Sola Scriptura: Jeremiah Nortier Post Debate Interview

Well, hello friends and welcome to the Reform Rookie video podcast. My name is Anthony Uvino and I'm your Reform Rookie host, looking to bring you all things reformed this afternoon. The goal of this podcast is to take the rich, rich truths of the reformed tradition and help you see the beauty and biblical nature of them.

Understanding these truths will help you better know the God of the scriptures and better magnify his glory, which in turn will help us better cherish our salvation. To that we say Semper Reformanda. So today I have a special guest, Jeremiah Nordier, with his debate partner, Marek Kaiser, who's not able to make it at this point in time.

But they recently did a debate on Sola Scriptura about two weeks ago. And they went up against a man by the name of Peter Williams and Joseph Heschmeyer. I think I got that right. And these are no two slouches when it comes to defending their positions.

They're Roman Catholics and they're very good at what they do. But Jeremiah and Marek did an excellent job. And we're going to talk about that today. Jeremiah is also an apologist with a website, The Apologetic Dog.

So welcome to the show, Jeremiah.

Anthony, what's going on, man?

All kinds of good things. Well, listen, tell us, besides the two little sentences I introduced you with, tell the audience a little bit about yourself and where they can find your stuff.

Yes.

Apologetics Ministry, Epistemology, and Church Planting

Well, thank you for having me on. So my primary apologetics ministry comes from my YouTube channel, The Apologetic Dog. And so we're talking a little bit about this before we hopped on here. But 2 Timothy 6 .20, I love what the Apostle Paul says to Timothy there, because this is my heart desire in apologetics to guard the deposit of the gospel.

And as we guard the gospel, we're avoiding pagan philosophies and we're avoiding contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge. So a big part of my ministry is learning epistemology, right? Understanding how we know what we know and contending for truth.

And so that's my heart desire. And one way I'm able to do that is through those debate platforms. And so I want The Apologetic Dog to be broad in its scope. I want it to be able to use for teaching, interviews, getting to know new people, challenging people of different world views, essentially.

And so I want to encourage anybody to come check me out at The Apologetic Dog on my YouTube channel. And I also serve at a new church plant that's almost two years old and it's 12 -5 church. And we're located in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

That's northeast Arkansas. And I serve as an elder there. And it is so wonderful, Anthony. The Lord has really been working and moving and just providing tons of opportunity for all these things. So that's just a few places where you can find me out there.

Amen. And you are a Reformed Baptist, correct?

Yes, sir.

1689er?

All right. We got a lot in common here.

Yeah, I like your shirt.

Thank you. Thank you. To God be the glory. Amen.

I was trying to represent. Oh, look at this.

Beautiful. So we're representing the Solas today.

Yes.

Solas Scriptura. All right. Well, listen, we are going to talk about Solas Scriptura. But before I do, usually with first time guests on the show, I want you to explain how you came to the Doctrines of Grace.

Did you were you born Reformed? Did you just go to some church and hear a sermon that changed your mind? What was it that brought you to the Doctrines of Grace?

Excellent question. I grew up in the Southern Baptist, Southern Baptist Church. And one thing that I knew like any good old Baptist was once saved, always saved. That's what was drilled in me. And so I remember I was in youth group and I was kind of reading through Romans chapter eight just throughout the book of Romans.

And I struggled with the concept that we have this this free will. But once we're saved, we don't have that free will to walk away. Right. Because once they've always saved. And so that never set well with me.

And Anthony, it's like I remember it like it was yesterday. It all came to me in clarity in a moment. I thought, well, if we are predestined according to God, that is why we cannot lose our salvation.

You know what I mean? And so I just remember thinking that makes so much sense. My salvation is not dependent on my will or anything in me. It's dependent on God. And I start reading verses like Philippians one six.

That's he who began a good work in you. And he's the one that sees it to completion. And then you got the Romans eight and the golden chain of redemption. I thought it's that that was the beginning point for me was trying to understand how I'm supposed to understand the security of my salvation.

When I started studying who God is and his sovereignty, it was all over from there.

Well, let me ask you, were you caged stage when you first got there?

