Mr. Guthrie went on to define the nature of the question and answer session as he sees it. While I truly admit during the opening statements and rebuttals, Mr. Guthrie did not go on the attack against Tradition, deflecting from the scope of this debate; I believe he has done so in the question period. He is asking for a definition of Tradition, its nature, its aspects, etc. We are not here to prove the nature of Tradition. What we are here to do is to prove if the Bible teaches the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura. That is why I believed this was a dishonest question, and shows the weakness of Mr. Guthrie’s position. If you cannot defend your own position, one either retreats, or takes the offensive against his opponent.

    Mr. Guthrie keeps on making the charge of forcing Catholics to prove there is a post-apostolic source of New Revelation. This is not something Catholics have taught. While doctrine has developed as I earlier stated (i.e. a first Century Christian would not know which 27 books are the New Testament, and the chances are would not understand the Trinity in its fullest nature as us Christians today do, even though the groundwork was firmly laid for such), Catholics do not teach new Revelation was given publicly after the Death of the Apostle John. So my opponents claim is not even relevant to the Catholic position, being that the Church doesn’t teach what Guthrie alleges we do.

    He then goes on to claim since there are no Apostles left living today; we can’t know what the Oral Word of God is. This is quite a blunder on Mr. Guthrie’s behalf. For that matter, how can he know that Matthew wrote the Gospel of Matthew? The Gospels had no names upon them. So how do we know an Apostle actually wrote them? This comes on the basis of Tradition. So Mr. Guthrie believes these Gospels are Apostolic on the case of Tradition. He cannot admit this, because if he did, he will have sawed off the branch he was standing on.

     I have already shown the straw man argument of Catholicism claiming Oral Tradition is post-Apostolic. I mentioned the Canon of Tradition and the New Testament authorship to prove Oral Tradition exists. If Mr. Guthrie had actually done his homework on the correct terminology, he would understand what we mean when we say “Sacred Tradition”, but alas, that is for another debate.

     We know from verses such as 2 Thess 2:15 and 2 Timothy 2:2 that there was valid Oral Tradition in the apostolic times. Even Mr. Guthrie admits this. I asked Mr. Guthrie in my question when this Oral ceased to have authority, and to prove it from scripture alone. I await his answer. The nature of Tradition need not be proven to refute Sola Scriptura, Mr. Guthrie must show from scripture alone that the written has become the sole rule of faith at John’s death.