A Defense of Sola Scriptura

Introduction to the Guest and the Topic of Sola Scriptura

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today I have a very special guest, Kenneth Samples from Reasons to Believe. And I got that right, right, Ken? Reasons to Believe, right?

That's correct, yeah. All right, good, I just wanna make sure I get all these apologetics ministry names, Reasons, Reasons for Faith, Reasons for This, Reasonable Faith, it can get a little confusing at times.

But yes, I have Kenneth Samples here with me from Reasons to Believe, and we're gonna be talking about a very, very important topic. As you know, the primary focus of this channel tends to be apologetics, broadly speaking, presuppositional apologetics, more narrowly speaking, and of course, I'm a Calvinist, I'm a Protestant, and I very much hold firmly to the solas of the Reformation, one of which is going to be the primary topic under discussion here today.

We're gonna be discussing a very important topic of sola scriptura, and so in just a few moments, I will have, is it Dr. Samples? No, it's I know most people don't care, but Just call him. Ken, okay.

Okay, well, okay. Well, in just a few moments, I'll have Ken on to kind of navigate, well, actually, I'll be leading the questions, but he'll be navigating the answers and how we might approach this very important topic of sola scriptura.

But first, just a couple of announcements. Tomorrow, I'll be moderating a debate between Chris Date and Michael Miano. Michael Miano might be a full preterist or a hyper-preterist, as it's sometimes called, and Chris Date takes a more orthodox view with regards to those issues and the resurrection.

So the topic of the debate is going to be will there be a physical resurrection? And so you guys definitely don't wanna miss that. That's gonna be set in Eastern time, and so that will be tomorrow. And then on the 13th, back on, those of you who really enjoyed our look at Dr. Ross interact with Jason Lyle, having kind of the Young Earth Creationist and Old Earth Creationist dialogue back and forth.

From that discussion, the plan was to get Dr. Ross on. Was able to get Dr. Lyle on as well. So we're gonna now stick to the original plan and we're gonna have just Dr. Ross to come on and answer some questions about Old Earth Creationism.

And so that's on the 13th. Also in September, I think it's engaged in a debate on the topic, does God exist? With regards to that. Also, one more thing, and then we will officially start. I think we're making very good time, right?

429, good. We just reached over 1 ,000 subscribers on YouTube. Still small, but growing rapidly. And we have unlocked the super chat feature on the YouTube channel. So if you're looking to support in any way financially, that would be greatly appreciated.

Of course, we know that God is sovereign and provides. And so your prayers also would be very, very much appreciated. With that said, why don't you introduce yourself and kind of give us a little bit of background on you, your ministry and what you do.

And then we'll jump right into the questions, Ken. Go for it. Yeah, Eli, thank you.

It's good to see you again. I appreciate you and appreciate your ministry very much. I'm on the scholar team at Reasons to Believe. Reasons to Believe is a science, faith, apologetic organization. Hugh Ross is both the founder and the president of the organization.

And I've worked there. Oh boy, I think I'm working on my 24th year. So it's been some time. I tend to be a little different in that I'm not a scientist. My background is in theology and philosophy. I grew up, I think I could probably describe it as a nominal Catholic.

And I thought for some time about being a Roman Catholic priest as I got older and took my faith a little more seriously. When I was in college, I began reading C .S. Lewis, met Walter Martin, and that kind of led me to move toward an evangelical Protestant faith.

So I've had a lot of interactions with thoughtful Catholics as well as thoughtful Eastern Orthodox. And I think that this is a very important topic. I would call this kind of inner Christendom apologetics, if you will, which I would differentiate a little bit from our typical discussion with skeptics and atheists.

But in my book, A World of Difference, I have a chapter on scripture. Part of that chapter addresses.

The question of sola scriptura. Very good. Now, would you identify yourself as a reformed Christian? Or would you take the label Calvinist? So perhaps you'll get a better context from your theological perspective.

Well, I would say this. I am first and foremost, a historic Christian, but I'm a reformed Anglican. And so my theology, I like the liturgy of the Anglican church. 39 articles are solidly Protestant. So you can call me a reformed Anglican.

