Sola Scriptura vs Sola Dei Verbum

Implications of sola scripturaRecall that in my opening, I said there are three implications of sola scriptura.1. The scriptures are inspired by God and therefore authoritative.This one has never been disputed in this debate, and Con says, "I don't deny the first." I did bring up the canon, but I wasn't straw-manning Con like he says I was. Rather, I was trying to anticipate an argument that he might use, and I attempted to show that Catholics are in the same epistemological boat that protestants are in. In his rebuttal, Con conceded that we are in the same boat.2. Although God can speak through other means (e.g. personal revelation)...(a) everything else is subordinate to the scriptures, and (b) only the scriptures are normative for all Christians.Here, Con says, "I agree. Kinda." But what he actually agrees with is that divine commands given to one person don't automatically apply to someone else. But that wasn't what I was getting at, so this is not really a concession on Con's part.Recall that I justified 2 by pointing out that there were false teachers, false prophets, and false apostles. "Prophets" say many things, but not all of them come from God. So all teachings and prophetic utterances have to be tested in light of scripture. And as I showed from Acts 17:11 and Matthew 15:1-6, both tradition and the teachings of the apostles were subject to Biblical scrutiny. That is true even when it is claimed that the tradition comes from a true prophet (e.g. Moses). That means Catholic Tradition must also be judged in light of Scripture and rejected when it does not conform. It is therefore subordinate to scripture.Con seems to think that if some teaching by an apostle is inspired by God, that makes the Tradition of the Catholic church automatically inspired by God. But this is a leap he has yet to even attempt to justify. As I've pointed out twice already, the reason Catholic Tradition is subordinate to the scriptures is because we cannot verify the accurate preservation of Tradition the way we can with Scripture. We can use textual criticism to find out what the original writings were, but we cannot trace all of Catholic Tradition to the apostles. Therefore, we need to subject Tradition to the authority of Scripture. Scripture is the standard by which Tradition ought to be judged.3. The scriptures, by themselves, are sufficient. They contain all the information necessary for a person to be a Christian, to know the gospel, to live morally, and to obtain salvation.The issue here is the sufficiency of scripture, not the exclusivity of scripture. The second point above dealt with exclusivity. The reason sufficiency is implied by sola scriptura is because if the scriptures are exclusively normative for the church, then they must contain all necessary doctrines.Con claims that it doesn't follow that because the scriptures are sufficient to equip a Christian for every good work, that it therefore contains all necessary doctrines. But I already explained how that does follow, and Con just ignored the argument. One of the good works Paul is talking about is teaching. If the Scriptures alone are sufficient to fully equip Timothy to teach, then they must contain all necessary doctrines. If there are necessary doctrines not contained in scripture, then the scriptures would not be sufficient to fully equip Timothy to teach.Con apparently thinks that because there are some unnecessary information in the scriptures (e.g. geneologies) that the scriptures therefore are not sufficient. But obviously, if the Bible has more than enough information, then it at least has enough information.Pro makes a good point regarding 2 Timothy 3:16-17. It was written before Revelation. If the scriptures existing then were sufficient, it would follow that Revelation was unnecessary. To that I have two responses.First, as far as necessary doctrines, Revelation is unnecessary. There is no essential doctrine found in Revelation that isn't found in some other book.Second, even if Revelation was necessary, that wouldn't invalidate what Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:16-17. Revelation is progressive. While the doctrine of the Trinity is an essential doctrine for believers now, it has not always been an essential doctrine for God's people. During the old testament period, it had not yet been revealed that God was a Trinity, so it was not an essential doctrine. But once the doctrine of the Trinity was revealed, it became an essential doctrine for God's people. In the same way, the fact that not all scripture had been written by the time of 2 Timothy doesn't mean that what came after wasn't essential.Con insists that anything taught by Jesus was an essential teaching for the church, which presumably includes what is not taught in scripture. But Con has not given any argument to that effect. He pointed out earlier in the debate that there were things Jesus said and did that were not written down, and I agree with that. But since those things never became part of scripture, and since 2 Timothy 3:16-17 shows that scripture alone is sufficient for every good work, including teaching, it follows that whatever else Jesus might've said was not necessary for the whole church to know about.A final argument against sola scripturaCon argues that if all necessary doctrines are found in scripture, and sola scriptura is a necessary doctrine, then it should be found in scripture. But I have never claimed in this debate that sola scriptura is an essential Christian doctrine. It is, I believe, a true doctrine, but it is not necessary for salvation or for holy living. And besides that, it is found in scripture, as I've shown.ConclusionThat's about it. Thank you for coming to tonight's debate. Thank you Darth Pius.