Why Sola Scriptura isn't God's plan

[laconicstudent]

You should be taking the time to think about what you're doing, and not just follow the commands of some alleged "spiritual leader".

I do.

Really, why people think not being into sola scriptura means I some kind of naive idiot being gulled by a megalomaniac manipulator on an ego trip is beyond me.

 

[Thekla]

Jesus, while a man on Earth, was a sola scripturist.

nah
Bosom of Abraham, for one, was Jewish "tradition" ...

 

[Thekla]

We have "leisure time" ...
we also are living in a wealthy country, and even here many must work several jobs to make ends meet.

 

[NaLuvena]

What is sola scripture? From reading this thread, it seems there might be a few variations of this.

IF it's the "only the Scriptures is the Authority in all matters concerning God's Church" then I have to disagree. God is the authority. The Bible is merely a reflection of God.

 

[Ortho_Cat]

His problem lies here (highlighting mine):

"PRESUPPOSITION #1 First, if each Christian is to make a thorough study of the Scriptures and decide for himself what they mean..."

The writer then repeats his erroneous statement in each of his points, namely, "each Christian...for himself"...

Though "each Christian...for himself" would indeed require printing presses, mass production of Bibles, etc, "each Christian...for himself" is not an essential point of "Sola Scriptura". Even if there is only one Bible in the town, there can still be the practice of "Sola Scriptura" for the rule of faith and practice provided the literate reader(s) in the town is/are committed to that principle.

Also bear in mind, the perfect execution of the principle of "Sola Scriptura" for the rule of faith and practice is not a requisite for having "Sola Scriptura" as the ideal to which the believer(s) aim.

So, you may safely and fearlessly toss the article as rubbish from the get-go.

I'm not sure I understand fully what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that individual interpretation isn't a fundamental tenant of sola scriptura?

Even if there was 1 "bible" for every town (of course this wouldn't have been possible until there was a consistent NT canon established, c. 398 AD, which says nothing of the unsettled OT canon) what are we to say for those who can't read scripture themselves or are mentally deficient and unable to do so? Does their faith suffer as a result, or do they just defer to the 'traditions' of those who can read and interpret them? What of the young children? And what are we to say if everyone in a town comes to a different conclusion on a meaning of a verse? How is such a thing reconciled if everyone has equal authority to interpret scripture? Do they take a vote? What if this leads to a completely different result from one city to another(which it inevitably will, as personal experience, knowledge, intelligence, language, etc. varies from location to location).

All I see here is a breeding ground for utter confusion and argumentation amongst Christians, not unity in the faith. Even the Jews knew such an system was entirely unfeasible. This is why the Pharisees who sat in the seat of Moses carried along the oral traditions to properly interpret scripture, and this is why Jesus told the people to defer to them for teaching scripture. This is the same concept as the oral teachings of Christ which were handed down by Paul and the rest of the disciples to their successors.

"He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them." (Mt. 13:11)

"So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter." (2 Thess. 2:15)

 

[98cwitr]

I swear I think some of you believe the Christian faith was founded in 1776.

I don't get your joke?

 

[98cwitr]

For the most part they don't. They simply believe that the scriptures are part of "T"radition with "T"radition being of equal authority as scriptures.

That's dumb, if they were holy and inerrant why not include them in the canon?

 

[sunlover1]

We have "leisure time" ...
we also are living in a wealthy country, and even here many must work several jobs to make ends meet.

MUST? Not 'must'.

In poor countries they have time to study the bible too.
Even if you work from sunup to sundown you have time.

That truly was a silly part of the op.
It doesnt even address SS anyhow.
Could use that silliness for learning everything
second hand through a teacher of the law etc...
No time to go to a teacher, no time to eat,
no time to sleep
SILLY LOL

 

[hedrick]

It's a straw man, because that's not what sola scriptura meant for the people who created it.

Sola scriptura did not mean individuals each reading scripture and coming up with their own private religion. The magisterial reformers all operated within churches, and expected Scripture to be used by the Church. Individuals certainly had a role, but in practice that role was to call the Church to reexamine what it was doing, on Scriptural grounds. But ultimately in order to make a change, the individuals had to persuade the Church. In the magisterial Reformation (Lutheran and Reformed, as opposed to the Left Wing -- aka anabaptists) the Reformation normally involved convincing those in charge of the Church for a town or territory. France was an exception, but in France the Reformation was successfully killed off (and I use killed intentionally).

The alternative in the 16th Cent was the belief that tradition couldn't err, and thus that this kind of call for reexamination wasn't permissible. So the real debate is whether tradition is irreformable. The Reformers understood very well the dangers of idiosyncratic Scriptural interpretation. Thus they suggested a balance of community and individual reading.

It's sort of ironic that an apparently unbalanced formulation such as Scripture alone is actually the best way to get a balance between tradition (community interpretation) and individual interpretation, but that seems to be the case.

