Why sola Scriptura?

[Contarini]

So 1500 years after the Apostles were dead they decided to use Sola Scriptura,

That’s not the argument. The argument is that once the apostles were dead, the only entirely reliable source for their teachings was Scripture. Tradition was valuable but could be corrupted.

There are two separate arguments going on in this thread, as far as I can see:

1. The 'lesser/greater" argument, which I think is an unprofitable one at best. Catholics who try to argue that the Church is greater than Scripture are, I think, seriously misguided. The Word of God, as found in both Scripture and ongoing Tradition, has authority over the Church. That is what I read in Dei Verbum, for instance–it is, as far as I can tell, the orthodox Catholic position.
2. The question of the reliability of Tradition and of the Spirit’s guidance of the Church, which is, I think, the real issue between Catholics and Protestants. It isn’t that the Church is greater than Scripture, but that the Holy Spirit rightly guides the Church to preserve the Tradition and to interpret Scripture (and guided the Church to select the books of Scripture in the first place). If Catholics would only abandon the pointless (and perhaps even blasphemous) tactic of setting the Church up as an authority over Scripture, and speak instead of the Holy Spirit’s faithfulness in helping the Church to be faithful to the Word, the strength of the Catholic case and the fatal flaws in the Protestant case would be more apparent.

Edwin

 

[Charlemagne_II]

**Contarini

Why not? If the greater authority doesn’t speak for itself, that’s your only choice. C. S. Lewis’s analogy was a professor telling his students “go read such-and-such a scholar who knows more about the subject than I do.” You go to the book because the professor testified that it had authority, but that doesn’t make the professor’s authority equal to or greater than that of the scholar he cites. Quite the reverse.**

Your analogy doesn’t work. The authority of the Church was used to endorse and validate the authority of the Scriptures in the 4th Century. Until then there was no authentic and authoritative endorsement of the books valid for the New Testament. In your analogy, the professor only suggests reading a greater authority than himself. He does not actually confer authority on the other scholar.

The New Testament as we know it did not even exist before the 4th Century. How then did any Christian know what books were valid or not valid until the Church conferred authority on the final Testament?

 

[JonNC]

So 1500 years after the Apostles were dead they decided to use Sola Scriptura, by what authority did they make that decision - how are you sure that what your Bible says is the Word of God?

Because the Church says so.

It isn’t after the fact of the Apostolic era. It is after the issues that had arisen after the Schism, where the Church could not decide what Tradition was actually teaching on a number of issues.

Jon

 

[KP3243]

Unless you knew German or Greek…was your head spinning trying to understand the service?

With minimal Greek you can read the Gospel of John, Saint Paul not so much!!!

 

[JonNC]

Among American Lutherans, probably not - as immigrants we were very poor and were probably happy to have any bible and were probably very thankful to have cheap English bibles.

Additionally, I think it had to do with wanting to fit in with protestant America, and the union churches.

Jon

 

[Isaiah45_9]

What is the origin of the Sola Scriptura doctrine of the Protestants?

Who firstly and most famously argued this doctrine, and what was the main rationale for it?

What is the main answer Catholics can give to this doctrine?

Thank you?

Each denomination will have a different understanding of what it means. And a different interpretation to go along.

There is but one single objective:

1. Complete and total emancipation from the Church and the freedom to be accountable to the individual interpretation or that of like minded individuals.

We sin, period. Saying that because of corrupt men in the Church we need to make the Scriptures (given to men by the way) the Authority bypasses the single most important aspect:

According to whom?

Every day a new star (or stars) is born. God said: “Let there be light”. He never said stop to that command.
I guess in this same logic, He said let there be the Bible. And every day a new denomination is born.

I see the “Bible only” proposal in the same way as entering into a marriage thinking that if it doesn’t work I can get a divorce. Only that in the “Bible only”, I can enter into a Church and if I don’t like it, I can leave and look for another one that is more inline with what I think Scriptures mean, more “compatible” with me.

I should be more positive, but I don’t think this is going to stop until the Final Judgement.

 

[KP3243]

Because the Church says so.

It isn’t after the fact of the Apostolic era. It is after the issues that had arisen after the Schism, where the Church could not decide what Tradition was actually teaching on a number of issues.

Jon

So you have placed all your eggs in one basket and are hoping its right- what happens if you are following and going along the side that is wrong? Why would Jesus in Matthew 16:18-19 go through quoting Isaiah 22:22 if this was not a permanent position, and why would this same key holder reference come up again Revelation 3:7 in a warning?

