When Did It Become True: Argument #4 Against Sola Scriptura

 As we head into the last four of Cameron’s self-described ‘powerful’ arguments against Sola Scriptura, we are led to believe that these arguments are going to be much harder to refute, as these are the best possible arguments and the hardest questions for Protestants to answer in any defense of Sola Scriptura. Argument #4 is, ‘when did Sola Scriptura become true?’ and becomes part 35 of my Sola Scriptura series. Upon initially seeing this question, most Protestants are likely to take a step back and possibly become concerned on how they are supposed to answer this question, as if it’s the Protestant’s responsibility to give the Catholic Church a full and complete answer to such a question. But as is always the case, the Protestant can easily step up and refute this type of argument as well. 

Just when Cameron thinks he has the Protestants on the ropes, his arguments start to overlap on previously refuted arguments and collapse in on themselves. Refutations used in previous arguments become applicable for new arguments like this one, because his earlier arguments are dependent upon stumping Protestant’s in those earlier presentations. And since none of the arguments thus far have stumped any of the five Protestant apologist response videos, nor do I feel any of them have stumped me, this argument would be the first to ‘land a blow,’ if in fact it can be done. 

According to Cameron’s argument, for Sola Scriptura to be true, the Protestant must be able to show that Sola Scriptura became true at some definitive and defensible point in time. And that presupposes that the Catholic Church must demonstrate that it either never became true or became true much later than would be required. I’ll just state up front that Cameron did not attempt to make a case for what would replace Scripture as the Christian’s primary teacher for faith and practice. For the Protestant, that primary teacher is Scripture. Cameron, like all Catholic apologists on this subject, attempts to place the responsibility upon the Protestant while refusing to make a case for their own position for that same type of authority.

The Argument: When Did Sola Scriptura Become True

This is the transcript of what Cameron said in his YouTube video for argument #4,

We already showed in argument #9 that Sola Scriptura wasn't practiced in the early church. And it's also clear that it hasn't always been true. There was a point during the life of the church that the New Testament hadn't been written yet, for example. But this raises a far deeper problem. If Sola Scriptura is true today, it must have become true at some point in history. So when exactly did that happen? A fundamental shift in authority like this can't just, like, gradually occur. It's not the thing, the kind of thing that just, like, fades in like a sunrise. Either the church had a living authoritative teaching office or it didn't. Either Christians were bound to follow that authority or they weren't. At some point Protestants claim that changed. But where exactly is the transition, when is the moment where the universal church said, "All right everyone, from now on only the Bible is infallible and binding church authority is just advisory"? That happened nowhere. And this is deeply puzzling because if God intended Sola Scriptura to be the rule of faith for his people we would expect there to be a clear point at which it was instituted or at least recognized by the majority of Christians. You can't just assume something so radical happened without evidence. After all, major theological shifts like the institution of the new covenant or the inclusion of the Gentiles are explicitly marked in scripture and church history. But here: silence. Every possible start date is arbitrary. Let's test the options on this. Maybe Sola Scriptura became true when John finished writing Revelation. But why would the principle of Sola Scriptura suddenly snap into place just because the last inspired book was penned or like the last stroke of his pen finished? Like, did the apostles wake up the next morning and say, "Well I guess oral tradition and church authority no longer matter"? Of course not! What about when the canon was widely recognized? But that's even worse because by that time the scriptures had already been in use for centuries alongside an authoritative church. Are we really supposed to believe that Sola Scriptura wasn't true in the first century but suddenly became true in the fourth? Well maybe it became true at the time of the reformation, but even Protestants reject that idea. If Sola Scriptura was true it must have been true far longer. The fact is there is no historical moment where Sola Scriptura is clearly taking effect and that should make us very suspicious. It's like trying to pinpoint the moment when an empty bank account becomes a fortune without any clear deposits. Now Protestants might push back with a very clever analogy here. They might say, just because we don't know the exact point when stubble becomes a beard that doesn't mean that beards don't exist. In other words just because we can't pinpoint the exact moment Sola Scriptura became true doesn't mean the principle itself is invalid. This sounds reasonable until you realize that doctrinal principles don't work like beards. A beard is a vague predicate. It exists on a spectrum. You don't go from ‘not a beard’ to ‘full beard’ in an instant. And it's normal for there to be fuzzy boundaries. But authority is not really like that. Authority is binary. It either exists or it doesn't. Either the church had divine teaching authority or it didn't. Either oral tradition was binding or it wasn't. If that authority gradually disappeared then at some point Christians were obeying an authority that no longer had any right to command them. And that's absolutely absurd. It'd be like saying that at some unknown moment in history the Supreme Court of the United States gradually lost its legal authority. And from then on all laws were subject to private interpretation, but no one noticed the transition. That's not how authority works. You can't just fade out of being an authority. You either are in authority or you're not. So the beard analogy doesn't apply. And more importantly Protestants still need to answer the central question, “When did Sola Scriptura become true?” because if they can't, that's a major problem. It suggests it was never true to begin with.

