25 Brief Arguments Regarding Biblical “Clearness” (Perspicuity)

25 Brief Arguments Regarding Biblical “Clearness” (Perspicuity) November 12, 2015

Original Title: “25 Short Arguments on the Difficulties of Perspicuity (Clearness of Scripture for Salvation) and Private Judgment: Is the Bible Crystal-Clear Enough to Bring About Doctrinal Orthodoxy By Itself?”


[public domain / Pixabay]
From my discontinued book, 501 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura (2009). It was one of my several books in the style of Pascal’s Pensees (random individual thoughts [i.e., “pensees”] rather than continuous writing).  In 2012, Catholic Answers (specifically Todd Aglialoro, my editor) convinced me to tighten it up and make it a conventional book, and so it was transformed into 100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura. But the latter version is so vastly different from the original version, that they are really two separate books. Thus, I am happy to maintain some portions of the old version on my blog.
You’ll notice that the arguments keep getting longer and longer as they proceed. That’s a feature only in this book of mine, among all 49 of my titles.
* * * * *


2. Catholics have every confidence in Scripture. What we lack confidence in, is the ability of men to “rightly divide the word of truth.” [PRO, 11]

3. If Protestants discount the Church’s binding authority because men are sinners, then they obviously have to discount every individual’s interpretation, as each person is a sinner, too!

4. I think Scripture is pretty clear (I’ve always found it to be so in my many biblical studies), but I also know from simple observation and knowledge of Church history that it isn’t clear enough to bring men to agreement.

5. Since Protestants can’t agree in their interpretation of Scripture, of what practical use is an infallible Bible? If the interpretation is fallible and contradictory, then — practically speaking — the Bible in effect is no more infallible than its differing interpretations.


7. The U.S. Constitution might be regarded as true and wonderful and sufficient, etc. But the fact remains that this abstract belief only lasts undisturbed as long as the first instance of case law in which two parties claim divergent interpretations of the Constitution. It’s the same with Protestants. [MBE, 103-104]


9. Protestants often erroneously define “private judgment” as “the faculty of choosing itself.” But it does not mean simply a choice or an individual making up his mind. It refers to a formal rule of faith and is intimately connected with sola Scriptura. For this reason it is nonsensical to apply the term to Catholics as any sort of description of their system.



12. Radical individualism is much more so a product of deistic and atheistic Enlightenment thought and the “rugged individual,” pragmatic American ideal, than it is the fruit of classic Protestant thought. Nevertheless, when Luther put the individual conscience above all of Church Tradition and apostolic succession, a dangerous precedent was established, and we have seen the undesirable consequences of it. Cafeteria, “pick and choose” Christianity began in a major way then. [PRO, 43]


14. Who determines what is a “sound hermeneutic” — and by what authority? How does someone determine that another Christian with a divergent interpretation on any given doctrine does not “desire” to understand Scripture? How are these differences resolved? They cannot be resolved by recourse to this abstract sort of criterion. They certainly can be resolved by appealing and submitting to a demonstrable apostolic and historical Tradition, consistent with Scripture; that is, the biblical, apostolic, patristic and Catholic method.


16. If the argument is that the Law was self-evident simply upon being read, per sola Scriptura, this is untrue to the Old Testament, for, again, we are informed that priests and Levites “taught in Judah, having the book of the law of the LORD with them; they went about through all the cities of Judah and taught among the people” (2 Chron 17:9), and that the Levites “taught all Israel” (2 Chron 35:3). They didn’t just read, they taught, and that involved interpretation. And the people had no right of private judgment, to dissent from what was taught. [TCV, 51; modified]







23. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus marveled at how Jesus “opened to us the Scriptures” (Luke 24:32). In other words, those prophecies were not understood until Jesus explained them, and in fact, most of the Jews did not see that they were fulfilled. Thus, Old Testament Scripture was insufficient for these messianic truths to be grasped simply by reading them. One could retort that the Jews were hard-hearted and thus could not understand since they had not the Holy Spirit and God’s grace to illumine their understanding. But that proves too much because it would also have to apply to these two disciples, and indeed all of the disciples, who did not understand what was happening, even after Jesus repeatedly told them that He was to suffer and to die, and that this was all foretold. They didn’t “get it” till after He was crucified.

24. It is contended that those who study the Bible in greater depth will tend to agree on its central teaching. But that’s simply not true. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons know their Bibles quite well (of course they have horrendous hermeneutical principles) and they can’t even arrive at trinitarianism. Calvin and Luther both knew the Bible inside out, yet they disagreed on a host of things (baptismal regeneration, Eucharist, etc.). The argument doesn’t fly. We have to deal with history and the ugly reality of unbiblical sectarianism. I don’t think the disagreements are primarily due to a mere lack of knowledge, but rather, due to a lack of a biblical authority structure (Church, Bible, Tradition: the “three-legged stool”), and flawed premises (sola Scriptura, private judgment, supremacy of the individual conscience, competing ecclesiologies, etc.). [BCO, 47; modified]

25. One can arrive at any number of true doctrines by reading Scripture alone. I pretty much did that in a number of cases, when I was a Protestant. By the time I became Catholic, I had arrived at maybe 70% of the Catholic doctrines on the authority (ultimately) of Scripture alone. Most other Catholic doctrines did not strike me as utterly unbiblical, either, once they were adequately explained to me. And the more I did Catholic apologetics (which I started in late 1990 and have constantly done ever since), the more I saw this. The problem, however, comes with the Jehovah’s Witness (an Arian) on the next block, who reads the same Scripture that we do and concludes that Jesus was created. It’s with the Mormon two blocks over who believes that God was once a man and that men can become gods. It’s with the Christian Scientist and the Sabellian (Jesus Only) and the Unitarian and Moonie and Scientologist and snake handlers and Name-it-Claim-it heretics, etc., etc., etc. They’re all operating on the principle of Scripture Alone, just as the ancient Arians and virtually all heresies did, too.



Dave Armstrong, The Catholic Verses: 95 Bible Passages That Confound Protestants [TCV], Manchester, New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 2004.

Dave Armstrong,  More Biblical Evidence for Catholicism [MBE], Lulu, 2007.

Dave Armstrong, Protestantism: Critical Reflections of an Ecumenical Catholic [PRO], Lulu, 2007.

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