Final Authority: Argument #7 Against Sola Scriptura

As we begin argument 7 in Cameron’s ‘powerful’ arguments against Sola Scriptura we come to the subject of final authority, and what he means by this is that Sola Scriptura makes the individual the ultimate and final authority on interpreting Scripture. Cameron seems to want to identify ‘who’ is supposed to have the final authority when interpreting Scripture but maybe a better way to put this is, who is responsible to read and understand Scripture - every believer or just the Church and her hierarchy?

This argument on Cameron’s part is an attempt to demonstrate that the believer does not have the right or responsibility to interpret Scripture; that final authority rests with the Church whose responsibility also extends to telling the believer what Scripture means. It reminds me of a radio personality who famously boasted that he would tell you what was important in the news and then tell you what to believe. It was intended as sarcasm because of how little people were actually thinking for themselves, even the faithful listeners of his show! And I believe it’s very applicable here because it appears to be the general problem I have seen with a lot of Christians with dusty Bibles. But that is a topic for another day.

If someone believes that each individual believer is responsible for knowing and understanding Scripture, then each believer will live their life a certain way to honor and follow what Scripture says, and they will seek diligently to understand and apply what Scripture says. But if someone believes that the responsibility for knowing and understanding Scripture is ‘on’ the Church, or someone else for that matter, they will live their life avoiding the reading and studying of Scripture to protect themselves from misinterpreting it or to promote their laziness. They will allow the responsible party to tell them what to think and what to believe. Honestly, this has always been the recipe for cultic groups to control people, it's why I shared the radio personality example.

In this blog, I will attempt to break down his argument into bite sized statements and determine the validity of this argumentation.

Final Authority: Do You Have Interpretive Authority

This is the transcript of what Cameron said in his YouTube video for argument #7,

Argument number 7: Final Authority. Sola Scriptura doesn't just cause fragmentation which it does, it makes you the ultimate authority on interpreting scripture. And frankly that is terrifying. Here's why. If the Bible alone is your only infallible guide the responsibility falls squarely on you, a limited fallible human to get doctrine right. You can't appeal to an infallible church or an authoritative tradition. Ultimately everything from baptism to salvation to the Eucharist depends entirely on your personal judgment. And that is daunting! The Bible spans thousands of verses, multiple languages, diverse genres and complex theology. I mean just think about the incarnation. You must interpret all of these things correctly not just for yourself but for your family, your friends and your church. Your eternal well-being hinges on your interpretive skills. It's spiritually perilous. Protestants sometimes respond by saying "Well we don't interpret scripture alone. We rely on expert scholars." But here's the catch with that response. So first those scholars remain fallible susceptible to errors and biases. That's important. Two, more importantly, they frequently disagree profoundly. These scholars, even on core doctrines, Luther and Calvin famously disputed the Eucharist. And today respected Protestant theologians differ deeply on baptism, predestination and salvation itself. You're forced back into deciding who's correct about these things based on your own fallible judgment. It's fundamentally unstable. A common reply to this is: well, Catholics use private judgment too right they must discern which church is the true church and they've got to rely on private judgment for that. This is a fair point. Okay, Catholics do initially use private judgment. But notice there is a big difference here. Catholics make one foundational judgment. Okay they identify Christ's true church. It's like carefully choosing a reliable GPS only once. After that difficult doctrinal questions are authoritatively clarified. Your initial discernment simplifies countless future questions. Protestants on the other hand face ongoing judgment. Every doctrinal dispute remains open, requiring perpetual reevaluation. It's like constantly dealing with conflicting GPS systems giving you contradictory directions leaving you continually uncertain. If Sola Scriptura really were God's intended system it wouldn't force believers into constant interpretive uncertainty. The perpetual burden of private judgment strongly suggests something deeply flawed about it. Okay it's not designed by an all-wise loving God who desires clarity and unity for his people. It was in fact designed by humans. So why is this one at number seven? Well this argument hits harder than the previous two because it directly exposes how practically lost Protestants can become under Sola Scriptura, forced to rely on their own limited judgment. Now while this argument vividly demonstrates the personal struggles and confusion resulting from Sola Scriptura one could still theoretically argue that personal interpretive challenges don't conclusively invalidate the doctrine itself. Maybe God intended the struggle for some unknown purpose. But as we'll soon see the arguments ahead will close off even that escape route. 

