Sola, Sola, Toil-a and Trouble-a

A brief overview of the Protestant and Catholic view of Sola Scriptura.

            As the Reformation of the 1600’s came into full force, the proponents of the reformers rallied around five “Sola” phrases: Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Solus Christus and Soli Dei Gloria (‘Sola’, ‘Solus’ or ‘Soli’ all being Latin for ‘Alone’).  Translated these phrases are By Scripture Alone, By Faith Alone, By Grace Alone, By Christ Alone and for the Glory of God Alone.  These pillars of the Reformation were presented as the true way of Christian life and practice, ultimately resulting in a follower’s soul going to heaven after death.  Because the Catholic Church agrees with 3 of these (Sola Gratia, Solus Christus and Soli Dei Gloria) the remaining two became the rallying cry of the reformers and their followers: Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide.  (As an aside, some Protestants – then and now - see ‘Solus Christus’ as another major difference between Catholicism and Non-Catholic Christians because of their misunderstanding of intercessory prayer and the Communion of Saints; a misunderstanding that persists today).  These points of contention - ‘Sola Scriptura’ and ‘Sola Fide’ - still quickly become apparent whenever Catholics and non-Catholic Christians begin to speak about theology or different religious practices and beliefs, though they may not necessarily use those exact phrases.

The Catholic response to the Solae of the Reformation was, and is, more complex and in depth then can be stated in a short phrase or five.  However, in general, the Catholic response is that from a Biblical, historical and logical point of view, Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide, while presented with good intention, have lead to a greater fracturing of Christian believers and greater confusion of Christian beliefs than any other set of beliefs introduced or developed prior to it or since. 

In this article we will look at Sola Scripture, the Bible Alone, belief system an attempt to present an accurate understanding of the belief system and then the Catholic position.

Sola Scriptura – the Protestant Position

          Sola Scriptura is the belief that “Scripture Alone” is the authority for the Christian in deciding matters of faith and morals.  As Wikipedia’s entry on the five Solae states, “Sola scriptura is the teaching that the Bible is the only inspired, authoritative word of God, is the only source for Christian doctrine, and is accessible to all—that is, it is perspicuous [easy to understand] and self-interpreting.” 

This doctrine is shown in churches being labeled as “Bible”, “Bible Based” or “Bible Alone” churches.  A ‘Fundamentalist’ church will automatically include the “Bible Alone” belief as well.  Practitioners of Sola Scriptura, in conversations about faith and morals, will often make statements like “There is no authority outside the Bible”, “Where is that in the Bible?”, “If the Bible says it, it’s true”, “There is no truth outside the Bible”, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it”" or similar phrases.  All practitioners of Sola Scriptura state that their entire system of beliefs, necessary for salvation, in one way or another came from the Bible only.  Most Protestants espousing this view also reject any kind of tradition to aid in the interpretation or implementation of the words found in the Bible stating it is a “man-made tradition” or a “tradition of men”.

            To support the Sola Scriptura claim Protestants appeal to certain passages in the Bible:

2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work…” (NIV).

Acts 17:11 “Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (NIV)

1 Corinthians 4:6 “….’Do not go beyond what is written’…” (NIV)

Mark 7:8  “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.” (NIV)

            There are other verses used to support this view, but for the sake of greater brevity, I leave it to the reader to explore them.

            Sola Scriptura is a necessity to give a sense of unity among a group of believers that has dismissed an authoritative, interpreting system that renders binding decisions upon its membership.  Once Martin Luther threw off the Catholic Church, the Magisterium and the Pope as authority, it was necessary to unify under something or the movement would have fallen apart.  The only authoritative thing that was left was the Bible alone.  Sola Scriptura is as much about being anti-Catholic authority and anti-religious authority as it about being pro-Bible and uniting.  Although many Protestants have not been instructed, explicitly, about the anti-Catholic / authority part of the belief, it has resulted in an overall mistrust of any “non-Biblical” religious practice (as defined by the individual interpreting the Bible).

In practice, it is difficult to find out what one particular denomination (or person) means by Sola Scriptura.  Despite the definitions given above, in reality, there is no one definition of Sola Scriptura. 

