Posted on 06/29/2015 11:23:16 AM PDT by RnMomof7
Sola Scriptura: the reformed Protestant belief that the Scriptures alone are the final and only infallible authority for the Christian. This does not mean that Scriptures are the only authority (nuda or solo Scriptura), as Protestants believe in the authority of tradition, reason, experience, and emotions to varying degrees (after all, “sola scriptura” itself is an authoritative tradition in Protestantism). It does mean that Scripture trumps all other authorities (it is the norma normans sed non normata Lat. “norm that norms which is not normed”).
Sometimes people get the idea that sola Scriptura was a 16th-century invention. While it was definitely articulated a great deal through the controversies during the Reformation, its basic principles can be found deep in church history. Take a look at some of these early church fathers who seemed to believe in the primacy of Scripture:
Related Resource: Six Myths About Sola Scriptura by C. Michael Patton
“There is, brethren, one God, the knowledge of whom we gain from the Holy Scriptures, and from no other source. For just as a man, if he wishes to be skilled in the wisdom of this world, will find himself unable to get at it in any other way than by mastering the dogmas of philosophers, so all of us who wish to practise piety will be unable to learn its practice from any other quarter than the oracles of God. Whatever things, then, the Holy Scriptures declare, at these let us took; and whatsoever things they teach, these let us learn; and as the Father wills our belief to be, let us believe; and as He wills the Son to be glorified, let us glorify Him; and as He wills the Holy Spirit to be bestowed, let us receive Him. Not according to our own will, nor according to our own mind, nor yet as using violently those things which are given by God, but even as He has chosen to teach them by the Holy Scriptures, so let us discern them.” (Against the Heresy of One Noetus, 1-4, 7-9)
“They [heretics] gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures. We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.
For they [the Apostles] were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon to the Church, but if they should fall away, the direst calamity. Proofs of the things which are contained in the Scriptures cannot be shown except from the Scriptures themselves.” (Against Heresies, 1:8:1, 3:1:1, 3:3:1, 3:12:9)
Recommended Book: The Shape of Sola Scripura by Keith Mathison
“For how can we adopt those things which we do not find in the holy Scriptures?” (On the Duties of the Clergy, 1:23:102)
“The Arians, then, say that Christ is unlike the Father; we deny it. Nay, indeed, we shrink in dread from the word. Nevertheless I would not that your sacred Majesty should trust to argument and our disputation. Let us enquire of the Scriptures, of apostles, of prophets, of Christ. In a word, let us enquire of the Father. So, indeed, following the guidance of the Scriptures, our fathers [at the Council of Nicaea] declared, holding, moreover, that impious doctrines should be included in the record of their decrees, in order that the unbelief of Arius should discover itself, and not, as it were, mask itself with dye or face-paint.” (Exposition of the Christian Faith, 1:6:43, 1:18:119)
“But those who are ready to toil in the most excellent pursuits will not desist from the search after truth until they get the demonstration from the Scriptures themselves.” – Clement of Alexandria (The Stromata, 7:16)
“In order to leave room for such profitable discussions of difficult questions, there is a distinct boundary line separating all productions subsequent to apostolic times from the authoritative canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. The authority of these books has come down to us from the apostles through the successions of bishops and the extension of the Church, and, from a position of lofty supremacy, claims the submission of every faithful and pious mind. In the innumerable books that have been written latterly we may sometimes find the same truth as in Scripture, but there is not the same authority. Scripture has a sacredness peculiar to itself.” – Augustine (Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, 11:5)
“Every sickness of the soul hath in Scripture its proper remedy.” (Expositions on the Psalms, 37:2; notice the sufficiency of Scripture being iterated here)
“Let nothing be innovated, says he, nothing maintained, except what has been handed down. Whence is that tradition? Whether does it descend from the authority of the Lord and of the Gospel, or does it come from the commands and the epistles of the apostles? For that those things which are written must be done, God witnesses and admonishes, saying to Joshua the son of Nun: ‘The book of this law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate in it day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.’ Also the Lord, sending His apostles, commands that the nations should be baptized, and taught to observe all things which He commanded. If, therefore, it is either prescribed in the Gospel, or contained in the epistles or Acts of the Apostles, that those who come from any heresy should not be baptized, but only hands laid upon them to repentance, let this divine and holy tradition be observed.” (Letter 73:2)
“For concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the Faith, not even a casual statement must be delivered without the Holy Scriptures; nor must we be drawn aside by mere plausibility and artifices of speech. Even to me, who tell thee these things, give not absolute credence, unless thou receive the proof of the things which I announce from the Divine Scriptures. For this salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning, but on demonstration of the Holy Scriptures.” (Catechetical Lectures, 4:17)
“This seal have thou ever on thy mind; which now by way of summary has been touched on in its heads, and if the Lord grant, shall hereafter be set forth according to our power, with Scripture-proofs. For concerning the divine and sacred Mysteries of the Faith, we ought not to deliver even the most casual remark without the Holy Scriptures: nor be drawn aside by mere probabilities and the artifices of argument. Do not then believe me because I tell thee these things, unless thou receive from the Holy Scriptures the proof of what is set forth: for this salvation, which is of our faith, is not by ingenious reasonings, but by proof from the Holy Scriptures.” (A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Oxford: Parker, 1845, The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril 4.17).
