Truth Unites - Response to Critics: Augustine on Scripture

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

In this video I respond to various reactions to my previous video on Augustine and sola Scriptura. I explain why I'm responding, and then canvas Augustine's views of Scripture, tradition, and the church. See the original video here: https://youtu.be/Q6ZAa0gNMvE Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus, hosted by Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) author and Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites | One-time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truth...  FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesP... Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

Hey, everybody. This is going to be a follow-up video responding to some of the responses to my video. I put out about a week ago on Augustine and Sola Scriptura. Thanks to everybody who engaged the video. Lots of comments. I read all the comments. Thanks for engaging it in that way. Eric Ybarra put a thoughtful comment up on Facebook. I appreciated reading that. That was interesting. He had some great points. And then William Albrecht made a response video. I did not think that Williams video.

was charitable. And so I've expressed concerns to him directly about that. So I won't get into that here because I don't think that will be productive. But let me nonetheless sort of explain a little bit of how I'm going to approach this because one of the things I think about a great deal, you know if you've watched older videos, I feel like a broken record saying this, but I'm trying to be ironic because I think that's really important, especially right now, which means aiming for peace. But I don't think it's contrary to ironicism to firmly advocate for our convictions. In fact, that's something I'm also committed to, particularly when some of the responses that have come in are sort of over-the-top aggressive.

Like you get the feeling that people feel threatened, and so they're sort of overstating their case coming at you, you know? And sometimes you can tell, no matter how clear the evidence is, people are determined to find a way around it. For example, in Williams' video, he said, at one point he said something like, I'm going to shred this video, and if he puts out four or five more videos, I'm going to shred those ones too. And I thought, that is so interesting to think that you're going, you already know before, and I'm not going to make four or five more videos.

Actually, that's one thing I wanted to say, just to set expectations. This is probably going to be my last video on this. So I wanted to respond to some of the issues of substance. And I'll get into those in just a second after I explain sort of where I'm coming from here. But I don't want to get into an interminable back and forth. I want to clarify a few things where I think there's been some errors. And then I'm going to probably stop unless I see a real value or something specific that could be productive. But what was so interesting to me is I thought there's already a decision in advance.

I'm going to shred four or five more videos. come out too. And I thought, how do you know when you haven't heard what the videos have to say? You know, it's like there's this mindset. And it's not just William. I sense this a lot. Like, no matter what, we're going to demolish you. That's how it comes across. And because that there's such hubris and at times just meanness in that, I think it's appropriate to stand up firm and give the reasons why I disagree with the perspective in question, especially, and the reason I make these videos is especially for, it's not because I get lots of fun out of, you know, lots of back and forth. I know so many people who are wrestling with these issues, and they don't know the historic

Protestant perspective. And so I really hope it will be helpful to people in that category. So I think it's appropriate to kind of respond to some of that, especially when there are judgments of motive. One of the things that William said that was pretty shocking. I'll quote its exact words here, starting at about 311 of his video, so you don't think that I'm exaggerating because it really is this bad. He said, quote, I think Gavin is convinced of Protestantism, so I don't think he ever looks at anything with an open mind. He's convinced of Protestantism. He regurgitates the older arguments from James White and Company back in the 1990s and early 2000s. He doesn't ever approach anything from a fair perspective.

Now, that's the end of the quote. That was a verbatim quote. Now, leaving aside the fact that I've never read a James book, I don't have any, I don't follow him at all, I don't have any clue what these arguments from the 90s or early 2000s are. Leaving that aside, it's so interesting that someone would assume to know whether you're open-minded based upon the fact that you're convinced of Protestantism. It's like, does that go both ways? if you're convinced of Catholicism, does that mean you're not open-minded? This is one of several points where I've just thought, wow, we've got to do better than that. We've got to be able to allow the other side to be sincere, even if we disagree with their positions.

And keep it focused on the positions, not attacking their person, their motives, claiming knowledge about their background, their influences, all these other things. So most of the dialogues I've had with Catholics, I think all of them have actually been a lot better than that. They've been more charitable. So, and then the last thing I want to say about why I care about this and why I want to stand up for my convictions with respect to Augustine. I'm very fallible. I'm not saying I know I'm right about every detail, but I'm pretty convinced of some basic things that I want to defend. And one of the reasons I really care about this is I love Augustine. He's one of my favorites.

