Is Sola Scriptura Too Much?

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

It's not that Protestants hold the Scripture too high (though I think they are more likely to worship the Bible than Orthodox or Catholic Christians), it's that those who hold to Sola Scriptura have too high a view of themselves to interpret scripture and that be the determining factor.

Since we know two people can disagree with what any particular text of the Bible says it would seem to me to then rely exclusively on the Bible alone will not resolve it. This is where the presence of the Church comes in or other authorities who can potentially resolve the conflict.

As a means for solving problem of authority Sola Scriptura doesn't solve anything. It exacerbates the problem by making the individual who is convinced he has found something in the bible believe it, even if (for the sake of argument) he is wrong.

This isn't to suggest an individual reading the Bible can be right and all other authorities wrong. They can be, but Sola Scriptura makes it impossible for the individual who is wrong to be corrected if they are absolutely convinced of their own reading of the bible.

 

[PaulCyp1]

If the Bible alone is the word of God and only infallible rule of faith and morals, what did the Christian Church do for the first three and a half centuries, before it compiled the Bible? Also, if the Bible alone is the word of God and only infallible rule of faith and morals, why is it that those who accept this modern tradition of men have fragmented into thousands of conflicting denominations teaching thousands of contradictory beliefs, in just a few hundred years? Truth cannot contradict truth, so obviously a great number of false beliefs are being taught in such churches. In contrast, the one Church Jesus Christ founded, which He said was to remain one, to which He promised the fullness of God's truth until the end of time, remains one in belief, one in teaching, one in worship, one in biblical understanding after 2,000 years, with no conflicting denominations.

 

[royal priest]

As long as one's view of the Scripture is the correct one (God's all-sufficient revelation of Himself and the Gospel by which man can have a right relationship with God) then it seems that it is only possible to have too low a view of it. By the very nature of what it claims itself to be, it demands that we should render unto it supreme authority and study for all matters of faith and religious practice. Moreover, if Jesus asserted His own authority on the basis of the Scriptures, then we should not be faulted for asserting His authority by that same rule.

 

[dzheremi]

I'm surprised it took two pages for this response to come up. I'd like to see you respond to the substance of the OP rather than just the title. But this sounds to me like you're saying that the teachings of the Bible are not enough to give us what we need in order to be saved and to live a holy life. We need more teachings than what's in the Bible. Is this what you're saying?

Not at all. The Bible is in no way insufficient. The historical reality of the establishment of the Christian faith and Church, however, is that it is pre-Biblical, so to treat the Bible as though it is something outside, over, and above the faith which produced it is completely out of sync with reality, and deeply ahistorical. Yes, of course everything we do and believe must be in accordance with the scriptures (and why wouldn't it be? We wrote and canonized them to begin with), but the Holy Bible is but one of many ancient records of the early Christian Church, so looking only to it is missing out on a whole lot that is just as important to know. (Read: there's a lot that isn't written down explicitly in the Bible but that we nonetheless have always known and believed in as testified to in these other sources, including some really basic things like Trinitarian theology.)

 

[HTacianas]

I recall that the Lutherans were invited to Trent, but they were not allowed to vote. Life's much simpler when you say that your group is the infallible one and only your group is allowed to participate in these sorts of things.

When a group leaves the Church and decides that it will devise its own means or ideas on salvation apart from the established teachings of Christianity it has separated itself from the Church and gone on its own.

What the Western Church decided on the reformation at Trent is the Western Church's decision. But the doctrines of the reformers were condemned by the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672.

Hopefully there will one day be another Ecumenical Council and perhaps the reformed churches will be invited as observers but they will likely never be allowed a vote.

 

[Philip_B]

infallible authority.

I struggle with the term 'infallible authority' because I don't know.

I spent a number of my formative years amidst people who consistently declared that the Bible was the 'infallible word of God', and that the writers of the Scripture had held the quill whilst God himself moved the hand. Ultimately I moved on from such a view for a number of reasons.

