"Time of Enscripturation"

[Catholicdeacon]

can you tell me what sola scriptura means??? I doubt it because you don’t understand it. Please look into it.

I do not have to… Read the original post and you will see what we are discussing… if you think there is something wrong with Mr White’s representation of SS why don’t you call his weekly program… I heard he loves to talk with people that disagrees with him.

In His love…

 

[Catholicdeacon]

protestants have Tradition and the ones who know their faith don’t deny it.
much like all of the other conversation about Sola Scriptura on this board, you guys are building the strawman of SOLO scriptura and tearing that down. do some more research look into what Michael Patton says about it, then lets talk.

So… Are you implying that one of those traditions IS a list of which books are inspired in the NT? If this is what you are saying then you are violating one of SS tenants, the fact that scripture is self authenticating. You my friend, are depending on an authority outside of scripture to tell you what is revelation. That is what Catholic’s call Sacred Tradition.

In His love

 

[Contarini]

I recently came upon a concept I had not heard of regarding Sola Scriptura. I really don’t know how widely accepted this view is, but I read an article where at least James White advocates it.
Here is a old quote from the aomin webpage:The main element of Mr. Ray’s [Catholic] misrepresentation of sola scriptura can be seen in just this: the doctrine speaks of a rule of faith that exists. What do I mean by this? One will search high and low for any reference in any standard Protestant confession of faith that says, “There has never been a time when God’s Word was proclaimed and transmitted orally.” You will never find anyone saying, "During times of enscripturation—that is, when new revelation was being given—sola scriptura was operational." Protestants do not assert thatsola scriptura is a valid concept during times of revelation. How could it be, since the rule of faith to which it points was at that very time coming into being? One must have an existing rule of faith to say it is “sufficient.” It is a canard to point to times of revelation and say, "See, sola scriptura doesn’t work there!" Of course it doesn’t. Who said it did?
This has apparently been taught for at least 10 years,

Make that 500 years at least. It’s an obvious corollary of sola scriptura.

yet for some reason Catholics around here have not mentioned it much.

Because they design their arguments based on fundamentalist objections. Fundamentalists generally don’t think very carefully, so Catholic apologists let themselves off thinking carefully as well.

Based on this paragraph, I make the following two points:

1)There is nothing in Scripture (esp the NT) that says there are times when Sola Scriptura is “operational” and not operational. And there is definitely no date given when enscripturation ended.

You miss the point. The point is that we all agree that the Word of God trumps any merely human teaching. And we all agree that Scripture is the Word of God. We can go in two directions from here. Catholics rightly point out that our confidence in Scripture (at least in these particular books) as the Word of God rests on the testimony of the Church. Protestants, on the other hand, would argue that the burden of proof always rests on anyone proposing that something is the Word of God. They would argue that Christians are agreed on the 66 books for sound historical, theological, and experiential reasons. (And here Catholics can rightly quibble.) Anything beyond that needs to be defended, and traditional Protestants simply can’t see that there is conclusive evidence that anything else is a fully reliable embodiment of the Word of God in our time.

I think that the Catholic position is stronger. But unfortunately, some Catholic apologists have created a Protestant straw man in which what has to be defended is the proposition “only something written down in a book can be the Word of God.” This is not something traditional Protestants have ever maintained. Arguing about it is a waste of time and distracts from the real force of the Catholic case.

Edwin

2)Passages like 2 Timothy 3:16f CANNOT be teaching Sola Scriptura at all, for when Paul penned those words it was a during a “time of enscripturation.”

This claim is so devastating to Sola Scriptura that I cannot believe that it was even advocated in the first place.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Make that 500 years at least. It’s an obvious corollary of sola scriptura.

I’d have to see some reasoning why this would be an “obvious corollary,” not to mention the Scriptural basis for that claim. I doubt there is Scriptural support for that claim. In fact, as I have already said, this claim radically undermines SS because the Epistles were written to audiences living during Apostolic times and thus they could not have understood any passage to be teaching SS (because it was not operational).

You miss the point. The point is that we all agree that the Word of God trumps any merely human teaching. And we all agree that Scripture is the Word of God. We can go in two directions from here. Catholics rightly point out that our confidence in Scripture (at least in these particular books) as the Word of God rests on the testimony of the Church. Protestants, on the other hand, would argue that the burden of proof always rests on anyone proposing that something is the Word of God. They would argue that Christians are agreed on the 66 books for sound historical, theological, and experiential reasons. (And here Catholics can rightly quibble.) Anything beyond that needs to be defended, and traditional Protestants simply can’t see that there is conclusive evidence that anything else is a fully reliable embodiment of the Word of God in our time.

