Refuting Protestantism's Clarity Doctrine of Scripture

In this episode Trent sits down with Catholic author Casey Chalk to discuss his book The Obscurity of Scripture and why Protestant views of sola scriptura are untenable given the need to interpret scripture.

[stevenwall]

There is one issue that never seems to come up but it should. Can anyone who considers themselves to be an educated Christian pick up their Bible and use the "Bible Alone" to show how it teaches the Doctrine of the Trinity which states that there is one God that exists in 3 persons; and while there are 3 persons there is only one divine will; and then on top of that the Doctrine of the Incarnation states that Jesus is both fully human and fully God and that his human will is united to the divine will by a hypostatic union; and that Christ is both fully human and fully divine ontologically and NOT morally.


Can anyone honestly say that if they had the Bible Alone and nothing else, that they could formulate these doctrines? And even if you think you could do you think that if your 5 best Christian friends did the same thing and just looked at the Bible Alone and nothing else that they would all be able to come up with the same doctrine of the Trinity and the Doctrine of the Incarnation? There is simply no way that one could think that a Christian could read the Bible Alone and decipher these doctrines.

I know that I read the Bible as a skeptic 5 or 6 times (trying to debunk it) and I could have never come up with the exact doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation. I would have absolutely had to trust the early church. I would have to trust the church and believe that the Holy Spirit was guiding the early church fathers. The fathers had to hold the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD, the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD and then finally the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. Do we not have to absolutely trust the early church?

At Chalcedon at least 500 and probably about 600 bishops were present representing the many conflicting views found within the church itself. After much debate the Chalcedonian creed was adopted which re-affirmed the divine and human natures of Christ recognized at Nicaea and further stated that the two natures of Christ were

"without confusion, without conversion, without severance, and without division."

Jesus was affirmed as being both fully divine and human. His two natures were combined in one person without his becoming less divine or less human. The work Christ did was the work of his whole person, not of one nature or another. In that day Pope Leo stated the Chalcedonian position that in Christ the "lowliness of man and the majesty of God perfectly pervade one another...the two natures make only one person."

There is simply no way that we can determine this from the "Bible Alone." We have to trust that the early church got it right. And if we have to absolutely trust that church then "Sola Scriptura" cannot be a true doctrine. Jesus established a church. He said;

1) That the gates of hell would not prevail against it
2) That it would be persecuted and that its members would be killed.
3) That he wanted the church to be one so that the world would believe
4) That the church would go to all nations.
5). That the Holy Spirit would guide the church "forever" in all truth. Jesus said this to the apostles, but he said that the Holy Spirit would guide them "forever" and they are not going to live forever so he must have been promising to guide HIS church. Besides in Matthew 28 he states he will be with the church until the end of time.

Paul said that the church was the pillar and foundation of the truth is "the church."

So does not the New Testament say that Christ established a church and that we should be able to trust that church? That is how I read it and I had no religious upbringing and did not have any preconceived notions when I read the Bible. Maybe that just means I was just naive.

Other people have pointed out that Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses all use the same Bible to argue against the Trinity and against the Doctrine of the Incarnation. How do we know that the early church got it right, unless we believe that the Holy Spirit was guiding the church? And if the Holy Spirit was guiding the church then should we not put our trust in that church? If there is a disagreement on the interpretation of Scripture should we not trust Christ's church? And if we trust Christ's church then Sola Scripture would have to be false.


Can someone explain why I am wrong? I am relatively new to religion and Sola Scripture just does not make any sense. It seems we have to trust the early church. When the Protestant Reformers declared "Sola Scriptura!!" None of them practiced it. Luther rejected everyone that did not agree with his interpretation. Calvin and Zwingli did the same. Everyone was screaming "sole scriptura" but no one practiced it! How can people believe in a doctrine that obviously does not work? What am I missing?

Even reading a Protestant historian like Oberman, he says this about Luther's claim to Sola Scriptura in his book called "Luther; Man Between God and the Devil:

"Application of the Reformation principle of sola scriptura, the Scriptures alone, has not brought the certainty [Luther] anticipated. It has in fact been responsible for a multiplicity of explanations and interpretations that seem to render absurd any dependence on the clarity of the Scriptures (page 220)."