“Nor did we evade objections, but we endeavored as far as possible to hold to and confirm the things which lay before us, and if the reason given satisfied us, we were not ashamed to change our opinions and agree with others; but on the contrary, conscientiously and sincerely, and with hearts laid open before God, we accepted whatever was established by the proofs and teachings of the Holy Scriptures.” (Cited in Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius, 7:24)
“We make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings.
And to those who are expert only in the technical methods of proof a mere demonstration suffices to convince; but as for ourselves, we were agreed that there is something more trustworthy than any of these artificial conclusions, namely, that which the teachings of Holy Scripture point to: and so I deem that it is necessary to inquire, in addition to what has been said, whether this inspired teaching harmonizes with it all. And who, she replied, could deny that truth is to be found only in that upon which the seal of Scriptural testimony is set?” – (“On the Soul and the Resurrection” A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 442)
Enjoying as you do the consolation of the Holy Scriptures, you stand in need neither of my assistance nor of that of anybody else to help you comprehend your duty. You have the all-sufficient counsel and guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead you to what is right (Letter CCLXXXIII, ANCF, p. 312).
“Their treason involves us in the difficult and dangerous position of having to make a definite pronouncement, beyond the statements of Scripture, upon this grave and abstruse matter….We must proclaim, exactly as we shall find them in the words of Scripture, the majesty and functions of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and so debar the heretics from robbing these Names of their connotation of Divine character, and compel them by means of these very Names to confine their use of terms to their proper meaning….I would not have you flatter the Son with praises of your own invention; it is well with you if you be satisfied with the written word.” (On the Trinity, 2:5, 3:23)
Recommended Reading: Now that I’m a Christian by C. Michael Patton (has a lengthy discussion in chapter one on the different types of authority and how they interact with Scripture)
“When, then, anything in my little work seems to you harsh, have regard not to my words, but to the Scripture, whence they are taken.” (Letter, 48:20)
“I beg of you, my dear brother, to live among these books [Scriptures], to meditate upon them, to know nothing else, to seek nothing else.” (Letter, 53:10)
“I shall yield to scripture alone.” (Dialogues, 1)
Here is a good quote from J. N. D. Kelly to sum it all up:
The clearest token of the prestige enjoyed by (Scripture) is the fact that almost the entire theological effort of the Fathers, whether their aims were polemical or constructive, was expended upon what amounted to the exposition of the Bible. Further, it was everywhere taken for granted that, for any doctrine to win acceptance, it had first to establish its Scriptural basis (Early Christian Doctrines, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978, pp. 42, 46).
Question-begging lie...
**Did the Early Church Fathers Believe in Sola Scriptura?**
NO!
This is outside of Scripture. Thus you concede we must look outside of Scripture to know what is Scripture. If the church is reliable in this area then it must also be reliable in teaching doctrine.
Similarly, the church does not declare doctrine, they can only confess what was already revealed.
That doctrine is Catholic. See St. Ignatius and Justin Martyr.
The belief that apostles had authority to declare doctrine, and the judgement of what was authentic from the apostles, does not equal the authority of the apostles.
But who can make this judgment?
Collating their authenticated works is not doctrine.
Authenticating what are their works, and thus Scripture, is doctrine.
Not Scripture?
How did Paul tell us that Christ appeared to 500 people at one time? It’s not in any Gospel.
There are other examples where Paul quotes Christ, but we do not see those words in Scripture. Hopefully I can get to that information tomorrow when my wiped-out computer gets put back together.
That’s Holy Tradition.