And again, I try to extend, I try to emphasize truth, unity, and charity in all of my discussions. I don't always make it, but I try. All right. Well, you're pretty good at it. You're a pretty nice guy.

I've listened to some of your stuff. You're not the kind of guy that you, someone would wanna throw something at out of anger. So that's good. Thank you. You're welcome. All right, well, let's jump right in.

Some people have been pointing out to me that there was some audio issues on my part. I just removed my headpiece, which was also my microphone. So hopefully those audio issues are fixed. Let's jump right into our topic then.

Defining Sola Scriptura and What It Is Not

We're gonna be talking about Sola Scriptura. So why don't you explain to us what is Sola Scriptura and what isn't it? I know that thing that's a very important twofold way to approach. What is it and what it's not?

Why don't you lay that out for us, please?

Yeah, very important, Eli. I think sometimes it is misunderstood. I think sometimes Protestants don't always have a clear angle on it. And there are times where Catholic and Orthodox as well, I think, may not grasp the exact position.

First, let's talk a little bit about what Sola Scriptura is. You could think of it this way. Think of it theologically. God has revealed himself. He's revealed himself in the book of nature. That's general revelation.

He's revealed himself in special revelation. That's the inspired word of God, which would be the Bible. And the implication of God's word being inspired, we would get things like inerrancy, canonicity, as well as biblical authority.

So Sola Scriptura would, first of all, say that scripture is the final authority. I think that's a good way of putting it. Scripture is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice. And it implies its sufficiency.

It has no authoritative peer and its clarity. That doesn't mean everything in scripture is crystal clear. Doesn't mean you won't have to work at understanding the Bible, but Sola Scriptura implies really three things.

That scripture is the final authority, that it is essentially sufficient and a principle. The old word is perspicuity. We call it clarity. Now, what is it not? And I think sometimes this is even more important.

To affirm Sola Scriptura doesn't mean that there aren't other legitimate authorities. Creeds are authoritative, councils are authoritative, human reason, the laws of logic. So Sola Scriptura doesn't rule out those other subordinate norms.

Secondly, and this is important for our Catholic and Orthodox friends, Sola Scriptura doesn't repudiate the usefulness of tradition. But again, tradition would be recognized as a subordinate secondary norm in theology.

I think there are times Protestants don't recognize or emphasize that tradition plays an important role, but in Protestant classical position, it's always a subordinate role. Third, Sola Scriptura doesn't rule out the church fathers or church history as a whole.

There's a great resource found in the church fathers. I mean, I am a passionate appreciator of Athanasius, St. Augustine, even Thomas Aquinas. So it doesn't rule out our value of the church fathers. Fourth, it doesn't mean that all truth is found in the Bible or can only be found there.

I think historic Christianity emphasizes the two books idea. So there's the figurative book of nature. God is the writer of both of those books. When they're properly understood and interpreted, they will cohere.

And then fifth, Sola Scriptura doesn't deny that the word of God was initially in oral form. I mean, the apostles, when they were alive, were preaching, they were teaching. They had, of course, already the Old Testament, which was the inspired word of God.

But scripture was gradually and slowly written. And therefore, there was initially an oral element, but scripture is that final objective, only written word of God in the world.

Right, so the issue to say something to the effect of scripture or tradition is a false dichotomy, right? It's not like that we have to choose between the two, right? There is a fruitful relationship between scripture and tradition, but it's just that we don't hold tradition as kind of that final authority, as you said, with regards to scripture, is that correct?

Yeah, I think there's a way of kind of picturing it, if you will, in my own studies of Catholicism and orthodoxy. I think that the Protestant position, if you think of scripture and tradition as boxes, I would put the box of tradition on the bottom and the box of scripture on top.

Scripture is the supreme authority, the final court of appeals. I think the Catholic position, as I understand it, would reverse it. In the Catholic tradition, you have, of course, it is affirmed that you have apostolic tradition, oral tradition, they have the teaching magisterium.