Cameron's video: 8:28-12:45 [emphasis added]

Terrified and Helpless

Cameron starts his argument with this,

[Sola Scriptura] makes you the ultimate authority on interpreting Scripture. And frankly that is terrifying. Here's why. If the Bible alone is your only infallible guide the responsibility falls squarely on you, a limited fallible human to get doctrine right.

The first problem with this response is its obvious emotional appeal as Cameron seems to want to scare the viewer to death about wanting to read and understand Scripture. His ‘you have to perfectly interpret Scripture or else’ approach to this argument is ridiculous. Read Church history and you will find that there are disagreements in Scripture interpretations from all the major Church fathers through the ages. They agreed on central doctrines of the faith and disagreed on secondary doctrines, especially prophetic passages, and especially in the Old Testament. In Tradition as Interpretation: Unanimous Consent, we saw how Greek philosophy was pulled into biblical interpretation and poisoned the interpretive methodology of both Clement of Alexandria and Origen, who in turn poisoned the Church’s ability to rightfully understand Scripture for centuries after them. Their faulty methodology still affects the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches to this day! Why else would the Catholic Church cling to its scare tactic that reading the Scriptures is dangerous because someone might be tempted to have their own private interpretation that might conflict with the Catholic Church’s view of that same passage. This is ironically funny and pathetic at the same time since the Catholic Church has interpreted so few verses of the Bible. But they also disagreed with other doctrines such as elements of salvation and baptism since there are vast differences with the beliefs in the early Church and those in the medieval age. His video mentions differences between Luther and Calvin but he failed to mention differences in his own Church. [1]

And speaking of private judgment or private interpretation, one small problem is that the Catholic Church has only interpreted a handful of verses in the Bible – Old and New Testament – in its entire 2000 year history. So, your private judgment is not likely to conflict with the Catholic Church’s view of that verse for quite some time, unless you are unfortunate enough to select one of 5 to 7 verses that the Church has definitively defined. The point hopefully is obvious: if it's the responsibility of the Church to interpret Scripture, then why hasn’t she done so?

The second problem with this beginning is that Cameron’s statement, “[Sola Scriptura] makes you the ultimate authority on interpreting Scripture,” seems to deny the importance that the early Church fathers placed on the knowledge of Scripture. (see my Sola Scriptura series) To these early Church fathers, all believers should know Scripture as they themselves were attempting to do. Why on earth would they write commentaries if the Church was going to interpret Scripture for them? Why didn’t the likes of Tertullian, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Jerome, Augustine or Chrysostom ask the Church hierarchy for those interpretations? Could it be that the ‘Catholic Church’ as we know it today did not exist in those days? The kind of hierarchical ‘church authority’ the Catholic Church has today simply did not exist in their day because there was no magisterium and there was not even a pope. There were patriarchs whose lines of communications between east and west were already breaking down and splitting along the language divide of the Greek east and the Latin west. And the minute the Catholic Church admits this, they’ve lost this argument altogether.

Some will say, ‘But these men were priests and bishops, they were the Church’s magisterium!’ No, they were not. Have you read their commentaries? Some of what they wrote conflicts with later commentaries. And even if they all agreed, there are no ‘official’ interpretive pronouncements on any of their writings. This shows that there was no magisterium because there was no consensus on interpretation. And Clement and Origen, as has already been documented in previous blogs, went way off the deep end with their allegorical interpretations which conflicted with the Antiochene priests and bishops, one of which was Chrysostom. Are you beginning to see how this has all been weaved together? How can anyone go to the Catholic Church to get an interpretation of a verse or a passage if there is no consensus on meaning? Remember the question I keep asking - where are the infallible commentaries? The Catholic Church cannot produce them because the fathers were hopelessly in conflict with one another.