The followers of Islam hold that the Holy Koran is the actual words of God recorded by Mohamud in Arabic, and ultimately can only be understood in Arabic, not in translation, and there can be no school of Kopranical Criticism, such as to match our schools of Biblical Criticism, as these are the words that Allah spoke to the prophet.

The attractiveness of the absolute is undoubtedly compelling in a world where so much seems relative, and where it seems that change is the only constant. Sydney Carter addressed this in his Poem 'The Good Boy'

Show me the book of rules the good boy said I’ll be obedient.
The rules of God are in this Holy Book the parson said.
But how can I be sure that you are right?
You can’t be sure. I have created you in my own image.
Do you think that I Crave for security?
Go out upon a limb, the way I do:
Create a world, be crucified, and be obedient Only to what you are.
Get thee behind me Satan, the good boy said I only want
To see the book of rules the good by said to be obedient.​

I don't doubt that Carter is provocative, and I certainly don't claim that Carter is infallible, and nor did he. Our collective vision of God has many hues, and we have four gospel writers who tell us of Jesus in slightly different lights, the Jewishness of Matthew, the Directness of Mark, the Humanity of Luke, and the profound theological reflection of John, all help us gain a deeper and a richer understanding of 'who is Jesus?'

For me, Scripture has to be our primary authority, however I do not need to burden in with words like inerrant or infallible, which in some ways can be an effort to get God under control, and remind me of the lawyers question 'who is my neighbor?' which he asked so he could put some limits on love, and Jesus responded with the Good Samaritan narrative which I think we often fail to see how problematic that tale was to the conservative jewish community.

I struggle with the term 'infallible authority' because I don't know. But I do know that God is prisoner of neither book, nor tabernacle, nor institution.

 

[bekkilyn]

The idea of some Church authority having infallibility over scripture interpretation is the same issue of sola scripture giving "the bible" infallibility, but just on the other end of the scale. Church authority tends to also be political and not very inclusive and diverse in accurately resembling all aspects of the human population it is claiming authority over, so it will be interpreting scripture through an extremely distorted lens.

Again, God alone is infallible.

Then the question will be, "Well how do you know what or who is correct?" Well that's all part of working out one's salvation. It's a process that happens throughout our lives as we learn to hear God's voice, his Word speaking through scripture, prayer, sermons, etc.

 

[Tree of Life]

It's not that Protestants hold the Scripture too high (though I think they are more likely to worship the Bible than Orthodox or Catholic Christians), it's that those who hold to Sola Scriptura have too high a view of themselves to interpret scripture and that be the determining factor.

Since we know two people can disagree with what any particular text of the Bible says it would seem to me to then rely exclusively on the Bible alone will not resolve it. This is where the presence of the Church comes in or other authorities who can potentially resolve the conflict.

I agree that the church has a very important role to play here. God gives teachers and leaders in the church in order to guard the people in sound doctrine. And I furthermore agree that we should be very careful not to flippantly disagree with traditional consensus.

But I don't believe that this gives any warrant to the idea of infallible church authority. The idea of authoritative tradition on par with Scripture was formally embrace by Rome in the Council of Trent when Reformers were challenging certain church teachings on biblical grounds. Rome's response was to declare that her rulings were infallible, since she could not establish her doctrines on these matters from Scripture alone.

How do you go from A to B? (A) We need the church to help us interpret Scripture. (B) The church is infallible. That's a mighty leap!

As a means for solving problem of authority Sola Scriptura doesn't solve anything. It exacerbates the problem by making the individual who is convinced he has found something in the bible believe it, even if (for the sake of argument) he is wrong.

How does adding a second infallible authority solve the problem you've mentioned here? If a person has become convinced of his own novel interpretations, I would argue with him from Scripture to try to show him that he is wrong. But if he still won't be dissuaded, how does it solve the problem to say: "Well the church also disagrees with you."