Cameron's video: 19:19-23:07 

 

The Church’s Binding Authority

Let’s start with the first section of his presentation. Cameron starts with this,

There was a point during the life of the church that the New Testament hadn't been written yet, for example. But this raises a far deeper problem. If Sola Scriptura is true today, it must have become true at some point in history. So when exactly did that happen? A fundamental shift in authority like this can't just, like, gradually occur. It's not the thing, the kind of thing that just, like, fades in like a sunrise. Either the church had a living authoritative teaching office or it didn't. Either Christians were bound to follow that authority or they weren't. At some point Protestants claim that changed. But where exactly is the transition, when is the moment where the universal church said, "All right everyone, from now on only the Bible is infallible and binding church authority is just advisory"? That happened nowhere.

Cameron seems to want Protestants to settle on a date or a timeframe for when this became true. But that is a red herring. Generally, when someone makes a mistake in their logic, it’s right at the beginning and if you don’t catch it there, then they build upon that error with concepts that are normally fairly consistent, and you get stuck trying to defend something that is generally much harder to refute. And that is the case for Cameron’s argument here. I could ask that same question, just slightly different - when was Sola Scriptura NOT true? And if I ask that, I had better be ready for all possible responses. That said, this is the question Cameron and Catholic apologists avoid like the plague, which might explain why they had to produce an updated Old Testament Canon, along with their New Testament Canon. But I’m sort of jumping the gun, as they say. Let’s methodically step through this together. 

My problem with this argument is that it assumes that Protestants know what the Catholic authority claims are. He leaves the reader to ‘assume’ with statements like, “Either the church had a living authoritative teaching office or it didn't.” I can agree that the church “universal” had a teaching office, but what exactly does “living authoritative teaching office” mean? Is this the pope? The Magisterium? What place does ‘tradition’ hold here? Cameron seems to assume that one must believe in this “living authoritative teaching office” and that it somehow is in conflict with the idea of Sola Scriptura, since they both cannot be true at the same time. So, does he mean that Protestants believe it changed from the “living authoritative teaching office” to Sola Scriptura? I assume this to be true because nothing else would seem to make sense, but he’s not very clear here. 

This whole argument is predicated on accepting the responsibility for answering when Scripture became Sola Scriptura. I reject that responsibility because before the Protestant accepts that, the Catholic Church needs to answer a couple of questions. The insinuation is that because there was a delay between when Scripture was spoken and when it was written down, the whole belief in Sola Scriptura is invalid and nonsensical.  It also assumes that the Catholic Church was responsible for defining the content of Scripture, as if the magisterium or the pope existed from the beginning. Now, he doesn’t say that directly, but the tone of the reply seems to indicate that he views the Protestant arguments as absurd and indefensible. 

It does need to be pointed out that there was never any reference to Cameron’s type of authority (papal and/or magisterial) in any of the early Church fathers in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries. With a liberal understanding and reading this concept into church history, you might be able to trace the magisterium to the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, but you’d be hard pressed to date it earlier than that. So, it would seem that the Catholic Church had no Scripture until at least the Council of Rome in 382 AD, but of course, it was not an official, ecumenical council so its conclusions are considered fallible. So, what did they teach before this date? 

What we had in the beginning were the Apostles teaching the inspired Gospel of Christ, establishing churches and training up leaders for those churches. And you also had people learning that Gospel and going out on their own and doing what the Apostles did. In a time of constant persecution of the church and its people, when exactly was there time to establish this “living authoritative teaching office”? What is the ‘start-date’ for that? 

