Scripture Alone is Imperfect: Argument #3 Against Sola Scriptura

Well, we’ve made it to the final three arguments in Cameron Bertuzzi’s Nine Arguments Against Sola Scriptura. Here in Argument #3, Cameron attempts to make the case that ‘Scripture Alone is Imperfect’ and this rebuttal will become part 36 of my Sola Scriptura series.

So that no one gets the wrong impression about what he is actually saying in this argument, Cameron is not saying that something is inherently wrong with Scripture or that it is somehow flawed or mired in error. He simply means that Scripture is not enough, that there is more information the believer needs that is not contained in Scripture itself. Its content is still infallible, but Scripture is not the sole source of authority in the believer’s life. For the Catholic, there are other sources of infallible authority, which is why Scripture alone is considered imperfect. Using the same type of definition, the Protestant would say that Scripture alone is considered perfect since it is what the believer needs for life and godliness and is the Church’s authority in all matters of faith and practice. There are other authorities, but none of them are infallible as Scripture is, which is why Scripture is the highest standard for the Protestant.

This is a significant difference between what Protestants and Catholics believe and the subject of authority has been addressed in various ways in previous blogs of this series. Cameron, like all Catholic apologists, places an infallible authority within the Church which invariably subjugates and redefines Scripture as an imperfect authority, but is it? Let’s find out.

The Argument: Scriptura Alone is Imperfect

This is the transcript of what Cameron said in his YouTube video presentation for argument #3,

Sola Scriptura claims that the Bible alone is our final and only infallible authority. But here's the problem: it's an imperfect system. Think of scripture like the engine of a perfect car. It might be flawless. It's powerful, precisely engineered. But what happens if you have that perfect engine sitting in your driveway without wheels or a steering wheel? Exactly, it's not going anywhere. It's perfect. Might be perfect as an engine, sure, but it's incomplete as a vehicle. To make it fully functional you need wheels and steering. Scripture alone is very similar to this analogy. Even though it's divinely inspired and perfect as a text, it can't fully operate as a standalone authority system. Why is that? Well, because a text, no matter how perfect, doesn't interpret itself. It requires readers and readers inevitably bring misunderstandings, biases and disagreements. And that's precisely why Protestantism splintered into thousands of denominations as we've already shown. Now Protestants initially chose Scripture alone because they thought that tradition and the magisterium introduced error. But let's separate these two ideas very clearly. One, the possibility of error introduced by tradition and the magisterium; Catholics obviously deny that this occurred. Two, whether a system that includes Scripture, tradition and the magisterium, let's call that STM, is in principle superior to Scripture alone. Our argument here, in argument number three, is strictly about this second idea. STM is a fundamentally superior system not just practically but in principle. To see why, consider a helpful analogy from debates about God's existence. Atheists often argue that the universe is the ultimate stopping point of explanation because it's simpler and observable. But that stopping point is imperfect because the universe itself still requires an outside explanation. In contrast, God as a stopping point is perfect, self-sufficient and complete. Likewise, Scripture alone as a stopping point for authority is imperfect because it requires interpretation, something it can't provide on its own. STM however is complete and self-consistent. Scripture is the inspired infallible text. Tradition preserves the authentic understanding of scripture across time. The Magisterium provides authoritative interpretations to resolve disputes clearly. Together these three form a system that's self-sufficient, coherent and incapable of improvement, precisely what we expect a perfect God to institute for his church. Now if you still doubt this just ask yourself is there anything that could possibly make STM a better system at least in principle? Adding another authoritative source would actually be redundant. But removing one component, as in what we see with Sola Scriptura, leaves it incomplete. STM is literally perfect in principle. It can't get any better. In fact some have made the same point about the trinity. Three divine persons isn't arbitrary, it's the minimal number you need for communal love. Take one away and you lose something essential. Add a divine person and you gain something unnecessary. The trinity is perfect in principle. And STM works exactly the same way. Take away Scripture, Tradition or the Magisterium and you lose something vital. Add something else and you're just piling on redundancies. It's the exact structure we'd expect from a God who values both clarity and completeness. And ironically scripture itself supports STM over scripture alone. In 1 Timothy 3:15, Paul explicitly calls the church, not the scriptures, the ‘pillar and foundation of the truth.’ If Scripture alone was truly the perfect system, why wouldn't Paul have pointed directly to it as the pillar? Now, some Protestants might push back on this by saying "Well God allowed an imperfect authority structure in the Old Testament so why not in the New?" But this misses several key points. Okay. First, even in the Old Testament God never let His or left His people with Scripture alone. He always guided them through living authorities: prophets, priests, judges and kings. When disputes arose people didn't just open the Torah and decide for themselves, they went to Moses. They went to the high priest. So if anything the Old Testament undermines Sola Scriptura. Second, and more importantly, what God permits in a fallen world is not the same as what Jesus himself would institute. So, God permits slavery, polygamy and even false prophets in the Old Testament. But that doesn't mean that Jesus came to institutionalize those things in the New Covenant. The son of God didn't enter history to leave us with something just as flawed or worse. He came to fulfill, to perfect and to establish something better. That's why he didn't just hand out Bibles, He built a church. He appointed living authorities and promised the Holy Spirit would guide them into all truth. As we see in John 16:13, Sola Scriptura isn't just imperfect, it's incomplete by design, which is exactly the kind of system a perfect God wouldn't give us. Jesus didn't come all the way to earth to leave us with something worse than what He provided to ancient Israel. He came to fulfill and perfect that system. That's precisely why he gave us scripture tradition and the magisterium, not Scripture alone And that's exactly why Sola Scriptura doesn't just fail it backfires. 