I think that the Catholic position is stronger. But unfortunately, some Catholic apologists have created a Protestant straw man in which what has to be defended is the proposition “only something written down in a book can be the Word of God.” This is not something traditional Protestants have ever maintained. Arguing about it is a waste of time and distracts from the real force of the Catholic case.

So why are you a Protestant if you think the Catholic case is stronger?

 

[wisdomseeker]

protestants have Tradition and the ones who know their faith don’t deny it.
much like all of the other conversation about Sola Scriptura on this board, you guys are building the strawman of SOLO scriptura and tearing that down. do some more research look into what Michael Patton says about it, then lets talk.

your tradition is of man.

ST only the CC has it.

 

[Contarini]

I’d have to see some reasoning why this would be an “obvious corollary,”

I should rather have said: it is an obvious corollary of the material sufficiency of Scripture, which all adherents of sola scriptura hold (though by most definitions they also hold some form of “formal sufficiency”). If Scripture is materially sufficient, then all revealed truth is found in Scripture. But obviously there was a time before that truth was all written down. I suppose it is logically possible that this truth was unknown to human beings before it was written down, but we know for a fact that this was not the case (that the NT in particular was written down as a record of things the apostles were already preaching). I should perhaps have said that it’s an obvious corollary of sola scriptura in the light of what we know beyond dispute about the writing of the NT books (whether that oral process lasted for a few years or for many decades is not the point–hence I can say that the basic concept is beyond dispute). In other words, since we know that there was once authoritative oral tradition (2 Thess. 2:15 as well as plenty of indirect evidence), the only way one can believe in sola scriptura is to believe that at some point all of this was written down. It’s astounding to me that you would find this novel or surprising. You seem to have assumed that all adherents of sola scriptura were complete idiots, which is generally a bad idea.

not to mention the Scriptural basis for that claim.

As Catholic apologists have pointed out, there is a clear Scriptural basis for the claim that the Word of God existed in oral as well as written form during the apostolic era. Some Protestants try to argue that 2 Tim. 3:16 supports Sola Scriptural, but the only way that will work in my opinion is if you can argue that the apostolic teaching mentioned in 2 Thess. 2:15 was all written down by that time (well, even then I think the argument is weak, but it’s not obviously false). Otherwise, we are left on both sides with probabilistic arguments and appeals to tradition to decide just where that apostolic tradition “went.” (Obviously you think you have authoritative Church teaching on your side, but in Protestant-Catholic controversy that’s begging the question, since the status of such authority is precisely what is in doubt.)

In fact, as I have already said, this claim radically undermines SS because the Epistles were written to audiences living during Apostolic times and thus they could not have understood any passage to be teaching SS (because it was not operational).

A Reformed Baptist friend of mine suggested that 2 Timothy may have been the last book of the NT written (that would obviously require dating Revelation much earlier than usual, since he certainly was not questioning Pauline authorship of 2 Timothy), and that would save 2 Tim. 3:16 as an argument for SS. One can make a more reasonable case that it may have been the last epistle written (whether or not it was written by Paul, because if you take a conservative view of the Pastorals you’ll probably take a conservative view of other disputed letters like 2 Peter, and vice versa), which would arguably still constitute “enscripturation” of the teaching that the apostles had been orally proclaiming. I should leave the explication of this view to people who actually believe it. I’m simply pointing out that some doctrine of “enscripturation” is necessary if one is going to defend sola scriptura.

In my opinion sola scriptura is best argued not on the basis of Scripture but rather by shifting the burden of proof: we know at least some places where the Word of God is (in those books that Christians have always confessed to be divinely inspired), and if it is somewhere else as well there had better be similarly strong evidence for it. Since there isn’t (the argument would run), we dare not put our full confidence in any other putative source for the Word of God. I don’t find this argument fully convincing either, but I think it’s much better than the attempt to argue for a dogma of Sola Scriptura on the basis of Scripture.

The basic point you need to understand is that the force of Sola Scriptura rests on the many passages in Scripture where the Word of God is contrasted with human teaching or human tradition. This naturally leads Protestants to think that God is warning them not to trust in human tradition as if it were God’s Word, and that leads them to be willing to err on the side of caution when examining any putative “Word of God.”

So why are you a Protestant if you think the Catholic case is stronger?

