Sola Scriptura! Do the Scriptures teach it?

The scriptures that have so far been posted as a basis for Sola Scriptura say absolutely nothing in either derision or praise of other writings or oral traditions and their value to understanding and formulating Christian doctrine. How can you base the doctrine of Sola Scriptura on that? Theologians have an expression for such doctrines. They call them doctrines from silence. Since when was silence “only Scripture” (Latin = “Sola Scriptura”)?

The doctrine of the Trinity is not based on silence; it is based upon many Scriptures that the entire Christian Church (with the exception of a few small pseudo-Christian Pentecostal groups) recognizes to be a Biblical doctrine. There are no Scriptures in the Bible that say anything at all either in derision or in praise of other writings or oral traditions and their value to understanding and formulating Christian doctrine. However, extra-Biblical writings are quoted in the scriptures to support Christian doctrines, and these quotes absolutely prove that, according to the Bible, the use of extra-Biblical sources are of value to understanding and formulating Christian doctrine. Therefore, the Bible not only does not teach Sola Scriptura, it teaches that it is contrary to what the Bible teaches.

Homosexuals vehemently argue that Jesus never said anything negative about homosexuals or homosexual practices and they therefore argue from silence that the practice of homosexuality is not a sin. However, Paul, in his epistle to the Romans and his first epistle to the Corinthians strongly condemned homosexual practices. Therefore we know that the practice of homosexuality is a sin. The Bible does not explicitly say that extra-Biblical sources are of value to understanding and formulating Christian doctrine, and many argue from silence that they are, therefore, of no value. However, the fact that they are quoted in the Bible to support Christian doctrines PROVES that they are of value to understanding and formulating Christian doctrine. And that fact proves that “Sola Scriptura” is a false doctrine.

 

Thank you for posting this. It is precisely what I believe.

 

Not so much as one, single word of this says anything at all about the value of extra-Biblical material—and extra-Biblical material is what this thread is all about. Sola Scriptura teaches that extra-Biblical material is of no value to understanding and formulating Christian doctrine. Sola Scriptura is not a Biblical doctrine because the Bible says absolutely nothing in either derision or praise of extra-Biblical sources and their value to understanding and formulating Christian doctrine. However, the fact that they are quoted in the Bible to support Christian doctrines PROVES that they are of value to understanding and formulating Christian doctrine. And that fact proves that “Sola Scriptura” is a false doctrine.

 

Jude quotes from the writings of Enoch as though they are Scripture.

Jude 1:14. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
15. To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. (KJV)

The writings of Enoch are NOT part of the Canon. Not even the Roman Catholic Church teaches that they are. But Jude, the very brother of our Lord Jesus, quotes from the writings of Enoch as though they are Scripture.

 

If you will study the history of Baptist doctrine, you will learn that you have this backwards.

 

The Bible is made up of two parts, the Old Covenant (more commonly called in English translations the Old Testament) and the New Covenant (more commonly called English translations the New Testament. Both words are translations of the same Greek word, and in the King James Version of the Bible (as well as many other translations into English) we find the same Greek word being translated both ways several times in the New Testament.

We see in the Bible, especially in Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, that the new covenant has replaced the old covenant because the first covenant was not able free anyone from the grips of sin and they continued to sin and they died in their sins. However, what the old covenant could not do, the new covenant did do,

3. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
4. so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (NASB, 1995)

Jesus has fulfilled the Law as promised, and through faith in his blood atonement, we enter into a new covenant with Him, the covenant of Grace,

Gal. 4:21. Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
22. For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
23. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
24. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
25. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
26. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
27. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
28. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
29. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
30. Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
31. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. (KJV)

Rom 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. KJV

Therefore, the Old Testament laws are no longer binding upon believers in Christ, and even our pastors behind the pulpit can wear clothing made from blended fabrics and cut their sideburns without fear of God’s judgment upon them. And neither are the Old Covenant prohibitions against homosexuality binding upon believers in Christ. However, New Covenant prohibitions against homosexuality ARE BINDING upon believers in Christ,

1 Cor. 6:9. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,
10. nor thieves, nor {the} covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. (NASB, 1995)

 

Marcia,

Thank you for your last three posts. They not only show that you made a fine and honest effort to contribute something of value to this discussion, they are an excellent example of true Christian character when faced with adversity. And not only that, you have very much succeeded in accomplishing your goal.

