Robert Koons on sola scriptura

Robert Koons is a highly regarded philosopher by Christian colleagues. And he's a Lutheran convert to Catholicism. I always try to test my own position against the best of the competition. Here's his case for Catholicism:

http://robkoons.net/media/69b0dd04a9d2fc6dffff80b7ffffd524.pdf

The dilemma is that his case involves a comparison between Lutheranism and Catholicism. But since I'm not Lutheran, that's not my frame of reference. That makes it harder to directly evaluate his argument, since I don't cast some issues the same way he does. So there are times when I will have to reframe the issue. 

Unfortunately for Lutherans, there are in fact no scriptural passages teaching such a doctrine [sola scriptura].

Sola scriptura doesn't require a direct prooftext. It's based on a broader principle:

i) The supremacy of divine revelation 

ii) Where divine revelation is located

By "revelation," I mean public, propositional revelation. A verbal revelation for the church, for the people of God. That's in distinction to a private topical revelation for an individual

At different times in sacred history, revelation might be available in more than one medium. There's the oral revelation of apostles and prophets when they deliver the word of God. 

So where we find divine revelation varies depending on the stages of sacred history. But the fact that at some stages of sacred history you had oral revelation doesn't mean revelation continues to be accessible in that medium. If, during the post-apostolic church age, the only source of divine revelation is written revelation, then sola scriptura is true by default. By process of elimination, that's what we're left with. It's rather elegant, if you think about it.

And indeed, the reason so much revelation was committed to writing was for the benefit of posterity. After the age of oral revelation was a thing of the past.

Sometimes, it is admitted that the Scriptures are not always clear (as Peter writes about some of Paul’s epistles). However, if the Scriptures are not always clear, then there will be questions about which it is not clear what, if anything, the Scriptures have to say. The Lutheran position, however, depends on the claim that, on every disputed question, the Scriptures can always act effectively as the supreme court of appeal. Even if the Scriptures are utterly clear on all the important doctrines, unless we can all tell exactly which passages address the “important” doctrines, the Scriptures will not be able to act as the unmistakable judge in all doctrinal controversies.

I'd turn that around. If Scripture doesn't give clear answers to some questions, then they're not all-important. If God wanted us to have unambiguously clear answers to some questions, he'd provide the necessary information. So the approach is too a prioristic. I approach it from the end-result. If Scripture doesn't give clear answers to some questions, then the problem isn't with the sufficiency of Scripture but with our questions. We're demanding answers God doesn't require of us. Fidelity to God doesn't obligate us to have answers to some of these questions. I take my cue from what God has and hasn't done. Keep in mind that in the Catholic paradigm there are many open questions in theology. 

There is evidence in Scripture for tradition: I Corinthians 11:2, I Timothy 2:2, II Timothy 1:13, and Jude 1:3. 

1 Cor 11:2 is a custom. What makes 1 Tim 2:2 a "tradition"? 2 Tim 1:13 is from a private letter. Paul personally mentored Timothy. That's not tradition in the sense of a chain with multiple links, but Paul telling Timothy to remember what Paul taught him directly. Since Jude doesn't have multiple chapters, there is no Jude 1:3, just Jude 3. Yes, there's a body of teaching which Christians are to adhere to. 

Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will guide ‘you’ (plural), that is, the whole Church, into all the truth. (John 16:13) 

The plural has reference to the Eleven in the Upper Room, not the whole church. Moreover, Koons doesn't believe that God guides the entire church, but only the hierarchy. 

Paul describes the Church as “the pillar and ground of the truth.” (I Timothy 3:15)

Which I've discussed. 