I consider Augustine in a certain special way, kind of like a spiritual father and a theological father. I spent a lot of time in his writings. I moved to Chicago with my family for a year specifically to write a book on Augustine. I've spent a lot of time. My whole job, I got a grant to go and just research Augustine for the year. So I spent a lot of time with Augustine, not just in his works, but in his sermons and letters as well, which are often helpful to get to know someone's voice, you know. I really deeply care about representing him accurately.

And that's why it puts me in a little awkward position when William is so insulting of my scholarship. you know, referring to it as elementary and so forth. I don't know what William's scholarship is, but that puts me in the awkward position of like, okay, now do I have to like talk about all the stuff I've done in Augustine and the things I've published and I won't get into that now. But suffice to say, having, here's what I'd say, having spent a lot of time imbibing Augustine, my perspective is that he has points where he's going to challenge all of us. So one of the things I said in my first video is Augustine doesn't align with Protestantism in everything. But he has also many points where he doesn't align with Roman Catholicism or with other

traditions. And this is why I think it's so silly when people say, oh, how can you appeal to Augustine on point A when you don't agree with him on point B? As though you can only reference someone if you agree with them on every single issue or everything else they said on any other topic. The truth is, Augustine is going to challenge all of us and part of the test of do we love the truth more than our own agenda and our own system is how do we respond when Augustine doesn't say the convenient thing we'd like him to say. And he does that to me a lot. That to me, that's actually the whole fun of retrieval is the way you get challenged. Nietzsche used to say it's not the courage of your convictions. It's the courage to attack your convictions. I love that quote.

So anyway, let me just get into the substance here. I'm going to make two comments. First, I want to circle back to the three Augustine quotes that I shared and comment on them. Second, I want to speak to some other statements Augustine made that people have brought up when my wife is texting me. Okay, I'm back. I have texted my wife and all as well. All right. So first on the three Augustine passages that I referenced in my first video, I am firmly persuaded that these passages represent a clear articulation of the essential content of Sola Scripura, namely, scripture alone is infallible. All that is subsequent to Scripture is fallible. One of the things that people, so for example, when Augustine says to Jerome that of the

canonical books of Scripture of these alone, do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error? Based upon the word alone in that sentence, I actually think that's pretty close to a dictionary definition of Sola Scriptura. Now, you have lots of people saying over and over, Ah, but the context, you're taking not a context. The context shows Augustine is meaning something else. But you can never hear a logical articulation of what specifically in the context speaks to the content. So in here, in this case, the fact that Augustine is writing to Jerome and their discussion of being

amused by the language of scripture is the occasion for this assertion does not in any way take away from the universality of his language. If you want to show the context militates against the reading I have offered, you need to show why. What about the context makes the word alone, not really mean alone in the sentence, I have learned to yield disrespect and honor only to the canonical books of scripture of these alone? Do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error? My challenge to each viewer would be, don't take any...

word for it in terms of it. Go read the, you can read it online. Go read the entire letter. It's a long letter and see if there's anything in the context that would undermine the meaning of alone and the meaning of only in that sentence. The one thing I do want to address, and I'm, most of the comments actually haven't addressed these three quotes, so I won't spend as much time on this half. I think the second half, the second point is a little more interesting. But the one thing I do want to address is the meaning of the word plenary. Some people have tried to argue that plenary, not mean ecumenical. Now, of course, it can be used for something short of an ecumenical counsel, but the question is how it's used in this passage. And Augustine does use this term

to refer to ecumenical councils. Of course, he uses it in other ways as well. Here's how the Catholic encyclopedia describes this phrase, plenary counsel, quote, a canonical term applied to various kinds of ecclesiastical synods. The word itself derived from the Latin plenarium indicates that the council to which the term is applied represents the whole number of bishops in some given territory. Whatever is complete in itself is plenary. The ecumenical councils or synods of the universal church are called plenary by Augustine as they form a complete representation of the entire church. Now, the question is, in this passage, is that an instance of what the Catholic encyclopedia refers to, where Augustine uses the term plenary counsel to refer to an ecumenical

