Objections to Sola Scriptura

friend of said:

What are the doctrinal objections to this Protestant lynchpin. From the vantage of any denomination.

To me, it seems foolish to be against Sola Scriptura. It just makes too much sense that God's inspired word should be the first, middle and last word on all things pertaining to the faith. If this were not so, why do we even have the bible?

Discuss ty and God bless

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friend of said:

Every one of those verses applies to saved saints, not just those of your denomination.

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theefaith said:

Did Christ found a church or a printing press?

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Davy said:

You are correct. Those against the idea of Sola Scriptura (Scripture Only) are the same ones who did not want English Bible translations to go out to the people. Those religious leaders were among both the Roman Church and the Protestant Church in Britain. So can't just blame Catholics only.

The fact that the 1611 KJV Bible is not held by any copywriter, and has thus been the mainstay Protestant English Bible for English speaking peoples for almost 1,800 years (meaning the Traditional texts used for the translation), reveals God's Hand in it. Yet the Jesuits and Catholic Church is still trying to counter the KJV Bible with their newer revisions.

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theefaith said:

There are no denominations in scripture

Do “Your saved saints” have the ministry of reconciliation?
Or the ability to govern the church, or to forgive and absolve men of their sins?

no one is saved until the hour of death

Matt 24:13 endures to the end.

Mark 13:13
And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

Rev 2:26 And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:

Heb 3:14 For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;

Heb 6:11 And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end:

1. Romans 11:22 – God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness

2. Colossians 1:21-23 – holy and blameless, if you continue in the faith"

3. The race of faith: the example of Paul

4. Hebrews 12:22-25: "we shall not escape if we turn away from Him"

5. Hebrews 4:1-3, 9-12: "strive to enter the rest of God"

6.Hebrews 6:4-9 – those who became partakers of the holy spirit and fell away

7. Hebrews 10:23-29, 35-39: "if we sin willfully", "if anyone draws back".

8. Matthew 24:13: He that endures to the end, the same shall be saved

9. Hebrews 3:4-6: Holding fast our confidence firm until the end

10. Matthew 24:13: "But the one who endures to the end will be saved"

11. 1 John 2:24-25 – "if what you heard from the beginning abides in you"

12. 2 John 8-9 : to "everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ

13. 2 Peter 1:5-11 : "Make every effort to supplement your faith"

14. Philippians 2:12-16: "work out your salvation with fear and trembling"

15. 1 Timothy 6:10-16: the love of money

16. Galatians 5:2-4 "Severed from Christ"

17. 2 Timothy 2:11-13: "if we deny him, he will also deny us"

18. James 5:19-20: the wandered brother

19. Some will abandon the faith

20. 1 Timothy 5:8: "he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever"

22. The real family of Jesus: "Those who hear the Word of God and do it"

23. 1 Corinthians 5:5: "so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord"

24. Peter 2: "It would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness"

25. Jude: "Turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness" - a much relevant warning

26. 1 Cor. 9:27 ....Lest I myself might become a castaway

27. Heb 1:14 shall be heirs of salvation

Romans 1:5
By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name:
(Must remain obedient)

(He who endured to the end) one who dies in a state of grace united to Jesus Christ by faith and baptism!
Mk 16:16 acts 8:36-38 1 pet 3:21
Matt 24:13


Romans 13:11
And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

So salvation by “faith alone” is completely false and impossible if baptism is rejected!

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friend of said:

The problem I have with that is this.

How can any denomination today prove that they have preserved the original thoughts, prayers, meditations, feelings and responses to the faith that the very first apostolic Christians and early church founders experienced?

Is history not one long telephone game spanning hundreds upon hundreds of years? How could any denomination prove they hold the origin of the principals of the faith? How could this be proved?

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Jim B said:

You have outdone yourself with this absurdity!

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Jim B said:

a) You're wrong, as usual.
b) Salvation by faith is Biblically true; baptism is an add-on. Ephesians 2:8, "For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast." The ritual of baptism is a "work" that saves nobody.
c) Ask your parrot to stop repeating the same wrong information over and over and over ... ad nauseum.

