Uber-Mega Dividing Line: Sola Scriptura, and Islamic Denials of the Deity of Christ

And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. Nothing on the screen up there to tell me that we're live, but that's okay. I just got to learn to run with it one way or the other. Thanks for joining us today on the program.

There we go. Now we can see what's going on. And we have some important stuff to get to today. I am not going to spend any time whatsoever talking about political debates or the insanity going on on Twitter or elsewhere.

Just not going to do it. There are far more important things, things that are going to be relevant one year, ten years, twenty years down the road when all of this, all these shenanigans have gone away.

And I am looking forward to that time personally. Anyway, what happened was last Friday, we had a funeral for a faithful listener to The Dividing Line, someone who had done baking and stuff and sold stuff just to help support our trips to South Africa and things like that.

So we were at the funeral on Friday. Afterwards, I went by and visited my grandkids. And then on the way home, bad timing as far as when to drive home across Phoenix. There are two major freeways and they become parking lots between about 4 and 6 p .m. basically.

So I'm stuck in very, very, very slow moving traffic. And so I frequently do tune into Catholic Answers Live when it's on. Catholic Answers has changed over the years. They're not nearly so much into apologetics as they once were.

Now they really broaden things out a lot. And so sometimes the programs are not relevant at all. But just a few weeks ago, remember, I played the section on the priest and talked about the priesthood and things like that.

And so we do listen once in a while. Well, they had someone on that if I've heard him before, it didn't register with me. But a fellow by the name of Carlo Broussard. He's from Louisiana. He calls himself a Cajun.

And the discussion technically was, and I haven't seen any video clips appear. I've been watching the Catholic Answers YouTube feed. So none of this somehow ended up on the YouTube feed. I'm not sure why.

But the topic was, were the apostles Bible-only Christians? Now, that caught my attention immediately. And so the discussion was specifically an attack upon Sola Scriptura. Now, historically speaking, you need to recognize the very first moderated public debate that I ever did was in a Roman Catholic church in Long Beach in August of 1990, 26 years ago, sponsored by Catholic Answers.

I debated Mr. Jerry Matitix. Now, Catholic Answers would like to forget that Jerry Matitix was ever their primary star convert and debater and stuff like that since he's gone on to an interesting career in other perspectives, shall we say.

But that was the first debate. And it was on Sola Scriptura, August 1990. January of 1991, we then did two debates in Phoenix, one at Northwest Community Church on perseverance of the saints, the second on the papacy at a Catholic location out in Tempe or City of the Lord, I think is what it was called.

And especially the second on the papacy went really, really well. And that sort of started things. And today, it's a little bit difficult to get debates. I even extended to Carlo Broussard after listening to him.

I extended an invitation to come on the program. I hope he will listen to this. I even said to him, I found you to be an excellent speaker. He's got good control of his materials, and he seems very passionate.

I imagine I'd like to meet him and talk with him at some point. But he had to decline because it's, like I said, it's not the 1980s anymore. And things have changed from the Catholic Answers perspective a little bit.

But as I listened to the presentation, I was struck once again by the fact that it's been a while since we went over these things. And in light of what we've been talking about recently with Andy Stanley and Frank Turek and William Lane Craig and Mike Licona, and the fact that one's bibliology is fundamental to one's apologetic, I thought, you know, it's been too long since we took a serious look at Sola Scriptura.

We have so many more people following the ministry now, listening to the program, watching the webcast. There are few things that I could do for our audience that would be more helpful, more foundationally helpful in so many areas, not just the area of Roman Catholicism, though I'll be honest with you.

When we tackle Roman Catholic subjects, we get incredible response. We really do. People are dealing with this issue regularly. And so I started thinking about it. I said, you know, it's going to take some time.

It's going to take some effort, might result in some long programs, but we're sort of getting used to long programs. I've been doing a lot of them recently. I'm building up my endurance. Normally, the endurance is, you know, five and a half hours on a bike, but not normally just sitting here.

