Catholics often critique the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura by saying it’s self-defeating. The reasoning usually goes something like this: 1) sola scriptura claims that we shouldn’t assent to any doctrine as infallible unless it’s found in Scripture; 2) The doctrine of sola scriptura itself isn’t found in the Bible; 3) therefore, we shouldn’t assent to sola scriptura as an infallible doctrine.
Some Protestants are quick to counter, however, saying the above argument misconstrues sola scriptura as if it were itself a proper Christian doctrine. But it’s not a doctrine per se, so the argument goes. Rather, it’s a prolegomenon, which means it’s a preliminary principle that’s necessary to have in place in order to even begin learning Christian doctrine.
How is this prolegomenon arrived at? By a simple process of reasoning:
Premise One: Given their inspiration, the books contained in the Bible are an infallible rule for Christian belief and practice.
Premise Two: There are no other infallible rules for Christian belief and practice.
Conclusion: Therefore, the Bible is our only infallible rule for Christian belief and practice.
That we shouldn’t assent to any doctrine pertaining to faith or morals as infallible is argued to be a “good and necessary” consequence of the above conclusion. Some have termed this doctrine the Sufficiency of Scripture.
So, given the prolegomenon nature of sola scriptura, it would seem sola scriptura, and the “good and necessary” consequence of the Sufficiency of Scripture, is exempt from being a theological doctrine that needs to be proved from Scripture, and therefore, it is not self-defeating.
Does this counter exempt sola scriptura from the self-defeating trap? Well, as the saying goes, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat.” (Keep in mind, cat-lovers: this is merely an idiom!)
Some apologists might want to hold a Protestant’s feet to the fire and argue that sola scriptura must be proven from Scripture to pass its own test. And given that it can’t, it’s self-defeating. I’m willing, however, to give our Protestant friends a pass here and run with the prolegomenon tactic for argument’s sake.
With that said, sola scriptura still doesn’t escape the self-defeating trap, at least for Christians who accept as inspired all twenty-seven books in the New Testament canon. And here’s why.
The above conclusion—that Scripture is our only infallible rule of Christian belief and practice—blocks a Christian from having infallible knowledge as to whether certain books in the canon of Scripture (the list of divinely inspired books) are inspired or not.
To see this, we have first to consider the ways in which we can have infallible knowledge of something.
1. We directly sense something. For example, when I see the tree outside, I have an immediate and direct sense experience of the tree and thereby infallibly know that the tree exists (a view known as direct realism).
2. A claim is reduced to a violation of a first principle, like the principle of non-contradiction (PNC)—that is, that something can’t both be and not be in the same respect at the same place and time. If a claim were to violate the PNC, we would infallibly know that the claim is false because the PNC cannot be denied without presupposing its validity. (See my new book The New Relativism: Unmasking the Philosophy of Today’s Woke Moralists.) When a principle can’t be denied like this, that’s a sure sign it’s true.
3. A claim about reality that is itself directly confirmed by a miracle (or miracles). Given that miracles require divine power, and God can’t confirm falsehood, miraculous confirmation would give us infallible knowledge that the prophet’s claim is backed by God and thereby true.
4. A claim is definitively made by someone who has been given authority to speak on behalf of God, either by God himself or by another whose authority is miraculously confirmed. Even though such a person might not have miraculous confirmation directly associated with his claim, there is a transfer of divine authority that’s been already established.
5. God reveals something to you or me directly.
Let’s now consider which of these an advocate of sola scriptura might appeal to for having infallible knowledge as to which writings within the Jewish and Christian traditions are divinely inspired.
The first way obviously doesn’t apply to this sort of thing.
Would the second way work? Nope! The denial of divine inspiration of a particular book in the Bible doesn’t violate the principle of non-contradiction. There’s no logical contradiction, for example, in saying the Gospel of Mark is not inspired. Nor does affirming divine inspiration of the first-century Christian document called the Shepherd of Hermas (which isn’t considered inspired by Christians) entail a denial of the principle of non-contradiction. Therefore, our second way isn’t going to work.
What about the third way? Perhaps God has blessed some with this path. But I suspect that for most Protestants, their claim that the books in the canon of Scripture are inspired hasn’t been directly confirmed by miracles.
The fourth way is perhaps the most promising. For starters, we have Jesus. Surely, he’s a source of infallible knowledge because he miraculously confirmed his claims not only to be a prophet who speaks on behalf of the Father, but to be God in the flesh.