As you have illustrated in a fine manner, not everyone agrees precisely with what is meant by Sola Scriptura. Most unfortunately there are those persons on this message board and elsewhere who take the expression very literally to mean that extra-Biblical material is of no value to understanding and formulating Christian doctrine. I find this to be especially true when one points out that an interpretation of a scripture can not reasonably be accepted as true if that interpretation completely contradicts the only interpretation of that scripture that is known from early Christian writings, and that early interpretation was not only the very common and unanimous interpretation by the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers, but has been taught by at least some scholars of the Bible throughout history, and is being taught to day by the large majority of Bible scholars. And it becomes all the more true when one points out the fact that if an interpretation of a scripture which is taught today was not taught by anyone for the first several centuries or more, and in its place a very different interpretation was unanimously taught, it means that in order for the new interpretation to be the correct interpretation, it necessarily follows that that particular scripture is so difficult to understand that there is no evidence that anyone understood the correct interpretation for centuries.

And when there is not only one scripture involved, but many scriptures involved in the interpretation, and all of the scriptures had been for the first several or more centuries interpreted in a manner that contradicts the new interpretation, the argument against the new interpretation becomes very, very strong, and the party advocating the new interpretation often resorts to calling fowl, and they argue that the only valid evidence for the correct interpretation of all Scripture lies in Scripture itself, totally discounting all of the historical evidence, and they claim Sola Scriptura in support of that argument.

 

Swaimj

I posted in the third post in this thread the definition that I was using, the one written by the Catholic apologist James Akin,

“Simply stated, the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura ("Scripture alone") teaches that every teaching in Christian theology (everything pertaining to "faith and practice") must be able to be derived from Scripture alone.

For reasons unknown to me, it appears that almost no one contributing to this thread understood James Akin’s definition. Therefore, I shall present my definition in my own words, but I do not expect them to be understood either.

Sola Scriptura means that the only valid evidence for the correct interpretation of all Scripture lies exclusively in Scripture itself. I fully realize that many persons do not interpret Sola Scriptura in this manner, but many others do, especially those who choose to ignore historical theology and the implications involved in refuting it.

 

No, I am not thinking of a particular passage here. There of many of them, and I have posted regarding several of them on this message board. The one that got the most attention was Matt. 25:30 and the other verses in Matt. that speak of the place of weepng and the gnashing of teeth. Another one is 2Thes. 2:3. Another is John 3:16. There are many more, but If I mention them here, we might end up in a debate on all of them, and I don't have the time for that and the Sola Scriptura arguments that many will use to refute my arguments from the history of interpretation.

 

An Interview with Thomas C. Oden
General Editor, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture

Conducted by Dan Reid
InterVarsity Press Senior Editor, Reference & Academic Books


REID: How did the idea for the ACCS arise?

ODEN: I think it came to me when I was preparing a sermon on a text. I suddenly realized that what I had been doing as a theologian could be applied to preaching--that it would be possible to go back to the Fathers of the Church series, look up the Scripture reference and find all kinds of material for that particular text. So that was an "Aha!" experience for me.

REID: What confirmed in your mind that you should proceed with the project?

ODEN: I believe it did not come until the Washington, D.C., feasibility consultation in December 1993. The project had been brewing in my mind for several years, my Ph.D. students were excited about it, and I wanted to gather together the best people I could think of and ask whether it could and should be done, and whether we had the resources to carry it out. Drew University brought together top patristic scholars from around the country. We seriously evaluated the positives and negatives, and there grew out of that body a strong consensus that this was something we could and should do.

REID: There has been a considerable amount of prepublication enthusiasm for the ACCS. Do you think the time is particularly ripe for the project?

ODEN: Almost everyone I talk with about the project responds positively, wondering why this was not done fifty years ago or more. I do think this is a ripe time among the several different audiences--Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant evangelical--and for different reasons.

Among Roman Catholics there has been since Vatican II a fixation on the documents of Vatican II, so much so that they have tended to forget their patristic grounding. If you go back to Roman Catholic scholarship of fifty and one hundred years ago, you will see constant reference to patristic writers. Now, I'm very pleased with much that Vatican II did, but I think that they have tended during this period of opening the windows to the modern world--aggiornamento--to lose something of their exegetical roots.

The Orthodox have always been committed to patristic exegesis, but they have generally focused on Eastern exegesis. They've had such riches in the Eastern tradition that they have not felt a need to go into Western tradition. I think there is a growing awareness of the Western tradition on the part of the Orthodox, and they are ready to look further into the history of exegesis.

Evangelicals have entered into the world of historical-critical scholarship in a fairly healthy way, but it has left them hungry, with a sense of something essential missing. I think there is a growing awareness among them that the work of the Holy Spirit in the period between Augustine and Luther, and even before Augustine, in the Eastern tradition, is largely a closed memory.

Among each of these three audiences, there is a hunger regarding a long-delayed project that has not matured. The resources for doing scholarly work in this area have diminished greatly in the last two centuries, and that is part of the reason why there is a readiness for this project.

REID: I have heard you make some critical comments regarding modern biblical interpretation of Scripture. What do you think has gone wrong in biblical interpretation that needs to be set right?

