Certainty of Scriptures - a response to Defensores Fidei Foundation

A year ago the Chairman of Defensores Fidei Foundation (DFF), a Roman Catholic apologetics ministry, asked me a question which is related to the alleged difficulties of Sola Scriptura. He asked how do I know which books belonged to the Bible when the Bible itself does not have a list. I gave my reply and after almost a year one of the Chairman’s resource people gave a counter reply.

For a brief background, one of the arguments against Sola Scriptura is that Evangelicals or Protestants cannot practice this unless an extra biblical authority, such as an infallible church, identifies the books that belong in the Bible. Appealing to this extrabiblical authority violates Sola Scriptura. The Roman Catholics are confident that they know which books belonged in the Bible because they believe that their church magisterium is infallible and has determined the said books. However, this implies a lot of problems which you will read later on.

The Evangelical position on the other hand states that the church only recognizes the Scripture because of its nature being God-breathed or inspired (theopneustos, 2nd Timothy 3:16). The church has this ability to recognize not because she is infallible, but because she has related and worked with God for a period of time. This relationship enables the church to recognize the actions of God. Without God giving inspiration to the Scripture, the church cannot recognize what are the Scriptures. Therefore, knowing what is Scripture rest on the nature or characteristic of the Scripture as being theopneustos.

My first email response to the DFF Chairman is written in black, the DFF resource person counters by writing in red, and then my recent rebuttal in blue.

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Please accept my sincere apologies for not replying to your email immediately. I have been busy with work lately that I am barely moderating our forums and checking my emails. I only read yours yesterday.
As to your question, I have seen it a million times. It is one of the many questions Catholic apologists ask to the advocates of sola scriptura. The Bible does not have a table of contents, so how would we know which NT book is inspired? How could sola scriptura account for the books in the Bible?

Permit me to say something before giving my answer. Unpleasant it may seem, you'll be trapped in a circular reasoning if the question was returned to you. I have no doubt that your position is: Without an infallible church, no one would know for certain what the Scripture is. Deny it or not, this is where you're going. Let me discuss this first.

There is no denying this, for this is doubtless the Catholic position: without an infallible Church, there is no saying what Scripture is. However, since you claim that this is somehow circular, the burden of proof is upon you to show why it is circular. Do you understand what circular means? I will return to this later.

Yes, I know what a circular argument is.

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I could note two problems with that position and I suggest that you ponder it for a while:

1. How do you know that your church is indeed the true church? There are so many churches today claiming to be of God's. Many churches claim to be biblical and historical. You can cite your basis, but remember they too have their basis. You want to quote history? The Eastern Orthodox is one of your rivals.

Frankly, this objection does not make sense. So what if there is a rival to the Catholic claim that it is the true Church, on the basis of history? Is the mere fact that a rivalry exists, incontrovertible proof that there is no way to resolve the rivalry? If I will take your line of reasoning, then all “choose the correct answer” questions can never be resolved, for the simple reason that different choices exist. Of course, in such questions, the correct answer is discerned from among the different choices by means of evaluating which choice makes more sense!
If two Churches claim to be the true Church on the basis of history, then let history itself be the criterion, and let historians measure which of these two Churches has the greater evidence and testimony of history on its side. (Hint: the Church Fathers make numerous references to the primacy of Rome.)

First of all, it is ironic that you are not bothered at all of the rivalry of some Christian churches claiming to be the true church on the basis of history. Unless you believe otherwise, historians do not claim infallibility and not all historians are even accurate and honest. How would you react if a historian writes that your church has been corrupt, would you not question that historian? I am not saying that we should ignore history but the point here is rival churches will end up scrutinizing historians and discerning would not be as easy as you thought.

Second, it is even more ironic that you replied that the correct answer can be discerned from among choices. I am wondering about who will do the discerning, is it fallible people? If I read history and chose to embrace your opposing church, can you honestly say that I discerned it correctly? Of course not! Your church has a teaching that only the Magisterium is infallible to interpret the Bible. But are you honestly expecting that fallible people can rely on their fallible judgment that as they read history they will correctly discern that your church is indeed true? Don’t tell me that we need an infallible interpreter of history.

For that matter, your own argument leaves you with no recourse against us. You say that the multitude of churches claiming to be true, makes our claim to be the true Church incapable of being resolved. In that case, what makes you capable of telling us that we are wrong?

It is your position that will leave me incapable of telling which is right and wrong. I don’t believe that the church is infallible and I also don’t believe that the Scripture is the product of the church. I let the Scriptures be Scriptures, and its authenticity is not dependent on the church so I do not need to go through the process of identifying which church is infallible.

