In any case, the verse doesn’t say that scripture fully equips you, it says that scripture is useful for X, Y and Z, so that the man of God might be fully equipped.

The Psalms are profitable and useful, and provided as part of the goal that the man of God might be fully equipped. It doesn’t mean the Psalms contain all knowledge.

Since we have been given the Revelation of John, I must conclude that it is indeed necessary. Similarly, it must be the case that the good works for which Scripture is sufficient—the training and teaching and correcting—would indeed expand in both quality and quantity as revelation is added to revelation.

Regards,
Bnonn

Or does “every good work” keep expanding with further revelation?

I have addressed this topic in the article itself. Please refer to my comments regarding sensus plenior.

Furthermore, it is important to understand that sola Scriptura applies in other time periods before the close of the canon; such that Scripture has always been sufficient for the time in which it was given. It is also false to suppose that sola Scriptura denies the inspiration of the verbal teaching of apostles and prophets prior to inscripturation. What it does deny is that teachings were not inscripturated which are necessary for “every good work”.

Regards,
Bnonn

For example, nobody could dispute that Revelation contains teachings that are nowhere else found in the bible. So if Paul is saying to Timothy that the scriptures that he has NOW contain all authoritative knowledge, then clearly Paul would be wrong. So Paul can’t be saying that.

In fact, isn’t it interesting that the passage starts out with: “continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it “. That sounds like an oral teaching to me. That sounds to me like Paul is saying to hold to the oral teachings of the apostles, and to the scriptures. And the result is being fully equipped in a general sense, but certainly not in the sense of denying that there could be further revelation, such as we know came from the apostle John in Revelation. This further revelation hardly left Timothy unequipped in the sense Paul means. Neither does it deny that Revelation is indeed revelation.

I have found that it depends on who you are talking to as to how exactly they will describe the relationship between Scripture and Tradition. As you can see, in this case Scripture is said to be a subset of Tradition; meaning that all Tradition is authoritative, and Scripture is part of all Tradition.

However, regardless of how Catholics would like to describe the relationship, their view of Tradition does indeed place Scripture subordinate to it. It is a matter of simple epistemological necessity: Tradition is given logical priority over Scripture by merit of being made authoritative in interpreting it. Scripture becomes unable to speak for itself. Catholics would claim that this is not problematic, because Tradition and Scripture are perfectly in accord. But it is often manifest that this is not the case, such as in the example of 2 Timothy 3:16-17, where the plain meaning of the passage contradicts the Catholic position. Similarly those passages describing God’s definite election and reprobation; regarding salvation by faith; and so on.

As I discuss in my book (see the top of the sidebar), this subordination of Scripture by Tradition ultimately refutes itself, because it is only in Scripture that an epistemological foundation for Tradition exists. Therefore, in order to claim the primacy of Tradition, one must first claim the primacy of Scripture. But the one logically contradicts the other. Once Scripture has primacy, Tradition must be made properly subordinate; and so using Scripture as an epistemological foundation makes it impossible to claim that Tradition is equally authoritative.

Furthermore, there is the obvious problem of just what exactly Tradition encapsulates. Which specific writings constitute Tradition? Even a cursory perusal of the early church fathers will demonstrate vastly differing opinions on a variety of topics. The fact that one or two of them generally can be cited in support for any given Catholic doctrine to demonstrate its historicity does not indicate that tradition supports the doctrine, since numerous other contemporary theologians may have disagreed. (And, indeed, when it comes to things like the Marian dogmas, you will search in vain to find anything in the early church fathers which remotely resembles the doctrines which the Catholic Church now defines as infallible and necessary to be believed for salvation.) In any case, the Church certainly acknowledges that theologians have erred in the past, and it denies that any theologian is infallible. It also appears unable to establish a comprehensive and guaranteed list of even those statements made by Rome itself which are to be considered infallible. How, then, does it claim authoritative teachings from the collected writings of theologians, which it admits are individually fallible and often in error; and the collected pronouncements of Rome, which it is frequently unable to confirm are infallible or not?

Again, the problem is one of epistemology. If we are to claim a tradition as apostolic, there is genuinely only one way to know it is apostolic—is it recorded by the apostles? In other words, is it found in Scripture? It is simply insufficient to claim that an unbroken tradition exists when this cannot be demonstrated, and when clearly numerous traditions are later inventions, while others contradict Scripture. It is not even a matter of faith, because one does not have faith in the manifestly irrational and false.

I hope this helps; I am writing part 2 of this series now, dealing with oral tradition in 2 Timothy.

Regards,
Bnonn