Cameron's video: 23:08 [emphasis added]

 

The Car Analogy

I’m not sure Cameron understands analogies since this is his second attempt that doesn’t seem to make any sense. Let’s picture that beautiful and powerful engine he describes, sitting on the ground. That is somehow Scripture. Now roll up four tires and lay them on the ground next to the engine. Let’s say those are ‘Tradition.’ Finally, grab a steering wheel and lay it on the ground next to the tires and engine, and that can represent the ‘Magisterium.’ Now, please tell me where you can go with these three items? It can be anywhere you like, so I’ll give you a minute to think about it. If you thought of a destination you could travel to with these three items, then you failed the test. Why? Because without a chassis to mount the wheels and the engine to, and a drive train to connect the engine to the wheels, and a steering wheel attached to the steering column and the gearing required to connect the steering wheel to the tires, you simply are not going anywhere. So, the ‘complete and perfect' threesome of Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium, or STM for short, required quite a few additional items. Oh! And without a gas tank, the fuel line to connect that tank to the engine and a gas pedal, you are walking to whatever destination you thought of. And now that ‘three-legged stool’ of STM (which is how Catholicism describes the three) has at least eight legs.

Let’s face it, most analogies we have all heard applied to anything just don’t work and Cameron is terrible at creating them. It's why the Alexandrian allegorical method of interpreting Scripture (see: Tradition as Interpretation: Unanimous Consent) was so destitute of intelligibility for normal people to understand. Normal people have to assume quite a lot and try to fill in the blanks that emerge because of those allegorical assumptions, and most of us just aren’t that good at grasping those assumptions. It’s also why Catholicism sees Scripture as too hard to understand and tells its people that only the Church can interpret Scripture.

Before you say it, yes, I understand what Cameron was attempting to represent but if you are going to give an analogy, you are going to have to create something that actually makes sense. And for the record, I’ve seen quite a number of one-legged stools (the supposed analogy for Sola Scriptura) that work just fine.

Sufficiency of Scripture

So, let’s examine some of the things that Cameron said in his presentation.

Even though it's divinely inspired and perfect as a text, it can't fully operate as a standalone authority system.

From the Catholic perspective, Scripture cannot be trusted as a standalone authority. It is still inspired and infallible, but not sufficient in and of itself. However, Scripture does not agree with Cameron’s assertion. So, let’s look at a few verses that refute Cameron.

and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (2 Tim 3:15)

The Scriptures are, “able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” It is Scripture that gives us the knowledge about what salvation is and how to obtain it, which is by faith alone and in Christ alone. Right here, Catholicism has a huge problem because for the Catholic, salvation is not by faith alone, it’s by faith and the sacraments. So, according to Catholicism, something else is needed to blunt the clear meaning of this verse, and not just this one because there are many others that state the very same thing.

