- Nov 26, 2019
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I think the so-called "Five Solas" of the Reformation have it right, that salvation is:
sola scriptura (by Scripture alone), solus Christus (in Christ alone), sola fide (through faith alone), sola gratia (by grace alone), and soli Deo gloria (to the glory of God alone).
The problem is of course twofold: the five Solas are innovative, lacking any Patristic backing, whether Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox or of the Church of the East (sometimes erroneously called the Nestorians; while it is true they venerate Nestorius and were controlled by Nestorian bishops for a time, during the Catholicosate of Mar Babai the Great they embraced a Christology that was Chalcedonian-compatibile), and of those, the Oriental Orthodox and the Church of the East ceased to be in regular relations with the Roman church in the fifth century, due to Nestorius and the machinations of crypto-Nestorians such as Ibas against Pope Dioscorus of Alexandria, so one cannot declare them to be under Roman influence in rejecting these Solas (an argument I would not expect to see from a pious, learned and gentlemanly Baptist cleric such as yourself, but which I have encountered from Adventists).
Secondly, they have semantic problems in terms of reconciliation with certain portions of Scripture, such as the Epistle of St. James, and admittedly, solutions do exist for this, for example, the Calvinist idea that those who do not do good works are reprobates who lack a living faith.
However it seems to me that a Patristic model, which need not be non-monergistic* would be preferrable, and one could avoid all of the problems caused by the use of the word “Sola” by the use of the word “Prima.”
But there is also a difference between the Lutheran concept of Sola Scriptura, which permits the use of sacred tradition, for example, and the Solo Scriptura or Nuda Scriptura approach we see embraced by some Protestants (and ostensibly by some Adventists, although I would argue their absolutist interpretation of Sola Scriptura is compromised by their belief that the prophecies of Ellen G. White are divinely inspired and represent the only obvious interpretation of the New Testament).
*for there was monergism in parts of the early church even after it was rejected by the Fifth Ecumenical Council among Chalcedonian churches in the fifth century (for example, the Church of the East for several centuries believed in Apokatastasis; this view, as expressed by St. Isaac the Syrian and Mar Solomon of Basra in the Book of the Bee, which echoes the views of Origen and St. Gregory of Nyssa, which it has since moved beyond, was a more definitive theological distinctive for the Church of the East during that era than Nestorianism, and also perhaps explains why the Church of the East was suddenly able to get along so well with the Syriac Orthodox Church, which had been diametrically opposed to it from a Christological perspective, and one might indeed argue - still is.
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