There are denominations (some Anglican, Lutheran and Episcopalian) that espouse a “sacred tradition” that can effect certain beliefs on faith and morals, but still claim to be a Sola Scriptura belief system.  This was also Martin Luther's belief.  He accepted things like the definition of the Trinity determined by ecumenical councils and the Marian Doctrines / Dogmas even though much of both are not explicitly stated in Scripture.

Others say that the Essentials of belief (the core beliefs one must espouse to be a Christian) must be explicit in the ‘plain text’ of the Bible with absolutely no interpretation or tradition effecting them – which is actually not humanly possible -  but the non-Essentials (the beliefs that can be disputed between Christians while still remaining Christian - again as defined by the individual or group) can be implicit. 

Still others state that both the Essentials and the non-Essentials must be explicitly stated.  This is John Calvin's position where no creeds, no councils, no person - interestingly enough - can interpret Scripture, only the Bible.  John Calvin then made himself the sole authority on what is or is not stated in the Bible and imprisoned people who disagreed with him.

Still others believe that both the Essentials and the non-Essentials can be implicit but must be based on Biblical texts.  All these belief systems would say they believe in “Sola Scriptura”.  The bottom line is the different denominations do not agree on how to apply Sola Scriptura so it is difficult to pin down at times.

             Sola Scriptura relies on two sub-pillars: the Bible is perspicuous [easy to understand] and that Scripture is completely self-interpreting [if someone doesn’t know what a passage in Scripture means, there is always another passage that will explain it].  As was stated to me “Anyone can pick up a Bible and know what is needed for salvation.”  This is what is meant by “perspicuous”; the Bible is easy to read and easy to understand the basic theological points.

            There is also an understood unlimited right to private interpretation.  This means the individual, presumably by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has the total right to interpret Scripture as they see fit, and no other authority can bind an interpretation on them.

            With Sola Scriptura also comes the idea that no one can be “infallible” except the Bible; we, as fallen humans, cannot be infallible.

            To sum up Sola Scriptura, in general, means one appeals all faith and moral decisions to the Bible only and rejects any system, or person, that claims to interpret the Bible or speak authoritatively about faith and morals.  One merely needs to pick up a Bible, pray to the Holy Spirit and start reading.

Sola Scriptura - The Catholic response

            The Catholic position is three fold: that Sola Scriptura is not logical, historical or even Scriptural.  The Catholic position continues that logic, history and Scripture points to a God-given Tradition and a visible, authoritative (as well as invisible and spiritual) Church established and empowered by Christ, able to make binding decisions that, along with Scripture, are the authorities for the Christian in matters of faith and morals.

            The Catholic position that Sola Scriptura is not logical starts with the realization that Scripture is not perspicuous, nor is it completely self-interpreting, nor does one have an unlimited right to self-interpretation.

            The Scriptures are not perspicuous, the Catholic position continues, by the initial realization that all the original languages of Scripture are no longer spoken: Koine Greek, Ancient Hebrew and Latin.  No living person, without training, can pick up the original Scriptures (if we still had them) and know anything, let alone what is needed for salvation. 

            Another point made is that many Scriptures seem to contradict: the two seemingly different genealogies in Mathew and Luke.  Most Christians have been instructed that one genealogy is Christ's natural genealogy and the other is Christ's royal genealogy, however that explanation is found nowhere in Scripture and must be 'taught' to new Christians first coming across this difficulty.  There are numerous other 'contradictions' that cannot be rectified from Scripture alone.

            Additionally, says the Catholic, adding in for a moment self-interpretation, if one is allowed to interpret phrases in Scripture like "This is My Body" as "This is NOT My Body" how can one be sure of any phrase in Scripture ("I am the Way the Truth and the Life" could, by the same reasoning, be interpreted "I am NOT the Way...)

            The Catholic position continues that Scripture being perspicuous is not supported by Scripture:  2 Pet 3:16 "...There are some things in them [St. Paul's letters] hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures."  When Scripture itself says that it is 'hard to understand' how do Protestants interpret that as Scripture being perspicuous (easy to understand)?