counsel. Do you notice that he also qualifies these councils as, quote, formed for the whole Christian world? How more clearly can you say it's an ecumenical council than to say it's formed a council that is formed for the whole Christian world? Moreover, if Augustine merely meant something short of an ecumenical council with this phrase here, if what the Catholic encyclopedia notes he sometimes does is not instantiated in this example, the entire, the entire, point of the passage would be undermined. His whole point is that scripture is confined within its own limits. Only the scripture is infallible. If you've got infallible ecumenical councils, scripture is not confined within its own limits. I'll come back to that point

in a moment. Others in the comments were saying, well, it could be a robber council or something like that. It could be plenary, but then it's shown to not be a valid ecumenical council. But again, that's not what Augustine says. His actual words are, quote, of the plenary counsels the earlier are often corrected by those which follow them." He's talking about, he uses the word plenary for both, the first one and then the subsequent. Others have said, ah, but there's only two ecumenical councils by this time, and William was arguing that Augustine didn't know about Constantinople. That is irrelevant.

He is not giving a history lesson of what has already happened within his lifetime. He's giving a framework for what is liable to happen. That's the starting phrase for what follows. Others have said, well, this is just doctrinal development. Again, that's not what he says. He doesn't say one plenary counsel is developed by another, but corrected, and the context of the statement corrected is precisely to substantiate his point that you've got the infallible and then the fallible.

You've got what you know is true. You can take it to the bank. And then you've got what may not be true because it's fallible. That's what he means when he says scripture is confined to its own limits. Again, here's his language. Scripture stands so absolutely in a superior position to all later letters of the bishops that about it, that is scripture, we can hold no manner of doubt or disputation whether what is confessedly contained in it is right and true, end quote.

That is the sense for Augustine in which scripture is contained within its own limits. This is the same as the second passage I mentioned, where he references the distinct boundary line separating all productions subsequent to apostolic times. Well, that sounds pretty universal. All productions subsequent to apostolic times from the authoritative canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. Again, the entire purpose for the contrast, for the distinct boundary line here, is that some things do contain things falling short of the truth. other things don't.

Distinct boundary line. What's the boundary line? Infallible versus fallible. That's what's important to Augustine. That's what he is saying. That's how he's using the language. And we've got to submit ourselves to his meaning, even if it's inconvenient for our side.

And we've got to take his language in a natural way, which I... A final question, because I don't want to go on too long. The question I could put it is, how more clearly could he have said it? Like, concept... Give me something Augustine could have said. said. That would be clearer than these quotes. When I think of like the strongest possible,

clearest possible statement of Soliscriptura, again, not the term, but the idea, the content of the doctrine, I think of somebody saying something like, only the scripture is infallible, everything subsequent to the scripture is fallible. That's the clearest way I can conceptualize for how to articulate Soliscriptura. That's basically what he says. So because I can, care about Augustine, I want to stick to my guns and maintain my advocacy for that view. Second, let me, the second half of this video, let me respond to another common response that people had. This speaks, this was to point to other statements that Augustine has made. This was the majority response, actually, about the church or tradition, and to argue that

these quotes somehow qualify or even neutralize what he says about scripture alone. So in other words, some people basically say, yeah, it looks like he's affirming soul of scripture here, but look over here. And I'm not criticizing that method of argument in principle that could. And I think this is an interesting response. And I think Eric's quotes on Facebook were very reasonable, you know, very thoughtful, reasonable point of view. Now my response to this is none of these other passages are actually contrary to Sola Scriptura. For Protestants, especially hearing these passages, they can sound a little bracing for how high Augustine speaks of tradition and scripture. But they actually fit 100% harmoniously with the schema that I have offered,

namely scripture alone infallible, all post-apostolic productions fallible. They fit together like peanut butter and jelly, fit together. Okay. Let me explain why, first on traditions, then on the church. On traditions, Augustine nowhere says that traditions themselves are infallible or that the church has the ability to produce infallibility with respect to traditions, or that tradition is received with equal reverence to the Word of God, or something like this, that would be the problem. What he actually says is traditions can be valid and authoritative, and if you have a universal tradition throughout the church, you obey that because you can trust that it comes from the apostles. So you obey the traditions. So the rationale is not that the traditions are

infallible or something post-apostolic is infallible. The rationality. as it's universal and universality implies apostolicity. That's not a problem for the Protestant position. I would feel the same way if I lived 400 years after the apostles. So let me give some examples. These are some of the quotes that Eric put up. Now this one, let me freely acknowledge. I have not read this quote in context.