Oh, my goodness. I was I was the caged stage. Unfortunately, I've severed relationships as a result of that and learn quickly that if I truly believe these doctrines of grace, these doctrines of love, I better show it.

Amen. And so the Lord has been so gracious to me, sanctifying me over time, loving on people. And I think the verses in second Timothy two, twenty five point six, that is the Lord's servant. I need to show people love, be gentle, instructing them in the way of the truth that perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.

And I thought, Jeremiah, love on these people, show them from the scripture and then trust God with the increase. And so over time, I gradually moved out of that cage stage mentality.

Yeah, I tell our guys, if you're going to hold to the doctrines of grace and explain to them to someone else, don't be outgraced by another worldview. If we truly believe in the doctrines of grace and the fact that people won't understand those things, but for God opening their eyes and areas, how can we possibly get argumentative or mad at someone that doesn't get it yet?

You know, our graciousness should be one of those things that helps lead them to repentance and seeing coming to the knowledge of the truth. So don't be outgraced by by a competing worldview.

That's so good.

OK, have you ever considered going back to being something now you're there?

No. And I'll tell you this, I hope this doesn't make you lose like audience viewers, but I enjoy listening to Leighton Flowers because he is a critical thinker on the non-reform, non-Calvinist side.

And I consider him as a brother in the faith. And I listened to him recently on vocab alone, wonderful, cordial interaction. But the more I listen to the non-reform side of things, mainly in who God is and who man is, because really that's what all kind of boils down to is those categories.

The more and more I listen to the provisionist view of who God is, I'm unconvinced and it really comes back to the classical attributes of God. He's omniscient. Then he chose to speak of this world in particular into existence.

And, you know, not only is that logical necessity of God having a purpose in whatsoever comes to be not in the Molinist sense of all possible worlds. And you got this middle knowledge kind of schema, but God has a purpose in everything.

And what that does for me is not question, you know, if God is somehow, you know, wrong for doing that. God is able, he is free to do with his creation, what he desires. And I've experienced that grace.

I've experienced that mercy. And so, Anthony, it's the opposite. The more and more I study these deep truths of who God is, my heart is enriched. I actually just find myself each and every day grateful for what he has done for me.

And I realize that I can't twist someone's arm into these things. God has to press that upon their heart and their mind. And so when I listen to Leighton Flowers, I love the man to death. But when he says things like God hasn't, doesn't have an exhaustive determining purpose for everything.

Not only is that a logical entailment of God's attributes, but we have clear passages where maybe we can get into some of this. But Ephesians 1, I think, can't be touched in its proper context. And then we look at amazing passages in the Old Testament, like Isaiah 46, that fits in a broader context of Isaiah 40 through 48.

I'm just captivated by God's sovereignty. And I don't think there's any, any way around it, unless there's something else that you're trying to salvage in the process, like libertarian free will.

Right, right.

Yeah.

When, when, when I read that all my days have been ordained by the Lord, it gives me great comfort because I know that I can't die one day sooner or later than he, he decreed. When I hear that all the hairs on my head are numbered, I think that's kind of exhaustive, even though I don't have much, I know that they're numbered.

Yes, it's, it's encircled the whole thing he got, he got it. So yeah, no. And I think that's a great point. We really should be listening to, to other people and stay, get outside of our bubble because you can start being in this echo chamber and hearing things over and over again and not being challenged.

And then when you are, then you fall apart. So it's really good to listen to other people's arguments. And I love Layton flowers. I think, you know, he, he's a brother in Christ. I disagree with him obviously.

Uh, but that's not a reason to, to break fellowship or, or start, start badmouthing.

People.

That would be the exact opposite of the doctrines of grace.

Perfect.

Yeah.

And so Layton flowers, um, and I still love the SBC world. 12, five churches, not SBC, but that's not out of meanness. Um, we just don't see a need to be tethered to that. And there's a lot of things going on that I'm still praying that they get worked out.

And so all that to say is I love Layton flowers. I love my evangelical SBC, um, brothers and sisters in the Lord. And so I actually do a college ministry that I partner with other churches and we have such a good time and we get to go into deep theology together and grow in discipleship.

