Life is full of decisions. Where do I go on holidays? What job should I choose? What should I have for dinner? Which side of the bed should I get out of? Should I get out of bed at all? Making decisions is a fundamental part of being human; we can’t avoid it, and we do it all the time.
Often when we make decisions, we rely on authorities to help us. So, for example, if you were to make a decision about investing money, you’d consult various authorities: investment advisers, friends and relatives, a company prospectus, and so on. Some of those authorities will be better than others!
Similarly, when it comes to make decisions as Christians, there are various sources of authority that we can turn to. For example, if we want guidance about how to be a good husband/wife/son/daughter/brother/sister, we would look to various authorities. There are at least four ‘authorities’ that we can identify in our Christian walk:
- There’s the Bible, of course: helpful Bible passages like Ephesians 4 will give us good advice about family relationships.
- There’s also the church: a Christian friend or minister can encourage and give you wisdom you may not have otherwise thought about.
- There is also reason: it can be useful to think about it ourselves.
- And there’s experience: we have all learned something from our experience of good and bad family relationships!
However, there come times in our lives, and in the lives of our churches, where these various ‘authorities’ can be at odds with one another—or can even contradict each other. When this happens, we need to make a decision about which authority we listen to first and foremost. This is what we mean by the phrase sola Scriptura. Sola Scriptura means that when different authorities contradict what the Bible says clearly on matters of faith and Christian conduct, we will go with the Bible as our authority rather than those other authorities. So, for example, if a man comes to me with an ‘experience’ of a vision from God that told him that he must divorce his wife in order to marry another woman, then I would reject that ‘authority’ on the basis that the Bible says that this behaviour is wrong.
Sola Scriptura is something that we need to insist on in controversial situations. It’s not an issue when the Bible, tradition, reason and experience all agree. But when there is disagreement, we need to make the hard decisions. So, for example, the current debate about homosexuality and church leadership is an area where various ‘authorities’ are vying for our attention.
To give an example, we could cite Professor Choon-Leong Seow, Henry Snyder Gehman Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature at Princeton Theological Seminary. In the book he edited, Homosexuality and Christian Community (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky, 1996), Professor Seow writes:
I … used to believe that homosexual acts are always wrong. Listening to gay and lesbian students and friends, however, I have had to rethink my position and reread the scriptures. Seeing how gay and lesbian people suffer discrimination, face the rejection of family and friends, risk losing their jobs, and live in fear of being humiliated and bashed, … I am persuaded that it is not a matter of choice. Seeing how some gay and lesbian couples relate to one another in loving partnerships, observing how much joy they find in one another, and seeing that some of them are better parents than most of us will ever be, I have reconsidered my views. I was wrong.
From the testimony of homosexual persons and from various reports, I have learned that there is an extraordinarily high rate of suicide among homosexual persons. … I know of many homosexual persons in the ministry who have been very effective for the cause of Jesus Christ, but they suffer tremendous guilt because they have to keep their secret from the church they love dearly … I cannot believe that we are called to perpetuate such pain and suffering in the world …
Professor Seow has explicitly chosen to exalt the authority of experience. Yet from the Bible—from its overall teaching, as well as from individual passages like 1 Corinthians 6:9-11—we learn that homosexual behaviour is wrong, so it should not be practised. It is, of course, just as wrong as other sins we commit, and it can be (and has been) forgiven because of Jesus’ death. Yet the public morality of Christian leaders is important, and so it would be inappropriate to have unrepentant practising homosexuals in church leadership.
Of course, sola Scriptura will affect the way we approach many other often controversial topics—for example, how we use music in church, the basis of our justification before God, and so on. The authors of this blog are all committed to sola Scriptura—to the principle that Scripture alone is our ultimate authority in all matters of Christian belief and conduct.
Disappointing. Seow is a Hebrew legend. I use his verb tables for revision. What a shame he isn’t listening to the Scriptures he has given so much time to.
Nice reminder on the importance of scripture, and good examples that help to highlight the place of scripture. I especially like the way you remind us that scripture doesn’t preclude all other sources of information, but must be the yardstick by which we measure our actions and responses.
