Sola scriptura?

questionman said:

Agreed, which is why I said quotes and allusions weren't the basis for defining the Canon. Doctrine was. Doctrine was agreed upon via church tradition and resulted in the Canon.

An appeal to the Canon as Scripture is first an appeal to church tradition.

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Tradition may have determined the canon, although more than mere custom went into that process. But tradition(s) are not the reason we believe what the books of the Bible teach.

questionman said:

Let me turn the discussion in a slightly different and more personal way for me. I don't have strong convictions on this but would like to hear your thoughts.

If I don't believe in sola scriptura, I guess that means I believe there are other authorities for the Christian life, church tradition being one of them. Maybe others as well including reason, Christian experience, etc.

If I don't believe in sola scriptura, or more precisely if I believe that church tradition is in some way authoritative, do you think I have an obligation to stop being a Protestant? Should I join the Catholic or Orthodox church instead? Or does church tradition (as an authority) flow through to Protestant churches on the basis of shared doctrinal convictions?

Or how should I think about that?

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Hello and welcome to CF.

I remember being struck by writings of Martin Luther on sola scriptura. I've looked for that particular piece since then (it's actually quoted by me in an old post here SOMEwhere). I remember being struck that his idea of SS (at least at that time) were not essentially different from what the Orthodox Church holds.

Luther was arguing for the authority of Scripture as historically interpreted by the Church.

Orthodoxy essentially will say that Scripture is a part of Holy Tradition (which by that we mean what we received from the Apostolic deposit of faith - meaning that it must be used as traditionally understood). Further that within all of Holy Tradition, Scripture is of the highest authority. It's difficult to find a major functional difference between early Luther and Orthodoxy (unless it is the lack of information within those that reject the remainder of Holy Tradition, of things that didn't get handed down otherwise).

Anyway. If you haven't listened to it, you might like Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick's teaching on SS (I'd highly recommend the one on sola fide also) - with the caveat that he tends to be polemical and doesn't mince words or have an irenic approach to the degree that he can be off-putting. But for raw information and a good framework for understanding, he's very helpful.

These are in his book - Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy - or in podcasts.

Here's the one on sola scriptura - The Magisterial Reformation - Part 1a - Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy | Ancient Faith Ministries

And the rest of the solas here - The Magisterial Reformation - Part 1b - Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy | Ancient Faith Ministries

I hope this can help.

questionman said:

Let me turn the discussion in a slightly different and more personal way for me. I don't have strong convictions on this but would like to hear your thoughts.

If I don't believe in sola scriptura, I guess that means I believe there are other authorities for the Christian life, church tradition being one of them. Maybe others as well including reason, Christian experience, etc.

If I don't believe in sola scriptura, or more precisely if I believe that church tradition is in some way authoritative, do you think I have an obligation to stop being a Protestant? Should I join the Catholic or Orthodox church instead? Or does church tradition (as an authority) flow through to Protestant churches on the basis of shared doctrinal convictions?

Or how should I think about that?

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To be frank, every assertion that you've made here sounds like it was lifted, intact, from some Catholic publication for inquirers. I've read them all dozens of times here on CF, such that I wondered if you might be playing some sort of under cover game on us.

That point aside, if you don't believe in the things you have said you do not, there aren't but a few Protestant churches you could belong to without defying their own confessional statements. Anglicanism, which isn't considered to be Protestant by many people both inside and outside the church, and maybe a couple of others, but that's about it.

We are exhorted in the Bible to be taking "all the counsel of God" and to be "rightly dividing the Word of Truth"; and NOT adding thereto, which does not suggest adding ideas and innovations or interpreting Holy Scripture by some mixing of Scriptures. The "unity of the faith" is the mind of God ---would you say?

LearningChristian said:

I started out sola scriptura in the early journey of my faith, but now I'm a little bit in the middle. On the one hand, I like the idea of a specific set of books that are definitively scriptural and divinely authoritative. At the same time, if I'm being honest with myself, I do question why do different groups choose different books to consider scriptural. So I find myself open to reading all the books that are out there. As long as the central truth of Christ is supported in these books, why not? But in general, I mostly stick with what I'm familiar with, which is the Protestant canon.