So I would see tradition above scripture. And then in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, I would see them kind of being side by side. Years ago, Eli, I used to think that Eastern Orthodoxy is just kind of another version of Catholicism.

And then I discovered it is clearly not. It is a distinct branch of Christendom.

Yeah, again, a lot of people understand Eastern Orthodoxy as kind of like the hopeless Catholicism, right?

And I was one of those for a long time. Right, right.

All right, very good. Well, there are a lot of attacks upon the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. And what I wanna do through some of the questions here is kind of address kind of the common objections to Sola Scriptura.

So now that you laid out what it is, let's kind of address some objections that people bring up, some questions that people bring up on this topic here. So here's my first question for you. How can one hold the Sola Scriptura when the Bible itself does not seem to teach Sola Scriptura?

So in other words, where in the Bible is Sola Scriptura taught?

That's a very important question. I would approach it this way, Eli. I would say that something doesn't have to be taught formally and explicitly in Scripture in order to be perfectly valid. I think the doctrine of Sola Scriptura or Scripture's supreme authority is taught inferentially.

We can draw inferences from Scripture. For example, a key passage is 2 Timothy 3, 15 through 17. Let me read it very quickly. And how from infancy, you've known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

All Scripture is God breathed, Theobonustos breathed out by God. It's useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training and righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

I would say the essence of Sola Scriptura is found there. That is when you look at the passage, Christians are in a position where they're complete in terms of what they believe and how to live. So that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped in every good work.

I think that passage can be inferred that Scripture gives us what we need to believe. It's sufficient in belief and in life. But I think that there are other elements that go into it. And I would put it to this way, Eli.

I think the strongest argument for Sola Scriptura is found in the life of the person of Jesus Christ. For example, I would argue that Jesus Christ held Scripture in highest esteem. He says, Scripture cannot be broken.

Your word is truth. And whenever Jesus was in a dispute, either with the religious authorities of the day, Pharisees, Sadducees, he always appeals to Scripture and he appeals to the Scripture with a clenching element.

Then finally, I would say Jesus even submits to Scripture. He talks about his life, death and resurrection. Scripture has to be fulfilled. And so I think a powerful argument and maybe the best argument is that our Lord Jesus Christ held Scripture as having final authority, a clenching type of force.

Now, a Roman Catholic, an Orthodox believer, I mean, they don't deny 2 Timothy 3, 15 through 16. And so the understanding that you just gave, couldn't they argue, well, that's not a necessary implication of the text because it fits well within our framework, which we believe Scripture being of utmost authority also give provision for holding tradition at the level that they do.

I think it's very important to recognize that Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, of course, now I'm referring to the Orthodox versions, the Catholics and Orthodox who really believed what's in the creed and all of those kinds of things, not theological liberalism that's in the context of all of our belief system.

They have a very high view of Scripture. Nevertheless, I think what we find there is that Scripture is sufficient. And even if you appeal to other elements, for example, 2 Thessalonians 2, 15, a passage that both our Orthodox and Catholic friends appeal to, so then brothers and sisters stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

Well, I would say that Paul there is writing 2 Thessalonians. That's probably late 40s, early 50s. The apostles are still living. They're still preaching orally. All of the New Testament has not yet been completed.

Therefore, I think the interpretation there is there's no difference between the oral presentation of God's word coming from the mouth of the apostles and then what they would write. What I do dispute, and I respectfully dispute it, that there is somehow an oral tradition that exists in the church independent of Scripture.

The apostles died. They left the Scriptures to us. So I would say, hey, tradition is valuable. Now, let me mention the Anglican context. Sometimes in the Reformed Anglican church, we would say it's very important to understand Scripture in light of tradition, but the Protestant position is that tradition is always a subordinate norm.

It's a secondary norm. So I don't see any reason not to draw that inference from 2 Timothy 3, and I see no reason to think that the 2 Thessalonians passage is teaching another norm of authority.

Both true. Yeah, so with regards to the biblical grounding for Sola Scriptura, it's not like there's a proof text. Right. There are aspects of Scripture that seem to infer this when we reflect upon just the very nature of Scripture itself.

