Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!seismo!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: sola scriptura vs cold hard logic Message-ID: Date: 24 Aug 90 04:01:37 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Grebyn Timesharing, Vienna, VA, USA Lines: 88 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu 1. The Reformers asserted Proposition A: "ALL REVEALED TRUTH IS TO BE FOUND IN THE INSPIRED SCRIPTURES." However, this is quite useless unless we know which books are meant by the "inspired Scriptures." 2. The theory we are considering, when it talks of "inspired Scriptures," means in fact those 66 books which are bound and published in Protestant Bibles. For convenience we shall refer to them from now on simply as "the 66 books." 3. The precise statement of the theory we are examining thus becomes Proposition B: "ALL REVEALED TRUTH IS TO BE FOUND IN THE 66 BOOKS." 4. It is a fact that nowhere in the 66 books themselves can we find any statements telling us which books make up the entire corpus of inspired Scripture. There is no complete list of inspired books amywhere within their own pages, nor can such a list be compiled by putting isolated verses together. (This *would* be the case if: [a] you could find verses like "Ester is the Word of God," or "This Gospel is inspired by God," or "The Second of Peter is inspired Scripture," etc., for *all* the 66 books; *AND* [b] you could also find a Biblical passage stating that no books other than these 66 books were to be held as inspired. Obviously, no one has ever pretended to have found all this information about the canon of Scripture in the Bible itself.) 5. It follows that Proposition B -- the very foundation of Protestant Christianity -- is neither found in Scripture nor can be deduced from Scripture in any way. Since the 66 books are not even identified in Scripture, much less can any further information about them (e.g., that *all* revealed truth is contained in them) be found there. In short, we must affirm Proposition C: "PROPOSITION B IS AN ADDITION TO THE 66 BOOKS." 6. It follows immediately from the truth of Proposition C that Proposition B cannot itself be revealed truth. To assert that it is would involve a self-contradictory statement: "All revealed truth is to be found in the 66 books, but this revealed truth is not found there." 7. Could it be the case that Proposition B is true, but is not *revealed* truth? If that is the case, then it must be either [a] something which can be deduced from revealed truth or [b] something which natural human reason alone can discover, without any help from revelation. The first possibility [a] is ruled out because, as we saw in steps 4 and 5, B cannot be deduced from Scripture, and to postulate some other revealed extra-Scritural premise from which B might be deduced would contradict B itself. The second possibility [b] involves no self-contradiction, but it is factually preposterous, and I doubt whether any Protestant has seriously tried to defend it -- least of all those traditional Protestants who strongly emphasise the corruption of man's natural intellectual powers as a result of the Fall. How could reason alone reach a well-founded certitude about a collection of 66 books which do not even lay claim to what is attributed to them? (The point is reinforced when we remember that those who attribute the totality of revealed truth to the 66 books, namely Protestant Church members, are very ready to acknowledge their own fallibility -- whether individually or collectively -- in matters of religious doctrine. All Protestant Churches deny their own infallability as much as they deny the Pope's.) Human reason might well be able to conclude prudently and responsibly that an authority which itself claimed to possess the totality of revealed truth was in fact justified in making that claim, provided that this authority backed up the claim by some very striking evidence. (Catholics, in fact, believe that their Church is precicely such an authority. Interestingly enough, all Christians accept the Catholic Church's authority on this matter.) 8. Since Proposition B is not revealed truth, nor a truth which can be deduced from revelation, nor a naturally-knowable truth, it is not true at all. Therefore, the basic doctrine for which the reformers fought is simply false. {This line of logic was borrowed from an article in _Living Tradition_.} I hope you all can appreciate the gravity and impact of this argument! chris -- First comes the logo: C H E C K P O I N T T E C H N O L O G I E S / / \\ / / Then, the disclaimer: All expressed opinions are, indeed, opinions. \ / o Now for the witty part: I'm pink, therefore, I'm spam! \/