As is often pointed out, the Canon of Scripture was itself fixed by the teaching authority of the Church. It is surely essential that the Church recognize only canonical books (not the Quran or the Book of Mormon, for example), but this fact is inconsistent with sola scriptura, since the Scriptures themselves do not contain a list of which books must be included (nor even very explicit instructions about how to determine the list – is Luke or Mark an apostle?).

i) The canon doesn't have to be established by ecclesiastical authority. It should be established by suitable evidence.

ii) Do Christians really need the teaching authority of the church to disqualify the Koran and the Book of Mormon as viable candidates for canonicity? Isn't that a reductio ad absurdum of Koons's position. Even if we bracket cessation, there's abundant evidence that Muhammad and Joseph Smith were manifest frauds. Authority is not required to render that judgment. Reason and evidence will suffice. 

iii) Koons raises a valid question that I address separately:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/02/retroengineering-canon.html

This fact results in an outright contradiction in the Lutheran position. Sola scriptura implies two things: that the Church must not dogmatically teach anything that is not deducible from the Scriptures (since otherwise sola scriptura is violated), and that the Church must dogmatically teach which books are inspired (since otherwise sola scriptura is empty). However, it is not possible to deduce the canon from the Scriptures. Hence, sola scriptura is unsustainable.

i) Why must that be a "dogmatic" pronouncement rather than a conclusion based on the state of the evidence? 

ii) There's a division/composition fallacy here. There's a sense in which you can't deduce the canon from parts of Scripture, like prooftexts, since the canon isn't found in the parts but the whole. It's like deducing a car from a headlight. Or deducing a headlight from an engine. The car itself, in its totality, is evidence for the existence of the car.

iii) In addition, this involves a relation between Scripture and non-scripture. There's a sense in which you can't deduce the canon of Scripture from Scripture alone inasmuch as the canon involves a comparison between what's canonical and noncanonical. Scripture is defined in part by what is not Scripture, just as a car is not a bicycle. But's hardly an "outright contradiction". 

iv) Sola scripture is not self-referential in the sense that Scripture alone determines what is Scripture. Given Scripture, that determines other things. But that's separate from the given. Rather, this goes to the prior question of how to determine revelatory claimants. That's an evidential question. 

v) This is not to deny that Scripture provides evidence for the canon of Scripture. In part because Scripture is so cross-referential. Plus the known authorship of some books. But that doesn't mean all the evidence must be internal to Scripture. 

Some Roman Catholics claim that the Scriptures, like any text, need an authoritative interpreter. I think this claim is too broad. There are context-free meanings. These context-free meanings are sufficient to fix the central doctrines of the Gospel. (Moreover, the idea that every text requires an authoritative interpreter would apply with equal force to papal and conciliar writings. Indeed, it would seem to apply to oral pronouncements as well, leading to a vicious infinite regress.) 

As a philosopher, he's too sophisticated to fall into the self-defeating trap of so many rookie Catholic apologists. 

However, the context-independent meanings of the Scriptures are not in fact sufficient to settle all doctrinal disputes that must be settled (including the question of which doctrines are essential and which are not). This is confirmed by the testimony of history, including Lutheran history. If the Scriptures were perspicuous comprehensively, there would be only one major sola scriptura denomination, instead of hundreds.

I deny that comprehensive perspicuity is a necessary condition or necessary justification for sola scriptura. Once again, that's too a prioristic. The question, rather, is whether, as a matter of fact, Scripture is the only source of public revelation during the post-apostolic church age. The scope of revelation is irrelevant to that issue. The fact that divine revelation leaves many questions unanswered doesn't invalidate the supremacy of divine revelation with respect to the questions it does address. 

It is hard for me to believe that God intended the Scriptures to be the sole and sufficient norm for doctrine, given their silence on so many issues that must be resolved if the Church is to function: May infants be baptized? Should those baptized by heretics or hypocrites be re-baptized? Which baptized Christians may commune, and which should not? Should repentant heretics and sinners be reconciled to the Church, and if so, how and under what conditions? Should orthodox members of schismatic sects be excommunicated? Should orthodox members of non-schismatic congregations be excommunicated, if those congregations practice improperly “open” communion? Must the threefold ministry of bishops, presbyters and deacons be respected at all times? How are clergy (in each order) to be ordained, elected, called or installed? Must there be at most one bishop in each city? What authority do bishops have, and what superior authority, if any, must they respect? What constitutes an authoritative council of the Church? These are matters upon which the Scriptures provide little explicit guidance, and yet, for practical reasons, it is impossible for Christians simply to agree to disagree about them.

i) One problem with Koons's solution is that it fails to solve the problem he posed. By his own admission, church teaching evolves. There wasn't a set of readymade answers from the outset. So by his own lights, the church was able to function, sometimes for centuries, without having answers to these allegedly pressing issues.  

ii) If the Catholic church is the One True Church, why did God make it so hard to believe in? Why a denomination with such a disreputable history? If God wanted Christians to be Roman Catholic, why not a more credible vehicle than the Catholic church?