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RedFan said:

Thanks for this important post. I have a few objections to sola scriptura. And for my list, I will focus just on the NT. But we first must define sola scriptura – for if we do not agree on its definition we cannot agree on its doctrinal soundness. I define it as an abiding faith that (a) the NT writers were inspired by God to write what they wrote in such a fashion that every word is accurate historically when it recounts history and accurate doctrinally when it exhorts theology; (b) the assembly of the 27 NT books and the process by which these particular writings came to be chosen as canonical (e.g., the letter to the Hebrews is in, the Gospel of Thomas is out) -- based largely on the twin on criteria of presumed ties to the original apostles and consistency with then-held orthodoxy -- was likewise inspired by God to ensure that those making the cut were all included in (a) above; and (c) there can be found in the 27 that happened to make the cut an answer to every material theological question imaginable.

This post is already going to be long, and it would take way too long to discuss the possible challenges to (a) and (b) – and any challenge to (a) will draw way too much vitriol on this site! -- so I will focus on (c). With that out of the way, here are my comments:

1. The first generation of Christians had no NT. They had the oral teachings of the apostles and their disciples (and MAYBE, within a decade or so of Pentecost, some written compilations of the sayings of Jesus Christ now lost to us), and soon the teachings of Paul and his disciples as they traveled around the eastern Mediterranean world (slowly – no planes, trains, cars or powerboats back then). By around 50 C.E. Paul’s letters delivered to particular churches in particular towns started to be written and then copied so as to make their way beyond those towns, and MAYBE the first gospel was written in the early 50’s as well and, sooner or later, got similarly copied and began to be spread around (slowly – no printing presses back then). But that means around 20-30 years – a generation – of reliance solely or almost solely on the oral traditions of the apostles and their disciples. This was a time of nulla scriptura rather than sola scriptura. Yet Christianity in some form (whether the Jerusalem flavor of Peter and Mark or the Antiochene flavor of Paul and, much later, Luke) nevertheless managed to take root – proving that oral tradition alone can do the trick. Imagine that! Keep that in the back of your mind for now.

2. The apostolic tradition in those early years was not unanimous. There is little reason to doubt some difference of opinion among the original apostles (let’s add Matthias to the group; in fact, let’s add “the seventy”), all of whom were Jewish, on outreach to Gentiles (think about Peter’s vision and the Cornelius incident, and its aftermath, in Acts 10 and 11 – a mind-boggling scenario if these apostles had indeed heard the final words of Jesus as “recorded” in Matthew 28:19). There is little reason to doubt the disagreement between Peter and Paul recounted in Galatians on proper interaction with the Gentiles (the very different account of this “split” and its resolution as recounted in Acts is probably the more accurate). We know about the Council of Jerusalem to resolve the latter dispute. We don’t know how many other councils, conferences, theological debates and formal or informal efforts to achieve apostolic consensus on other matters took place (none of the 27 NT books describes any, but that hardly suggests there were none).

3. Even after the books of the NT were composed, different apostolic traditions continued to thrive. An example is the date of celebrating Easter, which didn’t get resolved until Nicaea in 325 C.E. The churches in Asia Minor followed the tradition handed down by John and Philip celebrating Easier on 14 Nisan regardless of whether that date fell on the Lord’s Day; most everyone else celebrated Easter only on the Lord’s Day. No answer in Scripture! A council was required to resolve the issue.

4. The gospel authors wrote down different apostolic traditions, and while they do not agree on all details, each presented different words and deeds of Jesus to support differing theological perspectives. But as full expositions of everything Jesus said and did, they are necessarily incomplete. Luke 1:1 tells us that many other accounts were written. John 21:25 tells us that Jesus Christ said and did so much more than was written by him that the whole world wouldn’t hold all the books required to do so. It follows that all of the apostles who were witnesses to what Jesus Christ said and did – whether they dictated gospels or not – were a treasure trove of unrecorded teachings of Christ. And in the first generation of Christendom, their oral traditions mattered – not just the one-tenth or one percent (at best!) that is found in the four canonical gospels. Why should it not matter today (presuming we can reconstruct it)?

