Does Sola Scriptura cause divisions among protestants?

Follow a debate or discussion between a catholic and a protestant, sooner or later you will stumble up on the argument about Sola Scriptura causing protestant divisions. The catholic will probably assert that there are 30,000 protestant churches and growing. The protestant, aside from pointing out that the number is exaggerated and that catholics, in his opinion, are divided,  will at some time point out how it is not Sola Scriptura that is the problem but rather the mis-use of it. In a way I could, as a catholic, agree with this protestants assertion. It seems to me that it is precisely because protestants are not able to authoritatively prescribe the proper way to use Sola Scriptura. Sola Scriptura prevents them from doing this. The scripture itself does not explain how Sola Scriptura is supposed to be properly used. If the only binding authority among protestants is scripture and if scripture does not bind them to the proper way to be used alone, then we should expect that protestants will continue in this path of "mis-using" Sola Scriptura.

I would argue that scripture is not the cause of divisions, but rather the mis-use of scripture. Sola Scriptura is an example of a mis-use of scripture that causes divisions.

Does the bible teach Sola Scriptura? (informal Debate : Hapax vs. Projecthouse)

I have invited Projecthouse  a fellow I met on facebook, to engage in a very informal debate (or discussion if you will) on Does the bible teach Sola Scriptura? He will be taking  the affirmative and I will be taking the negative. I do not consider myself an expert in debating, but love the interchange. I hope something comes of this. Our debate will take place in the comments section. As I said, it is very informal.

Binding and Loosing and the keys of the Kingdom in the Old Testament

I run into a lot of protestants who argue that Jesus practiced sola scriptura. If you are a protestant who believes that then you believe that Jesus got all his teaching from the OT and nowhere but the OT. So where in the OT do we find biblical support for Jesus giving the keys to Peter and then telling him that what he binds is bound in heaven and what he looses is loosed in heaven?

Why do catholics still have Jesus on the cross?

Do catholics still have Jesus on the Cross? Yep, that is true. If you don’t believe it, many anti-catholic protestants will be glad to inform you about it. And I for one, partially agree with them.

In fact, if your local anti-catholic protestant is not convincing you enough, just drop by the Catholic Church and have a look see. You will no doubt notice a fairly obvious crucifix somewhere within the church building. And if you visit the homes or cars of some of these catholics, you will no doubt see a crucifix hanging there. But if you were to visit the homes of some of these anti-catholic protestants, you would only find crosses, no Jesus on them. The reason? Because for them, Jesus is alive, whereas for us catholics, apparently Jesus is still on the cross.

I first heard this point as a protestant. It partially made sense to me. We protestants celebrate a resurrected Christ. But I couldn’t quite make sense of what was wrong with having a crucifix, other than it would have made me look catholic, or what it was exactly that catholics thought about the resurrection of Christ. I can tell you, if you want to know what catholics believe, don’t go to a protestant source. No! Goto a catholic source. Many of my misconceptions about the Catholic faith were cleared up by going to catholic sources. I no doubt listened to arguments on both sides, but sadly many folks I meet only listen to arguments from one side, unfortunately from the anti-catholic side.

Why do catholics still have Jesus on the cross? Let’s start off by first of all pointing out that catholics also celebrate a resurrected Christ. The protestant emphasis that we catholics still have Jesus on the cross is simply misleading. It leads one to the idea that we dismiss the resurrection, or don’t believe in it at all. We do however, give more emphasis to the death of Christ than we do to the resurrection. On the flip side, couldn’t I argue that these anti-catholic protestants actually give more emphasis to the resurrection than they do to the death of Christ? And using the same logic, couldn’t I argue as they do, that there is no Christ on the cross of these protestants? They are saved by a Christless cross? I hope that at this point these folks would change their tune, and realize their mistake.

I suppose if Paul would have written to the Corinthians ‘For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him resurrected.’  then that would have been the primary emphasis in the Catholic Church. But instead we have 1 Cor. 2:2 “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” (emp. mine)

So yes, us catholics still have Jesus on the Cross just as the apostle Paul did when he wrote 1 Cor. 2:2 some 20 years after the resurrection of Christ. My question to these protestants is, why do they not follow suit?

