Sola Scriptura:
¿Human Tradition?

Here i present the original article introduction , to verify what beliefs it teaches, before getting into debate. Then i will quote the rest of the article (the "defense of sola Scriptura") with my answers. The protestant texts are in BROWN and have indentation. Catholic texts are in BLACK.

Two points must be made concerning whether the Bible teaches sola Scriptura. First, as Catholic scholars themselves recognize, it is not necessary that the Bible explicitly and formally teach sola Scriptura in order for this doctrine to be true. Many Christian teachings are a necessary logical deduction of what is clearly taught in the Bible (e.g., the Trinity). Likewise, it is possible that sola Scriptura could be a necessary logical deduction from what is taught in Scripture.

ANSWER:

This can be a double-edged sword. If sola Scripture doesn't indicate (and it doesn't) that all doctrines MUST BE EXPLICITLY shown in the Bible, then, effectively, sola Scriptura refutes itself and it would be antibiblical and antichristian.
But if sola Scriptura says that all doctrines CAN BE DEDUCED from scripture (and in this we catholics agree), then we fall into a trap: For even the most "aberrant" and "unorthodox" marian doctrines can be logically deduced from scripture, as i will expose in my study about Mary (under construction). In this, sola Scriptura also refutes itself, for the support of an apostolic tradition and a post-apostolic authority, can also be deduced from Scripture (see my article about "Bible Alone").

In other words, sola Scriptura refutes itself because:

1. There is no explicit support for sola Scriptura in the Bible
2. Apostolic Tradition and authorities can be inferred from the Bible Alone

This means sola Scriptura refutes itself. The protestant reader could argue that Apostolic Tradition is NOT found in the Bible. This would be ignoring a clear proof. Now if he says that Sola Scriptura IS found in the Bible, then we would have to say that not Sola Scriptura, but the Bible, contradicts itself.

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Second, the Bible does teach implicitly and logically, if not formally and explicitly, that the Bible alone is the only infallible basis for faith and practice. This it does in a number of ways.

ANSWER: This is arguable, as we will see below.

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One, the fact that Scripture, without tradition, is said to be "God-breathed" (theopnuestos) and thus by it believers are "competent, equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:16-17, emphasis added) supports the doctrine of sola Scriptura. This flies in the face of the Catholic claim that the Bible is formally insufficient without the aid of tradition. St. Paul declares that the God-breathed writings are sufficient.

ANSWER:

In 2Tim 3:16-17, scripture, agreed, says to be inspired by God. But in no way it is told to be sufficient. Also, just because tradition is NOT said to be "god-breathed" doesn't imply the contrary. Protestants often use the "it's not in the bible" cliché, ONLY when it's convenient for them (it's not in the Bible that Mary sinned... nor that she had other children. Also, "god-breathed" is not the only adjective in the Bible denoting authority.
This makes the "only Bible = God breathed" argument somewhat weak.

But now, let's read in full context, the complete passage of 2Tim 3:16:

[14] But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; [15] And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. [16] All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: [17] That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

Do we find the word "sufficient" in there? Besides, Paul also speaks in favor of "which thou hast learned... knowing of whom thou hast learned them". In other words, tradition. Also, 2Tim doesn't say that ONLY Scripture makes the man perfect. Even more: It says "that the MAN OF GOD may be perfect". Remember Timothy was a jew. When the OT says "man of God", it speaks about a SPECIAL man, enlightened by God, generally a prophet. We must not ignore the historical context.

Individuals called "man of God" in Old Testament passages

(As searched by the KJV Bible Software © Rocky Mountain Laboratories). The reader is encouraged to read these passages. All refer to a single man who God had annointed as a prophet or guide. Also, the phrase "men of God", in plural, does not appear even ONCE. Moses (Deut 33:1; Joshua 14:6; 1 Chronicles 23:14; 2Chron 30:16; Ezra 3:2) prophet Samuel (1Samuel 9:6-10) propheth Shemaiah (1Kings 12:22; 2Chron 11:2) prophet Elijah (2Kings 1:9-13) prophet Elisha (2Kings 4:7-9,21-27,40-42; 5:8,14-15; 13:19) King David (2 Chron 8:14; Neh 12:24,36) prophet Igdaliah (Jeremiah 35:4) the angel (!!) who announed the birth of Samson (Judges 13:6-8) and other unnamed prophets (1Samuel 2:27; 1Kings 13:1-31; 2Kings 23:16-17; 2Chron 25:7)

The ONLY time the phrase "man of God" appears in the New Testament (besides 2Tim 3:16), is in 1Tim 6:11:

But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.

We see that here Timothy, AND ONLY TIMOTHY, is called "man of God" (see the singular pronoun "thou"). If we read 2Tim 3:16 after we read 1Tim 6:11, what can we deduce?

The ONLY time the word "men of God" (plural) appears in the New Testament, is in... (drum rolls please...) 2Peter 1:20-21:

[1:20] Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. [21] For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Now let's compare:

[3:16] All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: [17] That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Notice, that NOWHERE in ANY PLACE in the Bible, Old or New Testament, believers in general are called "men of God". Nowhere.

In other words, what 2Tim 3:14-17 tells us in context, is that the prophet / apostle / bishop is perfect with Scripture. Then 2Tim 3:16 doesn't teach sola Scriptura. Actually it contradicts sola Scriptura by reinforcing the idea of a teaching authority.

This implies that understanding scripture correctly is not guaranteed for ALL: "Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles?" (1Cor 12:29) This is: "Are all men of God"?

We must also remember that the "men of God" were annointed specially, either by God Himself by another man of God, like when the Spirit of God came to Elisha after Elijah was taken to Heaven (2Kings 2:15). Here we will notice the need for Apostolic Succession (See 2Tim 2:2).

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And contrary to some Catholic apologists, limiting this to only the Old Testament will not help the Catholic cause for two reasons: first, the New Testament is also called "Scripture" (2 Pet. 3:15-16; 1 Tim. 5:18; cf. Luke 10:7);

ANSWER:

1Tim 5:18, quotes the Old Testament at Deut 25:4. 1Tim 5:18 doesn't apply. If Luke 10:7 is quoted, let's see that the gospel of Luke HAD NOT been written yet! This would imply, that the status of scripture had been given to an oral tradition.

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Second, it is inconsistent to argue that God-breathed writings in the Old Testament are sufficient, but the inspired writings of the New Testament are not.

ANSWER:

Here we see the protestant apologists use a tricky tactic: They have already ASUMMED that 2Tim 3:16 says Scripture is sufficient, and they deduce: Because it can't be that the OT is sufficient but the NT is not, therefore, Paul says that BOTH the OT as the NT are sufficient.

But in 2Tim 3:16, it's SCRIPTURE, not SUFFICIENCY which is at discussion: What we're asking is WHICH SCRIPTURES Paul was refering to. As Paul spoke of the scriptures which Timothy knew from child, the only scriptures referred could be the Old Testament.

The problem in 2Tim 3:16, is that Paul doesn-t say that Any Scripture is inspired by God, but that ALL THE Scripture is inspired by God. unfortunately, some english translations (i'm mexican, i've seen the article in my spanish bible) remove the article as we have seen. If 2Tim 3:16 ff. said that "all [general singular] scripture is inspired by God and is useful..." then ANY separate book of the Bible (which is still scripture) would be sufficient. But Paul is talking about a complete and definite set of scriptures. This is why the analysis does apply.

Only then, after having analysed (with no assumptions) we can say that IF Paul spoke about sufficiency of Scriptures, he would have said that only the Old Testament was enough (or in the worst case, ANY book of the Bible was sufficient!) Then we have 2 choices: Either the OT is sufficient and useful, or both the OT and the NT are useful, but NOT sufficient.

It's not about looking if the inspired documents in the NT are or not sufficient, but HOW WE KNOW that in reality they are inspired by God (as we will see later).

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Further, Jesus and the apostles constantly appealed to the Bible as the final court of appeal. This they often did by the introductory phrase, "It is written," which is repeated some 90 times in the New Testament. Jesus used this phrase three times when appealing to Scripture as the final authority in His dispute with Satan (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10).

ANSWER:

To use the phrase "it is written" to justify a doctrine, doesn't imply that we use this source as the ONLY and FINAL court of appeal - but that we ACCEPT this source as authority, whether it's or not the only or the final. In the other side of the coin, we use the sources that the PUBLIC accepts as authority, to prove that God has authorized us. In the particular case of the apostles, they used the Scriptures because they were preaching to jews. They had to quote some other sources, (for example the history of Gabriel disputing the body of Moses - it's not in the Scriptures). Paul also quotes a poem seen nowhere else in Scripture: "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." (Eph 5:14).

Besides, using the AT to prove a point, does not necessarily mean that it is the ONLY source. When Jesus and the apostles said "it is written" they were referring to the Old Testament - does that make the OT the only source of appeal? Obviously not.

And last, we have to clarify that also the devil said "it is written" (See Matthew 4). This is: Scriptures can be infallible, but they can also be used to deceive - this is what we see in modern protestantism: Contradictory interpretations of scriptures.

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Of course, Jesus (Matt. 5:22, 28, 31; 28:18) and the apostles (1 Cor. 5:3; 7:12) sometimes referred to their own God-given authority. It begs the question, however, for Roman Catholics to claim that this supports their belief that the church of Rome still has infallible authority outside the Bible today. For even they admit that no new revelation is being given today, as it was in apostolic times. In other words, the only reason Jesus and the apostles could appeal to an authority outside the Bible was that God was still giving normative (i.e., standard-setting) revelation for the faith and morals of believers. This revelation was often first communicated orally before it was finally committed to writing (e.g., 2 Thess. 2:5). Therefore, it is not legitimate to appeal to any oral revelation in New Testament times as proof that nonbiblical infallible authority is in existence today.

ANSWER:

The protestant apologists say that the revelation of God was sometimes communicated orally to later be written. But nowhere in the Bible we see that EVERYTHING which was communicated orally, later was written. We would need a tape-recorder and compare. Scripture only tells us WHAT was written. It doesn't even say WHY it was decided to be written (like "because it was the most important"). It doesn't say so.

So the only way of verifying if an non-biblical authority comes from God, is to go beyond Scripture - which would be rejecting OR EVEN DOUBTING sola Scriptura. Of course, this is absolutely forbidden for the protestant because it would be an "antibiblical" action. The protestant first assumes that sola Scriptura is christian, and to go against it is to go against Christ. But what if it's not? What if Christ didn't believe nor teach sola Scriptura? How can we know?

The protestant cannot find out, because, as it assumes Sola Scriptura as true, the only "proof" it accepts, doesn't tell him he's wrong (Or in other words, he doesn't accept any proof which tells him he's wrong). If the Bible shows traditions, he says: "Oh, as these traditions are in the Bible, then they prove me right: They were so important that they became written". Even if Jesus himself appeared to him, he wouldn't believe, because as the apparition is outside the Bible, this Jesus would be "satan in disguise" (Remember the dialogue between Lazarus and Abraham? Those who believed neither Moses nor the prophets, wouldn't believe an apparition).

In resume, the only-bible believer is the one who uses a circular proof:

Ficticious Dialogue between a catholic and a protestant

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"If you can't show me in the Bible that an extrabiblical authority exists, i can't believe you because i only believe what the Bible says."
"But how can i show you with the Bible, something which is NOT in the Bible!!!???"
"Oh you can't - then you prove me right"
"Well, i can show you this passage which showed that the apostles used traditions"
"I don't see anything oral in here. I see the Bible! Look! It's written, with ink and everything!. So, it's not a tradition, it's scripture!"
"But it IS tradition!"
"But it was WRITTEN, see?"
"And what if there were inspired traditions, outside the Bible?"
"Oh, if they're not in the Bible, then the apostles didn't consider them important."
"BUT WHAT IF THEY DID???"
"Well, show me in the Bible!"
"I give up!!"
.
.
"¡Hah! See? You don't have proof and that's why you give up."
"I DO HAVE THEM! BUT YOU DON'T ACCEPT THEM!"
"Face it. Your 'authority' is not in the Bible..."
"OF COURSE IT'S NOT! THAT'S WHAT I'M TRYING TO TELL YOU!!"