I think that appealing to church authority and tradition is certainly useful, because it would be strange if an individual interpreter suddenly came upon a novel (but true) interpretation after all these years that goes against what Christians have been reading for so long.

But if a person is going to stick to their novel interpretation anyway, I don't see how adding a second infallible authority is going to help.

This isn't to suggest an individual reading the Bible can be right and all other authorities wrong. They can be, but Sola Scriptura makes it impossible for the individual who is wrong to be corrected if they are absolutely convinced of their own reading of the bible.

I suppose that the liberty of conscience has a role to play here. Suppose a person is convinced that their own interpretation is correct. Should we burn them at the stake? I think we certainly can excommunicate them, but we cannot compel them against their own conscience to accept our conclusions. They might find a group of like minded people and organize a church with them. But if their views are so unorthodox that no church will recognize them as legitimate, then we call them a cult and they cannot be recognized by any denomination. I.E Jehovahs Witness and Mormonism.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

If the bible alone is the word of God ... what about the part where Jesus is said to be the word that was there in the beginning .. before we had a pulp and paper mill and all ...

 

[Chesterton]

I think that this is a very misleading equivocation. The church did not write the Bible or even authorize the Bible. God wrote the Bible by speaking directly to or inspiring prophets who then brought God's words to God's people. The church rightly recognizes God's word for what it is, but God's word does not depend on any institution to give it validity. It has validity as the word of God.

The Church wrote the bible. Matthew, Mark, Paul, et al., are the Church. St. Peter founded my church almost 2,000 years ago. I joined my church in part because it is the one that wrote the bible. I'm sorry if that sounds arrogant, but historical facts are historical facts.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

Since the bible cannot interpret itself, the issue with Sola Scriptura is the same problem that there was with the Old Covenant.

 

[Tree of Life]

If the Bible alone is the word of God and only infallible rule of faith and morals, what did the Christian Church do for the first three and a half centuries, before it compiled the Bible?

It had a Bible. The Old Testament and the letters and memoirs of the apostles. Sure, certain churches may not have had completed New Testaments yet, but they certainly had a Bible.

Also, if the Bible alone is the word of God and only infallible rule of faith and morals, why is it that those who accept this modern tradition of men have fragmented into thousands of conflicting denominations teaching thousands of contradictory beliefs, in just a few hundred years? Truth cannot contradict truth, so obviously a great number of false beliefs are being taught in such churches.

Because we live in a fallen world. Is Rome's answer to say that the church is perfectly united because Rome is the only true church? Seems convenient!

In contrast, the one Church Jesus Christ founded, which He said was to remain one, to which He promised the fullness of God's truth until the end of time, remains one in belief, one in teaching, one in worship, one in biblical understanding after 2,000 years, with no conflicting denominations.

Ah, got it. Rome is the only church! That strikes me as sticking one's head in the sand.

 

[Tree of Life]

(Read: there's a lot that isn't written down explicitly in the Bible but that we nonetheless have always known and believed in as testified to in these other sources, including some really basic things like Trinitarian theology.)

I just want to focus on this last bit here. Are you saying that the Bible does not clearly teach Trinitarian theology? How did we arrive at this belief? I thought that the early church Fathers and early councils appealed to Scripture in order to establish it.

 

[Tree of Life]

When a group leaves the Church and decides that it will devise its own means or ideas on salvation apart from the established teachings of Christianity it has separated itself from the Church and gone on its own.

Sir, you have described Rome.

What the Western Church decided on the reformation at Trent is the Western Church's decision. But the doctrines of the reformers were condemned by the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672.

Hows come we weren't invited to this Synod?

Hopefully there will one day be another Ecumenical Council and perhaps the reformed churches will be invited as observers but they will likely never be allowed a vote.

How convenient.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

I agree that the church has a very important role to play here. God gives teachers and leaders in the church in order to guard the people in sound doctrine. And I furthermore agree that we should be very careful not to flippantly disagree with traditional consensus.