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)

This might be considered the Protestant’s ‘proof text’ for Sola Scriptura, but it also speaks loudly about the sufficiency of Scripture. What is Scripture for? For teaching, reproof, correction and training. And ‘in’ what? In righteousness. And what is its purpose? So that, “the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” How can you profit from a supposed ‘inspired (or God-breathed) and perfect’ text if your Church has instilled so much fear in you that you are too scared or intimidated to read it? And even worse, Catholicism is unwilling to even attempt to try to understand its meaning. How does that make sense if Scripture’s purpose is to teach, reprove, correct and train us? How does it make sense to avoid reading the very thing that makes us complete and equips us for every good work that God has prepared us for?

Your word is a lamp to my feet, And a light to my path. (Ps 119:105)

Scripture for the Jew, as well as for the gentile, is “a lamp to your feet,” it helps you see where you are going, and it’s a “light to your path,” so you can see how you are going to get there, where you are headed in life. How is that unclear?

He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD. (Deut 8:3)

The word of God proceeds out of God and into us and we are told to live by its words. But we cannot do that if we are unwilling to open our Bibles and read what it says.

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)

Long before we were ever born, Scripture was written to instruct and encourage us and give us hope.

These are only a couple of verses from Scripture that tell us the importance and purpose of reading and knowing God’s word, but there are many, many more. And it's not just Scripture that tells us this, the early Church fathers repeated it in their writings, confirming that they understood that Scripture was sufficient as well. This is not a foreign concept within the pages of Scripture as Cameron is attempting to encourage us to accept, but it is a foreign concept to the biblical understandings taught by the Catholic Church.

Could it be that Scripture cannot be considered a standalone authority because there are Catholic beliefs and dogmas that cannot be found in Scripture? Beliefs like indulgences and purgatory? I could list all of their unbiblical doctrines and beliefs here, but I think you get the point, right?

Scripture Interprets Scripture

Why is that? Well, because a text no matter how perfect doesn't interpret itself.

Ah, Cameron, but it does. Scripture does interpret itself. So, let’s start with a definition, what does “Scripture interprets Scripture” mean?

In short, it means that as we engage in hermeneutics (the art of interpretation), we interpret the implicit by the explicit and the cloudy through the clear. The clear passages of Scripture that speak of justification by grace through faith in Christ (the central theme of the Bible) are used to interpret more difficult passages.

(Scripture Interprets Scripture: What Does this Mean?) [emphasis added]

So, the author above is saying that the explicitly clear passages bring clarity for the less clear passages. If Scripture is perfect as Cameron and I say it is, then by default we know that Scripture does not contradict itself, and therefore one would expect a perfect God to design Scripture to interpret itself. Now, why is this so important?

“Scripture interprets Scripture” speaks to the idea that when we interpret the Bible, we allow God to speak for Himself. We allow the author of Scripture to interpret His own words. If Scripture does not interpret Scripture, then something else will. What do I mean when I say that? If a person does not permit God to speak for Himself through His Word, what invariably happens is that the person ends up speaking for God. Consequently, this interpreter irresponsibly arrives at a private interpretation.

(WCSK: Scripture Interprets Scripture (Principles of Bible Interpretation)) [emphasis added]

And this is exactly what Catholicism accuses Protestants of doing, creating their own ‘private interpretation.’ But what this actually does is highlight something profound. Later on in Cameron’s presentation, he will define STM (Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium) which I already mentioned above, as,

Scripture is the inspired infallible text. Tradition preserves the authentic understanding of scripture across time. The Magisterium provides authoritative interpretations to resolve disputes clearly.

And the role of the ‘magisterium’ is to interpret Scripture. But what is the ‘magisterium’ composed of? That’s right, men. So, Protestants seek to understand God’s meaning of the text He wrote to us and for us, and we do that by allowing Scripture to speak for itself. Do we do it perfectly? Probably not. But here is my profound point. If the Catholic Church doesn’t seek to understand what God means by the text He wrote, then aren’t they ‘speaking for God’ since the men that compose the ‘magisterium’ are the ones given the job of interpreting Scripture? Are they not guilty of ‘private interpretation’ because it’s composed of fallible men who are said to be able to infallibly interpret the Scriptures instead of allowing God to speak for Himself? Someone might say, “But the magisterium is composed of bishops and the Pope!” To which I will retort, “So? What’s your point?” These are men, fallible men, since the ‘pope’ is supposedly only infallible when he’s speaking ‘ex-cathedra,’ something he almost never does, right? And since we don’t have any infallible commentaries, I’d say the ‘magisterium’ is significantly behind on the job that only they are supposedly able to perform.