So, the protestant puts himself inside a black box, namely the 'Bible alone', where nothing outside it is true, even if the black box is inside a white room (the Church), and the black box mentions the white room. The result? Because he's inside the black box, the protestant thinks that the white room is INVISIBLE because HE can't see it (Or it's painted in black). This is why protestants say that the Church has an invisible unity: A visible church, with visible unity and visible divine authority, would contradict sola Scriptura, JUST BY EXISTING.

In a few words, to say that all the important traditions became "scripturated" is to decide in advance (a priori) that only the biblical texts are important. This IS a circular reference.

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What is more, Jesus made it clear that the Bible was in a class of its own, exalted above all tradition. He rebuked the Pharisees for not accepting sola Scriptura and negating the final authority of the Word of God by their religious traditions, saying, "And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?...You have nullified the word of God, for the sake of your tradition" (Matt. 15:3, 6).

ANSWER:

Jesus didn't mention SCRIPTURE! He mentioned the WORD OF GOD. But as the only Word of God known by protestants is scripture, wherever they read "word of God" they interpret "scripture". Behind their "only the Bible" glasses, Jesus said: "You have nullified the Scripture, for the sake of your tradition".

But Jesus DID NOT say "Scripture". He said "Word of God". Jesus never said that only and exclusively what "was written" was the "Word of God". What is most curious is that when he addresses the mosaic law, he doesn't say "It is written", but "you have heard it's said". And even that can be found in the scriptures. So we can't generalize.

What is more, there is another passage where Jesus reprimands the pharisees for BELIEVING in sola Scriptura (John 5:39-40):

"Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. " (NIV)

The pharisees accepted Scriptures - alright. But they rejected The Word of God made flesh. While they accepted anything written, they rejected the unwritten Word of God in front of their noses. Isn't this clear enough to tell us that it's not in Sola Scriptura where we find salvation? On another passage, Jesus said that saducees didn't understand NEITHER scriptures, nor the power of God.
Why then study the scriptures, if we have already rejected Jesus? And you can't simply answer "ho-ho, but that was before i became saved". Because the doctrine of Once-Saved = Always saved, has SOLA SCRIPTURA as its first premise!

Besides, in the original greek, Jesus didn't say "search the scriptures" (imperative), but "you search the scriptures" (descriptive). Even if it was imperative, we can see Jesus' use of irony, as did prophet Elijah when he referred the prophets of Baal: "Cry aloud: for he (Baal) is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked".

If Jesus taught something to his apostles that wasn´t written (as we catholics believe), it would NOT be a tradition of men. It would be a tradition of God. What we have to do is to distinguish between Sacred Tradition and traditions of men (with lowercase). We must notice that protestant apologists try to discredit Catholic Tradition by simply rejecting a-priory, the idea that they can come from God (which is precisely what we're discussing).

To generalize "You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men" as that "all traditions come from men and are not from God" is like saying: "The damned evil jews which crucified Christ" (those jews who were evil and became damned), and generalizing it as "all jews are evil and damned because it was jews who crucified Christ". Such generalizations are WRONG.

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It is important to note that Jesus did not limit His statement to mere human traditions but applied it specifically to the traditions of the religious authorities who used their tradition to misinterpret the Scriptures.

ANSWER:

Here they're mixing up authorities annointed by God, with "religious" authorities created by men. The use of the word "religious authorities" is a frequent protestant cliche - the word "religion" implies to them an "invented tradition". This is another example of how some people mix words to make the Catholic Church look like "the big bad wolf", and the bible-only christians as "the good guys".

Jesus was reprimanding the scribes and pharisees, NOT because they were a religious authority (Jesus tells to the people: Listen do them, but don't follow their example), but because they ABUSED the authority they had. It is precisely disobedience the reason why their authority is taken away (see Isaiah 23:15 ff, 56:9 ff) Compare with the passage where David became the "chosen one" when Saul lost God's grace.
Just because the Catholic Church has Religious Authorities and Traditions, doesn't mean that such authorities haven't been established by Jesus Himself (see Matthew 16:18 and ff.)

The point is not to know if Jesus rejected CERTAIN traditions, even if they were imposed by religious authorities. The point is to know if Jesus ESTABLISHED new traditions along with His church, whether they were transmitted orally or in written letters.

What protestants cannot accept is that there may be Traditions established by Christ, because that would destroy their world and the denominational habitat they are accustomed to. It would be rejecting a human democracy for a word or a set of IMPOSED traditions, that cannot be voted for or against (i.e. no divorce, no premarital sex, no condoms, no abortions). This would also imply that they couldn't pick ANY church and worship God at their manner. Instead they would have to worship in a way IMPOSED to them by religious authorities.

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There is a direct parallel with the religious traditions of Judaism that grew up around (and obscured, even negated) the Scriptures and the Christian traditions that have grown up around (and obscured, even negated) the Scriptures since the first century. Indeed, since Catholic scholars make a comparison between the Old Testament high priesthood and the Roman Catholic papacy, this would seem to be a very good analogy.

ANSWER:

Let's not confuse High Priest with Pharisee. The authority of pharisees is not so clear in the Bible, but the authority of a High Priest is. High Priesthood was instituted by GOD (Numbers 8:5-26). Here Geisler and MacKenzie are building a smokescreen. By putting the words "and obscure, even negated" in both sides of the sentence, again they want to make the Catholic Church the "big bad wolf". They are assumming in the first place that Catholic Traditions OBSCURED the Word of God. And this is precisely what we're trying to find out.

A much better comparison would be the protestant "pastors" who REBELLED against the Catholic Church. Compare this with samaritans, essenes and saducees (sects) who rebelled against the legitimate authority of Israel. Precisely, samaritans didn't agree with religious authority so they made up their own religion. Omri, the founder or Samaria, wasn't good in God's eyes: "But Omri wrought evil in the eyes of the LORD, and did worse than all that were before him" (1Kings 16:25-26). By splitting Christianity in two, the protestant reformers followed the way of Jeroboam.

Now if we take into account the New Testament Authorities which laid hands upon their successors, just as the elders did with Timothy, we can see the clear contrast between Roman Catholicism and protestantism: Catholic bishops lay hands upon their successors, while protestants follow the way of division, as did pharisees and saducees.

So, the comparison shouldn´t be Scripture vs. Tradition, but the Authentic Tradition against DIVISIVE (= heretical in greek) traditions.

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Finally, to borrow a phrase from St. Paul, the Bible constantly warns us "not to go beyond what is written" (1 Cor. 4:6).[11] This kind of exhortation is found throughout Scripture. Moses was told, "You shall not add to what I command you nor subtract from it" (Deut. 4:2). Solomon reaffirmed this in Proverbs, saying, "Every word of God is tested....Add nothing to his words, lest he reprove you, and you be exposed as a deceiver" (Prov. 30:5-6). Indeed, John closed the last words of the Bible with the same exhortation, declaring: "I warn everyone who hears the prophetic words in this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words in this prophetic book, God will take away his share in the tree of life..." (Rev. 22:18-19). Sola Scriptura could hardly be stated more emphatically.

Of course, none of these are a prohibition on future revelations.
But they do apply to the point of difference between Protestants and Catholics, namely, whether there are any authoritative normative revelations outside those revealed to apostles and prophets and inscripturated in the Bible. And this is precisely what these texts say. Indeed, even the prophet himself was not to add to the revelation God gave him. For prophets were not infallible in everything they said, but only when giving God's revelation to which they were not to add or from which they were not to subtract a word.

ANSWER:

1Cor 4:6 says explicitly: "And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another".

...that ye might learn IN US not to think... st. Paul is not telling people to stay just with what his written letters say, but to follow his example. On the other hand, the context is not to become prideful and put oneself above others. He wasn't speaking about revelation, nor scripture. And if we read 1Cor 4:1-6 (complete), we see that st. Paul was talking about him being judged by others. We see here another case of taking ONE single verse out of context and apply it to someone's own agenda. But wait - this puts the balance in our favor, because some rebels were CRITICIZING an Authority, in this case Paul. Now compare the people who rebelled against the Catholic Church - an Authority.

About "adding to God's word", let me repeat the protestant apologists own words: "Of course, none of these are a prohibition on future revelations."

AND THIS IS PRECISELY WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT. We're trying to argue that the apostolic tradition is A REVELATION APART from what became written. Or maybe more: That SOME of the Apostolic Tradition became scripture. We're not adding to God's word. But rather we've been preserving God's words, both scripture and non-scripture. Since the beginning, Geisler and MacKenzie ignore the basic rules for a debate, to bash Roman Catholicism: They have been begging the question one time after another.

If Apostolic Tradition IS word of God, then it's protestants who are in trouble, because this would mean that protestants removed something from God's word (and if we include the deuterocanonicals, much worse!), they will be removed from the tree of Life. What "not adding to the word" means, is not to CORRUPT what the Bible says. The clearest example we see in Luther's addition of some words to that "saved by faith", leaving it as "saved by faith ALONE".

It is not valid to attack catholics for "adding to the Word" when we haven't either corrupted scriptures, nor the original nonwritten Tradition. The true meaning can also be found in the deuteronomy: If some prophet claims to speak in God's name, and his prophecy is not fulfilled, he must die. The sin is NOT keeping a Tradition, but saying that something which is not God's word, is. (As saying we're saved by faith ALONE).

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Since both Catholics and Protestants agree that there is no new revelation beyond the first century, it would follow that these texts do support the Protestant principle of sola Scriptura. For if there is no normative revelation after the time of the apostles and even the prophets themselves were not to add to the revelations God gave them in the Scriptures, then the Scriptures alone are the only infallible source of divine revelation.

ANSWER:

Here we see how protestant apologists twist words. Catholics and Protestants agree that there is no new revelation beyond the first century, but catholics say that SOME of this revelation was unwritten (Apostolic Tradition). Second - prophets were NOT warned against "adding to scripture", but "adding to God's word". What happens is that later the prophets wrote God's revelation.

As we cannot prove that ALL of God's revelation has been written to become scripture, we cannot prove that only SCRIPTURE is the infallible source of Divine Revelation. Our protestant apologists say: "and even the prophets themselves were not to add to the revelations God gave them in the Scriptures". Here, they assume in advance that all revelations given to them by God are ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY in scriptures.

The untrained reader falls easily in this trap and as the sentences have certain logic, he ends up believing them as true - because they're logical and coherent, alright. The problem is that a premise is added... a false premise.

Besides, they forget one thing: It was when the Catholic Church closed the Canon, when it was accepted that there wasn´t any revelations beyond the first century, that could be "scriptures". When the protestant sees that there´s no new revelation beyond the first century, he forgets that it was the Catholic Church who said it. He is supporting sola Scriptura, with a non-scriptural source!

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Roman Catholics admit that the New Testament is the only infallible record of apostolic teaching we have from the first century. However, they do not seem to appreciate the significance of this fact as it bears on the Protestant argument for sola Scriptura. For even many early fathers testified to the fact that all apostolic teaching was put in the New Testament. While acknowledging the existence of apostolic tradition, J. D. N. Kelly concluded that "admittedly there is no evidence for beliefs or practices current in the period which were not vouched for in the books later known as the New Testament." Indeed, many early fathers, including Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, and Augustine, believed that the Bible was the only infallible basis for all Christian doctrine.[12]

ANSWER:

It is very curious, that the protestant bases his arguments on J.N.D. Kelly to support Sola Scriptura! (He says one thing but does exactly the opposite - wasn´t this what Jesus condemned?) Is J.N.D. Kelly inspired by God (as if there was a Kelly 1:1 in the Bible)? Who is Kelly to say that "many early fathers, including Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, and Augustine, believed that the Bible was the only infallible basis for all Christian doctrine"? It is true that the "early fathers" (Fathers of the Church) had used scripture to get to agreements, but many of them didn't doubt in proclaiming the supremacy of Peter over the rest of the apostles, or the authority of the Catholic Church. St. Augustine said: "I wouldn't believe the Gospel if i had not been moved by the authority of the Catholic Church".