But I don't believe that this gives any warrant to the idea of infallible church authority. The idea of authoritative tradition on par with Scripture was formally embrace by Rome in the Council of Trent when Reformers were challenging certain church teachings on biblical grounds. Rome's response was to declare that her rulings were infallible, since she could not establish her doctrines on these matters from Scripture alone.

How do you go from A to B? (A) We need the church to help us interpret Scripture. (B) The church is infallible. That's a mighty leap!

I actually didn't say the Church was infallible. It can be wrong at times. The problem is that Sola scriptura must, in the mind of the individual who believes it, must make the individual reading the scripture always correct.

My only contention is that there are times when the Church is right. When the Church fathers are correct , when the individual is false. If that be true and we know that it is true, how does the Sola Scriptura Protestant deal with that reality? The bible alone then seems less sufficient than it supposedly is.

How does adding a second infallible authority solve the problem you've mentioned here? If a person has become convinced of his own novel interpretations, I would argue with him from Scripture to try to show him that he is wrong. But if he still won't be dissuaded, how does it solve the problem to say: "Well the church also disagrees with you."

I think that appealing to church authority and tradition is certainly useful, because it would be strange if an individual interpreter suddenly came upon a novel (but true) interpretation after all these years that goes against what Christians have been reading for so long.

But if a person is going to stick to their novel interpretation anyway, I don't see how adding a second infallible authority is going to help.

It could help if the person knows that the Holy Spirit is in more than just them. That they weren't the first Christians to read the bible and that there are more books over the course centuries than anyone will ever be able to read on the nature of these subjects.

It allows for the possibility that, I in my private interpretation of the bible, may be wrong. Sola Scriptura, doesn't seem to allow that possibility since the individual interpretation is the nexus by which the whole idea of the Bible alone works.

 

[Shimokita]

First let me begin with my definition (which is the classic Protestant definition). Sola Scriptura teaches that the Bible alone is the word of God

What about the words spoken by our Lord Jesus, which are not recorded in the Bible? Are these the word of God?

I think what you want to say is that "Sola Scriptura teaches that the Bible alone contains an explicit recitation of the word of God" because nobody doubts that our Lord said and did things that are not recorded in Scripture.

 

[Tree of Life]

I actually didn't say the Church was infallible. It can be wrong at times. The problem is that Sola scriptura must, in the mind of the individual who believes it, must make the individual reading the scripture always correct.

My only contention is that there are times when the Church is right. When the Church fathers are correct , when the individual is false. If that be true and we know that it is true, how does the Sola Scriptura Protestant deal with that reality? The bible alone then seems less sufficient than it supposedly is.

The idea that the church fathers or anyone else have gotten Scripture right does not at all imply that the Bible is insufficient. How do we know that they got it right? The only way that we can infallibly know is by appealing to Scripture itself. They aren't right because they are old and they aren't right because they are ordained ministers. If they are right, it's because they agree with Scripture!

It could help if the person knows that the Holy Spirit is in more than just them. That they weren't the first Christians to read the bible and that there are more books over the course centuries than anyone will ever be able to read on the nature of these subjects.

I totally agree.

It allows for the possibility that, I in my private interpretation of the bible, may be wrong. Sola Scriptura, doesn't seem to allow that possibility since the individual interpretation is the nexus by which the whole idea of the Bible alone works.

I totally agree with this very real possibility. I don't think that Sola Scriptura allows for it. Sola Scriptura simply says that the Bible is the only infallible authority. It does not say that every individual's interpretation is equally valid. We should be very careful to interpret Scripture in the light of the saints who have gone before us. But we should not accept a tradition or interpretation simply because it is old or simply because it comes from an ordained holy person. We should accept it only if it can be demonstrated to agree with God's word.

 

[Tree of Life]

What about the words spoken by our Lord Jesus, which are not recorded in the Bible? Are these the word of God?