And one more question - why was it ‘ok’ for the early Church fathers to make themselves ‘the ultimate authority on interpreting Scripture?’ They were just men like John Gill, John Calvin, Albert Barnes, and John MacArthur. What makes Protestants ‘limited fallible humans’ incapable of interpreting Scripture properly, but the likes of Clement, Origen, Augustine and John Chrysostom part of the infallible Church who have the ability to interpret Scripture? This hypocrisy comes across as completely arbitrary.

No one to Appeal Too!

Let’s look at the next portion of Cameron’s argument,

If the Bible alone is your only infallible guide the responsibility falls squarely on you, a limited fallible human to get doctrine right. You can't appeal to an infallible church or an authoritative tradition.

This is his “the more you know, the more you are responsible for” argument and a continuation of his scare tactic. It's a strawman argument meant to scare you away from ever attempting to know the timeless truths of Scripture.

Yes, Cameron, we have a responsibility to know Scripture, to know God’s Word to His people, whether we read it or not. And yes, Cameron, we are fallible human beings who are not always going to get things 100% right. But according to Scripture, we are not absolved of our responsibility of knowing His Word. Does that mean that, at times, we are not always going to understand everything in Scripture? Yes. Does it also mean we’ll get it wrong sometimes? Yes. Now, before you freak out, please remember that the early Church fathers were normal, imperfect human beings too. Jesus already knows all of us humans aren’t perfect, but He sent the Holy Spirit to help guide and direct us anyway.

I have never understood why Catholics in general do not understand the importance of reading and knowing God’s Word. I am even more confused why far too many Protestants have the same problem. For Catholicism, I know it comes from their direct teachings because they have a long history of preventing their people from reading and studying Scripture, unless that person was a priest. Just reread Cameron’s statement above, he’s telling people they should not even try to read and understand Scripture – it's dangerous. Oh, he gives the ‘out’ for his Catholic brethren, saying in essence, all they have to do is reach out to the Church for the proper understanding. But I’ve already shown the fallacy in that thinking – no infallible commentaries.

So, let’s look at what the Bible says our responsibility for knowing God’s Word actually is. There is a lot of Scripture for this so I’ll limit it to a couple of examples. The Old and New Testaments, for instance, are filled with verses like,

• “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.” (Ps 1:2)
• “The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me, And His word was on my tongue.” (2 Sam 23:2)
• “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” (Rom 15:4)
• Here are other verses that make it clear we are to read and understand Scripture: 2 Tim 3:16-17; 2 Tim 3:15; Rom 10:17; Col 3:16; Ps 119:9; Ps 119:11; Ps 119:105; Isa 40:8; Isa 34:16;

So, let’s look at a couple verses a little more closely. In Joshua 1:8, God spoke to Joshua and told him,

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. (Jos 1:8 NASB95)

So, the law, God’s Word, was ‘never to depart from his mouth,’ and he was to ‘meditate on it day and night,’ and then he was to be careful to do everything possible to follow everything written in it. This is the importance that God places on His Word. Yes, it's the Old Testament and yes, this was given to the Jews and we are talking about the importance of knowing God’s revealed Word in the New Testament. But the entire Bible is God’s Word, so this requirement in Jos 1:8 is intended for all true believers to follow to this day. Why? Because the Law of God is supposed to be written on our hearts (Jer 31:33; Rom 2:15; Heb 10:16) and I don’t know how that can happen unless we as believers actually do the work of reading and studying His Word. It’s extremely hard to know and understand God’s plan for one’s life when all someone does is listen to a 15 minute homily once a week, or maybe just Christmas and Easter.