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You want to quote the Bible? The cults are your rivals.

Are you saying that we can no longer discern who is quoting the Bible the right or wrong way? Just because many people quote the Bible does not mean that there is no way of distinguishing from among them who is right or wrong in quoting Scripture. The devil quoted Scripture and Christ refuted him nevertheless. In the same way, the true Church can refute the cavils of the cults and the objections of the Protestants.

Similar to my rebuttal earlier, what happens that after reading the Bible the person does not choose your church? And are you honestly expecting fallible people to interpret the Scriptures correctly? Are you forgetting that it is your doctrine that only the infallible church has the authority to interpret? You would no doubt ask your opponent on how sure he is on his interpretation of the Scripture.

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You want to give a standard for determining which church is true? You have to make the other churches accept your standard.

Naturally. That is the point of apologetics. And it is the very nature of truth that mutually contradictory claims cannot all be true.

Look now how it turns out: I cannot know the Scriptures without an infallible interpreter. I cannot know the infallible interpreter without interpreting history and the Bible. I also cannot know the infallible interpreter until we reach an agreement on what standards we should follow in determining the infallible interpreter. And worst of all, I am not infallible to interpret things because Roman Catholics claim that all interpretations rest on the infallible church which we are tasked to identify. We are running in circles with your reasoning!

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Bottomline: you can't simply say you are true and they are not.

Said like a true relativist! Is everything a matter of mere opinion? If you believe that there are standards of right and wrong, then it IS possible to say what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is not, on the basis of the evidence.

Yes, we need evidences. But I am lost if I follow your reasoning as mentioned in my previous paragraph.

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2. How did the Jews who were born 50 years before Christ know that Isaiah is inspired? Remember, there was no Catholic church 50 years before Christ.

The Church is the heir of Israel, which had the benefit of the Chair of Moses even before Christ came. The teachers of Israel who sat on this Chair – to whom Christ Himself told us to listen – were one in accepting that Isaiah was a prophet. However, Christ gave the keys to Peter and the power to bind and loose to all the apostles, thus granting to the nascent Church – not to the Temple priesthood that was about to be scattered to the four winds by Roman might, and not to the Synagogue -- the continuation of the teaching office.
In any case, the Church does not accept the inspiration of the OT books simply because the Jews said – and say -- so, but because the Church has confirmed which of the OT books are indeed inspired, and which ones are not. Thus the differences between the current Jewish canon from the Catholic canon.

Therefore, there is no infallible magisterium to tell those Jews, who were born 50 years before Christ, that the book of Isaiah is inspired.

They did, at that time, have a “magisterium” – the Chair of Moses. Today, the Chair of Peter has taken its place. You may not believe it, but the fact that you do not believe it does not prove it to be self-contradictory or wrong.

I do not believe they are infallible for two reasons. One, Christ has been rebuking on matters of doctrine those teachers in the seat of Moses. An example of which is in Matthew 22:23 to 33 (look also in these verses what Christ used as the basis of his answer).

Two, I have not read any official proclamation or teaching from your church that these Old Testament teachers are infallible. You only assumed it. When the question “how did the OT Jews know that the book of Isaiah is inspired” was first asked several years ago, many Roman Catholics had difficulty answering it because they believe only the NT church is infallible. In a debate with the Evangelical apologist James White on Sola Scriptura, Roman Catholic apologist Patrick Madrid gave an answer to the same question by referring to an OT church but never mentioned that this was infallible.

Now, many Roman Catholics like you reply by giving a theory that the OT teachers are infallible – a theory that is not even documented but only assumed.

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By the way, the council of Jamnia was not formed 50 years before Christ.

And, pray tell me, who said that? Of course it wasn’t formed before Christ, because it came decades after Christ had ascended to heaven.

Also, don't say that the OT doesn't concern you because you're not Jewish because the OT Books came from God.

We venerate the ancient OT as Scripture, so much so that we have not dared cut seven books and a few chapters from it, unlike a certain group of Christians. Whence comes this ridiculous assertion that we Catholics think that the OT doesn’t concern us? This assertion (and the rest of your assertions!) only make me think that you do not really understand – nor have you tried to understand – what we Catholics are really saying. Unfortunately, we have come to expect this.

I was only making sure that you would not use the above reasoning. I commend you for not doing so.

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That being said, basing your beliefs in a supposedly infallible church, to determine the inspiration of the NT, has these problems.

You did not even show where the circularity lies. I must seriously ask you: do you know what a circular argument looks like? Here’s one.

