Is Sola Scriptura True? :: Protestants vs Roman Catholics

All right.

Thank you for joining me in this episode of the gospel truth. I'm your host, Marlon Wilson, and we have another fantastic debate today at, you know, I love two on two debates and this is another one for you.

And I'm excited for this one. Solo script or a solo script or a true, that's what we're going to be debating today. But before I bring Peter, Joe, Merrick, and Jeremiah to introduce themselves, I do want to go ahead and encourage you to, uh, to like, and subscribe to the gospel truth, hit that notification bell.

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I have Trey Fisher, Travis Thomas. Uh, Trey Fisher is what cult is. She does a podcast cultures. They're associated with apology is church, and he is going to be jumping on debating Travis Thomas, who is with the church of Christ.

And as you can see, the title had the topic is two topics there, but we're only going to be dealing with one of those. And that's going to be, uh, at what point is one justified. So we're going to be debating that.

And Trey Fisher is actually a good friend of Jeremiah Nortera, who is actually joining us today. So I'm excited for this debate. I've been talking to Trey and Trey is super duper excited. He is amped up for this debate.

So I'm looking forward to this one after that it's Christian tradition and fallible. I have Craig true, true, true Glea, true Glea. I can't pronounce his name, man. I'm terrible with names. If you don't know that by now, I am absolutely terrible with names.

Like Joe, one of the apologists has to be in today. His last name, Joe, I'm just letting you get your hands up, Joe. It might, uh, I might, uh, tear it up, man. I'm sorry, man.

I'm sorry.

I don't mean, I don't mean all on that. But anyway, so we got this debate coming up. This is Paul Fassie and Craig. They're going to be jumping on this church tradition and fallible. After that, we have a first hell debate on the gospel truth.

I have Chris day, true, true to fan, uh, the great hell debate. Uh, the premise is obviously more worded and more nuanced and we'll get into the premise once the day of the debate. But nonetheless, this debate is going down and it's coming up here within the next several weeks.

All right.

So be on the lookout for that. And after that, I have Daniel Allgood and Luke Betts. Is the physical nation of Israel still got special chosen people.

All right.

So that's coming up here should be a fun debate and I'm looking forward to it. Once again, if you have yet to do so, make sure you are subscribing and hitting that notification bell so you don't miss out on anything.

Please don't please do it. Hit the notification bell cause you don't want to miss out on any of these debates. And that's a special thing about seeing these debates live that you're able to actually interact with the live audience as they're in the live chat right now.

So make sure you are in it to win it and don't miss out on any of this stuff.

All right.

That said, I do have my guest here and they are excited as excited as I am for this debate. This is going to be a fun, fun debate. And if you guys remember Jeremiah, Jeremiah actually participated in the gospel first in-person debate, uh, we flew out to Arkansas and me and my wife and we had a grand time um, and met this, some of the church family that they have and met their pastor, Nathan.

And we had a glorious, wonderful time at this debate. And um, I am so thankful for the Jeremiah for stepping in and doing this debate. I think it turned out very well. If you have yet to check it out, make sure that you jump on the gospel of the song there and Jeremiah, his YouTube page, watch dog apologetics, apology, the dog apologetics, should I say?

And he has the bait on his channel as well. So make sure that you are flown over there to check that out. And I have Merrick Kaiser, his partner, Merrick Kaiser is he, I called Merrick Kaiser, the young phenom, you know, because, uh, he's a young guy, man, but boy, he's a formidable.

Opponent man.

And he's been on the gospel truth a couple of times, man. He's done very well. And uh, I, I think him and Jeremiah are going to tag team very well together. And also have Peter and Joe, Peter, if you don't know Peter, man, y 'all need to go check out his debate.

He did with dr. James white on his very same subject matter. So the scriptura, you need to go check them out, man, because I think it turned out very.

Well.

And from what I understand, Peter's one of the best man, one of the best RC apologists out there. So make sure that you are checking him out and you got Joe and I think he's with Catholic.

Answering Catholic answers.

I'm over this Catholic answer.

I think I said that right. I've got it backwards or anything, but he is one of the best apologists out there for the RC camp as well. So these guys are rearing up and ready. And let me bring you guys up so I can tell you a little more.

I gave a full blown introduction myself. I don't know what else you guys have to tell these folks out there, but I gave pretty much a good introduction, but I'm allowing you guys to introduce yourself first.