Either the Church Fathers believed in sola Scriptura BUT ALSO in the rest of catholic doctrines, as the existence of an apostolic authority, the Eucharist being the body and blood of Christ (which means that the other catholic doctrines ARE in the Bible), or they rather didn´t believe in sola Scriptura. The protestant can´t CHOOSE the truth from an author. Either he accepts ALL the beliefs of the autor (assuming he talks in name of the Catholic Church and not in his own name), or he rejects all. If the protestant for a moment sets Sola Scriptura aside, to give authority to the Church Fathers, he must accept what they (including Atanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, and Augustine) say about the Eucharist, infant baptism, etc.

Finally, quoted IN context, the Church Fathers don´t support the "Scripture alone", but "the Scripture as interpreted by the Catholic Church".

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Further, if the New Testament is the only infallible record of apostolic teaching, then every other record from the first century is fallible.

ANSWER:

Exactly. Since the Protestant only accepts the Bible as infallible, he rejects everything else, including papal dogmas, as fallible. Now i would like to make the distinction of "God-breathed" with "infallible", and with "true". If a protestant author, say, J.N.D. Kelly, makes a deep, large, 50-volume biblical analysis and study, and declares that XYZ doctrine is biblical, does that make him a lier? His works aren't the Bible, so they're not inspired, so he's adding "traditions" and "obscuring the Scriptures"? Of course not. But just the same thing can be said about the Catholic Councils and the works of the Fathers.

In the same way the Church Fathers made numerous biblical studies (when we already know that there weren't complete bibles around). If today´s protestant can trust in studies like J.N.D. Kelly's, how is it that he cannot trust in the studies by Ignatius of Antioch, who studied directly with the apostles themselves?

Protestant apologists want to tell us that just because the other accounts of the first century are fallible, then we MUST distrust EVERYTHING in them. But the accounts of the first century doesn't only contain doctrines, they also tell us:

• The beliefs and practices of the first century church (which is very different from an inspired prophecy)
• The heretical deviations of the first century, denounced by the existing religious authorities
• Records of the disputes for power - and the methods and arguments used by the parts in conflict
• The names of people and miracles that in Christ's name, they have done
• The existing attacks to christianity, which can also tell us the beliefs which the pagans attacked and mocked (for example, if they mocked the idea of believing that the Eucharist is body and blood of Christ, then this tells us something, doesn't it?)
• The answers of the existing authorities to such attacks (which also clarified what the primitive church believed!)

For example, if the first century church accustomed to gather in their houses to celebrate the fraction of the bread, and they affirmed something, we stumble upon a record, that, even if it's not inspired by God, is TRUE. Protestants don't need to be inspired by God to tell us that some member of the clergy is corrupted. Why not apply this same criteria to Catholic Writings?

In conclusion, we can, thru records not inspired by God (fallible), deduce infallible beliefs - simply because the records are true.

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It matters not that Catholics believe that the teaching Magisterium later claims to pronounce some extrabiblical tradition as infallibly true. The fact is that they do not have an infallible record from the first century on which to base such a decision.

ANSWER:

"And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matt 16:19)
"But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." (Luke 22:32)

These passages certainly tell us that Christ gave authority to Peter, and that his faith wouldn't fail. On the other side, it's so easy to say that catholics "do not have an infallible record" to justify papal infallibility when there is neither an infallible record of the first century to justify Only the Bible. There isn't even an infallible Table of Contents in the Bible.

Second - the Bible gives authority, not to itself but to the apostles. Therefore, it's not the Bible, but the apostles and whoever they put in charge, who would be the last authority.

"And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also." (2Tim 2:2)

ANSWER:

we must suppose that this says that Apostolic Traditions are explicitly shown in the Bible. If the protestants say here that they're implicitly in the Bible, then their argument wouldn't be valid: To deduce them, we would need an oral tradition (and that's what Apostolic Tradition is), either to tell us explicitly what the Bible says implicitly, or to tell us how the Bible should be interpreted.

But if they mean that all Apostolic Traditions are explicitly taught in the Bible, there is another trap in here. Claiming that All Apostolic "Traditions" are in the Bible is affirming an un-provable claim. Why? Because the protestant mind ONLY accepts what is in the Bible. The protestant does not mean to say that ALL apostolic traditions are in the bible, but rather that he ONLY accepts traditions found in the Bible as apostolic (see the ficticious dialogue shown above).

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It is true that the New Testament speaks of following the "traditions" (=teachings) of the apostles, whether oral or written. This is because they were living authorities set up by Christ (Matt. 18:18; Acts 2:42; Eph. 2:20). When they died, however, there was no longer a living apostolic authority since only those who were eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ could have apostolic authority (Acts 1:22; 1 Cor. 9:1).

ANSWER:

In the first place, 1Cor 9:1 refers to an apparition which happened years after the resurrection, even assension of Christ. And as i have shown in 2Timothy 2:2, the apostles were able to determine their succesors. There were only 12 apostles, alright, but the apostles named bishops and presbiters, to whom the Holy Spirit put in charge of all the flock (Acts 20:28). Paul recommends Timothy and explicitly says: "Now if Timotheus come, see that he may be with you without fear: for he worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do" (1Cor 16:10).

I think this takes care about the "only apostles". Besides, is it logical to think that Jesus gave authority to his apostles to bind and unbind; to Peter the keys of the Kingdom... if they would be dead later? What use is it to plant an authority if it's gonna dissapear? Unless of course, such authority can be extended thru generations.

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Because the New Testament is the only inspired (infallible) record of what the apostles taught, it follows that since the death of the apostles the only apostolic authority we have is the inspired record of their teaching in the New Testament. That is, all apostolic tradition (teaching) on faith and practice is in the New Testament.

ANSWER:

In the first place: If it is true that the NT is the only inspired written record of their teachings, that doesn't mean that the apostles hadn't left any authority - which is the presuposition which our friends make, against the biblical proofs themselves..
Also, if we reject the successors of the apostles (if not the Pope, at least st. Polycarp and st. Ignatius of Antioch), it is not the Bible to which we appeal, but to ourselves because it is us who deduce what scriptures are trying to tell us. This is: The biblical commentaries of the protestant Bibles were written by people who lived more than 1500 years after Christ. On the contrary, there are people who lived in His time and made commentaries, which, even when they're not inspired, they do have much more chronological validity.

And st. Luke was not a witness of the resurrection. He was a disciple of st. Paul. In Luke 1:3, we read that he carefully researched everything. Literally: "... just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus". (Luke 1:2-3, NIV). This is: We are accepting as Scripture, a writing of, not a witness, not an apostle, but a mere researcher. If a researcher could write an authoritative text, inspired by God, doesn't this mean that authority could extend to the apostles' disciples, even when they weren't witnesses of the resurrection?

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This does not necessarily mean that everything the apostles ever taught is in the New Testament, any more than everything Jesus said is there (cf. John 20:30; 21:25). What it does mean is that all apostolic teaching that God deemed necessary for the faith and practice (morals) of the church was preserved (2 Tim. 3:15-17). It is only reasonable to infer that God would preserve what He inspired.

ANSWER:

And God DID preserve it! So well that the Catholic Church, with her bishops and priest, is still here :) To say that God had to preserve only the essential as written, is only a human reasoning, born from protestantism itself: The protestant is accustomed to use the written word as center of worship. Biblical courses, biblical lectures, etc. As the protestant considers Scripture, and only scripture as essential, it's a "religion of the book". This is why he is unable to accept that in the first centuries, adoration (worship) was based on the fraction of the bread and preachings, and even more, with authorities. So it's not the Bible, but the historical situation in which the protestant was born, what is used by the protestant to exclusivize his bible.

2Tim 3:16 speaks that scripture is useful and makes the man of God perfect, but it doesn't say that it is the ONLY thing necessary and which makes him perfect, nor that it would be in scripture alone that God would preserve the esential.
For example, a knight needs sword, shield and armor to be a perfect champion... but the sword alone (the Word is a two-edged sword), or the shield alone, or the armor alone, don't make him perfect.

When st. Paul said that Scripture makes the man of God perfect, he had already mentioned the teachings which Timothy had received personally (this is, the Apostolic Tradition).

Our protestant friends have just said: "It is only reasonable to infer...", this is, only reasonable for them to infer... what they're actually telling us is that anything not found in the Bible, even when God has preserved it and it's present, they will consider it corrupted just for not being present as they want (in the Bible).

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The fact that apostles sometimes referred to "traditions" they gave orally as authoritative in no way diminishes the Protestant argument for sola Scriptura. First, it is not necessary to claim that these oral teachings were inspired or infallible, only that they were authoritative. The believers were asked to "maintain" them (1 Cor. 11:2) and "stand fast in them" (2 Thess. 2:15). But oral teachings of the apostles were not called "inspired" or "unbreakable" or the equivalent, unless they were recorded as Scripture.

ANSWER:

And how do they know? If there is a tradition which says all the other traditions are inspired or unbreakable, this whole argument is useless. But only when our friends start to look beyond their own philosophy of "only the bible", they will never find out if there is an inspired or unbreakable teaching outside scripture. They have again, begged the question. As they only accept as inspired the written tradition, no oral tradition will be accepted, unless a written tradition justifies it. And, as we have seen before, it was an oral tradition which gave authority to written tradition. Therefore it is not necessary for oral tradition to be authorized by written tradition.

On the other side, if it is accepted that traditions should be kept and that the people must adhere to them, protestants are disobeying directly this commandment, even if traditions weren't inspired: They don't maintain them, nor adhere to them.

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The apostles were living authorities, but not everything they said was infallible. Catholics understand the difference between authoritative and infallible, since they make the same distinction with regard to noninfallible statements made by the Pope and infallible ex cathedra ("from the seat" of Peter) ones.

Second, the traditions (teachings) of the apostles that were revelations were written down and are inspired and infallible. They comprise the New Testament. What the Catholic must prove, and cannot, is that the God who deemed it so important for the faith and morals of the faithful to inspire the inscripturation of 27 books of apostolic teaching would have left out some important revelation in these books.

ANSWER:

But of course we can prove it! So we can that there are the ecumenical councils, and the first christian writings of the Church Fathers. It is the protestant who cannot prove that God didn't leave out anything, because it was the protestants, along with Luther, who discredited the existing Church and the existing Authorities. He couldn't prove it, and no protestant can prove: It is so easy to say that there is no evidence of an oral tradition inspired by God... but there is no direct evidence of the existence of God Himself. A very different thing is that all evidence points to the existence or non-existence of inspired oral traditions. In our case, evidence points to the existence of these.

What is more, we can make comparisons between the Church and the Scripture (1Tim 3:15 vs. 2Tim 3:16 - notice both are epistles directed to the same man of God), to see which was more important for God. God wanted a Church, alive and visible, to be "pillar and foundation of all truth" (1Tim 3:15), so scriptures are the ones in second place, as something USEFUL to the Church leaders - men of God (2Tim 3:17). It is redundant to inspire infallible writings to make a "how-to manual", if it's not necessary to inspire the apostles to make such a manual. And actually we have the Didache: the teachings of the 12 apostles, which included the Our Father, how to baptise, etc. If the Church is the most important thing for God (as we are), and Scripture is something useful, there is no motive to presuppose that God didn't write something because he decided to "leave it out", and considered it "non-essential".

