Are the Scriptures the Sole Infallible Rule of Faith? (White vs Pacwa)

The Formal Debate on Sola Scriptura and the Gospel

The resolution you have seen, the resolution being debated this evening is as follows. Be it resolved that the Holy Scriptures are the sole, the only infallible rule for faith for life in the Church. This of course was the so-called formal principle of ultimate authority that lay at the root of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.

And this question of where ultimate authority rests in the realm of faith continues to be the foundational question for our lives as the question of authority is always so crucial in every area as we see it evidenced in our nation these days in the political arena.

Speaking for the resolution this evening is the Reverend James R. White, the most experienced debater. I myself first met Dr. White four years ago, I believe it was, when he was my opponent in a debate regarding the proper subjects of baptism held in the Phoenix area.

But thinking exclusively of his debates with representatives of Roman Catholicism, he has had more than two dozen such debates since 1990. I'm wondering, is it my mic with all the feedback? We'll try it down lower, see if it is.

As some are called to be pastors, some to be teachers, some to be evangelists, Dr. White it seems is called primarily to be a debater and an author. Among his many books, Answers to Catholic Claims, Justification by Faith, The Roman Catholic Controversy, Mary, Another Redeemer, Letters to a Mormon Elder, Is the Mormon My Brother, The King James Only Controversy, The Forgotten Trinity, and most recently The Potter's Freedom.

His master's degree is from Fuller Seminary and his doctorate from Columbia Seminary at Longview, Washington. Dr. White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics ministry based in Phoenix, and it's a great pleasure to have him with us this evening.

Now speaking against the resolution this evening, we have Dr. Mitchell Pacwa. Father Pacwa is a Jesuit priest, currently assistant professor of scripture at Dallas University. He earned his bachelor's degree summa cum laude at the University of Detroit.

His MDiv degree magna cum laude at the Jesuit School of Theology of Loyola University. His PhD degree was awarded by Vanderbilt in Old Testament. He has taught in many institutions in both Old Testament and New Testament.

He is the contributing editor of both This Rock and Touchstone. He has published two books, Catholics and the New Age, and Father, forgive me for I am frustrated. I hope that wasn't after one of these debates.

As well as writing many articles and essays, the most significant for our topic tonight, his chapter in the 1997 book edited by Robert St. Janus, Not by Scripture Alone, A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

And it's a pleasure to welcome Father Pacwa this evening. Now the format that we're going to be following tonight will be rather formal. I don't expect you to remember it. Let's hope I do. But let me just outline it quickly so that you won't be too surprised as we go along tonight.

Both speakers are going to have four minute introductory statements. Then there will be opening presentations of 12 minutes each, followed by first rebuttal and clarification, five minutes each. And then the first section of the debate will end with the first cross-examination, eight minutes each.

And there will be time for a break of 15 minutes. We're going to have to abide very strictly by that time limit tonight. Okay, it's time to get started with the introductory presentation, and Dr. White will get us started.

Sola Scriptura as the Gospel’s Foundation

I welcome you all here this evening. I am very thankful that you have taken the time to come out, even when we have important topics taking place in our nation, to consider what, in reality, is a far more important topic.

For while the situation in our land will pass, the topic that we are addressing has eternal ramifications in regards to the Gospel itself. What is the Gospel? The Scriptures tell us that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation.

And while we will be discussing sola scriptura and the belief that the Scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith of the Church this evening, I want you to understand from the beginning that the reason that I discuss this, or really any other issue in the debates that we have done over the years, is because each one of these debates goes back to the issue of the Gospel itself.

I believe that without a sure word from God, we cannot proclaim the Gospel with power. The Gospel is based upon God's revelation to us in Scripture. And if that word is uncertain, if God's revelation to us is uncertain, then there is no basis upon which we can proclaim the Gospel with certainty.

It is my conviction that the claims and assertions of the Roman Catholic Church in regard to her own authority have resulted not in a clarification of the Gospel, but instead in a diminishment, and sadly in the official teachings of the Church, I believe a substitution for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that is why we must address this issue. Because I am convinced that without sola scriptura, there is no unchanging Gospel that is the same in every age and every nation. But because God has given us His Word, because it is God-breathed, it has His authority, then we can know that the Gospel proclaimed by the Apostles and the Gospel that has been true in every generation remains true in our generation and for our children and our children's children.

