A Defense 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 the way I get it. 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, I know most people don't care, but.

Just 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 the debate between Chris Date and Michael Miano.

Michael Miano, 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, I'll be back on. Those of you who really enjoyed our look at Dr.

Ross interact with Jason Lyle. Having kind of the young earth creationist, old earth creationist dialogue back and forth.

Back from that discussion. Plan was 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? In 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 a thousand subscribers on YouTube. Still small but growing rapidly and we have unlocked the super chat feature on the

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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. 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.

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 popeless

Catholicism, right? It's basically - Unfortunately, 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 second Thessalonians passage is teaching another norm of authority.

I think 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, St. Edifi, 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 sola 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 sola 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 sola scriptura. How would you address that? Yeah, and that can first sound pretty devastating.

I mean, if you accept the idea that for 1500 years, there is no sola 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 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 in 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 a, 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, it 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 you do, 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 this is one area that I have not done adequate amount of study in.

And as I look into it, I realize 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 I have something similar about Athanasius and Eastern Orthodoxy.

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.

And 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 affirmed the

Nicene Creed. And so there is a commonality of, you know,

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 and 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.

Now, 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 at 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, right?

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, there are 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. 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 essentials of the faith, right?

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.

The creeds don't tell us what is the final authority. The ecumenical creeds of Christendom don't tell us the exact relationship between grace, faith and works.

So Protestants have come along and said, look, we accept largely the early councils of the church and yet we think there are distinctives in scripture.

And those would be the solas, that salvation is solely by grace, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

I don't think Orthodox and Catholics teach works righteousness. I think they have an affirmation of the primacy of grace, but they have a different understanding how grace relates to the human will and cooperation.

So Protestants have things that they want to bring to the forefront that they believe are clearly taught in scripture.

All right, very good. My next question is, what does the Bible say about tradition and its authority?

So we have this scripture or tradition, of course, we embrace both, keeping scripture as kind of more foundational, more ultimate in its authority.

But what does the Bible say with regards to the words of what's considered scripture and tradition?

Yeah, very important. I think there are times where, I think there are times,

Eli, where we Protestants don't realize how strongly we are influenced by Catholic thought.

That is, I'll give you a number of examples and I'll get to tradition. With regard to Mary, why couldn't

Mary be viewed as one of the examples of the followers of Christ?

Aren't there many things about Mary that we could affirm? But Protestants, because of that reaction, because of an exaltation of Mary by the

Catholics, we tend to respond in a way of kind of ignoring

Mary. We don't have to honor her the way the

Catholic church is to appreciate it. I think something similar with tradition. I think there's a lot of tradition that is very valuable.

In the Anglican tradition, we tend to think, read scripture in light of tradition, see the end points of emphasis.

Where I think the major difference would be is in 2 Thessalonians, when

Paul talks about tradition, I think he means the oral words of the apostles, which are the equivalent to what we find in scripture.

But who wrote the four gospels? Largely, we know that through tradition. How many times did we have debates about the canonical books?

We learn from tradition. But of course, taking that further, why didn't the

Pope just, why was canonicity such a long and difficult process? Why didn't the Pope just step up and say, no, it's these books?

Maybe the Pope didn't have that kind of authority. So tradition in a Protestant context is seen as a subordinate secondary norm.

But very, very valuable, unless you're a Protestant that reacts to everything that the

Catholics affirm. Okay, very good. But what did Jesus say about tradition?

I mean, did Jesus speak about tradition throughout his ministry? Jesus, of course, had some pretty contested debates with Jewish religious leaders, both

Pharisees and Sadducees. Of course, that opens up the context that Jesus is a Jew.

He relates to the Torah, to the Tanakh, to the Jewish traditions.

But I think it's very clear when Jesus talks about scripture cannot be broken.

Thy word is truth. Jesus sets Jewish tradition as a secondary norm.

And may I point out again, the reason why I accept

Sola Scriptura is I think the Lord Jesus Christ made scripture the final court of appeals.

All right, very good. Well, you did address 2 Thessalonians 2 .15.

