I’ve Decided to Read a Robert Boylan Book ***UPDATED CH.1 Review***

[Mag’ladroth]

I was sent Not By Scripture Alone by a colleague. It looks to be printed by a publishing house that does self-published books by small authors.

Off the gate I think that Jerry Mataticks of Catholic Answers has a copyright case against Boylan based on the title alone.

I want to come in at it neutrally but knowing what I know about Boylan, I know it’s going to be painful.

I’m going to post my initial thoughts with quick chapter reviews if anyone’s interested on how a Christian particularly a conservative one would read this.


Chapter 1 Review

The problem right off the bat is that this reads like a series of blog posts. As I was pointed to earlier, that’s because it is.
The informal style doesn’t bother me but for a book that is attempting to be a high level apologetic work, it could do better.

Right out of the gate I have critiques of Boylan’s sources. They’re pop level YouTube personalities in some instances or pop level apologetic authors. Nothing academic that I can see except for when Boylan wants to use a rather liberal author or scholar to undercut his opponent or make the appearance of conflict. Which is ironic as the same authors likely would find Boylan’s counter proposal preposterous as well. Mormons use scholars when it suits them, then toss them away the moment they’re not useful anymore or undercut the exact point of the Mormon apologist. That’s called a double standard. I haven’t dug into the actual sources these quotes come from, but from certain citation’s formats they appear to be possibly quote mined.


Verdict on Source Usage:

Quotes YouTube personalities or pop level authors as if they’re representative of his opponent. That’s like quoting YouTube Mormons and saying they represent the LDS position.
A proper source for interaction and definition on Sola Scriptura would be someone like Calvin, Turretin, Voetius, Wollebius, Beza,Whitaker (if one wants to be serious about it), Goode, etc.

This lends serious questions to his usage of sources in general.


Critique of the Argument

Boylan’s essential argument is a rip off of Roman Catholic Counter Reformer Robert Bellarmine. Right down to the specific arguments themselves. I.e. How do you know the canon? How can Sola scriptura be practiced at the time of the Apostles? How can blah blah blah. All of these arguments would be addressed by cursory reading of the academic literature if one wanted to fairly address their opponent. Particularly by men like William Whitaker in his Disputations on Holy Scripture, Lutheran Johann Gerhard in THE FIRST DECADE OF THEOLOGICAL DISPUTATIONS in which BELLARMINE IS BROUGHT FORWARD AS A WITNESS OF ORTHODOX, Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, etc.

I can go on and on. Needless to say these lame arguments have been addressed since the time of the Reformation itself by Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed authors of the time. With much better precision than Boylan himself shows.


Critique of the Argument:

Boylan’s argument for ecclesiastical authority melts down when one realizes he is a Mormon arguing in favor of continued revelation from alleged apostles and prophets and what is essentially an infinite canon. He’s taking Bellarmine’s argument and turning it on its head.


If the canon is infinite to allow for modern revelation, that means Boylan must argue against or accept every specific instance of pseudepigrapha if the Mormon Prophets have not specifically said they’re not canon. All the while starting off with a 66 book canon stolen from Protestants with reasoning he can’t justify. Gospel of Thomas? Valid. Gospel of Peter? Stick it in there. Protoevangeliun of James? Toss it at the end of D&C.

When systematized with the rest of Mormon doctrine this causes problems. The Gospel of Thomas says that women must become men to inherit the kingdom of Heaven. From Jesus’s own lips too. Guess the Celestial Kingdom is gonna be all dudes? But then how will they populate and create other “worlds and thrones” etc? There’s no official canon list in the Mormon church. Even if there was it’d be subject to revision per Boylan.


Let’s make this a syllogism to avoid belaboring the millions of points of incoherence in Boylan’s argument.

P1: A valid critique of another’s rule of faith must rest on a superior or at minimum coherent rule of faith must
P2: Boylan critiques Sola Scriptura using Roman Catholic categories
P3: LDS canon is open, undefined, and authority rests in changeable and fallible prophets and subjectivity
C: Boylan’s own critique collapses under its own weight. It lacks coherence and rest on assumptions.