I Need a Start Date!

Now let’s look at the next part of Cameron’s argument, 

And this is deeply puzzling because if God intended Sola Scriptura to be the rule of faith for his people we would expect there to be a clear point at which it was instituted or at least recognized by the majority of Christians. You can't just assume something so radical happened without evidence. After all, major theological shifts like the institution of the new covenant or the inclusion of the Gentiles are explicitly marked in scripture and church history. But here: silence. Every possible start date is arbitrary. Let's test the options on this. Maybe Sola Scriptura became true when John finished writing Revelation. But why would the principle of Sola Scriptura suddenly snap into place just because the last inspired book was penned or like the last stroke of his pen finished? Like, did the apostles wake up the next morning and say, "Well I guess oral tradition and church authority no longer matter"? Of course not! What about when the canon was widely recognized? But that's even worse because by that time the scriptures had already been in use for centuries alongside an authoritative church. Are we really supposed to believe that Sola Scriptura wasn't true in the first century but suddenly became true in the fourth? Well maybe it became true at the time of the reformation, but even Protestants reject that idea. 

In this next section of Cameron’s argument, he’s asking Protestants for a start date when Sola Scriptura became true and then presents the possibility that it occurred on the last stroke of John’s pen as he finished up the Revelation. Yes, I know he’s being a bit facetious here. His argument is: if there is no start date, then Sola Scriptura cannot be true. And, if you can give him a start date, he thinks he can prove that it's an arbitrary date, thus proving that Sola Scriptura cannot be true. He thinks he has Protestants right where he wants them - a ‘Kobayashi Maru,’ a no-win situation. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the Star Trek reference) But right here is his logical fallacy. I agree with Cameron, I can't give him the start date he wants. Why? Sola Scriptura did not become true at some arbitrary or even a realistic point in time, it has always been true, and here’s why.

And here is one of those overlapping consequences because none of his previous arguments stumped Protestants. Let me remind you about the “White question” from The Canon Problem for argument #5, 

“how did a believing Jewish man know that Isaiah and 2 Chronicles were Scripture 50 years before the coming of Christ?”

This now becomes a very pertinent question for Cameron to answer because it absolutely destroys his argument. In Matt 22:31, Jesus held the Sadducees accountable for what Scripture said when He asked this simple question, “have you not read what was spoken to you by God.” It becomes even more of an issue when we realize that the last portion of the Old Testament, called the “Ketuvim,” or the Writings (also known as the “Hagiographa”), was not formally recognized by the Jews as “completed” or canonical, until somewhere between 90 and 250 AD. [1] And this problem becomes crystal clear when we realize that 2 Chronicles is part of the “Ketuvim.” Since that is the case, then how could Jesus have held the Pharisees and Sadducees to the Old Testament as Scripture, as God’s Word to the Jews? 

The answer is rather obvious, is it not? For the Jews, it was Scripture when God spoke it, not when some council recognized it. When was the Law binding on the Jews? When the Jews were brought out of Egypt and given the Law, even before Moses wrote it down. And it is Scripture for the Christian as well. Christians focus much more on the New Testament, but the Old Testament is just as binding on the Christian as the New Testament is. Cameron wants to make a big deal about when Sola Scriptura came into being. OK, fine! Easy answer: The Old Testament is Scripture as is the New Testament, so both are part of what Protestants would consider Sola Scriptura. Therefore, for the Christian, Sola Scriptura has always existed! There - problem solved. But let’s go ahead and uncover a few more stones. 

Sola Scriptura in the New Testament times was in effect when Jesus started his ministry and began preaching the Gospel to His disciples and the Jews. Jesus was, after all, the Word of God (John 1:1). The four Gospels were simply a written historical account of some of the things that Jesus said, did and what happened to Him. Now, don’t take what I just said out of context. To the Christian, the four Gospels are a lot more than just a factual, historical narrative about Jesus, but they are an historical narrative about Jesus. So, what needs to be focused upon is that the Gospels and the Epistles were Scripture whether they were spoken first or written first, whichever came first. But it was a continuation of God's revelation to mankind.

