Pedro França Gaião is, from what I can make out, a former Catholic, and now a Protestant. He is from Rio de Janeiro , Brazil, and currently lives in Sioux City, Iowa. I was drawn into a lively discussion about sacred tradition and the old debate about one or two sources. This occurred in a lengthy thread on the Facebook page of my Brazilian Catholic friend, Leandro Cerqueira. Pedro is one of those delightful anti-Catholic polemicists who condescendingly assumes that he understands Catholic doctrine better than (educated) Catholics do themselves.

He had been writing on this topic of Bible and tradition and material sufficiency of Scripture on his (public) Facebook page prior to the free-for-all discussion that I eventually entered into. I will make preliminary observations, post the Facebook discussion and debate that occurred (including many additional present replies, in brackets).

Pedro’s words will be in blue . He is, of course, most welcome — along with anyone else who is civil and not a troll — to offer further replies in the combox underneath this blog post.

Pedro made the following absurd comment on his own Facebook page:

The rise of the defense of Material Sufficiency by the enemies of Sola Scriptura is oddly a victory for Sola Scriptura and a general failure for the religions that opposed it. (5-19-22)

That will be mercilessly disposed of below. He took a potshot at me, personally, regarding my views on material sufficiency and also on Augustine’s views of images:

To this we may add, that the Council of Constantinople held under Constantine Copronymus, against images, asserts that there was no prayer in the church service for consecrating images, a suggestion which the 2nd Council of Nicaea (i.e., the Seventh Ecumenical Council) does not deny. And St. Augustine, mentioning some superstitious Christians (for so he calls them), says he knew a great many who venerated images (August. De Moribus Eccl. Cath. cap. 34).

[Protestant patristics scholar Phillip] Schaff elaborates:

Even Augustine laments that among the rude Christian masses there are many image-worshippers, but counts such in the great number of those nominal Christians, to whom the essence of the Gospel is unknown. (History of the Christian Church, Vol. III: Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity, New York: Scribner’s, 5th edition, 1910, reprinted by Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1974, 573)

This hardly proves that the practice [of veneration of images] was not widespread; only that among the ignorant abuses of it occurred, which is no news, but a self-evident truth which holds in all times and places. Elsewhere St. Augustine writes:

A Christian people celebrates together in religious solemnity the memorials of the martyrs, both to encourage their being imitated and so that it can share in their merits and be aided by their prayers. But it is done in such a way that our altars are not set up to any one of the martyrs, – although in their memory, – but to God Himself, the God of those martyrs. (Against Faustus the Manichaean, c. 400,  20-21, from William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1979, vol. 3, 59] )

I looked up the section brought up above, from On the Morals of the Catholic Church (chapter 34). Here is what St. Augustine wrote:

75. Do not summon against me professors of the Christian name, who neither know nor give evidence of the power of their profession. Do not hunt up the numbers of ignorant people, who even in the true religion are superstitious, or are so given up to evil passions as to forget what they have promised to God. I know that there are many worshippers of tombs and pictures. I know that there are many who drink to great excess over the dead, and who, in the feasts which they make for corpses, bury themselves over the buried, and give to their gluttony and drunkenness the name of religion. . . .

76. My advice to you now is this: that you should at least desist from slandering the Catholic Church, by declaiming against the conduct of men whom the Church herself condemns, seeking daily to correct them as wicked children.

St. Augustine is condemning, of course, those “ignorant” professed Christians who adore or worship images (and tombs!) with an idolatrous devotion that belongs to God alone: which the Church condemns. He is not against the proper veneration of images, as the citation from Against Faustus shows. Augustine also wrote elsewhere:

But in regard to pictures and statues, and other works of this kind, which are intended as representations of things, nobody makes a mistake, especially if they are executed by skilled artists, but every one, as soon as he sees the likenesses, recognizes the things they are likenesses of. (On Christian Doctrine, Book II,  ch. 25, sec. 39)

Typically of anti-Catholics, Pedro seems to be suffering from the self-delusion that material sufficiency of Scripture is somehow logically reduced to an adherence to sola Scriptura. It’s not at all. I had written just two articles on the topic (i.e., with “material sufficiency” in the title), but often mention material sufficiency in passing because of this canard from the anti-Catholics that it represents Catholics caving into a sola Scriptura mentality and departing from historic Catholicism. This is sheer nonsense. Here are those two efforts:

Mary’s Assumption vs. Material Sufficiency of Scripture? [4-22-07]

Material Sufficiency of Scripture is NOT Sola Scriptura [2009]

I made fun of this anti-Catholic foolishness of pretending that any Catholic who heavily cites the Bible must be a secret, subversive believer in sola Scriptura, in my partly tongue-in-cheek paper: Sola Scriptura: Church Fathers (?), & Myself (?), by Analogy [2-7-07]. See also the related: Biblical Argumentation: Same as Sola Scriptura? [10-7-03].

