Most Arguments Between Protestants and Catholics About Scripture and Authority are Confused
In which I attempt to make Wes Huff's arguments more clear
In the era of YouTube apologetics, one of the arguments that has emerged popularly is the divide over authority and tradition between Protestant and Catholics, spawning unnumbered videos and responses to those videos and responses and so on ad nauseum. When it comes to the tensions over scripture and the church, such arguments will involve a suite of words like ‘infallibility,’ ‘authority,’ and ‘sufficiency,’ which attempt to delineate theologically the exact relationship between the revelation of the bible and the stewarding of the church, most of which often tend to create more obstacles than they clear. One such example of this is boomingly popular YouTuber Wes Huff, who decided to add to the pile of content with a video titled “6 reasons why I’m not Roman Catholic,” which in spite of Wes’ genuinely impressive knowledge that he usually brings to his arguments, in the section on scripture typifies some of these confusions.
Wes argues that scripture is the “speech of God” and it is “unrivalled in its authority,” and in what it does and what it is it is unique, since it provides the “primary and infallible means for faith and practice.” So far so Protestant, he then says that this “doesn’t preclude misunderstanding or misinterpretation, even when God spoke directly via the prophets to people in Israel or the surrounding nations around Israel it doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t misunderstand, twist or misapply those prophetic words despite them being near divine dictation.” He says it is “infallible” but “that doesn’t mean that everyone is going to apply them perfectly.”
He says our goal is “faith seeking understanding, because we are fallible and God is not, and it’s not God’s fault that we fallibly understand or misunderstand his infallible words and likewise ” He says that the Reformers claimed scripture alone is a source of authority, but the Catholic church as per the council of Trent claims a double authority, “truth and salvation’s role exists both in written scripture and in unwritten traditions received from the apostles.” He says Roman Catholics thus operate with a “two source of authority: scripture and tradition.” Church, he claims, must have a ministerial rather than a magisterial role, serving rather than leading. He says tradition has a “vote and a voice, but scripture has the veto.” He says, “neither experience nor tradition have the same divine authority.”