ODEN: The heart of the answer is an ideological captivity to the assumptions of the Enlightenment. By those assumptions I mean naturalistic reductionism, autonomous individualism, hedonic narcissism and absolute relativism. These describe the two-century hegemony of the ideology of modernity. And there is an inordinate dependence of historical-critical scholarship on that ideology.

Twenty-five or thirty years ago, when I was a young theologian and a Bultmannian, it seemed like the assumptions of modernity would go on forever. But the worldview of modernity is now suffering an intense inward collapse. I strongly commend historical scholarship. But I would argue that a great deal of modern biblical scholarship needs to be freed from the narrow assumptions of modernity.

REID: The ACCS is not aimed primarily at the guild of biblical scholarship, but how do you hope it will be used and perceived by biblical scholars?

ODEN: I think it is targeted to some of the guild of biblical scholars, especially those who have experienced the demoralization of contemporary ideology-bound historical scholarship. I think the guild is already becoming aware of the vulnerability of its own assumptions. And, in that sense, the ACCS is pertinent to the crisis faced by the guild. Many scholars who have faithfully come through the way biblical studies has been taught over the past forty or fifty years are now ready to delve into the history of exegesis, which has been not only largely inaccessible to them but systematically excluded from them. In other words, most biblical scholars wouldn't think of going back to Origen or Theodore of Mopsuestia or Theodoret--that would never occur to them if they were exegeting a difficult passage, say on Luke. Their training has provided them with the assumption that the modern historical-critical method is all they need in order to properly exegete the text. So I believe there are lots of scholars who are ready for some fresh air from the history of exegesis. They really haven't had a chance at it yet because the texts have not been available to them, at least not in an easily accessible form.

REID: Not having done any serious work in patristics myself, I have been struck by the fact that a good deal of material that exists in line-by-line patristic commentaries is not available in English translation. How much exegetical material would you say has not previously been brought into English in any form?

ODEN: A lot of this is just sitting in Latin and Greek. It's there in the Migne patrology. There are very important commentaries, or at least extracts of commentaries, by, for example, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret, as well as huge amounts of Cyril of Alexandria, that remain untranslated. And there are many minor Latin authors and significant line-by-line commentaries that have remained untranslated. There is a German translation, Pauluskommentare aus der griechischen Kirche (Pauline Commentary from the Greek Church&), published in 1933 by Staab, that has commentaries or segments by Didymus the Blind, Eusebius of Emesa, Severian of Gabala, Gennadius of Constantinople, Acacius of Caesarea, Apollinaris of Laodicea. This was never translated into English, but in Gerald Bray's ACCS volume on Romans, for example, significant portions of this material will be available in English.

Exactly how much material remains untranslated? One way to answer that is to look at the 379 volumes of the Migne Patrologia Graeca and Patrologia Latina and ask what proportion of the biblical comment in those volumes is translated into English. I believe it would be less than half of the total. If we ask about translation into other modern languages, I imagine 60 or 70 percent, maybe 75 percent, has been translated.

REID: I can distinctly remember in my first year of seminary being attracted by the catalog write-up of a graduate-level course called something like "Historical Exegesis of Scripture." It promised to explore ways of utilizing patristic exegesis. However, in the years that followed, I never had any significant encounter with patristic exegesis, and that included a few years of graduate work in biblical studies. Perhaps I should not have transferred to another seminary! But now I'm glad for the present opportunity as an editor to be taking the course. How would you advise those who hold the keys to seminary curricula to remedy this matter? Already the three-year curriculum is chock-full, isn't it?

ODEN: Remedying the deficiencies of seminary curricula is a difficult question because of all kinds of vested political interests long at work in the building of any curriculum. But I think the most promising answer is to begin to include patristic studies and patristic exegesis in courses in pastoral care, in ethics, in homiletics, and not simply to rely on the historians and the biblical scholars to make these resources available.

I think there are an increasing number of people teaching in pastoral care, for example, who are beginning to realize that there is a great viable tradition of therapeutic wisdom in the classical tradition. Similarly, with respect to ethics, the moral teachings of the ancient Christian writers are being rediscovered gradually. I think the ACCS volumes will be used in homiletics courses. I think they will also enter into the study of questions of ethics with regard to particular passages that pose questions of moral responsibility and social justice. So I believe our project is going to have an impact on curricula, but it will be very incremental, very slow. Maybe, twenty or thirty years from, now there will be in biblical studies a normative assumption that if you are going to study Romans or Genesis, you've got to study the history of exegesis of these books.

REID: I have been impressed lately by the fact that the Reformers were very conversant with patristic interpretation and obviously prized patristic insight for their own exegesis. Where or when, in Protestant interpretation, did patristic interpretation fall into neglect?