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Indeed, it is not plausible that He would have allowed succeeding generations to struggle and even fight over precisely where this alleged extrabiblical revelation is to be found. So, however authoritative the apostles were by their office, only their inscripturated words are inspired and infallible (2 Tim. 3:16-17; cf. John 10:35).

There is not a shred of evidence that any of the revelation God gave them to express was not inscripturated by them in the only books -- the inspired books of the New Testament -- that they left for the church. This leads to another important point.

ANSWER:

In the first place, there is an exageration that catholics "even fought" to know which is the extrabiblical revelation. Protestant arguments presuppose that the unwritten revelation was like lost in space, waiting for somebody to discover it. As we will see later, the extrabiblical revelation was preserved along with the existing authorities. The fights come precisely from the rebellion of a few against the Church established by God (as was the case of the iconoclasts, who started a terrible war, and persecuted catholics for the images matter).

Now, if what our protestant friends refer is that it's not plausible that God left an oral revelation, that's a different matter. But in this case, i can also answer: Protestants, who cannot believe that God had left something unwritten, at the same time they claim that God DID let his church dissapear! What was more important for God? The christians or the Bible? There "there is not a shred of evidence" limits the protestant because the only evidence he accepts is the bible alone. But the Church Fathers are this evidence. The proofs are there. And this is the third time that i see protestant apologists use the same circular argument: "Show me scriptural evidence that points to a tradition not found in scripture". We can't show them anything because a contradiction can't be proven true.

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The Bible makes it clear that God, from the very beginning, desired that His normative revelations be written down and preserved for succeeding generations.

(lots of bible quotes in here)

ANSWER:

So?

OF COURSE we believe that the Bible is inspired by God and was preserved for succesive generations. But we're not discussing the indestructibility of the Bible here, but its EXCLUSIVITY. So this argument is out of the question. We have to notice how the term "normative revelations" is repeated, forcing the reader, thru subtle repetition, to gratudally accept their point of view: That there are normative revelations in which somebody could be based WITHOUT the need for an authority.

You know, it's ironic. The protestant apologists just tried to impress the audience with their fantastic kilometric bible-quotes, for something which just isn't the matter of discussion here. Have you ever heard about the "red herring"?

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Jesus and New Testament writers used the phrase "It is written" (cf. Matt. 4:4, 7, 10) over 90 times, stressing the importance of the written word of God.

ANSWER:

If we make the same study for the names of the apostles, we can deduce the preeminence of St. Peter (he was mentioned 156 times). That the apostles emphasize something doesn't mean that another thing isn't important. It's illogical to say that just because scripture is mentioned 90 times in "it's written", then we would have to adhere only and exclusively to what is written.

I have to mention that in their last argument, the protestant apologists imply, even if very SUBTLY, that catholics are NOT "stressing the importance of the written word of God"; meaning that just because we have in high esteem the unwritten word of God, we are despising the written word. Nothing of this is true. This tactic of theirs is called a "straw man". Exaggerating your oponent's view to the point where it's plainly ridiculous. Then this exaggeration is easily defeated - but not the actual argument we're trying to refute. Play fair, guys.

If the apostles mentioned so often "it is written", it is not because they have given exclusivity or more importance to the scripture than to the oral teachings of Christ - but that the jewish people had scripture in a very high esteem. All their life is based on scripture. The rare thing would be that the apostles didn't mention "it is written" so many times.

Our protestant friends also confront the written word with the unwritten word. (The infamous "either-or fallacy"). But the Bible and Apostolic Tradition DO NOT contradict themselves, nor there's a fight of one against the other. They rather complement each other, and it's impossible to understand one without the other. Therefore, that the apostles had emphasized the importance of the Written Word of God, doesn't mean that they had considered the unwritten Word unimportant.

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When Jesus rebuked the Jewish leaders it was not because they did not follow the traditions but because they did not "understand the Scriptures" (Matt. 22:29). All of this makes it clear that God intended from the very beginning that His revelation be preserved in Scripture, not in extrabiblical tradition.

ANSWER:

It's so easy to fool the reader telling that God wanted a Scripture AND NOT an extrabiblical tradition (the either-or fallacy again). What we catholics believe is that God DID want that SOMETHING of His revelation would be preserved in Scripture, and that also something would be preserved from generation to generation. It is not Scripture AGAINST Tradition, it is scripture WITH Tradition.

That God didn't want an oral tradition is only a conjecture. What Jesus makes clear, is that without the Holy Spirit, it is impossible to understand scriptures. The charge is not ignoring scriptures, but not UNDERSTANDING them. Show me an evangelical pastor who DOES understand every single one of the scriptures. Of course, if there is one, the rest of evangelical pastors will disagree with him. So this becomes an evangelical "democracy": The majority of votes determines the truth.

And this is the key issue in here. If protestants CANNOT understand Scriptures (so limited their understanding is that they have 28,000 different opinions on what scriptures truly mean), does not this tell us that we need a HUMAN AUTHORITY GIVEN BY GOD, to tell us how Scripture should be interpreted? This is where the Catholic Church succeeds and the protestant churchES (plural) fail.

Everyone claims to be inspired by the Holy Spirit - and most of the time, those who do, are the ones who spread more heresies around (like "Reverend" Rodney Howard Browney and his laughter "blessing").

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To claim that the apostles did not write down all God's revelation to them is to claim that they were not obedient to their prophetic commission not to subtract a word from what God revealed to them.

ANSWER:

Check the trap: "Not writing" is qualified as "substracting a word". Jesus never, ever commanded His disciples to write anything! What he commanded them was to make disciples and to preach:

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen (Matt 28:19-20).

In Mark 16:15, we read:
"And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."

In Acts 10:42, we read: "And he commanded us to preach unto the people"

So, the fact that there might be some unwritten tradition, CONFIRMS us that the apostles DID obey. Even if they didn't write a thing, they would still have obeyed, if they named successors whom they taught everything.

The Catholic use of 3 John to prove the superiority of oral tradition is a classic example of taking a text out of context.

[comment: Like 2Tim 3:16? ]

John is not comparing oral and written tradition about the past but a written, as opposed to a personal, communication in the present. Notice carefully what he said: "I have much to write to you, but I do not wish to write with pen and ink. Instead, I hope to see you soon when we can talk face to face" (3 John 13). Who would not prefer a face-to-face talk with a living apostle over a letter from him? But that is not what oral tradition gives. Rather, it provides an unreliable oral tradition as opposed to an infallible written one. Sola Scriptura contends the latter is preferable.

ANSWER: (fasten your seatbelts, fellas!)

Here the apologists use the "either or fallacy", using peyoratives to make us reject oral tradition. They claim without proof, that apostolic oral tradition is "unreliable", "as opposed to an infallible written one". They have no proof that a tradition INSPIRED BY GOD would be unreliable. Actually the proof is that an oral tradition inspired by God IS reliable. For many years, the jewish community transmitted orally, the unwritten Torah, besides the written Torah. The unwritten Torah explained many details and doubts about the written Torah. Both were given to Moses on the Sinai.
Many centuries later, both were combined to form the Talmud. You can prove this by yourselves, in this jewish site i found: What is the Torah?.

But if we take a closer look on how the Judaic Traidtion was maintained, there's nothing to stare at.

The teacher (Rabbi) chooses a disciple, guides him in the faith, prays for him, and teaches him everything he knows (See 2Tim 3:14 and following). So later the disciple becomes a teacher, among "reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others" (2Tim 2:2). Let's remember: Jesus was a jew.

2Tim 2 is a very clear passage, which tells us that Oral Tradition CAN be reliable. Protestants confuse the unprepared souls into thinking Apostolic Tradition is something like the gossip show: "did you know that johnny told me, that his wife told him, that..." NO! This is about a student-mentor teaching, carefully revised ("hey, you missed the mark! This passage means this and this... now go, study these other passages, and do your homework again").

Did you know that in their Bar-Mizbah, the young jews recite a passage which had to be memorized? They are encouraged to memorize it. Here we're talking about a teaching which is handed down carefully, from mentor to student. This is how Apostolic Tradition is maintained: Thru Apostolic Succession.

Actually i could argue (God's promise apart) that Oral Tradition, maintained thru apostolic succession is MORE RELIABLE than written one. The original texts can be corrupted (many were burnt!). It is men (individual persons), and men only, who preserve (and make copies of) the original teachings, for generations. The only ting needed for a written tradition to be lost, is that the original is lost, and the copies are corrupted.

What is needed for a written student-mentor tradition to be lost, is that all the teachers are killed BEFORE they teach someone else (who then becomes a teacher). And even if written tradition is corrupted, there's the apostles' successors who can tell us, WHERE and HOW written tradition was corrupted. Because they obtained their knowledge from face to face, in a personal contact.

A simple person who reads a Bible can't know WHO wrote it, who translated it, who numbered it in chapters and verses, and who wrote the bible commentary. It's completely impersonal and unreliable in practical terms. How do we know our Bible translation wasn't corrupted (remeber the infamous KJV-only paranoia)? An oral tradition, transmitted from mentor to student, makes sure that there will be a person with the necessary knowledge to guide people into good. This is: The Scriptures themselves needed an oral tradition to subsist.

In other words, if all bibles in the world are lost, there will still be the teachers, with all mankind. The Apostolic Tradition is just as reliable and safe as the scripture.

Of course, apostolic tradition is now written in the Church Fathers (volumes I to VIII and so), so this "Oral vs written" matter becomes secondary. Apostolic tradition (and all christian tradition for that matter) is now "cristalized". Even if Apostolic Tradition (with capital T) it's mixed with uninspired (but not necessarily false) traditions, there's the clergy to tell us which part is inspired and which is not (just as they did with the Bible canon). And if that wasn't enough, we still have papal infallibility to clarify obscure subjects: that's precisely what papal dogmas are for. The pope declares when doubt arises.

The Bible has perspicuity apart from any traditions to help us understand it. As stated above, and contrary to a rather wide misunderstanding by Catholics, perspicuity does not mean that everything in the Bible is absolutely clear but that the main message is clear. That is, all doctrines essential for salvation and living according to the will of God are sufficiently clear.

ANSWER:

And WHO decides which is the "main message"? In the Bible there is ambiguity about sins like adultery (except in case of unfaithfulness...), masturbation, abortion - even more: It's ambiguous about if one is "always" saved. When we read John 3:16, we need a baptist preacher to emphasize that this means we're "always" saved. The passage is so "clear" that it has to be the FIRST thing taught because otherwise the bible students wouldn't notice!
Also the bible is ambiguous regarding the necessity of baptism for salvation: In Acts 2, Peter says that people need to be baptised for the remission of sins, but we don't read if this "for" means "to reach" or "because you reached".

Protestants still debate (and always will) if one is "always" saved. It is not salvation the MAIN MESSAGE? and yet they disagree about it. Are only christians saved? More controversy. Which, WHICH is the main message here? Who has God-given authority to decide which the main message is? Who? Anybody?

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Indeed, to assume that oral traditions of the apostles, not written in the Bible, are necessary to interpret what is written in the Bible under inspiration is to argue that the uninspired is more clear than the inspired.

It it is utterly presumptuous to assert that what fallible human beings pronounce is clearer than what the infallible Word of God declares. Further, it is unreasonable to insist that words of the apostles that were not written down are more clear than the ones they did write. We all know from experience that this is not so.

ANSWER:

Here the apologists assume that Oral Traditions of the Apostles ONLY EXIST to interpret the Bible (Of course they are needed, so we can get the WHOLE message).

They also confuse the reader by saying The Oral Tradition from the apostles is not inspired. "Since the uninspired apostolic traditions cannot be greater than the bible, we should only rely on the Bible". This is begging the question, because they already assume that Oral Apostolic Tradition is not inspired by God. Is God the author of confussion?

We are NOT telling that we should prefer uninspired traditions OVER the Bible. What we're actually telling is that the Apostles' oral Traditions ARE inspired by God.