I want to say, how's everyone doing and are you guys ready to do this?

Let's go, baby.

Yeah.

Great. Yes.

Cool.

All right. So I want to give you guys a chance to introduce yourself to the audience. Tell them a little bit more than what I told you and just tell them what you do, what I can follow you, your YouTube page, blogs, whatever you do, tell them where they can.

Come find you. All right.

So I start with Peter and Joe.

Go ahead.

Give a quick introduction yourself.

Okay.

Well, yeah, sure. I'm happy to.

Hello.

My name's Peter Williams. I am British as you can tell. Hello from the future, by the way. I'm a few hours ahead of you all. And I do many things. I am media communications manager for the Anscombe Biophysics Centre in Oxford in England.

I am a research consultant, a political consultant, a borough council candidate in the upcoming elections and I moonlight as a Catholic apologist, which is why I'm here. So yes, you can find me on social media.

Just look up Peter D. Williams. The D stands for danger. No, it doesn't. But yes, just search for me on that and you'll find various things.

And I'm Joe Heschmeyer. As you can see from my description, I am negative as just a general personality trait, but also the position I've got on this debate. Now, I'm an apologist for Catholic Answers.

I used to be a seminarian for the Roman Catholic Church. Before that, I was an attorney. And these days I write articles and books. I've got four books. Who Do You Say That I Am? Finding Your Identity in Christ.

A Man Named Joseph, which is, as you might imagine, about St. Joseph. Pope Peter, which is on the papacy. And my most recent book is called The Early Church Was the Catholic Church. I do a lot of stuff at Catholic .com.

I also have a blog called Shameless Potpourri. And I'm in the process, a very slow process, of starting a podcast also to be called Shameless.

Potpourri.

All right.

Cool.

Thank you guys so much for the introductions.

All right.

Merrick and Jeremiah, you guys are up next. And why don't you guys go ahead and give a quick introduction of yourselves.

All right.

I guess I'll go first. Well, my name is Jeremiah Nortier. I've been so blessed to be able to not only meet Marlon, but Merrick here as well. I've had the honor of being on The Gospel Truth a number of times.

I believe that this is my fifth time. And so just a little bit more about me is I serve as a pastor and elder at 12 .5 Church. Now, I just want to tell you a little bit about this church. This is a church plant in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

This is northeast Arkansas. And so if you're a viewer that's tuning in and you're somewhere in the area, please look us up online. We'd love to have you come visit and just experience the loving family that we have at 12 .5 Church.

And so I serve there. I also have a heart and desire for apologetics. And so I've had a soft launch for the apologetic dog, which you can kind of see this smoking logo behind me. It's so tempting to just want to hold the apologetic dog as we talk.

So a little bit about that is it's kind of like a guard dog mentality. We want to guard the truthfulness of the gospel that's been entrusted to us. We want to avoid pagan philosophy. We want to avoid contradictions of what are falsely called knowledge.

And so that's a lot of my heart desire. And I just have so much support from my church family that my wife, she is definitely my better half. Her name is Allie Nortier. And so she is with my church right now viewing live.

And so Merrick, I just want to kick it over to you, to you, man.

Sure. Thanks.

Well, I'm Merrick. I'm a kid from Indiana. I don't have much content out there, but if you want to contact me, I'm on Facebook. All right.

Good stuff, guys. Very short and quick.

Merrick.

Very short and quick. There it is, man. It's all good, though, man.

All right.

So we're going to jump into this debate. Once again, the topic of this debate is soloscripture. Is soloscripture true?

All right.

Nehemiah and Merrick, you're arguing the affirmative. Peter and Joe, you're arguing the negative. So the format is, it's going to be a total of 30 minutes per team, 15 minutes per person of open statement.

Then we're going to jump right into open discussion where both parties are going to get 20 minutes each to lead with questions. And that cross-examination is to be interactive. It means everybody should be involved in the discussion.

So, for example, if Peter asked Jeremiah a question, Merrick has the ability to jump in as well. So we can have a real full-fledged cross-examination portion. Finally, we're going to jump right into, I believe, closing statements.

I think there's like 10 minutes. 10 minutes each, I believe it is, if I remember correctly. And then we're going to have some Q &A from the audience. Sounds good?

Awesome. All right.

All right.