There is actually a more radical kind of sola scriptura, which does in fact encourage each individual to work on his own, although presumably the individual should still pay some attention to other voices from the Church. But this kind of radical individualism is more often claimed than actually practiced.

Sola scriptura doesn't absolutely demand that every individual read Scripture, just that enough do to notice when the tradition drifts away from Scripture and call it back. However it's certainly more effective if the whole Christian community participates in the discussions. Of course there's no theoretical need for transmission to be in writing, but in practice by the 16th Cent the NT was a more reliable reference for Jesus' actual teachings than anything oral. One could imagine an alternative universe in which printing never existed, but the Church transmitted texts orally with great accuracy. There have been (and I believe still are) cultures on earth that transmit texts orally with great accuracy. But I'm not aware of any oral tradition that transmitted Jesus' teachings verbatim independently of the NT. I assume such as thing did exist in the 1st Cent and possibly into the early 2nd, since the Gospels appear to be based at least partially on oral transmission. If the church had adopted Reformation principles befo re the printing press, it could have been implemented by a mixed approach, with written manuscripts for long-term stability, while ordinary Christians would have memorized at least a subset of Scripture. My recommendation would be at least one Gospel, some Psalms, and maybe one of Paul's letters. That's not an unreasonable amount of memorization for cultures that emphasize memorization.

The printing problem is somewhat of an issue for tradition as well, since the Catholic approach required access to the Fathers and other authoritative teachers. Indeed the volume of authoritative teaching was larger. In one of Mcgrath's books, he talks about an incident in which a group of people argued about what Augustine had actually said. They had to send someone to another town to look it up.

 

[GQ Chris]

Why was the Bible written then, if I can just toss it aside just like any ole book.

 

[GQ Chris]

I'll just let my "feelings" and emotions and visions run rampant like you see in some of the churches of the wackiest denominations. Where people are lying around in fetal positions, blabbing and shouting what they have concocted themselves, and sprinting like an untalented track athlete with bad form around the church like some lunatic.

 

[Ortho_Cat]

Why was the Bible written then, if I can just toss it aside just like any ole book.

who said that>?

 

[Ortho_Cat]

I'll just let my "feelings" and emotions and visions run rampant like you see in some of the churches of the wackiest denominations. Where people are lying around in fetal positions, blabbing and shouting what they have concocted themselves, and sprinting like an untalented track athlete with bad form around the church like some lunatic.

why do that?

 

[GQ Chris]

why do that?

A lot of some of the wackiest denominations reccomend it. I'm being facetious.

 

[GQ Chris]

who said that>?

Lots of so called Christian churches no longer hold a high view of Scripture.

 

[Ortho_Cat]

I fail to see the relevance of your above posts to the OP, perhaps you could explain?

 

[Dark_Lite]

The strongest arguments against Sola Scriptura are:

A) It is completely and utterly at odds with how the canon was formed.
B) There is no historical basis for it.
C) In order to rationalize it as being historical, one must pile on assumption after assumption about the nature of divine revelation and the nature of the Church. All of these assumptions themselves are also unsupported.

 

[Thekla]

MUST? Not 'must'.

In poor countries they have time to study the bible too.
Even if you work from sunup to sundown you have time.

That truly was a silly part of the op.
It doesnt even address SS anyhow.
Could use that silliness for learning everything
second hand through a teacher of the law etc...
No time to go to a teacher, no time to eat,
no time to sleep
SILLY LOL

We can't fully understand the situation of others; most of us here likely have it pretty easy in comparison to most in this world.

I do tend to think that if Sola Scriptura is "valid", it cancels out the opportunity of most humans over the past 2,000 years - not only time, but affordability of the Scriptures, literacy rates, access, etc.

And I don't think of God as an elitist.

 

[Chesterton]

The strongest arguments against Sola Scriptura are:

A) It is completely and utterly at odds with how the canon was formed.
B) There is no historical basis for it.
C) In order to rationalize it as being historical, one must pile on assumption after assumption about the nature of divine revelation and the nature of the Church. All of these assumptions themselves are also unsupported.

I'd add also that scripture doesn't say that about itself. If the canon were intended to be the norma normans, at the very least I'd expect it to say so somewhere. And what it does have to say indicates against sola scriptura.

 

[Rick Otto]

quote=laconicstudent; Sola scriptura doesn't make any sense. Using it, we've developed thousands of tiny, independent sects, all teaching their own little contradictory thing, confusing the faithful, and perpetuating error.

So freedom of religion means the glass is half empty?
On the other hand, "tradition" that cleary deviates from apostolic practice makes less sense if possible.
Sola Scriptura defies the error of OT/Levitical, clergy/laity division, by allowing the entire priesthood of believers to verify NT revelations in OT prophecies, types & shadows.
That is exactly how the Bereans who example Sola Scriptura, verified that what these new apostle-guys were revealing to them was true.
The word of God defines & explains itself. Some people call that "using circular logic", but i think it's more just like a dictionary. If you know the basics of how to speak the language, a dictionary will get you pretty far.