So, um, yeah, we can, we can disagree on so much and the, the, what's preeminent and the first tier issue is the gospel, right? These tertiary issues are like the theology that undergirds that gospel and the, and like, they're important and we can talk about them, but I, I, I gained so much from listening to someone like a Layton flowers that has really thought through these issues and challenges me.

So, so absolutely. Um, I think it's an important endeavor to do these things.

Amen. All right.

Well, thank you for that, brother. So, uh, the reason that precipitated this conversation obviously was the debate that you did, uh, with Peter Williams and Joe Heschmeyer and your, your buddy, uh, Merrick.

So tell me, uh, how long did it, how long did you take to prepare for that debate?

Preparing for the Sola Scriptura Debate

So that's a good question. Um, last year around September, this kind of leads into something else, but it quickly comes together. I was called out by church of Christ in my community to debate publicly.

And I said, yes, let's do it immediately. I know someone named Marlon Wilson that we might can fly out to come host the debate. So long story short, we got that squared away, September into November range, you know, I'm, I'm preparing for this church of Christ debate.

And I'd met Merrick, um, a while back. He it's so funny. My first debate on the gospel truth, which hopefully a lot of your audience is familiar with that channel. Um, I debated a Mormon first of all, and I went back and watched the debate and would look through the comment section and I found Merrick actually critiquing my, um, explanation of divine simplicity.

And I was like, I recognize that name. And so I reached out to Merrick. I was like, Hey man, um, I know I need to work on some things, but help me out here. And he was like, I'm so sorry, man. I think I was having a bad day and I was just picking on you.

I was like, no, I'm open for being corrected. And so from there, we actually became really close realizing how much we have in common, both being reformed. And he said, we should do a two on two debate together.

What are the things that you're passionate about? And I'm like, well, the gospel, uh, the doctrines of grace, the five souls of the reformation and the Trinity. I just said, I'm open for all these things.

And so he said, I'll message Marlon and get back to you. So November rolls around and we get a message from Marlon, me and Merrick. And he says, Hey, I have two Roman Catholics that would want to debate sola scriptura.

Would you be interested? And Merrick's all like, yes, absolutely. And I'm over here, like I'm debating for, or I'm preparing for a debate coming up in February, but yes, I'm not going to turn down an opportunity like that.

So the reason why I set all that up is because, um, I don't know if you saw a thumbnail. I debated church of Christ. I think it was February 11th.

Yeah.

I didn't get a chance to watch. I, I w I watched maybe 15 minutes of the debate. I was not able to watch the whole thing, but yeah, you need, you need.

To go check out the cross examination. You know, that's where the good stuff goes.

Sure.

Uh, so I took about a week off, just had to let the brain totally rest after that debate. And so towards the end of February into March, uh, I guess really the month of March is when I started preparing about a month or so in advance, uh, because the debate was, was an early April, um, around there.

So I prepared for about a month, but I actually, I remember around early January, even preparing for the church of Christ debate. I came across a book that I knew would be so important for the soul of scripture debate.

And so I would encourage your listeners to go look up Philip Kaiser. He wrote the canon of scripture, a presuppositional study. Now, Anthony, I read this book once amazed by it. And so then I read it again.

All right.

And so the reason why I had some friends out there on social media, I told them. And I want to step into the soul of scripture debate thinking transcendentally. I know we'll get more into this. And so I had a friend said, you need to read this book by Philip Kaiser thinking presuppositionally in terms of these things.

And I'm telling you, Anthony, it was just an awesome read and study. So a lot of the month of March, I was rereading that book, making sure I understood Kaiser's arguments. And I found Joe Heschmeier's website.

Uh, I can't remember the name, shameless potpourri or something like that. He had 20, 50 articles trying to dismantle solo scriptura. So I just was like, Merrick, we got to start studying these out, man.

And that paid off in big time.

Wow.

Great.

Great.

Well, you guys did a great job. So let's jump right into it. Um, what exactly, give me a good definition of solo scriptura.

What Sola Scriptura Means

I would say the classical definition is scripture is the soul infallible rule in faith and practice in the life of a Christian.

Okay.

