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faith and theology

Sola scriptura?

  • faith and theology
By aly hawkins ⋅ June 5, 2005 ⋅ Post a comment

I just don’t get the sola scriptura thing, and I really need somebody to explain it to me. Here are my three questions:

1. Where did it come from? I suspect it must have been a Reformation innovation, but don’t quote me. If it is as recent as that (or even more so), why should it be considered the gold standard of all-things-Christianly-acceptable, since people have been following Christ somewhat successfully for a couple millenia now?

2. What is the biblical defense for it? (Hopefully, if one is going to hold a position that scripture should be the sole basis for everything, one has a couple proof texts in one’s back pocket.) I know a favorite of the sola folks is 2 Tim. 3:16, but every time I read that verse, I get the giggles…surely Paul did not invision his personal letter to his friend and apprentice becoming scripture in another 300 years or so! I don’t have as much inner angst regarding canonization as I did about a year ago, but it seems only wise to keep a little historical and circumstantial perspective on the biblical writings themselves.

3. How does interpretation fit into the picture? Is it taken into account at all? Is there a mystical belief that the actual words, outside of my ability to understand them, have some kind of power to interpret themselves, or is there a Professor or Council or Board or Elders of Interpretive Sciences that I can go see when I think I may be heading for heresy? (It seems to me that unless I am a Roman in the first century, reading Paul’s handwritten letter in Greek, experiencing the problems that Paul was addressing in his letter, there is a tiny chance that I may not quite get the author’s intention.) It would follow logically that if there is a Professor or Council or Board or Elders who are the guardians of normative interpretation, they are the final say, not scripture itself. Right?

So…help. I really want to understand. It is my suspicion, after reading Carla’s response-to-the-emergent-response over at Emergent No, that her charge to the emergent folks of refusing to dialogue stems from this unbending, unrelenting sola scriptura standard. I’m betting that the emergent people who have tried to engage her wanted to talk about some of the questions I have detailed above, and this is just not an issue up for debate. Why?

-ah

Addendum: Here’s what I’m really trying to get at…It seems to me that the emergent church people are questioning the standards and systems by which we measure following Jesus, and the modern proponents of those systems – sola scriptura, etc. – are measuring the validity and propriety of those questions by the standards and systems under scrutiny. I don’t understand how there can be any meaningful dialogue (only a singulogue, perhaps?) while this dichotomy continues.

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4 comments for “Sola scriptura?”

  1. 1) Yeah. Martin Luther had a version of it (all religious reforms throughout history, more or less by definition, involve something to the effect of “what we’re doing now is a crock. Let’s go back to the beginning and see what we really should be doing.”), but Ulrich Zwingli seems to be the real main man. The Reformation was in direct response to the corruption of the Catholic church, so one way to look at it is that “the Bible is right” came in response to “the Catholics are wrong, but Christ is right, so let’s just focus on Christ — except he’s dead, so here, let’s read a Bible.” Some branches of reformation went on to create new doctrine. Others just kept their bibles.

    2) Dunno. Seems sort of hard to prove well, because you’re basically asking for biblical defense for the validity of the bible, which is close to asking for circular logic. I guess the key part would be the validity of nothing but the bible, but in my mind that can’t exist unless you contrast it with corrupt/bad interpretations of the bible which are being taken as equally valid to the bible itself. (It should be remembered that literacy and printing presses were scarce in Reformation-era europe: everyone having a bible and being able to do something with it was a new thing.)

    3) Certainly depends on the particular church or denomination. I don’t know enough to give an overview. And in rereading, it seems like you’re asking rather more pointed questions than I originally took them to be. Whatever, it’s more fun than writing a paper. :)

  2. Um… it’s more complicated than simply solo scriptura. These are the far right edges of conservative Calvinism. They have a strong sense that their theology is the best theology on the planet as as a result… they have an ecclesiology that they believe is also more biblical than anyone else.

    Thus, emerging church, missional church, and even the Missio Dei (mission of God) are all threatening to ecclesiology.

    What if we are wrong? The entire house falls and washes into the sea.

  3. I only found your site while searching for a band of the same name - so, I’m uninitiated as to the purpose or theology of the gang here . . . but I wanted to comment on Sola Scriptura. I think the spirit of the concept is that when trying to understand God, we must base our thinking only on Scripture as we would define it being God-given - versus say the works of a Pope, or a writer like C.S. Lewis or Schaeffer - or an evangelist like Billy Graham. There may be many writings that are truthful and beneficial - but we cannot allow the speculations of any man (including ourselves) contradict what scripture tells us . . . in that sense, Scripture alone can claim to be God-breathed (i.e., 2 Tim 3:16,17).

    As for how we interpret God’s word . . . well, we all know how shaky that can get. For myself, I believe I can come close to a full understanding of what the Bible consistently teaches . . . but I can never claim to be 100% dead-on sure and accurate! However, I DO believe that as originally written, the documents that became the Bible were 100% perfectly what God intended to be penned. The margin of error comes in when you start to consider manuscript copies and personal interpretation. (Like, one cannot deny the existence of Jesus - but, do we listen to one type of music or another? Are tatoos evil? How far does lust go before it becomes adultery and sin? These are all areas that, while the writers knew what they meant, we ourselves cannot know for certian . . . we must decide many of these areas personally, and have respect for the rights of others to come to their own conclusions.

    When one man or group decide their interpretation is perfect enough to justify a new denomination, NOW you have problems . . . those people are lost in religion, not faith!

    Am I making any sense here?

  4. [...] o Emergent’s recent “response to our critics” with a nicer version of my Sola scriptura? post on this site. I suggested to Carla that perhaps she was not finding success in her at [...]

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