But let's dig in a little deeper. How should Protestants respond to a Catholic or an

Eastern Orthodox person when they bring up 2 Thessalonians 2 .15 as evidence that, hey, you have the written word and you have the oral, and they argue that these are both equal in authority?

Yeah, I think I would come at it this way. I would say, look, while the apostles were living,

I mean, the apostles didn't appear to be immediately concerned about writing things down.

I think because they were making converts, they were preaching, they were teaching, and the church was growing.

And yet there is the recognition that the apostles would not live forever.

And therefore you have the emergence of the canonical gospels. Paul's epistles precede that.

Now, of course, our Orthodox and Catholic friends are gonna make the case that what you have is the bishops are gonna be extended that kind of authority.

So you have an apostolic type of authority. And I think that there is evidence from some of the church fathers,

I'm thinking of Irenaeus and others that make a case like that. But my position would be, if there is an oral tradition that is apostolic in nature and is on the authority of scripture, where is it?

What exactly are those apostolic oral traditions that are on equal par with scripture?

And are they any different than what's already in scripture itself? I would question that.

And again, I would put the burden back on all of our branches. The Orthodox and Catholics both make the claim that they are the true church, but they have fundamental differences about these kinds of issues.

So I think it is more reasonable to recognize the value of tradition, but always evaluating it in light of the objective word of God.

And again, if there were oral tradition, why didn't the

Pope step in and solve all of these kinds of problems? Mm, yeah. All right, very good.

I have two more questions for you. Sure. They're not that difficult. You're doing fine.

But, and then we'll jump into some of the audience questions. We have a couple here that I think would be cool to address.

All right. You kind of answered a couple of questions in answering previous questions. So we'll just jump down.

I think this is a very, very practical question. I think a lot of people need to pay attention to the answer here, because this is important.

How is ignorance of church history a detriment to the

Protestant Christian when seeking to defend Sola Scriptura against the Catholic or Orthodox perspective?

Yeah. Well, let me appeal to Jaroslav Pelikan. In his

Catholic tradition, he says that the church is always more than a school, but the church can never be less than a school.

I wrote a book, Classic Christian Thinkers, where I introduce Irenaeus, Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Pascal, and Lewis.

I think in many respects, our friendly competitors, our

Orthodox and Catholic friends, I think the

Orthodox and Catholic churches often do a better job in teaching their people to appreciate church history than we do.

Now, I think Protestants have some strengths as well, but somebody once said to me, if you went to a

Orthodox or Catholic bookstore, you'd have all of these quotations from the church fathers, from the saints.

You walk into a Protestant one, you have Bibles. I think that there is a rich tradition.

And again, I would define myself as an Augustinian. I think the most influential

Christian thinker outside of the Bible is St. Augustine. There are things in Augustine I don't agree with.

I think Jerome was correct about the canon. I think the apocryphal books are a secondary canon.

They're not on the level of the traditional canon. So there are places where I would differ with the great

St. Augustine. But Eli, I think we don't teach our people enough about church history.

I think some of the difficulties we have is that we're not introducing people to these great resources.

Right, I think the moment I realized how much I really needed to know with regards to church history and how important this is,

I visited a church, it was a Reformed Baptist church. And on a Sunday morning, the people in the congregation had folders in front of them and their pastor was walking them through church history.

And we just happened to come in at a certain time along the way. And they gave time to cover this topic.

And it made me realize like, this is not even like a Sunday school side class. Like the pastor's addressing this from the pulpit and teaching his congregation why it's so important to know history.

And it's unfortunate that a lot of churches don't emphasize kind of that historic side.

It's almost like your branch of, or your denomination existed, just 20, 30 years and nothing else existed before that.

It's pretty crazy. Eli, I can only tell you that if I had not read

Athanasius on the incarnation, if I had not read the Confession City of God on the

Trinity, if I had not read Summa Theologica, if I had not read

Blaise Pascal, I would think that my Christianity would be so much less.