The answer is not that the uninspired is more clear than the inspired (because, again, the book of Revelations is inspired. How in the world can it be clear? Just look at the Jehovah's Witnesses). But rather that without the WHOLE inspired word, we will not be able to interpret a part of it. If, as evangelicals say, "scripture interprets scripture", we must take unwritten inspired Tradition into the equation: "The Word interprets the Word". If we take out the oral word, we cannot interpret the written word: Studying the Bible alone, is studying a part of God's word, out of the context of Apostolic Tradition.

Besides, Geisler and MacKenzie also contradict another one of the protestant "unwritten rules". They say "to assume that oral traditions... is to argue that the uninspired is more clear than the inspired." Well. I challenge the reader. OPEN YOUR BIBLE ANYWHERE and look at the comments below the scripture. Are the comments inspired by God? Of course not, they were written in the 20th century! And since Divine Inspiration ceased in the 1st century... you fill in the blanks. The very simple protestant practice of making bible comments, tells us that we need uninspired words to explain what inspired words mean.

Geisler & MacKenzie, with their statement, have made a new standard: "An uncommented Bible is better than a commented one"! No, i'm not fiddling with their statements saying something they didn't say. I'm just taking their own statements to their last consequences. If the result is an absurd, then their statement was not logical in the first place.

Do the Revelations, the prophecies of Daniel, or the book of Deuteronomy, need the help of a man-made comment, YES OR NO? The Bible may be perfect, but we AREN'T. The Bible cannot be qualified as clear or unclear PER SE. It is clear or unclear TO A READER. We can't say a message is clear if no one reads it. We must study the basic diagram of communications:

EMITTER --------------(message)------------------>RECEIVER

An emitter, the message, and a receiver. The Bible is the message. God is the emitter. We are the receiver. It's not that the message isn't perfect. It is the receiver (US) which is not able to decypher the message as he should: Noise (sin) gets in the way! So we need a little help to understand the complete message.

Kreeft's claim that Scripture and apostolic tradition are inseparable is unconvincing. Even his illustration of the horse (Scripture) and the rider (tradition) would suggest that Scripture and apostolic tradition are separable. Further, even if it is granted that tradition is necessary, the Catholic inference that it has to be infallible tradition -- indeed, the infallible tradition of the church of Rome -- is unfounded. Protestants, who believe in sola Scriptura, accept genuine tradition; they simply do not believe it is infallible. Finally, Kreeft's argument wrongly assumes that the Bible was produced by the Roman Catholic church. As we will see in the next point, this is not the case.

ANSWER:

Maybe we cannot give the name "Catholic" to the church which wrote the Bible. What we can assure is that those who recognized and compiled the inspired books, were indeed catholics - as we read in Ignatius' epistle to the Smyrneans, "where there is Christ, there is the Catholic Church". And Ignatius wrote this approximately in 100 A.D. Just a few years after st. John wrote his Revelations.

Let's suppose it wasn't the Catholic Church. But it was THE Church, with already existing authorities. We accept the Bible not because the Bible says so, but because we believe it was written by men authorized by God. And since these men performed miracles to prove their authority (like Moses), both catholics and protestants accept infallible tradition. The point is that protestants miss SOME of the infallible tradition.

The apologists comment: "Further, even if it is granted that tradition is necessary, the Catholic inference that it has to be infallible tradition is unfounded."

This contradicts their previous statements. If we need a tradition, it HAS to be infallible, because if it wasn't, we would in some hundred years be lost in heresy. And this is exactly what has happened with protestantism: With 28,000 different interpretations (and incompatible in many aspects) of the Bible around, at least 28,999 of them have heresies incrusted. Who says a minor heresy is NOT a heresy at all, or that it's not important?

What our protestant friends try to do is to undermine Apostolic Tradition by removing its infallibility, because in THEIR protestant environment full of denominational non-infallible (and contradictory) traditions, the existence of a non-protestant infallible tradition would indeed be a major scandal.

Kreeft's argument that sola Scriptura violates the principle of causality is invalid for one fundamental reason: it is based on a false assumption. He wrongly assumes, unwittingly in contrast to what Vatican II and even Vatican I say about the canon,[13] that the church determined the canon. In fact, God determined the canon by inspiring these books and no others. The church merely discovered which books God had determined (inspired) to be in the canon. This being the case, Kreeft's argument that the cause must be equal to its effect (or greater) fails.

ANSWER: Playing with the semantics of the word "determine" is not a valid resource.

Here Geisler & MacKenzie give another meaning to the word "determine". To determine means to research, find out, to know. Determination and discovery are the same thing. The case is that the protestant trusts that God enlightened the Catholic Church so we could have an infallible list of infallible books.

God DID NOT determine the Canon. He GAVE it to us. God doesn't need the Bible, WE do. Jesus himself said that nobody would come to Him if the Father didn't call him first. Being the Catholic Church the one who told us which books were inspired, it was necessary that God had guided the Cacholic Church, so She wouldn't err on this matter.

God doesn't need miracles to know that Jesus was his messenger. We do. God doesn't need an authority to tell us which books are in the Canon. We do. It is the Church, inspired by God, who gives us the list of books belonging to the Bible. Our friends tell us that the church only discovered the Canon (as if it was a golden chest, EVIDENT to anyone who looked at it), but they don't tell us HOW She discovered it. Did the Church play dices? ¿By majority of votes? ¿Did the bishops ask God to send fire from heaven to burn all the apocryphal scriptures? No, they had to be enlightened by God. If the protestant doesn't accept this fact, he is telling that the books HE considers inspired, in reality may not be, as the protestant is not infallible. Actually, it is not the Catholic Church, but in the MAJORITY of other protestants, whom the protestant trusts: They say that "by faith" they know those books are inspired by God. It is so curious that the mormons tell the book of Mormon is inspired because they "feel the Holy Spirit who told them so".

But the first protestants did trust in the Catholic Church. And if they didn't, then they used a fallible, human criteria. (The actual criteria was: "Because doctor Luther says so, and he is a doctor above all doctors of popedom... papists and ass are one same thing") to tell us what was in the Canon and what was not.

What Geisler and MacKenzie tell us is: The Catholic Church doesn't deserve the credit for giving us the Bible canon, because it was God the one who gave it to us. And i can ask: Why do you accept that the 27 books of the New Testament are inspired? As they don't trust in the Catholic Church, whom do they trust? Will God have to appear to every single one of the millions of protestants and tell them "Hey guys! I the Lord say these are the books of the Bible"? Those who did not receive this "needed revelation" will have to trust the ones who did. If they don't, who will certainly know which books are inspired by God, and which aren't?

The problem here, is to know WHO received God's revelation about the Canon, and if the majority WANTS to trust the ones who did.

The protestant is OBLIGUED to accept an authority to tell him which books are the Bible. If he doesn't, he is implying that some books of the Bible could still be hiding in some archeological site, waiting to be discovered.

But if God inspired the Catholic Church about WHAT is the Bible, why do protestants presuppose that He won't keep inspiring her about WHAT THE BIBLE MEANS?

Kreeft's claim that the rejection of the Roman Catholic view on infallible tradition leads to the scandal of denominationalism does not follow for many reasons. First, this wrongly implies that all denominationalism is scandalous.

ANSWER: Denominationalism in the long term, leads to cultism and moral relativism. And it is the Church, and not the Bible, who can prevent the people from false prophets.

My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that t here are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ." Is Christ divided?" (1Cor 1:11-12)

To say denominationalism is not scandalous is to say that division is OK. And as i have said somewhere else, denominationalism leads to cultic fundamentalism and moral relativism. It was in a denominational environment that Jehovah's Witnesses were born. It was in a denominational environment that mormons were born. And it was precisely for the denominational environment, that almost all abusive churches, even suicidal cults like Branch Davidians, operated without being noticed by the churches, until it was too late. The most recent assasin cult in Uganda, was noticed and MARKED by the Catholic Church: His leader was excommunicated, and people were warned about the consequences. Unfortunately, the Church didn't have enough influence so the people would listen to her.

Protestants look for people to tell them what the bible means, instead of people to teach them THE OFFICIAL DOCTRINES OF THE CHURCH. If you ask a Jehovah's Witness to teach you te catechism, he will have no other thing to do than to tell you "read it yourself". Oh, but if you ask him to teach you The Bible, he will bring you thousands and thousands of Watchtower magazines to teach you his interpretation of the Bible - from his own bible translation to convert you to his group.

By means of excommunication, the Catholic Church can prevent the faithful against heretics. But as protestant churches don't have this resource, they can only hope that a false teacher doesn't steal the faithful, with lies like "we're only a group of friends which applies the Bible in our lives - we don't belong to any religion" Very effective lies: With phrases like this one, exclusivist churches (only they get saved), have destroyed the lives of thousands of families around the world. Why? Everybody thinks they are "just another denomination" There is no practical standard of distinguishing a true from a false teacher.

It is the Church, and not the Bible, who can prevent people from falling in the hands of false teachers.

The claim that denominationalism is not a scandal, is completely out of reality.

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scandalous...Not necessarily so, as long as the denominations do not deny the essential doctrines of the Christian church and true spiritual unity with other believers in contrast to mere external organizational uniformity". Nor can one argue successfully that unbelievers are unable to see spiritual unity. For Jesus declared: "This is how all [men] will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35).

ANSWER:

Certainly i can't contradict John 13:35, but this is an INCOMPLETE criteria. So we can know that people are disciples, they have to BOTH love one another and be one as Jesus and the Father is one. ¿How can exist a true spiritual unity if you don't believe in the same? When an "unsaved" man is dying, will there be uniformity between his friends if one says that he must be baptised and another says he shouldn't because that would damn him for trusting in "works of men"? Can we really notice that "they love each other" when they don't stop fighting, accusing one another of antibiblical? I can't see it. And don't tell me i'm blind, for we should fit in the case of the naked emperor: Only the fools couldn't see his clothes.

The reality is that non-believers cannot accept that christianity comes from God, because christians can't agree with themselves. Go to any antichristian site (pagan or atheist), and you will see this argument. Saying non-believers are able to see the "spiritual" unity is simply closing your eyes before so many faithful that abandon christianity daily, to seek new religious movements.

How can protestants guarantee spiritual unity? They can't. Only when they write a protestant catechism (non inspired) and start teaching it to EVERYONE, and making sure EVERYONE follows it, is the only way to regulate the flock. When Jesus said that we had to eat his flesh to have eternal life, people scandalized, but he didn't retract saying "hey, that's my opinion of what my Father says. You don't have to believe me, just pick another teacher". He instead challenged the disciples: Do you want to leave me too? Read the passage in John 10 about Jesus being the good shepperd, and see what denominationalism does to the sheep.

Protestants don't have a way to recover the lost sheep: For them they just "switched denomination" (even then, they were already saved so it won't hurt them if they fall in the worst of cults). The Catholic Church, instead, accepts the facts: "They are lost sheep, they left the Church and need our prayers"

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Second, as orthodox Catholics know well, the scandal of liberalism is as great inside the Catholic church as it is outside of it. When Catholic apologists claim there is significantly more doctrinal agreement among Catholics than Protestants, they must mean between orthodox Catholics and all Protestants (orthodox and unorthodox) -- which, of course, is not a fair comparison.

Only when one chooses to compare things like the mode and candidate for baptism, church government, views on the Eucharist, and other less essential doctrines are there greater differences among orthodox Protestants. When, however, we compare the differences with orthodox Catholics and orthodox Protestants or with all Catholics and all Protestants on the more essential doctrines, there is no significant edge for Catholicism. This fact negates the value of the alleged infallible teaching Magisterium of the Roman Catholic church. In point of fact, Protestants seem to do about as well as Catholics on unanimity of essential doctrines with only an infallible Bible and no infallible interpreters of it!

