Catholic Challenge # 4

 This is a continuation of a series of challenges that I am responding to that is supposed to demonstrate how wrong Sola Scriptura is. The point of my response to "Ed" (from Facebook) on this blog is to provide believers with a practical response, and also to provide Roman Catholics and unbelievers with an answer to their challenges. As usual, texts from "Ed" are in red and verses from the Bible are in blue.

4. There was no printing press to distribute copies of the individual letters and books.

It truly is amazing that this is viewed as a persuasive argument to people. Has this argument actually been effective in persuading people to Rome? I've never seen a definition of Sola Scriptura from someone who subscribes to SS that has as part of its definition that there either must be a printing press in order to be correct, or that every single believer must own at least one complete copy of the Bible. What confession or catechism can be provided to substantiate such an argument or appeal?

Now a response might be something to the effect of, yes, but, we need someone to say the Word of God to believers and therefore that is an example of the spoken Word (i.e. "Tradition"). This cannot be supported however due to the fact that if somebody tells me what the Bible says, even if I had never read the Bible before, someone is still giving me what the Bible teaches. Therefore, the person ignorant of the Bible, is still being given the Word of God from the Bible. This is completely in line with SS.

The next logical direction in the conversation would be the discussion of the difference between the Formal Sufficiency and Material Sufficiency of the Scriptures. I'm not going to get into that here, but I can discuss it if needed. For now, I would direct people to TurretinFan's blog: http://turretinfan.blogspot.com/?m=1 There are a number of tags that you can click on and Formal Sufficiency is one of them. He has many good articles on that subject.

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:15