After I had posted my previous message, discussing Hayden Carroll’s issues with Sola Scriptura and the biblical canon, I found two more short video clips from him (seen above), in which he again questions the canonicity of the 66 books of the Bible. It is not necessary here to discuss in detail what he has said, because I have already given enough detailed discussion in my previous posts. In this post I am going to focus on only one issue. In the first video, responding to Jeff Durbin, he says the following:
“Do you see the issue here? They are literally admitting they can’t justify their [66 book Bible] standard. They are self-admittedly presupposing it as the infallible, ultimate authority. Jeff, unless you can justify your standard, the 66 books you hold today, why should we believe it? If God didn’t say it, why are you?”
In the second video, again addressing Jeff Durbin, he says the following:
“Jeff, using your own standard, you are just kicking the can down the road; in other words, how do you know that the 66 books you use today are God speaking? Again, where did God publicly reveal this? …”
My question for him is, if he has such a serious issue with the canonicity of the 66 books of the Bible, why is he still LDS? Because the LDS Church fully accepts the canonicity of the 66 books of the Bible:
Doctrine and Covenants 42:
12 And again, the elders, priests and teachers of this church shall teach the principles of my gospel, which are in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, in the which is the fulness of the gospel.
If he has such a serious issue with the canonicity of the 66 books of the Bible, then why is he still LDS? He is in the wrong religion. He should go and find himself some other church or religion that agrees with his theological views—because the LDS Church doesn’t.
4 comments:
I am a non-denominational Christian. I have seen many of Hayden’s videos. I think the question he has for Jeff is legitimate in a debate point of view. That may be the disconnect that is felt. Hayden is not having a discussion trying to get to the truth, he is trying to win a debate.
So, in this instance I believe he is trying to force Jeff to defend his stance, even if Hayden agrees with the end result of the Bible. He is saying if it is scripture only where in the Bible does it list out the books that are considered scripture today, at least the New Testament. I just think he comes across as cold and rude in these videos. Especially titling them “ignorant” and such.
Religion is ultimately a matter of “faith”, not “evidence”. At some point you have to “believe” something. And the Bible has historically been accepted and “believed” by Christians as the inspired word of God; and the LDS Church is fully supportive of that. The fact that historically, the canonicity of certain books in the Bible has been disputed (which is equally true within the LDS Church) is not an issue here. The question he is asking basically is, How do you know the Bible is the inspired word of God? The answer is, By faith. It is ultimately a matter of faith—which is equally true of the Book of Mormon.
Oh I totally understand that. I think to a certain degree we have evidence that the Bible can be trusted, at least in part. But in the end faith is required. It just seemed to me that Hayden wasn’t allowing the use of his belief to be on Jeff. He was requiring Jeff to come up with his own answer for why those books are included and if the answer was faith or anything else outside of those 66 books, then he is not technically fully sola scriptura. It’s more of a gotcha type of deal.
He is making that requirement of the whole of Protestantism, not just of Jeff—which is a nonsensical requirement, because the LDS Church fully accepts the canonicity of the 66 books (and rejects the 7 apocryphal books). He claims to be LDS, and therefore is presenting his case from an LDS theological point of view—except that he isn’t. He is talking nonsense most of the time.
Post a Comment