ANSWER:

The protestant apologists say: "... they must mean between orthodox Catholics and all Protestants (orthodox and unorthodox) -- which, of course, is not a fair comparison."

It would be an unfair comparison alright, when we decide which protestants are orthodox and which ones aren't. Letme remind you that 500 years ago, protestantism was declared unorthodox by THE MAJORITY of christians around. Now that they have multiplied (or divided as i should say) so that Roman Catholicism is a minority compared with the majority of protestants (both "orthodox" and "unorthodox"), catholicism now turns to be the most unorthodox religion, if not the "whore of babylon". Even then Roman Catholicism is the absolute majority if we compare it with each denomination, in terms of followers. Therefore we still have the right to decide (in their own standards) who is orthodox and who isn't.

It's easy to accuse catholics of putting together unorthodox protestants with orthodox. But just ask an "unorthodox" protestant who is orthodox. He says "us of course!" Who is the orthodox and who the unorthodox, if ALL claim to follow the bible?

Our friends also say: "Only when one chooses to compare things like the mode and candidate for baptism, church government, views on the Eucharist, and other less essential doctrines are there greater differences among orthodox Protestants".

And who decides if the mode or the candidate for baptism, the government of the church, the views of the Eucharist are "less essential doctrines"? For example. If Jesus is really present in the Eucharist, how can this be less essential if this means that Jesus is truly present between us, to heal the sick, to give sight to the blind, and proclaim the grace of the Lord? Only those who don't believe it, say it's "less essential".

Catholic doctrines were declared as "less essential", by fallible men, in a reactionary rejection of practically all catholic doctrines. Our protestant friends call them "less essential" because they were taught, in a protestant tradition, that they were so. Besides, as i have shown, even in the essential doctrines, they differ.

They conclude: "In point of fact, Protestants seem to do about as well as Catholics on unanimity of essential doctrines with only an infallible Bible and no infallible interpreters of it!"

With a major difference. Catholic LAYPEOPLE, even priests, do not have the authority to decide what a certain passage means. The pope, and the pope alone, has infallible authority, summed to the Tradition handed down by the apostles in person.

Protestantism is an anarchy, where any layperson can appoint himself as prophet of God, with nobody who can have a VISIBLE authority to contradict him. If we suppose that the XYZ denomination, in 1600, was the TRUE denomination, we can conclude that, when this XYZ was an 80% of protestantism, now it has reduced to 20% or less.. even 1%. In other words, heresy is always increasing in protestantism. On contrast with the Catholic Church, in which "heresy", IF there is a heresy, remains always constant. Is this not enough proof to say denominationalism does cause great scandal among protestants?

They can answer: "Oh, but a heresy is a heresy, and the catholic heresy is the worst of all". Let's face the facts. The catholic system works in preserving its doctrines faithfully. And this is what protestantism, with its "only the bible" system, has been unable to do. And for the same reason, we can rightly suppose that due to the strictness of the catholic system, Roman Catholicism has to be the true faith of the first christians.

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Third, orthodox Protestant "denominations," though there be many, have not historically differed much more significantly than have the various "orders" of the Roman Catholic church. Orthodox Protestants' differences are largely over secondary issues, not primary (fundamental) doctrines. So this Catholic argument against Protestantism is self-condemning.

ANSWER:

Either Geisler and MacKenzie are blatantly lying in this comment, or they simply show their ignorance of what religious orders are. I suppose the latter. What they can't be forgiven, is not to have researched well enough on this, given their reputation as christian researchers (shame on you guys).

In the first place, catholic orders do not difer at all about doctrine. Contrary to protestant denominations, catholic orders are NOT different religions, but lifestyles. Franciscans have CHOSEN to live a life of poverty. Missionaries of Charity (founded by Mother Teresa) have chosen to live with, and take care of the poorest of the poor. Jesuits devote themselves to study and teaching. The Servants of the Word are full-time missionaries, who travel to diverse parts of the world. Marists teach in schools, and choose Mary as an important part of their way of living.

Catholicism shows diversity in lifestyle, yet unity in doctrines. You can choose to have the lifestyle you feel most comfortable with, yet know that you will increase in virtues, and still being taught the official doctrines of the Church. You will never see a jesuit (of course, LOYAL to the church) say that Jesus isn't God, or that baptism must be done in name of "Jesus only".

Besides: All Jesuits, Marists, Dominics, Franciscans, Sisters of Charity, Salesians, Tomists, Augustines, etc... all practice a same liturty: The Mass. Even with minor variations in separate elements (i.e. songs instead of reading psalms), everyone accepts that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that Mary is ever virgin.

What we see in catholicism is diversity, but unity in doctrine, liturgy and hierarchy. But what we see in protestantism is anarchy, in doctrinal,liturgical and hierarchical ways.

The comment that protestants "do about as well as Catholics on unanimity of essential doctrines", is an absurd.

I have another reason: Catholics who disagree with the "essential doctrines", are heretical (unorthodox) not because they're catholic, but because they are not CATHOLIC ENOUGH. But many protestants who believe in "only the Bible" (the basic characteristic of protestantism), fall frequently in heresies: They are heretical BECAUSE they are protestant (by accepting their scriptural interpretation above the biblical scholars, above their former pastors, and above the reformers themselves).

Big difference, indeed.

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Fourth, as J. I. Packer noted, "the real deep divisions have been caused not by those who maintained sola Scriptura, but by those, Roman Catholic and Protestant alike, who reject it." Further, "when adherents of sola Scriptura have split from each other the cause has been sin rather than Protestant biblicism...."

ANSWER:

I have just proved this comment false. But i would like to add... that adherents of sola Scriptura have split because of sin, is to blame the serpent for our own sins. "Oh, it wasn't protestantism! It was sin!":

Adam, what have you done?
It wasn't me, it wasn't me! It was Eve, it was Eve!
Eve, what have you done?
It wasn't me, it wasn't me! It was the serpent, it was the serpent!

A church which has no means to AVOID the effects of sin (division), cannot be called church at all:

Protestants KNOW people will sin.
Protestants KNOW that sin causes division.
So:
Protestants KNOW that there will be divisions if they don't do something about it.
Yet they DONT DO anything to stop it!

This is precisely why an ecclesiastical structure, with men in charge, is needed. This is why we need a Vicar of Christ: When christ was with them, the disciples had no divisions. .

So if we have someone with Christ-given authority, there will be no divisions either. Even the Orthodox Church, which separated from the Catholic Church, has remained (except for brief lapses of heresy) in the same doctrine, due to their ecclesiastical structure: There isn't a pope, but there are zonal patriarchs, and their doctrines remain constant, more or less, due to their respect for Tradition.

If we KNOW that sin fogs our biblical understanding, and we KNOW that WE ARE SINNERS, how do we claim that the "me and the bible" philosophy works? Sola Scriptura ASSUMES that the bible reader is pure from sin and therefore he can understand the main message (or any message at all).

I have to clarify: The Church teaches the MATERIAL sufficiency of the Bible. This means that the source of ALL catholic doctrines (including the "craziest" marian doctrines) can be found in, or deduced from, the Bible.

What the Catholic Church doesn't teach is the FORMAL sufficiency of the Bible - meaning that anyone can find salvation just by reading it.

Protestants teach the formal sufficiency, when they actually contradict themselves by doing what they don't preach: They tell the new convert "trust us, we're christians", so the convert does NOT read the Bible, but rather trusts in somebody else. He doesn't declare them as infallible, but he accepts their authority, which is exactly the same: Instead of accepting papal infallibility, they accept ANYONE's infallibility. Anyone can become a teacher.

Catholics have never said that there were some NEW doctrines that the Bible IGNORED, but that there are some doctrines that protestants HAVE NOT YET discovered. Doctrines which have been transmited thru Apostolic Tradition, such as the immaculate conception of Mary, and purgatory. They can be backed up with biblical verses, they can be found in there.

BUT - even when the Bible has the basis for all christian doctrine, it doesn't guarantee by itself, that people will KNOW and UNDERSTAND those doctrines. This is why we need infallible teachers to interpret an infallible book.

The Bible is not enough. We need someone with the Holy Spirit, so, no matter his sins, he still tells the truth when the Holy Spirit tells him - just as Peter was enlightened to say that Jesus was the Messiah. That IS a dogma.
(And Peter hadn't been baptised/"born again" yet!)

Maybe i'm mixing papal infallibility so much in here. But you can't accept catholic doctrine regarding Sola Scriptura, and at the same time reject everything else. You accept the Church as a whole, or you reject it. You can't accept WHAT YOU LIKE and reject what you don't.

If the Church needs to be infallible, with an infallible tradition an infallible Pope, then God will give them to us (He already did). Since protestants accepted Sola Scriptura, they can't accept that the Church needs a Pope and a Tradition. The more they reject these 2 ideas, the more divided the protestant churchES will be. Because the moment you accept Sola Scriptura, you accept that, no matter what, no matter how many sins you have done, God WILL enlighten YOU anyway just because you have said a simple prayer!?!?.

(And we just notice: the "Always saved" doctrine OF COURSE interferes with sola Scriptura - many think they can understand the Bible, because they have the Holy Spirit, because they are always saved. But what if they're not?).

Just as Martin Luther claimed to be "teacher greater than all popedom", every protestant teacher claims to be infallible, and rejects everyone who disagrees, as heretic. This is the history of protestantism.

Before we read the protestant's response, allow me to clarify Kreeft's argument that first came the Church, then the Bible:

Fact #1. The New Testament was inspired by the Holy Spirit, right? Could any apostle write ANYTHING of the New Testament, before Pentecost, when the disciples received the Holy Spirit and they started to speak in tongues? The New Testament wasn't written before Pentecost.

Fact #2. Peter, Paul, John and all NT writers, wrote to ALREADY EXISTING communities. They had a Church with teachers.

Kreeft's argument that the first generation of Christians did not have the New Testament, only the church to teach them, overlooks several basic facts. First, the essential Bible of the early first century Christians was the Old Testament, as the New Testament itself declares (cf. 2 Tim. 3:15-17; Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 10:6).

ANSWER: Now let's remember the next facts:

Fact #3. Not EVERYONE had a bible on his own. The protestant teacher with a leather-bound bible, with ALL their books, with the title "Holy Bible" is a protestant stereotype. There wasn't paper at that time. At much, papyrus. The existing Old Testaments were kept sacred in the synagogues. They were available to only few people if we try to imagine private, at-home, teach-yourself use.

Fact #4. THE DIVISION OF THE BIBLE IN CHAPTERS AND VERSES IS AN INVENTION OF THE XII CENTURY.

Fact #5. The Old Testament scriptures, were a jewish posession. The bible never mentions christians stealing the Torah from the synagogues. Copying every single script would have taken months, even years (specially with the jewish and roman persecutions against christians. To have papyrus handy wasn't something like going to the store and ask "Can i have 3 meters of papyrus please? Do you accept Mastercard?". We're so accustomed to 20th century living that we forget how the primitive church actually lived. NO they didn't have bathrooms. To get papyrus you had to do it underground, with fear of being discovered by the authorities or fall into a trap).

Fact #6. If we also take into account that there were regions which were not even jew, this is, they were pagan, with NO synagogues around, how would those communities "survive"?

Fact #7. Also, why do we think that everybody learn to read & write? This is an occidental, 20th century assumption.

Jesus didn't come for the rich, wealthy men WHO KNEW HOW TO READ & WRITE. He came for the poor. Is it logical to think that people needed to read & write the scripture to attain salvation? They needed teachers, and they still need them.

Fact #8. Besides, the majority of the first-generation christians were jews: They didn't read Scripture whenever they wanted, but the teachers of the Law, taught them. This is why the Bereans compared everything with the scriptures, because they were scriptures, that as jews, they knew very well.