Now that's important to understand because Roman Catholics will say, Oh, only the Bible is your authority. And we're saying, no, it's the soul infallible authority, meaning it's up here and all other authorities bend the knee, ultimately the scripture.

And you might remember in our cross-examination, I really was trying to explain to Joe. It's the nature of scriptures, the nature of scripture of why it makes it the soul infallible. When you start invoking, you know, ecumenical councils and tradition, those are, you know, I want to be careful with the ecumenical council, but you can have other authorities, but you can't have three ultimate authorities.

Right.

By necessity, truth is itself.

Right.

And that is ultimate. And so that's why you heard me really saying it's the nature of scripture, which is the honest dots. It's God breathe. We understand. You know, back in history where God spoke audibly, that's still God breathe.

That's still is solo scriptura in principle. And so I just, I noticed there is a language barrier with Catholics and Protestants, and so sometimes that's kind of hard, um, getting past some of that.

So have you heard the term solo scriptura?

Yes.

And you'll be happy to know this. So there's, there's been a couple of things in my mind that, you know, a lot of times you have a spectrum of things.

Right.

And we're always trying to get to the proper balance.

Right.

And so there's two key terms, and this is, this is kind of for free a little bit, Anthony. But I want to illustrate to people why solo scriptura is, is a balance, but what's the extreme, right? And so over here, you would have solo scriptura, and I know a group of people to really illustrate this best, the church of Christ really do fit the bill of solo scriptura.

And so something you'll hear some of us reformers say, we're not of those that say it's my Bible and me under a tree, no creed, but Christ.

Right.

Jesus has been building his church for 2000 years, right? The Holy spirit has gifted saints of old, um, with, with knowledge and insight to the scripture. So it's our benefit to learn from these men, always testing what, what they have to say with the scripture itself and holding fast to that, which is good.

And so that's what I would encourage people to think about is those groups that say, oh, we only have the scripture. We don't need anything else. And it's really self-refuting because those people would still stand up on Sunday and then teach.

Right.

Um, and we're saying, well, there's a reason why you can't be consistent with your own standard, right? That's not what it's intended to be in the first place. Something else I want to say is in the ongoing debate between continuationism and cessationism.

I fall in the cessationist camp, but I always get labeled as an extreme. And I'm like, man, I feel like I'm in that balance.

Right.

And so it's the church of Christ. They are a hyper cessationist that, that thinks that the Holy spirit does not indwell believers or doesn't guide us into truth. They think it's the Holy spirit is devoid totally in the Christian line.

And I'm like, aha, there's your extreme, right? We're, you know, and I land, I feel like in this, this middle balanced area. So anyway, back to your question of a solo scripture versus solo scripture.

Those are important distinctions to have.

So what would you say to somebody who says, well, I hold to prima scriptura.

Prima Scriptura and the Three-Legged Stool

Okay.

Now this is super interesting because we didn't get in this very much into the bait, but this is important distinction. Roman Catholics will say that scripture is primary, meaning that it's first in the order of the three legged stool.

And to my surprise, Peter Williams said the three legged stool wasn't a good representation.

I was shocked myself. I was like, all Roman Catholics say it's a three legged school, except for him.

And, but this is what he said. Well, we believe revelation comes orally. So I'm going to count orally and written and in the magisterium defines. And I'm like, that seems like a three legged stool. So anyway, I love Peter and I have so much respect.

I cannot believe I got to debate him. Someone that was able to debate, um, James White a number of years ago on the same topic. So I had a blast and I had nothing but respect for those men. So anyway, primus scriptura is different than solo scriptura.

They said it's different. Scripture just comes first. It's, it's like the leader amongst equals. And so we're saying no scripture is truth. And so it entails an entire worldview.

Right.

There would also be some Protestant groups who would say that their primus scriptura who are also charismatics, because they would say the scripture is infallible, but God still speaks to us today such that we can, you know, utter God's words in the form of prophecy.

Right. Okay.

So, um, now in your defense of solo scriptura, you use something called the tag argument, right? So would you just roll that out for my audience? Because remember we're rookies here. We want to understand what tag means.

And I don't think it's hide and seek and go play tag. So tell us what tag means.

