E3: All Things Scripture (Catholic or Protestant: What's the Difference?)

For Episodes 2-10 we'll be diving into the 9 key differences between Catholicism and Protestantism in a series called Catholic or Protestant: What's the Difference?

In today's episode we'll be taking a look at the Protestant belief of Sola Scriptura vs. the Catholic belief of Scripture & Tradition. Also discussed is the "apocrypha," AKA the deutero-canonical books as well as the key difference in how Protestants and Catholics interpret Sacred Scripture.

*Please note that I mistakenly mispronounced "perspicuity" the entire time :)

Bible Passages Quoted:
-John 21:25
-Romans 16:17
-Jeremiah 25:3
-Matthew 28
-John 20
-John 17:17-21
-Matthew 16:18-19

Resources:
-A Quick Ten-Step Refutation of Sola Scriptura | Catholic Answers
-Where is the Magisterium in the Bible? | Catholic Answers
-The Doctrine of Perspicuity (Clarity) | Catholic Answers
-Day 13: The Single Deposit of Faith — The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hi, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Catholicism 101, Forever Learning and Living the Faith. Today we are continuing our series throughout the month of July of Catholic or Protestant, What's the Difference? And the topic we're going to be looking at today is all things scripture. So that includes the Protestant belief of sola scriptura, that it's scripture alone, no tradition, the so-called Apocrypha, which Catholics refer to as the deutero-canonical books, and scriptural interpretation. What is the difference in how Protestants interpret scripture and how Catholics interpret scripture? But before we get into all of that, I wanted to re-emphasize the point I made at the beginning of last episode when I read that paragraph from Lumen Gentium, the dogmatic constitution on the church. And essentially what that says is we're linked to our Protestant brothers and sisters, those Christians who have been baptized, though they do not have the fullness of the faith or the rest of the sacraments or whatever it may be, the Holy Spirit still blesses them and endows them with truth, though it may not be the full truth. But all that to remember, we are more alike than we are different. We still share the name Christian and we still share belief in the same one Lord. So having said that, let's get in to some scripture. Sola scriptura, the belief that the Word of God, as written in the Old and New Testaments, is the only source of divine revelation, which this is a Protestant belief. This is not a Catholic belief. As Catholics, we believe in both scripture and tradition. But today we're going to focus on refuting sola scriptura. And what better way to do that than to use scripture itself? So the first passage I have for you comes from the Gospel of John, the very end. It's chapter 21, verse 25. And John the evangelist, also apostle, writes, There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written. John says it himself. Everything Jesus did and said wasn't written down. A lot of it was passed on by oral tradition, by word of mouth for many, many years. And there are a lot of things that are not explicitly said and written in Scripture that come more predominantly from oral tradition. And we know this because of the writings, mostly of the writings of the early church fathers and what they were teaching and what they all commonly believed, even though they're spread throughout the world, they all have like very common beliefs, even though they aren't explicitly said in scripture. And so we know that those come from the oral tradition of the apostles and the stories they told about Christ and the teachings he shared with them. And the thing too with this is even though they aren't explicitly stated in scripture in the older New Testament, they are still heavily supported by Scripture. Scripture and tradition don't contradict one another. They actually are in great harmony. So, as John says, not everything Jesus said and did is written in the scriptures. And we're also able to recognize this from the writings of Paul. When he says in his letters to the Romans, he says, Take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught, avoid them. And that comes from his letter to the Romans in chapter 16, verse 17. We don't have transcripts of exactly what the Apostle Paul taught to all of these people, but we do know what he taught because of the writings of the early church fathers, the people he was teaching. And we know that they're in harmony with what Christ taught, because it's what the other apostles were teaching all throughout the world. And you have all of these writings from church fathers, like I said, who are spread out all over the place but have harmonious beliefs, especially about things that weren't said explicitly in Scripture. This is also shown in the Old Testament by the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 25 of his book, when he talks about for 23 years the word of the Lord has come to me, and I've spoken to you again and again, but you did not listen to me, declares the Lord. And I found um Catholic Answers is a really great