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Second, early New Testament believers did not need further revelation through the apostles in written form for one very simple reason: they still had the living apostles to teach them. As soon as the apostles died, however, it became imperative for the written record of their infallible teaching to be available. And it was -- in the apostolic writings known as the New Testament.

ANSWER:

This assumes that the Apostles only preached and didn't have any students. The Bible clearly answers this, because we see Timothy being raised by Paul, to become a bishop. We read that as soon as the communities became more numerous, the apostles had to name deacons to administer baptism and other things, while they kept preaching and announcing the good news. Thinking the apostles didn't PREVENT their death, that they didn't raise successors, to leave the people at their expenses is just illogical (and antibiblical).

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Third, Kreeft's argument wrongly assumes that there was apostolic succession (see Part Four, next issue). The only infallible authority that succeeded the apostles was their infallible apostolic writings, that is, the New Testament.

ANSWER:

Again we see the protestant apologists hide in their black box (only the bible). They believe that there weren't successors because they don't see their names listed in the Bible (and if they're litsed, the Bible doesn't say they were the successors, for the simple reason that the book of Acts just tells us the life of the apostles, not their successors). But we do know that there were successors. We know apostle John raised Polycarp and Ignatius of Antioch. We know Polycarp educated Iraeneus. If this wasn't enough, we see Timothy and Titus. And we see Linus (Peter's successor according to history) in Paul's 2nd epistle to Timothy (written in Rome).

And we have the list of the bishops of Rome. Apostolic succession is not a presupposition. It's a fact. Of course, we can't prove this with only the Bible because the Bible is not a manual of Church History; This is why we have Eusebius History of the Church: From Christ to Constantine, written in 325. To deny the validity of such writing, some use conspiracy theories which say catholics burned all evidence.

And if the protestant is based on the Bible alone to deny apostolic succesion, he will fall in the eternal argument: There isn't apostolic succession because i can't find it in the Bible, and i can't search somewhere else because the apostles didn't leave any successors, but only the Bible.

As long as the protestant refuses to take of his only-the-bible mask, he won't be able to discover the First Century Church in which Apostolic Succession, Eucharist and Infant baptism, were recognized by the Church Fathers.

Just because they were born in the 20th century, where everyone has a bible available in his own language, our protestant apologists think that there wasn't any authority and that the church was MEANT to use the Bible alone. Just because THEY are used to it.

In point of fact, oral traditions are notoriously unreliable. They are the stuff of which legends and myths are made. What is written is more easily preserved in its original form. Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper notes four advantages of a written revelation: (1) It has durability whereby errors of memory or accidental corruptions, deliberate or not, are minimized; (2) It can be universally disseminated through translation and reproduction; (3) It has the attribute of fixedness and purity; (4) It is given a finality and normativeness which other forms of communication cannot attain.[15]

ANSWER:

As we've seen above (see answer to "the Bible does not state a preference for an Oral Tradition"), Oral Tradition is reliable as long as it runs under the catholic model of Apostolic Succession (mentor-student).

Now let's compare Scripture with Oral Tradition, NOT to prove that Oral Tradition could be superior to a Written Tradition, but that, Oral Tradition, in Catholic Terms, has the same sufficiency than a written one:

1. Durability:
   The mentor-student teaching guarantees us that oral revelation will endure. Jesus Christ promised to His Church, that the "Gates of Hades shall not prevail against it". He also said: "I will be with you all days until the end of the world". And in case of a memory failure: "I will send you the Spirit who will remind you the things i have taught to you".
   
   Besides, Catholic Doctrine is not hard to learn. IT IS NOT A DICTIONARY that we could forget about. It is almost a science, where we can prove the relationships between diverse doctrines, and the logical excellency derived from their study. A catholic doesn't learn data, but relational information with a sense. Learning the catholic doctrine is like learning math: If you don't remember something, you can deduce it from already acquired knowledge. This doesn't happen with a history book.
   
   With this we can deduce something else: If the Bible was written, it wasn't precisely because it's the most "essential" (and even if it was), but because it has thousands of specific data very hard to memorize (like the book of chronicles, genesis, a lot of genealogies, the specific words in Jesus' speeches, or the prophecies of the Revelations). This is: The Bible is necessary, but not sufficient.
   On the other side of the coin, the letters from st. Paul were already written in their original form, as the recommendations and answers to the Churches. Here we can see how Scripture and Tradition complement each other.
   
   
2. universally disseminated :
   "Go to all the world and preach the gospel". The Catholic Church has been universally disseminated. In fact, catholic means "disseminated thru the earth". And the Church came to stay.
   
   
3. Fixedness and purity:
   The catholic rules about infallibility, are a stop sign against the invention of new doctrines. All dogmas must be coherent with the actual teachings of the Church.
   
   
4. finality and normativeness :
   Does the words "Rome has spoken", tell you something? What the bishop of Rome said, was the norm. Councils were the norm, and as we've seen, protestants already accept the catholic decisions about the New Testament Canon).

When protestants compare written tradition, with the Oral Catholic Tradition as if it was ANY oral tradition, without taking into account the possibility of being a Tradition inspired by God, puts us in a terrible disadvantage. This cliché about the "fallible oral tradition", pressuposes that the cultures which created such tradition will hopelessly dissapear, and that the only records that can be found are written - but we must remember that ancient traditions dissapeared (or became corrupted, whatever) because they weren't traditions inspired by God (unlike traditions created by those who worshipped pagan gods, like the hindus).

To be fair, we have to make the following assumptions:

1) The Word of God will not dissapear, because God made that promise. God did NOT specify whether His word should be written or not.

2) That the Church founded by Jesus still exists, because He promised in Matthew 16:18 and 28:20. If the Church dissapeared, then Jesus didn't fulfill His promise and is a liar.

If the protestant apologist examines the Catholic Oral Tradition, without studying the Apostolic Succession which supports it, then he's simply attacking a straw man.

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By contrast, what is not written is more easily polluted. We find an example of this in the New Testament. There was an unwritten "apostolic tradition" (i.e., one coming from the apostles) based on a misunderstanding of what Jesus said. They wrongly assumed that Jesus affirmed that the apostle John would not die. John, however, debunked this false tradition in his authoritative written record (John 21:22-23).

ANSWER:

Our protestant friends confuse human traditions with THE Apostolic Tradition, even if both come from the Apostles. Apostolic Tradition is taught with authority, it never reflects the personal opinions/interpretations of the apostles, but claims to be what the Apostles received from Jesus Himself. We must remember that after his resurrection, Jesus kept teaching his apostles, in person, for 40 days.

Besides, in John 21:22-23, the Bible only says that the apostles misinterpreted what Jesus said. They were confused. Want more reasons? There were a lot of days before pentecost. The apostles hadn't received yet the Holy Spirit. Apostolic Tradition is a direct teaching from the Apostles, just as st. Paul said about the Resurrection:

"For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles." (1 Cor 15:3-7)

Where do we read in thet gospels that Jesus appeared first to Peter? Nowhere! It is, therefore, an ORAL tradition. This is a correct example of Apostolic Tradition, unlike the bad example given in John 21.

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Common sense and historical experience inform us that the generation alive when an alleged revelation was given is in a much better position to know if it is a true revelation than are succeeding generations, especially those hundreds of years later.

Many traditions proclaimed to be divine revelation by the Roman Catholic Magisterium were done so centuries, even a millennia or so, after they were allegedly given by God. And in the case of some of these, there is no solid evidence that the tradition was believed by any significant number of orthodox Christians until centuries after they occurred. But those living at such a late date are in a much inferior position than contemporaries, such as those who wrote the New Testament, to know what was truly a revelation from God.

ANSWER:

In the first place let me answer the evidence claim: There IS evidence that the first christians supported the catholic beliefs and dogmas. At least the most representative. But if they want written evidence that a 60, 70 or 90% of the THOUSANDS of christians believed in Catholic Tradition, there is neither the written evidence that such a number of christians believed in "the Bible ALONE". Both of us can play the "no evidence" game.

In the 2nd place, the apologists appeal to the historical closeness of the apostles. Isn't this EXACTLY the Catholic argument in favor of the correct interpretation of Baptism, Salvation and Eucharist?

The generations who knew the Apostles (or their immediate successors), could know perfectly the teachings about the true nature of the Eucharist: Real Presence against a mere symbol.

As Luther decided to ignore all catholic commentaries in passages of the Bible, he came to represent fallible traditions, contrasting to the infallible Apostolic Tradition.

As there is no clear biblical passage telling us that "Scripture interprets Scripture", protestant apologists have accepted, unconsciously that a 20th century interpretation of Scriptures (or of Apostolic Tradition, it's the same for the sake of the argument), is inferior to a 1st or 2nd century. In their own words:

"But those living at such a late date are in a much inferior position than contemporaries, such as those who wrote the New Testament, to know what was truly a revelation from God."

It is acknowledged by all, even by Catholic scholars, that there are contradictory Christian traditions. In fact, the great medieval theologian Peter Abelard noted hundreds of differences. For example, some fathers (e.g., Augustine) supported the Old Testament Apocrypha while others (e.g., Jerome) opposed it. Some great teachers (e.g., Aquinas) opposed the Immaculate Conception of Mary while others (e.g., Scotus) favored it. Indeed, some fathers opposed sola Scriptura, but others favored it.

ANSWER:

Regarding the last statement, we shall ask if it was REALLY sola Scriptura what some Fathers supported, or rather the Material Sufficiency of Scriptures, this is, a Scripture interpreted by the Catholic Church.

Regarding variety, we find ourselves discussing traditions with lowercase t. We have to take into account WHEN the catholic theologians were giving their own personal opinion, and WHEN they were talking in name of the Holy Catholic Church.

The protestant apologists try to make us think that Catholic writers were in a practical anarchy and as deviated (even more) than the contemporary protestant "scholars". What they miss is the fact that there was a concensus in many matters, including, again, the true nature of the Eucharist, the validity of infant baptism, and the perpetual virginity of Mary.

If we add to this, the acceptance of the councils by the Church Fathers, we have more to our favor: Augustine believed in predestination, but he humbly accepted the authority of the Church who reprimanded him. Jerome believed that the "apocrypha" weren't inspired, but humbly accepted the decision of the corresponding councils, even when they weren't Ecumenical Councils (see the article: 5 Myths about 7 books, on Envoy Magazine):

Jerome didn't speak against what the councils of Hippo and Cartague said, even if they weren't ecumenical. Even more: Regarding this matter, he says in his writing Against Rufinus (11:33): "What sin have i commited by following the judgment of the Churches?", which tells us that he accepted what the Catholic Church said about the Canon. If Jerome, with so much knowledge and respect for the Word of God (so much he translated it) didn't speak against such councils, how can't we accept in them the authority of the Church?
(Besides, the jewish council of Jahvne, in which protestant based, wasn't a true jewish council, nor it had true authority, because it was ran much time after the Church had already been established).

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Now this very fact makes it impossible to trust tradition in any authoritative sense. For the question always arises: which of the contradictory traditions (teachings) should be accepted? To say, "The one pronounced authoritative by the church" begs the question, since the infallibility of tradition is a necessary link in the argument for the very doctrine of the infallible authority of the church. Thus this infallibility should be provable without appealing to the Magisterium.

ANSWER:

Nice try, but failed again. Because if we put ourselves in the timeline of the first christians, we should find ourselves obeying and accepting authority, NOT OF A TRADITION, but of the same successors of the apostles. The Magisterium is the Authority. Tradition is what this Authority teaches us as transmitted by the apostles.

On the other hand, by asking: "Which of the contradictory traditions should be accepted?", Geisler and MacKenzie are signing their own death sentence, because this question is the same question asked by protestant WHEN THEY HAVE TO CHOOSE A DENOMINATION: Which of the contradictory teachings [about what the Bible really means] should be accepted? And protestants don't even have an infallible Magisterium to tell us!

