Sola Scriptura Means Scripture Alone

There's a very pernicious error making the rounds in so-called Reformed circles these days. That is, a perversion in the biblical doctrine of Sola Scriptura (which is Latin for Scripture Alone, and expresses the doctrine that the Bible is to be the only authoritative rule for a Christian's belief and practice). What is being advanced, in a misguided attempt to solve the problem of the innumerable schisms in Evangelicalism, is an abandoning of the Holy Scriptures as the supreme authority over the conscience of the believer, and a substitution of church traditions in their place. The error is subtle because it is being taught under the guise of returning to a more faithful adherence to orthodox principles, and under the pretext that its proponents are only restoring to a term its proper meaning which has been lost through the passing of time.

Thus, the term Sola Scriptura is retained but it is not only emptied of its true sense, it is also turned on its head so that it means just the opposite of what its words plainly signify. And though this teaching is being disseminated by those who profess to be of the Reformed Faith (i. e., reformed from the errors of Romanism), in that they seek to give church tradition primacy over Holy Writ, they are preaching a doctrine which is, in fact, one of the foundational tenets of Romanism, the repudiation of which was at the very essence of the Protestant Reformation.

Of course, the attempt to undermine the authority of the Bible is never explicitly stated. As I said, it is presented with subtlety under a facade of orthodoxy. Sola Scriptura is not denied outrightly. Instead of preaching that Christians should abandon the principle, they are told that they need only rightly understand it, and that what today is called the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is not the doctrine as it was held by the eminent Protestant Reformers (Luther, Calvin, etc.). The real Sola Scriptura, as they would have it believed, is that the Holy Scriptures are authoritative but that they are not be understood apart from the testimony of "the historic Church." In effect, their doctrine is that the Scriptures must be interpreted in the light of church traditions. It is an error, in their view, for individual believers to go directly to the Scriptures and derive their beliefs therefrom. This is to be guilty of practicing "Solo" Scriptura instead of Sola Scriptura, of making "private interpretations", and of adding to the confusion which has resulted in thousands of denominational factions.

As one of this doctrine's advocates recently said to me in a discussion forum:

"What you seem to be teaching, Stuart, is not sola Scriptura but solo Scriptura, a radical "me and my Bible" approach that is a recipe for anarchy and results in the autonomy of the individual believer over the Scriptures themselves. You may protest that you hold the Bible as an authority over you, but in reality it is your personal interpretation of it as over against the historic witness of Christ's church that is your real authority." (The highlighting is from the original message)

My answer to him was that to be Sola Scriptura is to rely on the testimony of the word of God alone as it is recorded in the Bible. The only trustworthy "historic witness of Christ's church" is expressed in the Holy Scriptures. The church does not determine what is the orthodox teaching of the Scriptures, rather the teaching of the Scriptures determines what is the orthodox church. In fact, no one can even know what is and what is not Christ's church unless he goes to the Scriptures to make that judgment. And the true church can only come to true unity as each individual believer comes to a knowledge of true Christian doctrine through his own study of the Scriptures. A group whose unity is based on the dictates of religious authorities -- whether modern or ancient -- rather than on the personal convictions of every individual in the group, has only a false show of unity.

So this new generation of "Reformed" thinkers has effectually placed church tradition above the testimony of the Scriptures, though they will try to sound as though they are adhering to the orthodox Sola Scriptura doctrine with double-talk such as the following:

"...the classical Protestant view of Scripture maintains not that Scripture is the only location and authority for the truth, but that in post-revelational eras Scripture alone is the ultimate and infallible norm among genuine but subordinate authorities, the Church being most important among these.

"While the Reformers did not reject the authority of Church tradition, (as so many of their Protestant inheritors have), they did insist that it be subject to Scripture."

"...we ought to return to the understanding of Sola Scriptura held by those with whom we credit its birth, allowing an appreciation for the historic Church to be joined to the authority of Scripture and our reading of it."

These statements might sound faithful on the surface but they are really contradictory. For the very insistence that church tradition be subject to Scripture, is in itself a rejection of the authority of church tradition. Either church tradition is paramount in authority and the individual believer must be bound by its decrees regardless of what he sees in the Scriptures, or Scripture is paramount in authority and the individual believer must be bound by what he sees in the Scriptures regardless of church tradition. That's not to say that the testimony of the historic professing Church, in the form of doctrinal writings, should be disregarded. Certainly, the study of biblical expositions are profitable to one enlightened by the Spirit of God, no matter the date of their authorship. And Christians should give regard to the counsel of faithful ministers of the Word in their own day. But no believer should ever consider the testimony of uninspired men and their writings, or that of an earthly institution, to be authoritative until he is convinced that their witness agrees with the Bible. A Christian should never permit anything but the testimony of God -- contained in the Holy Scriptures -- to have authority over his conscience.

Thus, the underlying message of these self-professed scions of the Protestant Reformation is the same as that preached by the papacy: If all Christians would abandon this foolish notion that they can go to the Scriptures alone to learn the will of God, and instead submit to the decrees of the Church (and, of course, they will tell us what constitutes "the historic Church" and to what interpretations we must adhere), then there will be no more schism and all will be well with the church.

And though they accuse men like me of advocating "radical autonomy for the individual believer," I am not suggesting that Christians should be autonomous in the sense that they are not to be subject to any authority, or that the church should be without organization. The Bible clearly stands against anyone who advocates those positions. However, it is absolutely essential that every individual Christian be intellectually autonomous. In order for the true church to have true unity, that unity must be based on convictions of the truth. And genuine convictions regarding the truthfulness of particular biblical doctrines can only be produced in a mind that has searched out that truth for itself in the Holy Scriptures.