So, let’s try a little experiment with this concept. Let’s use the most famous verse in the New Testament, John 3:16, since faith alone is supposedly so unclear in Scripture.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

What gives you eternal life? This is not a trick question. That’s right, believing, by faith, that Jesus died for our sins. This verse tells us that we are to have faith in what Jesus did for us because it is that faith that saves us and gives us eternal life. Now let’s see how Scripture confirms this, you know, Scripture interpreting Scripture? Here are a number of verses that give us both confirmation and additional clarity to know what God is speaking to us through Scripture:

Rom 3:21-26 – But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Rom 3:21-26)

For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to Him as righteousness.” (Rom 4:3; Gen 15:6) (Read Rom 4:1-16)

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, (Rom 5:1)

that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; (Rom 10:9)

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; (Eph 2:8)

and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, (Php 3:9)

So, as you can see, Scripture clearly tells us that it is by faith that we are saved. But it’s more than that. John 3:16 was not hard to understand to begin with; I didn’t need a secret decoder ring, or ‘tradition,’ or a ‘magisterium.’ I needed my Bible. Faith is one of the most sacred and central teachings within Scripture and it is as clear as God could make it. It is all over the New Testament, and even in the Old Testament. Faith is not about going to church or keeping the commandments, it’s about putting your complete trust in Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord and believing by faith that Jesus died for your sins to deliver you from eternal death to eternal life. Faith alone, in Christ alone.

Now, what does the Catholic Church say about salvation by faith alone? Here is what the Council Trent said as a response to the Reformation and Sola Fide, or ‘faith alone’:

Canon 9: “If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.”

Canon 12: “If any one saith, that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ's sake; or, that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified; let him be anathema.”

The Council of Trent: The Sixth Session (Council of Trent: Canons on Justification - CARM)

So, which are you going to believe – Scripture or the Catholic Church? It’s as simple as that. Do you trust the words of God in Scripture that salvation is by faith alone and in Christ alone as has been demonstrated above, or do you believe the words of men as defined by the Catholic Church that tell you it is forbidden to believe that ‘justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ's sake’?

Readers Not Required

It requires readers and readers inevitably bring misunderstandings, biases and disagreements.

This one just becomes absurd. So, we are not allowed to read it because someone might misunderstand it, or bring their biases and disagree with what it says? You mean like popes and bishops? Church history is filled with fathers that disagreed with each other and I documented some of those disagreements in my series. And now that the Catholic Church has the ‘magisterium,’ whose responsibility it is to interpret Scripture infallibly even though it is composed of fallible men. So, what makes them immune from misinterpretations? And someone telling me that their interpretations are infallible is not going to work since I’ve just shown that we are saved by faith alone, in Christ alone and the ‘magisterium’ says we are not.

This is NOT what the early Church fathers taught or believed. Anyone and everyone that dares to read Scripture expects to understand its meaning. It’s a lot like reading a novel or watching a movie – you expect to understand what the words mean, otherwise there is no point in doing either. Do I really have to spell this out? Authors write books and articles because they want people to read them and understand them. Companies pay authors to write and people actually buy books, magazines, newspapers, and subscribe to internet news sites to read. But there is absolutely no point in reading anything if it cannot be understood.

Why on earth would God inspire over 40 different authors over a span of 1500 years to write the 66 books of the Bible if we were never expected to read or understand them? Cameron seems to be telling us that we should not read it because we might misinterpret it. OK, but what is the guarantee that the ‘magisterium’ has any idea how to interpret Scripture? They have had over 2000 years to provide those infallible commentaries of those 66 books of the Bible and they haven’t completed a single one! The only thing they have been able to accomplish is to add 7 Apocryphal books to the Bible, and none of them have been infallibly interpreted either!

Back to the Fragmentation Argument

And that's precisely why Protestantism splintered into thousands of denominations as we've already shown.

I have already dealt a death blow to the fragmentation argument, so I refer the reader to Fragmentation: Argument #8 Against Sola Scriptura. But, let’s talk about some additional splintering that has to be placed at the feet of the Catholic Church. How about the following heresies:

• Docetism – holds that Jesus Christ did not have a real physical body, but only an apparent or illusory one.
• Adoptionism – Jesus Christ was not the Son of God from eternity, but was adopted by God at some point in his life.
• Valentinianism – taught that the world was created by a series of emanations from the supreme being where salvation came from knowledge of the true nature of the universe.
• Sabellianism – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not three distinct persons, but are simply different manifestations of the same divine being.
• Marcionism – believed that the God of the Old Testament was a different god from the God of the New Testament.
• Monarchianism – the Father alone is God, and that the Son and Holy Spirit are separate, non-divine beings.