The Transcendental Argument for Sola Scriptura

Yeah.

So it's the transcendental argument. Now, a lot of times the transcendental argument is for God.

Okay.

And so, um, I use the transcendental argument for solo scriptura, which entails a certain view of God and Roman Catholics, they believe scripture is primary, it's first that it's materially sufficient, meaning that all truth is contained in God's word.

It's just not formally sufficient, able to teach us clearly. So that's, that's kind of, that's what it all boils down to is we're saying, no, the word of God is clear, making wise the simple it's a lamp unto our feet and the light unto our path.

I mean, that's its own testimony to itself.

Right.

And so their whole thing is the scripture is not perspicuous in and of itself. It's not clear enough to give us what we need for faith and practice.

Okay.

And so the more I thought about this, I thought, well, we really do need God to be able to speak to us clearly to know him.

Okay.

And so the more, cause I've, I'm a huge fan of Eli Iyala's revealed, uh, apologetics ministry. I'm a huge fan of Greg Bonson and Cornelius Ventile, obviously Dr. James White. And so I am in favor of thinking presuppositionally right.

Transcendental arguments argue for things that are necessary in order for other things to be true. And so the transcendental argument for God, and then what I applied for soul scripture is what must be the case in order for our human experience to be the way it is like you and I are talking right now, you and I are speaking to one another perspicuously, clearly with this grammatical historical method of words have meaning in their context, it's a part of the human experience.

Right.

And so if some of your listeners are familiar with Ventile and kind of how we relate to God, we know God analogically, right? We are the imago Dei. We reflect God in his attributes. So God must speak clearly to us in order for us to know who we are in the context in which we all exist in always in reference to our creator.

And so one way to, there's two ways to prove, you know, a transcendental argument. One, it's positively. And I agree with Bonson, a revealed epistemology is King. The one who knows all things must be the one to reveal to us truth because he sees the whole, you know what I mean?

Yes.

And so this relates back to, um, this relates back to God's word being clear. So we would prove this number one by saying we'd go to God's word himself.

Right.

And you notice I didn't go straight to second Peter three, 16 and 17. They're ready for all, all. Scripture is God breathe and equips the man of God for every good work fully furnishes us.

Right.

So they're ready for that. And so I'm thinking, I was talking with Merrick kind of strategy. I was like, that's not going to be our go-to text. We're going to argue presuppositionally transcendentally.

And in light of reading, um, Kaiser's book, I noticed, I said, the verse that needs to be the go-to is John 17, 17. And so I might can pull this up here in a moment, uh, just for the audience sake. But the reason why I wanted to go to this is because our Lord himself, he is speaking to an entire worldview, uh, paradigm.

And so Jesus says, father, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Now, this was very important, Anthony, for my whole argument, when Jesus says your word is truth. He's not saying it's merely true, right?

That we judge it's truthfulness based on these outside standards. No, the word of God is truth. It's the precipient, the ultimate standard of truth itself. And truth entails an entire worldview, right?

And so my point is transcendental arguments are proven positively from God's word, and it's also proved negatively by the impossibility of the contrary. We're saying, okay, hypothetically, let's grant whatever, um, anti-clear God speaking worldview you want.

And let's see where it leads.

Right?

So when it's applied to Roman Catholicism, thank three legged stool. And then think about human autonomy, right? Just like that. I'm going to treat a Roman Catholic in this scenario, almost identically as I would an atheist, right?

I'm going to challenge the three legged stool. How do you know? How do you know? How do you know, uh, by what standard, what, what criteria would you know to be true and what you see is their three legged stool is just a house of cards built on another house of cards, which is human autonomy, and that can't give you truth either, not feel bad because the debate, uh, the cross examination with four people, it's really hard to get a succinct line of reasoning.

So my point is if God's word wasn't clear, then we can't know anything for certain. We can't justify epistemology. And so that was kind of the direction I was wanting to go down.

So would you say one of the natural conclusions of their argument would be that the church itself is clearer than God could be?

They wouldn't say it like that. I know, but, but this was something Merrick and I really wanted to get at more. You need the Pope and the magisterium to interpret scripture. Now the Pope speaks from the chair, right?

