Evangelicals and the Reformed … and some other groups of Christians consider Sola Scriptura to be an important foundational proposition for their theology and faith. Sola Scriptura is a enticing notion, “by scripture alone” we might have everything necessary for salvation. That makes it easy. One little (or perhaps not so little) book contains the full instructions one might need. That is a tempting thing to believe. For it implies the task at hand to be self-contained. Just establish a consistent hermeneutic, apply to that little book and voila all will be well. However, this ignores a number of things (below the fold).
- For starters, there’s the little thing known as “the world”. God’s revelation is not just Scripture but the world as well. That universe praising God through our understanding of it in Augustine’s eloquent turn of phrase (or my mistaken recall of his text in the Confessions) is a big factor in God’s revelation to us. He didn’t just give us his Word, but he gave us His Creation.
- Additionally, it’s very limiting. Yes it might be “all that is necessary” for Salvation. But that’s a lot like saying bread, water, lentils and rice and a good multi-vitamin is “all that’s necessary” to eat. But yikes, that might be true … but why stick with just that!? There’s solid good food for the faithful in those traditions.
- No practicing Christians really limit themselves to Scripture alone. In a recent comment, Simon noted in a discussion about Orthodox praxis and doctrine about the Theotokos (Mary) that “We believe that after the birth of Christ, Mary had a normal relationship with her husband. Anything else might have rendered their marriage null. The apostle Paul teaches husband and wife not to with hold their bodies one from another – would the mother of our lord have had a disfunctional marriage? Also Matthew 13:55 and Acts 1:14 teach us that jesus had brothers – I realise that many interpret this in the wider sense, ie cousins, but i don’t think the Greek text supports this interpretation.“ But this is in itself non Scriptural. His reasoning is outside of Scripture, that Mary and Joseph must have had conjugal relations for otherwise their marriage would have been “null. Well, just as likely from Scripture, noting that St. Paul drives home that chastity is highest calling for a Christian. Or from tradition that Joseph might have been much older than Mary because of her calling to chastity from youth (and that his brothers might have been from earlier marriage of the widower Joseph … it’s not as if childbirth was safe back then). Might one also conclude that she was chaste after giving birth (for why else would not have Jesus asked a disciple to care for her after his crucifixion)? The point is either of these beliefs are outside of Scripture … neither hold to sola scriptura. Both are traditions, just that one is older and the other … doesn’t admit to being tradition … but indeed is.
- Vladimir Lossky in his introduction to The Meaning of Icons writes on Tradition and Scripture, which was placed in opposition by Reformation and counter-Reformation but this opposition is itself an error. This leads to false problems like deciding the “primacy” of Scripture or Tradition, how their “unity” is to be found, and so on. If we narrow (for our purposes here) and call “Tradition” those things passed on from Jesus and the Apostles orally and Scripture that which was written down, one is lead to the difference between dogma and preaching. Here Lossky has a careful (and to be honest) and somewhat hard to penetrate analysis of Scripture and Tradition expressing a point of view in which they are not opposed. But, to reject tradition, one hold to the notion that those oral traditions and praxis passed down from the Apostles and Jesus didn’t exist and can be ignored. Someday, I’ll set down and unpack exactly what Lossky has to say, but the imporant thing to consider is that Tradition and Scripture are not oppposed, they flow from the same Spirit.
Frederica Matthews-Green on Orthodox Tradition writes:
The very title of this talk—the term “Orthodox Tradition”—is one that would confirm the worst fears of my Protestant friends. I have spent a lot of time in Protestant circles, and one thing they’re touchiest about is what they call “dead tradition.” They will quote the line from St. Paul, “See that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men.” (Col 2:8).
From that perspective, most of what we do looks like “empty tradition.” The Divine Liturgy we had this morning would be horrifying to them. All that pomp and circumstance, and surely it’s meaningless, right? We’re just going through the motions, hoping to buy God’s favor by repeating the correct formulas.
Our friends would also presume that this kind of worship has nothing to do with the early church. Before I became Orthodox, I imagined that the first century Christians sat around on the floor, probably in blue jeans, playing guitar and talking about how Jesus had touched their hearts that week.
It was a shock to me to learn that from the very first, Christians had striven to make worship as beautiful as they could. It begins in the book of Exodus, when the wandering Hebrew people, nomads and refugees, sacrifice all they have to create a tent of meeting worthy of the God of Glory. It continues through the building of altars and temples, through the offering of costly sacrifices, throughout Old and New Testaments. I believe there is not an incident of formal worship in the Bible that does not include incense.
You’re both on and off target. There certainly is a popular understanding of sola scriptura that corresponds to what you describe. But what you describe does not correspond to anything that most Reformational/Protestant/Reformed/Evangelical theology would recognize. Sola Scriptura is not a claim that there is only scripture, but that scripture as the word of God is the ultimate authority and norm, above all other norms and authorities (including tradition). Neither a Luther nor a Calvin would have agreed to Sola Scriptura the way you have represented it.
David,
Well, that’s useful to know, thanks.
But I think in Lossky’s description of the Reformation/Counter-Reformation and his appreciation of which is the “higher” authority, he takes that as a false dichotomy. I’ll try to unpack his argument/explanation shortly (I’m traveling so it will likely be Thursday night).
Looking forward to the unpacking of Lossky.
Of the four bullets above, the point on Lossky definitely represents one of the more substantial differences between Catholic/Orthodox and Reformational theology. I’m thinking particularly of the point about oral tradition.
It seems to me that Sola Scriptura suffers from severe logical defect.
1. Tradition, in the form of the oral transmission of the materials that became the gospels, the books of the Old Testament, etc. preceded Scripture. Indeed Tradition gave us Scripture. Why assume that in our time tradition has lost all value or importance? Why for instance assume that the Spirit does less for us that was done for the 1st century Christians. To assume that the Spirit acts now only as an aid to Scriptural interpretation (as so many now assume) seems to arbitrarily limit the activity of the Spirit.
2. One might also ask about the process whereby the books of our Bible were declared canonical. The Bible did not drop whole from heaven. Rather it did not assume final form until the late 4th century after many years of debate about what books to include in it. I don’t mean to cast doubt upon it; I do accept it as authoritative. Rather I mean to say that its editors – those men of the church who brought its books together and declared it finished – can’t have been guided, at least not completely, by the Bible. No book of the Bible says what books are to be included in the Bible. Thus the editors must have had extra-Biblical guidance, and as before that guidance came in the form of God’s Spirit. So at that time Sola Scriptura was surely false. Why assume that it became true? Why, as before, assume that the Spirit at the end of the 4th century suddenly curtailed its activity so that it came only to aid in the interpretation of the Bible? That seems arbitrary and indefensible. Indeed the assumption that the Spirit did so curtail its activity is extra-Scriptural, and thus seems an assumption that the defenders of Sola Scriptura cannot defend.
3. Last let us ask about the justification of Sola Scriptura. The defender of Sola Scriptura would of course look to the Bible itself for that justification, for she holds that no religious doctrine can be defended except by reference to Scripture. So then the defender of Sola Scriptura will very likely assume the inerrancy of Scripture too, for she needs that inerrancy to justify her Sola Scriptura. (Indeed history shows that defenders of Sola Scriptura almost always also defend Biblical Inerrancy.) Thus to justify Sola Scriptura, we must first justify Biblical Inerrancy. But here’s where we get into trouble. For how would Biblical Inerrancy be defended? Sola Scriptural requires that we look only to the Bible to defend Biblical Inerrancy. But that means that we must assume Biblical Inerrancy in the defense of Biblical Inerrancy. Such obviously circular arguments establish nothing.