            The last point against Scriptures being perspicuous we will address is the number of arguments resulting in new Christian groups.  If Scripture was truly perspicuous there would be one obvious way of understanding verses.  However, instead there are 30,000+ (and growing daily) groups of Christians that cannot agree on issues as minor as robes for ministers and instruments during service to major issues such as Baptism (what it does and who it's for ), women ministers and even how one gets to heaven.  All of those groups claim that the Bible is easy to understand and most state that their belief system is 'clearly' stated in Scripture.

            The Catholic position also shows that Scripture being completely self-interpreting is false and leads to a huge problem.  Take a situation where a Christian reads a passage and does not know what it means.  Sola Scriptura states there are other passages which completely explain what the first passage means.  But how does that Christian find them, using Sola Scriptura?  How does the Christian know he has the correct passage?  How does the Christian know he has understood the second passage correctly?  While some Sola Scriptura practitioners will say the Holy Spirit will guide the Christian, this fails to account for the multiple interpretations of identical passages by different Christians all claiming the Holy Spirit led them; most Sola Scriptura practitioners will say you can use extra-biblical sources to help guide you (provided you don’t take that as authoritative). 

But this leads to another problem: how does the Christian know the external source – whether it be a book or pastor – is right?  “That’s easy,” says the Sola Scriptura practitioner, “take it to Scripture!  If you use an external source you only need to make sure it doesn’t contradict Scripture.  If it does [contradict] then you know it’s a false source.  If it doesn’t then you can use it as a guide, just not an authoritative guide.”

But all this does is push the buck down the road.  How does the Christian know that the verses they are comparing the external source with are the correct verses?  How does the Christian know those verses, if they are correct, are being interpreted correctly?  He could look for other verses in Scripture to interpret those, but then he’s just back as square one again.

            The Catholic case against the reasonableness of Sola Scriptura continues with a look at the 'unlimited right to self-interpretation'.

            Eventually, Martin Luther himself even saw the weakness in the idea of ‘self-interpretation’:  "There are almost as many sects and beliefs as there are heads; this one will not admit Baptism; that one rejects the Sacrament of the alter; another places another world between the present one and the day of judgment; some teach that Jesus Christ is not God. There is not an individual, however clownish he may be, who does not claim to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, and who does not put forth as prophecies his ravings and dreams. " (cited in Leslie Rumble, Bible Quizzes to A Street Preacher [Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books, 1976], 22).

            But the case against this idea is rooted in Scripture itself:  “First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation…” (2 Pet 1:20).  The word ‘Prophecy’ does not refer, as many think, only to future predictions, but means God’s Word.  A Prophet is one sent by God to preach what He tells them.  A prophecy is what a Prophet says.

            The larger Catholic case against Sola Scriptura continues with a study of history, not just of what Christians in history stated about the issue, but the historical context and how Sola Scriptura could not have even been sustained prior to the 16th Century.

            The Christians of the first few years of the Church had not written any of the New Testament yet and were too busy preaching it orally, to even do so.  The Christians who came to Faith through this preaching could not have practiced Sola Scriptura because there was no 'Scriptura' to be 'Sola' about.  What about when Scripture was written?  We will explore that shortly.

            How about the next generation after the Apostolic generation and subsequent teaching?  Obviously, says the Protestant, Sola Scriptura was not only possible because the Bible was written, but it must have been preferred to the 'game of telephone' called Tradition.  A brief study of history not only shows this to be untrue, but quite the opposite.  Yes, all the books that would eventually make up the New Testament were all written, but so were hundreds of other writings all claiming to be of Apostolic origin or otherwise Inspired.  There was no clear decision on what books were and were not Scripture until the local council of Rome, the councils of Nicaea and Carthage nearly 300 years after the death of the last Apostle.  Until then some groups included works like 'Letter of Clement to the Corinthians', 'Shepherd of Hermes' and other groups excluded works like 'Revelation', '2nd Peter', '3rd John' and 'Letter to the Hebrews'. 