These are just a handful of the 2nd century heretical beliefs that developed under the tutelage of the early patristic church, and we could continue this list through the 15th century! So, why did the ‘Holy Catholic Church’ allow these heresies to develop? Was she so bad at communicating the truths of Christianity that she spawned these beliefs? Now before someone points out the obvious, what I just said is a completely unfair characterization because fallible humans created these heresies, just like what happened via some of the so-called Protestant fragmentations. As stated in the cited blog, there might be different denominations but there is a fairly high level of unity among the orthodox ones, which is more than can be said for Catholicism since they won’t even acknowledge or take responsibility for any of their own fragmentations. I might also point out that some of those 'fragmentors' were former Catholics that realized the errors of the Roman way, and there are a lot of former Catholics.

But the accusation here is that fragmentation is a direct result of desiring to read and understand Scripture, which apparently is the source of all the fragmentations, right? So, what Cameron seems to be saying is that John Chrysostom and Augustine, and virtually all the early Church fathers before them, were encouraging fragmentation, since virtually all of them thought regular ordinary people like you and me should be reading and understanding Scripture. And was it not Augustine that came up with rules for interpreting Scripture so that all believers would be able to understand the meanings of even the more difficult passages? I think it’s irresponsible on Cameron’s part to suggest that Scripture reading creates fragmentation, since his view is not supported within the pages of Scripture or Church history from the Church fathers.

Yours Is the Superior Intellect [1]

STM is a fundamentally superior system not just practically but in principle … Together these three form a system that's self-sufficient, coherent and incapable of improvement, precisely what we expect a perfect God to institute for his church.

And here is where Cameron officially goes off the rails, as if he was even on any tracks up to this point. Since we’ve already shown errors introduced by both ‘tradition’ and the ‘magisterium,’ STM doesn’t have a right to claim either practical or principled superiority.

Someone should be asking, ‘what do Protestants actually believe?’ Catholicism assumes that every single Protestant is sitting under a tree with only his Bible to guide him and disagreeing with everyone that comes along his path. But this is just a caricature of the strawman invented to tear down Protestantism in triumph. Protestants do not reject Church or pastoral authority, but they do recognize that both the church and the pastor can err, and that Scripture is there to correct those errors. They don’t even reject all Protestant ‘traditions’ within their denominations, but again, they recognize they are likewise fallible.

So, since Cameron makes such a big deal about the ‘magisterium,’ when did it begin? There were some that used the term, ‘magisterium,’ in the past, but it seems that Pius IX was the first pope to use the term as it would be understood today and used in its modern meaning at Vatican I, some 300 years after the beginning of the Reformation.

In his presentation of STM, Cameron made this statement,

Now Protestants initially chose Scripture alone because they thought that tradition and the magisterium introduced error.

I would agree that both ‘tradition’ and the ‘magisterium’ introduced error, but I don’t believe this is an historically accurate statement. Historically, Catholic ‘tradition’ as an authoritative source, was defined in response to the Protestant Reformation at the Council of Trent, sometime between 1545 and 1563 and then reinterpreted backwards into history. And as I just said above, the ‘magisterium’ was not officially defined until Vatican I in 1870. Historically, Martin Luther opposed the authority of the Pope and the Church and emphasized that only the Bible could be trusted as the sole infallible rule of faith for the Church. So, it’s not hard to choose Scripture over Tradition and the Magisterium when these two did not even officially exist.

Next we can use Cameron’s definition of Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium, or STM, since it’s as good as any,

STM however is complete and self-consistent. Scripture is the inspired infallible text. Tradition preserves the authentic understanding of scripture across time. The Magisterium provides authoritative interpretations to resolve disputes clearly.

Let’s start with the ‘magisterium’ and its supposed ability to provide authoritative interpretations of Scripture. As has been discussed multiple times in this blog series, it has infallibly interpreted 5-7 verses from the Bible throughout the history of the Church. [2] If this is an example of its interpretive abilities, then it is a massive failure. Anything less than complete interpretations of every book of the Old and New Testaments demonstrates its complete inability to function as an infallible source.