Perhaps it would be helpful to bring out from scripture itself why scripture is so important as the main source of God’s word…?
Lionel, your articulation of this teaching is spot-on. The teaching is that the Bible is the ultimate authority. All others must defer to it.
But if we say that all others are worthless and that the Bible is the only authority, so I won’t listen to my minister, and in fact can’t see the reason for attending church really because I believe in the Bible and the Bible alone, I have unwittingly distorted the teaching to be “my interpretation of the Bible alone.”
And a host of evils follow.
Lionel, you have focussed on sola scriptura in the light of specifically controversial or disputed topics – where scripture and experience disagree.
However, does the doctrine have anything to say about our ‘ordinary’ working theological method? The magisterial reformers certainly thought that tradition, experience and reason were important in their place. The anabaptists were different…
Here’s a link to a classic article by Phillip Jensen and Tony Payne in The Briefing’s archives on this topic… http://thebriefing.com.au/library/1265/
Similar to what Lionel said more briefly, but good to know the resource is there online.
Michael’s question about an “ordinary theological working method” is a very good one. Given that Sola Scriptura seems to have no Scriptural basis, except through the most tortuous of theological gymnastics, where in the ether do people derive their position of Sola Scriptura, let alone their fidelity to some type of a systematic theology from? It seems to me that Sola Scriptura is simply an erroneous Protestant tradition and that people cherry pick the traditions and experiences that they like and then claim that this is what Scripture actually says.
David, I don’t think my question is the same as yours of course! I do think that sola scriptura has implications for non-controversial hermeneutics: my question was not at all rhetorical.
I wonder whether you really understand the position of the magisterial reformers on this. It seems to me that you a trading in caricature.
Michael, every time I suggest something, somebody keeps moving the goalposts – it’s pretty frustrating.
Actually, I do think that if Reformers such as Martin Luther could be said to have embraced Sola Scripture, it is certainly a different Sola Scripture to that embraced by most Calvinists today. Luther regarded the Immaculate Conception of Mary as a sweet and pious belief, notwithstanding the fact that he did not see the doctrine as explicitly set forth in Scripture.
Well that’s because I don’t think you are understanding us. I don’t think Lionel (though he can speak for himself), for example, is describing sola scriptura as scripture as the ONLY source of information as far as theology goes (neither was Calvin). Sola scriptura rather names scripture as the ultimate authority in matters of faith and doctrine. The others may have an ancillary role, but are subject to Scripture’s ultimate authority.
Isn’t the Scriptural basis for sola Scriptura the authority of Jesus? Isn’t it the fact that Jesus has all authority in heaven and earth (Matthew 28:18)?
Once we know that Jesus has universal authority, we still have to answer the question, “how does Jesus exercise his authority?” Surely it is through Scripture.
In Matthew 28 the authority of Jesus leads to the command for the apostles to go and make disciples. Jesus exercises his authority by commissioning his authorised witnesses to go out and preach the gospel and teach people about him.
How do the disciples do that? Well, to start with, many of them traveled around preaching and teaching. But over time they wrote down for us their witness to Jesus. The result is that the way we experience the authority of Jesus today is through His Word. If you want to know Jesus’ authority then you go to the Spirit-inspired writings of the Prophets and the Apostles. That is how Jesus exercises his universal authority.
And that’s clearly how the apostles saw it. John writes that “We [apostles] are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognise the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.” (1 John 4:6) How you respond to the Bible is how you respond to the Lord Jesus.
The consequences of that are expressed neatly in the slogan ‘Scripture alone’, that the Bible critiques every other source of authority. It interprets and supersedes everything else.
<i>I don’t think Lionel (though he can speak for himself), for example, is describing sola scriptura as scripture as the ONLY source of information as far as theology goes (neither was Calvin).</i>
If you’re suggesting that the Bible is not the only source of theological knowledge (i.e. that sweet and pious doctrines can founded outside of Scripture), in what sense then, is this any different to the claims made by the Roman Catholic church? Catholicism does not see tradition and Scripture as opposed to each other, but rather claims that tradition never contradicts Scripture, but can speak where Scripture is silent.
