'd have absolute chaos if the founding fathers gave us a Constitution but did not delegate who had the unique authority to interpret the Constitution.

Likewise, we agree the Catholic Church did not create scripture, but the Catholic Church does authoritatively declare what is scripture, and it declares which doctrines cohere or contradict scripture.

That's why going all the way back to the third century, you have Saint Cyprian of Carthage proclaiming the necessity of the church, not just for personal affirmation, but for salvation, because it is through the church that the deposit of faith is safeguarded and the sacraments that nourish our souls like the Eucharist are communicated.

Cyprian writes the following.

Whoever is separated from the church and is joined to an adulteress is separated from the promises of the church, nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ.

He is a stranger.

He is profane.

He is an enemy.

He can no longer have God for his father who has not the church for his mother.

I hope this episode was helpful for you today.

If you'd like more resources on sola scriptura, I recommend the anthology Not By Scripture Alone and Sola Scriptura Doesn't Work.

And hopefully in the future, I can sit down with Dr. Horton and maybe we can have an in-person chat to explore the doctrine of sola scriptura, as well as our disagreements and maybe some surprising agreements on this issue.

Thank you so much for watching, and I hope you have a very blessed day.