Category: sola scriptura

Con­sid­er, dear read­er, if you will, these words: “The nov­el­ty of bib­li­cal rev­e­la­tion con­sists in the fact that God becomes known to us through the dia­logue which he desires to have with us.” Does the author believe in sola scrip­tura? What do you think? For, after all, he describes the Bible as “nov­el.” That is to say, it is unique; it is dif­fer­ent than any­thing else. More than that, he describes the Bible as the means by which “God becomes known to us.” He refers to it as God’s “dia­logue” with us. He points to no oth­er source of knowl­edge or dia­logue with God.

The best argu­ment that Catholic apol­o­gists have against sola scrip­tura is that it is self-refut­ing. If the Bible alone con­tains all that is required for faith and prac­tice, and sola scrip­tura is required for faith and prac­tice, then why is sola scrip­tura not to be found there? Search as long as you may please, you will not find it. Protes­tants know that they have a dif­fi­cul­ty here. They know that, in order to defend sola scrip­tura, they must do so from the only source of doc­trine to which they point. They must tell us which verse teach­es sola scrip­tura. (Just one verse will do.)

Unusu­al as the ques­tion may sound, no less a per­son­age than the polem­i­cal rogue John Bugay makes that wery claim here. The title of this blog arti­cle (for the man does not quit but grows more wild) is “The First Adam, Sola Scrip­tura, and His Com­mis­sion as King, Priest, and Protes­tant.” Yes, dear read­er, it would seem that Adam was a Protes­tant. Now, what Mr. Bugay seems to be up to this time is to wring wet and curi­ous claims out of a sponge of a book by G.K. Beale called A New Tes­ta­ment Bib­li­cal The­ol­o­gy, in a pas­sage where Beale is dis­cussing the first covenant.

Over on Pseudo­logue today, anti-Catholic polemi­cist Mr. John Bugay informs us, with his cus­tom­ary mad zeal, that “God is not some kind of loon.” Right. I’m pleased to report we can agree with him on that. For who among us says God is? Is Mr. Bugay swat­ting the air against imag­i­nary flies again? Does he suf­fer floaters? These are real ques­tions, I am afraid. But Mr. Bugay, as is his wont, insists on start­ing with self-evi­dent premis­es and then get­ting lost down tan­gled paths of non sequitur.