A more devastating Syllogism:

P1: A rule of faith must be stable, universal, and coherent to be divine
P2: LDS rule of faith is constantly expanding, revised, or mutable
C: LDS rule of faith is not divine and cannot provide certainty of anything. Not even its alleged gospel.


So far this is where I am. I have more thoughts but I haven’t formalized them yet. I’m open to questions.

[drumdude]

Is it the same as the text available here?

http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.com ... saint.html

[Mag’ladroth]

Is it the same as the text available here?

http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.com ... saint.html

Yeah it looks to be substantially the same.

[Philo Sofee]

I was sent Not By Scripture Alone by a colleague. It looks to be printed by a publishing house that does self-published books by small authors.

Off the gate I think that Jerry Mataticks of Catholic Answers has a copyright case against Boylan based on the title alone.

I want to come in at it neutrally but knowing what I know about Boylan, I know it’s going to be painful.

I’m going to post my initial thoughts with quick chapter reviews if anyone’s interested on how a Christian particularly a conservative one would read this.

I will be curious to see your discussion of this. Thanks for the heads up.

[Tapir Rodeo]

The most obvious issue for me was that he defined Sola Scriptura using a short, incomplete quote from the Westminster Confession. It has been a while since I read the free blog post version but if I recall correctly he spent almost no time at all defining the thing he is criticizing. The entire work struck me as unserious.

[Moksha]

Could it be an ill-conceived mishmash written for the sole purpose of requesting donations?

[Mag’ladroth]

The most obvious issue for me was that he defined Sola Scriptura using a short, incomplete quote from the Westminster Confession. It has been a while since I read the free blog post version but if I recall correctly he spent almost no time at all defining the thing he is criticizing. The entire work struck me as unserious.

I noticed that too. He cited a short incomplete quote and then went on to use YouTube apologists and pop level apologists as his punching bags.

1. Why quote the WCF then?
2. It reads as personal vendetta rather than scholarly argument.

[Tapir Rodeo]

The most obvious issue for me was that he defined Sola Scriptura using a short, incomplete quote from the Westminster Confession. It has been a while since I read the free blog post version but if I recall correctly he spent almost no time at all defining the thing he is criticizing. The entire work struck me as unserious.

I noticed that too. He cited a short incomplete quote and then went on to use YouTube apologists and pop level apologists as his punching bags.

1. Why quote the WCF then?
2. It reads as personal vendetta rather than scholarly argument.

1. It gives his shoddy work an air of legitimacy, and that is all he is interested in.
2. Now that he has an air of legitimacy he can attack everyone he has a vendetta against and still try to pass off his nonsense as scholarship.
3. He can now leave a 5 star review on his own work and have his friends mass report any negative review so it gets removed.

[Mag’ladroth]

I noticed that too. He cited a short incomplete quote and then went on to use YouTube apologists and pop level apologists as his punching bags.

1. Why quote the WCF then?
2. It reads as personal vendetta rather than scholarly argument.

1. It gives his shoddy work an air of legitimacy, and that is all he is interested in.
2. Now that he has an air of legitimacy he can attack everyone he has a vendetta against and still try to pass off his nonsense as scholarship.
3. He can now leave a 5 star review on his own work and have his friends mass report any negative review so it gets removed.

Your first point seems rather accurate. I’m continuing to read further and what I’m encountering seems like throwing spaghetti at the wall in terms of source use.

[Physics Guy]

Boylan says he “holds degrees in theology and anthropology”, and his not saying more than that suggests to me that he somehow has two BAs. He might really benefit from some postgraduate training, to develop a more mature approach to sources.

I think it’s probably not unusual for an undergrad to think that everything that has already been written by anyone with any kind of name recognition is all equally authoritative, and that quoting them, or merely dropping their name, is somehow impressive. Physics education isn’t much like this, but my impression from grad school friends in the humanities was that the biggest single thing they learned was just to face this horrible truth.

Nobody from the past has any more authority than you do. They might just as well be people you met in a bar. Their statements only command attention for their own merit as cogent arguments. There have been a lot of past thinkers, however. Some of them have made really good points. Many of them have had at least something worth saying. And your task is to understand what they said, not just parrot it.

Ulp.