Now, let’s take a look at Acts 17:11,

Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. (Acts 17:11 NASB95)

In this passage we have the Bereans who heard the Gospel message but then verified that what was preached to them was what was in Scripture. And what does Scripture call them? More “noble-minded” than others that heard the same Gospel. Does this not make you ask the question, ‘why did they search the Scriptures’? Why didn’t they just ask the infallible Church? Or ask an Apostle? Wasn’t that who was speaking to them - the Apostle Paul? Then what was the role of Scripture? Why were the Bereans consulting Scripture when they had an Apostle orally teaching them? If Scripture is too hard to understand – and that is Cameron’s insinuation in his statement above – then were they just seeking their own private interpretation, their own private judgment of Scripture?

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. So, let me answer these somewhat rhetorical questions. First, it was the Apostle Paul with Silas that was teaching in the Jewish synagogue in Berea. And yes, Paul was preaching orally but it has to be obvious that he was giving them the Gospel of Jesus Christ we have today because that was his calling, his mission, his ministry: preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. And they were looking at their Scriptures, which were their Old Testament books, and these Jews were likely looking up all the references to the Scriptures that Paul and Silas pointed to, making sure that their message was the same as what was written. Did these Jews reach out to the Pharisees over their synagogue? We don’t know for sure but it doesn’t sound like it. What it sounds like is that these Jews knew their Old Testament, and it wasn’t just one guy doing this, it was likely a group of leading men in that synagogue. But to know whether Paul was telling them the truth, they turned to Scripture. Not to their priests (Pharisees or Sadducees), not to the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, they turned to Scripture. Now, why didn’t Paul and Silas scold the Bereans for doing this, since these Jews would have been exercising their private judgment?

Infallible Church and Authoritative Tradition

In the statement above, Cameron sets fallible human beings against an infallible Church and authoritative tradition. But Cameron does nothing to prove that there is such a thing as an infallible Church or authoritative tradition. My Sola Scriptura series has already dealt with the supposed authoritative tradition and we can easily point to a couple examples to show that the Catholic Church is not infallible.

One of the reasons the Catholic Church sees herself as infallible is because she never changes. But if she changes, then it follows that she is also fallible. Was the Catholic Church infallible when it excommunicated the Eastern Church in 1054 AD? How about the Great Schism of 1378? How about the saeculum obscurum, also known as the Rule of the Harlots and the ‘pornocracy’? These schisms and blatant institutional sin in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church prove one thing, the Church is NOT infallible, not in the slightest.

Here is a partial list of the doctrinal changes over the centuries:

• The death penalty is currently in transition because of Pope Francis.
• Popes used to be accountable to councils but is now no longer the case.
• The Latin Vulgate was considered the only authentic Bible version, even above the original Greek manuscripts, but now is understood as just another translation.
• Early Church (ex. Clement of Rome, Aristides, Chrysostom, Jerome, Ambrosiaster) understood believers are saved by faith but the Church today does not believe or teach this.

Some of these decisions have been political, some social and some seem to have been forced ‘adjustments’ because of other doctrinal decisions but all of these demonstrate that the Catholic Church herself is NOT infallible.

Thousands of Verses, Multiple Languages, Oh My!

Let’s look at the next portion of Cameron’s argument,

The Bible spans thousands of verses, multiple languages, diverse genres and complex theology. I mean just think about the incarnation. You must interpret all of these things correctly not just for yourself but for your family, your friends and your church. Your eternal well-being hinges on your interpretive skills. It's spiritually perilous.

Wow! Just wow! So, does this mean that Scripture is too long for us to comprehend? Because the Old Testament is originally in Hebrew and the New originally in Greek with a few Aramaic words thrown in, the Bible is suddenly in three unknown languages? I sit here with my English translation of the Bible and it’s so difficult that we have to conclude we cannot understand what it means? Diverse genres? So because scripture was written by different authors who lived in different areas and different times or came from different backgrounds whose books contain different topics, all on the same subject I might add, Scripture is too hard for us to comprehend? Complex theologies? You mean, salvation by faith alone in Christ alone? Or that someone could never arrive at indulgences, purgatory or penance, let alone the papacy or papal infallibility and the Marian dogmas? This is yet another continuation of the scare tactics of this response, but he’s just getting started. Interpreting Scripture is spiritually perilous because we cannot be expected to understand all of these complex topics from all these authors from different backgrounds when there are so many verses to read!