The Good Tree, The Bad Tree PT 1.

This study will possibly change or grow in detail so If anybody wishes to interact with my comments, feel free to post your comments making sure to quote anything I say. If they are courteous and productive then I will be more than happy to make them public. My purpose is not as much to prove a point as it is to explore.


 Matthew 7:15-20 (NAB)

15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves. 16 By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 So by their fruits you will know them.

The purpose of this study is to explore this pericope and make sense of it.

Is the tree to be taken as figurative for a prophet and the fruit as figurative for teaching?

Who is Jesus referring to here? Scripture says false prophets (figuratively bad tree). The natural assumption would be to understand Jesus to be, by implication, referring to false teaching with the view that the “bad fruit” is the false teaching and the "bad tree" is the false teacher. The logic goes something like this: You can recognize a false teacher by his false teaching. But is this the best way to understand this pericope? If it were then, it would pose problems with verses 17 and 18 in effect saying: Every good prophet teaches true teaching and cannot teach false teaching. Likewise the inverse would be true that every false prophet must teach false teaching and cannot teach true teaching. But from experience I think we can agree that good folks don't always teach true teaching, sometimes they are in error.

Perhaps we must distinguish between true doctrine versus true intention? A true prophet would not intentionally teach false doctrine? But then again this is problematic as well since the focus of Jesus words is on recognizing a good/bad tree by its fruit. If he, by good tree, only meant one who had good intentions but still may produce bad fruit, then it certainly makes no sense to tell us how to recognize a bad tree since bad fruit could all the same indicate a good tree.

One protestant take on this would be to, in a sense, view Judas as the poster boy for this pericope. But that not seem to work since scripture nowhere indicates that Judas, if he were a bad tree, was teaching false doctrine. This may seem like an argument from silence, but I think it is one that actually speaks volumes. It would seem to me that, in light of Jesus teaching on the matter, that someone, i.e., the other disciples would have pointed Judas out as a false teacher. Yet scripture says nothing about this. Didn't Judas go out with the others two by two?

Is this bad tree a reference to an "unsaved person" as some protestants understand it? I would say no. Even if I were to grant that protestantism was right concerning how it understood salvation, i.e., Once Saved Always Saved (OSAS) I would have to then argue that that view is even more problematic when trying to understand the above pericope in light of it. OSAS would have to read this pericope as: Judas was never saved, therefore he could never produce good fruit but could only produce bad fruit, that is, only teach false doctrine.

In light of OSAS there would be three possible approaches to this pericope.

1. Judas was saved hence the reason for his fruit being good instead of bad.
2. Good/bad tree is not a figure to indicate wether a person is saved or not.
3. Or Jesus was just plain wrong.

Some of course would counter me as being too wooden or literal in my use of Jesus words, but am I?


This is a study in progress. More to come....

The Irony of Sola Scriptura

The apostles did not practice sola scriptura. They did however regard their oral tradition as carrying equal weight with their written tradition.

Catholic View = written equal to oral

Protestant View = written alone.

Doesn't it strike you as ironic that it is the Catholic position that is found in scripture?

Are you part of the 'All over the map' denomination?

What denomination did I belong to as a protestant? I was one of those protestants who would say "I am just a christian" or "I am non-denominational". I would usually say that both Calvin and Wesley are right regarding the doctrine of predestination, but they are just talking past each other. So if you were to ask me where I stood on this doctrine, I would say, "somewhere in the middle".

Of course as time went on I began to realize that by saying "I am non-denominational" that I was actually putting myself into a denomination. Get enough of us doing the same thing and we will start to be recognized as a category.

As a catholic I have been trying to actually categorize what I was. In the least amount of words, how would I describe myself? Well seriously I would describe myself as having been, "all over the map". I borrowed from various famous non-catholics such as Calvin, Luther and Wesley and what ever else "seemed" to make sense to me.

Which leads me to distinguish between two types of protestants: - Those who are attempting to follow systematic theology and those who are not. Those who are not, could be said to be 'all over the map'.

So I would say that my denomination was 'all over the map'.