Because it is a question about authority, not source. The Reformers believed, on pretty good evidence mind you, that tradition could err and had erred, and what’s more had contradicted scripture, and needed correction. But that doesn’t mean they thought tradition was worthless. On the contrary. Their writings abound with appeals to authorities other than scripture, but these have a secondary role.
Once again, I think you have confused the position reformed evangelicals classially maintain with a more anabaptist position.
For interested readers, I’ve written a bit more on issues relevant to David’s question at http://www.lionelwindsor.net/bibleresources/bible/whole/sola_scriptura.htm (this was also published in a Briefing article a few years ago). The words of the Catholic proponent are not mine; they is taken verbatim (apart from a few minor edits) from a leaflet published by a respected Roman Catholic order and distributed in a Catholic residential university college. The text of the Protestant proponent is mine.
Michael – I agree entirely, Sola Scriptura has implications for non-controversial hermeneutics – my whole life as a pastor and teacher is based on this fact! But by definition, a “sola” is a controversial statement, so in explicating the idea I chose to run with its the polemical nature.
NB – I’m about to go on a short break, so won’t be able to answer any more comments for a while!
Michael, I’m not quite sure you understand me. I recognise the role that tradition can play (or at least is said to play) in scriptural interpretation for Calvinists. That said, I’m not convinced that contemporary Reformed practice reflects this understanding. Even in Lionel’s hypothetical narrative that he links to in his last post, Gus the Protestant objects to Ash Wednesday because its not in the Bible. That is, he objects to Ash Wednesday not because it contradicts what is written in the Bible, but because the reference can’t be found within the Bible. I’d suggest that the same situation would exist with respect to the Assumption of Mary. Do Protestants really object to this doctrine because they believe it contradicts Scripture (i.e. does Scripture attest to the fact that Mary died?), or rather do they object to the doctrine because it is not found within Scripture?
Using the terms of the music ministry debate, I see two distinct positions:
Regulative Principle: All matters of faith and conduct are found within the Scriptures. No independent revelation relating to faith and conduct exists outside of Scripture.
Normative Principle: Scripture does not err with respect to matters of faith or conduct, but tradition can speak to matters of faith or conduct that do not contradict with Scripture, even though they may not be set forth in Scripture.
Taking into consideration Martin Luther’s stance on the Immaculate Conception, what camp does he fall into? And more importantly, what camp would you suggest contemporary Calvinists fall into?
Contemporary Calvinists? I can only speak for myself, but I don’t think my views are unusual.
Well, anyone who signed the 39 Articles (as all Sydney clergy do) would be signing up to the Normative Principle. For example, the Apocrypha are listed in Article 6 as book to be read for ‘example of life and instruction of manners’, but not for establishing doctrine.
As for your examples: each case needs to be evaluated on its merits. (I couldn’t see where Gus talked about Ash Wednesday in the dialogue, sorry). The question is not ‘is Ash Wednesday in the Bible or not’, the question is, ‘does such a commemoration detract from principles of worship found in the Bible, given that Ash W isn’t there?’
Likewise, does the Assumption of the BVM help us or hinder us given what the Bible DOES tell us? Luther and I might disagree here, but it wouldn’t be a methodological disagreement.
I am a convert from Evangelical Anglicanism to Catholicism. I discovered that the Bible nowhere teaches sola scriptura. Furthermore that Sola Scriptura was unknown to the early Church.
I discovered that the Word of God is nowhere in Scripyture restricted to scripture, and that there was an unwritten tradition.
The next step was you need an infallible Church to tell you what Holy Scripture means, or you are clutching at straws.
For instance some Evangelicals read into Scripture that re-marriage after divirce is adultery and others that it is acceptable.
.
How do I know which is the true interpreation.
Indeed in witnessing to homosexuals this division is hidden ( look at the Reform Covenant and Covenant for the Church of England 2007)as it casts doubt on the perspicuity of Scripture.
That is why in addressing the Apostles our Blessed Lord said,
Simon, Simon,Satan has desired to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you(singular ..addressed exclusively to peter) and after your restoration to faith , confirm yoyur brethren with a faith that will not fail.