5. Doctrine is informed by more than Scripture, and has to be. The doctrine of the Trinity is a prime example, if only because Scripture is so equivocal on the subject. (I use this example with some trepidation, as I suspect this post is going to be hijacked by strident debaters on both sides of this issue – because they can’t help themselves. So buckle in. It’s unavoidable. But I digress . . .) Those few scattered passages in the emerging NT canon that could arguably be deemed binitarian or (far less frequently) trinitarian yield no coherent picture of the Son’s participation in the Godhead, and as a result, three centuries of patristic thinking were occupied by the effort to explain the Church’s understanding of the nature of Jesus Christ in a manner consistent with Scripture. Thinking of two beings as distinct, and yet as sharing the same substance or essence, the same ousia, presents no difficulty unless that substance or essence or ousia is itself the unique and absolute self-subsistence of the Mosaic “I AM”—for by definition only one being can have that as its essence. Efforts to solve this dilemma—and the first three centuries of the Christian era were marked by an astonishing array of such efforts—required more than resort to Scripture if all of the myriad heresies of the time were to be beaten down. Arianism, Sabellianism, and dozens of similar isms would have hijacked the Faith and split it apart if the Church could have done no more than point to passages in Scripture. Something was needed to fill the gap – and that something was reason and philosophy. The march of Christianity outward from Palestine into the Greek world inevitably resulted in a cultural and philosophical disconnect, as tales told and texts written from a Jewish/messianic perspective were being interpreted by men imbued in a Greek philosophical tradition. It was thus natural that Greek philosophy, which had long sought to locate an ontological bridge between the One and the Many, between the realm of soul/spirit and the material world, would provide the looms for this tapestry. Rejecting it as “unscriptural” will revive all manner of early heresies. Nicaea and Chalcedon – not simply opening a Book -- were necessary to defeat them.


Given all of this, what reason do we have to believe that the NT has all the answers to everything? I can see none. I can see, rather, the need for respect to the apostolic traditions from the first and second century, as revealed in sacramental/prayer rituals tied to that era, and in the writing of the Church Fathers of the patristic period discussing these things -- as well as the need for Church councils.

[By the way, I’m not Roman Catholic, but I do think the RCC is a repository of some of this ritual and tradition (the Eastern Orthodox Church is as well). There is so much Catholic bashing on this site that I wonder whether Protestants are blind to this simply because they deem the bathwater to be as tainted as the baby.]

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theefaith said:

that’s what a fundamentalist calls an answer???

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theefaith said:

explain what verses eph 2:1 & 5 mean When it says quickend?

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Grailhunter said:

This is mostly from the thread Types of Christianity...

The first type….the True Bible Only’s are as the term implies….they only believe what is in the Bible and conduct their lives in accordance to biblical beliefs only. The true Bible only’s….their beliefs were more or less set in stone thousands of years ago. Only is the keyword and in this thread referred to as Sola Scriptura

Living Sola Scriptura in the modern age is a very difficult thing....for one thing there are a lot of misconceptions.

This type of Bible Only’s do not consider science as real or correct.

Because of what the Bible says, they must believe that the world is flat and stars can fall to earth. That the earth is fixed, it does not revolve, it is fixed and stationary on a foundation of pillars and the sun and and universe revolves around the earth.

And diseases are caused by the devil or demons. Mental illnesses are caused by demons and probably women that are affected with bad cases of PMS are caused by demons. And they do not pay much attention to documented history. If they do not believe this, and conduct themselves accordingly they are not true Bible only.

Because of their distain for science, if they get ill they do not call an ambulance or go to a doctor or hospital. But instead will pray and read the Bible until the outcome. Maybe some home remedies.

Bible only's should not own a vehicle or a tractor, they ride horses and use horse drawn equipment.

Because of their distain or unbelief in science. They have none in their life. Their houses are built with saws and axes and hammers. They do not have electricity in there houses, then of course no electrical appliances or equipment. No A/C, no refrigerators, no TV. Running water comes from a hand pump of some sort. They light their homes with candles and lamps. And probably entering into a building that has electricity would probably be considered corrupting themselves some how. So of course their churches would not have any of these either.

