SOLA SCRIPTURA - An Orthodox Analysis of the Cornerstone of Reformation Theology - Part 1
In seeking to interpret the Bible by "Scripture alone" the Reformers believed they had discovered a hidden key to understanding the true meaning of Holy Writ. Did they instead open a Pandora's Box, unleashing the relentless forces of heterodoxy, rationalism, and spiritual pride? Was their methodology fatally flawed? Father John Whiteford's penetrating essay offers a clear and systematic analysis of the doctrine of sola Scriptura from an historical and theological perspective. Father Whiteford examines the central presuppositional issues many contemporary approaches simply take for granted. Do the Scriptures themselves teach they are "all sufficient" for interpretation? Did the Apostles interpret the Scriptures of their day sola Scriptura? What hidden assumptions are built into this modern system? Before picking up another "independent Bible study" how-to guide, you owe it to yourself to read Sola Scriptura - a life-changing Orthodox perspective on one of the central hermeneutical questions of our times.
Introduction
Since my conversion from evangelical Protestantism to Orthodox Christianity, I have noted a general amazement among many of those who have been raised Orthodox that a Protestant could be converted. This is not because the Orthodox are uncertain about their own faith. Usually they are just amazed that anything could break through a Protestant's mysteriously "stubborn" insistence on being wrong!
What I have come to understand is that most Orthodox people have a confused and limited grasp of what Protestantism is, and what its adherents believe. Thus when "cradle Orthodox" believers have encounters with Protestants, even though they both may use the same words, they do not generally communicate because they do not speak the same theological language. In other words, they have very little common theological basis from which to discuss their differences. Of course when one considers that some twenty thousand-plus different Protestant groups now exist (with only the one common trait - that each group claims to rightly understand the Bible), one must certainly sympathize with those who are a bit confused by all of this.
Protestants in search of theological sanity, of true worship, and of the ancient Christian Faith are practically beating on the doors of the Orthodox Church. They are no longer satisfied with the contradictions and the faddishness of contemporary Protestant America. But when we Orthodox open the door to these inquirers we must be prepared: these people have questions! Many of these inquirers are Protestant ministers, or are among the better-informed laymen. They are sincere seekers of Truth, but they have much to unlearn and it will require informed Orthodox Christians to help them work through these issues. Orthodox Christians must understand Protestants' basic assumptions, but even more importantly, they must know what they believe themselves!
While understanding his own Faith is the first and most basic requirement for one who would communicate the Faith to the non-Orthodox, we must also learn how to communicate that Faith in a way which will be understood by them. In order successfully to communicate the Orthodox Faith to Protestants, we must equip ourselves with sufficient knowledge and understanding of their beliefs, and where we differ. To understand the unique beliefs of each individual Protestant group requires a knowledge of the history and development of Protestantism in general, a great deal of research into each major branch of Protestant theology and worship, and a measure of contemporary reading in order to understand some of the more important cross-trends that are currently at work (such as liberalism, or emotionalism). Even with all this, one could not hope to keep up with the new groups that spring up almost daily. I can't, and I was a Protestant myself! Yet, for all their differences, there is one basic underlying assumption that unites these disparate groups into the general category of "Protestant."
Essentially all Protestant denominations believe that they rightly understand the Bible. And though they may disagree on what the Bible says, they generally do agree on how one is to interpret the Bible: on one's own, apart from Church Tradition.[1] If one can come to understand this belief, why it is wrong, and how one is rightly to approach the Holy Scriptures, then one can engage any Protestant of any denomination in a discussion of Orthodox Christianity with understanding. Even groups as different as the Baptists and the Jehovah's Witnesses are really not as different as they outwardly appear, once you have understood this essential point. Indeed, if you ever have an opportunity to watch a Baptist and a Jehovah's Witness argue over the Bible, you will notice that in the final analysis they simply quote different scriptures back and forth at each other. If they are equally matched intellectually, neither will get anywhere in the discussion, because they both essentially agree on their approach to the Bible. And because neither questions their common underlying assumption, neither can see that their mutually flawed approach to the Scriptures is the real problem. Now in saying that Jehovah's Witnesses approach the Scriptures in essentially the same way as do most evangelicals or fundamentalists, am I suggesting that there is no difference between them? Not at all! In fact, that is precisely the point. There is a world of difference between the average Southern Baptist, who believes in the Trinity, and a Jehovah's Witness who does not. No one would ever accuse the Orthodox of demeaning the importance of the doctrine of the Trinity! The point is, since Baptists and Jehovah's Witnesses share a common approach to the Scriptures and yet come to such drastically different conclusions on this essential doctrine, obviously, something is wrong with the approach.