Well, I should make way for Dr Mark Thompson to comment on the perspicuity of scripture. He has written an excellent book on the subject. Suffice to say I think you are trading in caricature.
But Robert: where does Scripture teach the infallibility of the church? The verse you quote cannot mean what you say it means!
Also: although you say sola scriptura was unknown in the early church this is not really the case. The supreme authority of the Bible has always been acknowledged, from earliest times. The apostles devoted themselves to the study of the Scriptures, as we read. The NT writings cite the OT writings as supremely and uniquely authoritative. I am sure others will add more to this.
Dear Michael,
I do not doubt the infallibility and authority of the Scriptures, but please quote a Church father or early Church figure who teaches that the Bible alone is our sole authority?
How do you know that the Epistle of Barnabas is NOT Scripture and the Epistle of James is. Wasn’t it the Church that determined this?
Caricature..! How do you know
( in my example of divorce ) which exegesis is the one intended by Our Blessed lord?
Why do Godly men lke Don Carson, not see infant baptism in the Scripture?
Arius appealed to Scripture..but how do you know he was wrong?
How can Archbishop jensen see justification for women preaching and his brother miss this?
Surely sola scripturea is marred by fallible ( albeit sincere) private judgement.
You persist in misreading. The claim is to the Bible’s supreme and determinative authority. By their persistent practice the Fathers more than amply demonstrate this. They appeal consistenly to Scripture as supremely authoritative.
They were on occassion more explicit. Irenaeus said: “We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.”
From there, I am afriad you are simply confusing two issues – the clarity of scripture on the one hand (which you are misrepresenting or misunderstanding) and the authority of scripture on the other.
The question of fallible human judgement must surely be put to those with a Catholic ecclesiology – it is just a matter of plain record that the Roman church has erred! The problem is not solved by hiding under the magisterium of the church I am afraid.
For the record, as far as I am aware – and I think I am – the Jensen brothers actually agree on the issue of women preaching.
*please quote a Church father or early Church figure who teaches that the Bible alone is our sole authority?*
Lionel did not argue it was, and nor did Michael! They said, very clearly, that other things (like tradition and reason) have varying degrees of authority.
However, evangelicals believe that Scripture alone is the *final* authority on matters of faith.
Regarding the need for an infallible church to interpret – well, if you can’t understand what the bible says, why do you have confidence that you can understand what the church is saying?
It takes a great deal of effort to believe in the infallibility of the popes and councils, because they are always contradicting one another. For example, JP II described Buddhism as a great religion, Pius X described it as a false, pagan religion. There are hundreds of examples like that.
As Luther famously said –
“Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.”
<i>For example, JP II described Buddhism as a great religion, Pius X described it as a false, pagan religion. There are hundreds of examples like that.</i>
Craig, you’re trading in caricature (I’m glad to be able to make this allegation now that the shoe is on the other foot). It’s clear that you simply don’t understand Catholicism. Can you demonstrate that both of these statements were made “ex cathedra”?
Michael, I’m not really sure you want to go to the Church Fathers to establish Sola Scriptura. Augustine, for instance, is well known for making the comment “Rome has decided; the case is closed.”
One has to distinguish between Catholics speaking as individuals and the authoratative voice of the Magisterium.Pope’s can make mistakes on a personal level.Anyway i don’t feel it would be helpful at this juncture to discuss the Roman Catholic claims to be continuity of the early Church.
I find that the Scripture tells me that the Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth. ( 1 Tim 3:15)
The Fathers nowhere reject the authority of the Church . St.Augustine of Hippo states he would not accept the Gospels , without the Church.
As I previously asked ..how do you know which New Testament books belong in the Canon?..as Scripture does not list them, and they were disputed in the early Church.An
” extra-biblical;” authority determined it.
Even Martin Luther expressed disquiet at to what was in the Canon.
Jesus did not write or deposit a book(,as in islam) he established a teaching Church.
* Can you demonstrate that both of these statements were made “ex cathedra”? *
Yeah, how exactly does one determine what is an “ex cathedra” statement? Is there a website where I can go look all the “ex cathedra” statements up?
