How do proponents of Sola Scriptura address the ministry of those Apostles who authored no parts of Scripture?

Question

My purpose is to find a defense of sola scriptura against one part of the argument put forth in this article:

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/going-beyond

The author of the article uses as one of his pieces of evidence in his argument against sola scriptura the ministry of those Apostles that never wrote a gospel or letter that made it into the Bible. If they were apostles and had apostolic authority to teach doctrine, what are we to do with doctrines that they taught that were communicated via tradition and never incorporated into the Bible?

Or, concerning John, what about teachings that he considered important that he intended to share verbally and never were written down in any of his letters?

Here is the relevant quote from the article:

And then there’s that small matter of the unity of doctrine among the apostles. If Paul had been promulgating sola scriptura in 1 Corinthians 4 he would have been in conflict with the practice of the rest of the apostles. Most of the apostles never wrote a single line of Scripture; instead they transmitted the deposit of faith orally. Did their oral teachings carry any less weight of authority than the written teachings of Paul or Peter or John?

None of the other apostles taught sola scriptura. In fact, John said, “I have much to write to you, but I do not wish to write with pen and ink. Instead, I hope to see you soon when we can talk face to face” (3 John 13). Why would the apostle emphasize his preference for oral Tradition over written Tradition (a preference he reiterates in 2 John 12) if, as proponents of sola scriptura assert, Scripture is superior to oral Tradition?

My preference is for a Calvinist argument, but any protestant argument will suffice.

Note: In my research, I have found this article helpful, and it touches on these matters, but the argument could be stronger: https://www.equip.org/article/a-defense-of-sola-scriptura/

Answer 1

The problem is no one knows exactly what John ever said apart from his writings. It's the same with Paul. What Traditions were extant in their time? Do we really believe they taught, for example, the Immaculate Conception? How would we know? It's an argument from silence and it's an argument that led to division not just between Protestant and Catholic, but centuries before between Catholic and Orthodox.

To your question, no one who believes in sola scriptura (the bible is the sole source of authority for all that's necessary for doctrine or practice as regards salvation) believes that the apostles left something salvific out of their writings that were assembled and are called the New Testament. It is a rejection of so-called Tradition that again frankly we have no way of identifying. We have no idea what John said to Gaius (3 John).

Irenaeus, as far as I know, was the first to address the question. How did the apostles work who didn't write anything down? He answers they all spoke the same message, but only some were chosen to write it down.

1. We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. AH, Book III, I, 1

So, for the early church, there's not a sense of something missing from the salvation message from apostolic writing that some group might discover centuries later from who knows where.

To be sure, Irenaeus believes that trustworthy men will proclaim the same message, but that is the extent of oral Tradition. It's not something out there apart from the bible truth, but is a person speaking the bible truth.

Answer 2

Just as the political principle of separation of powers isn't needed and wouldn't make sense in an absolute monarchy or a dictatorship, so too does the doctrine of sola scriptura assume and require that there are actually other sources of divine inspiration alongside the scriptures. Sola scriptura is a doctrine that sets controls on how we understand and use other sources of divine inspiration.

So sola scriptura allows for other sources of divine special revelation, what is often called prophesy. Sola scriptura governs how we understand and use the spiritual gifts of prophecy and interpretation. (Note that many protestants are cessationist and would say the gift of prophecy has ceased; this doesn't change this aspect of sola scriptura as it applies equally to the prophecy of the apostolic age.) Sola scriptura says that when God inspires a prophet they will never say something contrary to the scriptures, and so our interpretations of their prophecies must always be in line with the scriptures. Sola scriptura also helps us have a healthy attitude towards prophecy: we do not trust self-proclaimed prophets blindly, but we test their words. Even when they are compatible with the scriptures we do not trust them as much as we trust the scriptures. If God continues to enable the spiritual gift of prophecy today, he does not do so with the intent that modern prophecies in any way supplant the scriptures. Extra-biblical prophecies will never be necessary, and they will always be secondary towards the scriptures he has inspired and preserved for all generations.

Similarly, sola scriptura governs the roles of tradition, reason, and wisdom in the church. We recognise that God's indwelling spirit enables us to reason well and gives us spiritual wisdom. We recognise the collective wisdom of groups of Christians, both now on a local context, and the collective wisdom of 2000 years of church history. All of these are valuable sources of knowledge that God has given us. But sola scriptura means that they all are always secondary to the scriptures. Just as God will never give us a prophecy that contradicts the scriptures, so he will never give us wisdom that contradicts the scriptures, nor preserve traditions for us that go against what he has recorded for us in the scriptures. But while there are a few traditions that protestants would say directly contradict the scriptures (for example, the sinlessness of Mary), most do not. For the rest, sola scriptura still governs our relationship to tradition, reason, and wisdom. Just as God's divine inspiration has guided the Christian church in the past leading us to certain understandings of the scriptures, so he continues to guide us now. Sola scriptura says there is no guarantee that any doctrine of the church is certain; the only mark of divine certainty is on the scriptures. So our relationship to the scriptures is one of an ongoing project of investigation guided by the spirit's insights. As God guides us we may collectively decide that some things which were believed in the past, although they do not directly contradict the scriptures, are weaker exegetically and have unfortunate theological implications compared to alternative interpretations. And just as we have a measure of skepticism towards earlier generations' traditions and interpretations, so future generations will judge that some of our interpretations and theological theories are unjustifiable as God continues to guide them. So for example, the perpetual virginity of Mary, despite going back to the early church, and despite being affirmed even by important protestant theologians including Luther, Cranmer, and John Wesley, is now rejected by the majority of protestants for both exegetical reasons and theological arguments and implications.

The controls of sola scriptura apply just as much to the original Twelve Apostles as they do in our age. God has always inspired more than just the scriptures. What sola scriptura teaches however is that the scriptures are the only inspired revelation that God intends for all Christians in all time to rely upon. The apostolic authority of the Twelve was to speak with inspiration as the church was initiated. Some of what they taught was preserved by God for us in the scriptures, but not all. We conclude that the things they said that were not preserved for us were not preserved because God does not will for us to have them, and that if we could somehow time travel back to hear the Apostles ourselves, what they said would still not be of equal authority to the scriptures, but to that of any other inspired prophecy. It is after all God who gives his authority to his inspired messages, and he is free to vary the authority he gives.

Finally, what John said in 2 John 12 and 3 John 13 does not imply any superiority of spoken inspiration over written inspiration, but reflects the many advantages that in-person ministry has over ministry by written correspondence.