So the affirmative team is up first for their open statement. And so who's going first, Merrick or Jeremiah?

Me.

All right.

All right, Jeremiah, let me know. I'll start your time when you begin to speak.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much, Marlon, Merrick, Joe, and Peter. We are discussing, is Sola Scriptura true? And we are taking the affirmative. Merrick and I say yes wholeheartedly. And so when you hear the question, is Sola Scriptura true?

This assumes a theory about truth. And so this assumes also an ultimate standard by which we must judge everything to be true or false in light of that ultimate standard. And so Sola Scriptura is a worldview and must be judged in light of that basis.

And so I'd like to encourage all the viewers to evaluate and listen carefully, which side is being more consistent with their ultimate foundations and presuppositions. And so Sola Scriptura has been historically defined as scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith and practice.

And so we have four major points this evening. You can understand this in an acronym of CANS. So scripture is C, clear. Scripture is A, authoritative. Scripture is N, necessary. And scripture is S, sufficient.

And so these four points presuppose a transcendental framework for truth itself and its truth bearing value within scripture. And so what I mean by the Sola Scriptura is that God actually has a sufficient word that is clearly communicated.

It's actually necessary for our human existence. And so this scripture by its very nature of God is self-attesting to its own authority by its very nature. And so scripture declares itself to be God-breathed.

It declares to be truth. And since it's truth, it is therefore cannot be broken. Scripture is the only infallible rule because that which is infallible is ultimate and must be truth itself. Truth is that which corresponds to reality as perceived by the sovereign triune God.

You can have councils of men and groups of people gathering together to discuss matters that may be true or false. But it is only the God of truth that reveals truth to man by his formally sufficient word.

So when Jesus was praying to our heavenly father, he said, father, your word is truth. If Jesus had merely said, your word is true, it would imply that the word was being judged for its truthfulness by an outside standard, but rather Jesus said, your word is truth.

Jesus was affirming that that which is God-breathed is the standard of truth and is the measure of all truth claims. And so all of scripture is God-breathed and therefore is the only infallible ruling authority that once again is formally sufficient.

Now that's a very important term that we're going to continue to unpack over the course of this evening because this is a major point that divides the Protestants and the Roman Catholics. We believe that God's word is formally sufficient, meaning that it has clarity to teach us in matters of truth, knowledge, faith, and practice.

And so it is scripture that is self-attesting because it reveals a necessary worldview. God's word must be revealed perspicuously or clearly as the final court of appeal because it is a necessary precondition for human experience.

Truth and knowledge for faith and practice must rest on the solid foundation of God's word clearly revealed to mankind. Without God's word to guide us in this way, I believe the human experience would be rendered unintelligible.

God's word is the precipium and fount of truth. Therefore God alone possesses the ability to infallibly interpret his own word. And so a valuable principle that must be understood in order to gain knowledge of truth is scripture interpreting scripture.

Why is that the case? Well, it is because that God and his speaking authority and his word is the only infallible interpreter. Since sola scriptura is a necessary truth for human intelligibility, this is a claim once again to an entire worldview paradigm.

Therefore, all objections must do so by internal critique attempting to show a logical contradiction, whether you're asking about scriptural sources or extra biblical sources. Now it is my conviction that if there's a failure to do that in this manner, since we're talking about worldviews, I think we're going to be talking past each other and our Roman Catholic interlocutors will actually have to borrow from the Protestant worldview of sola scriptura in order to make their case against it.

Now that's kind of laying the transcendental foundation for our four major points, but I also want to talk about a number of topics that are relevant to this issue of sola scriptura. So number one, God alone infallibly determines his own word, determines his own word and his own canon of scripture, which the church receives passively infallibly.

This really touches on the heart of our disagreement because infallibility belongs to God and God alone is incapable of error. And so it is God's infallible word that brings forth guidance to his people in the church.

It is not fallible men gathering together to declare scripture infallibly. Those are things that belong to God and him alone. Rather, we have infallible God using the instruments of fallible men to bring us his infallible.

Word.

And so we'll talk more about that. Number two, prophets. This is so important for this discussion this evening. Prophets have always been the instrument in which God has given us scripture. Many passages, both Old and New Testament, refer to scripture's prophetic nature.

And so scripture is written by the pen of a prophet. One of the clearest passages that teach this is 2 Peter chapter one, where Peter says, we have the prophetic word. Knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from one's own interpretation.