I'm just pulling it off of Eric's Facebook wall. So maybe there's something in the context. Feel free to point it out. He says, to be sure, although on this matter we cannot quote a clear example taken from the canonical scriptures. At any rate, on this question, we are following the true thought of scriptures when we observe what has appeared good to the universal church, which the authority of these same scriptures recommends to you. Thus, since Holy Scripture cannot be mistaken, anyone fearing to be misled by the obscurity of this question, has only to consult

on this same subject, this very same church, which the Holy Scriptures point to without ambiguity. Now, do you see how he's arguing there? He's saying the church has authority. You should obey these traditions. The reason you should obey them is because if they're universal, then they're following the true thought of Scripture. Did you note where I underline where he also says, since Scripture cannot be mistaken? In other words, he's not saying the traditions are infallible. He's saying they're trustworthy because they're universal, therefore they go back to the apostles,

therefore they're following the example of Scripture. Here's some other examples from later on and on baptism against the Donatists. And if anyone seek for divine authority on this matter, though what is held by the whole church, and that, not as instituted by counsels, but as a matter of invariable custom, is rightly held to have been handed down by apostolic authority. Still, we can form a true conjecture of the value of the sacrament of baptism in the case of infants. He's talking about infant baptism. And then a bit later, the apostles indeed gave no injunctions on this point,

but the custom, which is opposed to Cyprian, may be supposed to have had its origin in apostolic tradition, just as there are many things which are observed by the whole church and therefore are fairly held to have been enjoined by the apostles which are not mentioned in their writings. So again, the appeal you see hopefully from what I underlined there. The appeal is universality implies apostolicity. Obey the traditions that are universal. Again, that's not a Protestant, that's not a concern for a Protestant position. The Protestant concern with traditions is that the further you go, the more you have the worry of the telephone game happening,

Oral traditions are very easy to have transmission errors. And so when you start having, especially when the traditions are universal dogmas, so Martin Kemnitz listed eight kinds of traditions, he said the first seven were not against. The only kind we're against are universal dogmas that are obligatory for the whole church and they don't have an anchor in scripture, as opposed to a custom or right, as opposed to a particular doctrine that's not a universal dogma.

so forth. So anyway, what Augustine is saying about tradition fits entirely with the Bible alone is infallible. Post-biblical productions, all post-biblical productions are fallible. Let's talk about his view of the church. This is really interesting because we get into some views of Protestant views of the necessity of the church. It's another area where people set this at odds with Soliscriptura, because Augustine says things like, I would not accept the gospel where I not moved by the authority of the Catholic Church. This also is not a problem. It's consistent. The necessity of the church's witness is not the same as the infallibility of the church's authority. I can say, A, Bible alone infallible. B, I would not believe the gospel apart from the church. Those two

things fit together like two puzzle pieces. It's not a problem for one second. Let me document that by showing how Protestants have said the exact same thing as Augustine. And there's a long tradition of Protestant reflection on this quote from Augustine, and they pick up on medieval interpretations of this statement from Augustine. Historically, Protestants have spoken of the church as a necessary witness to the Word of God in a ministerial or servant capacity. By God's design, the church is a necessary witness to the truth of the Word of God. Here's how Peter Martyr Vermigli, great Italian reformer,

put it. He distinguished between three roles of the Church relative to the Word of God. First, the church preserves the Word of God. That's really important, especially during times of persecution. Second, the church preaches and proclaims the Word of God. Third, the church discerns the Word of God. That's the process of canonization. Other Protestants have put it a little differently as you get later on, so into like

the 17th century, Reformed Orthodox tradition, all these great systematicians in the Netherlands, for example. Leonard Reison was one. He identifies five roles for the church. He calls the Church with respect to the Word of God as the custodian, guide, defender, Herald, and interpreter. Johann Kloppenberg identified eight roles for the church with respect to the Word of God. He includes things like writing, creeds, catechisms, and summaries of doctrine,