That kind of endurance isn't quite the kind of endurance we need. Yes? I was going to say, I don't think we've... In 1998, when we went back on the air on KPXQ, was the last time you actually did an extensive series on Sola Scriptura.

If I'm remembering this, the archive's right. Yeah, a series, maybe. We've reviewed some debates and stuff like that. But yeah, it's been a while. And so I want to prove my point here. And so I'd like to ask the audience to do, like I said, if I could grab, you know, if Catholic Answers would make available to me, if they have it, the video of last Friday's first hour, I'd use it.

I'm not trying to hide anything from you. You can get the audio on the podcast feed on iTunes. That's where I got it. But I looked. I would rather be showing you this than just playing it for you. Though, I will confess, using Audio Notetaker, it's easier for me to do it that way.

There's no question about that. But I want to play for you just a few minutes from the beginning of the program where Patrick Hoffman, the host, and Carla Broussard talk about 2 Timothy 3, 16. Because I would assume that most people, when challenged on the subject of Sola Scriptura, would default to the citation of the Apostle Paul, all Scripture is theopnistos, it is profitable for doctrine and teaching, reproof and correction, that the man of God may be sufficient is actually an appropriate translation of the term there, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Most people would, at least people in this audience, would default to the citation of that. And we have dealt with this issue for a very, very, very long time. You will note extensive discussions of these texts in the Roman Catholic Controversy.

I'm going to look at some other books here in a few minutes. But a lot of people spend a lot of time dealing with Roman Catholic apologists or those who've been influenced by those apologists. And so I'd like you to listen to the conversation and ask yourself the question, how would I respond?

Now, we're going to be looking rather in depth at the subject of Sola Scriptura. There was nothing said on the Catholic Answers webcast on Friday that, trust me, we haven't heard before. These are debates we've had with Jerry Matitix and Patrick Madrid and Jimmy Akin on the Bible Answer Man.

It wasn't really a debate, just a discussion. And I'm going to play you a clip from my debate with Mitchell Pacwa on Sola Scriptura from 1999. I'm thinking right now, I think Carlo Broussard was about 17 when Mitch Pacwa and I had that debate, actually.

So we've been through this many, many times. And I'll admit, one of the things that does concern me is the Roman Catholics don't seem to take the time to listen to the other side and change their arguments.

Because they're sufficient. No, no, they're really not. And we'll demonstrate that. I think we will provide a pretty full refutation of everything Carlo Broussard said. Everything. Every text he brought up, the Hawaiian Yards.

And it's not by coming up with new stuff. It's not like, oh, we haven't thought about this before. This is stuff that a couple of these books I've got over here are hundreds of years old. And they addressed all this stuff long, long time ago.

Long time ago. But how many Protestants are reading these books? How many non-Roman Catholics are reading some of these books over there and some of the other church fathers that we'll be citing and things like that?

So lots to deal with today. And then I'm not sure how long ago on Sola Scriptura, but I was sent a video from a Muslim source on the deity of Christ. And what we're going to do is what we've done in the past sometimes.

Cold watch. I may have watched, you may have about 45 seconds, said, yeah, the quality of this is good enough. Let's do it. Haven't watched the rest of it. So we're going to, I'm going to try to find the time to just play it and respond to it straight up.

I haven't even looked at myself. Just enough to go, okay, this isn't just some guy sitting there with a single camera shoot. It's good graphics, stuff like that. High quality. Let's respond to it. Where allegedly the Bible doesn't teach Jesus is God.

Well, we know it does without any doubt. So pretty confident that just simply hearing it for the first time, we'll be able to provide a rather full response to that particular video. So let's listen to this presentation on 2 Timothy 3 .16.

Ask yourself the question, how would you respond? Yes, I'm playing it at 1 .2 rather than 1 .0 so we can get done just a little bit sooner. Here is Patrick Coffin and Carlo Broussard discussing Sola Scriptura.

That's one.

The one you selected I think is important because it seems on the face of it, if you read it once through, that maybe the Catholic position is the shakier one. 2 Timothy 3, if you've got a Bible there, if you're driving, don't do this.