Where to begin. The Old Testament is considerably longer than the New and the Jews were expected to know all of it. But according to Cameron I should just leave it to the experts to get it right, so that all I have to do is ‘whatever they tell me to do,’ right? If this argument makes any sense to you, then you have given into the fear he’s trying to generate in you. Please, scroll back up to ‘No One to Appeal Too!’ and reread it and look up all the verses in that section, because his points do not overrule the clear teachings of Scripture, which is: Scripture must be clear and understandable, and is, because God expects us to read and know it.

There are so many resources for the Christian today, but let’s dial back to the Reformation. After the Reformation, the Bible was finally translated into contemporary languages, exhaustive concordances were created, textual criticism was started, a lot of commentaries were written and easily made available to the masses because of the printing press, and massive scriptural cross references were created. Even in paper form, there was an explosion of knowledge encapsulated into books. Schools for theology were created. This idea that Scripture was too hard to read and understand is historically inaccurate. It's laughable. It’s insulting.

My Scholar Can Beat Up Your Scholar!

Continuing with Cameron’s argumentation,

Protestants sometimes respond by saying "Well we don't interpret scripture alone. We rely on expert scholars." But here's the catch with that response. So first those scholars remain fallible susceptible to errors and biases. That's important. Two, more importantly, they frequently disagree profoundly. These scholars, even on core doctrines, Luther and Calvin famously disputed the Eucharist. And today respected Protestant theologians differ deeply on baptism, predestination and salvation itself. You're forced back into deciding who's correct about these things based on your own fallible judgment. It's fundamentally unstable.

The point in this segment of his reply appears to be to undermine your ‘faith’ in Protestant scholars and their scholarship. Now, I’m not going to tell you that all Protestant scholars are brilliant and infallible commentators because they aren’t. Some are downright horrible in their theology and beliefs. But just because some are, does not mean all are. Similarly, the exact same thing can be said of Catholic scholars. As we saw in previous blogs, Thomas Aquinas, unknowingly, built a theological defense of papal authority using a forged document called the ‘Donations of Constantine.’ Origen led the Church into a thousand years of speculative allegorical interpretation simply because he loved Greek philosophy. To me, this taints all of their works. One has to meticulously comb through all of their writings to make sure they are ‘fit to be consumed.’ This view is not fair, mind you, but because each perpetuated false doctrines and interpretations, one does need to be careful about other doctrines they wrote about.

My point here should be obvious, Catholic ‘scholars’ are no more free from the tainting of ‘fallibility’ than Protestant scholars. There are protestant scholars I will not read, just like there are Catholic scholars I will not read. But that doesn’t disqualify others of whom I would and do read. Knowing that scholars disagree with one another is nothing new. In earlier blogs, I pointed this out with early Medieval scholars. If theological disagreements disqualifies all Protestant scholars, then it disqualifies all Catholic scholars as well.

Take the case of the Jesuits, once the bastion of conservative Catholic theology, they are now the bastion of liberal progressive theology – a complete 180! This is no different from some Protestant denominations which have done the same thing. Cameron pretends that ‘Catholic equals good, and Protestant equals bad” simply because some Protestant scholars disagree with one another. According to Cameron, Catholicism has a ‘diversity of beliefs’ while Protestants have disagreements on core beliefs that leave Protestantism ‘fundamentally unstable.’ I guess the severity of the disagreement depends on which side of the fence you stand. Protestants generally talk about primary issues versus secondary issues when discussions of theology come up, where primary are core and foundational Christian truths for which Christian should separate on, and secondary issues for things we should not be separating on. The early Church used the creeds for the same purpose, which is why they were created in the first place. The point of the Creeds was to help common people, who did not always have the Scriptures, reject heretical beliefs, since all Christians should reject heresies.