WHY SCRIPTURE ALONE?
If we are to understand what Protestants think, we will first have to know why they believe what they believe. In fact, if we try to put ourselves in the place of early reformers such as Martin Luther, we must certainly have some appreciation for their reasons for championing the doctrine of sola Scriptura (or "Scripture alone"). When one considers the corruption in the Roman Church at that time, the degenerate teachings it promoted, and the distorted understanding of Tradition that it used to defend itself—along with the fact that the West was several centuries removed from any significant contact with its former Orthodox heritage—it is difficult to imagine within those limitations how one such as Luther might have responded with significantly better results. How could Luther have appealed to Tradition to fight these abuses, when Tradition (as all in the Roman West had been led to believe) was embodied in the very papacy that was responsible for those abuses? To Luther, it was Tradition that had erred. And if he were to reform the Church, he would have to do so with the sure undergirding of the Scriptures.
However, Luther never really sought to eliminate Tradition altogether, and he certainly did not use the Scriptures truly "alone." What he really attempted to do was to use Scripture to get rid of those parts of the Roman tradition that were corrupt. Unfortunately, his rhetoric far outstripped his own practice, and more radical reformers took the idea of sola Scriptura to its logical conclusion.
Section I
PROBLEMS WITH THE DOCTRINE OF SOLA SCRIPTURA
IT IS BASED ON FALSE ASSUMPTIONS
An assumption is something that we take for granted from the outset, usually quite unconsciously. As long as an assumption is a true and valid one, all is well. But a false assumption obviously leads to false conclusions. One would hope that even when someone has made an unconscious assumption, if his conclusions are proven faulty, he would then ask himself where his underlying error lay.
Protestants who are willing honestly to assess the current state of the Protestant world, for instance, must ask themselves, "If Protestantism's foundational teaching of sola Scriptura is of God, why has it resulted in the formation of over twenty thousand differing groups that can't agree on basic aspects of what the Bible says, or even on what it means to be a Christian? If the Bible is sufficient apart from Holy Tradition, why can a Baptist, a charismatic, a Methodist, and even a Jehovah's Witness all claim to believe what the Bible says, and yet no two of them agree on what it is that the Bible says?"
Clearly, here is a situation in which Protestants find themselves, which is without a doubt at odds with the Church we find in the New Testament. Unfortunately, most Protestants are willing to blame this sad state of affairs on almost anything except the true root problem.
Mind you, the problem here is not the integrity of the Bible. The Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and is received by the Church as the Word of God. We are not arguing here the inspiration of Scripture, but rather its proper use.
The idea of sola Scriptura is so foundational to Protestantism, to them it is tantamount to denying God even to question it. But as our Lord said, "Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a bad tree bringeth forth evil fruit" (Matthew 7:17). If we judge sola Scriptura by its fruit, then we are left with no other conclusion than that this tree needs to be "hewn down, and cast into the fire" (Matthew 7:19).
FALSE ASSUMPTION #1: The Bible was intended to be the final word on faith, piety, and worship.
a) Do the Scriptures themselves teach that they are "all sufficient" apart from Church Tradition?
The most obvious assumption that underlies the doctrine of "Scripture alone" is that the Bible has within it all that is needed for the Christian life—for true faith, practice, piety, and worship. The passage that is most often cited to support this notion is:
"... from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works..." (2 Timothy 3:15-17).
Those who would use these verses to advocate sola Scriptura argue that this passage teaches the "all sufficiency" of Scripture—because, "If, indeed, the Holy Scriptures are able to make the pious man perfect . . . then, indeed to attain completeness and perfection, there is no need of tradition.”[2] But is this really what this passage teaches?
To begin with, we should ask what the Apostle Paul is talking about when he speaks of the "Holy Scriptures" Saint Timothy has known since he was a child. We can be sure that Saint Paul is not referring to the New Testament, because the New Testament had not yet been written when Saint Timothy was a child. In fact, only a few of the books of the New Testament had been written when Saint Paul wrote this epistle to Saint Timothy. They certainly had not been collected together into the canon of the New Testament as we know it today.
