Sola Scriptura, Solo Scriptura, & Ecclesial Anarchy; Against the Doctrine of Sola Scriptura. Author; Clay Whittleberry.

So, the following post will be a repeat of much of what I’ve already said in the past about Sola Scriptura. I would like to revisit the argument claiming that Sola Scriptura is Solo Scriptura, and then look at some of the implications that has.

So, as I have referred to before, Keith Mathison wrote a book entitled The Shape of Sola Scriptura. Within that book he argued that Protestants were giving up the classical Reformation doctrine Sola Scriptura for the novelty Solo Scriptura. Sola Scriptura states that Scripture is our sole infallible authority on matters of faith and practice. Solo Scriptura states that Scripture is our sole authority on matters of faith and practice. The former allows for secondary fallible authorities. The latter does not. Bryan Cross and Neal Judisch argued that there is no principled difference between the two in a blog post they co-wrote at Called to Communion in 2009. I’ll summarize the argument here.

Sola Scriptura sets Scripture up as our sole infallible authority on matters of faith and practice. So, Scripture is therefore our ultimate authority by which all sources regarding the faith are checked. Mathison is very critical of some Protestants for rejecting the early councils and creeds and accuses them of Solo Scriptura. Because Scripture is our ultimate authority, the Protestant goes to the councils and checks them against Scripture.

The individual finds a council professing doctrine X; the council is fallible and Scripture is infallible, and his ultimate authority, so he checks doctrine X against Scripture. If he finds doctrine X taught in Scripture, he “submits” to the council’s declaration of doctrine X. Now, it should be noted that all appeals to Scripture are appeals to interpretations of Scripture. So, the individual is weighing the council against his own interpretation of Scripture. If he interprets Scripture to teach X, he “submits” to the council’s declaration of X.

Of course, he is not really submitting to the council, for if you only submit to that which you agree with, you are only submitting to yourself in reality. You are simply recognizing that you agree with this source’s claims, you are not submitting to that source, Sola Scriptura leaves the Church without binding authority. The only source with binding authority is Scripture on Sola Scriptura. I apologize for the fact that this is not the best this has been explained. It is late and I am rushing this. I will be including the blog post at the bottom of my post so that you may read their post if you have not yet done so.

So, what are the implications of this? Well, it sets up Protestantism as ultimately individualistic as the individual has no binding interpretive authority outside himself. I would like to cover a few points here. The first is practicality. The second has to do with a few things seen in the History of the Church. The third and last point I will cover has to do with unity.

In discussing the practicality of the two systems (Sola Scriptura and Ecclesial Infallibility) we will assume the truth of each of them. We will first look at Sola Scriptura.

As stated earlier, that Sola Scriptura is Solo Scriptura leaves Protestantism ultimately individualistic. It is the individual and his or her Bible. Because of this, unless one is to give binding authority to a source that does not have it (making them inconsistent and not faithful to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura), each individual is left to draw his or her own conclusions regarding the faith.

This is not to say that others cannot be useful in making that decision, nor is it to say the Spirit is absent in their making that decision, but it is still ultimately the fallible individual making the decision. Now, because Scripture does not tell us which books are Canonical and which books are not, the individual must turn to History to figure which books are and are not Canonical. So, they must come up with a proper set of criteria to make these judgments, and then evaluate each contending book based on said criteria.

After deciding which books are and are not Canonical they turn to reading the content therein. They, of course, need a proper hermeneutic. They must make that decision. They must then take to interpreting Scripture with that hermeneutic and develop their own theology. Again, I am not saying they are in this by themselves. I am saying they are the final decision. Ultimately, they make the decision.

Now, let’s assume the truth of each one of the Apostolic Churches (unless you believe the Anglican Church to have maintained succession) position. Ecclesial Infallibility. Give assent of faith to the Church. There’s that.

Which of these two seems the most practical? Keep the laity in mind, here. When I say laity, I do not have in mind the rare exceptions among the laity who are among the top intellectuals within Christianity.

Now, turning to a few points regarding History.

The first point I would like to make is in the form of a question. If Scripture was meant to be our only binding authority regarding faith and practice, why was the Church left to sort out what is and is not Scripture? And why were they not focused more intently on this than they seem to have been? I am not saying it was not an issue, but it became a much bigger issue when Marcion put together his Canon.

The second point I would like to make concerns the fact that the Church held councils to settle issues regarding the faith. If Scripture were the only binding authority, why go through the trouble of holding these councils? All they would be is a statement of what the majority of the leaders of the Church believed. Nothing more. But, it is clear this is not how they were viewed as the council’s anathematized people and resulted in the excommunication of people. It is clear the Early Church believed in an Ecclesial Authority regarding faith and practice.