We also have the men whom Jesus appointed to speak on his behalf (Luke 10:16), called the apostles. And their preaching (claims about reality) not only had the divine backing of Jesus, but also had miraculous confirmation (see Acts 2:1-42).
But the hope of this option for infallibly knowing which Jewish and Christian writings are inspired goes only so far.
For starters, the hope is not brought to fruition by Jesus. He doesn’t give us a detailed list of which Jewish or Christian writings are divinely inspired. We might be able to decipher a general and vague knowledge of which Jewish writings he judged to be inspired (Matt. 4:4/Deut. 8:3; Matt. 22:32/Exod. 3:6), but he doesn’t give us much. For sure, we can’t discern which Christian writings are inspired by looking to Jesus, because he never talked about such writings.
But we do have his apostles. They tell us a few things that can lead to infallible knowledge as to which Christian writings are inspired. (We’ll leave the Jewish writings aside to keep things simple.) Peter, for example, refers to Paul’s writings as “scripture” (2 Pet. 3:16), which means Peter believed they were divinely inspired. That covers quite a bit of the New Testament.
Another example is Paul’s quotation of a passage from Luke’s Gospel (Luke 10:7) in 1 Timothy 5:18, which Paul introduces as “for the Scripture says.” This tells us that Paul believed that at least this passage from Luke is divinely inspired. And I suppose we can be generous and infer from Paul’s statement that the whole of Luke’s Gospel is also inspired.
The problem, however, is that the apostles say nothing about the rest of the writings that Christians believe to be divinely inspired—i.e., the New Testament canon (for Catholics and Protestants alike). For example, they don’t tell us the Gospel of Mark is inspired, which is especially a problem because he wasn’t even an apostle.
A Protestant might counter and say that Mark was the scribe of Peter. And given that Peter was infallible by virtue of his apostolic authority, it follows that the content of Mark is infallible by virtue of Peter. But Peter never tells us, through Mark, that the content in Mark’s Gospel is divinely inspired. That’s what we’re after here.
Moreover, no apostle ever teaches us when an apostle is under divine inspiration. So, just because Peter is behind the content of Mark’s Gospel, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s inspired.
Furthermore, take the epistle to the Hebrews, the author of which is not definitively known. This being the case, we can’t lump it under Paul’s writings that Peter calls “scripture.” Sure, a scholar might throw it in with Paul’s epistles. But ultimately, we don’t really know. And no apostle ever tells us that it’s inspired, much less apostolic. So our fourth way won’t work for giving us infallible knowledge for the divine inspiration of the letter to the Hebrews.
And what about the epistle of James? No apostle ever tells us that James’s epistle is divinely inspired. That belief doesn’t appear, seemingly, until Origen in the mid-third century (Commentary on Romans 4.8.2). James’s epistle is definitely apostolic. But again, no apostle ever tells us that whatever an apostle writes automatically is divinely inspired.
Now, recall that premise two above states that there are no other infallible sources for Christian doctrine besides Scripture. In other words, the infallible authority that the apostles had is no longer available to us as Christians because they all died. According to Protestants, the apostles didn’t transfer their infallible authority to other men. This means we’re left only with Scripture as our infallible rule for Christian belief and practice, as the conclusion in the above reasoning states.
So if we were to take this fourth way, the divinely inspired nature of some Jewish and Christian writings would be beyond what we could infallibly know—that’s to say, we couldn’t infallibly know whether some books belong in the Christian canon of Scripture.
There’s only one option left: personal revelation from God.
The problem here is that most Christians wouldn’t go so far as to claim they’ve received direct revelation from God as to which writings are inspired. Perhaps they’ll claim they have a “burning in their bosom,” to borrow the lingo from the Mormons, but that’s not sufficient to have infallible knowledge. As the prophet Jeremiah says, “the heart is deceitful above all things” (Jer. 17:9-10).
So sola scriptura ends up being self-defeating after all, just in a different way from how most people might think. The conclusion in the above reasoning—that Scripture is our only infallible rule for Christian belief and practice—blocks any sort of infallible knowledge as to whether certain books in the Christian canon of Scripture—e.g., Mark, Hebrews, and James—are inspired or not.
A Christian might get away with a sola scriptura in which he accepts a “scriptura” that lacks some of the Jewish and Christian writings contained in Christian bibles. But what he can’t get away with is a sola scriptura for which the “scriptura” includes all the Jewish and Christian writings commonly accepted among Protestants as divinely inspired.
***This article was originally published by Catholic Answers Magazine Online on July 26, 2023.