Obviously here, and in most references to the Scriptures that we find in the New Testament, Saint Paul is speaking of the Old Testament. Therefore, if this passage is going to be used to set the limits on inspired authority, not only will Tradition be excluded, but this passage itself—and the entire New Testament!
In the second place, if Saint Paul meant here to exclude Tradition as not being profitable, then we should wonder why he uses non-biblical oral tradition in this very same chapter. The names Jannes and Jambres are not found in the Old Testament, yet in 2 Timothy 3:8 Saint Paul refers to them as opposing Moses.
The Apostle Paul is drawing here upon the oral tradition that the names of the two most prominent Egyptian magicians in the Exodus account (chapters 7; 8) were "Jannes" and "Jambres."[3] And this is by no means the only time a non-biblical source is used in the New Testament. The best-known instance is in the Epistle of Saint Jude, which quotes from the Book of Enoch (Jude 14, 15; cf. Enoch 1:9).
The primary purpose in the Church establishing an authoritative list of books which were to be received as sacred Scripture was to protect the Church from spurious books which claimed apostolic authorship, but were in fact the work of heretics, such as the "Gospel of Thomas." Heretical groups could not base their teachings on Holy Tradition because their teachings originated from outside the Church. So the only way they could claim any authoritative basis for their heresies was to twist the meaning of the Scriptures and to forge new books in the names of Apostles or Old Testament saints.
In establishing an authoritative list of sacred books that were received by all as being divinely inspired and of genuine Old Testament or apostolic origin, the Church did not intend to imply that all of the Christian Faith and all information necessary for worship and good order in the Church was contained in these writings.[4]
In fact, by the time the Church settled the canon of Scripture, it was already, in its faith and worship, essentially indistinguishable from the Church of later periods. This is an historical certainty. As for the structure of Church authority, it was Orthodox bishops, gathered together in various councils, who settled the question of the canon. The Church as we know it was in place before the Bible as we know it was in place.
b) What was the purpose of the New Testament writings?
In Protestant biblical studies, it is taught (and I think correctly) that when studying the Bible, among many other considerations, one must consider the genre (or literary type) of a particular passage: different genres have different uses. Another consideration is, of course, the subject and purpose of the book or passage.
In the New Testament we have, broadly speaking, four literary genres: Gospel, historical narrative (Acts), epistle, and apocalyptic/prophetic writing (Revelation). The Gospels were written to testify of Christ's Incarnation, life, death, and Resurrection. Biblical historical narratives recount the history of God's people and also the lives of significant figures in that history, and show God's providence in the midst of it all. Epistles were written primarily to answer specific problems that arose in various churches; thus, things that were assumed and understood by all, and not considered problems, were not generally addressed in any detail. Doctrinal issues that were addressed were generally disputed or misunderstood doctrines.[5] Matters of worship were only dealt with when there were related problems (for example, 1 Corinthians 11—14). Apocalyptic writings, such as Revelation, were written to show God's ultimate triumph in history.
Interestingly, none of these literary types present in the New Testament has worship as a primary subject, nor was any of them meant to give details about how to worship in church. In the Old Testament there are detailed, though by no means exhaustive, treatments of the worship of Israel (Exodus, Leviticus, and Psalms). In the New Testament, there are only the meagerest hints of the worship of the early Christians. Why is this? Certainly not because they had no order in their services—liturgical historians have established the fact that early Christians continued to worship in a manner firmly based upon the patterns of Jewish worship, which they inherited from the Apostles.[6]
However, even the few references in the New Testament that touch upon the worship of the early Church show that New Testament Christians worshiped liturgically, as did their fathers before them: they observed hours of prayer (Acts 3:1); they worshipped in the temple (Acts 2:46; 3:1; 21:26); and they worshipped in synagogues (Acts 18:4).
We also need to note that none of the types of literature present in the New Testament has as its purpose comprehensive doctrinal instruction. The New Testament contains neither a catechism nor a systematic theology. If all we need as Christians is the Bible by itself, why does it not contain some sort of comprehensive doctrinal statement? Imagine how easily all the many controversies could have been settled if the Bible had clearly answered every doctrinal question. But as convenient as it might have been, such things are not found among the books of the Bible.
Let no one misunderstand the point that is being made. None of this is meant to belittle the importance of the Holy Scriptures. God forbid! In the Orthodox Church the Scriptures are believed to be fully inspired, inerrant, and authoritative. But the fact is that the Bible does not contain teaching on every subject of importance to the Church.