The third and last point I would like to make regarding History is that each one of the Apostolic Churches attests to the binding authority of the Church on matters of faith and practice, but I’m to believe what was established by Christ is that Scripture alone is our binding authority on matters of faith and practice.

The last issue I would like to discuss is the issue this leaves for unity within Protestantism. Sola Scriptura being Solo Scriptura and leaving Protestantism ultimately individualistic results in Anarchy. The individual has no binding authority outside himself (other than the Scriptures), so he is left to decide what is and is not Scripture and what the content therein means.

For example’s sake,  let’s assume the individual turns to history, without presupposing the 66 and seeking to defend that Canon, and ends up deciding the true Canon of Scripture is the 66 book Canon the majority of Protestants accept today. So, now we have this individual taking to this Canon after determining a proper hermeneutic to see what it means. He takes to reading this set of 66 books written by about 40 authors in three languages over the span of 1500 years composed of multiple genres, some books having a genre difficult to discern, and begins deciding what this teaches. Weighing passage against passage, verse against verse. Considering the vast amount of differing interpretations that exist Christendom, and all of this is ultimately done by each individual, this strikes me as anarchistic and explains the large number of denominations within Protestantism.

Now, if I am to believe Christ valued unity, should I not expect Him, God Incarnate, to set up a Church with a proper authorial system to maintain unity for His Church? I think I should expect that. So, of course the question to be asked is, “Would such an authorial system geared for unity by Christ be anarchistic?” I think the obvious answer is no. And if I am right, this means we should not expect the authorial set up of Protestantism to have been the authorial set up of the Church Christ established.

This leaves with the set ups of the Apostolic Churches who claim Ecclesial Infallibility. The Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Church, and the Assyrian Church of the East.

Now, it has been objected that visible unity is to be brought about as a result of spiritual unity, rather than to be forced. If forced institutionally, said unity is a façade. But, as I have said before, this assumes this is how the institutional authority of the Church operates. I disagree. The Catholic Church (as an example) maintains visible unity around the sacraments in that they, the Church, are a binding authority that the individual gives assent of faith, too.

If this visible institution is infallible and established by Christ, it is to be assented to as a binding source of authority, and as a result those who assent to the Church will remain in unity as one body around the sacraments. This is not institutionalism forcing unity in the sense it seems to have been assumed. It has also been stated that Scripture describes unity being strived for as a result of spiritual unity. Again, this assumes the Catholic authorial system does not allow for this. Catholics do not always agree. They are to strive to reconcile in disagreement, though.

The difference of course is that they remain in one body unified around the sacraments. But, there is still a level of striving for an even stronger degree of unity within the Catholic Church. This, of course, is the result of sinful, fallible, human beings allowed freedom of the will. Disagreements are bound to happen, and we are to seek reconciliation with our brothers and sisters in Christ when they do. But, this does not result in the visible disunity we see in Protestantism.

Furthermore, I would point out that this is how the Church in the Apostolic Era operated. There was one visible Church. Not numerous denominations in disagreement to begin with. We see the Apostles with binding doctrinal authority. Not just their written letters, but they themselves had this authority. They were, essentially, the magisterial head of the Church. We even see them invoke a council at Jerusalem, much like we see the Church invoke councils at Nicaea, Ephesus, Chalcedon, and so on, after the Apostolic Era. Christ did not start the Church in individualism, and I doubt he left it to individualism after the initial set up. But, this is what Protestantism requires you to believe if you are to be consistent.

I would like to finish with this thought I had about a week ago (about a week ago! [Hopefully somebody picks up on this; otherwise it shall leave people confused]). It is interesting to note that one of the four marks of the Church is that the Church is Apostolic. Now, the Protestant will always claim to accept the early creeds and at least Nicaea (of course they don’t, but they will say they do). So, they will interpret this to mean that the Church possesses Apostolicity. But, I am not sure this is what is meant, concerning the writing preceding this statement talking about Apostolic Succession.

I believe Irenaeus even states that the Church can be identified by the line of Apostolic Succession, the succession of Bishops tracing back to the Apostles themselves. The Church was not to be identified simply on the basis of the fact that it taught what the Apostles taught. It was to be identified by something visible. The line of Bishops tracing back to the Apostles. The Church has been viewed to be both visible and spiritual since its outset. Protestantism cannot claim such, unless they wish to identify which of the ridiculous number of denominations is the visible Church Christ established.

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/11/solo-scriptura-sola-scriptura-and-the-question-of-interpretive-authority/