Is our notion of Sola Scriptura also wrapped up in the nature of Scripture? Do you think you can unpack that for us?

Yeah, yeah. Let me say a couple of things. I would say drawing the principle of Sola Scriptura, Scripture's final authority, is not unlike how we think about the Trinity, where we draw inferences. And I would say, again, Sola Scriptura, if you think about it theologically, God has revealed himself.

He's revealed himself in nature. He's revealed himself in propositional truth, which is the inspired Word of God. We see that in the Old Testament. He promises to give his spirit, which inspires the New Testament.

So authority is an implication of the Bible's inspiration. Because it's the inspired Word of God, we can trust that it's true, it's inerrant. We can trust that we can recognize its canonicity and we can appeal to its authority.

Hmm, all right, very good.

Real quick, just a quick reminder for people who are listening in. Guys, Ken will be taking questions. So if you guys have any questions, you can post them in the comments and towards the back end of the episode, we will share it on the screen there.

And he'll hopefully address what you're asking. So please feel free to send those in. And again, thanks for super chats as well. There's another one sent in. Thank you so much, Saint Edify. That's greatly appreciated.

Let's move on then. So again, I think that's important. When someone asks, where in the Bible does it teach soul scriptura? We're not talking about proof texting. We're talking about the very nature of scripture as being the Word of God.

We could infer this idea of the scriptures being the ultimate authority. We find examples of Jesus appealing to scripture as such in contradistinction to appeals to tradition. He makes a differentiation between good tradition and unbiblical tradition.

And I think those are all important aspects of this discussion. But here's another thing I always hear, okay? And again, from Orthodox perspective, from Roman Catholic perspective, people ask the question, isn't soul scriptura just a later development, right?

It seems that the early church tended to hold tradition at the same level as scripture. And I think this is a devastating rhetorical question only because the average Protestant Christian is woefully ignorant of church history.

And so because they're ignorant of church history, it's really difficult to combat that. It's like, well, did they? Okay, and then you throw a quote here, a quote there. It's like, well, I guess they did.

And then that kind of puts the person back and they start rethinking their whole life. Like what's going on? I never knew there was this long rich history. How would you respond to the claim? This is a later development.

This is an innovation. The early church didn't hold to soul scriptura. How would you address that?

Sola Scriptura in Church History and the Fathers

Yeah, and that can first sound pretty devastating. I mean, if you accept the idea that for 1 ,500 years there is no soul of scriptura and the reformers are kind of pulling it out of thin air, that's a challenge.

But I don't think history supports that. For example, let me cite a couple of sources. Yaroslav Pelikan in his book, The Riddle of Roman Catholicism. Pelikan, by the way, early in life was a Lutheran, later in life adopted Eastern orthodoxy.

But Pelikan says in that book that when the Catholic church anathematized the Protestants, they were in effect anathematizing part of their own tradition because in the middle ages there were debates and these debates involved questions of what is the relationship of tradition and scripture?

Is scripture the supreme norm? Are they equal norms? Pelikan also argues there was debate about justification by faith. Was it merely a forensic act or did it also include sanctification? Let me bring just a brief quotation from Richard Muller.

Muller is a reform scholar at Calvin Seminary, probably one of the leading Calvin scholars in the world. Pelikan says, excuse me, Muller says this, the views of the reformers developed out of the debate of the late medieval theology over the relation of scripture and tradition.

One party viewed the two as co-equal norms. The other party viewed scripture as the absolute and therefore prior norm, but allowing tradition a derivative but important secondary role in doctrinal statement.

The reformers and the Protestant orthodox held the latter view on the assumption that tradition was a useful guide that the Trinitarian and Christological statements of Nicaea, Constantinople and Chalcedon were expressions of biblical truth and that the great teachers of the church provided valuable instruction in theology that always needed to be evaluated in light of scripture.

So the idea that there is no sola scriptura until Luther, I don't think is well supported. The Catholic thinkers in the middle ages were debating all kinds of issues. And Eli, authority is always the critical issue.