As already stated, the New Testament gives little detail about how to worship—and this is certainly no small matter. Furthermore, the same Church that handed down to us the Holy Scriptures, and preserved them, was the very Church from which we have received our patterns of worship! If we mistrust this Church's faithfulness in preserving apostolic worship, then we must also mistrust her fidelity in preserving the Scriptures.[7]
c) Is the Bible, in practice, really "all sufficient" for Protestants?
Protestants frequently claim they "just believe the Bible," but a number of questions arise when one examines their actual use of the Bible. For instance, why do Protestants write so many books on doctrine and the Christian life in general, if indeed all that is necessary is the Bible? If the Bible by itself were sufficient for one to understand it, then why don't Protestants simply hand out Bibles and let it go at that? And if it is "all sufficient," as they suggest, why do Protestants not all believe the same?
What is the purpose of Sunday school, or the many Protestant study Bibles, if all that is needed is the Bible itself? Why do they hand out tracts and other material? Why do they even teach or preach at all—why not just read the Bible to people? Though they usually will not admit it, they instinctively know the Bible cannot be understood alone. And in fact, every Protestant sect has its own body of traditions, though again they generally will not call them by this name.
It is not an accident that Orthodox Presbyterians all believe the same things, and United Pentecostals generally believe the same things, but Orthodox Presbyterians and United Pentecostals emphatically do not believe the same things. Orthodox Presbyterians and United Pentecostals do not each individually come up with their own ideas from an independent study of the Bible. Rather, those in each group are all taught to believe in a certain way—from a common tradition.
Thus, the question is not really whether we will just believe the Bible or whether we will also use tradition. The real question is, which tradition will we use to interpret the Bible? Which tradition can be trusted—the Apostolic Tradition of the historic Church, or the modern and divergent traditions of Protestantism, which have no roots deeper than the advent of the Protestant Reformation?
FALSE ASSUMPTION #2: The Scriptures were the basis of the early Church, whereas Tradition is simply a human corruption that came much later.
Especially among today's evangelicals and charismatics, you will find the word "tradition" is a derogatory term. To label something as a "tradition" is roughly equivalent to saying it is "fleshly," "spiritually dead," "destructive," or "legalistic." As Protestants read the New Testament, it seems clear to them that the Bible always condemns tradition as being opposed to Scripture. The assumption is that the early Christians were pretty much like today's evangelicals or charismatics, but with beards and togas. That the first-century Christians would have had liturgical worship, or bishops, or would have adhered to any tradition at all, is inconceivable. Only later, "when the Church became corrupted," is it imagined that such things entered the Church.
It comes as quite a blow to such Protestants (as it did to me) when they actually study the early Church and the writings of the early Fathers and begin to see a distinctly different picture from that which they were led to envision. One finds, for example, the early Christians did not tote their Bibles with them to church each Sunday. It was so difficult to acquire a copy of even portions of Scripture, due to the time and resources involved in making a copy, that very few individuals owned their own copies. Instead, the copies of the Scriptures were kept by designated persons in the church, or kept at the place where the church gathered for worship (in which context the Scriptures were read corporately).
Furthermore, most churches did not have complete copies of all the books even of the Old Testament, much less the New Testament—which was not completed until the end of the first century, and not in its final canonical form until the fourth century. This is not to say the early Christians did not study the Scriptures—they did, in earnest, but as a group, not as individuals. And for most of the first century, Christians were limited in their study of the Scriptures to the Old Testament. So how did they know the truth of the Gospel, the life and teachings of Christ, how to worship, what to believe about the Person and natures of Christ? They had the Tradition handed down from the Apostles.
Sure, many in the early Church heard these things directly from the Apostles themselves, but many more did not. Later generations had access to the writings of the Apostles through the New Testament, but the early Church depended almost entirely on oral and liturgical tradition for its knowledge of the Christian Faith.
This dependence upon Tradition is evident in the New Testament writings themselves. For example, Saint Paul exhorts the Thessalonians: "Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word [oral tradition] or our epistle" (2 Thessalonians 2:15).
The word here translated "traditions" is the Greek word paradosis. The word itself literally means "that which is transmitted, or delivered." It is the same word used when referring negatively to the false traditions of the Pharisees (Mark 7:3, 5, 8), and also when referring to authoritative Christian teaching (1 Corinthians 11:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:15).
So what makes the tradition of the Pharisees false and that of the Church true? The source!