If you're home or if you're otherwise able to. 2 Timothy 3 15 -17. What are those three verses? Yeah, actually it kind of starts in verse 16.

All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Now, this text is parsed out in a couple of ways.

Some Protestants will look at this in verse 16 and say, well, you see, scripture says it's sufficient for teaching and bringing us to completion and perfection, when in actuality it says it's profitable as the Revised Standard Version here translates it.

The Greek word there is ophelimos, and it doesn't mean scripture is sufficient in the sense that nothing else is needed. It simply means profitable. If St. Paul wanted to teach that scripture was sufficient, all-encompassing, of including everything that we need to be perfect Christians, then he could have used the Greek word archaeo, which he uses in 2 Corinthians 12, verse 9, when he talks about how Jesus says, my grace is sufficient for you.

So the scripture is profitable, not sufficient. Now, many Protestants will look to the second part of the text and argue that this passage supports the Protestant doctrine of because it says scripture is profitable for the man of God to be complete, the Greek word there being artios.

And then he goes on to say that men of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. So the argument goes, we don't need anything else to be complete and perfected as a man or woman of God. Therefore, this passage teaches sola scriptura, but nothing could be further from the truth because, Patrick, if we follow that hermeneutical approach, if we follow that logic, well, then we're also going to have to say that all we need is patience in order to be complete and perfected, because James writes in James 1 .4, let steadfastness have its full effect or patience, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Now, the Greek word there for perfect and complete is not artios, it's teleos, from which we get the word teleology, but it means the same thing, complete, mature manhood. So if we're going to use the logic that Protestants used from 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17, well, then we're going to have to say, all we need is patience, because patience makes us complete and perfect, lacking in nothing.

But of course, that would be an absurd conclusion. So just because scripture is profitable and helpful in leading us to completion, perfection, equipping us for every good work, doesn't mean that we don't need the church, the authoritative church, an infallible teaching authority.

It doesn't mean we don't need the sacred tradition, etc. And I like to put it like this, Patrick, you know, I like to go to the gym and throw some weights around. I love lifting weights, but you know what?

Lifting weights is useful for being healthy, but it's not sufficient, amen? As you know, you also have to diet correctly. You also have to do that darn cardiovascular workout, which I don't like very much.

So just because something is profitable or useful, doesn't mean it's all sufficient to the exclusion of other things that are also.

Profitable for the in-go that we're trying to achieve. Okay, so there's your presentation. How would you respond to Carlo Broussard? He's throwing Greek around, and of course, that caught my attention immediately.

And how would you respond? I believe that certainly, in regards to the Trinity, soteriology, and bibliology, specifically the sufficiency due to the nature of Scripture. It's interesting later in the program, they'll admit there is an ontological difference between the nature of Scripture and sacred tradition.

I think it completely destroys the entirety of their argument, and I don't think they realize just how important this is. But it is the nature of Scripture as the sole example of Theanoustos' revelation in the possession of the Church today that is the foundation of the doctrine of the Sola Scriptura.

But the great advantage that modern Roman Catholic apologists have had in this area is that the vast majority of people they're talking to don't know what the doctrine is. And therefore, when they define it, they get to, in essence, misdefine it.

For example, asking if the apostles were Bible-only Christians. The apostles were revelation. How could they be? You would think that would be obvious, but the vast majority of people don't catch it and go, no, no, no.

The issue is today. You and I agree there's no more revelation. So the question is, for the Church today, what is the sole infallible rule of faith based ontologically on what it is? And they have to agree, the only thing we have that is ontologically Theanoustos, God-breathed, is Scripture.

Hence, it has to have the highest authority. There cannot be anything that is equal to it. But they'll say, well, in reality, the written and the oral are actually equal. Well, no, they're not. Because now you're going back to a period that you don't exist in anymore.

And you're trying to, well, basically, you know, sort of put one over on us so you can insert your teachings, which you cannot trace back to the apostles. But the teachings that have come forth from the authority of the magisterium and centuries later have nothing to do with the apostles at all.