But a verse I often looked to for some affirmation of a book being divinely authoritative was what Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3:15-16 which states, "and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction."

This verse appears to show Peter affirming Paul's writings to be scriptural. Ironically though, I've read people have questioned the validity of 2 Peter. But, just throwing it out there for discussion.

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The word translated as "scriptures", simply means "writings". We have come to interpret the word to exclusively mean the writings in the biblical canon, but the word often refers to any writings. Context would suggest it refers to the Old Testament, which I believe is how the Church has traditionally understood it, but there were other writings in circulation in the early Church which cannot be ruled out.

questionman said:

I'm still reading and processing all the comments here but felt the need to address this one right away. I haven't read any such Catholic publications, nor am I trying to play any sort of under cover game on anyone. I'm not sure what the point of that would be anyway.

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We have a lot of people of one faith taking pokes at the people who belong to a different one, so we have all read the same charges many times over...and phrased the same way.

Anyway, I said that merely as a passing observation, but the more important part of my post (IMHO) came afterwards. I wonder what your reaction to it might be.

I see. Well, church traditions and Holy Tradition, so called, are often confused, but it is critical to keep the two straight.

I often read people saying, for example, that X denomination has believed or stood for a certain POV since the Reformation (or some other time), ergo that is their tradition. That kind of claim, even if sincerely made, misses the point entirely.

So I would suggest that you be sure that you do not make this same mistake as you try to sort things out. It may help a lot when it comes to understanding other of the disputes that separate the various denominations., and absolutely so when it is a matter of Catholic Theology vs Protestant Theology.

questionman said:

Thank you for the info, I will check it out!

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You're welcome if it can help.

questionman said:

It seems to hold to sola scriptura, one has to presuppose Holy Tradition, at least in the past, in order to have a scriptura to sola about.

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Hmmm. It sounds as though you are slipping back into thinking of "Holy Tradition" as traditions.
Perhaps that is because the institutional church is the entity that is at the center of it.

In other words, those traditions are called "holy" because they are church business--and doctrinal--and not like secular traditions that people embrace.

At some point in Christian history, there was an authority outside of the scriptures beyond the apostles themselves, or we would have no Canon. It gets fuzzy for me to say that at some point Holy Tradition stops being authoritative. How can we claim that? When did that authority cease and on what basis?

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No, here's the point. "Holy Tradition" is a theory by which God gives us a second stream of revelation (after the Scriptures) that, being that this information is alleged to be from God, it is equal to the Bible. This doctrine-setting mechanism is not about authorizing the Bible as you seem to be saying, but it is an open-ended means by which new doctrines are added to the body of Christian belief, save only that these doctrines are not supposed to conflict with the teachings of the Bible. That they add doctrines to what the Bible gives us is, however, par for this course.

Roughly speaking, that's how Holy Tradition works.

Here is why believers in Sola Scriptura reject that notion--

The Bible itself describes Scripture as being from God. There is no parallel commentary about any "Holy Tradition." The principle called Holy Tradition is simply a conjecture on the part of church leaders.

Also, it never has worked in the way that it is said to work, anyway. By that we mean that tradition or traditions are supposed to be, well, traditional! Not innovations.

But the doctrines (like Papal Infallibility, the Assumption of Mary, etc.) do not go back to the Apostles and are clearly not a continuously held belief of the whole church through time. Yet with these examples I've cited, they have been declared to be must-believe dogmas binding on all Roman Catholics.

Finally, there's this fact that should give us some insight into why, when we survey the denominations/communions that affirm Holy Tradition, the RC, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Old Catholics, etc., we find that no two of them believe the same doctrines derived, allegedly, from Tradition. Even the users of Holy Tradition cannot agree on what is a tradition and what is merely a legend or plain folklore that does not meet the definition of Holy (or Sacred) Tradition or what was believed by some people but not by others.

~Anastasia~ said:

Hello and welcome to CF.

