Reply to Gavin Ortlund’s “Sola Scriptura Defended”

Gavin Ortlund is an author, speaker, and apologist for the Christian faith, who serves as the senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai in Ojai, California. Gavin has a Ph.D. from Fuller Theological Seminary in historical theology, and an M.Div from Covenant Theological Seminary. He is the author of seven books as well as numerous academic and popular articles. For a list of publications, see his CV. He runs the YouTube channel Truth Unites, which seeks to provide an irenic voice on theology, apologetics, and the Christian life.

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I will be interacting with Gavin’s video, “Sola Scriptura DEFENDED” (12-15-20). His words will be in blue, and I will include times from the video, for reference purposes.

First of all, I’d like to express rapt admiration and appreciation for the words Gavin spoke in the first part of this video, in which he describes his “irenic” (or what I often describe as “ecumenical”) approach, methodology, and viewpoint. It’s extremely refreshing to hear in this age which is so hyper-polarized. The theological world (to our shame) has, of course, been divided and polarized for many centuries.

There is an increasing need for Christians to talk to each other — really talk and communicate — and to exercise charity and do our best to understand our Christian brothers and sisters and not to misrepresent what they believe. If we can’t do that, we have no hope of getting our message out to the unbelieving, suffering, dying, despairing world.

I find Gavin to be an exemplary role model of this approach, and it is worlds apart from the anti-Catholic-type Protestants I have mostly dealt with these past 26 years I have been very active online. Personally, as an apologist since 1981, Gavin’s words were a great exhortation to humility and to offset the pride that — sadly — too often cripples apologetics efforts. I am humbled and challenged by them, to do better in this regard.

Apologetics can very quickly become “oppositional” and shot-through with hostility or passive aggression.  It need not be so. So, again, I am deeply grateful for these words from Gavin and he has already gained my respect as a Christian role model in terms of how we must conduct ourselves during discussions, where we disagree with each other.

That said, I will respectfully disagree with him on the present topic, and no doubt many in the future, if we continue to interact. But it is from the perspective of “brother to brother” within the Body of Christ, in order to better understand and to learn from each other, as well as providing challenges when we think a brother or sister in the faith is wrong on a particular issue (along with a willingness to be challenged).

We all learn and we all “win” when good, constructive dialogue takes place. That has always been my view, and it’s why I love dialogue so much and have engaged in many hundreds of them through the years. I’m not perfect, and have often fallen short of these high ideals, but they are my ideals and goals and what I strive to attain, by God’s grace.

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In order to offset the danger of non-Protestant caricaturing of the Protestant position, Gavin offers a “nuanced” definition of the perspicuity (“clearness”) of Scripture from the Westminster Confession (1.7). He importantly notes the “key point” that “the perspicuity of Scripture has to do with getting saved; it’s about understanding the message of salvation from the Scripture. It has never been understood to say that the Bible is perspicuous in general, in some unqualified sense.” [6:o5-7:11]

I totally concur with this, and am happy to pass it on to my Catholic readers, so that they don’t caricature the Protestant view. I confess, on my part, that I have myself not always noted in my apologetics the subtlety and nuanced nature of the Protestant understanding of perspicuity. As Gavin noted earlier in the video, both sides too often caricature the other (I’ve seen it many times in my apologetics discussions, so I am personally quite aware of this, and sometimes I fall into it as well), and that does no one any good. It’s unethical, it bears false witness, and it doesn’t advance constructive, helpful dialogue.

Sola Scriptura has always been maintained as the view that the Bible is the only infallible rule for theology. . . . There’s a big difference in saying that the Bible is the only source for theology, and  saying the Bible is the only infallible source for theology. But I hear this over and over again . . . If you [Catholics and Orthodox] hear nothing else in this entire video, hear this: don’t say that Protestants believe that the Bible is all you have or all you need; it’s just you and your Bible and that’s it. Thoughtful Protestants have always understood that tradition has an important place . . . all we’re saying is the Bible is the final court of appeal. . . . Calvin and Luther affirmed the early ecumenical creeds and councils. Thoughtful Protestants recognize that there is oral tradition mentioned in the Bible.  . . . The Scripture is is the final court of appeal: the norming norm that norms all other norms but is not normed itself. [7:11-9:35, my own bolding, to highlight his central point]

This is my understanding of what sola Scriptura means as well, and has been my working definition in my Catholic critiques of it these past 31 years. The words “only infallible rule” are key, because it qualifies an overly broad understanding, or one that has been the caricature used by too many critics of sola Scriptura. I have even gotten into some discussions with fellow Catholic apologists about the supreme importance of getting the definition right, and not caricaturing it.

Here’s a second objection, and that’s that sola Scriptura was not known to Church history, and it was invented by the Reformers. [he provides a video example of a Catholic arguing this point]. . . . I want to suggest that things are much more complicated than that. Actually, what you have is a development in the Church’s understanding of Scripture and tradition, . . . It took a long time to get to a fully articulated two-source view of divine revelation, where you’ve got Scripture and sacred tradition as this sort of two-pronged view of revelation. [9:33-11:13]

It should be noted that the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) disputes this “two-pronged” revelation in stating:

Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence. (Dei Verbum, 9; my bolding)

Note that tradition is not referred to as inspired. Only Scripture is.

When you go back to the Church fathers, what you see is a mixed record. But if you want to check out some pretty fascinating quotes, pick up this book, The Church of Rome at the Bar of History, by William Webster, and just read the first Appendix . . . a series of quotes from the Church fathers . . . There is, among the Church fathers, even while they are appealing to oral tradition as well, an awareness and a conviction . . . that there is a deposit of authoritative revelation in the Holy Scripture that possesses a kind of unparalleled authority. [11:13-12:18]

Respectfully, I have not observed, myself, after much related study, a “mixed record” in the Church fathers on the matter of the rule of faith (or with regard to whether any of them held to sola Scriptura). In my experience, they do not express the principle of sola Scriptura, as defined by Gavin above. We must also note that in saying that Scripture is the only infallible authority, one is at the same time necessarily denying that tradition or the Church can be infallible (even under carefully laid-out conditions).

So when I went and studied what many Church fathers thought on this issue, I looked up what they said about the authority of the Church, sacred tradition, ecumenical councils, and apostolic succession. And lo and behold, in every case I have thus far studied, infallible or sublime authority was granted to one of these four things. That being the case, it proved that the Church father in question did not (by definition) subscribe to sola Scriptura as the rule of faith. To see my evidence for this in each case, go to my Fathers of the Church web page, to the section: “BIBLE / TRADITION / APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION / SOLA SCRIPTURA / PERSPICUITY / RULE OF FAITH.”

As for William Webster, I have interacted more than once with his contra-Catholic assertions, and with the three-volume series of the Church fathers and sola Scriptura, co-written with David T. King. Again, I was very unimpressed with his research and points of view. See my articles:

Colossians 2:8 (RSV) See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ.

1 Corinthians 11:2 I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you.

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2 Thessalonians 2:15 So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.

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2 Timothy 1:13-14 Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus; [14] guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.