You want to make those binding upon us, and this is the way you do it. And you get away with it because the vast majority of folks on our side have never really thought through what these issues are. We need to do that.

Now, we are going to do that. We're going to define this stuff, and we're going to spend time on this and everything else. And one of the really tricky things is I'm even going to present you with keynote slides somehow, if I can figure out how to do that, that will assist us in this particular task.

But first, I want to talk a little bit about how am I going to project that? Let's see what happens if I hit play. Oh, that's going to cause a mess. We should have practiced this earlier. Sorry about that.

Trying to tell the computer, look over at this now and keynote. Yeah, but if I go like this, something tells me it's going to get all messed up. Do you have? Well, I don't know. Yeah, it's the wrong window.

A little inside baseball here, folks. We'll just show you what we're doing. Because see, until you hit the thing. You don't have a presenter view? That's what it's showing you is a presenter view. It's not showing you what it's supposed to be.

See, if you were using a Windows machine. I'm afraid desktop presenter doesn't like it. I can't hear you. You're talking to yourself right now. You can just toggle over to it. You're still talking to yourself.

I cannot hear you. So we will figure out something eventually. And it's not going to look as pretty as it could otherwise. So anyways, too late for that. All right. But before I get to all that, there are lots of resources on this subject.

And unfortunately, they're not at the top seller list. And they're not going to be really easy necessarily to find. This is not a new subject. This has been a subject that's been around for a long, long time.

And so you go back to shortly after Reformation, you got William Whitaker's book. This is still being published. Sully Dale Glory Publications. I'm not sure if Sully Dale took this back or if Ligonier has it or who has it right now.

But Disputations on Holy Scripture by William Whitaker. Rather major tome of material here that will address the subject of Sola Scriptura in a very useful fashion. Goods, G-O-O-D-E's three volume.

I don't have that in here with me right now. I only have it in photocopy format. Another demonstration that this has been a subject that has been addressed rather in depth for a lengthy period of time.

At the time of the apostasy of Cardinal Newman, well, he became Cardinal Newman, George Salmon's book, The Infallibility of the Church. Also a very, very useful volume. Mine is highly, highly marked up.

Great resources here. Again, these are books that would be rather difficult for people to locate these days, to be perfectly honest with you. We have William Whitaker available. When we come to canon issues, a few that we have in the bookstore would include William Webster's book, The Old Testament Canon and the Apocrypha.

Real interesting discussions, especially in regards to the fact that one of the issues that will demonstrate Rome's errors here is the fact that you do not have a dogmatic definition of the canon of Scripture until 1546.

And yet the argument will be, well, without the church's authority, we can't know what Scripture is. Well, then the church didn't know what Scripture was until 1546. Well, there are lesser councils. You never let us hold you accountable for non-ecumenical councils, but then you want to use 382 or Hippo or Carthage or something and all of a sudden change that rule?

It's got to be consistent. You do not have a dogmatic statement. In fact, I can show you that the popes of Rome, the bishops of Rome did not view the Apocrypha books as inspired. So what are you going to do after 382?

So the Apocrypha is a real problem for the Roman Catholic Church because the idea that Rome can define canon comes back to bite her and to demonstrate the problems here. Speaking of that, Roger Beckwith, not Frank Beckwith, Roger Beckwith, the Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church, this is not easy reading.

You saw me recommend this during the Hebrew-Israelite debate when we were talking about the Apocrypha, what the Jewish people accepted as Scripture, the process that, you know, this is heavy scholarly stuff, but it's a tremendous resource on that particular subject, also available at AOMN .org.

And then in the modern context, Michael Kruger's books, this is just one of them. I didn't grab the other one. Sorry about that. But he has two, actually. This is the hardback version of Canon Revisited, and then there's a second that's come out since then by Michael J. Kruger, excellent theological works on the subject of the canon of Scripture because canon is an issue that we will be getting into.