 

[JonNC]

So you have placed all your eggs in one basket and are hoping its right- what happens if you are following and going along the side that is wrong? Why would Jesus in Matthew 16:18-19 go through quoting Isaiah 22:22 if this was not a permanent position, and why would this same key holder reference come up again Revelation 3:7 in a warning?

Sure my eggs in all in one basket - Christ the crucified. And through His Church I receive the means of grace, in the sacraments, by His word, just as you do.

Jon

 

[KP3243]

Sure my eggs in all in one basket - Christ the crucified. And through His Church I receive the means of grace, in the sacraments, by His word, just as you do.

Jon

How do you know you are in the right Church there are so many claiming the same thing but they all disagree about something.

 

[KP3243]

That’s not the argument. The argument is that once the apostles were dead, the only entirely reliable source for their teachings was Scripture. Tradition was valuable but could be corrupted.

There are two separate arguments going on in this thread, as far as I can see:

1. The 'lesser/greater" argument, which I think is an unprofitable one at best. Catholics who try to argue that the Church is greater than Scripture are, I think, seriously misguided. The Word of God, as found in both Scripture and ongoing Tradition, has authority over the Church. That is what I read in Dei Verbum, for instance–it is, as far as I can tell, the orthodox Catholic position.
2. The question of the reliability of Tradition and of the Spirit’s guidance of the Church, which is, I think, the real issue between Catholics and Protestants. It isn’t that the Church is greater than Scripture, but that the Holy Spirit rightly guides the Church to preserve the Tradition and to interpret Scripture (and guided the Church to select the books of Scripture in the first place). If Catholics would only abandon the pointless (and perhaps even blasphemous) tactic of setting the Church up as an authority over Scripture, and speak instead of the Holy Spirit’s faithfulness in helping the Church to be faithful to the Word, the strength of the Catholic case and the fatal flaws in the Protestant case would be more apparent.

Edwin

The Bible wasn’t created for another another 300 years after the Apostles died, how do you account for those three hundred years where there was no complete scripture or closed cannon? How do you account for saint Paul’s letters written three hundred years before when paper was scarce and very few people could read or write? How did those letters make it into the Bible? How could in a time period longer than the existence of the US where Christians were being persecuted we know what Saint Paul wrote to all the Churches???

 

[KP3243]

s. It isn’t that the Church is greater than Scripture, but that the Holy Spirit rightly guides the Church to preserve the Tradition and to interpret Scripture​

The Bible doesn’t say this.

 

[KP3243]

Let’s have a contest, can your pastor produce backup proving scripture is authentic using everything in your church but you can’t use tradition only actual documents. Let’s see all your ancient documents and how they measure up with the Vatican archives. Let’s see your 4th century Aramaic to Greek translations and your church’s copy of saint Paul’s letter to the church in Antioch where you sent your Bible translator, if you have one or ever had one, to go copy this letter they claim was written by Saint Paul that for three hundred years the people in this church community had been copying over and over to preserve, oh your church wasn’t around when the church of Antioch was… Can you start to see maybe why the Catholic Church claims authority of scripture?

 

[Novocastrian]

1. Sola Scriptura holds that the Bible is the sole rule of faith for the believer.
2. Sola Scriptura is not taught in the Bible.
3. Therefore, Sola Scriptura is self-refuting.

Mainstream Protestantism(s) (excluding modern ‘evangelicalism’) would not accept your definition of Sola Scriptura in premise 1.

 

[Novocastrian]

The Bible wasn’t created for another another 300 years after the Apostles died, how do you account for those three hundred years where there was no complete scripture or closed cannon?

Regardless of whether one accepts the notion of Sola Scriptura or not, this is such a misstep. We can all agree that there was no fixed canon until the fourth century but,

(1a) the documents which make up the New Testament were all written by the middle of the second century, and
(1b) were usually recognised as divinely inspired by the vast majority of catholic Christians, hence their preservation and eventual inclusion in a more definite canon; and furthermore,

(2) even before the NT documents were written, the Church had Scripture in the form of the Old Testament. These are the “Scriptures” of the Creed, in accordance with which Christ rose from the dead.

 

[Novocastrian]

**Contarini

Why not? If the greater authority doesn’t speak for itself, that’s your only choice. C. S. Lewis’s analogy was a professor telling his students “go read such-and-such a scholar who knows more about the subject than I do.” You go to the book because the professor testified that it had authority, but that doesn’t make the professor’s authority equal to or greater than that of the scholar he cites. Quite the reverse.**

Your analogy doesn’t work. The authority of the Church was used to endorse and validate the authority of the Scriptures in the 4th Century. Until then there was no authentic and authoritative endorsement of the books valid for the New Testament. In your analogy, the professor only suggests reading a greater authority than himself. He does not actually confer authority on the other scholar.