Yes they are. But how do we infallibly know what words Jesus spoke? Only the holy Scripture can give us an infallible knowledge of this. Anything else is speculative.

I think what you want to say is that "Sola Scriptura teaches that the Bible alone contains an explicit recitation of the word of God" because nobody doubts that our Lord said and did things that are not recorded in Scripture.

Yes he did. But we know this because the Bible says this!

 

[zippy2006]

To all who reject the doctrine of Sola Scriptura,

First let me begin with my definition (which is the classic Protestant definition). Sola Scriptura teaches that the Bible alone is the word of God and only infallible rule of faith and morals. Sola Scriptura does not say that the Bible is the only authority, but that it is the only infallible authority. Church teachings are very useful and important, but they are not equal to Scripture. At the end of the day, even they must be evaluated according to Scripture.

That said...

Do you believe that those who hold to Sola Scriptura have too high a view of Scripture? I mean, we believe that the Scriptures are sufficient for salvation and morals, that they are clear, that they have not been corrupted, and that they are inerrant.

Is this too high a view of the Bible?

It seems to me that those who want to say that Church Tradition is on par with Scripture and is equally infallible have too low a view of the Bible. They insist that the Bible is not clear and not sufficient to tell us what we need to know to be saved and live holy lives. They insist that we need more teachings than what the Bible provides for these things.

While it is true that the thousands of Protestant denominations make it abundantly clear that the Bible isn't sufficient unto itself (Acts 8:30-31), approaching the question from the perspective of high and low views of scripture is a very strange approach.

The problem with Sola Sciptura is that it is completely historically unfounded. The very epistles of the modern canon were at the time of their writing "Church teaching," explaining the faith to the faithful in a way that was not simply based on the canonical scriptures of that time. Jesus, Paul, the Apostles, and their successors had/have a divine mandate to teach and preach the faith. Inspiration doesn't start with a text, it starts with a person, and persons who are inspired to teach the faith are not limited to written text. Indeed in the ancient world memory and word of mouth functioned much more strongly than textual traditions. For example, Jesus didn't write anything at all and yet there came to be written traditions based on the oral tradition that recorded Jesus' teachings (Luke 1:2).

Your high/low approach to scripture comes from a Protestant minimalist bias that lacks grounding in history and reality. Beyond that, the claim that Scripture is on par with Church teaching or tradition is simply a false characterization of the Catholic view. Inspiration and infallibility are two very different things.

 

[dzheremi]

I just want to focus on this last bit here. Are you saying that the Bible does not clearly teach Trinitarian theology?

No. What I wrote is that it is not explicitly written down there. The only possible exception to this is the Johannine comma, which is likely a later addition (since it does not predate the Latin Vulgate), and at any rate does not appear in Ethiopic, Slavic, Armenian, Georgian, or Arabic translations of the Bible (except those based on the Latin Vulgate or post 15th-century or later Greek manuscripts, since the comma didn't enter the Greek manuscripts until the 15th century), yet all of those people (the Ethiopians/Eritreans, Slavs, Armenians, Georgians, and various Arabs) are all strongly Trinitarian Christians.

How did we arrive at this belief?

We didn't arrive at it. God has revealed Himself to us.

I thought that the early church Fathers and early councils appealed to Scripture in order to establish it.

Again, the Holy Trinity is God, not a theological conceit arrived at by really smart people and their ability to appeal to scripture. The Marcionites, Arians, Ebionites (various anti-Trinitarians) and so on could also appeal to scripture. Heck, it was in reaction to Marcion the heretic's own creation of a canon that the Church first set about establishing its own canon.

So, sure, the early Church Fathers certainly did appeal to scripture quite often (in this and in everything; it has been said that if the entire Bible were lost somehow, we would be able to reconstruct it from the quotations of it in the fathers alone), but that's not what established/establishes anything, in and of itself.