Carlo did bring it up. He didn't say a lot about it, but he did say that it was a necessary sacred tradition outside of Scripture, which is going to raise all sorts of problems for him down the road. I did not get any feeling in listening to his statements that he has listened to debates where this actually was fleshed out and the real problems that this presents to the Roman Catholic were brought out.

But anyway, I mentioned that I addressed Sola Scriptura in the Roman Catholic Controversy and, of course, in Scripture Alone. More fully, the canon issues in Scripture Alone and things like that, but both books address the issue of canonicity.

And then, of course, the three-volume set available through the ministry as well. David King, William Webster, Holy Scripture, the Ground and Pillar of Our Faith. So you have a biblical defense of Sola Scriptura, you have a historical defense of Sola Scriptura.

Volume 3 is nothing but patristic citations in regards to the subject of the Scriptures, the principle of Sola Scriptura. You need to realize that Roman Catholics, especially Catholic answers, sort of thought church history is ours when they first started.

Most of the people that were debating, Calvary Chapel pastors and stuff like that, really didn't bring a historical perspective or see themselves, you know, most modern evangelicals don't see themselves.

And obviously, I've spoken against this many times, but don't see themselves in that stream and hence rarely bring up citations from patristic sources and things like that. We sort of changed that, especially in that debate for the first time in January of 1991 on the papacy, and the landscape has never been the same, to be perfectly honest with you.

So those are issues. These are resources that are available to you for much more in-depth reading and study on this subject. It is a vitally important one as well. All right. So with that said, I guess, you know what?

I wonder what happens if I do that. That's probably still just a mess. My concern is that you may be still getting the presenter screen. It's the whole screen. Yeah. Technical difficulties here. Yeah, that's a bit too big.

If you can find a way to tinker with that. I can't. No, it's not possible. I'll take that down. So all I'll be able to show you is the production screen, which isn't ideal, but it's the best we can do.

Let me zoom in on that. Well, you do what you need to do. All right. So let's take a look at the subject of solo scriptura first, because we need to define what the issue is and what it is not. In the vast majority of instances where people get themselves into trouble, it's because they are defending a concept that they shouldn't be defending in the first place.

It's because they have been forced into believing that solo scriptura means that the scripture contains all truth and here's a truth that's found outside of scripture. Therefore, solo scriptura is wrong.

Or solo scriptura doesn't tell us what color Matthew's eyes were or what the apostolic meals were on the night of April in the second year of Jesus's ministry. And therefore, solo scriptura is wrong. So many misrepresentations that what is required is an accurate understanding of what's actually said.

This is also vitally important because we have yet to get a Roman Catholic apologist to defend the other side of this issue. They only want to attack solo scriptura. I have not found any Roman Catholic apologist, and we've been debating now for 26 years, who will defend positively the Roman Catholic side.

We've done the papacy. But the idea of defending the nature of tradition, they realize this isn't going to work. This is a dangerous place to go, because the reality is many of the arguments they're using in solo scriptura are equally effective.

You've heard Patrick Madrid's argument that solo scriptura is the blueprint for anarchy. It's led to all this disagreement and all this difficulty in understanding what people believe. But the reality is that an argument like that is just as effective against Rome.

I mean, look at the differences between Benedict and Francis, how vastly different they are. And they're allegedly the vicars of Christ. Look at how different the teaching found in Catholic Answers Live is from what you would get at Boston College.

And yet, they're both Roman Catholics. You mean the magisterium isn't clear enough to provide clarity on these issues? So, we have yet to get anyone. The closest anyone's ever come, you've got to give him props, is Bob St. Genes.

He's the closest anyone's come. St. Genes was willing to defend the bodily assumption of Mary. Nobody else will touch the Marian doctrines, the ten-foot pole. They'll only do the ancient ones. Jerry Matitix and I did the Marian dogmas in 1996 or 97, somewhere around there.

And then he and I did the Immaculate Conception years later at the University of Utah, which is a really weird place to be debating that particular subject. But anyway. But getting any of the mainstream Catholic apologists today to actually step up and defend the things that have been declared as dogma on the basis of sacred tradition by the Roman Church, papal infallibility, the Immaculate Conception, bodily assumption of Mary, next to impossible.