It's the issue with Protestants, Catholics and orthodox. It's the issue in Islam between the two major branches. Authority is a critical issue. So I think there is kind of a selective reading on the part of our orthodox and Catholic friends where we don't read it that way.

And so two sources would be Richard Muller and Yaroslav Pelikan.

Would you say that throughout church history, there are conflicting views in the church fathers with regards to this authority question? I mean, it's not as kind of univocal as many people present it.

Is it a valid criticism towards the person who holds to tradition and scripture being of equal authority? Is it a valid criticism to point out perhaps competing voices throughout church history, making church history a helpful guide, but shouldn't be something that should be our standard?

Is that a valid point or am I getting something wrong there?

I think it is a reasonable and valid position. There are certainly church fathers who would emphasize apostolic tradition, but you can read other scholars. Tom Oden, for example, in his book, The Justification Reader, he argues that in the church fathers, you have justification by grace alone through faith and you have competing voices.

And of course, that's the point of sola scriptura as remarkable as Athanasius is, as wonderful as St. Augustine is, as amazing as Thomas Aquinas is, all of them have to be tested in light of scripture.

Very good. All right, so, and there's, that's a thumbnail sketch. Again, church history is very, very broad, very, very wide. And of course, you're gonna have people gravitating towards certain sources, whereas other people, you know, I think Matt Slick over at CARM, he has a section on Roman Catholicism entitled, My Church Father Can Beat Up Your Church Father.

And he kind of gives, that sounds like something Matt Slick would make up. And he goes through some competing and conflicting views within the early church fathers. Again, the early church fathers are vitally important.

Please don't take the Protestant perspective as underappreciating church history. We need to read the church fathers, but you need to understand what we're saying. Scripture is the authority and we have conflicting accounts, conflicting beliefs with regards to that question within the church fathers.

And so we've got to take those things into consideration.

And if I could add a point to that, Eli, you know, we look at someone like St. Augustine, I would argue and others have that Augustine may be as influential to Protestants as he has been to Catholics.

Now, you know, you look at somebody like Calvin and I see Calvin as kind of the systematic theologian of the Reformation. Calvin quotes Luther around a hundred times. He quotes Thomas Aquinas around a hundred times.

He quotes St. Augustine 4 ,200 times. Calvin's case is that the best in Catholic theology can support our perspective. And the magisterial reformers, whether Luther, Calvin, Cramner, they see themselves in that Augustinian tradition.

So, you know, there is an appeal to church tradition and there is appeal to the respect of the church fathers. Now, my Catholic friends are gonna disagree with me here and that's okay. I think you could make a case and I'm happy to cite a passage or two if you'd like.

I think that Augustine and even Thomas Aquinas have such a high view of scripture that it's a reasonable inference that they viewed scripture as having an inherent inspiration that was above tradition.

That they would definitely disagree. They'll say, hey, you grimy Protestant, give us back Augustine.

You know, that's not, you know. I'll let you borrow him, but I want part of him as well. Okay. And I can cite those passages or it's in my chapter in a world of difference.

Okay, all right, very good. And people might definitely wanna check that a world of difference. And you know what I appreciate about what you're doing. I know I do follow you on Facebook and I do get your notifications when you post your blogs.

You like to write little bios and little tidbits of some of these early church fathers and things like that. I cannot overemphasize to people how important it is. This is one area that I've been lacking in and I'm an apologist.

I go around and I teach and things. And this is one area that I have not done adequate amount of study. And as I look into it, I realized how important it is and how much I'm missing out. And so hopefully in my studies, I can kind of focus a little more on church history, but this is vitally important to know your history, to know the development of doctrines so that we're able to kind of clearly put forth a defense of what we think is very much grounded in scripture itself.

And I would say, Eli, simply this, there are plenty of things that Augustine and Thomas Aquinas lean heavily in a Catholic direction. But I'll give you an example. Augustine wrote more than 5 million words.

He cites or references scripture some 40 ,000 times in his writings. So Protestants also see themselves in that tradition and Protestants can appreciate Thomas Aquinas, even though there are many things in his writings, we clearly see as defending a Roman Catholic viewpoint.