That doesn't mean I always agree with all of these largely Catholic authors, but church history is a great resource.

And I would say again, with respect to our Orthodox and Catholic friends, they don't own church history exclusively.

I would argue we share it together. All right, very good. Now, my last question for you, and then we'll go into the questions.

Of course, we'll get the Super Chats out there first. Thank you so much. Whoever contributed, I'll look through and kind of give you a quick shout out.

I do appreciate it. My last question for you is what are some good resources? Not good resources, what are some great resources for folks to get a firm grasp on how to defend

Sola Scriptura? Yeah, well, very good. I'm gonna start off with my own work in my book,

A World of Difference, which by the way is a worldview text. It introduces the concept of the

Christian worldview, but one of the chapters I have is on scripture where I talk about canonicity,

I talk about inspiration, I talk about hermeneutics, and I talk about biblical authority.

I look at some of the criticisms of Sola Scriptura from people like Peter Kreeft, who was a

Protestant who became Catholic, and I list sources there. But some of the sources

I would recommend, Richard Muller in his writings about Calvin and the reformed tradition,

Yaroslav Pelikan with regard to the Reformation tradition, those are kind of sources.

And in my chapter, I list plenty of them. So I'm hoping somebody might go out and buy

A World of Difference. Yes, I do have a couple of your books on Kindle, so I don't have them displayed anymore.

I do have, not your book, but I have somewhere, Affanatius on the Incarnation, but yes, that was a good one.

But yes, okay, so those are really good resources. Hopefully you guys will check it out and definitely check out Ken Sample's book.

He's written a couple of books that are pretty awesome, I'd have to say. He's a very good writer. I think you do a very good job simplifying without being overly simplistic, and I think that's a very good trait to have as an author.

So I definitely wanna encourage people to look into some of your work there. All right, well, let's take some questions from the audience who's listening in.

And Ken, I'm just going to put them on the screen. You'll see it there. And we'll do a Super Chat questions first.

Thank you so much. St. Edified gave $5 in Super Chat. His question here is, Sola Scriptura critics claim that the

Reformed tradition caused more harm, e .g. division, et cetera, by removing the authority of the church.

What's your response to that? Well, I'm largely going to disagree with that.

I mean, again, I would say let's have a little perspective. Take a look at the

Belgic Confession, take a look at the Westminster Catechism, take a look at the 39 articles.

One of the interesting things about being Reformed, Eli, is you can be in multiple denominations.

I mean, you could have the Dutch Reformed, or you could have the Presbyterians, but you could be a

Congregationalist, or a Baptist, or an Anglican, and still be Reformed. Reformed have a high regard for the councils of the church.

The Reformed have a high regard for the church fathers as a whole. In terms of harm and division,

I think in many respects, the Protestant Reformers thought that the medieval

Catholic church had lost its way to some degree. I don't think Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, Cranmer, I don't think any of them initially wanted to start a brand new branch of Christendom.

I think they wanted reform, and through political and various reasons, it became necessary.

So I would call the Reformation, two words, a tragic necessity.

Now, my Catholic and Orthodox friends, or at least Catholic friends, would say it's just tragic.

Some of my Protestant friends would say it's just a necessity. I think it was both tragic and necessary.

Okay, all right, very good. Slam, thank you for giving your super chat here.

He asks, do you think Sola Scriptura upholds the idea that unbelievers go to eternal conscious torment, or is that more traditional, especially after Augustine?

Well, I think that scripture teaches that those who do not know

Christ, who have rejected Christ, will suffer eternal conscious punishment.

Now, I also dialogue and debate with my Seventh -day Adventist friends. When I worked at the

Christian Research Institute, I would talk with Catholics and Adventists.

Those were two areas that I spent most of my time, which I would see very differently than I see

Mormonism, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or Christian science, et cetera.

I think scripture teaches that the wicked go away into eternal conscious punishment.

I'm not persuaded by conditional immortality or annihilationism.