That is the reason that we gather here this evening. Now, I am very much looking forward to this particular encounter. Fr. Pacwa and I have debated three times before, twice here in the San Diego area on justification and the Mass, and about two or three years ago now on Long Island on the subject of the papacy.

Many of you have heard me say, many of you have heard me speak in other places, have heard me say that of all the individuals that I have debated, I have the most respect for Mitchell Pacwa. The debate this evening, if it goes as our previous three debates have gone, will not be about James White and Mitchell Pacwa.

It won't be about the fact that I can wear colorful ties and he cannot. It won't be about anything personal concerning he or I, because one of the things that I enjoy about Fr. Pacwa is that he sticks to the subject.

And in point of fact, I would say, though this is my fifth or sixth debate on this subject, it may well be the first time I have been able to debate the subject and it solely stay on the subject of Sola Scriptura.

And so my desire in engaging in these debates is to serve you, not myself, not anyone else, the person listening. If we present our case clearly and you can leave this place understanding what the differences are and the basics of our positions and how they interact, then we will have done what we need to do here this evening.

Thank you for being here. God bless. I may not have better ties. My computer is bigger. Thank you very much for having me here. It's great to be here from the great state of Texas, home of the next president of the United States, I might add.

A man who I believe is a fine Bible-believing Christian. Now, I also very much agree with James that this is a very important topic for us to deal with. Again, not because I like to win or lose debates.

The intellectual pursuit is a great delight. I love having had the opportunity to go to higher education and especially to become a professor. I tell everyone it beats having a real job any day. And I'm quite delighted to do the work, especially to be able to teach Scripture as my job.

But it's not a job. It's much more than that. And the issues at stake are precisely the issues of the Gospel. We Catholics believe that the teaching of the Scriptures themselves are teachings that call us to the full counsel of God.

And that the full counsel of God includes everything that Christ has left us. He left in his apostles and through them to the church that comes afterwards. That includes the written word of God, which is an inerrant word of God.

It is guaranteed not by the church. But it's guaranteed by God himself, who is the primary author of Scripture. God is deigned to use fellow human beings to write the Scriptures. We humans can understand the words of our brothers and sisters from centuries past.

But they were God's instruments. He is the primary author. And it's the Holy Spirit who gives the guarantee for the word of God. And this is something that we believe most strongly. And furthermore, as the Catholic Church teaches in its own conciliar documents, that the church must be subject to the word of God.

That Scripture has priority over our own ideas and our own personal opinions. However, what we also believe is that not only does the Scripture tell us to maintain the traditions, as both in the written form and in the oral form, but that they themselves are absolutely dependent on it.

And our concern as Catholics is that we not lose the oral tradition, because with it we can also lose the written. And this is the danger that we want at all costs to prevent. What we want to ensure is our fidelity to whatever Christ left us.

Now, one of the things, too, that I can say with absolute confidence is that throughout this debate, James and I, and I assume everybody here, understands is that the primary source of what is true is God.

Truth is personified in Jesus Christ, as the word of God itself says. And that our desire for that truth and our commitment to that truth, by James and by me and by all of us here, is that we stay faithful to Jesus Christ our Lord.

And that that concern might have some different ways of dealing with the issues, and we might highlight some aspects of that, but certainly that is the concern of my church and yours. And hopefully our discussion will draw us more close to Jesus Christ our Lord, and through him to the Father.

Roman Catholic writer John O 'Brien wrote these words, and I am going to ask later on, in light of what was just said, what Father Pacwa thinks of these words. Great as is our reverence for the Bible, reason and experience compel us to say that it alone is not a competent nor a safe guide as to what we are to believe.

I come here this evening presenting to you the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, and I do so in the firm conviction that I do not present to you some new development since the time of the Reformation. In point of fact, I believe it is time for us to point out that the constant refrain that has been heard in our land and in Roman Catholic apologetic writings over the past 20 years, that Sola Scriptura is a theological novum, it's a new thing unheard of before Martin Luther or maybe John Wycliffe, is simply and completely untrue.

We believe that the Scriptures themselves not only teach that they are the very speaking of God and hence have ultimate authority, but that the Scriptures do not point us to any other rule of faith that will exist alongside the sole infallible rule of faith that is provided to us in Scripture.