Two thousand years later is where we are now, and all we have is the written Word of God. We know that the New Testament is Scripture and the only recorded Words of Christ we possess. We reject the Catholic Church’s understanding of ‘tradition’ because it assumes there were oral ‘traditions’ handed down through the ages that came directly from Jesus and/or the Apostles. These ‘traditions’ would be more believable if the Catholic Church would define what these ‘traditions’ are and how they came into existence, but they refuse to do that. In addition, Protestants also reject these ‘tradition’ because James White confirmed in a debate with Mitch Pacwa that the only words of Jesus and that of the Apostles are preserved in the current writings of the New Testament (See: Not in Early Church). I bring this up just in case someone thinks that some ‘tradition’ exists that has words from either Jesus or the Apostles that provide additional revelation for the Christian and/or the Church. But even if there were words preserved (which there are none) it would not change the Protestant’s response because Scripture is binding as soon as it’s spoken and/or written. Scripture is revelation from God, and what He spoke in the Old Testament is just as binding as what Jesus spoke during His earthly ministry to the Jews and to the Apostles, as well as what the Apostles spoke during their earthly ministry and what was recorded in the New Testament for us today. 

And while we’re at it, here is something else for us to remember. Peter recognized Paul’s writings as Scripture in 2 Pet 3:16.

as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2 Pet 3:16)

Maybe Cameron is unfamiliar with this verse, but if he wants a date for when Paul’s epistles became Scripture for his argument's 'gotcha' question, then I would submit that Paul’s epistles were Scripture as soon as he penned them, well before the ink was dry. So, by my recollection, somewhere in the early 60’s AD, we have three of the four Gospels and Paul’s 13 epistles, which is 16 of the 27 New Testament books. Is there any reason to think Peter’s two epistles were not Scripture when they were written? For the Catholic, as Cameron is, is he actually questioning whether his writings were not Scripture as soon as they were written? I suspect not, so we’re up to 18 now. How about John’s epistles: 1st, 2nd and 3rd John, and Revelation. If the writings of Peter and Paul, living Apostles at the time, were Scripture when written, is there any reason to think John’s were not Scripture when they were penned? He was a living Apostle at the time as well, was he not? So, by the middle 90’s AD, add in the Gospel of John plus the three other epistles and Revelation just mentioned above, we’re up to 23 of the 27 NT books as Scripture when written by a living Apostle. That leaves the books of Acts, Hebrews, James and Jude. As you can see, Protestants don’t need an ecumenical council to know which gospels and letters were Scripture as we’ve already covered that ground in a previous rebuttal.

It’s as if Cameron thinks that the Old Testament Scriptures were binding until Jesus showed up. Then suddenly, everything came to a screeching halt and nothing was binding, which seems to be why the Church’s “living authoritative teaching office” popped into place to fill the void. But that is not how revelation works. It builds upon itself. The Law was binding before the Prophets came along. But when they did come along, the Law didn’t disappear, it was still binding during and after the prophets. And the same was true for Christians during the 1st century. As revelation from Jesus and the Apostles came about, it became immediately binding on the Christian. 

So, at this point in the 1st century, we have the binding Scriptures of the Old Testament, the same Scriptures that Jesus pointed the Pharisees and Sadducees to, and the same ones that He expounded to His disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). We have the preaching and teaching of Jesus as documented in the four Gospels, Paul’s 13 letters, Peter’s two, and John’s three epistles and his Revelation, and we haven’t even made it out of the 1st century! [2] 

But just to be ultra clear, there was never a time when Scripture was NOT binding on the believer as the Church’s authority in all matters of faith and practice. And just to make sure you don’t get lost in the double negative above - Scripture has ALWAYS been the Church’s authority in all matters of faith and practice. The Old Testament was always Scripture for the Christian and the New Testament added to that revelation, and became binding on the believers as soon as it was spoken and/or written. And since Scripture came before the Church, the Scriptures are the highest authority within the Church and their authority supersedes the Church’s authority; always has and always will. In addition, the Church has no authority without Scripture. 

Concerning the five response videos I found, especially one of them, I’m a bit disappointed that none of them did a very good job of refuting his argument because they all seemed to accept the premise that they were responsible for giving him a start date. No! The argument has a fallacy, so refute the fallacy to refute the argument. 