ODEN: It was well intact in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. If you look at Luther's knowledge of Augustine, Calvin's knowledge of Ambrose, Bucer or Melancthon's knowledge of the ancient Christian writers, you will see that they were very solidly rooted, particularly in the Western patristic writers. In the seventeenth century you even see a deepening of that interest in the fathers on the part of Lutheran and Reformed Protestant scholastics, as they are sometimes called. And you can see it in Puritan writers like John Owen or Richard Baxter. By the eighteenth century there still was significant patristic scholarship, since scholars then still knew how to read Greek and Latin.

But, in the nineteenth century, as the Protestant intellectual tradition became more liberalized, it became less capable of even reading the Greek and Latin sources. I track this beginning with Schleiermacher, Strauss and Hegel--I think the fall of Protestant hermeneutics goes through that sequence. Our ability to read, understand and appreciate patristic writers fell into neglect to the extent that we fell into the Hegelian assumption of progress in history–which gave a glow to modern ideology--and Schleiermacher's focus on individual religious experience and the assumption of Strauss and others on objective historical knowledge as the important aspect of historical inquiry.

REID: As I have read the manuscripts of these initial volumes, I have envisioned the setting of Bill Moyer's recent PBS series on Genesis. There intellectuals from a variety of perspectives would gather to talk about a text from Genesis. I see a parallel thing happening in these commentaries, though all within the ambit of consensual Christianity. I envision the fathers gathered in a circle commenting on a text from Mark or Romans. An engaging Bible study ensues in which not every comment is of equal value to me. But through the whole conversation, new and unexpected vistas on the whole of Scripture unfold. And the entire conversation raises my perception of the text to a level greater than the sum of its parts.

ODEN: Yes, as I look at the patristic comments, not all are of equal value to me either, nor do I think they have been of equal value in the historical tradition. Some have been historically more central than others.

I think from your analogy we can observe that there are great varieties of interpretation that are indeed shaped by various cultural challenges and situations. Under the umbrella of orthodoxy, of ecumenical consent, there is still a great deal of room for many varieties of interpretation. There is not simply one way of reading a text, and of reading it authentically within the frame of the mind of the believing church. So one thing we learn from the patristic writers who span over seven centuries is that there can be--without heresy--honestly different approaches, methods and metaphors that can be drawn out from or applied to a particular Scripture text.

The other thing I want to pick up on is this wholeness idea that you have mentioned. Classical Christian tradition wants to read each text according to the whole. Katholou, "according to the whole," from which we get our word "catholic," carries with it the idea of seeing that text in relation to all other texts and the whole experience of the Christian community. For evangelicals a truly catholic reading of Scripture is a reading carried out with the mind of the early church. We have a very bad Protestant habit of assuming that I take my Bible into my closet, and it is just between me and God, and nobody else. And I don't have to listen to any other voices.

One of the reasons for the hunger in Protestant hermeneutics is precisely this, that we have missed the correctives of other voices--of other historical periods and cultures. Part of what we are doing when we read Scripture with the fathers is expanding our cultural vision, the metaphors through which we can understand the Scripture text. We are also seeing the text more according to its wholeness, that is according to the wholeness of the truth of the Christian faith and of Scripture. To see how the Holy Spirit has worked through that wholeness is one of the great gifts that comes from this kind of exercise.

This part of my life is devoted to enjoying that great conversation, sharing in it and mediating it to colleagues in the modern period. And I must say it's a profound privilege to be able to sit at that table.

 

About the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture Series

The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture does what very few of today's students of the Bible could do for themselves. With the aid of computer technology, the vast array of writings from the church fathers--including much that is available only in the ancient languages--have been combed for their comment on Scripture. From these results, scholars with a deep knowledge of the fathers and a heart for the church have hand-selected material for each volume, shaping, annotating and introducing it to today's readers. Each portion of commentary has been chosen for its salient insight, its rhetorical power and its faithful representation of the consensual exegesis of the early church.

The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture is an ecumenical project, promoting a vital link of communication between the varied Christian traditions of today and their common ancient ancestors in the faith. On this shared ground, we listen as leading pastoral theologians of seven centuries gather around the text of Scripture and offer their best theological, spiritual and pastoral insights.

Today the historical-critical method of interpretation has nearly exhausted its claim on the biblical text and on the church. In its wake there is a widespread yearning among Christian individuals and communities for the wholesome, the deep and the enduring. The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture does not seek to replace those excellent commentaries that have been produced in the twentieth century. Rather, it supplements them, framing them with interpretive voices that have long sustained the church and only recently have fallen silent. It invites us to listen with appreciative ears and sympathetic minds as our ancient ancestors in the faith describe and interpret the scriptural vistas as they see them.

The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture is a postcritical revival of the early commentary tradition known as the glossa ordinaria, a text artfully elaborated with ancient and authoritative reflections and insights. An uncommon companion for theological interpretation, spiritual reading, and wholesome teaching and preaching.