Roman Catholicism

Does The Bible Teach Sola Scriptura?

Gerry Matatics vs. James White
November, 1992
Omaha, Nebraska

Secondly, he quoted passages about the Word of God, like I Peter 1:23. But in that passage which he read rather rapidly Peter is talking about what? Men who were moved by the Holy Spirit and these men spoke from God. He's talking about the preaching of the prophets. Certainly it has relevance to the writing as well, so that the Scriptures they write are inspired as well, but it is not restricted to their writing. So that we have an inspired writing, the Bible and we have inspired preaching of the prophets and the Apostles. Now Mr. White believes that only the original autographs, as I do--orthodox Catholics and Protestants agree--that only the original documents, as penned by Isaiah or by Peter are inspired. The copies are not. And yet we believe that this inspired, original Word of God has been reliably transmitted down to the present day. That we have access to an inspired Bible, when we hold up our Bible. The Catholic Church says the exact same thing on the exact same grounds about tradition. And I think this is a caricature and a misrepresentation about what the Church says about tradition. He says, "Where is this inspired tradition?' It's in the preaching of the prophets and the preaching of the Apostles, that which was done in an oral format. If it's passed on down to us we receive the inspired truth coming down to us in an orally transmitted form. The transmitters are not inspired any more than the copies of the Scriptures were. But inspired Scriptures are transmitted and inspired preaching is transmitted and in both of them we have access to the inspired Word of God. It seems to me that the Bible is very clear on that because of all these verses that both of us, as a matter of fact, have been pointing to.

He misquotes Matthew 15 and Colossians 2:8 is another passage which talks about the danger of human traditions. But these are the only two passages in the Bible which speak of tradition in this negative sense and it explains why. Human tradition is not to be trusted when it goes against the Word of God, but not all tradition is human tradition. In I Corinthians 11:2 Paul says, "I praise you (to the Corinthians) for remembering me in everything and holding fast to the traditions, just as I have passed them on to you." He uses the cognate verb in verse 23, "For I received from the Lord what I traditioned on to you (or passed on to you)." II Thessalonians 2:15 and II Thessalonians 3:6 are other passages where Paul used the word tradition in a positive sense.

And so, for Mr. White to say, after reading Matthew 15, "Well, so much for the Council of Trent. Scripture is not a part of tradition, according to this passage." Of course not, because that passage is talking about a human tradition and the Council of Trent is not talking about human tradition but about sacred tradition, tradition which comes to us from God. The Bible is one example of that in a written form and there are oral words of God which these very passages, I Timothy 2:13ff and I Peter 2:23, talk about a Word of God which is preached, which comes down to us and it is inspired. It must be believed.

He quotes II Thessalonians 2:15 and says we agree, he says that this is about a tradition which has already been passed on. Of course, the Catholic Church agrees. We don't believe in adding to the deposit of faith which ceased with the Apostles. That doesn't say, by the way, that everything that Paul ever taught he taught to the Thessalonians by that point in his career. He may have had more things to teach in fuller detail later on. But the Catholic Church agrees with the Protestant Church that when the last Apostle died that no new truths were revealed. Tradition is simply the faithful transmission of what the Apostles taught during their lifetime and we do not add to it. There is dispute about what the Apostles taught in subsequent history, and so the Church meets in council to ascertain whether, in fact, this goes back to the Apostles or not. Mr. White doesn't believe that the Council of Nicaea in 325 created the doctrine of the Trinity, as a Jehovah's Witness would say, but that it was simply clarifying what the Apostles themselves taught, even if they never used the word, "Trinity." That same sort of clarification happens in council after council, including the Council of Trent, in Vatican I, in Vatican II. And so when there are clarifications about Mary's Immaculate Conception or about the authority of the Pope, the statement made by the Church is that these things were taught by the Apostles but need to be clarified and elaborated precisely because they're under attack today, as the deity of Christ was or the Trinity was, or the two natures in one person in Christ at the Council of Chalcedon.

Finally, Mr. White misrepresents not only that the Catholic position that the Church is above the Scripture. We don't teach that. It is the bride of Christ. It is the minister, the servant of the Word of God. But the wife of a husband has an authority over the children in the home. She reflects and passes on the word of the head of the house. She has, if the Church is the bride of Christ, a queenly role to perform and that queenly role involves encouraging her children to be obedient to the Word of God as properly understood, and recognizing that children can twist the words of parents to get them to mean something that will allow the child to do as he or she wants.

Finally, he misrepresents the whole nature of the issue in the way that it will be resolved between us by saying that I need to--and I'm out of time here, my buzzer's about to beep--I'll have to explain it in my closing statement how, in fact the issue tonight is supposed to be resolved.