In point of fact, I believe, as this ancient writer did who said, the Lord Jesus himself, when he had risen from the dead, judged that his disciples were to be convinced by the testimonies of the law and the prophets and the Psalms.

These are the proofs. These are the foundations. These the supports of our cause. We read in the Acts of the Apostles, of some who believed that they searched the Scriptures daily whether these things were so.

What Scriptures but the canonical Scriptures of the law and the prophets. To these have been added the Gospels, the apostolical epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, the Apocalypse of John. That was Augustine in a fascinating book, De Unitate Ecclesiae, the Unity of the Church, which is a tremendously important work.

In the same way, I come in the spirit of the one who said, we make the Holy Scriptures the canon and rule of every dogma. We have necessity to look upon that and receive alone that which may be made conformable to the intention of these writings.

Now, why would these individuals, that was Gregory, by the way, Gregory of Nyssa, why would these individuals make these kinds of statements? Well, because they believed and understood that the Scriptures are God speaking to us.

They are not merely the thoughts of men about God, but that they are supernatural in their origin and they are supernatural in their authority. I believe that there are two positions being presented this evening.

And we need to keep that in mind because in the vast majority of instances when sola scriptura is discussed, only one position is examined. The standards that are used to examine the one should, in all fairness to anyone who wants to know the truth, be applied to both positions, because an argument that works against one position as well as your own is not really a good argument.

There are two positions being presented. I believe in sola scriptura. And I believe that as we discuss the issue this evening, I will be able to substantiate my assertion that the only way to understand the assertions of the Roman Catholic Church regarding Scripture and tradition, her own infallibility, her role in the canon, her role in understanding tradition and interpreting tradition, is the phrase sola ecclesia, that the Church alone becomes the ultimate authority.

And I say that because in the Roman Catholic position, it is the Church that defines the extent of Scripture, the canon, and the interpretation of Scripture, as well as the extent of tradition, what is and what is not tradition, and the meaning of tradition.

And so we can say that the Church is under the authority of these two sources all we want, but if it is the Church that determines the extent and meaning of both, and does so allegedly infallibly, how can we logically say that the Church exists under the authority of two sources that exist because she defines them and interprets them?

The Roman position is a claim to absolute and infallible authority. And that is the same claim that I make for the Word of God, the Bible. It is vital to remember this throughout the debate this evening and apply anything that I say to both positions and vice versa.

That is very, very important. Now, the doctrine of sola scriptura is really rather straightforward, but in my experience it is rarely accurately represented in many writings in our day. Sola scriptura, very briefly stated, is simply this.

Because the Scriptures are the only example of God-breathed revelation in the possession of the Church, they form the only infallible rule of faith for the Church. In other words, since the Bible is theanustos, the word used at 2 Timothy 3 .16, God-breathed, it provides to us the very voice of God, or to use the words that the Lord Jesus used in Matthew 22 .31, have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

The Lord Jesus believed that the very words of Scripture were God speaking the very same doctrine that we have in the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 3. God's voice can admit of no higher or equal authority.

It is the ultimate authority in all things, for God cannot refer to some higher authority than Himself to establish the truthfulness of what He Himself says. It is by definition an absolute authority.

Sola scriptura denies that there is another infallible rule of faith for the Church. Notice the use of the word infallible. There may be other rules, there may be creeds, there may be confessions of faith, but they are not infallible in and of themselves, and they are subject to the correction of the highest authority, and that is Scripture.

Again, as Augustine put it in these words, what more shall I teach you than what we read in the Apostle? For Holy Scripture fixes the rule for our doctrine, lest we dare to be wiser than we ought. Therefore I should not teach you anything else except to expound to you the words of the Teacher.

And again elsewhere he put it this way, neither dare one agree with Catholic bishops if by chance they err in anything with the result that their opinion is against the canonical Scriptures of God. Now very quickly, as our time is short this evening, we turn in our Scriptures, if you have them, to one of the key passages, and that is 2 Timothy 3.

Most of you know the passage well, but I quickly read it to you, beginning at verse 14. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Now as soon as this passage is cited, as soon as the very words came from my mouth, there were some of you who were saying something along these lines.

Oh yes, we know that passage. But that doesn't say only Scripture, it just says all of Scripture. That is quite true. But anyone who is going to say, well, that opens the door for another infallible rule of faith, will then have to prove that whatever you offer as an infallible rule of faith is theanoustos.