website, and I'm actually going to have them linked in the description as further reading resources for all of this. But they had a really great excerpt about this passage from Jeremiah 25. And Catholic Answers says, This was the word of God, even though some of it was not recorded in writing. It had equal authority as writing or proclamation never reduced to writing. This is also true of apostolic preaching. So when the phrases word of God or word of the Lord appear in Acts and the Epistles, they almost always refer to oral preaching and not to scripture. Again, I have to re-emphasize that we see how important this oral teaching was, even though it was not written in the Old or New Testament. We see how important it is and how harmonious it is across the world, and that all of the apostles are teaching the same thing. Because we see in the writings of people like St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Justin Martyr, St. Iranius, St. Augustine, they're all preaching and teaching pretty much the same thing. On different levels, they have different levels of understanding with it. And that's another thing, honestly, that's important to note too is that the church never really changes her teaching. She never flips the coin. But over time, the Holy Spirit reveals to the church through the magisterium and through the people of the church, the people, the faithful, a more deep, like a deeper understanding of the truths that have to been taught for the past 2,000 years. So I will have a resource linked from Catholic Answers. It's entitled A Quick 10-step refutation of sola scriptura. And I just want to remind, if any of my Protestant friends are listening, that this is not meant to be an attack on your beliefs or anything like that. This is um this is Catholic apologetics. This is defending the faith, the Catholic faith. This is um also a call to maybe take a deeper look into your own beliefs and where they come from. Because honestly, I call Catholics to do the same thing. Look into your beliefs, where do they come from and why? It only ends up leading you to deeper truth and what the truth actually is. So this is not meant to be an attack, this isn't meant to be an awakening and opening your eyes for both Protestants and Catholics alike. Let's go ahead and move on to the Apocrypha, aka the Deuterocanonical books. So Protestants refer to them as the Apocrypha, and Catholics refer to them as the Deuterocanonical books, because they're part of canon, but there has been some debate, clearly. These seven books come from the Old Testament. They're the books of Judith, Tobit, Sirach, Wisdom, First and Second Maccabees, and Baruch. And all Christians accepted the canon of the 46 books of the Old Testament until the 16th century. Even though uh many Protestants will actually claim that Catholics added these seven apocryphal books at the time of the Protestant Reformation. But I want to give you a little history lesson here. Okay? So in the 4th and 5th centuries, Saint Jerome translated the full 73 books of the Bible from Hebrew, Greek, which is known as the Septuagint, and we'll get into that in just a second. But he translated them from Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic all into Latin. And he was commissioned to do this by the Pope because there was enough clarity about what books were canonical and divinely inspired sacred scriptures and what books were not. So let's talk about the Septuagint really quick, the Greek translation. This was the most widely used edition of the Old Testament scriptures in the first century. And the clear majority of Old Testament quotations that appear in the New Testament are actually taken directly from the Septuagint. And funny enough, uh many patristic theologians, so many of the early church fathers, very early church fathers that I mentioned earlier, like St. Justin Martyr, Saint Irenaeus, Irenaeus, however you want to say his name, um, everyone says it differently. Anyway, all these patristic theologians even held that the Septuagint had been translated under the influence of the Holy Spirit and therefore surpassed the Hebrew Bible as the authoritative edition of the Old Testament for Christians. And St. Augustine's actually the one who said that. And the Septuagint included these seven deutero-canonical books. And then we fast forward about a thousand years of unrefuted tradition. And Martin Luther decides that because these seven books did not originate in Hebrew, that they cannot be considered canonical and legitimate. So don't get your history twisted, folks. Catholics did not add these seven books at the time of the Protestant Reformation, as many people will claim. If you do your history research, all of these historians are in agreement, all of these experts are in agreement, that we did not add them. They were already there, and there was no dispute about this until the 16th century at the time of the Protestant Reformation. So I think that clears that up pretty well. Let's move on to the difference in how Protestants and Catholics interpret Scripture. So at the time of the Protestant Reformation, some