And something similar about Athanasius and Eastern Orthodoxy.

The Bible, Tradition, and the Authority of Jesus

All right. Okay, so here's another common question that comes up. Doesn't Sola Scriptura make the individual reader the final authority and interpreter? So the idea is, well, it's just up to your interpretation.

So how would you respond to something like that?

I think it's important to recognize, I think it was Alistair McGrath who called Sola Scriptura a dangerous idea. Now, of course, in science and in philosophy and even in theology, by a dangerous idea, we mean something that turns the paradigm upside down.

There's certainly the case that people can misread scripture. It's certainly the case that people can read into scripture, but the reformers talk pretty carefully about a historical grammatical interpretation.

The scripture has to be handled very carefully. We have to look at the grammar. We have to look at the genre, the context. We interpret scripture in light of scripture. We interpret difficult or obscure passages in light of the clear ones.

Well, I could argue as well, and I do it respectfully, but I would argue even the Catholic interpretation of the biblical text involves an interpretation. And since I'm not ready to grant the Pope having infallibility, I would say I can make my exegetical case.

So certainly Sola Scriptura involves, Eli, the tremendous necessity to be careful and to be circumspect. And sometimes Protestants are not circumspect. And there's a time where maybe we need to be more careful in the way we do biblical exegesis.

Sure, what I often hear is, the Protestant will make the claim, listen, the word of God is clear. Yes, there are difficulties there, but God has revealed himself in language. We were able to understand language.

We can apply exegetical tools to understand what a text is saying. But then the claim would be, well, when you do that, you're coming up with interpretations the church has never held. And of course those are Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, all of those important things.

How would you address it within the course of a conversation when someone says, hey, these interpretations are just, they cause us to pause because they're out of line with what the early church believed?

I think those are fair questions. And I think we need to face them as squarely as we possibly can. I would say, first of all, that when you look at the Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed or the Athanasian Creed, Catholics affirm all of that.

Eastern Orthodox certainly affirm the Nicene Creed. And so there is a commonality of, Orthodox Protestants don't dispute the early councils of the church. They affirm the Trinity, the deity of Christ.

They affirm the atonement, the resurrection, the second coming. There is a classical unity. So when Protestants are described as interpreting everything in fundamentally different ways, no, there's a basic Catholicity that all of the branches of Christendom affirm.

Now, there are some differences, the question of tradition and authority, the question of grace, faith, and works. But I think it is established that in the Middle Ages, there were debates about those, and even Catholic thinkers arrived at differing points of view.

So I think the idea that Protestants just interpret the Bible willy-nilly, I mean, I could bring up, for example, in 1054, the Eastern and Western churches split. I think they split over less consequential issues than the Protestant reformers did.

Now, both of them claim to be the one true church. Well, who is it? So I think we need to share the idea that there are differences, but there's a lot of varieties of Catholicism. There are liberal Catholics, there are traditional Catholics, conservative Catholics.

There are all kinds of postmodern Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, you have the Coptic tradition in debates. So I think we need to be fair. I think Protestants should exercise greater unity, but I would appreciate the Orthodox and Catholics maybe admitting that they're not as unified as they necessarily tell us.

No, with regards to Roman Catholicism, I mean, there's often the claim that you guys don't have an infallible interpreter. And so how do you know that you are deriving the correct interpretation of scripture?

And so they'll always appeal to kind of, well, we have Mother Church to protect us from the error and Mother Church is being guided by the Holy Spirit. I remember I would work in youth ministry. And so I was attending a youth event of a church and outside the church, there was a man who had a very large sign.

It was very wordy sign. It is the Roman Catholic Church is the one true church that has been guided by the Spirit for the past 2000 years, all on one side. And so the assumption is the Spirit is guiding the Catholic Church.

And so the Spirit, my sheep hear my voice sort of thing. He guides us into truth and the church has protected the truth from all this error and confusion that comes about by not only the ancient heresies, but the heresy of Protestantism, as it would be said.

How would you respond to that?

Yeah, I've heard the same thing. I would say this, Eli. I would say, let's go back and look a little bit at the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic claims. Those two churches differ about the exact authority that the Pope has.