Our friends also make another fatal mistake by saying: "Infallibility should be proven without appealing to the Magisterium", when it was the Magisterium who taught the infallibility of the Scriptures!

If infallibility can be proven without appealing to the Magisterium, i challenge the apologists: Prove the infallibility of the 27 books of the New Testament, without appealing to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. How do you know that it was the apostles or somebody authorized by them, the one who wrote those books? Who wrote the letter to the Hebrews? Can you prove they were inspired by God? NO YOU CAN'T! If they disprove the infallibility of the Church, they are automatically disproving the infallibility of the Bible itself. Therefore, we can assure that protestants trust IN THEIR OWN OPINIONSto prove that the Bible is infallible.

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The fact is that there are so many contradictory traditions that tradition, as such, is rendered unreliable as an authoritative source of dogma.

Nor does it suffice to argue that while particular fathers cannot be trusted, nonetheless, the "unanimous consent" of the fathers can be. For there is no unanimous consent of the fathers on many doctrines "infallibly" proclaimed by the Catholic church (see below). In some cases there is not even a majority consent. Thus to appeal to the teaching Magisterium of the Catholic church to settle the issue begs the question.

ANSWER:

As we saw, there are so many contradictory traditions in protestantism, that protestantism, as such, is rendered unreliable as an authoritative source of dogma.

Protestantism IS a tradition, just as Roman Catholicism. The real question is WHICH of both, is a VALID tradition.

Besides, there could be contradictory traditions in Roman Catholicism. But we are based in the authority of the time, who is in charge, and not in the will of the majority, as protestants do. But i can assure you, no matter how contradictory the Fathers' traditions can appear to be (i've seen protestant apologists quote the Fathers out of context as they do with the Bible), that the traditions of centuries I to III are much more consistent than the actual mixup of protestant teachings. No Father spoke against the Holy Trinity, nor against the authority of the Catholic Church, nor against the validity of infant baptism. I ask the reader to examine the Church Fathers' writings (http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ and check out which doctrines were standard, proclaimed by the majority of writers: Such doctrines will not be protestant in any variety.

We cannot forget that in general, christian writers rejected novel, recent and contradictory interpretations of the Bible (heresies), with this preserving the already existing tradition - precisely the one which came from the Apostles.

If we remember also, that no papal dogma has contradicted previous dogmas, i can think of an easy solution to the infallibility problem: The correct tradition is the one which doesn't contradict already existing traditions, nor the Scripture. And this is precisely a Pope determines a dogma as true. But let's keep reading to know more about the catholic answer to the question.

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The Catholic response to this is that just as the bride recognizes the voice of her husband in a crowd, even so the church recognizes the voice of her Husband in deciding which tradition is authentic. The analogy, however, is faulty. First, it assumes (without proof) that there is some divinely appointed postapostolic way to decide -- extrabiblically -- which traditions were from God.

ANSWER:

This would be a great argument if we start to look 1500 years after Scriptures were written - and this is just another argument favoring the Catholic Church: Jesus warned us against false prophets. In the first centuries, there was already a Church, guided by God, in such a way that "the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (Mt 16:18).

Before saying that there is no postapostolic way to decide, established by God, protestants already assume that there was a total and complete apostasy, in which the Church disappeared completely (save a few people scattered and hidden, people of which no proof exists), and that the only remainings of the Church of God, were a bunch of sparsed scrolls.

First, show me, with biblical proofs, that there would be such total and complete apostasy. The apostasy in the Bible is defined as: "THEY came FROM among us" (see 1 John), telling us that the Church still existed, survived, and taught.

Of course, here is where FAITH gets in the equation. We can have faith to believe if Jesus DID protect his Church from total oblivion, or we can stop believing in Him to start believing in protestant statements of a total and complete apostasy in the times of Constantine (the famous "conspiracy theory").

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Second, historical evidence such as that which supports the reliability of the New Testament is not to be found for the religious tradition used by Roman Catholics. There is, for example, no good evidence to support the existence of first century eyewitnesses (confirmed by miracles) who affirm the traditions pronounced infallible by the Roman Catholic church. Indeed, many Catholic doctrines are based on traditions that only emerge several centuries later and are disputed by both other traditions and the Bible (e.g., the Bodily Assumption of Mary).

ANSWER:

Either our friends are blatantly lying, or they haven't researched enough.

Geisler and MacKenzie are confusing Papal Declaration, with Apostolic Tradition, with the General Opinion of the Church. By implying that the "Assumption of Mary" is a postconstantine invention which emerged "several centuries later", they are contradicting visible proofs: In the 3rd or 4th century, we see a clear testimony of the assumption of Mary. It's located in the Antenicene Fathers, vol. VIII: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-08/TOC.htm. Search in your broser, the text "The Passing of Mary". In thte same page, you can also find another testimony:"The Account of St. John the Theologian".

Now, just because the written testimony isn't of the 1st or 2nd century, that doesn't necessarily tell us that it was a later invention: For example, the book of Acts was written between 60 and 70 AD (more or less the date of Paul's martyrdom, because the period of his life in Rome is included). The testimony of the assumption of Mary could be much earlier.

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Finally, the whole argument reduces to a subjective mystical experience that is given plausibility only because the analogy is false. Neither the Catholic church as such, nor any of its leaders, has experienced down through the centuries anything like a continual hearing of God's actual voice, so that it can recognize it again whenever He speaks. The truth is that the alleged recognition of her Husband's voice is nothing more than subjective faith in the teaching Magisterium of the Roman Catholic church.

ANSWER:

Such caricature could be used against any protestant, as no protestant has experienced "anything like a continual hearing of God's actual voice, so that it can recognize it again whenever He speaks". The recognition of a gift from God can only be another gift from God. Even many protestants say that just because the Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit, God will enlighten them to understand the Bible. Now i wonder HOW the Holy Spirit could enlighten a protestant when reading the Bible, and at the same time NOT ENLIGHTENING a Pope when he studies, prays, consults about, and finally proclaims an infallible dogma.

Here we come to the matter of Authority. Either you lead, follow, or get out of the way. You can DENY the authority of the Catholic Church, but you can't claim that YOUR Church is the original. As no protestant can proclaim infallibly that his church/denomination is the Church with the Keys of the Kingdom, they say that such keys are merely symbolic.

When the matter is a "subjective mystical experience", we could simply deny the resurrection of Jesus, because THERE ARE NO PROOFS. The True Church has written enough documents and epistles, to show proofs, indirect proofs, but sufficient to believe and accept her authority. But there are simply no arguments to accept SOME of the Church's writings (i.e. "The Bible") and reject the rest. It's an absurd. The proofs are there. The Bible points to Peter as possessor of an authority (the keys of the Kingdom), and archaeology points to the tomb of Peter in a catacomb under the vatican. If this isn't enough proof to believe that the Church which Jesus founded is the Catholic Church, then there are A LOT LESS proofs which show us that Jesus wanted a church full of lone ranger christians who cry "me and my bible", divided in thousands of pieces because of heresies.

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Catholic Use of Tradition is not Consistent

Not only are there contradictory traditions, but the Roman Catholic church is arbitrary and inconsistent in its choice of which tradition to pronounce infallible. This is evident in a number of areas. First, the Council of Trent chose to follow the weaker tradition in pronouncing the apocryphal books^* inspired. The earliest and best authorities, including the translator of the Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate Bible, St. Jerome, opposed the Apocrypha.

* Protestants give the name "apocryphal" to the books called by catholics as "deuterocanonical".

ANSWER:

That "weakest tradition" is non other than 3 councils of the Church in the 3rd and 4th century: Rome, Hippo, and Cartague. The protestant is inconsistent by accepting these councils regarding the NT, but rejecting them at the same time about the OT books.

In contrast, the only sources that the protestant has to say that he has the correct bible, are two:

1) The personal opinion of Jerome and other 2 or 3 writers (not mentioned), and
2) A jewish reunion in Jamnia (also called Jahvne), which decided which books were Scripture (of course, in this list, the christian books were not included!)

So we have the Catholic Christian councils, against a jewish council of the 1st century (and unofficial if that wasn't enough). Is it logical to think that God would give His Holy Spirit to the same jews who rejected Christ, and not give the Holy Spirit to the christians who would decide in the name of the whole Church?

In the first place, the Church already existed, and the apostles were already writing the New Testament. The jews of that time, remained jews not just because they inherited an incomplete tradition, but because they did NOT accept God's Word made Flesh (Jesus Christ).
All of those jews who DID accepted Jesus, became christians. Now, if we accept the jewish statements about Scripture, why not also accept their statements about circumsition and baptism?

To say that the jewish council of Jamnia (an AntiChristian council) had more validity than a Christian council (which had to be guided by the Holy Spirit), is to simply act prejudiciously and inconsistently: Either you accept the Councils of the Church as a whole set, or you accept that you do NOT have an infallible source to define which books of the New Testament are "the Bible".

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Second, support from tradition for the dogma of the Bodily Assumption of Mary is late and weak. Yet despite the lack of any real evidence from Scripture or any substantial evidence from the teachings of early church fathers,

[note: unless we have a God-breathed definition of "substantial evidence", we are getting nowhere]

Rome chose to pronounce this an infallible truth of the Catholic faith. In short, Roman Catholic dogmas at times do not grow out of rationally weighing the evidence of tradition but rather out of arbitrarily choosing which of the many conflicting traditions they wish to pronounce infallible. Thus, the "unanimous consent of the fathers" to which Trent commanded allegiance is a fiction.

ANSWER:

Dogmas DO come from a rational anslysis of evidence from tradition. What happens is that the testimonies dating the 3rd century are not "substantial" enough for Geisler or MacKenzie to accept them as dogma. No christian writer gave evidence to support that the Virgin Mary had died and remained in her tomb. Is this was true, WHERE ARE HER BONES? Again this is a matter of faith. And the assumption of Mary, as i will show in another study (under construction), is consistently with given revelation. The true reason to reject the Assumption of Mary, is NOT because it's not in the Bible, but because it is TOO CATHOLIC to be considered "safe". If the assumptions of Elijah and Enoch (and probably Moses) are biblical, why not think that Mary, the Mother of God-the-Son made flesh, could have been taken to heaven? This is logical and consistent with the given proofs and revelations.

Third, apostolic tradition is nebulous. As has often been pointed out, "Never has the Roman Catholic Church given a complete and exhaustive list of the contents of extrabiblical apostolic tradition. It has not dared to do so because this oral tradition is such a nebulous entity."[16] That is to say, even if all extrabiblical revelation definitely exists somewhere in some tradition (as Catholics claim), which ones these are has nowhere been declared.

ANSWER:

The "true interpretation of the Bible" has always been nebulous. So nebulous that there are almost 30,000 different interpretations. And as i've said before, protestants don't even have an authority to say which interpretation is the true one. The Catholic Church has always existed since Pentecost, and it is the ones who dispute her authority, who should give an exhaustive and complete list of christian doctrines. I would like one of these days to read a protestant catechism, accepted by ALL protestants covering ALL the obscure passages of the Bible.

The practical conclusion is, either we accept the authority of the Catholic Church, or we conform with choosing the "least worse" denomination adapted to our personal taste, taste which is, of course, NOT inspired by God.

In conclusion, the question of authority is crucial to the differences between Catholics and Protestants. One of these is whether the Bible alone has infallible authority. We have examined carefully the best Catholic arguments in favor of an additional authority to Scripture, infallible tradition, and found them all wanting.

ANSWER:

What i've found wanting are the attempts of disminishing the need for an apostolic authority. I've given enough reasons to support an infallible authority with Apostolic Succession.

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Further, we have advanced many reasons for accepting the Bible alone as the sufficient authority for all matters of faith and morals. This is supported by Scripture and sound reason.

ANSWER:

Well, everyone says his denomination's beliefs and morals are supported by Scripture and Sound Reason. Sounds reasonable to me :)

I hope this article has helped. God bless you all!