It is God-breathed. And that without it, the man of God is insufficient to do every good work in the church. The Scripture here says that if you want to teach doctrine, Timothy, go to that which is theanoustos.

If you want to correct, if you want to rebuke, if you need to train in righteousness, Timothy, you have the sufficient source only in that which is God-breathed. Don't accept a substitute. And so if we are going to say that there is something else beyond this, if we are going to say that there is another infallible rule of faith, then we have to demonstrate that it is theanoustos, it is God-breathed, and that without it, the man of God will not be able to do what Timothy was able to do.

And that means I will be challenging the Roman Catholic side this evening to demonstrate that the doctrines and dogmas that have been defined on the basis of this other rule of faith, most of which were totally unknown to the early Christians.

Men of God lived for centuries without knowing any of the dogmas that have been defined just in the past 150 years. They had wonderful ministries and served Christ without any knowledge of what a Roman Catholic must believe today to be dogma.

I will challenge anyone who says that's a rule of faith to demonstrate that that is not in contradiction to Paul's own words to Timothy. When he said, Timothy, you as the man of God can be complete, you can be thoroughly furnished to do these things in the church, to teach doctrine in the church.

I will be making that challenge. And remember what Peter said in 2 Peter 1. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man.

But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Here is a description of an infallible rule of faith. Why is it infallible? Because it does not have its origin in the will of man.

Here is where we come to the issue of certainty. For Peter was convinced that prophecy never had its origin in the will of men. Instead, men spoke from God as they are carried along by the Holy Spirit.

There is the certainty of the Gospel. There is the certainty of the Scriptures as the only infallible rule of faith. For the Holy Spirit is not going to carry a person into error. And since that which they are speaking comes from God, not from man, it never has its origin in the will of man.

Therefore, it is absolutely certain. Now very briefly, what is sola scriptura? What isn't it? It is not a denial that God's Word has at times been in oral form during those periods of inscripturation.

Scripture is not being written today. The debate this evening takes place concerning the situation we experience today, not in the days when apostles walked the earth. It is not a denial of the role of the Holy Spirit in leading and guiding the Church of Jesus Christ.

It is not an assertion as well that the Bible contains all knowledge, and therefore I hope we won't hear from John chapter 20 about all the other things that Jesus said and did, unless we are then given an infallible pronouncement defining what all those extra things were.

The Bible is not an exhaustive compendium of all things, but it is God-breathed, and therefore it is sufficient to us today. Thank you very much. Good start. I'm sure glad I didn't have John 20 in there, my notes.

Oral Tradition, Scripture, and the Word of God

Thank you, James. Again, I'd like to start off with a point that we do agree on. I've already said it, but James has brought it out again, and it's an extremely important point in the second letter of St. Paul to Timothy that Scripture is all God-breathed, Spirit-breathed.

The Holy Spirit is the one who is the primary author, and we Catholics affirm that. We teach it, and we've affirmed it from the beginning of the church, and we still do. So in that we have no difficulty.

But the issue is correctly stated. Can we have some understanding from the Scriptures themselves that the oral tradition is inspired by God? That is precisely the issue. You're right. And I think that where I, too, have thought about including John's quote there about all the books couldn't be, that it would still be a negative thing that just says what we don't have written down.

That's not the point here. No, I'd rather see what the Scriptures themselves say, because my point and the point of the Catholic Church on this issue is that, yes, the Scriptures are inspired, and they give us the material that we need.

It's materially sufficient. But pulling things together, being able to understand all that God has revealed to us, all that Christ wants us to believe, will require us to accept the tradition that he left.

Now, first of all, let's take a look at the first letter of St. Paul to the Thessalonians. We can take a look at Chapter 2. This is, there's a dispute among good Christians on all different camps whether this was the first letter of St. Paul, or perhaps Galatians was.

But it certainly is very early, in the early 50s A .D., probably 51. And he says, in this very early letter, You are witnesses, and God also. How holy and righteous and blameless was our behavior to you believers.

For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. First of all, we see that St. Paul had taught and given an example that they could observe for how to lead a holy life.

And in fact, there are a number of extremely, desperately important issues that the scriptures testify to, but do not teach with absolute clarity, and that we need to have the oral tradition to help us with these issues.

For instance, the issue of abortion is not clearly, explicitly forbidden in scripture. However, the scripture does give clear testimony to the fact that God gives life in the womb. And I need to have that testimony of scripture as an absolutely true testimony.

