Jesus and the Tradition of the Elders: An Unsuccessful Argument for Sola Scriptura - Suan Sonna

00:00:00 - Introduction
00:00:34 - Historical Context
00:02:31 - Matthew 15:1-14
00:06:27 - Mark 7:1-13
00:08:10 - Jesus's Teaching Here
00:11:30 - Extrabiblical Traditions
00:14:15 - Scripture over tradition?
00:19:55 - Conclusion

Suan Sonna is a Baptist convert to Catholicism who is dedicated to curating the best Catholic intellectual content on philosophy, politics, and theology. He is also passionate about engaging people outside of the Catholic tradition on issues relevant to the Church.

[intellectualcatholicism]

If I could have added one thing in this video, it would have been an explanation of where the debate should go from here. The video shows that if you want to apply Christ’s argument here against the Catholic Church, then you need to show a contradiction somewhere in the system against scripture (or even against itself). Gavin attempted to do that in the debate, and so he should have combined that point with this argument rather than trying to argue that Jesus rejects “making traditions that lack scriptural warrant binding and necessary.” That’s an inaccurate understatement of Christ’s argument.

In other words, the argument is unsuccessful unless Catholicism somehow falls under Christ’s argument. The burden is on the Protestant then to run the argument properly.

[williamavitt]

Gavin's problem is that he doesn't actually trust the Scriptures. He trusts his own preconceived notions of the Scriptures, to the point of being intellectually dishonest. He can be presented with several Biblical proofs for things he disagrees with, and then he'll proceed to dismiss them or explain them away one by one, saying things like "This by itself doesn't get you to (insert Catholic teaching)." No, Gavin, by itself it may not. But that passage isn't by itself. He ignores the preponderance of the evidence in favor of things that aren't actually taught in the Scriptures at all

[SaintCharbelMiracleworker]

The most striking example of the essential nature of Sacred Tradition is when Christ encounters the Syro-Phonecian woman he says “Suffer first the children to be filled: for it is not good to take the bread of the children, and cast it to the dogs." from Mark. Matthew also mentions her but calls her a Cannanite woman (but the Cannanites were vanquished during the First Temple period and later that territory was given to the Samaritans during the Second Temple period). The Karaites deny the Torah Shebaal Peh in the same manner as Protestants deny Sacred Tradition.

[aajaifenn]

How would the assumption of Mary pass the source test as originating from the apostles teaching . Protestants would see this teaching as an extra biblical tradition that is being made binding and necessary for salvation by the catholic Church .

[riogrande]

I agree that Gavin took his case too far here by claiming that Jesus was condemning the elevation of tradition as such. However, I do not see how to get out of the problem that if the meaning of scripture is dictated by tradition, there is no way to correct that tradition by scripture. Couldn’t tradition always simply define scripture in such a way as to not contradict itself?

[tonyl]

Seems like this approach still leaves open for debate whether X Catholic Tradition contradicts Scripture or is part of a system that contradicts Scripture. Seems to me that the positive case for authoritative Tradition based on source (i.e. apostolic) and character is a stronger retort and then the task is seen as reconciling any presumptively authoritative Traditions that seem to contradict Scripture. Without the positive case, each Catholic Tradition is on trial without any presumption of innocence/authority. The fact of the matter is that the apostles have greater authority than the OT authorities and Pharisees who manufactured certain Jewish laws/traditions, so the traditions of each do not start off on equal footing relative to Scripture.