Christ made clear what was the source of the traditions of the Pharisees when He called them "the traditions of men" (Mark 7:8). Saint Paul, on the other hand, in reference to Christian Tradition, states, "I praise you brethren, that you remember me in all things and hold fast to the traditions [paradoseis] just as I delivered [paredoka, a verbal form of paradosis] them to you" (1 Corinthians 11:2). And where did Saint Paul get these traditions in the first place? "I received from the Lord that which I delivered [paredoka] to you" (1 Corinthians 11:23).
What the Orthodox Church refers to when it speaks of the Apostolic Tradition is "the Faith once delivered [paradotheisa] unto the saints" (Jude 3). Its source is Christ, and it was delivered personally by Him to the Apostles through all that He said and did—which, if it all were written down, "the world itself could not contain the books that should be written" (John 21:25). The Apostles in turn delivered this Tradition to the entire Church. And the Church, being the repository of this treasure, thus became "the pillar and ground of the Truth" (1 Timothy 3:15).
The testimony of the New Testament is clear on this point: the early Christians had both oral and written traditions which they received from Christ through the Apostles. For written tradition they at first had only portions—one local church had an epistle, another perhaps a Gospel. Gradually these writings were gathered together into collections, and ultimately, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the Church, they became the New Testament. And how did these early Christians know which books were authentic and which were not—for (as already noted) there were numerous spurious epistles and gospels claimed by heretics to have been written by Apostles? It was the Apostolic Tradition that aided the Church in making this determination.
Protestants react violently to the idea of Holy Tradition simply because the only form of it they have generally encountered is the distorted concept of tradition found in Roman Catholicism. Contrary, to the Roman view of tradition—which is personified by the Pope and develops new dogmas without apostolic foundation, such as papal infallibility—the Orthodox do not believe Tradition changes or "develops."
Certainly when the Church is faced with a heresy, it may be forced to define more precisely the difference between truth and error; but the Truth is never altered. It may be said that Tradition expands or matures, but only in the sense that as the Church moves through history, it does not forget its experiences along the way. It remembers the saints that arise in it, and it preserves the writings of those who have accurately stated its faith. But the Faith itself was "once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3).
How can we know the Church has preserved the Apostolic Tradition in its purity? The short answer is that God has preserved it in the Church because He promised to do so. Christ said that He would build His Church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). Christ Himself is the Head of the Church (Ephesians 4:15, 16), the Church is His Body (Ephesians 1:22, 23), and He has promised to be with the Church "even unto the end of the world" (Matthew 28:20). Christ did not promise His Church would always be prosperous, or the most numerous of religions; in fact, He promised quite the opposite (Matthew 7:13, 14; 10:22; John 15:20). Neither did Christ promise there would be no sinners in the Church (Matthew 13:47-50), or that it would not have to contend with false shepherds or wolves in sheep's clothing (John 10:1, 12, 13). But Christ did promise an abiding and ultimately triumphant Church, which would have His abiding presence, and would be guided into all Truth by the Holy Spirit (John 16:13). Were the Church to lose the purity of the Apostolic Tradition, then the Truth would have to cease being the Truth—for the Church is the pillar and foundation of the Truth (1 Timothy 3:15).
The common Protestant conception of Church history—that the Church fell into apostasy from the time of Constantine until the Reformation—certainly makes these and many other scriptures meaningless. If the Church had ceased to be for even one day, then the gates of hell would have prevailed against it on that day. If this were the case, when Christ described the growth of the Church in His parable of the mustard seed (Matthew 13:31, 32), He should have spoken of a plant that started to grow but was squashed, and in its place a new seed sprouted later on. Instead, He used the imagery of a mustard seed that begins small, but steadily grows into the largest of garden plants.
As to those who would posit that there was some group of true-believing Protestants living in caves somewhere for a thousand years, where is the evidence for such a group's existence? The Waldensians,[8] who are claimed as ancestors by every sect from the Pentecostals to the Jehovah's Witnesses, did not exist prior to the twelfth century. It is, to say the least, a bit of a stretch to believe that these true-believers suffered courageously under the fierce persecutions of the Romans, and yet would have headed for the hills as soon as Christianity became a legal religion. Yet even this seems possible when compared with the notion that such a group could have survived for a thousand years without leaving a trace of historical evidence to substantiate that it had ever existed.
At this point one might object that there were in fact examples of people in Church history who taught things contrary to what others taught, so who is to say what the Apostolic Tradition is? And furthermore, if a corrupt practice arose, how could it later be distinguished from Apostolic Tradition?