Moving to ‘tradition,’ this definition doesn’t match reality. The Catholic Church cannot even provide a single example of a ‘tradition’ passed down through history from the Apostles. I am sure their first example of a ‘tradition’ would be the liturgy, but even this is something that cannot be proven from history. If it could be, the Catholic Church would have done so.

This is a nice, even masterful definition, but it simply does not stand up to any scrutiny. Because you say something is true, doesn’t mean it is true, and hiding behind pomp and circumstance and a supposed infallible authority does not absolve the Catholic Church of a responsibility to prove its case. If Catholicism expects Protestants to prove their case for Sola Scriptura, then the Catholic Church needs to ‘man up!’ and do the same.

The Pillar and Foundation of Truth

Cameron continues his argument with this,

In 1 Timothy 3:15, Paul explicitly calls the church, not the scriptures, the ‘pillar and foundation of the truth.’ If Scripture alone was truly the perfect system, why wouldn't Paul have pointed directly to it as the pillar?

Catholicism can’t seem to understand that the Church is the people, not the Ecclesial hierarchical leadership. When you begin from the proper starting place, suddenly the meaning jumps out at you. So, let’s look a little closer at the entire verse.

but in case I am delayed, [I write] so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. (1 Tim 3:15)

The ‘household of God’ is the people of God that make up the Church, not a hierarchical structure of leaders. 1 Tim 3:1-13 defines the standards and qualifications of overseers (or bishops or priests, if you wish to use those words instead) and deacons, but these are also the expected behaviors of all believers within the Church. It’s not like it’s allowable for non-leaders to be drunkards, self-absorbed, greedy and disrespectful (see verses 2 and 8). If Christians are supposed to be an example to the world, then this applies to everyone, not just leaders.

Then let's discuss ‘the pillar and support of the truth.’ The Church is the pillar and support, but what is the ‘truth’ referring to here? The Scriptures, of course! What does a pillar do? It holds the roof of a building up, it's the support structure that keeps the building standing. So, according to 1 Tim 3:15, the Church ‘supports’ the ‘truth.’ The Church does not define the truth, it supports the truth, it supports Scripture. There is nothing in this verse to support the concepts of ‘tradition’ and the ‘magisterium’ as needed to provide additional truth that the Scriptures do not already possess, nor for something to interpret what Scripture says. It’s a cute argument, but completely void of – truth.

Cameron continues with this,

But this misses several key points. Okay. First, even in the Old Testament God never let His or left His people with Scripture alone. He always guided them through living authorities: prophets, priests, judges and kings.

He then attempts to link ‘tradition’ and the ‘magisterium’ to the Old Testament and its history of ‘prophets, priests, judges and kings.’ But this type of reference does not provide proof about these Old Testament offices and a linkage to the concepts of ‘tradition’ and a ‘magisterium.’ Jesus castigated Jewish ‘tradition’ which in turn argues against the Catholic concept of ‘tradition’ for all the same reasons. And I suppose that Cameron’s intention here is to compare the ‘magisterium’ to the Jewish Sanhedrin, who was responsible for interpreting Jewish law, overseeing religious practices, and making legal decisions. But let’s remember that God did not institute the Sanhedrin, the Jewish leaders did since it was formed in around 358 BC. And then let’s also remember that they were responsible for the false prosecution of Jesus as a blasphemer so that He could be put to death, a punishment they were not even allowed to perform. So, I wonder if Cameron would still want to draw the obvious correlation between the magisterium and the Sanhedrin. That would make a great blog and maybe someday I’ll write that one.

God Forbid

So, God permits slavery, polygamy and even false prophets in the Old Testament. But that doesn't mean that Jesus came to institutionalize those things in the New Covenant.

So, is Cameron really saying that God institutionalized slavery, polygamy and false prophets during the Old Testament days? I would hope not. And isn’t there a difference between sin, which I would call his examples of slavery and polygamy, and the blasphemy of false prophets, which per Deut 13:1-11, carried the punishment of death? There is a pretty big difference between the two, don’t you think? This is yet another example that would be considered an epic failure at proving his point. According to Cameron, the Catholic Church would never appoint a heretic like Honorius I as ‘pope,’ right? Except, they did. Nor would they allow pedophilia to run rampant throughout its priesthood in the 20th century, right? Except, they did. And they would definitely never hide it from the world, would they?