I remember being struck by writings of Martin Luther on sola scriptura. I've looked for that particular piece since then (it's actually quoted by me in an old post here SOMEwhere). I remember being struck that his idea of SS (at least at that time) were not essentially different from what the Orthodox Church holds.

Luther was arguing for the authority of Scripture as historically interpreted by the Church.

Orthodoxy essentially will say that Scripture is a part of Holy Tradition (which by that we mean what we received from the Apostolic deposit of faith - meaning that it must be used as traditionally understood). Further that within all of Holy Tradition, Scripture is of the highest authority. It's difficult to find a major functional difference between early Luther and Orthodoxy (unless it is the lack of information within those that reject the remainder of Holy Tradition, of things that didn't get handed down otherwise).

Anyway. If you haven't listened to it, you might like Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick's teaching on SS (I'd highly recommend the one on sola fide also) - with the caveat that he tends to be polemical and doesn't mince words or have an irenic approach to the degree that he can be off-putting. But for raw information and a good framework for understanding, he's very helpful.

These are in his book - Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy - or in podcasts.

Here's the one on sola scriptura - The Magisterial Reformation - Part 1a - Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy | Ancient Faith Ministries

And the rest of the solas here - The Magisterial Reformation - Part 1b - Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy | Ancient Faith Ministries

I hope this can help.

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Hi Anastasia,
You are correct regarding our Lutheran Tradition. Sometimes I think the term "Sola Scriptura" is an unfortunate term in that so much or so little can be read into it's meaning. Fundamentalists see the term used and automatically assume "we are all on the same page" when such could not be further from the truth. While we certainly look to Scripture as our ultimate authority, we do not shun tradition the way that most of reformed Protestantism does; rather each supports the other. Certainly, if a tradition contradicts Scripture, then it becomes clear that such a tradition is wrong, and needs to be rejected. The most glaring one of these was central to the Great Schism, the reforms introduced by John Waldo, Jan Hus, and the Lutheran Reformation: Papal Authority. The idea that the Pope has authority over not only Tradition, but Councils, Scripture, and all Christians, pitifully fails the test of Scripture, where clearly Christ holds reign over not only the Church, but the whole of creation.

Regarding the Canon of Scripture; for us Lutherans and I believe the Orthodox, it remains open. The concept of a closed canon is a creation of the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent; and is one "tradition" that most, if not all reformed protestants have adopted From the Catholic Church. Another example of the abuse of "tradition" within Protestantism would be those who hold the KJV as the only translation that has Scriptural Authority (unless the KJV Bible was actually handed to Moses on the mount and Jerome translated to Vulgate from it; Tyndale, his translation; and Luther, his translation). Such abuses seem so obviously wrong to most of us.

On the other hand, looking to the thought and opinions of the ECFs and reading Comentaries of good theologians can help us understand God's will. Likewise retaining the traditional worship forms is not a "Papist" tradition; rather it is a "Scriptural" tradition that goes back to the Exodous and the construction of the Tabernacle. The use of Liturgy, prayers, Psalms, vestments, fire (lamps, candles), incense, again, these things are not forbidden by Scripture, but Scripture proscribes them. The fact that such things are kept by the "Traditional" Churches is not tradition; how we have used them in the past, and how we use them today, is "tradition".

questionman said:

This is fascinating to read as I've never heard this before. What do you mean that it remains open, and what are the implications of that? Is it possible that additional books could be added to the canon?

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Yes, possibly. There are a couple of places where scripture that is no longer available to us is quoted. Who knows when if they might turn up?

In English,it is most common for us to use "protestant" translation because they are available. Prior to English in our Lutheran Churches, various traditions used various translations that all had the protestant "66" books, but also contained other books or writings called the "Apocrypha". Lutheran Church Canada and Lutheran Church Missouri Synods most recent publication of the Apocryhpa contains 17 books and additions that are over and above the 66; all of which had been included in one or more editions that were used by Lutherans in one place or another. Certainly, none of these carry the same doctrinal or theological weight as the 66; however even within the 66, there is a hierarchy of importance assigned to those most commonly accepted books of Scripture. So the Bible, and what constitutes it are "Tradition" as well.