I do have, however, a section entitled, “Material and Formal Sufficiency of Scripture / Rule of Faith” on my Bible and Tradition web page. It lists 31 of my articles. Here are a few key portions of my 2009 paper above (itself largely drawn from books written in 2002 and 2003):

305. All who accept sola Scriptura believe in material sufficiency, but not vice versa. That’s the fallacy often present in these sorts of discussions.

307. Biblical statements about material sufficiency and inspiration of Scripture don’t prove either sola Scriptura or the formal sufficiency of Scripture.

308. If Catholics affirm the material sufficiency of Scripture, then it cannot be the case that “material sufficiency” is essentially a synonym for sola Scriptura.

311. All true Christian doctrines are either explicitly stated in the Bible, or able to be deduced from solid biblical evidences (i.e., I accept the material sufficiency of Scripture). In my opinion, sola Scriptura falls under neither category.

318. Materially sufficiency is the belief that all Christian doctrines can be found in Holy Scripture, either explicitly or implicitly, or deducible from the explicit testimony of Holy Scripture (Catholics fully agree with that). It does not mean that Scripture is the “only” source of doctrine (in a sense which excludes tradition and the Church). That is what formal sufficiency means.

319. I believe in the material sufficiency of Scripture myself, and this is an acceptable Catholic position. I deny that Scripture is formally sufficient as an authority over against apostolic succession, biblically consistent and biblically based Tradition, and the Church (however the latter is defined). I deny that Scripture itself teaches either formal sufficiency or sola Scriptura.

320. Material sufficiency of Scripture is the view that all Christian doctrines can be found in Scripture, explicitly or implicitly; fully developed or in kernel form. Catholics hold to this. Formal sufficiency of Scripture is the adoption of the principle of sola Scriptura as the Rule of Faith. Catholics deny that, and I say that the Fathers (being Catholics from an earlier, less theologically and ecclesiologically developed period) do as well.

321. Binding Church authority is a practical necessity, given the propensity of men to pervert the true apostolic Tradition as taught in Scripture, whether it is perspicuous or not. The fact remains that diverse interpretations arise, and a final authority outside of Scripture itself is needed in order to resolve those controversies. This does not imply in the least that Scripture itself (rightly understood) is not sufficient to overcome the errors. It is only formally insufficient by itself.

322. It is no novel thing for a Catholic (or someone who has a view similar to Catholics regarding the Rule of Faith) to compare Scripture with Scripture. I write entire books and dozens of papers where I consult Scripture Alone to make my arguments (precisely because I am arguing with Protestants and they don’t care what Catholic authorities state on a subject). It doesn’t follow that I have therefore adopted the Protestant Rule of Faith. This is extraordinarily weak argumentation (insofar as it can be called that at all).

323. I write entire books and huge papers citing nothing but Scripture. It doesn’t mean for a second that I don’t respect the binding authority of the Catholic Church or espouse sola Scriptura. St. Athanasius made some extensive biblical arguments. Great. Making such arguments, doing exegesis, extolling the Bible, reading the Bible, discussing it, praising it, etc., etc., etc., are all well and good (and Catholics agree wholeheartedly); none of these things, however, reduce to or logically necessitate adoption of sola Scriptura as a formal principle, hard as that is for some people to grasp.

325. Being “scriptural” and being in accordance with sola Scriptura are not one and the same. This is a clever sleight of hand often employed by Protestant apologists (akin to the fish not knowing that it is in water: to the Protestant, sola Scriptura is the water he lives in or the air he breathes; thus taken absolutely for granted), but it is a basic fallacy, according to Protestants’ own given definition of sola Scriptura, which is, broadly speaking, as follows:

Sola Scriptura: the belief that Scripture is the only final, infallible authority in matters of Christian doctrine.

For something to be “scriptural” or “biblical” on the other hand, is to be in accord with the following qualifications:

“Biblical” / “scriptural”: supported by Scripture directly or implicitly or by deduction from explicit or implicit biblical teaching; secondarily: not contradicting biblical teaching.

As we can see, the two things are quite different. This is how and why a Catholic can be entirely committed to explaining and defending Catholic doctrine from Holy Scripture (indeed, it is my apologetic specialty and the focus of most of my published books), while not adhering to sola Scriptura in the slightest. Protestants don’t have a monopoly on Scripture; nor is sola Scriptura necessary to thoroughly ground doctrines in Scripture. The Protestant merely assumes this (usually without argument) and goes on his merry way.