The sola scriptura position puts an impossible burden on each believer: in order to recognize true congregations, the individual believer must evaluate the congregation’s confession for complete freedom from doctrinal error. To perform this task, the believer must not believe the essential doctrines of the faith, he must know exactly which doctrines are essential and which are a matter of legitimate difference of opinion. This seems inconsistent with the variety of talents, gifts and callings: not every believer can be expected to be a theologian. The sola scriptura theory condemns the majority of believers to de facto exclusion from the true church, by virtue of their inability to distinguish truth from error on all disputed matters.

i) Which assumes there's One True Church, identical to one denomination, which Christians must be able to find. But that takes the Catholic paradigm for granted. But evangelicals don't grant that there's One True Church that corresponds to one particular denomination. 

ii) His objection is too monolithic and elitist. Every Christian doesn't have equal responsibilities. It varies according to aptitude and opportunities. 

Many evangelical laymen rely on Protestant traditions. In his providence, God guides them into denominations with Protestant theological traditions that provide a basic framework for Christian orthodoxy and the Gospel. That's sufficient for their salvation. Sufficient for saving faith. Sufficient to lead faithful, God-honoring lives.

There are, in addition, Christians with greater aptitude and opportunity who have a greater responsibility to test Protestant traditions to determine which ones are warranted by Scripture. 

Every error is not a damnable error. There are innocent errors. There's a lot of leeway. A considerable margin for error. It also depends on what motivates the error. Is it willful intransigence? 

Rome has gone from one end of the spectrum to the other. In traditional Catholicism it used to be a real nail-biter. Damnation was easy, salvation was hard. But in post-Vatican II theology, it's the reverse.  

The Catholic position, in contrast, places a reasonable burden on the layman: he must simply recognize which congregations are in fellowship with that global church that is most continuous historically with the church of the apostles, i.e., with that church that has the most secure claim to being the Catholic (universal) Church. In other words, the believer need master only one, relatively small set of doctrines: those concerning the identity of the true Church, not, as Lutheranism requires, an exhaustive knowledge of every disputed point of theology. This effectively limits the believer’s choice to two: the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox, each of which recognizes the other as a part of the true visible church.

If you take the Catholic paradigm for granted. But that's the very issue in dispute. 

To be fair, there is a kind of individual responsibility that is inescapable. The Roman Catholic layman, no less than the Protestant, must rely on his own judgment as to which church is the visible church in all its fullness. This burden cannot be shifted to another. However, there is a palpable and historically real difference concerning the responsibility of the individual believer under the two conceptions of the Church. For Protestants, the individual believer has only one criterion to employ: he must compare the teaching of each intercommoning set of congregations with the teaching of the Bible on every point of doctrine, or, at the very least, on every essential point. However, shifting from accuracy on all doctrinal matters to accuracy on all essential matters is, in practice, of very little help, since there is almost as much disagreement about which matters are essential as there is on the doctrines themselves. (Confessional Lutherans, for example, insist that the true church must take the correct position, with respect to each proposed doctrine, on whether or not that doctrine is taught or implied by Scripture. Other denominations insist that a much smaller set of doctrines, perhaps just those in the Nicene creed, form the essential core.) In contrast, on the Roman Catholic view, the individual believer can recognize the true church, not only by examining its doctrines one by one, but also by investigating its historical connection (via a physical and social chain of transmission) to the apostles. In some cases, this too can be a difficult process (for example, when there were two or even three competing “popes” during the Avignon period), but, for the most part, this has proved to be practically feasible, while the Protestant principle has utterly failed the test of history.