If we Catholics argue to the effect that “the Catholic Church is the true Church because the Bible shows us to be the true Church, and there is a Bible because the Church said so” then you can rightly accuse us of circularity. But we do not argue this way, and indeed your enumeration of our arguments do not even touch this.
We base our belief in the truth of the Catholic Church not primarily upon Scripture – for Scripture itself needs to stand upon the truth of the Church – but upon history. First and foremost, Catholic apologetics makes the point that Jesus Christ indeed existed. Then, it shows that He indeed arose from the dead, on the basis of the empty tomb and the testimony of historians and the weight of auxiliary testimony and reasoning. On the point that Christ resurrected from the dead, we argue for His divinity. On the multitude of historical evidence, we show that this divine Christ who was resurrected did indeed found a Church. Having shown that the Church was founded by Christ, we then show that this Christ and His Church are indeed the ones witnessed to by Scripture, and that this Scripture is the heart of the Tradition of the Church.

Newman said that to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant. Take note that he did not say that to be deep in Scripture is to cease to be Protestant, for to say that Scripture proves the truth of the Catholic Church for us would be simply wrong. Scripture confirms what the Church teaches and witnesses to what the Church says; it is the heart of the Tradition of the Church, but not its source. The source of the Tradition is Christ Himself. In the final analysis, the Resurrected Christ is the greatest proof for the true Church.

I have proven it earlier on that your argument is circular; now let’s prove it again by analyzing the above paragraphs. I have nothing against history. I already answered that historians and the readers of history are both fallible that there is a probability that when one reads history they will not end up concluding that Rome is the true church. Let’s give another approach.

Roman Catholic convert Stephen Ray wrote at the 38th page of his book, Crossing the Tiber, that the New Testament is the product of the church. So this confirms your position that the Bible is true because the church says so.

Now you claim that the truthfulness of the church is based on the life, death, and resurrection of Christ as documented by history. I am wondering what the source of this history is. History may tell you of the birth of Christ, but it does not confirm the virgin birth. History may tell you of his crucifixion and death, but it does not confirm the atonement. History may tell you of an empty tomb, but it does not confirm his resurrection. History may tell you that he founded a church, but it does not confirm her infallibility. If history would ever confirm those beliefs, it would have come either come from the writings of the bishops and church fathers (who are of course members of the church and were taught by the church) or the Bible (which you believe is the product of the church). In short, the source of those things mentioned actually originated from the church herself. That being said, you are left with no argument other than “my church says so”; circular.

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And now for your question. I will start by giving an illustration. Let's use the famous softdrink, Coca Cola. The factory will not give you a list of the softdrinks they made since they began operations so that you can verify if the Coke you bought is real. But if you have been drinking Coke for years, you would recognize it's taste. All you have to do is drink.

Softdrinks can be faked easily, and in any case, taste buds are fallible. In the final analysis, it is not enough to have good tastebuds; it is necessary that we define what is Coke and what is not on the basis of a standard recipe, regardless of what amateurish tasters think. Do you think that the manufacturers of Coke simply depend on their taste buds?

Obviously you have not understood the phrase I wrote, if you have been drinking Coke for years. This implies that a person new to Coke will not be able to identify it promptly, it takes time. Likewise, getting to know God takes time; it is called maturity. Do you remember when the Prophet Samuel was a child? He wasn’t able to recognize God because he was just starting.

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The Scriptures share a very important characteristic: they all were God-breathed (2nd Timothy 3:16). They were not made by men. They were never declared by men to be inspired. God did. God never threw a table of contents, He left a quality in the Scriptures so that His people (both Jews in the OT and Christians in the NT) can recognize His voice.

If only it were that easy! The fact remains that Christians fought over which books were God-breathed and which ones were not; which books resounded with His voice, and which ones did not. This took place over hundreds of years. In the end, the Church had to step in: hence the Councils of Hippo and Carthage, the Letter of Pope Innocent I to Exsuperius, the Festal Letter of St. Athanasius. These are concrete historical facts that you cannot deny. If it was so easy to discern which books had God’s voice, then why were there protracted discussions, why was there need for Councils on both Jewish and Christian sides to discern what books are inspired and what are not?

I cannot deny the same Hippo and Carthage which are not ecumenical councils and are not even initiatives of Rome. I also cannot deny Carthage based their recognition of the OT from the Septuagint and listed 1 and 2 Esdras for which 2 Esdras contained Ezra and Nehemiah while 1 Esdras was extra-canonical which was eventually removed from Trent a thousand years later. I also cannot deny the rejection of the Apocrypha by Jerome, Melito of Sardis, Gregory the Great, Athanasius, Cajetan, etc.