Is he first among equals? Is he simply the leader, but there is a co-equality with the church patriarchs? Or is he the Vicar of Christ? Is he the Pope? And there's also differences about some of other ideas relating to Mary.

I think it's a fair statement, Eli, to say most of the time Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics agree with one another against the Protestants. But there are times where the Orthodox agree with the Protestants against the Catholics.

There are other times where Catholics agree with Protestants against Orthodox. So this idea that there was unanimity, there was never really any change. Well, what happened in 1054? Why were those serious differences so different, so strongly different that it split Christendom?

So I'm a student of history. I'm a passionate lover of the church fathers. And again, I try to be very, I try to practice what I call the golden rule of apologetics. Treat other people's beliefs the way you want yours treated.

Now that doesn't mean I agree, but it means I try to relate them accurately. So I'm not persuaded that the, what I think is a bit of a triumphalist claim on the part of either Catholics or Orthodox can really be fit with what we know about history.

So I guess it'd be a valid, someone's like, we have unbroken consistency, 1054. Except for that.

Look, all of the, none of the branches of Christendom does everything right. And none of them is perfect. Okay.

Why Protestants Do Not Have Endless Division

All right. Okay, so my next question would be with regards to, and this is, I mean, if you're a Protestant Christian defending Sola Scriptura, you always hear this. If Sola Scriptura is biblical, then why does it result in so much confusion and division?

Consider the countless denominations that there are brought about by the acceptance of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. So how can Sola Scriptura be true? It's caused so much division. You guys have so many different denominations because you guys don't know what you're doing.

But the Orthodox Church or the Catholic Church, we have a unity. We have a mother church to guide us. You Protestants, you're all over the place. And all of this division is evidence that you guys are completely confused and don't have the truth.

How would you respond to something like that?

I would say a couple of things. First of all, I would say that I think Protestants should strive for greater unity than they have now. I really wish the magisterial reformers, I wish Luther and Cramner and Calvin and Knox, et cetera, had sat down and hammered out issues so that they could have presented a unified Protestant thought.

So there are times where I think denominationalism is scandalous, but principled protest is appropriate. I mean, after all, the Catholic and Orthodox Church split with each other. There is a time where you have very serious differences and you can't agree.

But I'd also say this, Eli, there is a continuity in Protestantism. I mean, again, virtually all of the branches of Protestantism either affirm the Apostles' Creed or something like it. There is a consensus in Protestantism.

Here's a book by J .I. Packer and Thomas Oden, One Faith that talks about the consensus. So again, there aren't 30 ,000 denominations. I hear that and it's incorrect. And I think at times there's an exaggeration.

All of these branches, Lutheran, Methodist, Anglican, Baptist, what did they affirm? They accept the councils concerning the Trinity. They accept the councils concerning the incarnation. So there is continuity.

Now I will raise this. I had an atheist say to me one day, "'Ken, you make an interesting case "'for the truth of Christianity, "'but which Christianity? "'Aren't you hopelessly divided?'. Well, I bring him to the creeds and I say, how much unity is there here?

You know, Eli, if I could say this and I say this to my Catholic friends, my Orthodox friends, but I also say it to my Protestant friends, there is a tremendous amount of unity. I mean, look at the Nicene Creed.

It's a very large slice of what Christianity is, but it seems we focus only on the points of difference. Well, I could turn it around and point differences. Does the Spirit proceed from the Father alone or does the Spirit proceed from the Father and the Spirit?

Is the Pope the first among equals or is he the Vicar of Christ? There's also deep common ground and that would be the way I would respond. Okay, all right.

And again, there are what we would call the centrals of the faith, right? Right. So I also often hear this, we're often asked, how would you differentiate between essential and non-essential doctrine?

Is it simply an appeal to look at the church and believe? How can we biblically identify essential doctrine versus non-essential doctrine?

And I think that's a very, very fair question. I mean, in many ways, the creeds give us kind of a foundational element. We see the Trinity, we see the two natures of Christ, we see various elements, but the creeds don't say everything.