Anyway, given what Robert is claimed, this should be a simple question – what *is* the infallible Catholic position on the religion of Buddhism?
<i>Anyway, given what Robert is claimed, this should be a simple question – what *is* the infallible Catholic position on the religion of Buddhism?</i>
Does there even need to be one? What about the infallible position on the propriety of buying a Mazda 323? Or the infallible position on whether Cab Sav is really better than Merlot?
However, given the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I’d suggest that the Church would regard Buddhism as both “great” and “false”. Great, in the sense that it contains some spiritual truths, and false, in the sense that it does not contain all the fullness of the truth found in the Catholic Church. Rather the same as Calvinism, I should think, although Calvinism could probably claim to have more of the fullness of the Catholic Church than does Buddhism.
Unfortunate that the debate has de-generated into a sectarian squabble. Such a debate rests upon our Western post-enlightenment desire for truth to be linked with a literal-factual conception. Put another way, truth requires empirical and verifiable facts, which in a christian context becomes a desire to treat the bible as a collection of God-given facts – and thus biblical innerrancy in born.
And thus the bible becomes a football that is kicked around to seek an ultimate authority – when in fact the ultimate authority for each of us rests with our own accession based on bundling of inputs – scripture, experience, history, our own reason etc etc.
Mark Thompson’s book, A Clear and Present Word is a modern defence of the clarity of Scripture. It encourages a continuing bold and confident use of the Bible in the light of those who say it’s too hard to understand or that it can be interpreted in all sorts of different and even contradictory ways. For example, Thompson writes…
Mark also speaks of the importance of the God-given teachers of God’s Word, using the example of Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. Yet does this mean we need some church authority to correctly interpret the Bible for us?
Thompson concludes:
Earlier, David suggested you couldn’t get the idea of sola scriptura out of the Bible except by convoluted means. Others have already made some suggestions about this issue, but what follows was one attempt of mine to demonstrate this from Jesus’ words in the Gospels…
Let’s hear Jesus on the Scriptures. What was his attitude?
Christians are people who believe in Jesus; who have come to love Jesus; people who want to be more like Jesus. So I would imagine that anyone who wants to be like Jesus will want to share the same attitude Jesus had on the Scriptures. And Jesus rejects the ‘pick and choose’ approach. For him, the Scriptures were the supreme authority. For him, the Scriptures cannot be broken.
Let me illustrate this by rapid-fire tour of some of the things Jesus says on the Scriptures. (By the way, the term ‘Scripture’ simply means ‘writing’. In the New Testament, the “Scriptures” particularly refer to the collected writings of the Old Testament considered to be the Word of God. Sometimes, these writings were also called “the Law and the Prophets”.)
Let’s start with Jesus before the start of his public ministry, in Matthew 4:4. Satan says to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” And Matthew 4:4 –
He’s quoting Deuteronomy 8:3 from the Old Testament Law section. We do not live by some of the words of God. No picking and choosing there. We are to rely on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Move on to ch. 5, the Sermon on the Mount, where, Matt 5:17-18, Jesus says:
The coming of Jesus – his perfect life, his sacrificial death, his amazing resurrection as Lord – it completes or fulfils what the Old Testament pointed to. Therefore his coming may change the way we apply and observe, for example, the Old Testament laws. But he is very definite about what was written. Every ‘i’ was to remain dotted. Every ‘t’ was to remain crossed. No picking and choosing.
In Matthew 15, Jesus places the Word of God over above the oral traditions of the elders, when some Pharisees and Scribes asked him why his disciples did not ceremonially wash before eating.
V3 records,
Immediately in v4 Jesus quotes the written Torah – part of Old Testament Scriptures about honouring your father and mother.
Most noticeably for those who wish to elevate the place of tradition, he warns in v6 against those who
What about Matthew 22:29? The resurrection-denying Sadducees tried to trap Jesus with a tricky hypothetical. We don’t have time to go into the issue. But how did Jesus answer their challenge? Well, he quotes from the Old Testament to prove his particular point. And before that in Matthew 22:29 –
Error came from ignoring the Scriptures. And it wasn’t simply that the Sadducees were unaware of what the Old Testament said. They knew it, all right. It was that they disregarded the bits that didn’t suit. They just filtered it out.