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul refers to his own writings as the prophetic writings when he wrote Romans chapter 16.

The apostle John many times refers to his own scripture in the book of Revelations as prophecy. And the book of Hebrews begins by telling us it is God that spoke to our fathers by the prophets. And so one Old Testament verse that says this in Zechariah 7, 12 says,.

And some people object and say, what about Luke? He wasn't an apostle or a prophet. What about Jude and his epistle? The moment that they wrote scripture, they were functioning as a prophet. I think that is the only proper way to view that.

And so number three, that's the key point here. Scripture is inspired the moment that it was written by a prophet. Joshua 24 tells us, Scripture was inspired and authoritative the moment it was written.

It wasn't to be waited upon by later ecumenical council or a group at a Sanhedrin to infallibly define it. The moment that it was written by a prophet, it was immediately the ultimate authority that spoke authoritatively.

So number four, Sola Scriptura does not negate the reality of secondary fallible authorities. Scripture even gives us these parameters. Numbers chapter 21 refers to the book of the wars of the Lord, right?

This is a fallible yet very accurate book that contains songs of victories of battles.

Won.

The apostle Paul quotes Greek poets, right? That were fallible men that understood philosophy because they are made in God's image. But they are nonetheless secondary authorities. And so we even see that the fifth commandment gives parents authorities over their children.

Yet those parents are not infallible authorities. And so this is the point that the church can passively receive God's word and to see how this was accomplished through the secondary authorities, such as historical documentation, tradition, not as an ultimate authority, but a fallible one.

And also through scholarship. These are all wonderful secondary authorities. And so number five, I want to slow down for a second. I really want you to hear this. I hope this really gets deep into more dialogue this evening.

Sola Scriptura is not just practiced by the saints after the completion of the canon, but also during the time of progressive revelation during the time of Old Testament and all the way into the New Testament.

And so I think the number one advocate of Sola Scriptura is Jesus Christ himself. In Matthew chapter five, he tells us that he did not come to bring a new standard to the law of Moses or speak outside that foundation.

Rather, Jesus came to fulfill what the Old Testament gave to us. And Jesus held men accountable to this. In Luke 24, he said, Oh, foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

Jesus held the Pharisees accountable and rebuked them. He said, you search the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life. And it is they that bear witness about me. Jesus did not just refer to scripture as being primary among equal authorities, but it is the standard in which he held all men accountable to.

And I actually think in Acts 15, we have another example of the Jerusalem council actually appealing to scripture as the final arbiter. Scripture was the final court of appeal to prove their case that salvation for Gentiles was by grace through faith, not by doing works of Mosaic law by circumcision and becoming a Jew outwardly.

The apostle Paul, I think he too was a major advocate of Sola Scriptura. He never went beyond what was written in the Old Testament. Rather, he spoke orally the gospel deposit that he received from Jesus and was in accordance with the Old Testament scriptures.

The apostle Peter teaches us that we have a more sure prophetic word, even more sure than our personal experiences. And all the saints of old, they said that we are to be careful to do all that is written in scripture.

And so my final major point, number six here, Sola Scriptura does not necessitate Tota Scriptura. What this means is Sola Scriptura is a theological reality, right? We say when God speak, because it's God, he alone is infallible.

Everything finds itself back to what he has revealed. And so this is not a discussion about the extent of the canon. The church is able to look to secondary authorities and be convinced of how they have received the canon over time.

But I want to say something that hopefully perks up your attention. I do believe that scripture gives us the parameters of scripture. So let me briefly just tell you what that is, and I will be done. Hosea chapter three and Amos chapter eight, they give us the context of the exile of Israel and then predict the 400 years of silence where no revelation came from God until the coming of the first coming of Messiah.

Now it's interesting because we can look to secondary authorities such as first and second Maccabees. The second book of Baruch tells us that there was no prophetic word during this time. Other secondary authorities like the Talmud taught that prophecy ceased after Malachi.

Other secondary authorities like Jewish historians, Philo and Josephus, they rejected the Apocrypha as being the Jewish canon. And so when we go back to scripture, Jesus affirms the Tanakh. Jesus said in Matthew 24, you have the law of Moses, the prophets, and the collection of writings.