In his example above, most Protestants will accept different theologies and modes of baptism, even if they personally reject a specific theology and mode of baptism, because for most Protestants this is a secondary issue. The same is true for predestination. Rejection of certain elements of salvation is a primary issue for Protestants because Jesus and Paul were quite specific about what it was and was not. And the only place we know about what salvation is, is found in Scripture. That is why Protestants have such a hard time with Catholic theology, because it adds unbiblical elements to salvation. But we’re not going to walk down that road in this blog.

Private Judgment and GPSs

And the final part of his argument is,

Catholics use private judgment too right they must discern which church is the true church and they've got to rely on private judgment for that. This is a fair point. Okay, Catholics do initially use private judgment. But notice there is a big difference here. Catholics make one foundational judgment. Okay they identify Christ's true church. It's like carefully choosing a reliable GPS only once. After that difficult doctrinal questions are authoritatively clarified. Your initial discernment simplifies countless future questions. Protestants on the other hand face ongoing judgment. Every doctrinal dispute remains open, requiring perpetual reevaluation. It's like constantly dealing with conflicting GPS systems giving you contradictory directions leaving you continually uncertain. If Sola Scriptura really were God's intended system it wouldn't force believers into constant interpretive uncertainty. The perpetual burden of private judgment strongly suggests something deeply flawed about it.

So, now I’m confused. Private judgment is bad for Protestants to use, but it’s ‘ok’ for Catholics to use as long as it’s only used once and only if it’s used to select the appropriate Church? On what basis is that decision made? If I honestly don’t know which Church is correct, what guides me to the proper decision? How am I supposed to know that I only get one shot at this? If I select ‘Protestant’ does it mean I’m still ‘ok’ if I don’t use private judgment a second time? Do you see the absurdity of this argument?

As we’ve seen above, if we have a responsibility to know Scripture, then God does not want us to ‘check our brains at the door.’ This type of thinking has a long history and we don’t have to go back very far to see its effects. If you were an intellectual in the 1940’s, China’s communist government murdered Christians and sent others to die in the fields since intellectuals make bad farmers. Seems they knew something that scared the government and their knowledge might corrupt the masses. By killing them, they protected those who had no education at all and helped the government control who knew what. The same was true with William Tyndale, as I pointed out in a previous blog. He was burned at the stake because he thought everyone should be able to read Scripture in their own language. In both of these cases – and I could list a whole lot more – it was the government, Chinese for example 1 and the Catholic Church in example 2, that was seemingly scared of knowledge. And its intended result was to stifle thought and dissent, and to prevent anyone else from doing the same. Who on earth wants to repeat their errors, which were not errors at all. Both of these examples wanted the same thing, to forcefully tell people what they could and could not think.

And speaking of authority, that is what the Catholic Church wanted, complete and total control over all messaging. Yet, if the Church was wrong in anything, does that not mean that the masses of people would be blameless for what they were told to believe? Not in God’s eyes! Which is why there are additional warnings in Scripture directed specifically at leaders: pastors and teachers.

Cameron makes his argument personal to each individual believer that might consider studying Scripture without the oversight of the Catholic Church. But unless you’re looking to become a cult leader, I don’t know anyone that doesn’t seek the insights of current or past commentators. There are internet and PC based Bible software programs and sites that provide access to older commentaries from the likes of John Gill, John Calvin, Albert Barnes and Matthew Henry. There are more current commentary series that can be purchased as well. Quite frankly, there is so much to choose from, you might be overwhelmed. Yet for the vast majority of Scripture, you don’t even need a commentary because the plain sense of the written word is clear and unambiguous for us normal ‘fallible’ humans.