I am not a genius but I am not an idiot. I have a Masters Degree and PhD and I could have read the Bible a hundred times and never would have come up with the formulation of the important doctrines of the Trinity and the Doctrine of the Incarnation. I have to trust that early church and I have to believe Jesus when he said that he would be with the church until the end of time. It makes no sense to me that Jesus would say that he would build HIS CHURCH and the gates of hell would not prevail against it and then he would turn right around and let it fail almost immediately. When I read the early fathers Clement, Ignatius, Martyr, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Cyprian, Athanasias, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome etc they are all Bishops in the "Catholic Church." They all see themselves as part of one "episcopate" that works together to declare orthodox doctrines. They work together, they held councils, they seem to agree on the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome. The Bishop of Rome played a role in determining the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation.

There is no way that I am smart enough in Bible study to be able to determine these doctrines and so if I cannot trust the church that Christ himself established then who should I believe? Luther? Calvin? Zwingli? John Smith? Joseph Smith? They are all so different. Ephesians 3:10 says that it was "the church" that was the instrument to teach the manifold wisdom of God. So if I cannot trust the church that Christ established then how can I trust anything? Ephesians 4 states that God did not want average people like me to have to be torn by every wind of doctrine. But when I read the history of the Reformation that is all I see is dozens of new proclamations about different doctrines. Luther says he is in disagreement with all the church fathers on some issues! Zwingli said his view of baptism was different than all the fathers and all the doctors of the early church!

Don't I have to trust the church that Christ established even if I personally don't like some of the doctrines? If there is a truth there can only be one truth and if I cannot trust Christ's own words that he would build his church that I can trust, then I just don't know what to believe; except to go back to skepticism or agnosticism.

[FrJohnBrownSJ]

I respect the Reformers' idea that we should return to our roots. But since the Reformation, all of the best scholarship points to Reformation theology being disconnected from early Church theology, spirituality, practice etc... Sola Scriptura is a good example of that.

[TheThreatenedSwan]

The earliest protestants understood that a succession of their beliefs from the early Church was necessary because otherwise how could you draw their beliefs out of such a multitude of possible interpretations. The problem was they asserted this succession with zero evidence, and it has become embarrassing so most protestants no longer argue for it. But despite not retaining one of the main reasons for separation, that doesn't give contemporary protestants pause to reexamine their faith. They don't even have the same beliefs as their immediate predecessors, yet that doesn't cause them to reexamine anything

[sotem]

I couldn't really articulate it at the time, but this is exactly what I was running into while being Protestant, I couldn't see how Jesus was praying for us to be one like Him and the father, but then our denomination being "the right one" amongst the broadness of Protestantism.
We where supposed to "test everything by scripture", and even our pastors; but then when you did, you where just misinterpreting.
Thanks for your work gentlemen!

I've been baptised into the Faith in a beautiful Easter Vigil yesterday!

[KH-vpni]

I grew up protestant and my pastor was insane and interpreted scripture very dangerously. People got hurt. People followed him. He was a very bad shepherd. I can not for the life of me understand how people can get behind personal interpretation.

[P-elzd]

Luther’s Works

In Luther’s Works, Luther calls Zwingli, Karlstadt, Oecolampadius, and Caspar Schwenkfeld—and by implication those who believe as they do—“fanatics and enemies of the sacrament” (LW, Vol.38, 287), men who are guilty of “blasphemies and deceitful heresy” (Vol. 38, 288), “loathsome fanatics” (Vol. 38, 291), “murderers of souls” (Vol. 38, 296), who “possess a bedeviled, thoroughly bedeviled, hyper-bedeviled heart and lying tongue” (Vol. 38, 296), and who “have incurred their penalty and are committing ‘sin which is mortal’, ” (Vol. 38, 296), “blasphemers and enemies of Christ” (Vol. 38, 302), and “God’s and our condemned enemies” (Vol. 38, 316). He described Zwingli as a “full-blown heathen” (Vol. 38, 290), and wrote: “I am certain that Zwingli, as his last book testifies, died in a great many sins and in blasphemy of God” (Vol. 38, 302–303).

[ottovonbaden]

Timestamps

00:04 - Introduction and Book Endorsement
03:30 - Mr. Chalk's Reason for Writing
12:33 - Definition of Scriptural Clarity
18:30 - Main Thesis of the Book
20:58 - Evidences for Thesis
25:50 - Protestants Argue Like Atheists
28:47 - Practical Perspicuity Problems
48:20 - A Final Objection and Response
53:00 - Protestant Disunity vs Catholic Disunity
56:33 - Where to Find the Book and Closing Comments

[marvalice]