Protestants ask these questions because in the Roman Catholic Church, there did arise new and corrupt traditions. But this happened because the Latin West first altered its understanding of the nature of Tradition.
The Orthodox understanding, which had earlier prevailed in the West and which was preserved in the Orthodox Church, is basically that Tradition is in essence unchanging and is known by its universality, or catholicity. True Apostolic Tradition is found in the historic consensus of Church teaching. Find that which the Church has believed always, throughout history, and everywhere, and you will have found the Truth. If any belief can be shown not to have been received by the Church in its history, then this is heresy.
Mind you, however, we are speaking of the Church, not schismatic groups. There were schismatics and heretics that broke away from the Church during the New Testament period, and there has been a continual supply of them since. For as the Apostle says, "there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest" (1 Corinthians 11:19).
FALSE ASSUMPTION #3: Christians can interpret the Scriptures for themselves, without the aid of the Church.
Though some Protestants might take issue with the way this assumption is worded, this is essentially the belief that prevailed when the Reformers first advocated the doctrine of sola Scriptura. The line of reasoning was that the meaning of Scripture is clear enough that anyone could understand it by simply reading it for himself, and thus the Church's help is superfluous.
This position is clearly stated by the Tubingen Lutheran Scholars, who exchanged letters with Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople about thirty years after Luther's death: Perhaps, someone will say that on the one hand, the Scriptures are absolutely free from error; but on the other hand, they have been concealed by much obscurity, so that without the interpretations of the Spirit-bearing Fathers they could not be clearly understood. But meanwhile this, too, is very true that what has been said in a scarcely perceptible manner in some places in the Scriptures, these same things have been stated in another place in them explicitly and most clearly so that even the most simple person can understand them.[9]
Though these Lutheran scholars claimed to use the writings of the Holy Fathers, they argued that these writings were unnecessary, and that, where they believed the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers conflicted, the Fathers were to be disregarded.
What they were actually arguing, however, was that when the teachings of the Holy Fathers conflicted with their own private opinions on the Scriptures, their private opinions were to be considered more authoritative than the teachings of the Fathers of the Church. Rather than listening to the Fathers, who had shown themselves righteous and saintly, they gave priority to the human reasonings of the individual. This is the same human reason that has led the most influential Lutheran biblical scholars of the past hundred years to reject many of the essential doctrines of Scripture, and even to reject the inspiration of the Scriptures themselves—the very foundation upon which the early Lutherans claimed to base their entire faith!
In reply, Patriarch Jeremias II clearly exposed the true character of private interpretation:
Let us accept, then, the traditions of the Church with a sincere heart and not a multitude of rationalizations. For God created man to be upright; instead they sought after diverse ways of rationalizing (Ecclesiastes 7:29). Let us not allow ourselves to learn a new kind of faith which is condemned by the tradition of the Holy Fathers. For the Divine apostle says, "if anyone is preaching to you a Gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:9).[10]
B. THE DOCTRINE OF SOLA SCRIPTURA DOES NOT MEET ITS OWN CRITERIA
You might imagine that such a belief system as Protestantism, which has as its cardinal doctrine that Scripture alone is authoritative in matters of faith, would first seek to prove that this cardinal doctrine met its own criteria. One would probably expect Protestants to be able to brandish hundreds of proof-texts from the Scriptures to support this doctrine—upon which all else they believe is based. At the very least, one would hope two or three solid texts which clearly taught this doctrine could be found—since the Scriptures themselves say, "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established" (2 Corinthians 13:1).
Yet like the boy in the fable who pointed out that the emperor wore no clothes, I must say there is not one single verse in the entirety of Holy Scripture that teaches the doctrine of sola Scriptura. There is not even one that comes close. Oh yes, there are numerous passages in the Bible that speak of its inspiration, of its authority, and of its profitability—but there is no place in the Bible that teaches that Scripture alone is authoritative for believers. If such a teaching were even implicit, then surely the early Fathers of the Church would have taught this doctrine also. But which of the Holy Fathers ever taught such a thing? Thus Protestantism's most basic teaching self-destructs, being contrary to itself.
But not only is the Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura not taught in the Scriptures—it is, in fact, specifically contradicted by the Scriptures (which we have already discussed) which teach that Holy Tradition is also binding to Christians (2 Thessalonians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 11:2).
Part 2
