Is Sola Scriptura a Help or Heresy?
Guest Blogger Evan Curry——I have increasingly
become aware (throughout my own worship and interpretation of
Scripture) of the difficulty of sola scriptura, that is,
Scripture alone is authoritative for the Church. As a Protestant I
know that it is one of the foundations of Martin Luther’s
theology. In my church-life, every time I’ve come to question
sola scriptura, I am quickly reminded that it is what makes
Protestantism “great,” and so we can now remove ourselves
from dead rituals and traditions that have for so long “plagued
the Church” prior to Martin Luther.
However, I’m not
so sure what sola scriptura has evolved into is what Luther
ever intended.
I think Protestants
have forgotten that the Church had no “scriptura” in
canonical-form until the early 300s CE. How did they handle issues of
the faith for 300 years? You guessed it – tradition. How did
they determine how to live as the Church through those times?
Modeling the faith through…tradition. For the early church,
tradition was part of their story. It’s explained who they
were. Tradition is what brought life to the writings they had
received from the apostles.
Here’s where I
have to turn this topic over to a statement made by Stanley Hauerwas
–
When
sola scriptura is used to underwrite the distinction between
text and interpretation, then it seems clear to me that sola
scriptura is a heresy rather than a help in the Church. When this
distinction persists, sola scriptura becomes the seedbed of
fundamentalism, as well as biblical criticism. It assumes that the
text of the Scripture makes sense separate from a Church that gives
it sense. Perhaps those among us who maintain such a position forget
that for much of the Church’s life most Christians could not
read, but that did not in itself make them less faithful…That
Christians have learned of Christ and Christ’s relationship to
Israel through biblical scenes portrayed on church windows and stone
carvings and statues of the saints, alive and dead, should be
sufficient for us to realize that the text of the Scripture is not
mean to be “preserved intact” separate from the Church
[p. 27-28; Hauerwas, S. (1993) Unleashing the scripture: freeing
the Bible from captivity to America. Abington Press: Nashville].
Scripture cannot be
removed from the Church. The Church does not rely solely on
Scripture, but it relies on its story, equally. How does God, then,
use Scripture and tradition together? Hauerwas explains further, “God
certainly uses Scripture to call the Church to faithfulness,
but such a call always comes in the form of some in the Church remind
others in the Church how to live as Christians – no
“text” can be substituted for the people of God”
(p. 28; emphasis added). We constantly see the same thing in the
Hebrew Scriptures – the prophets are always pointing the people
back to remember their story, their tradition, in order to remind
them what it means to be “God’s people” in their
land.
Is Scripture neglected?
Does tradition take precedent? No, Scripture and tradition always
bounce off one another. Try to explain Jesus’ divinity without
the Nicene Creed when confronted with Jesus’ rejection of
divine status in Mark 10:18. If Scripture alone is our authority,
Jesus is not God, for he rejects it, as he does in other
places. But the Nicene Creed reminds us – Jesus is “of
one Being with the Father.” Thus, the Nicene Creed assists us
in our reflections upon Mark 10.
On the other hand,
Luther’s reasoning for sola scriptura allows Scripture
to hold accountable the Church and (at that time) the selling of
indulgences. Scripture and tradition must go hand-in-hand.
If we hold Scripture
and tradition hand-in-hand, reminding ourselves what tradition has to
say about Scripture, and Scripture about tradition, it influences our
worship and how we live as “God’s people.” We
remember the importance of the Eucharist, and it is not reduced to a
boring “ritual;” instead, it brings life. We remember the
importance of baptism, not as “some thing we just do” but
as something that brings life. We remember the Church’s stance
of non-violence, and we second-guess our tendencies to partake in any
of its forms. If we do so, we will live stories of justice, embrace,
love, and service. We will remember our heroes and heroines, and we
seek to live in the Christ-like ways they did. Scripture walking
hand-in-hand with tradition brings life, not death (as many have
supposed), to the Church.
If we do not take
seriously the relationship between Scripture and tradition, I’m
afraid sola scriptura becomes more of a heresy than a help.
Please note: I in no way hope to
draw a conclusion about this topic here, but I hope it opens doors to
serious dialogue not only between Protestants but also with our
Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters.
you raise a great point in this post…i love the Hauerwas quote…
my own denomination, the Evang Covenant Church, was founded in Sweden in the late 1800s with the question, “where is it written?” this is a helpful question and the return to Scripture was needed, but i see where the emphasis can get out of balance…what do we do with questions that aren’t immediately answered by Scripture? how do we handle “new” situations and contexts? how do we allow the Spirit to speak and inform?
i see a danger in treating the Bible as if it were the 4th person of the Godhead…
Good thoughts Evan. I also think Hauerwas’ work in this area is very helpful. We Wesleyans have traditionally understood faith in light of 1. Scripture 2. Tradition 3. Experience and 4. Reason. So we’ve tended to be suspicious of sections of Protestantism that claim to rely on Scripture ALONE. When someone says Scripture ALONE, what I hear is someone giving their interpretation of scripture ultimate authority. That’s what tradition can help avoid – as well as experience and reason.