It's not pleasant to think about eternal conscious punishment, but when you sin against an eternal

God, you commit an eternal sin, which requires eternal punishment. If the righteous, if believers have eternal life, the same

Greek word, aion, is used for eternal torment. So in that sense,

I believe in the traditional view of hell, rather than conditional immortality or annihilationism.

By the way, years back, I did a radio debate with Ed Fudge, who was, at the time, probably the leading biblical scholar advocating for annihilationism.

I don't know if that tape's available anywhere, but I put it on Chris Arnzen's program.

Very good. Oh, yeah, Chris Arnzen, yeah. All right, cool. Yeah, Chris Arnzen's show is Iron Sharpens Iron.

Definitely a good show. It's got great discussions on there. Good man. Yeah, definitely. Here's a question from Daniel.

If scripture is the sole infallible word of God, and it doesn't provide tools on how to interpret it, how can we know with certainty we have the right understanding?

I guess the question really is, the tools of interpretation, are those given in scripture?

If not, how do we know to interpret the scripture without going to an outside standard to interpret the scripture?

That's a good question. It's a thoughtful question. I think I would come back again that Christianity doesn't emerge in a vacuum.

It emerges in the context of historical Judaism. There are principles of, if Jews and Christians are people of the book, they're people of scholarship.

In the Jewish scriptures, they talked about genre. They talk about context. I think,

I don't think scripture has to have a little brief manual that says historical grammatical method.

I think the context allows us, this is a way we would interpret any literature, by the way.

You'd look at the history, the context. You'd look at obscure passages in light of the clear.

By the way, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox utilize that same content in looking through these issues.

All right, very good. I don't know if this is a follow -up to his own. He says, how does interpretation not become more fundamental than the text?

Classical question, one that slightly bothers me. I don't know if you wanna speak to that second part there. Yeah, Daniel, I appreciate these questions.

And again, I think we should, I think we should think about this broadly theologically that God has revealed himself.

He's revealed himself in the book of nature, which is a figurative book and in scripture.

In scripture is unique because it comes in propositional terms. I think in many respects, the

Protestants would assert that most of the things in scripture are pretty clear. Sure, there are areas where they're less clear, but I don't think that these principles of hermeneutics need to be something that trips people up.

I think that these are basic ideas about understanding language and being careful about its context.

And I think I would emphasize that Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants, they agree most of the time.

So if Protestants are getting things so badly wrong, why do Protestants agree with Catholics and Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox so much when it comes to things like the creeds and the councils?

All right, thank you for that. Next question, Chris asks, well, he really makes a statement and maybe you can speak to this,

Pelican converted to Orthodoxy from being Lutheran most of his life. Yeah. He did, he did.

Pelican was Lutheran. I think he was Missouri Synod Lutheran, actually. When he wrote his book,

The Riddle of Roman Catholicism, right around 1960, he was Lutheran. Taught at Yale for 40 years.

Later in life, embraced Eastern Orthodoxy. What would

I say? Well, remember that people changed branches of Christendom.

He didn't accept the Roman Catholic position. I think he saw a greater historicity in terms of Orthodoxy.

But remember, Calvin and Luther were pretty serious Catholics and they gave that up and embraced

Protestantism. The reality, Eli, is that thoughtful, reflective people change branches of Christendom.

And maybe they do it for any number of reasons. Sure, okay. Chris also asks, if scripture is the ultimate authority, what did you do in the first through third centuries when the

New Testament was not canonized? Very good question. I think

Protestants look at this issue differently, again, than our Orthodox and Catholic friends.

And again, I say friends. I really do wish that, I mean, even if you don't think

Catholics and Orthodox are authentic Christians, I think you can agree that we're all part of Christendom.

And I think, I would hope you could agree that maybe we could have common ground and maybe be worldview allies.

I mean, I think some of the best defenders of the pro -life movement come out of the

Catholic church. So I wanna emphasize as much as I can, truth, unity, and charity.

There may be places we can't agree. Maybe the positions are intractable. But here's a couple things.

So we have the canonical list, the 27 books mentioned by Athanasius.

If the Pope has the authority to canonize these books are canonical and these others are not, why didn't he do it earlier?

