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Sola ScripturaSola Scriptura I take

Sola Scriptura

Sola Scriptura I take it is the view that the Bible (The 66 books of the Old and New Testaments) is the only infallible and authoritative source for matters of faith and practice.

Here are just four of the difficulties I see facing Sola Scriptura.

1. Nowhere within written Scripture does it contain a list of those books which are to be included in the Canon, nor which are to be excluded. In other words, at the very outset, it seems the Sola Scriptura Christian has to adopt an extra-biblical principle as dogma: namely, "only the 66 books are the Bible."

Where is the justification for adopting such a principle? Reason? Scholarly ability? Implicit in Scripture?

2. Scripture must be interpreted. The problem for the Sola Scriptura Christian seems to be finding the "true/proper/best" interpretation, for it seems to me that each denomination, non-denomination, sect, and para-church organization under the Sola Scriptura umbrella claims to have THE best, and truest interpretation of Scripture. Each group claims to have the best historical, hermeneutical, contextual "evidence" for their position.

The result seems to be that the Christian himself must come to certain "convictions" from his reading of Scripture. Granted these convictions may or may not be based on sound reasoning from Scripture, exhaustive historical study, comprehensive original language exegesis, consistent hermeneutics, and so on, but ultimately it comes down to, let's call him Joe, Joe's interpretation of Scripture being the arbiter for all of his decisions.

Put again, Joe has convictions X, Y, and Z from Scripture alone. Joe will then, of course, find the church denomination that agrees with HIS interpretation (Church W who holds to X, Y, and Z), convinced all the way that he, Joe, is in the TRUE/BEST church (because it matches up at least for the most part with his convictions). Further, Joe will deftly denounce all those persons, churches, patriarchs, documents, etc. that do not conform to his interpretation.

The problem is that Joe's interpretation is fallible. Joe's interpretation is subject to error, folly, bias, ignorance, and much more. Joe must rely on his reasoning abilities to secure him the truth, but his reasoning abilities are by nature imperfect. So how does Joe really know that he is in the true church, and that his convictions are true biblical convictions? Faith? The number of conservative scholars he can list who agree with him? The Holy Spirit? Burning in the Bosom? He just knows it?

3. I'm convinced that not until the Reformation did any significant portion of Christendom hold to a view akin to Sola Scriptura. In fact, it was only a heretical school, Arianism, that wanted to restrict the debate with Athanasius to scripture alone. Evidently, the Arians had amassed, what in their minds was, a heap of Scriptural "evidence" for their interpretation of Christ's personhood, and as a result the Arians wanted to be refuted on scriptural terms alone.

4. Tied to number one. The very councils that gave Christendom the Official Canon, the very councils that defined for Christendom the nature of Christ's divinity (the Homousios), the very councils that decreed as heresy sects that rallied against Christendom, those councils that taught so many truths, well... those very councils ALSO taught other things that the Sola Scriptura Christian will deny. In other words, the Sola Scriptura Christian claims the councils were correct in some things, e.g., the Canon, but wrong in other things, e.g., Mary is the Theotokos. How do the Sola Scriptura Protestants justify what I call "picking and choosing"? This canon is correct, this one's wrong, this one's right, this one's not... All based on their individual convictions from Scripture (tied to number 2).

There are more arguments to be made against Sola Scriptura and better minds to articulate them, but on five hours of sleep it is the best I can offer right now, and it does represent my general difficulties with the Sola Scriptura position as it stands in modern day Protestantism, even if roughly written.

Posted by jeremy stock at January 30, 2002 09:44 PM