Let me address a few of the responses that have been offered so far:
- "The Other Paul": Deuteronomy 8:3 proves Sola Scriptura. (Original Debate) {Attacking P3}
- Jimmy Akin: I agree that man lives by the word of God, but this includes God's word as passed down in writing and in oral tradition. Even in the Old Testament itself the word of God was passed on authoritatively by oral tradition.
- "The Other Paul": We can no longer discern which doctrines really came from the Apostles, so we must default to Scripture. (Original Debate) {Attacking P1}
- Jimmy Akin: This is an argument from history, not from Scripture. Further, the premise that apostolic doctrine is unknowable is not granted, and itself seems to presuppose Sola Scriptura.
- Jordan B. Cooper: Scripture presents itself as God-breathed, and is therefore unique and authoritative (2 Timothy 3:16). We are never told that anything else is God-breathed. The burden of proof is on non-Protestants to show that something else is God-breathed. (YouTube video)
- Response: To say that one thing is God-breathed does not imply that other things are not God-breathed. When 2 Tim 3:16 was written there were Apostles speaking God-breathed words, some of which were not yet written down, and some of which were never written down. Further, Cooper's claim about the burden of proof presupposes Sola Scriptura, and thus begs the question. Prima facie, we have no reason to believe that other things are not God-breathed, and therefore no reason to believe Sola Scriptura. If someone proved that something else were God-breathed then Sola Scriptura would be falsified, but independently of such a possibility Sola Scriptura is also falsified by being self-refuting. Finally, Sola Scriptura needs to exclude not only alternative inspired sources, but also alternative authoritative/infallible sources.
- Gavin Ortlund: "The scripture claims for itself to be theopneustos, to be God-breathed, to be unbreakable, to be Spirit-carried (2 Peter 1:20-21), and I don't believe that I have any good reason--from Scripture or from any other source--to believe that that kind of divine authority is present in any other location. It seems to me that that processing of reasoning itself would be sufficient to make you believe in Sola Scriptura." (YouTube video)
- Response: This is the same argument that Jordan Cooper makes, addressed above.
- New Kingdom Media: "So in Matthew 15 Jesus says that we cannot break the commandments of God for the sake of human tradition or teach as doctrines the commandments of men. So our Lord Jesus Christ there is giving us this idea that the only infallible authority, the only infallible teaching, is the word of God, not the words of men who are of course all fallible--that makes sense--and I think everyone agrees with that anyway so the only infallible teaching, the only infallible words are the words that come out of the mouth of God who's the basis of Truth itself..." "...Scripture, which is God's infallible word--God's divinely breathed-out word--never tells us where else we can go to hear God's voice..." "So if someone wants to claim that [something else] is God's divinely breathed out words, the burden of proof is on them to prove that. That's essentially the argument I'm making for Sola Scriptura." (YouTube video)
- Response: This is a combination of the second argument from "The Other Paul," and Jordan Cooper's argument, which are answered above.
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It seems like Jordan Cooper's argument is the one that everyone keeps going back to. The basic problem with this argument is that it does not get you all the way to
Sola Scriptura. Instead it gets you to the idea that Scripture is the highest-ranking source (whether or not other sources also achieve this level). But this is not sufficient to arrive at the "sola" part. It only tells us that Scripture is primary, not that it is 'alone'. Note that Catholics do not hold that other sources achieve the same rank as Scripture, but rather that tradition and the magisterium are authoritative and, in some cases, infallible.
Technically Cooper's argument reduces to an argument from ignorance:
1. Scripture is X.
2. We have no reason to believe that anything else is X.
3. Therefore, Scripture alone is X.
I hesitate to say exactly what "
X" is, but we need to substitute the right
X if we are to arrive at
Sola Scriptura. Generally I would want to use an
X of 'infallible', but we might also use 'authoritative', or even, if we want to prescind from the historical disputes, 'inspired' (for Catholics agree that Scripture is uniquely inspired, but the basis for this belief must be tradition rather than Scripture itself, since Scripture does not speak to the question).
Regardless, the problem is that this is an argument from ignorance, and premise (2) surely does not come from Scripture.