I came out of the Jehovah's witnesses.
They are a large group of people, both educated and not, who read the bible every day and insist it definitely, clearly says 1. Christ is not God, but only a creature. 2. The holy spirit is a thing, not a person. 3. Christians are sorted into two flocks, and only one will go to heaven. 4. There is no afterlife, only a resurrection to this life. 5. The devil really controls the world. God has no direct influence over the nations, he only interferes occasionally and it's the devil who decides all the rulers and the policies. 6. God has mostly abandoned men to their own devices and to the tricks of the devil. 7. Christ's second coming happened in the early 20th century, and everyone just missed it. 8. Those who die in their sin get a second chance at redemption in the resurrection. 9. Christ did not resurrect bodily, but only spiritually, 10. The whole church was destroyed by Satan in the early second century, so it had to be reestablished in the 19th. 11. God didn't know it was destroyed until than, because his "omniscience" is like a Library, and he only knows something if he actively checks, 12. Baptism doesn't forgive personal sins, only original sin.

So basically, they use the bible to contest every aspect of the creeds except "God the father" and "the resurrection of the dead" and they still get those wrong.
I've got a feeling these are all necessary issues, yet they have been using scripture to undermine Christian's faith in them for a hundred and fifty years. The mere existence of this cult is itself a condemnation of the doctrine of the clarity of scripture.

[joshuabenes]

You guys just need to stop with all of this nonsense...

You make far too reasonable an argument here.

I continue to watch you and Matt Fradd and others, and I have really come to see how we need to seek to actually understand the other side and to be open and willing to change. I've been a Protestant for most of my adult life and I've only recently realized how much of Catholicism is made too look false because another Protestant "said so", sometimes out of ignorance and sometimes out of malice.

When I actually investigate Catholicism, from Catholics that know what they're talking about, then it becomes a much more reasonable view of Christianity than what I originally understood. There are a great many things I still struggle with regarding Catholicism, but I'll continue my investigation with an open mind for what is the truth.

[bethanyjohnson]

I love that you quote Chesterton! I'm taking a class dedicated to him at Ave Maria University. I have read his books before, but this class has really demonstrated to me just what a brilliant man he was. I have been highlighting so much in Orthodoxy that I might as well have highlighted the enitre book!

[OPiguy]

Still in between Protestantism and Catholicism…not really signed onto either but grew up most of my life as a Protestant…this exact topic is one of the key things that had me abandon my membership in the Protestant church

[johnnypop-tart]

I was protestant for most of my life. I rejected the reformation when I found out where sola scriptura was coming from, martin luther. IMO you can't yell about "Bible alone" while also ripping out and editing books of the Bible.

It just doesn't make any sense to me

[MM]

Bear in mind that Protestants seem very comfortable with personal interpretation as being sufficient whereas Catholics seem to value highly a singulariy, coherent, and authoritative interpretation of the Bible. As a result, Protestants seem content with the contradictions that arise from libertine interpretation. In other words, anything goes, exegetical relativism.

Coincidentally, that was a good point with the example of the rebellious German bishops, since Protestants may view the German Bishop's dissent in light of protestant exegetical relativism and conclude there's no difference in contrast to catholic official teaching which is binding.

[jonatasmachado]

Protestants agree on their rejection of Catholicism but they don't have anything positive to offer except a theological fruit salad. I was raised in a Baptist family full of Baptist Pastors (my father was one) and they had intense and heated theological debates between themselves during our family gatherings.

[heaven]

I am an inquirer in the ROCOR in Japan from Protestantism and one of the reasons that made me realise I just am not a Protestant anymore is Sola Scriptura which leads to so called "liberty in Christ" in Bible interpretation. And when questioned the differences in the protestant churches the go to answer is always they are secondary issues, just follow Christ as if Christ didn't establish His church and set ways and bounds of how to worship Him and conduct ourselves.

[tonyl]

God does make Scripture clear...through the Catholic Church's magisterium. Not through some individual's opinion the Holy Spirit has supposedly guided them.

[RealSeanithan]

Whether or not Scripture is obviously understood, I think any severe heresy (Arianism, Unitarianism, Oneness Pentecostalism, Calvinism, etc.) by necessity is influenced by the devil, given that all spiritual things must have some spiritual influence, and I guarantee that God wasn't the influence there. That doesn't need to imply that the man who comes up with the heresy has evil motives himself.

[OPiguy]

Will this book be available on Audiobook? (Busy parent here)

[justinmartyr]

Thanks, Trent. Love this podcast. Keeps me on my apologetics toes!

[patrickchapko]

The problem with sola scriptura is Protestants want to be their own authority and use personal interpretation of scripture to fit their agenda.
This belief has resulted in to thousands of different denominations.