It was only in Trent that your Bible was finalized. You are right; it isn’t that easy if you leave the Scripture to human institutions, in fact it is impossible. For me, the Scriptures has long been inspired and defined even before there was the first a man in Rome who claimed to be pope.

Your argument is but a variant of the “if-I-read-it-I’ll-know-it’s-God’s-word” argument. It is scarcely convincing, for the Mormons use the same for the Book of Mormon and the Muslims use the same when singing the Koran’s praises. Again and again, you fall into subjectivitism.

The “if-I-read-it-I’ll-know-it’s-God’s-word” argument is simply stated but the process of realization is deeper. As I said, it takes time to know God. Likewise, Mormons and Muslim would also take time to know their rule of faith.

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In any case, according to your own argument, the early Christians were able to recognize the voice of God. Where these Christians – the Church Fathers – Born Again Christians or Evangelicals? Please answer.

I am anticipating that you would argue the affiliation of these early Christians as to whether they are Roman Catholic (not the single word Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, or Evangelical. This would be off topic.

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The early church (leaders and member alike) never needed a table of contents, they looked for the very important characteristic, theopneustos.

Hehehe. Didn’t you just say that the sacred books were “never declared by men to be inspired.” Now, you contradict yourself.

Precisely as you say, the Church decided which books had theopneustos! But they did it according to the hierarchical principle, not according to democratic means: hence the Councils.

Identifying the Scriptures is different from deciding and declaring the Scriptures. Identifying leaves you no choice to decide. If you were to identify Barack Obama, it will not leave you any choice to decide that a certain Caucasian is Barack Obama. And you cannot simply pick a random African American and say he is Barack Obama. The uniqueness and sum characteristics of Barack Obama leaves no room to decide from the choices and thus only subject to a specific identification. Likewise, if a given writing has theopneustos there is no need to decide if it is Scripture or not.

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Of course, the early church did her part to teach the generations about the Scriptures and thus, the table of contents.

Ouch. Self-contradiction alert!

No contradiction, but a misrepresentation on your part. Sola scriptura does not deny the church to teach.

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But even if there is no table of contents, the characteristic remain.

So why did the early Church bother to come up with a table of contents, if there is no need for it anyway?

Before anything else, I would like to tell you that I believe that the table of contents is not the canon in its entirety. If you are treating the canon as the table of contents itself, then we are not arguing on the same level. If you are asking why did the early Church bother to come up with a canon, then that is not my position because God is the author of the canon.

You can add, remove, or rearrange the books in a list and still call it a table of contents but not so in the real canon. The table of contents is there for teaching/guiding purposes but it is dependent on the canon.

And for that matter, if you recognize that the early Church did indeed come up with the table of contents for Scripture, then why do you – as a Protestant – deny that table of contents, by choosing to follow a version of the Old Testament foreign to the one accepted by the early Church?

You are asking as if the early church has the same table of contents as you have, it is begging the question. You are also asking it as if we are dependent on Rome for our table of contents; again it is begging the question. There are debates going on about the canon. Thus, your question contains an argumentative premise.

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In my illustration, even if the Coke factory will not give me certification of authenticity, I can recognize it is Coke if I taste it.

I’d like to see you try.

Or maybe you can tell of your experience. I’m sure you have experienced ordering a glass of Coke but instead you
tasted root beer the moment you drank from the glass. For sure you didn’t go the Coke factory just to confirm what the waiter gave you wasn’t Coke. When the waiter apologized and replaced the root beer with Coke, no doubt it was your taste buds that told what you finally drank was Coke.

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The Jews who were born 50 years before Christ has recognized God's voice and knew for certain that the book of Isaiah is of God's.

Because, at that time, the Jews had the privilege of being the bearers of the Word.

I already answered this earlier.

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Conclusion:

I would like to repeat what I have written above:

I cannot know the Scriptures without an infallible interpreter. I cannot know the infallible interpreter without interpreting history and the Bible. I also cannot know the infallible interpreter until we reach an agreement on what standards we should follow in determining the infallible interpreter. And worst of all, I am not infallible to interpret things because Roman Catholics claim that all interpretations rest on the infallible church which we are tasked to identify. We are running in circles with your reasoning!

That is exactly what will happen if I follow Rome’s position, I will end up with nothing but a circular argument. I will not deny that God used the church to bring the Scriptures to the world. But the authenticity of the Scriptures does not rest on “my church says so”. God reveals the Scripture to the church so that she could do the purposes God intends for the world. The certainty of the Scriptures rests on the purposes of God.

Your word, O LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Psalm 119:89 (NIV)

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Romans 15:4 (NIV)