I would like to make one last point about this subject. The Catholic Church has had to admit that Protestants lead the way on textual criticism, which is basically recovering the text of Scripture. Protestant have led the charge in finding well over 5400 New Testament manuscripts from the size of a postage stamp to nearly complete books. By comparison, it is unknown how many manuscripts Jerome had but Erasmus’ 16th century Greek New Testament utilized only eight manuscripts. It was the Protestants that discovered and created rules for understanding the Greek text as well as massive dictionaries of 1st century Greek words and meanings from both secular and religious writings. Protestants own this space and only recently have Catholics joined their Bible societies. Protestants also own the commentary space of understanding Scripture because the Catholic Church refuses to act upon the supposed sole authority she says she has for interpretation. Cameron can say whatever he wants here because he’s lost on some backroad to nowhere following his faulty GPS.

The Drift Away

I was watching a video from the late John MacArthur the other day and he said something years ago that was so obvious that I cannot believe I missed it, as is the case for all of the other response videos to Cameron. What did Satan say to Eve? In Genesis 3 he cunningly questions God’s message to Adam and Eve about the tree of life. Satan questioned the word of God. There was no Church or Jewish nation at that time, there was only the Word of God spoken to Adam. This was the first and original temptation Satan used – question the authority of God’s Word. And it is the same temptation he uses to this day – ‘God said this but it’s ok, nothing is going to happen to you if you ignore it.’

Don’t you see the progression? We start off with the message of God which becomes encapsulated in Scripture. Then there are little things that get added which aren’t in Scripture, which progress to more and more error: praying to saints, praying to and excessive honoring of Mary, presbyteries replaced with hierarchical bishoprics, Speculative Greek philosophies imported to improve the understanding of Scripture, mistranslations changing doctrine, bishoprics becoming authoritarian, consolidation of power in Rome, removing Scripture from the hands of believers, abuses of the clergy, formalizing doctrinal errors and finally rewriting history anachronistically to endorse all the added unscriptural beliefs as biblical and historical. All of this is because Scripture did not remain the final authority for the Church.

And the Protestants don’t get off unscathed either. We supposedly understand the essential place Scripture has, yet there are major denominations today that have become unbelieving, heretical and cultic in their theologies and practices and all of them occurred because of their rejection of Scripture as the final authority. Some have embraced homosexuality and transgenderism, both of which are clear violations of the teachings of Scripture. Some have endorsed pagan beliefs where self proclaimed unbelievers are leading congregations away from Jesus and His Word.

But what they all have in common, both Catholic and certain so-called Protestant denominations, is they have rejected the authority of Scripture, substituting man’s developed and fanciful ideas, beliefs and concepts in place of the unchanging Word of God.

So, getting back to Cameron’s argument, his main objective is that the ‘final authority’ is the Church. And Catholicism likely arrives at this because she thinks the Church was created before Scripture was written. Yet it is the ‘message’ of God that brings unbelievers into the knowledge of God, and that message of God is only found in Scripture. And it was the Scriptures that the Church was given the responsibility to hand down to successive generations. Jesus brought His message to the world for three years before He was crucified and rose from the dead. So, if the ‘which came first’ question was not answered above, then let me answer here: clearly the message or the Word came first, not the Church. But it’s not about who was first, it’s about what is the purpose of each. This is ultimately about what no one talks about, ‘what is the function of each.’

The message of God was captured in Scripture. It was oral at first, but was written down so that believers for the last 2000 years could profit from God’s message to the world and believers. But what is the purpose of Scripture?

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:16-17 ESV)

As something that was ‘God breathed’ or ‘breathed out by God,’ its function is to teach, reprove, correct and train believers in righteousness so that ‘the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.’ So, Scripture teaches the Gospel for salvation, then builds faith and corrects morals, for the purpose of equipping believers for the good works that God has already planned for them to walk in. (Eph 2:10) That means the understanding of how believers are to live out the Christian life comes before anything they do.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Heb 4:12 ESV)

Scripture in living. Do you understand what that means? It is not dead or powerless. The Word is dynamic, productive and causes things to happen. God’s Word changes us because we have the Holy Spirit in us. It is so effective in us that it changes who we are day by day as we follow and continue to read His Word. It knows how to separate us from the sin that holds us prisoner in its grip. It drives its message into our thoughts and intentions to change us from the inside out. One cannot continue to be a Christian while reading Scripture and not change. But without this daily infusion of God’s Word in our lives, we have no hope of changing and being transformed.