The New Testament as we know it did not even exist before the 4th Century. How then did any Christian know what books were valid or not valid until the Church conferred authority on the final Testament?

Only God confers authority. Neither the Bible nor the Church possess any authority not conferred by God. The Church *recognises *the authority of Scripture.

 

[KP3243]

Regardless of whether one accepts the notion of Sola Scriptura or not, this is such a misstep. We can all agree that there was no fixed canon until the fourth century but,

(1a) the documents which make up the New Testament were all written by the middle of the second century, and
(1b) were usually recognised as divinely inspired by the vast majority of catholic Christians, hence their preservation and eventual inclusion in a more definite canon; and furthermore,

(2) even before the NT documents were written, the Church had Scripture in the form of the Old Testament. These are the “Scriptures” of the Creed, in accordance with which Christ rose from the dead.

Prove it.

 

[Novocastrian]

Prove it.

Which bit?

I don’t think any of the points I made in that are controversial either to Roman Catholics or Protestants. Which bit in particular do you see as a problem?

 

[KP3243]

Only God confers authority. Neither the Bible nor the Church possess any authority not conferred by God. The Church *recognises *the authority of Scripture.

The Word of God says the Pillar and Bulwark of truth is the Church, Jesus created a Church who produced the Bible and has the authority to interpret scripture. It was not until the 1600’s that the first Bible was printed. Prior to those days, very few Bibles were available, such being hand written and owned by the Church and/or the rich, these being kept under lock and key. So the average person had no access to the Bible. He could not use the Bible as a reference to support that it was the pillar and bulwark of the truth. In fact, the people turned to the Church to learn the tradition, the doctrines, the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Scripture is clear that the Church has authority – in Matthew 28:18-20 Jesus delegates His power to the apostles. The authority to perform specific acts is given in other passages – John 20:23 (the power to forgive sin), I Corinthians 11:23-24 (the power to offer sacrifice, the Eucharist), Luke 10:16 (the power to speak with Christ’s voice), Matthew 18:18 (the power to legislate) and Matthew 18:17 (the power to discipline).

From a perspective of pure common sense and logic, what would be the point of founding a Church (which Christ clearly wanted to do) without giving her authority? If the Church has no power, what what is she? She is simply a collection of believers with no power to enforce laws or discipline those who are dissident – anyone could claim to be a member of her even if they denied all the tenets of her laws and beliefs! Organizations logically require authority over their members and authority to determine what the criteria for membership are; otherwise they are not organizations at all, but simply a label without a clear definition.

 

[Novocastrian]

The Word of God says the Pillar and Bulwark of truth is the Church, Jesus created a Church who produced the Bible and has the authority to interpret scripture. It was not until the 1600’s that the first Bible was printed. Prior to those days, very few Bibles were available, such being hand written and owned by the Church and/or the rich, these being kept under lock and key. So the average person had no access to the Bible. He could not use the Bible as a reference to support that it was the pillar and bulwark of the truth. In fact, the people turned to the Church to learn the tradition, the doctrines, the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Scripture is clear that the Church has authority – in Matthew 28:18-20 Jesus delegates His power to the apostles. The authority to perform specific acts is given in other passages – John 20:23 (the power to forgive sin), I Corinthians 11:23-24 (the power to offer sacrifice, the Eucharist), Luke 10:16 (the power to speak with Christ’s voice), Matthew 18:18 (the power to legislate) and Matthew 18:17 (the power to discipline).

From a perspective of pure common sense and logic, what would be the point of founding a Church (which Christ clearly wanted to do) without giving her authority? If the Church has no power, what what is she? She is simply a collection of believers with no power to enforce laws or discipline those who are dissident – anyone could claim to be a member of her even if they denied all the tenets of her laws and beliefs! Organizations logically require authority over their members and authority to determine what the criteria for membership are; otherwise they are not organizations at all, but simply a label without a clear definition.

I agree with virtually everything you say (except for the date of printed bibles…). None of what you have said is an argument against sola scriptura.

 

[JonNC]

How do you know you are in the right Church there are so many claiming the same thing but they all disagree about something.

How do you know you are in the right Church there are so many claiming the same thing but they all disagree about something?

It is a question we both must answer. It isn’t easy, and it would be so much easier were our communions to reconcile. Until, then, I act on faith, believing that what my communion teaches is right, and depending on grace.

Jon