Questions Protestants Just Hate About The Bible

[secretman]

Questions Protestants Just Hate About The Bible !

1) If the "Bible Alone" is the sole guideline of the Christian faith, how were people saved in the past if they didn’t have a Bible to guide them? It was over 300 years after Christ's resurrection for the Bible to be complied in its’ present form and 1500 years for the Bible to be mass printed.

2) Why does the Bible state the Church is built upon Peter and not the Bible? "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it."(Matt 16:18)

3) Christ told the apostles to go forth and preach. Only five of the twelve apostles wrote books of the Bible. So why didn’t Christ tell them to go forth and write His gospel so all future generations could read it? That is what Mohammed did.

4) How come the Bible says the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth and not the Bible? "But if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth." (1 Tim 3: 15)

5) Why do Protestants follow only the Bible and ignore Holy tradition when the Bible clearly states that tradition is of great importance? "Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours." (2 Thess. 2:15)

6) How do you know for certain which books of the Bible are divinely inspired and which translation is correct without an infallible authority?

7) If each individual reader is guided by the Holy Spirit to interpret the Bible correctly, why are there over 25,000 different Protestant denominations disagreeing with each other about the Bible's meaning?

8) Why do Protestants claim that they are justified by faith alone when the Bible clearly says we are justified by faith and works? "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone" (James 2 : 24)

9) Today's Protestant Bibles are based on the King James version. King James was a political leader not an ecclesiastical authority. What authority did he have to produce a Bible? Absolutely none! So the question arises, suppose the President of the United States decided to produce a Bible. Would you trust your salvation to the Bill Clinton version of the Bible?

10) Does your Bible contain all the books of the Old Testament that Christ read from or is it like the Protestant Bible that is missing seven books? (Tibet, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1 & 2 Maccabees)

[Seeker]

Again all great points SECRETMAN.  If someone has the Sola Scriptura counterpoints please enlighten us.  I know there are counterpoints out there.

Here is a link along the lines of SECRETMAN's list by Joel Peters called Twenty One Reasons to Reject Sola Scriptura.  And yet another good link.

To see the other side, there is a link to William Webster's explanation of Sola Scriptura.  Please be aware that Webster is a Protestant apologist and he is defending Sola Scriptura by trying to defend the idea that the Early Church held to Sola Scriptura.  I present this link to show the arguments that Sola Scriptura adherents will use.  See if you can see where Webster goes wrong.  Read the early Church Fathers he cites yourself. I think his argument can be boiled down to the statement that he thinks all Tradition the fathers were talking about were then written down in Scripture that has been handed down to us.  This, of course, is not the teaching of the Church.  If you read the Church fathers you will see that Webster is wrong.

See Stephen Ray's link under the My Books: Reviews and Defense section for some rebuttals to Webster even though the Sola Scriptura writing I cited here is not specifically one of them.

[Seeker]

Let me present a few quotes from early Church Fathers I think together refute how Webster interprets them.  This is by no means all inclusive.

St. Augustine
"I would not believe the Gospels unless moved there-to by the authority of the Catholic Church." (Letter to Januarius [A.D. 400]).

St. Basil
"Of the dogmas and messages preserved in the Church, some we possess from written teaching and others we receive from the tradition of the apostles, handed on to us in mystery. In respect to piety, both are of the same force. No one will contradict any of these, no one, at any rate, who is even moderately versed in matters ecclesiastical. Indeed, were we to try to reject unwritten customs as having no great authority, we would unwittingly injure the gospel in its vitals; or rather, we would reduce [Christian] message to a mere term" (The Holy Spirit 27:66 [A.D. 375]).

St. Irenaeus
"With this church (Rome), because of its superior origin, all churches must agree—that is, all the faithful in the whole world—and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition" (Against Heresies 3:3:1–2 [A.D. 189]).

St. Jerome
"Don't you know that the laying on of hands after baptism and then the invocation of the Holy Spirit is a custom of the Churches?  Do you demand Scripture proof?  You may find it in the Acts of the Apostles.  And even if it did not rest on the authority of Scripture the consensus of the whole world in this respect would have the force of command.  For the many other observances of the Churches, which are due to tradition, have acquired the authority of the written law." (The Dialogue Against the Luciferians, Chap 8, in Patrologia Latina 23, 163, and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church VI, 324).

[Seeker]

There is a good discussion in this forum with regards to item 2) on SECRETMAN's list here.

[Rev. Eric]

Just some quick thoughts...

I have occasionally seen non-Catholics try to "prove" that the Fathers of the Church supported Sola Scriptura.  But all they really manage to do is express that the Fathers felt that Scripture was important.  No one denies this, but admitting importance does not equal a doctrine Sola Scriptura.  The response to this is exactly what Seeker has done here, look up what the quoted Fathers had to say about Sacred Tradition and/or the authority of the Magesterium.  One of the Fathers cannot be saying or even implying that we are to accecpt Sola Scriptura if he also supports Sacred Tradition or Magesterial Teaching.

For example, on another website I saw a Protestant actually claim that St. Augustine was a proponent of Sola Scriptura, and he presented a couple of quotes to back this up.  In light of the quote of Augustine that Seeker displayed above, we can see that there is no way anyone can rationally say that this great saint believed in Sola Scriptura.  

Many collections of patrology have good indexes, which can assist one in finding out what a particular Father had to say about Scripture, Tradition and the authority of the Church.  Jurgen's "Faith of the Early Fathers" is one example of such a set with good translations and good indexes.  So far it is all I have had to use for apologetical arguments involving patristics.

On another note, if anyone is interested in seeing a very detailed and informed debate between a Catholic and a Protestant about Sola Scriptura, visit this website.  You have to admire the work that both parties put into it:
http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/soladeb.html

God bless,
-Rev. Eric

[Seeker]

Rev Eric,

Thanks for that insight, the reference on patristics, and the link.  That link has a great exchange on Sola Scriptura.  These will certainly be helpful when faced with similar arguments from our Protestant brothers and sisters.