Elsewhere, Jesus quotes the span of the Tanakh. It's from Genesis to second Chronicles. He said the blood of the righteous Abel all the way to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barakai. I believe that Jesus is purposely excluding the Apocrypha books because he did not see them as canonical.

And so the Old Testament in Isaiah chapter 8 and Daniel chapter 9 tells us of the utter distress and anguish of Israel during the time of the destruction of the second temple. This would be a time where there would be no vision of prophecy or prophet.

They would be sealed up. This tells us that God is no longer giving us revelation. And that's why Isaiah declared to hold to the teachings and the testimony. And if no one speaks according to this word, it is because they have no truth.

And so lastly here, winding down, the book of Revelation, I believe was written just prior to the destruction of the second temple in 70 AD. That prophecy reaches all the way to the eternal state and warns us not to add or take away from the words of this prophecy.

And so I believe the advocates of anti-Sola Scriptura. They actually differ on almost every major doctrine there is. When it comes to the nature of God, anti-Sola Scripturas, they are anywhere from Unitarians all the way to Polytheists.

When it comes to salvation, anti-Sola Scripturas, they say you got the exclusion of the 144 ,000 only being saved all the way to Universalism. And so I think it's those who actually hold confessionally to Sola Scriptura.

There is such strong unity on first-tier gospel issues. We have confessionally affirmed that God is triune. We believe in the Trinity. We also have always believed that there is a single person of Jesus who is both human and divine, and that salvation is by faith alone.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Good stuff. Thank you, Jeremiah, for the opening statement. All right, Jeremiah, Merrick, you want to share your screen and let me stop your time. Yeah, I can hear you. Can you expand that screen some to make it full screen?

Let's see if I can. Is that a little better?

Yeah, I think that's better. That's much better.

Great. All right.

Well, grace and peace to all who are listening. I would like to start by saying that this is not at all a vain theoretical debate concerning the relation between the Scriptures and the church. I want people to consider with utmost honesty this question as the certainty of faith is at stake if eternal life and the promises God gives concerning it are dependent on human authority.

So allow me to elaborate on the acronym that Jeremiah mentioned. First, the clarity of Scripture, the authority of Scripture, Scripture as this necessary norm of doctrine, and lastly, the sufficiency of Scripture.

So the acronym is CANS. Firstly, the clarity of Scripture. Scripture is perspicuous or clear because it is God speaking. How can one be saved through faith in the message of Scripture if that message was not clear and efficacious?

God works through the preached message because it is certain and true, dividing bone and marrow, Hebrews 4, with its universally intelligible message. We believe that Scripture will not, it doesn't only illuminate the one who already understands.

It, right?

But it itself makes wise the simple and is a means unto salvation. Scripture is a light, a lamp shining in the dark place, and therefore on this basis it enlightens the minds and hearts of men, and therefore it must be clear.

Jeremiah and I will be referencing the latter half of Psalm 19 a lot in this debate, and even if, say, the instruction or the law is just in reference to God's moral commandments. If these truths are perfect and sure, how much more then is the gospel or God's word in its entirety?

So firstly, here's a couple of misconceptions about this doctrine. Holy Scripture itself is divine and authentic, though man in his sin may not acknowledge it, just as the sun itself is light, though if all the men in the world were blind, they couldn't see it.

The world is blinded by sin, after all. Paul even says, and even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 2 Corinthians 4. This question is whether the dogmas of faith, the knowledge of which is necessary for salvation, have been set forth clearly in the scripture.

Secondly, we're not excluding the pious effort that one may make to application of reading and interpreting and meditating the scripture. Thirdly, some things in the scripture are more clear than others, and things which are said obscurely in one place are explained more clearly in another.

This is known as the analogy of faith, and it's something Irenaeus talks about in regards to the unclear parables and the clear ones. Fourthly, in regards to those things in scripture which are less clear than others, understanding them is not an absolute necessity for salvation or for understanding an article of faith.

Here's a quote I want to read you may be familiar with. There comes a heathen and says, I wish to be a Christian, but I do not know whom to join. There's much fighting and faction among you, much confusion.

Which doctrine am I to choose? How shall we answer him? Each of you, says he asserts, I speak the truth. No doubt this is in our favor. For if we told you to be persuaded by arguments, you might well be perplexed.