BTW, certain liturgical texts for the seasonal propers, for the various services and offices, and lots of hymns draw from the Apocrypha. Some are likely even sung by protestants with no idea, because the are used to support Biblical truths.

Thanks for the post, Mark.

MarkRohfrietsch said:

Hi Anastasia,
You are correct regarding our Lutheran Tradition.

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That's good to know. I wasn't sure what current Lutheran teaching is, but I was really struck by what Luther wrote. At the time when I read it, my background was basically Evangelical, and it was a bit of a shock to realize that sola scriptura (properly) did not mean at all what I had thought it meant.

Sometimes I think the term "Sola Scriptura" is an unfortunate term in that so much or so little can be read into it's meaning. Fundamentalists see the term used and automatically assume "we are all on the same page" when such could not be further from the truth.

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I can see where that could happen.

While we certainly look to Scripture as our ultimate authority, we do not shun tradition the way that most of reformed Protestantism does; rather each supports the other.

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Our view is similar. Holy Tradition is authoritative, but the surest and most authoritative part of Holy Tradition IS Scripture. (Also nuanced with varying levels of authority as you mention - Jesus' words carry more authority than St. Paul, and St. Paul more authority than the book of Ruth, for example.)

There is no "Scripture vs Tradition" for us though ... that's like saying "apples vs fruit" so we can't even discuss in those terms. But since Scripture is the highest authority for us, functionally it seems we are much in agreement.

Certainly, if a tradition contradicts Scripture, then it becomes clear that such a tradition is wrong, and needs to be rejected. The most glaring one of these was central to the Great Schism, the reforms introduced by John Waldo, Jan Hus, and the Lutheran Reformation: Papal Authority. The idea that the Pope has authority over not only Tradition, but Councils, Scripture, and all Christians, pitifully fails the test of Scripture, where clearly Christ holds reign over not only the Church, but the whole of creation.

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<insert ironic chuckle> We agree that ultimate papal authority fails ... but not because Scripture tells us otherwise. For us it is the historic activity of the Church (i.e. a part of Holy Tradition that is not Scripture) that proves there is no such thing for us.

Regarding the Canon of Scripture; for us Lutherans and I believe the Orthodox, it remains open. The concept of a closed canon is a creation of the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent; and is one "tradition" that most, if not all reformed protestants have adopted From the Catholic Church.

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I think Orthodoxy would agree that the canon is not "closed" ... but I also don't think we expect any new books to be added. It's just that Scripture for us is what the Church has recognized as Scripture (mostly from the very early days) and as you said, there is just no concept of a closed canon. I am reminded though that Revelation was not accepted until relatively late, so in a sense Christians in the first millennia of the Church DID add to Scripture.

It is also ironic to me that in explicitly rejecting Catholicism, some Protestants actually unwittingly embrace some things introduced BY Catholicism. It's just not something widely studied

Another example of the abuse of "tradition" within Protestantism would be those who hold the KJV as the only translation that has Scriptural Authority (unless the KJV Bible was actually handed to Moses on the mount and Jerome translated to Vulgate from it; Tyndale, his translation; and Luther, his translation). Such abuses seem so obviously wrong to most of us.

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Oh yes. I was once cursed, kicked out of a FB group, and blocked because I dared to think any version of the Bible apart from the KJV could be legitimate ... including those in the original languages lol.

On the other hand, looking to the thought a

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Well for us, the theologians are only as good as their alignment with the early Church, but I would basically agree - very much so.

Likewise retaining the traditional worship forms is not a "Papist" tradition; rather it is a "Scriptural" tradition that goes back to the Exodous and the construction of the Tabernacle. The use of Liturgy, prayers, Psalms, vestments, fire (lamps, candles), incense, again, these things are not forbidden by Scripture, but Scripture proscribes them. The fact that such things are kept by the "Traditional" Churches is not tradition; how we have used them in the past, and how we use them today, is "tradition".

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Exactly. I DO wish more people realized this. I think we could build bridges between us and respect each other much better if people realized this.