Sola vs. Solo Scriptura

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FrankSchnabel

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Grettings:

Doug Mathison wrote a book called the Shape of Sola Scriptura. In it he argues that the “true” sola, as distinguished from solo scriptura, is impervious to the the usual Catholic and Orthodox arguments. What do y’all think?

cordially

Frank Schnabel.
 
Can you expound upon that for those of us who are a bit confuzzled?
 
I read a review a few pages long of this book out of curiosity. Here’s my summary: Mathison says that sola scriptura really means using only Scripture for the rule of faith and appealing to the interpretations of the Early Church Fathers. Unfortunately, Mathison apparently is unaware of the Catholic pedigree of the ECF. He is also apparently unaware that the Church today can be guided by the Holy Spirit as promised in Scripture. He says that “tradition” is summarized in Luke! The article reads:
Luke wrote his gospel for the very purpose of gathering together what the Church believed concerning the Christ. What Luke wrote in his Gospel are the universal “traditions” believed amongst the covenant milieu.
Click to expand...
He goes on to imply that any “traditions” not mentioned in Luke are traditions of men. Very odd, and ironically a failure of his own sola scriptura system, cuz that ain’t what “traditions of men” in Scripture means. :rolleyes:

He also decries the Catholic notion of Tradition passed on through the universal voice of the Church througout the centuries. How? Like this, says the article:
Rome believes that the traditions were passed down orally. Such a notion is rejected because of sin and the possibility of a misconstrued message.
Click to expand...
Imagine the surprise of Augustine and those who defined the Canon of Scripture that the use of oral tradition would be so brittle. So much for the promise of the Holy Spirit! Apparently the ECF, to whom Mathison claims to appeal, do not have this risk.

Anyway, that’s the short version of the review as to how Mathison is able to discourage “individual” interpretation by adding ECF and Luke’s convenient complete collection of oral tradition 😃 (you’d think Paul would have shut up about oral tradition since Luke had already covered it), while simultaneously denying the authority or the guidance of the Spirit in the Church.

At the end of the day, he is stuck with his individual interpretation and selective use of the ECF. Otherwise, he’d be Catholic. 🤷
 
Hi P & L and Marco,

I first encountered the solo-sola distinction in debates. James White uses it, for example. It’s the idea that scripture is regarded as the sole infallible authority but not the only authority. Church and tradition are also authorititative but are subordinate to scripture. But Mathison carries this further and declares that scripture must be interpreted by the church within the rule of faith. (Here he means the ancient Creeds, I think) He condemns solo scriptura as a false tradtion of men (how refreshing!) but he also rejects the Catholic and Orthodox views. So he is trying to stake out the “reasonable middle ground” between evangelical individualism on the one hand and Cat/Orth on the other.

Solo scriptura is the view that scripture is not merely the sole infallible authority but rather the only authority. it is the me, mah Bahbel and the Holy Ghotst approach, which Mathison admits is probably the dominant understanding of American Evangelicals.

Marco, at the end of your post you seem to zeroed in on the key issue. Does Mathison’s sola scriptura still retain the absolute right of private judgement? I think it does, in which case this approach collapses back into solo scriptura, IMO. But I’d be wlling to hear what more knowledgable folks, especially Protestants, have to say.

Best regards,

Frank
 
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