The points that have been made already are helpful. What I’d like to add (even though I’m a Protestant) is that the Bible does not come “pre-packaged” but is a collection debated and in the end defined by the church. And so it seems that “sola scriptura” as understood today takes advantage of the fact that most modern readers of the Bible never ask “How did these various books, letters and other writings end up between two covers in the form we find them published in today?”
Here’s a link to a blog post of my own on the subject.
I’m rather confused as to some of the claims you are making in this blog post. Particularly your understanding that for Sola Scriptura to be applied, the Bible had to have been cannonized. That is false. The early church in fact had copies of Christian scripture, it was instead a copy of individual writings.
As far as Jesus denial of being God in Mark 10:18, could you please flesh out how you come to that reading of the passage? Jesus doesn’t deny his deity in that passage, rather he asks the rich young man to explain why he has called him good.
With regards to your comments of Sola Scripture having ‘evolved’ into something. Could you please explain what you thought Martin Luther and other reformers held the position to be and why this is different from what you hold it to be.
God bless,
Matt
Hello Matt,
Thanks for taking time to read the post and ask questions. I would just like to clarify some things for you, and I hope this is helpful.
re: “…for Sola Scriptura to be applied, the Bible had to have been cannonized…” I apologize of how this came across. What I had desired to say was simply that the Church didn’t have a canonized Bible (which you said) until much later. The debate of which books were “Scripture” and “not Scripture” continued until the 300s CE (actually, it continues today, but that’s for another day).
re: Mark 10:18 – I personally take the text to refer what you are saying. However, that is not always the case with liberalism, etc. My point was to use a simple example of how tradition assisted us in interpreting that passage. Because my tradition has taught me Jesus is God, and I affirm that, then I read the Mark passage that way. If we take the passage “as is,” it is easy to say Jesus isn’t God, and that’s what many biblical critics have concluded.
re: “Could you please explain what you thought Martin Luther and other reformers held the position to be and why this is different from what you hold it to be” – I don’t believe Luther held the view any differently (or much differently) than I do. I think it has evolved into a non-tradition, “anyone can read the Bible,” “plain sense,” literalistic approach in, specifically, evangelical circles, which I am in. Luther would not agree with what the idea of Sola Scriptura has evolved into.
I hope that helps. Thanks!
Evan, I too have reached the conclusion the Sola Scriptura is a defective Protestant understanding of the place of Scripture. Like the Orthodox, I believe it is a false dichotomy to distinguish scripture and tradition as scripture is part of tradition. There certainly is a “primary” place for scripture as part of the Tradition but our understanding of the text of scripture is informed by the community of believers through time, the Church. “Chronological snobbery” (C.S. Lewis) is a rampant disease in our day which impacts us Protestant in our dismissal of old writings (Scripture excepted, of course). The resulting position in some circles is know as “prima Scriptura” and I find it an epistemologically tenable position as opposed to sola.
We need to be taught by the Church what the place of Scripture is in the life of the Church and there is no better place than the Early Church Fathers. As you’ve noted indirectly, if we have accepted the Church’s interpretation through the Ecumenical Councils as authoritatively interpreting the truth concerning Christ and the very books which are contained in the canon, we’ve already violated the principle of sola scriptura. And I think Luther would be perfectly fine with that.
I would highly encourage any of those reading who want to explore this further to listen to both the 3 part series on Scripture and tradition by our Orthodox brother Michael Hyatt,CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, as part of his podcast series found here http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/eastwest and then his sessions on the 7 Ecumenical Councils of the Church. http://theorthodoxproject.com/podcast.html. I’ve found them extremely helpful and owe a great debt to him in helping further my understanding.
You’re right that the original intent of sola scriptura was to act as a safeguard against abuses of authority in the Roman church and this historical context should be borne in mind. The safeguard is still helpful and applies in our day against the rise of any so-called authority that teaches something contrary, or at odds with, divine revelation.
To call it a ‘heresy’ is a bit harsh and rather unhelpful, however. I doubt the early Church fathers would have called the position a heresy. Remember what a heresy is afterall; a false teaching which falls outside divine revelation. If you’re implying that Protestants are heretics, I would be careful. The Reformers were never against Tradition (which is difficult to define) per se, but held that it was not infallible and authoritative in the same way scripture was.