In accordance with the Bible they can have polygamous marriages and have concubines and can sell their daughters into concubinage. Because the Bible defines these relationships and regulates them and never states a moratorium on these relationships or actions, they are technically still legitimate relationships. Jews practiced polygamy for a thousand years after the biblical era and Christians practiced it in one form or another until the 13th century. They do not have to have wedding ceremonies because nowhere in the Bible is it stated that a wedding ceremony is required to be married.....so optional. The concept of lord and master over their wives is firmly in place and the submissiveness of the wives are required….. the status of females in their religious society and the church are considered subordinates ….no teaching or preaching in church and no authority over any man. Of course because they are not allowed to speak in church, none of this could happen anyway. All I can say is....Ladies do not marry into this! If you do, ask them how many wives they have.

Odds are good that some in this group do not know that there were two distinct groups of Christians in the biblical era....Jewish-Christians and Gentile-Christians....so some in this group will be attempting to mix Christianity and Judaism to varying degrees.

They are pacifists.

Sunday as the Christian day of worship would probably be debatable.

Some in this group do not believe in modern miracles, believing that miracles only occurred during the biblical era.

Would voting be considered “of the world?”

I am thinking this would fit somewhat a long the lines of Amish.

Now if anyone does not believe me, I am standing ready to take on all challengers. And there are other aspects of Sola Scriptura that we can discuss......I have a list of over two hundred contradictions we can go over.

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friend of said:

What are the doctrinal objections to this Protestant lynchpin. From the vantage of any denomination.

To me, it seems foolish to be against Sola Scriptura. It just makes too much sense that God's inspired word should be the first, middle and last word on all things pertaining to the faith. If this were not so, why do we even have the bible?

Discuss ty and God bless

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Jim B said:

Too verbose and too many errors. Also, most of what you posit as true simply isn't.

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Jim B said:

Here is a more lengthy description: Sola scriptura, meaning by scripture alone, is a Christian theological doctrine held by most Protestant Christian denominations, in particular the Lutheran and Reformed traditions of Protestantism, that posits the Bible as the sole infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice."

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robert derrick said:

Sola Scriptura began with the creation of the angels, and was first objected to by Lucifer, who then moved the serpent to object to Sola Scriptura on earth in the garden. And Adam and Eve fell for it.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is believing both God's spoken word and the words of angels and men, are equal in authority and power of life.

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

All false teachers of man-made traditions taught for law and doctrine of God, object to sola Scriptura: only what is written in letters of Scripture on paper by the prophets and apostles of the Lord, is the truth of all things of God in heaven and on earth.

Angels and men can believe anything they want, but if it isn't plainly confirmed by written Scripture, then it is in the minds of angels and men only.

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Grailhunter said:

Just like everyone else, what you are saying in whine is....I don't like that!
Truth and Christianity is not about what you or I like or dislike....it is all about God.



So it is the truth, but you do not pay any attention to it and or do not live by it. How many people profess a belief of Sola Scriptura, and how many people live it? Most do not....which turns their application of Christianity into a whole lot of hypocrisy. It is a study into human phycological and religious / social interaction. You...they....can climb up on that soup box and thump that Bible and say this is the errant Word of God and every bit of it is the truth! It sounds good! It will help you gain favor among men and women. But you know it is not true....God knows it is not true....the world is not flat....the Bible has a lots of contradictions...etc. But God and I know that anything man has touched cannot be perfect. Faith in God....not a book....the Bible is not God.

It was written in ancient times with all the understandings of that time period, no surprise....I do not deduct point for those errors. My interest in the Bible is the theology and faith it describes in the love of God.

Beyond that, God continued to teach people many things after the biblical era....many good things. Polygamy was wrong, slavery was wrong, women's rights is good, wedding ceremonies are good, and technology is good. A religion of truth makes Christianity workable in the modern era with out the hypocrisies and sins.

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Jim B said:

Ephesians 2:1-7, "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."

a) The word "quickened" doesn't appear in these verses.
b) Notice what it does say: "by grace you have been saved" (not by baptism!)

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