How the Canon of Scripture Undermines sola Scriptura (Part 1)

A letter to Presbyterian minister D. James Kennedy

Gary Hoge

 

Dear Dr. Kennedy,

I just returned from a brief vacation in Florida, where I had the privilege of worshiping our glorious Savior at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. Alas, you were on vacation yourself that weekend, and I was not able to hear you preach. But I have worshiped at your church several times in years past, and on some of those occasions I have had the privilege of hearing you preach in person. This particular visit was different from any of my previous ones, though, because it was the first time I had been to your church since I converted to Catholicism, or as you call it, “Romanism.”

I imagine you find it almost incomprehensible that a Bible-believing Christian would do such a thing. I understand. And I assure you, I am a Bible-believing Christian to this day. I partly have you to thank for that because some of the most influential books in my Christian life have been Why I Believe, and Truths that Transform. Thank you for the very good influence you’ve had on my faith.

There is one thing I would like to discuss with you briefly, if I may. I know you probably get a gazillion letters a week and you probably don’t have time to read them all, but I hope that whoever reads this one will find it thought-provoking enough to forward to you.

One cannot read much of your writing, or hear your preaching, without realizing that you regard the Scriptures as the Word of God. More than that, you apparently regard them as the only revelation from God to man, outside of which there is only human tradition. In the introduction to Truths That Transform, you wrote,

Ultimately, we have endeavored to be faithful to the Holy Scriptures, which are the only infallible rule of faith and practice and which are to be the final authority in all matters of religion.¹

You’re obviously very adamant about the Bible’s status, and in fact that belief forms the basis for your whole theology. And yet, it seems to me that if you believe that God’s revelation is confined to the Bible alone, it actually undermines the objective basis for your belief that the Bible is the Word of God. I’ll explain by asking you a simple question: Why do you believe the New Testament is the Word of God?² Since that belief is one of your core doctrines, it should be very easy to explain why you believe it, but unfortunately it’s really not such an easy question to answer, is it?

If we limit ourselves to Scripture alone, let’s consider what we know about the New Testament. To begin with, we know that the New Testament is not just one book, it’s actually a compilation of twenty-seven different books, written by a host of different authors. One of the first things we might notice about those books is that not one of them claims to be inspired.³ For example, the beginning of the third gospel simply says, “Many have undertaken to draw up an account . . . Therefore . . . it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account.” That’s hardly a “thus saith the Lord.” So why do we claim for these books what they do not claim for themselves?

Next we might observe that we don’t even know who wrote many of these books. All four of the gospels, the book of Acts, the book of Hebrews, and three of the general epistles are anonymous. From Scripture alone we have no idea who wrote them. The identification of specific authors for these books comes from second- and third-century Catholic tradition, and is therefore inadmissible. (And even if we accept that tradition, we still don’t know who wrote Hebrews). Further, how do we know that those New Testament letters that do bear the name of their authors were actually written by those people? How do we know, for example, that 2 Peter was written by Peter? Because it says so? The Protoevangelium of James and the Gospel of Thomas claim to have been written by those apostles, so why aren’t they in the New Testament?

To make matters worse, the very idea that there should even be a New Testament is not found in Scripture. Nowhere in the gospels do we find any indication that there would someday be a set of new Scriptures that would supplement the Old Testament Scriptures. Jesus himself never wrote anything, and as far as we know he never instructed his disciples to write anything either. Of the twelve, nine never wrote a word. Instead, they spread the word of God by preaching it. When you read the phrase “word of God” in the New Testament, I’ll bet you automatically think, “Bible.” But if you check it out, you’ll see that the phrase “word of God” in the New Testament almost always refers to the oral proclamation of the gospel, not to any written document. When you read the New Testament with that in mind, it’s an eye-opening experience! Further, Paul commanded Timothy to retain his oral instruction as the “pattern of sound teaching” (2 Tim 1:13) and to propagate it through the ages (2 Tim 2:2), but he did not mention his writings. So we find, ironically, that the very idea of a “New Testament” is foreign to the books of the New Testament. On what authority, then, can we claim that any of these books is inspired? On what basis can we assume (indeed, insist) that God intended for Matthew, John, Paul, Peter, and some of their proteges (Mark, Luke, James, and Jude) to write a collection of inspired books and letters that would (centuries later) be compiled into a “New Testament”? Where do we find any evidence in the Scripture alone that they all did so at the command of God, and under His inspiration? In short, how do we know that the New Testament was God’s idea, and not man’s?

Even if we conclude (apparently from human tradition) that there is supposed to be a New Testament, we still have the problem of determining which books belong in it. Unfortunately, God did not reveal that information anywhere in the New Testament itself. There is no inspired Table of Contents. Therefore, from Scripture alone, how do we know which books belong in Scripture? How did we get our list of the twenty-seven books that we say belong in the New Testament? Did God reveal this list, or is it merely a human tradition? If God revealed it, where can we find this revelation?

It seems to me that the “Bible only” doctrine is built entirely on sand. It destroys the basis for our faith in the very Scriptures it seeks to exalt. Unless you are willing to accept extra-Biblical, apostolic Tradition, and the authority of the Church, you cannot know whether God wanted there to be a New Testament in the first place, nor can you know what books belong in it, nor can you know who wrote those books, nor can you know that those books are in fact inspired by God. All of that information was supplied via the Church, and without it all you have is a series of very large, completely unsubstantiated assumptions (i.e., that God wanted certain people to write a New Testament, that the books that are in it actually belong there and others don’t, and that those books are inspired). Unless you can show where God specifically revealed all of these things, it seems to me that you should not say, “This is the Word of God,” but rather, “I hope this is the Word of God, but I really have no way of knowing.”

On the other hand, I have a solid basis for my confidence in the Bible because I accept as a part of God’s general revelation the unwritten apostolic Tradition, which has been preserved in the Church by the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, I have confidence that God intended for there to be a New Testament because the apostolic Tradition tells me so. I have confidence that the Biblical books were written by the authors whose names they bear because the apostolic Tradition affirms that too. I have confidence that the fourth-century Catholic bishops who drew up the list of books that belong in the Bible did so under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, because the apostolic Tradition (and Acts 15) affirms that this is the way God planned to guide the Church into all truth throughout the ages. And finally, I have confidence that “God chose certain men who . . . consigned to writing whatever he wanted written and no more” and that “the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures”⁴ because the apostolic Tradition, as expressed by the teaching authority of Christ’s Church, affirms that too.

You may not realize it, but you inherited your belief in the Bible from the Catholic Church and its apostolic Tradition. After all, the Reformers didn’t start with nothing and deduce the inspiration of Scripture. They started with the authority of both Church and Scripture already firmly established, and they simply rejected the authority of the Church. Even Martin Luther admitted that “we are compelled to concede to the Papists that they have the Word of God, that we received it from them, and that without them we should have no knowledge of it at all.”⁵

The “Bible only” doctrine, then, is a branch without a tree, suspended in mid-air and firmly anchored to nothing. It is belief without evidence, conviction without reason, and faith without revelation. In contrast, my own belief in the Bible is firmly anchored to the “Church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the Truth” (1 Tim 3:15). Sir, you and I believe exactly the same things about the Bible’s inspiration and authority, a belief we inherited from Catholicism, but the difference is that by accepting apostolic Tradition as a part of God’s general revelation, I can point out where, when, and how this information was revealed by God, and thus I can show that it is not merely a tradition of men. Limiting God’s revelation to Scripture alone, can you?

Your brother in Christ,

Part 1, Part 2