A couple of weeks ago, my niece and I were discussing the faith and we were sharing parts of our faith stories with each other.
One of the things I shared with my niece was my early exposure to apologetics. When I was first coming back I read a lot of Catholic vs. Protestant stuff and something struck me. The Protestants would make a charge (against Mary, calling Pope father, traditions, etc.) The Catholic apologist would answer and usually, that answer would AMAZE me. Because of course, as a Catholic school graduate, I hadn’t been taught the faith at all, let alone know anything about apologetics. So to me, to see the faith explained and defended logically, with scripture was a real treat.
Then I would await the Protestant rebuttal, and when it came it was always a disappointment. Always. The closest thing I ever saw to a challenging rebuttal came from a lady Presbyterian minister on an AOL message board. But the professional, learned responses always left me going… uh?
I’m seeing a similar example of that here in the comment section. For example, in this discussion of whether or not Catholics are really Christians, with a focus on sola scriptura, a Catholic, Patrick makes this statement:
First question: what Scripture is Paul referring to in 2 Tim 3? I believe it is the Old Testament. This is evident when he says Timothy has known these sacred writings “since childhood.” We don’t have exact dates here, but assuming Timothy was a young man at this time, his childhood would have been around the period of the Resurrection – at which point none of the New Testament had been written yet.
Also, while the passage says Scripture inspired, profitable etc, it nowhere says that ONLY scripture has these characteristics. Indeed, in his earlier letter to Timothy Paul said that it is the Church – not Scripture – which is the “pillar and foundation of the Truth.” (1 Tim 3:15).
I remember reading these arguments before. I’ve used them as well. But I have never read a satisfying rebuttal from the Protestant perspective and this was no exception.
Patrick: even if it is the Old Testament, that still doesn’t change the point being made: the Scriptures are the source of wisdom and knowledge. Paul tells his charge Timothy (and also Titus) to preach the word. It is all centered on Scripture.
He totally misses Patrick’s point that Paul wasn’t considering his own letter to be “scripture” at the time he was writing it! And how did we determine that Paul’s letters were part of sacred scripture? The Catholic church gathered and codified them and told us they were! And it’s those glaring admissions that I always found just so unsatisfying!
This thought by the blog host was equally irritating:
While Paul is referring specifically , in 2 Timothy, to the Old Testament, his remarks do, by implication, do include the New Testament Scriptures, as “all” would include Scripture not yet recorded.
By implication? Does he mean that Paul was implying that there would be a New Testament and that it would come to be known as part of scripture? By whose authority?
See that thought to me is just a mess on a lot of levels including historically and logically.
And for those reasons, I have never found it to be persuasive enough to even budge me towards the other side of the Tiber.