of these um fathers of the Reformation encouraged people to read the scriptures and interpret for themselves what they mean. And whenever I say that, I'm not referring to um when you're using scripture for personal prayer and you need the Lord to say something to your heart, and he says something to your heart through that. That's beautiful, that's amazing, that's encouraged for both Catholics and Protestants alike. What I'm referring to here is what scripture teaches objectively. Like what is the doctrine that comes from scripture passages? What is the theology that comes from this? So I want to be very clear here that I'm not referring to what you get out of personal prayer and what maybe applies to your own individual life and how the Lord speaks to your heart. That's not what I'm getting at here. I'm talking about objective truth and objective teaching. So, as I said, in the Protestant Reformation, it was encouraged that everyone deduces their own theology apart from anyone else, and that uh you cite the Holy Spirit as your guide on the journey to your conclusions. So this leads to everyone having their own theology based on what they think. And each person has different beliefs, so there's no such thing as objective truth across the board. And many Protestants will actually claim that the Bible clearly teaches this or that, but they can't all agree on what is so clearly taught. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, recognizes that much of Scripture is not easy to understand, and we must be guided by the Holy Spirit in our interpretation. And it also takes a lot of work. Um that's why there are biblical theologians, people like Scott Hahn and John Bergsma, those are the two most popular ones that come to mind that have dedicated their life to interpreting scripture in line with the teachings of the church. So the Catholic Church recognizes that the Holy Spirit cannot contradict himself. So the teaching office of the church, the magisterium, holds the authority in declaring the theological or doctrinal meaning of scripture. And this authority was actually given to the magisterium by Christ. So again, this is one of those instances where it's scripture and tradition. The scriptures that support this are the Great Commission in Matthew chapter 28, and then also Christ's appearance to the apostles after his resurrection in John chapter 20. And I wanted to touch really quickly um on the high priestly prayer of Jesus in John chapter 17, and also um the authority given to the bishops and particularly the Pope, Peter, uh, in Matthew 16, just to kind of remind us that this is the way Jesus Christ himself set up the church, and this is his desire for the church. So this is his desire for the church, and this comes from John chapter 17. Jesus is praying to the Father, and he says, Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world, and I consecrate myself for them, so that they may also be consecrated in truth. I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. When he's making this prayer, Jesus has already commissioned the apostles to go and teach in his name and baptize. And um, again, as John tells us, everything he did and said wasn't written down. And as we know from Jeremiah, when they talk about the word of God or the word of the Lord, they're almost always referring to oral preaching and not to other written scriptures. And the last thing I want to do here is read the passage from Matthew chapter 16, where Jesus gives Peter authority as the head of the church. He says, And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. So we'll look at that passage deeper and more so in the episode on the papacy. But I wanted to, before I hop off, kind of go over the resources I have for you listed in the description. So this first one, as I said, is a quick 10-step refutation of Sola Scriptura. That's from Catholic Answers, and it's written specifically by Dave Armstrong. The next one I have for you is Where is the Magisterium in the Bible? And that one's written by Tom Nash. It's actually also um an audio version, but it's it's a quick little one. And then the last one from Catholic Answers, um, it's about the doctrine of perpiscuity, which is the doctrine of clarity. But the article itself is written by Casey Chalk, and it's entitled The Protestants' Biggest Bible Problem. It's not sola scriptura, it's not sola fide. It's a doctrine most people don't even know by name, and that is the doctrine of perpiscuity or clarity. And then the last resource I have for you is an episode of Father Mike Schmidt's Catechism and a Year podcast, and it's day 13, the single deposit of faith. As always, those resources will be linked in the description or the show notes, whatever you want to call them. But I hope you have learned something today. As always, if I piqued your interest and you have a question that one of these four resources or this podcast today did not answer, then use my question box. It's linked also in the description. There's many links in that description. But I hope you all have a blessed day and I look forward to being with you next time.