Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Formal debate on Sola Scriptura

DavidW (at Pious Fabrications), whom I met through David Bryan's blog, and I have agreed to have a formal debate on the topic of Sola Scriptura. The resolution and schedule of entries for the debate is as follows:

Resolved: "The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience." [This taken verbatim from the 1689 "London Baptist Confession of Faith" and aptly summarises the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.]

Obviously, I am affirming the resolution and DavidW, a practitioner of Eastern Orthodoxy, will deny.
Here is the schedule:

1a) Rhology's opening and position statement. 2000 words limit DUE: Saturday, 22Aug
1b) David's opening and position statement. 2000 words limit DUE: Saturday, 5Sept.

2a) Rhology's 1st rebuttal. 1600 words limit. DUE: Saturday, 19Sept
2b) David's 1st rebuttal. 1600 words limit. DUE: Saturday, 03Oct

3a) Rhology's 2nd rebuttal. 1200 words limit. DUE: Saturday, 17Oct
3b) David's 2nd rebuttal. 1200 words limit. DUE: Saturday, 31Oct

[We've decided to skip the usual third rebuttal in order to trim down the length of the debate a bit. We thus shortened the debate by a month.]

CROSS-EXAMINATION
4a) Rhology poses David a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 07Nov
4b) David answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 14Nov

5a) David poses Rhology a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 21Nov
5b) Rhology answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 05Dec

6a) Rhology poses David a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 12Dec
6b) David answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 19Dec

7a) David poses Rhology a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 02Jan
7b) Rhology answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 09Jan

8a) Rhology poses David a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 16Jan
8b) David answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 23Jan

9a) David poses Rhology a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 30Jan
9b) Rhology answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 06Feb

10) Final statements: 1500 words, posted simultaneously at agreed-upon time. DUE: Saturday, 20Feb

I will be posting my entries on my own blog and he on his. We have agreed to link to the other's entry whenever one appears. Comments on my posts, if not too long, I will read but not post. I will keep a separate post, to which I will link later, for the peanut gallery and comments, which will have an unmoderated combox.

I would like to thank David for introducing the idea of debating, for kind of provoking me to get my rear in gear, and for his participation and very cordial communication as we agree on terms. Originally I proposed a resolution that he would affirm and I'd deny, but he's probably right that it's easier that I affirm Sola Scriptura. Anyway, my opening statement will be up by Saturday. It's almost done now, actually.
May all enjoy and profit from this engagement.

2 comments:

Alex said...

Thanks for doing this.

Rhology said...

DavidW deserves more thanks than I. But I hope you will profit from it.

BTW, for an appetizer (haha), check out TurretinFan's debate on the same topic.