Next to impossible, because they know that these things are really not defensible outside of already having accepted their fundamental claims of authority. And if you don't, well, there you go. So let's take a look at what it really does say.

Let's think about some of the objections that people would have. One of the texts we'll be looking at later on, 2 Thessalonians 2 .15. So then, brethren, stand firm and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.

So clearly what you have here, we are told by Roman Catholics, is, and in fact, I could have pulled up Jerry Matitix on Long Island. And I remember very clearly in the second debate that we did, he stood up in front of the people and he presented this particular text.

And he said, here is an explicit biblical command that you Protestants are not obeying. You are not obeying this command. And you are only holding to half of it, because it says, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth, which you're not doing, that's the oral tradition, or by letter from us.

All you're doing is you're holding to that latter part of the command. So you're only obeying half of it. And we Roman Catholics, we are holding to all of it. There's where you have the argumentation.

And it is true that Carlo will go to this. I can play it for you, but we'll get to that a little bit later on after we've sort of defined things. But the first time that I was ever asked about a Roman Catholic position on this subject of authority was at an outreach dinner on a Monday night at the Large Baptist Church.

I was a member of that time many, many years ago, and it was about Second Thessalonians 2 .15. If you want to be prepared to deal with this subject with Roman Catholics, with someone who's been listening to Catholic Answers Live for a while, these are texts you need to know, have memorized, know the context, be ready to give a meaningful response to.

Just no question about that whatsoever. How could the early church have functioned by Sola Scriptura? God's Word was often in oral form even during periods of the history of the nation of Israel. When we think back to Jeremiah, there would be times when the Word of God that came to Jeremiah was in oral form before it was in written form.

Doesn't that deny Sola Scriptura? This requires us to understand what Sola Scriptura is. This requires us to understand why we believe what we believe about it. We're also asked, for example, how do you know Matthew wrote Matthew?

How do you know Matthew belongs in the canon while Thomas does not? How can you have a fallible listing of infallible books? I'm putting a bunch of stuff here together just so you have a sense of just how many attacks there are and how they touch upon a wide spectrum of things and why therefore it's so valuable in so many different areas, not just dealing with Roman Catholicism but dealing with Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses or Islam or Atheists.

Understanding Sola Scriptura is vital to a balanced Christian life, let alone a balanced Christian apologetic. And I think we're seeing what's happening in our day when you don't have that foundation.

It's easy to go the wrong direction. So I remember the worst debate I've ever heard in my life. I haven't heard it for years. I don't know if I could even find it. I think I have seen that cheapy plastic cassette tape box somewhere in a box.

I think it's still around. Yeah, yeah. But I would love to find the tape. Well, I'm not sure that I would love to find it. It might cause me to ride off the road in the dark screaming. But here's what happened.

In 1993, the Pope came to Denver for World Youth Day. And when we heard the Pope was coming, we contacted Catholic Answers and we said, hey, the Pope's coming to Denver, how about we debate in Denver on the papacy?

And the response from Carl Keating and Patrick Madrid was, you know, the Holy Father is coming. And we don't consider this to be a time of debate. And this is a time of rejoicing. So why don't you contact Gerry Madetik?

I'm not sure they'd even admit today that they said, why don't you contact Gerry Madetik? But they did. And so we did. And that resulted in the two-night debate in 1993 between myself and Gerry Madetik, the first night at Denver Seminary, the second night at Presbyterian Church there locally, about seven, seven and a half hours worth of debate on the papacy.

Well, very interestingly, shortly after we announced that Gerry and I were doing those debates, all of a sudden, here comes an announcement that Carl Keating and Patrick Madrid are debating in Denver on the same night as the first night of our debate.

Now, how did that happen? And they debated Ron Jackson, no, Bill Jackson and Ron Nemec. Bill Jackson and Ron Nemec. Now, I've never met either one. You know, I knew something about Bill Jackson had been dealing with Roman Catholicism for a while, but I didn't know either one.