i) Unlike Catholics, Protestants don't have to single out which church is the visible church in all its fullness, since that's not a Protestant paradigm of the church. We're not required to search for a needle in the haystack. 

ii) How does a Catholic layman establish that he's aiming at the right target? Is the goal the "true visible church in all its fulness"? Yet that presumes Catholic ecclesiology, which hasn't been established at this preliminary stage of the investigation. Apart from Catholic authority, how does a Catholic layman or prospective convert identify the correct goal? What makes joining a particular denomination the proper goal? 

iii) Since, moreover, in assessing the case for Catholicism, he must rely on his fallible understanding of Scripture, the church fathers, and church history, his conclusions suffer from permanent uncertainty. 

Here’s another way of looking at the issue. The Scriptures clearly teach that the true church will possess two essential characteristics: unity and doctrinal purity. It is only the Roman Catholic Church (and, to a degree, the Orthodox churches) that has realized these two ends simultaneously. Conservative Protestants have maintained doctrinal purity at the price of unity, and liberal Protestants have pursued unity at the price of doctrinal consistency. Although there is certainly both doctrinal diversity and disunity within the Roman Catholic Church, it is hard to deny an impressive degree of both doctrinal consistency (at the level of official pronouncements) and institutional unity (most fundamentally, Eucharistic fellowship).

Is that what Scripure clearly teaches? When we read the NT epistles, don't we often find churches planted, catechied, and supervised by apostles which lack unity and doctrinal purity? Unity and doctrinal purity are presented as hortatory ideals rather than indicatives. 

It’s as though Christ founded the Church simply by inspiring the teaching and writing of the apostles and their associates, leaving it up to each subsequent generation to re-create a visible Church ex nihilo, using the written record of the apostolic teaching as its only guide.

i) Human existence consists of overlapping generations, so there's continuity and carryover from the generation on the way out to the generation the way in. Each subsequent generation isn't required to recreate the church ex nihilo. 

ii) There is, however, a sense in which it's incumbent on each new generation to assess precedent rather than rubber-stamping the status quo. 

So far, I have argued for the existence of a reliable and authoritative magisterium, firmly anchored in the apostolic succession of bishops headed by the pope. I have not, however, provided grounds for affirming the infallibility of the Church generally, nor of the pope specifically. There are several arguments for this further conclusion. First, there is a simple argument: the Church teaches that it is infallible; the Church is authoritative and reliable; therefore, we must believe that the Church is infallible. If the Church is infallible, and the pope is, both de facto and de jure, the head of the Church, with the power and authority to establish and enforce doctrinal standards, then the pope must be infallible in so doing (that is, when he speaks “ex cathedra”).32

The simple argument begs the question. If the church is infallible, it can infallibly teach its own infallibility. But that's not a reason to believe the hypothetical. Rather, that's the very question at issue. So we need something over and above the circular and self-serving claim. 

Here is a second, somewhat more complicated argument. Let’s suppose that the Church is at least reliable and “indefectible” (to use an Anglican term) with respect to essential Christian doctrine. That is, the Church cannot err in any essential points and is very unlikely to err on any matter. We can further suppose that the Church has these characteristics in perpetuity, since Christ’s promises to the Church have no expiration date. Since theology develops over time, building on the settled conclusions reached in the past, if the Church were reliable but fallible, errors would not only accumulate over time but would actually tend to increase at a geometric or exponential rate, each error increasing the probability of further errors. Hence, a reliable but fallible Church could not remain reliable for very long. Therefore, the Church must be (at least) virtually infallible.

Except that when Protestants study the history of Roman Catholicism, what we witness is cumulative errors at an accelerating rate. 

One final argument. If the Church were fallible but taught that it was infallible, then its erroneous belief in its own infallibility would magnify its proneness to

error. A Church that wrongly believed itself to be infallible would be virtually impossible to correct. However, the Church does teach that it is infallible. Hence,it is either actually infallible or wholly unreliable. It cannot be wholly unreliable, and so must be infallible in fact.

Except that when Protestants study the history of Roman Catholicism, what we witness is sect that wrongly believes itself to be infallible, making it virtually impossible to correct.