With this post, I'm going to begin responding to the first of nine points that "Ed" challenged me with on Facebook. Before I begin though, I would like to point out that "Ed" had been challenging me with a number of Roman Catholic tropes, and everytime I dismantled his challenges, he wouldn't acknowledge it, and would move on to the next erroneous trope. In his this post to me, he decided to use the shotgun approach in order to maintain his offense against me. This is very common with people who are having difficulties in a debate. When your arguments aren't working, they just throw out a bunch of talking points and overwhelm the person that they're debating. Giving someone nine points to respond to in a Facebook post is difficult to deal with in a meaningful fashion. It's not impossible to deal with, but it certainly is impractical. The text in red is from "Ed" and the text in blue is from the Bible.
1. The early church didn’t have a NT scripture.
When looking at this claim, we must look ahead to where this line of reasoning is heading towards. He's building his case by making what appears to be a claim that is not threatening. Did he state anything wrong here? Is this an error? Where is he going with this? To answer the last question, he is trying to demonstrate Roman Catholic "Tradition" being present in the early church.
This first point actually demonstrates that "Ed" does have the capacity to be careful with his words when he so chooses. Most of the time that I see this challenge presented by Roman Catholics, they claim that the early church didn't have the Bible. That claim is easy to dismiss, but this point is different. This point implicitly acknowledges that the early church had the Scriptures, but they had the Old Testament, not the New Testament.
Sola Scriptura however is still not defeated at this point, nor is it weakened. Just as a reminder, Sola Scriptura is defined as the Bible being the sole infallible rule of faith for the believer. There is no contradiction for the believer if they appeal to a different source of faith, as long as that source or any other is held accountable to the Word of God. Sola Scriptura is also not a denial of the fact that there was a time of inscripturation. The Bible didn't fall down from Heaven on a bunch of golden plates for instance.
As far as what the infant church had concerning the NT, we honestly don't know. We only have educated guesses. Back in the 19th century many people thought that the New Testament was probably written in the 2nd or 3rd century AD. William Lane Craig here: ( https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/dating-the-gospels ) brings up a great point for the early dating of Luke and Acts. He explains, "The evidence that Acts was written prior to AD 70 (e.g., Paul’s being still alive under house arrest in Rome, no mention of significant events during the AD 60s such as the martyrdom of James, the persecution of Nero, the siege of Jerusalem, etc., and the disproportionate emphasis on Paul’s recent voyage to Rome) strikes me as very persuasive." While I don't agree with everything he stated in that article, I do agree with this statement.
Another thing to think about is that as a Protestant, I understand that there was a time before the New Testament that was after the resurrection of Jesus. That's not a problem for our side. My argument is not that God suddenly gave us a book as soon as His earthly ministry was done. In fact, I don't believe that Jesus Himself wrote any of the books of the NT with His own physical hand. But God guided the writers of the NT and what they wrote is θεόπνευστος (theopneustos), which means God breathed. God spoke through the writers of the Scriptures.
So we looked at what Sola Scriptura means from a positive position, but what would the negative position be? Well, in relation to the first point that "Ed" made here, this would mean that "Tradition" is held accountable to the Scriptures. Simply because the NT wasn't complete for a period of time doesn't mean that the people of God didn't have the Scriptures. It also doesn't mean that the Apostles were going around preaching about Jesus' body still being on Earth (the Eucharist), nor were they teaching that the pope in Rome is the vicar of Christ who has supreme authority over the entire church. Nor does it mean that the Apostles showed people how to pray to and devote their lives to Mary or any other saint that we can think of.
Let's say we grant for the sake of the argument that Sola Scriptura is false, and that the early church depending on sacred "Tradition" in its liturgy. That still wouldn't automatically default "Tradition" to be Roman Catholic Tradition. There are other groups that claim this form of "Tradition" as well, such as Eastern Orthodoxy. In order to prove the "Traditions" of the early church as being Roman Catholic, you would have to demonstrate that they were unique to Roman Catholicism. That simply isn't possible.
Sola Scriptura is however the correct position to take. When one subjects themselves to the sole infallible authority of the Scriptures, they don't fall into the pitfalls of legends and fables like those from Roman Catholicism. As the Scripture says:
But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness;
1 Timothy 4:7
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