But if we bid you believe the scriptures, and these are simple and true, the decision is easy for you. If any agree with the scriptures, he is a Christian. If he fight against them, he is far from this rule.

To be in conflict with scripture's clear teaching is to be wrong. So let's move on to the next thing in Cairns, the authority of scripture. Fundamental in Roman Catholic theology is the proposition that scripture derives its authority from the church.

Jesuit Jacob Gretzer, highly esteemed by Pope Clement VIII and Cardinal Bellarmine, of course, said the following, unless the witness of the church approves the divine revelation of the canonical books and the majesty and authority of the books of the canon would never remain known to us.

Here's another quote, not another quote, sorry, just arranged my slides today. Here we must notice that it is not only Roman Catholics who attempt to downplay the authority of the scriptures. So modern Enlightenment thought will try to tell us that the authority of scripture needs to be conditioned on empirical and rationalistic observation, whereas for Catholics, it depends on the authority of the church.

And this is what Jeremiah was saying. All these other worldviews which reject sola scriptura are really going along the same.

Teaching.

In both cases, scripture is not absolute. That is to say, not resting on human authority, specifically of the church, is denied. Here sola scriptura is an affirmation that faith rests not upon human authority or the church, but on scripture as the living voice of God.

St. Bonaventure therefore states,. Robert Prius exemplifies the relationship between the scripture and the church as follows. But all this the church performs as the handmaid of scripture, not as the Lord over scripture.

It is to be conceded that the divinity of scripture may be known a posteriori from the witness and arguments of the church, but this fact does not imply that the authority of the scripture depends upon the testimony of the church or upon its authority.

As a witness to the authority of scripture, the church testifies, this is really important, testifies to a fact already in existence. The church does not give existence to the fact. Similarly, Johann Gerhard states,.

Francis Turchin gives a useful analogy. Think of how excellent gold and gems are, but notice their excellency doesn't depend on the testimony of the jeweler who inspects them. Similarly, as Protestants, we confess that the authority of scripture does not depend on the authority of the church who testifies of it.

Rather, the authority of the scripture is inherent, divine, and found internally. In conclusion, St. Augustine states,. It must be noted that, of course, our opponents grant that scripture is divine and that it owes its authority to God, obviously, but Roman Catholic theology only makes this concession on the condition that it is understood as scripture viewed against itself and in a very absolute sense.

So far as man is concerned, scripture has no authority except by the church. 1 Thessalonians 2 .13 reads,. Here, Paul gives praise to the Thessalonians for not rejecting him and his companions preaching, but recognize they accepted it not as the word of men, but as the word of Almighty God, even though it was preached by men.

Who would not shudder at the thought of resisting God? This proves that scripture has its authority among us from internal standards. God speaks and we recognize it. There is an inner effectiveness in scripture from which God speaks to believers through his spirit that simply does not depend on the authority of the church.

Jeremiah alluded to John 17, right? Thy word is truth, that famous verse. But notice contextually, this word, which is truth, it sanctifies God's people. Full stop, right? This is normative. There's no other criteria or testimonies necessary or needed to convince us that God truly is speaking.

The faith of humans is not placed on a human witness. As Kuyper once said, authority over men cannot arise from men. So let's move on to the inn in Cairns. Scripture as the only necessary or norm of doctrine.

Scripture is the only norm, rule, or standard of articles of faith because it itself is intrinsically authoritative. Going back to that last point, and really all these points are connected. Scripture is the norma normans, literally the ruling rule.

This is different from the norma normata, the ruled rule, a secondary norm that is only relatively necessary in reference to something or someone else, i .e. the church authority. Here we believe that God obligates his church to go to scripture alone to settle all controversial issues pertaining to doctrine and life and these important articles of faith we talk of.

Think of how the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah were both catalyzed by a return to the word of God as the only norm of doctrine and life. Conceptually, think of Galatians 6, right? Paul calls the doctrine he set forth in his epistle a canoni, referring to, quote, a reed or some other object used as a measuring stick.

In a more metaphorical sense, referring to a rule slash principle or a point of reference that may be used as a standard. Sure, all revelation from God is authoritative and binding. This is a given. Certainly, the oral teaching of God's holy apostles were.

They were authoritative. But because scripture is the only special revelation we possess today from God, by default, it is the only norm of doctrine for the Christian. With the completion of the canon, immediate revelation ceased, as Jeremiah said.