You Only Have Whiskers 

Now let’s look at the last part of Cameron’s argument, 

If Sola Scriptura was true it must have been true far longer. The fact is there is no historical moment where Sola Scriptura is clearly taking effect and that should make us very suspicious. It's like trying to pinpoint the moment when an empty bank account becomes a fortune without any clear deposits. Now Protestants might push back with a very clever analogy here. They might say, just because we don't know the exact point when stubble becomes a beard that doesn't mean that beards don't exist. In other words just because we can't pinpoint the exact moment Sola Scriptura became true doesn't mean the principle itself is invalid. This sounds reasonable until you realize that doctrinal principles don't work like beards. A beard is a vague predicate. It exists on a spectrum. You don't go from ‘not a beard’ to ‘full beard’ in an instant. And it's normal for there to be fuzzy boundaries. But authority is not really like that. Authority is binary. It either exists or it doesn't. Either the church had divine teaching authority or it didn't. Either oral tradition was binding or it wasn't. If that authority gradually disappeared then at some point Christians were obeying an authority that no longer had any right to command them. And that's absolutely absurd. It'd be like saying that at some unknown moment in history the Supreme Court of the United States gradually lost its legal authority. And from then on all laws were subject to private interpretation, but no one noticed the transition. That's not how authority works. You can't just fade out of being an authority. You either are in authority or you're not. So the beard analogy doesn't apply. And more importantly Protestants still need to answer the central question, “When did Sola Scriptura become true?” because if they can't, that's a major problem. It suggests it was never true to begin with.

He then launches into a supposed Protestant beard analogy which I suppose was used by someone to answer his initial question for this argument. But I agree with Cameron, this analogy doesn’t work and I personally think it’s ridiculous. So, I’m ignoring this part of his argument. Let’s skip to the end so we can deal with the real questions he wanted to ask. He said this, 

Either the church had divine teaching authority or it didn't. Either oral tradition was binding or it wasn't.

So his point above is that he feels the Church’s authority supersedes the Scripture’s authority because he believes that the Church preceded the Scriptures. And I believe that is the whole point of this entire argument. He used two Catholic examples as if both existed even though he has never shown either to be true. I am not necessarily arguing against the church’s authority as long as it is understood that it must be submitted to the authority of Scripture, but I am definitely arguing against the second, which is oral tradition.

And speaking of Church authority, the Catholic Church just cannot imagine or understand how Protestantism can exist without the same type of authority structure as they do and a quick Google search will demonstrate that. As some Catholics on the Internet have said about their church, 

• “We have the ability to settle disputes.” You mean like how the schism with Eastern Orthodoxy was settled - by excommunication? Or the Great Schism where there were two and at one point three popes? Or how long it took for the Church to deal with the corruption during the pornocracy? 
• “We have the authority to set doctrine.” You mean like creating purgatory, indulgences, Mariology, the papacy, papal infallibility, and sacred tradition, when Scripture is completely silent about these doctrines? I think Paul would call your doctrinal additions ‘another Gospel.’
• “The Church interprets Scripture with binding authority.” Right, you mean all 7 verses of the Old and New Testaments that have been infallibly defined? That does not sound like interpreting Scripture to me. 

I’m not going to tell you that Protestantism doesn’t have issues, because it does, but at least they have a truly unchanging and binding authority when it comes to Scripture. And some will challenge that by pointing to denominations like the United Churches Christ or United Methodist Church or Presbyterian Church - USA but each of these have all capitulated on the authority and inerrancy of Scripture ages ago, and their doctrinal changes demonstrate that. When a denomination unhooks itself from the authority of Scripture, all manner of unbiblical changes are swept in, and the Catholic Church is a prime example of this as well. 