I would have thought that you know me (or rather my Internet persona) well enough by now to know that I am not a Protestant in the sense of being bound to defend some “Protestant” theological position, as distinct from the specific theological commitments involved in being Anglican. For me “Protestant” is primarily a historical label–that is certainly the only sense in which I’m comfortable applying it to myself. I remain a Protestant in this sense because this is the form in which the Gospel came to me, and it is rash and arrogant to run around looking for “purer” or more congenial forms of religion. I probably should not have become Episcopalian, but I am one now, and I’m staying put until God clearly calls me to do otherwise.

Edwin

 

[Catholic_Dude]

It’s astounding to me that you would find this novel or surprising. You seem to have assumed that all adherents of sola scriptura were complete idiots, which is generally a bad idea.

No. My claim was that I don’t see how it is a logical corollary, not that adherents were idiots for embracing SS. I had always been under the impression SS was always operative, even during periods of greater revelation, so people like Jesus and the Apostles in fact adhered to Sola Scriptura. So, IF SS were true under the form I originally envisioned, the corollary you present (of non operative times for SS) is not necessarily true. That is why after I learned about this “times of enscripturation” when SS was not-operative I said I saw SS as even weaker than my original perception of it.

As Catholic apologists have pointed out, there is a clear Scriptural basis for the claim that the Word of God existed in oral as well as written form during the apostolic era. Some Protestants try to argue that 2 Tim. 3:16 supports Sola Scriptural, but the only way that will work in my opinion is if you can argue that the apostolic teaching mentioned in 2 Thess. 2:15 was all written down by that time (well, even then I think the argument is weak, but it’s not obviously false). Otherwise, we are left on both sides with probabilistic arguments and appeals to tradition to decide just where that apostolic tradition “went.” (Obviously you think you have authoritative Church teaching on your side, but in Protestant-Catholic controversy that’s begging the question, since the status of such authority is precisely what is in doubt.)

Yes, and this type of reasoning only can hurt the SS side because it just shows how you must appeal outside Scripture sooner or later.

A Reformed Baptist friend of mine suggested that 2 Timothy may have been the last book of the NT written (that would obviously require dating Revelation much earlier than usual, since he certainly was not questioning Pauline authorship of 2 Timothy), and that would save 2 Tim. 3:16 as an argument for SS. One can make a more reasonable case that it may have been the last epistle written (whether or not it was written by Paul, because if you take a conservative view of the Pastorals you’ll probably take a conservative view of other disputed letters like 2 Peter, and vice versa), which would arguably still constitute “enscripturation” of the teaching that the apostles had been orally proclaiming. I should leave the explication of this view to people who actually believe it. I’m simply pointing out that some doctrine of “enscripturation” is necessary if one is going to defend sola scriptura.

This type of argument could be put forward, but my point is that it puts the defender of SS in a more akward position than before. Could 2 Tim be the last Epistle? Sure, but embracing and defending that claim is going to be tough.

In my opinion sola scriptura is best argued not on the basis of Scripture but rather by shifting the burden of proof: we know at least some places where the Word of God is (in those books that Christians have always confessed to be divinely inspired), and if it is somewhere else as well there had better be similarly strong evidence for it. Since there isn’t (the argument would run), we dare not put our full confidence in any other putative source for the Word of God. I don’t find this argument fully convincing either, but I think it’s much better than the attempt to argue for a dogma of Sola Scriptura on the basis of Scripture.

We should both agree Christian doctrine should not be based on shifting the burden of proof, not to mention the irony of such a move considering they claim Scripture’s nature was supposed to provide such answers clearly.

The basic point you need to understand is that the force of Sola Scriptura rests on the many passages in Scripture where the Word of God is contrasted with human teaching or human tradition. This naturally leads Protestants to think that God is warning them not to trust in human tradition as if it were God’s Word, and that leads them to be willing to err on the side of caution when examining any putative “Word of God.”

Yes, but this is more a form of poisoning the well rather than a genuine concern. Protestants, by and large, have grown up thinking tradition is a bad word, despite the fact Scripture only condemns certain types of tradition while embracing others.

I would have thought that you know me (or rather my Internet persona) well enough by now to know that I am not a Protestant in the sense of being bound to defend some “Protestant” theological position, as distinct from the specific theological commitments involved in being Anglican. For me “Protestant” is primarily a historical label–that is certainly the only sense in which I’m comfortable applying it to myself. I remain a Protestant in this sense because this is the form in which the Gospel came to me, and it is rash and arrogant to run around looking for “purer” or more congenial forms of religion. I probably should not have become Episcopalian, but I am one now, and I’m staying put until God clearly calls me to do otherwise.

LOL, this is just how a Anglo-Catholic type person would talk. They are somewhere between Protestantism and Catholicism, trying to have the best of both worlds.
It reminds me of John Henry Newman’s Oxford Movement.