Pedro came onto my Facebook page, asking: “could you answer me a question on how Catholic Church view the issue of Material Sufficiency?” (5-21-22) I provided him with a link to my 2009 article (cited at length above) and also, Jimmy Akin’s excellent 2005 article, “The Complex Relationship between Scripture and Tradition.” I now cite highlights from the latter:

The relationship between Scripture and Tradition comes up regularly in contemporary Catholic apologetics. According to one Catholic view, Scripture and Tradition are two sources of revelation. Some divine truths are found in the Bible, while others are found in Tradition. This “two source” model has a long history, but it also has some difficulties. One is that there is considerable overlap between the two sources. . . .

Speaking of Scripture and Tradition as two sources could lead one to overlook this overlap, which is so considerable that some Catholics have pondered how much of the Protestant idea of sola scriptura a Catholic can agree with. Sola scriptura is understood in different ways among Protestants, but it is commonly taken to mean that the Bible contains all of the material needed to do theology. According to this theory, a theologian does not need to look to Tradition — or at least does not need to give Tradition an authoritative role.

This view is not acceptable to Catholics. As the Second Vatican Council stressed in its constitution Dei Verbum, “It is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws its certainty about everything that has been revealed. Therefore both Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence” (DV 9).

One of the principal architects of Dei Verbum was the French theologian Yves Congar, who thought Catholics could acknowledge a substantial element of truth in sola scriptura.

He wrote that “we can admit sola scriptura in the sense of a material sufficiency of canonical Scripture. This means that Scripture contains, in one way or another, all truths necessary for salvation” (Tradition and Traditions, 410).

He encapsulated this idea with the slogan Totum in scriptura, totum in traditione (“All is in Scripture, all is in Tradition”), which he attributes to Cardinal Newman. According to this theory, Scripture and Tradition would not be two sources containing different material but two modes of transmitting the same deposit of faith. We might call it the “two modes” view as opposed to the “two source” view.

The decrees of Trent and Vatican II allow Catholics to hold the two-mode idea, but they do not require it. A Catholic is still free to hold the two-source view. . . .

One of the most accurate descriptions of the Catholic rule of faith and the view of the early Church that I’ve seen comes from Protestant historian Heiko Oberman:

As regards the pre-Augustinian Church, there is in our time a striking convergence of scholarly opinion that Scripture and Tradition are for the early Church in no sense mutually exclusive: kerygma, Scripture and Tradition coincide entirely. The Church preaches the kerygma which is to be found in toto in written form in the canonical books. 

The Tradition is not understood as an addition to the kerygma contained in Scripture but as the handing down of that same kerygma in living form: in other words everything is to be found in Scripture and at the same time everything is in the living Tradition. 

It is in the living, visible Body of Christ, inspired and vivified by the operation of the Holy Spirit, that Scripture and Tradition coinhere . . . Both Scripture and Tradition issue from the same source: the Word of God, Revelation . . . Only within the Church can this kerygma be handed down undefiled . . . (The Harvest of Medieval Theology, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, revised edition, 1967, 366-367)

Now — having done the preliminary work — onto the exchange with Pedro. I will offer some additional thoughts afterwards:

[A passage from my book, 100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura was cited in Portugese in a screenshot (so I couldn’t translate it)]

I know what Armstrong is doing here, you probably don’t.

Who cited me and what was the claim made about my position? What do you mean by “I know what Armstrong is doing here”? (“Eu sei oq o Armstrong está fazendo aqui, você provavelmente não” ).

You’re gonna force me to go talk to him [i.e., myself], and he probably won’t text me back. . . . I don’t think he will answer.

I answered him within three hours on my Facebook page (I had been watching TV the previous few hours), and came into the big Facebook discussion where I engaged him, after being tagged and notified by PM.

The article by Akin explains [this overall issue] fully and my article has further thoughts. But the quick answer is no: Scripture and tradition were both part of the apostolic deposit, but this is not opposed at all to material sufficiency of Scripture; only formal sufficiency (sola Scriptura). Vatican II also referred to Bible and Tradition as the “twin fonts of the same divine wellspring.” A perfect description . . .

[replying to others, referencing me] He didn’t solve anything. They didn’t ask him what was discussed.

[Pedro came to my Facebook page, specifically asking me about material sufficiency, not all this other business about one or two sources of tradition, etc. I responded in kind, there and in this group discussion]

Catholics are free to believe either. You are correct about that. In fact, almost all Catholics today believe in the material sufficiency of Scripture. The partim-partim polemic is largely an irrelevancy from the 16th century. It’s not either/or. Tradition is included in the deposit. But only Scripture is inspired, of course.

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Summary: Brazilian former Catholic and anti-Catholic Protestant Pedro França Gaião brought up the issue of material sufficiency of Scripture & theories on tradition.