"The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men." (Westminster Confession of Faith 1.6)
This statement itself is neither expressly set down in Scripture nor deducible by good and necessary consequence from the entirety of Scripture, let alone from the three passages given in the "Scripture proofs". (2 Tim 3:15-17; Gal 1:8-9; 2 Thess 2:2) For that reason, it does not pass its own test, and is therefore self-reduced at most to a mere superfluous "tradition of men". (The same is true of WCF 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, the last clause of 1.5, 1.7, 1.9 and 1.10.)
In the particular "tradition of men" exhibited throughout the first chapter of the WCF, the foundations of the tradition are simply presupposed and then 'supported' with proof-texts that do not establish or entail the claims being made. Hence the self-referential contradiction manifested here. The contradiction looks like this:
(1) The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for us to know concerning salvation, faith and life is at least deducible from Scripture by good and necessary consequence.
(2) The claims put into the confession are part of the counsel of God concerning all things necessary for us to know concerning salvation, faith and life.
(3) Many of the claims put into the confession are in actuality not deducible from Scripture by good and necessary consequence.
So either all these undeducible claims in the first chapter of the WCF are not part of the whole counsel of God and are not necessary for us to know concerning salvation, faith and life, OR the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for us to know concerning salvation, faith and life is not at least deducible from Scripture. In the latter case, sola scriptura (and WCF 1.6) is false. In the former case, there is no reason to care what much of the first chapter of the WCF says, including WCF 1.6. Either way, WCF 1.6 is in trouble.
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Documents such as this appear to me to be attempts by Protestants to hold onto their faith in spite of the overwhelming problems that accompany their position. Scripture alone just sits there unless it is read and interpreted, so apart from making for great rhetoric, they knew that 'scripture alone' had essentially no dispute resolving abilities whatsoever. And as for appealing to the 'proper' interpretation of scripture, that was the very thing in dispute. It would be like two parties coming to court because they disputed the meaning of a law then being told to resolve their dispute by looking to what the law "expressly sets down" or what can be "deduced from it as a good and necessary consequence". If such a thing were capable of resolving the matter, there would have never been a dispute in the first place!
For some people it's just impossible to accept that Roman Catholicism is correct. Assuming that they are unwilling to become agnostic or atheist (or convert to a non-Christian religion), all the rational argument in the world won't move them. It's Protestantism or nothing, and they're sticking to that.
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