But as we see, even within Judaism, their use of the Old Testament does not give them the same clarity we would have. And in fact, not even all Christians hold the same clarity. And without the teaching of the tradition and the witness that St. Paul and the early apostles left, we might not have the clearest statements, which are actually found in the tradition, the Didache, and a variety of the other early writings of the church, which specifically mention abortion in any form as something forbidden.

And we inherit that, at least most Christians do. And that's an important thing to notice, that this testimony is something that Paul gave, and while not every single point was written in his letters about what that moral behavior included, that was passed on in the writings that continued in the public practice of the church condemning any form of abortion or birth control.

These things were met early and often condemned. Then he goes on to say, and gives thanks, as he so often does, because his focus is God. And we, in verse 13, and we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.

The word which St. Paul spoke to them is a word which is God's word. This is before he wrote them anything. His oral tradition, as well as his example, was God's word, not the word of men. And so that we see his example, and even though he does not tell us every single part of the gospel that he explained to the Thessalonians in this epistle, that word, an oral word, was very much the word of God.

And he had that word as a source of joy for him because they accepted it as God's word and not his. And so we see in this very important text that Paul's oral tradition is God's word, not man's word. And God's word, whether it comes in an oral form or whether it comes in a written form, is still his word and has his authority.

Furthermore, in verse 14 he continues,. For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God and Christ Jesus which are in Judea, who suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out and displeased God and opposed all men by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved.

Now here, too, there is an example that he commends to the people of Thessaloniki, that they who live in Thessaloniki should follow that example of the churches in Judea. What we Catholics say and try to live to the best of our ability to accept God's grace on these points is that these traditions are passed on.

Some of my brothers and sisters from the Chaldean Church, Chaldean Catholic community, are here and we celebrate the same mass. We don't say it the same way. We have a tradition that we believe goes back to the churches of Judea and their language, just as the language of the Maronite Church, which is another rite of the Catholic Church, goes back to the churches of Judea.

And we imitate those churches of Judea in our prayers so that to celebrate mass in the Chaldean Church, the Coptic churches I have, and the Maronite churches I have, and in the Byzantine Catholic churches I have, I see some of the Jewish prayers, which a Jewish convert to Catholicism said to me, he said, you know, I started going to mass with you people and you're using all Jewish prayers.

You got these from us. I said, of course I did. All the big names in the Catholic Church are Jews. Jesus, Mary, Joseph. And we want to imitate the churches of Judea in how they celebrate Holy Mass. And we consider that part of the tradition.

And then we also see another text where not only is St. Paul's oral tradition something that he left behind and says is the word of God, but he writes in his second letter to the same community of Thessaloniki, in 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 11, therefore God sends upon them a strong delusion to make them believe what is false so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

And I love that. The issue between truth is that unrighteousness versus truth. And we see that so often in our modern world. People don't like the truth because they don't want to change their unrighteous ways.

But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.

That this salvation is a gift of the Holy Spirit making them holy, sanctifying them and giving them faith in the truth. And a commitment to the truth until death. Death is preferable to letting go of the truth.

And this should be the commitment of every Christian to be sure. To this he called you through our gospel so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. And since this is only his second epistle, maybe his third, probably just the second epistle, this gospel is still, for the most part, an oral gospel.

That's what he hasn't written the great treatise of Romans or Galatians yet. So then, brethren, to confirm what I just said, that his gospel is oral, he says in verse 15,. So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.

Now the RSV has word of mouth. Actually, it simply says that hold on to the traditions whether by word or by letter. Some of the translations, I know the NIV doesn't have traditions. They changed it to teachings.

But the word paradosis is not didaskalia. It's not the word teaching didaskalia. It's paradosis. Paradosis means that which is passed on. And in fact, in St. Paul, the passing on of tradition and the use of the term passing on is a very technical term that the rabbis had to pass on and to receive.

It is an idiom in rabbinic literature to communicate that what I have said is absolutely sure. It is a sure tradition that I'm passing on to you. And St. Paul uses that kind of language frequently. But here, in Scripture, he commands us to hold on to the traditions, whether by word or by letter.

Nowhere does the Scripture say that the traditions have all come to an end and that the oral traditions are done and all the oral traditions have been written down in the Scriptures. The Scripture doesn't say that.