John’s Gospel also shows that Jesus took the Scriptures as his highest authority. Take John 10:35. Some of Jesus’ opponents wanted to stone him for blasphemy. Why? Because, v. 33, they knew he was claiming to be God. Again, we can’t go into details. But to defend himself, Jesus again quotes what is written in the Old Testament. He then says, John 10:35,
Jesus says that what the Scriptures say, God says. And God does not lie. And so Jesus tells his opponents it’s inexcusable to set aside parts of the Bible that don’t suit their preconceptions or that are inconvenient right now.
Some might ask about the Scriptures that were still future at that stage. For the New Testament had not yet been written by then. Did Jesus ever suggest that there would be anything written beyond the Old Testament? Again (as Gavin said briefly above), the answer is ‘Yes’.
For a start, Jesus certainly spoke of his own words as having the same life-giving character as God’s Word. For example, John 6:63.
In fact, in John 12:49, Jesus says he speaks exactly what God says.
As such his words must have the same authority as God’s Word.
Then in the so-called Great Commission, after his resurrection, in Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus tells his first followers to make sure they pass his words on.
Jesus taught people that the Old Testament Scripture could not be broken or disobeyed. Now he commands that there was to be an ongoing obedience to everything that he himself had taught. His words were to be preserved.
Lastly, I also want you to see what the later parts of the New Testament say of itself. For example, the author and apostle, Paul says this in 1 Timothy 5:18.
Now it was common, as I said, to use the word ‘Scripture’ to refer to the Old Testament. In. v18, the first quote comes from Deuteronomy 25:4. But you won’t find the second quote here anywhere in the Old Testament. Rather it’s a direct quote from the lips of Jesus, which you can find in Luke 10:7. That is, Paul puts the words of Jesus, which we only find written down in Luke on a par with a quote from the Old Testament. He says both fit into the same authoritative category: from the one, singular God-breathed ‘Scripture’.
Likewise, as many would know, Peter refers to Paul’s writings in the same category as the Old Testament Scripture in 2 Peter 3:16
Indeed Paul appears to know he was writing Scripture. E.g., 1 Corinthians 14:37.
I presume this is why, that, under God’s inspiration, Paul directed that his letters be kept and shared with others, for example, Colossians 4:16.
This is how we got our Bible. This is why we got the Scriptures. And it helps explain why we think they are sufficient and authoritative.
‘Michael, I’m not really sure you want to go to the Church Fathers to establish Sola Scriptura.’
Well thankyou for the advice David, but I do indeed want to go to the Fathers. By dint of overwhelming practice on page after page the Fathers show themselves committed to Scripture’s supreme authority, even if you don’t get a fully articulated doc of scripture in the manner of the Reformation.
Regarding Roman Catholicism: it seems to me that Catholics are quite confused about the meaning of their own Church’s claim to infallibility. I was once in a seminar with a room full of priests, each of whom had a different understanding of what it meant.
Sandy, thanks for your trilogy of posts on a Scriptural defence of Sola Scriptura. Seems Scriptural, sensible and unforced to this little black duck.
But no one answers the question why they know the Epistle to James to be Scriptural and the Epistle to Barnabas to be uncanonical?
Furthermore the Wyclif Bible included the deutero-canonical books.
If Scripure in and of its self has a perspicuity…will some one explain baptism for the dead, women being saved through childbirth and wrestling with beasts…
Also there are variants in manuscripts…how do you now which one is correct?
Answer :You need an extra biblical source to determine.
Slightly off focus…the present Pope as Cardinal in the CDF warned of the dangers of Buddhist neditation, and the Universal catechism ( issued under JP 2)completely ignores Buddhism and Hinduism….as they are so far from the norm.
* But no one answers the question why they know the Epistle to James to be Scriptural and the Epistle to Barnabas to be uncanonical? *
On a related note, how do you know which papal statements are fallible, and which are infallible?
Hi Robert.
