The Great Debate II – Sola Scriptura is posted

A certain set of folks will surely chalk this up to my innate stupidity, blindness, and general lack of in-depth knowledge of the sewing methods of French nuns in the northwestern corner of France in the year 1219, but I just read Peter Leithart’s comments on the death of John Paul II, and I am once again launched off into

   Over the course of the past seventeen years I have engaged the subject of sola scriptura in a tremendously wide variety of venues. My first public debate was with Gerry Matatics on sola scriptura in August, 1990. I had already written a book, Answers to Catholic Claims that interacted with Karl Keating’s works and included discussion of Newman’s development hypothesis.

   I was informed today that my appearance on this blog has not gone unnoticed by our friends on the Envoy forum. Don’t worry, I know it’s not about me; it’s about Dr. White, of course. You see, because I happen to agree with Dr. White, and even chose to study for a Master of Theology degree (note that, not a

In scanning a recent article by Mark Bonocore I noted an interesting example of the constant presence of anachronism in Roman Catholic apologetic treatments of both the Bible and patristic sources.  In this case, he is responding to an un-named Protestant who wrote the following: Clement wrote only a little earlier than Ignatius and clearly didn’t share Ignatius’ ecclesiastical view.

I would like to briefly respond to some comments made by C Michael Patton in a blog article that he posted today. I would like to start by saying that I agree with the fundamental assertion that he made, specifically, that the T4G statement of faith is inaccurate when it describes the Bible as the “sole authority for the Church.”

This is even more clearly seen when MacKenzie raises the issue of solo scriptura in these words: White states that “the doctrine of sola scriptura is based on the nature of the Scriptures as the Word of God” (62). To demonstrate that this doctrine was held in the church prior to the Reformation, he quotes from Basil of Caesarea (c.