But since the authority of Scripture existed before Jesus came into the world and has been in effect ever since, the point he is attempting to make about authority is moot. I’m not concerned about the supposed teaching authority of the Catholic Church because the authority of Scripture was already in place before the Church came into existence and reigns supreme over everything to this day. And if it does not, then your proverbial house is built on sand. That is why the conservative Protestant churches reject the unbiblical Catholic doctrines and dogmas like penance, indulgences, purgatory, papal infallibility and the Marian dogmas. As a matter of fact, the Protestant can turn the tables on the Catholic by asking the same questions here - when did ‘penance’ become true? When did indulgences become true? How about purgatory? How about the assumption of Mary or the immaculate conception? Some of these are part of the Catholic’s understanding of salvation. So, does that mean no Catholics could be saved before the Catholic Church invented these new doctrines? The early church did not believe any of these things, yet we see the reverence of Scripture by the church fathers even before the close of the 1st century. And it only got stronger in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. 

The Catholic Church does not have the right to add to or take away from the doctrines defined in Scripture. If doctrines ‘developed’ without the benefit of Scriptural support, as Cardinal Newman theorized, then it must be a secondary doctrine at best, or a heretical one at worst. But that is not what Catholicism teaches, now is it? If the Catholic Church has the highest authority (i.e., Sola Ecclesia), then she would have the ability to do the very things she has done, adding to or taking away from what Scripture lays out as Christian doctrine. 

And finally, concerning the ‘tradition’ Cameron points out, I have roughly 25 blogs on why ‘tradition,’ as understood by the Catholics Church, simply does not exist as he presupposes, and is therefore not binding on anyone. So, it is Scripture, once again, that reigns supreme overall. 

What Cameron wanted to say but refrained from saying here, was that the Church gave us the Bible. But this argument has already been dealt with. I leave you with the words of Jerimiah Knight, who wrote this in a post to someone on X (formally Twitter), 

The Church did not give us the Bible — the Word gave us the Church. GOD’S WORD EXISTED BEFORE ROME EVER DID. THE OLD TESTAMENT WAS ALREADY CANON LONG BEFORE CHRIST’S BIRTH. THE NEW TESTAMENT WAS WRITTEN BY APOSTLES AND PROPHETS UNDER THE INSPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT (2 PETER 1:21), NOT DICTATED BY LATER COUNCILS. THE CHURCH RECOGNIZED THE CANON; IT DID NOT CREATE IT. THE SHEEP HEARD THE SHEPHERD’S VOICE IN THOSE WRITINGS AND RECEIVED THEM AS SCRIPTURE.

Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight response to Catholica Bellator @StLouisIX18152 [emphasis of capital letters in original] [3]

 

Conclusion 

So, as you can see, another promising argument of Cameron’s was once again, easily dispatched. I was not stumped on this argument. As I showed in my rebuttal, Cameron has a logical fallacy up front in this argument. He assumes that the Protestant is required to answer his devised ‘no-win’ question, but his scenario ignores the fact that Sola Scriptura has always been in effect from long before Jesus was born to long after He rose from the dead.

This argument was all about convincing you to answer an invalid question. So, don’t let Cameron or anyone trick you into thinking they’re making a valid point with this type of question. No Protestant needs to show when Sola Scriptura became true because it was always true. Throughout Jesus’ entire life on this earth, binding Scripture existed and Sola Scriptura was already firmly in place. The Word of God that was preached was just as binding and just as valid as the Scripture that was written. For the Christian, whether in the 1st century or in the 21st century, there was never a time when Sola Scriptura was not true because it has always been true and will always be true. 

“The hear­ers taught in the Scrip­tures ought to test what is said by teach­ers and accept that which agrees with the Scrip­tures but reject that which is for­eign.” 

Basil of Caesarea, Moralia, Chapter 72

 

Footnotes

1. See the following articles: The Old Testament Canon | Evidence Unseen, What are the Writings? What is the Ketuvim? | GotQuestions.org, and Ketuvim | Hebrew Scriptures, Writings, Poetry | Britannica
2. By the way, I’m not ignoring Acts, Hebrews, James or Jude, I’m just making the point that the writings of living Apostles really should not be questioned. Acts was penned by Luke and has always been recognized as Scripture. Hebrews most certainly came from Paul, either directly or through someone like Luke. James was penned by Jesus’ brother, as was Jude. And according to Acts, James seems to have led the Church at Jerusalem (See Acts 15). 
3. Jeremiah’s statement about the Canon applies to the Law and the Prophets portions of the Old Testament. And even though the Writings, or the Ketuvim, became Canon later, it was still before the Catholic Church says it selected the books of the Old and New testaments.