            So how did the Truth get transmitted so that souls would be saved?  Through oral Tradition: the passing of information from teacher to student.  This Apostolic Tradition, given to the next generation from the Apostles who received it from Christ Himself, is appealed to immediately and consistently whenever a dispute arises in the first several hundred years of the Church:  "As I have already observed, the Church, having received this preaching and this Faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it.  She also believes these points [of doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth.  For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the Tradition is one and the same." (St. Irenaeus of Lyons Against Heresies 1:10:2 (c. A.D. 189)).  Consistently, when a new teaching would arise, the teachers of the Apostolic Tradition would immediately ask the bearer of the new teaching from who they learned it.  They didn't mean just the last person they heard it from; they wanted the 'Golden Chain' of instruction.  The recipients would be able to rattle off the list of teachers they learned their information from, going all the way back to an Apostle.  Even today, although it would be impossible to memorize, Bishops of the Catholic Church, have documents showing their chain of Apostolic Succession going back to one of the Apostles.

            How do we know, contends the Protestant, that Tradition isn't like a game of telephone where the end message is completely warped from the original message?  In at least two ways, replies the Catholic. One: it was nothing like a game of telephone.  In the game, the rules are that a person may only hear the message once and point of the game is to have an end result that is humorously different than the original.  In the handing-on of the Deposit of Faith or Apostolic Tradition the hearers knew this was no game.  They knew that accuracy was imperative.  Additionally they could go back to their source more than once and in reality they often sat at the feet of and listened to their source person for years before teaching it themselves.  In many cases the person could 'cross reference' what they had heard with other teachers.  In the game of telephone would the result change if any person was allowed to hear from anyone before them, as often as they liked and in the end, if the message stayed the same, everyone was given a candy bar?  Of course.

            The Catholic case continues: not only historical documents, but historical context makes Sola Scriptura impossible.  Even in the modern era, but especially in eons past, the number of people who were illiterate exceeded the number of people who could read.  Some estimates of the literacy rate in history state that until the invention of the printing press (in the 15th Century) literacy was confined to the few upper elite.  Protestants today still report having difficulty teaching Sola Scriptura in illiterate nations.

            Additionally, prior to the printing press, Bibles were expensive and tedious to make.  A Bible may take three years to write, 100 sheep's worth of velum to create and cost somewhere between 3 and 10 years average salary, not to mention that the Bibles were extremely cumbersome.  To add 'insult to injury' the barter system of most of the world until very recently, would have made purchasing large quantities of Bibles, so that every person could read for themselves, ridiculous.  One can only imagine in jest a deal of hundreds of thousands of chickens, potatoes or gallons of milk for 1,000 Bibles!

             Spreading the Gospel to all the world could not have been done if God meant for it to be done by Sola Scriptura.  The modern Protestant practice of handing out Bibles on street corners would have been impossible.

The Catholic Catechism states: "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal." (Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) paragraph 80).

The final point brought up here is Sola Scriptura is self-refuting.  For Sola Scriptura to be true by its own definition it must be in Scripture.  However a simple computer search of any translation will not find the phrase “Scripture alone” or “Sola Scriptura” anywhere.  As to the verses used to support Sola Scriptura (listed above), the first thing to realize is that not one of them say “Bible alone” or “Scripture alone”.  There isn’t even one close.  2 Tim 3:16-17 is probably the most often cited verse – almost used at times as a proof text – but it merely says that Scripture is “God breathed” and “profitable”.  The rest of the adjectives in the verse are in reference to the “man of God.”

But the nail in the coffin of Sola Scriptura belief is the canon of Scripture, that is, what books make up Scripture.  Nowhere in Scripture does Scripture say what books belong in there.  Some will point to the table of contents in their bible, however, that page was added by the publishing company and is not part of inspired Scripture.  But even if, let us suppose, the table of contents was part of the body of work called “the Bible” the bible would have to show that the table of contents belonged in Scripture!  This argument alone puts the Sola Scripture practitioner on the horns of a dilemma: the Sola Scriptura practitioner must either rely on the authority of the Catholic Church councils that decided the content of Scripture – which would be rejecting Sola Scriptura – or to hold with Sola Scriptura they must say with R.C. Sproul (very well-known Protestant theologian) that the best that can be said of Scripture is it is a “fallible list of infallible books” and in saying so undercut all ability to appeal to Scripture with any certainty.  For if the Christian cannot be certain that the book of the bible they are quoting from actually belongs in the bible, they cannot use it as an authoritative source.