That estimation and judging is the job of the church, not the individual. So, sola scriptura, for Lutherans, is a practice, or praxis, of the church. To be a member of said church, one adheres to the teachings of the church, which are a right reflection of scripture.
While some connect private judgement/personal interpretation with sola scriptura, it is really something rather different.
What say you, then, to this commentary by Jimmy Akin regarding Luther’s apparent
rejection of “Scripture only, but interpreted through a church” paradigm?
Thus if one were today to propose a “Scripture only, but as interpreted by a Magisterium” model for theology, it would be immediately and roundly rejected by the Protestant community (except perhaps in a few small, radical sects) as being no true theory of sola scriptura at all. The term “only” in “Scripture only” must be taken not only to exclude other material principles of theology (like Tradition) but also other formal principles of theology (like the Magisterium).
But if one has cut loose the historic Christian principle of formulating the matter of theology into distinct, concrete doctrines then what is one going to use in its place? How is one to formulate doctrines if one has rejected what has historically been the formal principle? What formal principal will you propose in its place?
This was a question put by Catholics to Luther and the other Protestants, who answered that, in the absence of some group of Christians who were divinely commissioned with the task of formulating the material of theology, the individual himself must be divinely commissioned with this task. Thus the doctrine of an absolute right to private judgment–to deciding for oneself what the correct interpretation of Scripture is–was created.
Christians, of course, had always taught a right to private judgment–that the every individual had the right to think on and interpret the Scriptures for himself (this is why the Scriptures were read out loud at Mass, so that even the illiterate could hear them and think about their meaning). The exercise of private judgment was fine and wholesome and to be encouraged by all possible means so long as it was not used to reject those doctrines which had been determined by Christ’s appointed teachers (the Magisterium) to represent the authentic teachings of the Bible.
Thus Christians had historically taught a right to private judgment, but not an absolute right that overthrew the teaching authority which Christ himself set up in his Church by gifting it with official teachers, as the New Testament itself declares (Ephesians 4:11). On any area in which the teaching authority of Christ’s Church had not spoken (which was and is the great majority of areas), private judgment was permitted. It was only when a doctrine which had already been established to be true, such as the Trinity, the fully Divinity and humanity of Christ, the atoning death and resurrection of Christ, the efficacy of the sacraments, etc.–that private judgment was limited.
In order to throw off the Magisterium’s teachings, however, the Reformers had to get past this limitation, and so they asserted an unconditional, absolute right to private judgment, according to which the individual had a right to disagree and to publicly teach contrary to even those doctrines that Christ’s teaching authority had already established as true.
This was necessary as an answer to the Catholic question, “Who are you to overturn a historic Christian teaching which has already been settled by the Magisterium? You are not even a member of that body, much less the whole of it, and such doctrines can never change to begin with.” In the face of this question, the Reformers were driven to answer, “We do not need to be the whole of the Magisterium, or even individual members of it, for every Christian has the right to settle every single doctrine on his own and is not bound in conscience to accept the rulings of the teachers which, we admit, Christ intended his Church to have.”
Thus the doctrine of private judgment became a necessary component of the doctrine of sola scriptura. Scripture itself would be the sole material principle for theology, and the judgment of the individual would be the sole formal principle, as no other source could ultimately and authoritatively tell the believer what was the correct interpretation of Scripture. Any theory which said that there was a magisterial group of Christians who were to interpret the Scriptures on behalf on the individual would be vigorously opposed.
jimmyakin.com/library/sola-scriptura-and-private-judgment