explaining and interpreting difficult passages, and so on. This is all standard fair. If you want to read more about Protestant views of the necessity of the church's witness with respect to the Word of God, check out this great book by William, or Richard Mueller, post-Reformation reform dogmatics, it's the second volume on scripture. One of the things that he shows is that people like William Tyndale, when they're interpreting that statement of Augustine, I would not have believed the church were it not for the authority of the, or I would not have believed the gospel, were it not for the authority

of the Catholic Church. The Protestant interpretations are reiterating medieval interpretations, for example, from the 15th century theologian Wessel Gansford, who, because this idea, of a hierarchy of authorities with Scripture as Supreme is not a Protestant innovation. And the point is basically this, that the church's role with respect to the Word of God is necessary if any one of these things that Vermeagli mentions preserving, proclaiming, discerning, if any one of those is not happening, the gospel is undermined. But none of them entail that the church has an infallible authority parallel to Scripture. and sometimes people assume that the church's role with respect to canonization, I'm almost done, must have required infallibility.

Vermeagely argued against that because he says the church is guided by the spirit and he says the church uses the comparison of scripture with scripture as a counterfeit letter is proved by comparison with a genuine letter. This is why the problem of circularity with the canon is not a vicious circularity. We're starting with traction because of the Old Testament. we're measuring things by the prior deposit. The great metaphor that they often will use these historic Protestants with respect to the necessity of the church and her witness to the Word of God is John the Baptist. And they're saying, look, John the Baptist had the role in God's design of discerning Christ, identifying Christ, proclaiming Christ.

None of that means that Christ's authority rests upon John, that John has in a parallel authority to Christ or anything like that. perish the thought. John is a witness, and so is the church. Let me conclude by simply saying this, my appeal, okay, would be, I honestly think the best approach for the non-Protestant traditions would simply be to say, with the first thing I said in my first video, none of this proof Soliscriptura is right. You could just say, yeah, Augustine says things that we wouldn't exactly say. We're not exactly identified with Augustine. He says things a little differently than we would say today. You could totally do that. When I had my dialogue with Jimmy Aiken on Soliscriptura, one of the the many things I appreciated about Jimmy's style of dialogue is trying to be reasonable, open, and being willing to make concessions that are fairly modest concessions. Like, why do people feel they need to have every church father on their side, on every issue? Jimmy was much more careful, I think, to just say, yeah, there could have been church fathers who affirmed Soliscriptura.

And that's fine. It wouldn't be a defeater. You could totally just remain a non-Protestant to just say that particular church father was wrong. but some other Catholic apologists seem to have a more totalizing mentality. And sometimes Protestants do this too. But I especially see it in these responses I get, where it's just like we're going to win every battle,

we are going to get every church father on our side, we are going to demolish the other side. And the facts are, these issues are actually complicated. The truth is actually not well served by that totalizing mentality. So that's my final appeal. I'm probably not going to do another video, on this. I wanted to speak to those things. Yes, Augustine means an ecumenical council, bioplinary counsel, or, as he puts it, a council formed for the whole Christian world.

Know his affirmation of the validity of universal traditions and tradition in general. His affirmation of the necessity of the church and the authority of the church. No, that is not inconsistent with his views on this. I'm probably going to let it lie there. I'm partly just because I'm flying to Dallas next week and I want to really be focused. I'm doing some papers at an academic conference. I really want to be focused on that. And also the nature of the some of the responses has made me feel like, yeah, I don't think I want to continue this. But I do think for people who are sincerely wrestling with this, that's my hope in all this,

that people who are wrestling with these issues would at least hear a thoughtful, hopefully thoughtful, articulation of the Protestant side. And at the very least, could maybe say, okay, yeah, it's not quite so obvious as some would try to make it out. In fact, I actually think it's fairly clear that Augustine did affirm the essential content of Soliscriptura, which, again, I think is a very reasonable idea. The Bible alone is infallible. Everything else has much usage and much authority, but it's not, doesn't rise to that same level of infallibility. I hope this would serve the discussion and serve people who are searching for the truth about this. All right. Thank you all so much for watching. Let me know what you think of the comments.

God bless you.