That's why the Catholic Church doesn't say that.

The Canon of Scripture and the Question of Authority

You may have noticed that each of our speakers is keeping his own time. It's really a breeze for the moderator. I hope we will all be as disciplined at the break.

It's Catholic literalism here, legalism. Excellent.

Having had these opening presentations, each speaker will now have the opportunity for a first rebuttal. Five minutes each. We're starting with Dr. White.

If you still have your Bibles open to 2 Thessalonians 2 .15, let's go ahead and continue with that topic. We are trying to be somewhat formal and sticking to only the materials that were presented by the other individual in their opening statement.

And so, let's look at 2 Thessalonians 2 .15. Some Roman Catholic apologists do claim that oral tradition is inspired. Father Pacwa did use that very terminology in his opening presentation at one point in regards to oral tradition.

I'll want to have some clarification on that. Is it inspired in the way that Scripture is inspired or are we using the word in more than one way? Now, I don't believe that there is an infallible answer to that question because I don't believe that the Roman Catholic Church has actually defined that issue and hence there are people who agree or disagree depending on their perspective.

The passage says, So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us. Now, there is one body of truth in view in these words delivered by preaching and by letter.

The entire church at Thessalonica had already been taught these items, these things. These are not then teachings that are limited to the bishops but are generally known truths that every person in the church knew and believed.

In fact, one of the earliest patristic commentaries on this passage by Tertullian keys upon this. There were Gnostics in the church that were using this passage to promote the idea that there were unwritten oral traditions not found in Scripture and that the Gnostics had them.

And Tertullian had to refute that perspective even in his day. So any claim that the oral component of this teaching contains anything other than what is found in the written component requires the defender of such a position to prove from the writings of the early church itself that these things were generally known and believed by the Christian people.

And so if we're going to look at this passage and say, yes, the apostles delivered the doctrine of the bodily assumption of Mary, well then let's trace it from the church of Thessalonica to the modern day.

As you may know, historically, that cannot be done. Now, very interestingly enough, when we look at the passage, we discover that Paul is in no way talking about some extra-scriptural revelation in the words.

Instead, when we read the passage in its own immediate context, we find he is talking about something much more easily defined and that is the gospel itself. Paul taught the Thessalonians the gospel both in person as well as by his first letter to the Thessalonians.

This can be seen by the fact that the term Paul uses when exhorting us to stand firm in these traditions is used by Paul in 1 Corinthians 16, 13 when he says to stand firm in the faith. Paul is not giving us a command here to hold to oral traditions.

He is giving us a command to hold to the gospel. Now, I think there is a very good comment establishing that in a certain book that is on both sides of the table this evening and specifically we read in this scholarly reference some passages in the New Testament use tradition to refer to the basic teachings of the gospel.

That would be 1 Corinthians 11, 2, 15, 3, 2 Thessalonians 2, 15, and 3, 6. Now, what was I reading from? I was reading from the appendix written by Father Pacwa in Not By Scripture Alone where in his own appendix he identifies the use of the word tradition here as in reference to the basic teachings of the gospel.

And I agree a thousand percent. That's exactly what we have here. But my friends, here comes the issue. If we open the door here and say, okay, there are these other things that have been revealed by the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians then we need to know what they are.

We need to be able to trace these alleged inspired teachings whether inspired or not, we'll find out through time and are we saying that they are applicable to us today in the sense of being bound upon us.

Remember that Roman Catholicism binds as dogmas such things as the bodily assumption of Mary, the immaculate conception, papal infallibility, and if this passage is going to be used to substantiate the church's authority to quote-unquote use tradition in this way then it becomes incumbent on the basis of the text to be able to trace those beliefs from the people of Thessalonica to this very day and we simply cannot do that.

Thank you very much. First of all, let me make a response to the quote that you'd given from a Mr. O 'Brien. Yes, John O 'Brien. I don't know if he was trying to be polemical or highlight a point by being rhetorical in some way but I myself would not talk about scripture as being incompetent and so on.

I find that myself, offensive kind of language. You don't talk about the word of God in such a way. The word of God is to be treated with respect and you have to treat it with the dignity that it belongs.

I don't read the gospel at mass without kissing the page because I love the gospel itself and so I find that offensive too. I think that we can't go about and certainly on the Catholic side we cannot go about dealing with certain things like putting down scripture and so on.