At basically prophetically now they may disagree and it's like, okay, you're assuming we can understand the Pope clearly from the chair. We can understand the decisions of the ecumenical councils clearly, but we can't understand the creator of the universe clearly in his word.

So to me, there's a double standard there.

Really?

We're saying, oh, we need your entity in order to understand scripture. Mormonism claims that you need their living prophet. You need Joseph Smith and all the rest. You need, uh, Jehovah's witnesses say you need the watchtower.

And it's like, wait a second. For one, God's word claims to be clear in this fashion. And secondly, it's very suspect that they sound like all these other entities. I'm trying to be nice here, but I would say all these other cults that say you need us in order to understand God's word.

No, God's word is clear. Um, the word of God is sharper than any two edged sword, uh, dividing soul and.

Spirit.

And I don't know if you remember this about the debate, but Joe Heshmeyer tried to tell me, he said this and I wanted to go there because I was prepared for this, but he wanted to talk about, um, Hebrews 4, 12 as really referring to Jesus and not the written word.

And I don't think that works contextually.

Right.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I remember that. Uh, in fact, I was, uh, reviewing it the other day. And I, when you came to that, I was like, I wanted to check to see if all the earlier early church fathers interpreted that way. And I immediately found out that no, they don't all interpret.

Augustine who is a doctor of the Roman Catholic church did not interpret it that way. So what, what, what gets me is there's only seven doctors in named doctors in the Roman Catholic church. Augustine is one of them and he disagrees with their position.

So when a doctor, when a Roman Catholic doctor disagrees with another Roman Catholic doctor, where do we go now?

Right.

Yeah, no, that's, that's a great point. And this is the thing that I would encourage Roman Catholics to understand about the Protestant position and Protestants hearing me clearly to, we should be okay with going to the early church fathers, anyone in church history.

They're not the precipient of truth, meaning they're not the final say so. I think it's strange though, Roman Catholics, when you appeal to the church fathers only in quoting them without going into their explanation and arguments for why they come to a certain conclusion, give us their argument from scripture.

Don't just tell me 50 early, um, people in the early church had this conclusion. No, tell me, tell me their argumentation from the scripture. Why contextually that's, what's more meaningful. So I can go test that with scripture.

If you just tell me what they believe, I'm over here saying that's not helpful for someone who does believe in the soul of scripture as the final arbiter of truth. And so, and I think Roman Catholics, I've heard this a number of times, Anthony, but they will appeal to the early church fathers in uniformity every time.

And really it's like, all we need is to show one in order for it to be a defeater, you know what I mean? Just like you, you point out with Augustine, um, that he didn't have that view. So when he brought that up, I thought, I don't know of any, but that still doesn't bother my side, right?

Because I could see a large number of the early church being wrong on a number of given things. And that to me, it's like, they could be wrong, right. And it could have the right understanding, you know, years later.

So anyway, um, yeah, maybe, maybe we should talk a little, I would like to show you why I don't think Hebrews 4, 12 only is talking about Jesus. I think he's in the mix, if you will, just with the whole argument of the book of Hebrews.

Let me throw this up on the screen here. And so Hebrews 4, 12 says for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword piercing to the division of soul and spirit of joints and marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Now, um, I get how Jesus is a better Moses, right? He's a better foundation in which everything else is built upon. But as we look earlier in the context, we understand that the writer is quoting from the Psalms and he actually in the Hebrews chapter three in the Hebrews chapter four, he is quoting the Psalms multiple times.

And so the, the word of God here, um, I would actually say is consistent with Jesus, who Jesus is as the law, God's made flesh and dwelt among us.

Right.

But solo scriptura is also broader. It says it's the whole word of God, all of that, which is, uh, right. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

We got solo scriptura and tota scriptura, and that's a big, actually a good point. I'm glad you brought that up, Anthony. Uh, those two right there, solo scriptura and tota scriptura. Now we'll get more into this in a second because they're related, but they're also distinct, right?

So anyway, I just wanted to point out in the context of Hebrews 4 that the writer of Hebrews has in mind the written word as well. So you contextually, you can't just limit it to Jesus only.