The Word of God is essential in the life of a believer. Of the two, Scripture and Church, it is Scripture that is the higher authority. That’s not even a question that needs to be entertained.

The purpose of the Church is to provide a place for believers to learn more about how to live a Godly life, which is what is found in Scripture, and provide the fellowship that believers need, a place to corporately observe the Lord’s supper and corporate prayer. (Act 2:42; Rom 12:10; Rom 15:14; Eph 4:32; 1 Th 5:11; 1 John 3:11; 1 Cor 11:23-26; 1 Pet 3:15) But don’t misunderstand that Church authority is not important, quite the contrary.

There are plenty of verses in the New Testament about the Church’s authority in the believer’s life. Church leaders watch over their congregations. Leaders are called into ministry by the Holy Spirit. Congregations are called to be subject to the leaders. But there are more verses directed to the leaders themselves than to the congregants. (See: 1 Pet 5:2-3, Mat 20:26-28, John 13:14-15, see 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus) But I will leave the reader to look up these verses and glean their meanings. Oops! I just asked you to exercise private judgment.

Sola Ecclesia vs Sola Scriptura

So, what is Cameron really talking about in this argument? Although he didn’t say these exact words, he was arguing for the Catholic Church’s authority over all things, where Protestants argue for Scripture’s authority over all things. So that we understand what is meant, let me quote something I wrote in a previous blog,

If Sola Scriptura is ‘Scripture alone’, then Sola Ecclesia would be ‘the Church alone’, and the reality is that the Catholic Church teaches that it has the final authority in all matters. The Church believes she:

• defines the canon of Scripture,
• interprets what Scripture means,
• defines authoritative, apostolic tradition,
• interprets authoritative, apostolic tradition.

That is the essence of Sola Ecclesia. Now, Roman Catholicism would strongly deny this, but would not deny the 4 points listed.

The Material Sufficiency of Scripture?

Without coming out and saying it directly, this is what his whole argument was – the Church has final authority, not Scripture.

Conclusion

I could have written so much more, but I think I refuted all of Cameron’s points for this argument, and I still have six more arguments in this series to go. My goal here was to step through what he said and refute his conclusions, since he did not provide any proof for his assertions and I think I’ve accomplished that goal. It would seem that his purpose for this argument was to undermine a Protestant’s view of Scripture’s authority, for which I think he did a very poor job. The point he seems to have been making was that the final authority should rest upon the Church. I addressed that at the end, but there might be some additional points that should be made at some later date.

But let me finish with this. If someone thinks Scripture is above the Church, then if the Church starts teaching something that is heretical, there will be an effort to correct the church’s teachings, and as a last resort abandon that Church and find another that honors Scripture. But if someone thinks the Church is above Scripture, then one has to conclude that Scripture is neither infallible nor inerrant. If the church teaches something unscriptural, the assumption will be that the Church knows what it's doing and the Church has the authority to correct what Scripture says. I believe that is exactly what has happened within Catholicism.

Better far that I should read with certainty and persuasion of its truth the Holy Scripture, placed on the highest (even the heavenly) pinnacle of authority, and should, without questioning the trustworthiness of its statements, learn from it that men have been either commended, or corrected, or condemned, than that, through fear of believing that by men, who, though of most praiseworthy excellence, were no more than men, actions deserving rebuke might sometimes be done, I should admit suspicions affecting the trustworthiness of the whole “oracles of God.”

Letters of Augustine, Letter 82, Chapter 2, Section 5

Footnotes

1. As with Cameron’s video, it is not the purpose of this blog to compare and contrast primary and secondary doctrines within the Catholic Church through its long history.