I’m assuming that as a former evangelical you would know that Protestants say that the Church does not sit above the writings and pronounce which are indeed Scripture, but recognises the supreme authority of those writings which are from God, and so receives them, and submits to them as Scripture.
This process took time, and we believe that God guided his people as they pondered over the various letters and documents.
To Sandy Grant,
Your exegetical contortions to retrospectively defend SS remain unconvincing. Ultimately your argument is a “Bare Assertion Fallacy”, that is, an argument that breaks down due to its self referencing nature. Your conclusion is reliant on the hypothesis, and the hypothesis is reliant on the conclusion.
Put another way “The Bible is the ultimate authority. This I know because the Bible says so”.
David Hume in the late 1500’s demonstrated this with unique clarity that the Church has still not comes to terms with.
Best wishes.
Hi Stephen.
I think Sandy was attempting to show that the teaching that the Bible is the ultimate authority is taught in the Bible itself. He did this convincingly, I trow.
However, concerning saying that the Bible is the ultimate authority because the Bible says so, which I agree initially sounds dumb, if you can produce a higher authority to prove that the Bible is the ultimate authority, there’s a problem there, too!
The Bible is self-authenticating and this is the only way it can be. This doesn’t mean that we can’t also use lesser authorties like textual criticism and archeology to support the claims of the Bible, but it does mean they are always lesser and secondary.
Robert, you issue a series of questions and statements, as if they automatically prove your point. QED. End of story!
This method of arguing possibly has a slightly ‘told you so’ tone to it. Further it ignores the fact that these issues have been well debated in other forums – for example, standard systematic theology textbooks (for example chapter 3 of my edition of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology has a chapter on the canon of Scripture. Grudem outlines his case, but also shows a sympathetic awareness of other views and when disagreeing with them tries to represent the alternative argument in its strongest form, so he is not just knocking over a ‘straw man’. In his case, he also consistently references readers not only to various systematic theologies in the various protestant traditions, but also to two representative Roman Catholic works.)
In other words, I am suggesting you might like to mount an argument (one at a time) which engages with the issues in some detail, rather than rely on a series of rhetorical questions which tends itself towards ‘begging the question’.
With all due respect Sandy, I don’t find your analysis very convincing.
Your first post speaks more to the nature of the authority of Scripture than to Sola Scripture. That Scripture is authoritative is something that Roman Catholics would happy assert. The only reference you make to tradition seems to be a fairly far fetched attempt to construe tradition in the broadest possible of terms from one of Jesus’ discussions. Notably, Jesus talks about “your tradition”, rather than tradition in general. Even more notably, Scripture speaks positively about tradition on many occasions. Of course, evangelicals stray from their previous decision to construe tradition in the broadest possible of terms and narrow tradition in this sense to the Canon. Where they get this from, God only knows. Regardless, it’s another evangelical sleight of hand trick.
Your second post talks about the authority of Jesus’ own words, plus his declaration of the authority of the Old Testament. I would have thought that it is easy enough to conclude that the words of Jesus carry authority because of who he is, namely God. Regardless, you again talk about authority, but fail to touch upon supremacy of Scripture or its sufficiency.
Your third post seems to talk more about the canon than about Sola Scripture. Perhaps I shouldn’t dwell upon your failure to establish the validity of the Protestant canon, but how can you establish that a book like Jude, for instance, should be regarded as canonical. David McKay alluded to the evangelical explanation – apparently the canon just fell out of the sky and we discovered it. Of course, to say the canon was beyond dispute within the church to such an extent that “discovering” the canon is self-evident completely ignores 2000 years of Christian history.
In short Sandy, for you to establish Sola Scriptura, you not only need to demonstrate that Scripture is authoritative (as Catholics agree that it is), but also that Scripture is supremely authoritative.
David C, how can you say
“David McKay alluded to the evangelical explanation – apparently the canon just fell out of the sky and we discovered it.”
in response to:
This process took time, and we believe that God guided his people as they pondered over the various letters and documents.
Assertion
God guided his people as they pondered over the various letters and documents.