We get back from Colorado and I'm sent a tape of this debate. It was, honestly, it was as bad as listening to the debate between Achmed Didot and Jimmy Swagger. Oh, yeah, it was bad. It was, oh, it was really, really bad.

It was so bad that the Catholics had a, what we call a Catholic altar call in the parking lot after the debate to call people to come back to Rome. It was just horrible. Jackson and Nemec were completely unprepared, completely not up to the task.

But the arguments that were used against them were not good arguments at all. That's what led to the debate between myself and Patrick Madrid a few months later in San Diego. Though it's fascinating to compare the difference in Patrick Madrid's presentation against me as the one that was made against them.

In other words, they were willing to change their arguments based upon the level of the person they were debating. So you'd use the cheapy arguments against someone you knew wasn't going to be a refuted, but then you didn't do that against someone who you knew would.

I won't do that. I don't think that's right. I would like to think maybe that Patrick Madrid wouldn't do that today. That would be cool if that were the case, but that's what happened. You can go back and listen to him.

I'll bet Patrick's got the tapes. I know we do somewhere. Anyhow, one of the questions that was asked by, if I recall correctly, it was Carl Keating of the other side was, how do you know Matthew wrote Matthew?

And the response from the Protestants was, because it says in my Bible, the gospel according to Matthew. Now, that was still an invalid argument. The papal biblical commission doesn't know that Matthew wrote Matthew.

The scholars that the Pope puts on this biblical commission, most of them don't think that Matthew wrote Matthew. So it really showed the difference between the apologists on the one side and the scholars on the other side when it comes to Roman Catholicism.

But the issue of canon, what about R .C. Sproul's statement that the biblical canon is a fallible listing of infallible books? How can you have a fallible listing of infallible books? What's the relationship between the canon and the ontological nature of scripture and stuff like that?

Again, that's why you need Kruger. And I address the same thing as scripture alone and things like that. And then, of course, solo scriptura leads to anarchy. Look at the 39 ,000 dominations. The world, that number just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

No one can agree on anything. It's all just personal opinion. Each man is his own pope. And so, very common argument. You'll find it in not by scripture alone. You'll find it throughout the history of this rock magazine when it existed.

A very, very common argumentation that is used. Unfortunately, it is just as valid against Roman Catholicism and its magisterium. Nearly every person featured on such television programs as the Coming Home Network, as a convert to Rome from non-Roman churches, and in particular, formerly evangelical converts, mentioned their inability to defend solo scriptura as central to acceptance of Roman authority and their conversion to Roman Catholicism.

And this is just a given. I'm not sure how many volumes ended up being in the Surprised by Truth series. I know of at least three. And in the first one that came out, if I recall correctly, I'm just going off the top of my head, but something like 11 out of 15 or something like that, mentioned solo scriptura as one of the primary reasons for their conversion to Roman Catholicism.

So, it is right there. So, let's define, after 42 minutes, finally, let's define solo scriptura since Rome rarely ever does so accurately. And that just is my experience. Look at its biblical basis, then put the shoe on the other foot and see where Roman Catholic apologists are loath to ever defend positively their own view of authority.

Solo scriptura, briefly stated, is simply this. Because the scriptures are the only example of God-breathed revelation in the possession of the church, they form the only infallible rule of faith for the church.

Okay? So, at its base, what we're going to keep coming to and what we're going to keep seeing as we interact with Carlo Broussard's comments and with others, we get down to the nitty-gritty. If you go watch my debate with Mitch Packer, I'm going to play you a clip.

When you listen to the dialogues and the debates and everything that has taken place, what you have to keep in mind is that there are two positions being presented. As I said, Rome is loath to show her hand.

She just wants to attack solo scriptura so that you, by default, have to accept her claims. She never wants to have to make a positive argument for her side because it's extremely complex. And once you hear it, you realize, wait a minute, you just borrowed a bunch of my beliefs that you were attacking earlier on.