A Response To Trent Horn's Comments In His Recent Sola Scriptura Debate With James White

In his debate with James White on sola scriptura last week, Trent Horn repeated some sentiments he's expressed before about the alleged lateness of the recognition of the New Testament documents as scripture, their lack of prominence before the time when Irenaeus wrote, etc. I've responded to him on the subject before, in the post here. What I documented there is also relevant to something else Trent said during the debate, when he referred to how Jesus didn't tell anybody to write anything before he ascended to heaven. As my post linked above argues, Jesus' comments on the work of the Holy Spirit in John 14-16 likely anticipate the New Testament. What he said isn't limited to what the apostles would write, but it does include their writings. That's probably why John's comments about his gospel toward the end of the document parallel what Jesus said in those earlier chapters. John seems to have considered his gospel a fulfillment of what Jesus anticipated. Again, see my post linked above for further details. That post also addresses other problems with Trent's view of the New Testament.

I think Trent brought up what Jesus said before the ascension in response to Protestant appeals to what the apostles said and didn't say near the time of their death. Not only did Jesus say a lot about scripture, including in his anticipation of the New Testament in John 14-16, but it's also problematic to cite Jesus as Trent did because doing so fails to address what the apostles said in the relevant contexts, what I've called the departure passages. On the passages involving Paul and Peter, see here. On John, see here. And in Revelation, John is repeatedly told explicitly to write, including by Jesus himself (1:11, etc.). As I explain in my posts linked above, it's unlikely to just be a coincidence that there's so much emphasis on scripture in these contexts, whereas nothing is said about looking to the bishop of Rome for guidance, future infallible ecumenical councils, etc.

Regarding the appeal to an ongoing infallible magisterium, often associated with Acts 15, see here. There's no reason to think later councils in which the apostles didn't participate would be infallible. The apostolic council in Acts 15 can't be equated with non-apostolic councils.

Trent kept bringing up the fact that extrabiblical individuals and documents are sometimes referred to as inspired in the early church. We, including Protestants, do the same today. But we distinguish between types of inspiration. We don't think that an individual who was inspired to make a wise decision or a song we consider inspired, for example, is part of public special revelation. The early Christians sometimes referred to inspiration outside of scripture, but they also referred to scripture as if it's more authoritative than later writings, acknowledged that public special revelation ceased with the death of the apostles, etc. The involvement of some type of inspiration is only one of the factors, not the only one, that we take into account when evaluating documents and other sources. We have far more than inspiration to go by in judging what is and isn't scripture and what characteristics scripture has (what scripture says about itself, what Jesus said about scripture, etc.).

Since canonical issues came up in the debate, see my series on the canon of scripture here. As I explain in that series, Evangelicals have good historical reason, including evidence in scripture, to think that public special revelation ceased with the death of the apostles and that the 66-book canon typically accepted among Evangelicals is an implication of apostolic teaching. Trent suggested that the 27-book New Testament canon commonly accepted today didn't arise until the fourth century, citing the councils of Hippo and Carthage in the process. See my argument here that the New Testament canon first appears more than a century earlier and is found in multiple sources before the regional councils cited by Trent.

He asked when sola scriptura should have gone into effect if it wasn't supposed to be followed during the time of the apostles. The same question can be asked of alternatives to sola scriptura, including Trent's. How long would people's memories of Jesus' oral teaching be reliable? At what point would individuals' memories of oral apostolic teaching cease to be reliable, so that we'd have to only go by what scripture and the church teach (under a system like Trent's)? When Trent is trying to determine what to believe about a historical source, such as Josephus or Augustine, how does he know where to draw the line concerning when oral tradition about those individuals ceased to be reliable, which sources commenting on those individuals to trust and which not to trust, etc.? It's not as though questions like these are relevant only to Protestants. And I don't have to know much about when sola scriptura should have first been followed in order to know that it's unlikely that there are any reliable oral traditions circulating today, nearly two thousand years after the apostles, that it's unlikely that such traditions were reliable at certain points before my lifetime, etc. The appropriateness of following sola scriptura would vary from one individual or group to another, depending on the circumstances involved (e.g., somebody like Polycarp had memories of the oral teaching of the apostles, whereas other people didn't). Trent asked for an example of somebody adhering to sola scriptura in the ante-Nicene era. I discuss the example of Dionysius of Alexandria here.

It needs to be kept in mind that there's far more at stake for people like Roman Catholics than there is for Protestants in the controversy over sola scriptura. If we were to reject sola scriptura, we'd still be a long way from Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. See the problems with both of those groups discussed here that would remain problems with or without sola scriptura. A Protestant view of Christianity could be much closer to the truth than alternatives like Catholicism and Orthodoxy even if sola scriptura were incorrect.