The son of God didn't enter history to leave us with something just as flawed or worse. He came to fulfill, to perfect and to establish something better. That's why he didn't just hand out Bibles, He built a church.

I would agree that Jesus came to “fulfill, to perfect and to establish something better” because He did. But this whole line of reasoning seems to be missing any real thought. Of course, Jesus came to establish something better – He paid the ultimate price by dying in our place while we were yet sinners to bring us salvation by faith alone, in Christ alone. That was the message encapsulated in all of Scripture, Old and New Testament because as they say, ‘there is nothing new in the New Testament.’ It was the message that the Apostles preached, as was recorded in the four Gospels. It's the message of the Epistles, like Romans and Hebrews. He built a church to protect His message. And He inspired specific people to record that message so that the rest of us throughout the centuries would have His message to proclaim to a lost and dying world.

Conclusion

So, what did I accomplish in this blog? For starters, I looked at whether Scripture is really as imperfect as Cameron outlined in his presentation. For his car analogy, I pointed out how it breaks down into absurdity rather quickly. Then I refuted his belief that Scripture is insufficient as a standalone authority when its purpose is to teach, reprove, correct and train us in righteousness. I then showed that Scripture does in fact interpret itself. I walked through a little experiment on the subject of faith and ended it with how Catholicism views faith alone. I pointed out that the ‘magisterium’ is composed of fallible men who don’t seem to be doing their job, which is said to be interpreting Scripture. Cameron returned to the fragmentation argument to make what turned out to be an invalid point. I dealt with his STM argument by pointing out some errors of ‘tradition’ and the ‘magisterium.’ I then corrected his faulty understanding of 1 Tim 3:15 and the proper meaning of ‘the pillar and foundation for the truth.’

To summarize, I addressed his argument by breaking down his presentation and answering specific statements of his case for why Scripture is imperfect. His main focus in this argument was that Scripture cannot stand on its own because it needs ‘tradition’ to understand Scripture and the ‘magisterium’ to interpret Scripture. But it was quite easy to show that no one needs either to rightly understand the clear meaning of Scripture. If Scripture could be found to be imperfect, it is certainly not for any of the reasons presented in Cameron’s argument above.

The Bible never tells us to hand off the responsibility of understanding Scripture to someone like a pope, a bishop, a priest or a magisterium, nor does it tell us to hand the responsibility off to an institution like the Catholic Church. Scripture tells believers to test everything (1 Th 5:21; 1 John 4:1; Rom 12:2), examine ourselves (2 Cor 13:5; Gal 6:4; Ps 139:23-24) and the Scriptures (Acts 17:11) and hold fast to the truth (2 Tim 1:13; 2 Tim 3:13-14; Php 2:16; Tit 1:9; 2 Th 2:15; Rom 6:17). We don’t need a bishop looking over our shoulder, nor do we need to seek one out. Scripture directs us to seek Him, on our knees, with our minds engaged, and our hearts open to hear God via the Holy Spirit who resides in us. This does require effort on our part, and requires prayer and humility, but the result is a changed heart and life, one that wants and desires to seek God and follow Him wherever He leads us.

It is ultimately dangerous to believe that Scripture is imperfect and that it needs ‘tradition’ and a special group like the ‘magisterium’ to interpret what it says when God’s word is already so clear about virtually all it says. If there are places where it might be difficult to understand, there are more than enough Scriptures in other places that provide the clarity needed. Our job is not to speak for God, but to allow God to speak to us, and that is exactly what God’s word does if we will allow it to do so.

These [the Old and New Testaments] are fountains of salvation, that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they contain. In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness. Let no man add to these, neither let him take ought from these. For concerning these the Lord put to shame the Sadducees, and said, ‘Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures.’ And He reproved the Jews, saying, ‘Search the Scriptures, for these are they that testify of Me.’

Athanasius, the 39th Festal Letter

 

Footnotes

1. Yes, that’s a challenge to anyone who can tell me where that quote comes from. Add a comment to this blog.
2. For a weak Catholic rebuttal to this, see: The Magisterium has Only Officially Interpreted Seven Verses!

All Scriptures quotes are from the New American Standard Bible, 1995 Revision, unless otherwise noted. Verse links from Blue Letter Bible, https://www.blueletterbible.org/