Why was this such a long process? Why do we have two brilliant fourth and fifth century scholars like Jerome and Augustine debating these issues?

So I would say that all of the positions of Christendom have to look at challenging issues with regard to church history.

I don't think this is a question, I don't think that only

Protestants struggle with the canon. And here is, I think, the way most Protestants think about it.

The church looked at scripture and they didn't give it something it didn't already have.

They didn't look at it and say, we grant you infallibility and inspiration.

I think it's much more reasonable to conclude that the church immediately recognized the authority of scripture.

And so that would be the way I would come at it. All right, well, thank you so much.

That concludes the questions here. A lot of comments here. I thought some more questions there, but I think that's it for the live chat there.

Thank you so much. And thanks for those who gave in the super chats. That's greatly appreciated.

Just real quick, just a quick reminder again, on the 13th, I'll be having Dr. Hugh Ross back on to discuss more old earth creationism.

So it's kind of a one -on -one discussion where I'm gonna be asking him some of my questions that I have with regards to older creationism, which will be a little different than the back and forth that we had last time he was on.

And then tomorrow we have Chris State debating Michael Miano on the question, will there be a physical future resurrection?

And so that's at 7 .30 PM Eastern. So I do encourage folks to listen in.

I'm sure you guys will very much enjoy that. That's it for Ken here.

I think you did a really good job kind of giving us a broad overview of some of these issues and how we might respond to some of these objections.

But of course, there's a lot more to study, a lot more to dig into. And so I do very much encourage people to do that and to look into those references that Ken gave earlier on.

Lastly, I do encourage people to check out Ken Sample's work on Amazon. You can check out his books on Amazon.

And of course, do you have articles and things like that on Reasons to Believe as well? I do, I have a

Reflections blog that has more than 500 blog articles available. All right, yeah, very good.

Well, someone says there's one more question. There we go, okay. Well, can we sneak in one more question,

Ken? Is that okay? Someone is pointing me to a question here. Let's go for it. All right, okay. Sorry, Dan.

Dan is the guy who asks the most questions. Let's see what he said.

So I've been battling with Galatians 3. Is Sola Fide? Come on, man, this is Sola Scriptura.

Don't sneak in a Sola Fide. I'm just kidding. Been battling with Galatians 3. Is Sola Fide a precondition for salvation?

Especially on this text, a commentary would be useful as I've heard conflicting persuasive news.

It's a very important question, a critical question. Again, I would say as I look at Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, I don't think that there works righteousness systems.

I think both system believes in the primacy of grace. Grace comes from the sacraments of the church.

It cooperates with the human will. So in a Catholic context, you are saved by grace.

It is through faith, but it's completed in works of loving obedience. I think our

Orthodox friends would say something similar to that. I, however, when

I read Romans and Galatians, think that scripture is pretty clear that there is a difference between justification and sanctification that we're saved by grace alone.

It does come through faith alone to the glory of God alone. And I would also say that I think that we ought to emphasize the importance of the differences, but also look at the unity.

Eli, at the end of my life, I hope somebody will say that Ken Samples contended for the truth, promoted the unity in the body of Christ, but was often very charitable.

If they say that at my funeral, I'll be pretty happy. Okay. Well, you can say that slow,

I'll write it down. Maybe if I make it to your funeral, I can say it real quick. I've already told my kids, they better sneak that in somehow.

That's right, that's right. All right, well, Daniel, congratulations. You're able to sneak that last second question in there.

That was good, good move there. And I wanna say something about you. I wanna tell your audience that Eli Yala is a really good man.

He is a thoughtful man. You can differ with Eli about apologetic methodology, but he's fair -minded.

I'm a supporter of revealed apologetics. And every time I've interacted with you, Eli, it's been a pleasure.

So keep up the good work. Well, I very much greatly appreciate that. Thank you so much. Once again, guys, thank you so much for listening in.

And once again, check out Ken Samples' books and articles. You can check out Reasons to Believe as well, where there are a lot of resources there also.