Response
Actually it was bishops who pondered over the documents…in a Church which held that the Eucharist was a sacrifice, that the bread and wine become the body and Blood of Christ, that to be born again is to be baptized, and that the saints can be prayed to and the dead helped by our prayers.
Furthermore nowhere is the doctrine of justification by Faith ALONE being preached…the mark of a standing or falling Church ( luther)
As a protestant I used to believe that the Church became corrupt around the time of Constantine. However I found all the afore doctrines long before his advent.
Stephen, you wrote
Ironically enough your comment here contains its own ‘bare assertion’, namely that I made “exegetical contortions”. Yet you nowhere detailed what these exegetical contortions were, let alone providing evidence of why they were contortions. Just a bare assertion!
And actually I was not aiming to provide a complete defence of sola scriptura, but was answering David Castor’s comment (in his first post above) asking where in the Bible we got the idea of sola scriptura from. Hence my presentation of what Jesus said in the Gospels etc. (I will try and get to David’s recent interaction with what I said – but I have a ministry to attend to here in the Gong!)
However, Stephen, you are right that on first glance, an argument about the Bible’s authority from within the Bible seems self-referencing or circular.
Many ordinary Christians are happy to accept the Bible as the Word of God. Christians would say this is because of the work of the Holy Spirit in them attesting to the truth of the Bible, aalongside what we call the self-attesting nature of the Scriptures. In itself, one could argue this is subjective (and in this post-modern era, an subjective appeal is not always seen as a totally bad thing).
However, my argument is more than this. As I read the Gospels on a historical level, I was persuaded that they provide reliable historical information about Jesus, his teaching and his activities. For example, recently I have been reading Richard Bauckham’s book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: the Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony where he makes the case that the four Gospels contain considerable contact with eye-witness testimony to Jesus’ activities, far more than Jesus Seminar sceptics would allow.
There is also reasonable evidence that these writers provides reliable incidental (i.e. background) information, for example, in regards to currency, geography, polity, public figures, terminology of the time and place etc. This incidental reporting reliability enhances my assessment of the reliability of their reporting of Jesus.
(Authors I have found helpful here include Craig Blomberg and Paul Barnett, and more popularly, John Dickson and Lee Strobel.)
In other words, I am persuaded that the Gospels give good evidence about what Jesus taught and claimed, and what he did, in particular in dying on the cross and rising from the dead.
And since I am persuaded by the evidence that he rose from the dead, then I accept that he is who he claimed to be: God’s Messiah, indeed God’s Son come in the flesh. And so I should believe what he believes. And what he believed about the Scriptures is what I outlined in my previous posts.
I found Peter Jensen’s book The Revelation of God very helpful. It begins with the starting point of the gospel – as testimony to Jesus – as the entry point into the doctrine of revelation.
G’day Lionel,
A very well written endorsement and explanation of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.
Most Baptists would agree with it.
Steve
[FRIENDLY MODERATOR COMMENT]
Hi everybody, your friendly moderator Gordon Cheng checking in to say thank you for the comments so far.
We are still just working through early days of the blog, and you will probably see a few changes in the next little while. At the moment, we are asking all blog commenters to use their first and last name while posting (although we’re pretty relaxed about it at this stage—don’t worry Steve!).
We will be experimenting over the next little while with things like comment moderation to defeat the evil spammers, and maybe other ways to help keep our discussion on track. Please let us know your feedback on stuff like this through briefingATmatthiasmedia.com.au, replacing the ‘AT’ with an @.
You have many good points; however, you stated a presupposition of four authorities and based a doctrine upon these presuppositions. Unfortunately, the very final authority you embrace (i.e. scripture) does not support your presupposition. With that said, scripture does teach that there are four authorities established by God: the family; civil authority; the church; and the scriptures. Submitting to these authorities to make decisions (within the realm of their God designed purpose) would be as submitting to God himself. For example, if my children submitting to my desires (i.e. I am the father and husband) for the family, then they are submitting to God. However, if the civil authority declared I could not pray or read the scriptures, I would not submit to this because they have exercised outside of their God given purpose and are therefore operating without God’s authority. Every decision the Christian makes (i.e. Christian practice) should be in submission to God!