The positing of a purely spiritual church does not work. Without a visible teaching church there is no way to know what is Scripture in the first place. Nor is it how the the early church operated. There were bishops from the beginning.
Then I take it you reject the entire New Testament as the Jews do?
Peter called Paul’s writings scripture.
When?
And when did Jesus say to anybody during his earthly sojourn “write this down”?
Um, who made the final ruling at the Acts 15 Jerusalem council? Did Paul have to rebuke Peter for hypocrisy? Who authored most of the letters to believers in the Church of Jesus Christ, not the catholic church, a later fabrication, but the Church which Jesus describes as His body, His Bride?
Peter was the Apostle to the Jews. Paul was the Apostle tot he Gentiles. In the Justified body of Christ there is no distinction now between Jew and Gentile.
This is perhaps the third time you have posted this explantion to me. I can see very clear reason for Jesus phrasing the 'keys' and 'bindings and loosing' the way He did. He was well aware the Gospel would go first to the Jew and then to the Gentiles. He knew that authority to proclaim the Gospel (not the establishment of a man-made institution) was vital to Jews inclined to believe in Him. He passed authority to Peter, TO PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL, and to PASS THAT GOSPEL to others for distribution.
You continue to try and use that conveyance (of authority to proclaim the Gospel), to assert that a human institution was the goal of Jesus in giving the keys to Peter. Yet the scriptures clearly show the Gospel preached and the proof FROM GOD that Justification BY FAITH was now activated.
That is the New Covenant, that Justification by Faith in Jesus's sacrifice for us on the Cross and His blood upon the Mercy Seat is The Gospel. Immediately upon such justification God's LIFE in the person of the Holy Spirit comes into the believer. It is recorded for our understanding, at Pentecost and int he house of Cornelius.
Your blind assertion that the keys were to establish an societal institution is not only error, it is contradiction to the Gospel Preached! It contradicts what Jesus Himself declared. His Kingdom is not of this world. The catholic church is of this world. The evidence is so overwhelming, of the world inveigling the catholic church, even you should see that the catholic church is of this world. Jesus said HIS Kingdom is not of this world.
One final note: The Church Age is a unique thing in human History, because it is during this Church Age that God is adopting we sinners into His Family! This is not some promise to be obtained after a long and arduous journey following 'of this world' catholic sacraments until reaching a worthiness state. Get that in your heart, if nothing else, get that Truth into your heart. The Church Age is not about Catholicism or catholic sheparding. The Church Age is about adopting human sinners into His Family, justified by His paying the penalty for sin and sanctified in a daily walk by the indwelling of His Holy Spirit because Jesus spread His blood upon the Mercy Seat so the law of sin and death could no longer bind you.
When Peter loosed somethig bound, he loosed the hold of sin and death by opening the door to God's Grace in Christ. Peter did not loose the law of sin and death, he loosed the binding by opening the door to the ONLY ONE WHO CAN Deal with the law of sin and death, Jesus Christ The Righteous.
When Jesus told Peter (and the other Apostles, by the way) that they were now to have the power to retain someone's sins or absolve them, did Jesus mean Peter could forgive sins, or did Jesus mean that Peter had the power via the door opened to the Mercy Seat covered in Christ's blood? I realize your religion teaches you that a mere man had been given the god-like power to forgive sins. But that is not in the nature of Absolute Righteousness, which is the Character of God. ONLY GOD may forgive the sin.
Jesus had several confrontations with Pharisees over that very matter as He proved His power as God with us to forgive sin by showing His power to heal to the uttermost any illness He addressed in a person.
There are so many twists of Truth in Catholicism, I can scarcely keep up with all the confusions catholic apologists keep trying to float as their proof of a godly institution. The Church of Jesus Christ is not of this world. It IS a spiritual body of Christ.
I just listened to a sermon/homily from a Maryland Priest. He was sincere and is appropriately standing against the degenerating of the INSTITUTION of marriage, because he knows that the INSTITUTION of marriage was established by God, not five black-robed dead souls sitting on a bench. The INSTITUTION of marriage is hallmarked by two becoming ONE in the spiritual sense. With God, THREE ARE ONE. But God is not an institution to be juried over by a clique of Bishops and Cardinals. The True Church is The Body of Christ. God is a spiritual entity who must be worshipped in Spirit and Truth, not by Nicolaitan rituals.
‘Oh ye generation of vipers’ Get thee behind us Magicsteeringthem vipers.
Matthew was an apostle. John was an apostle. Mark was a disciple described in one of the Passion accounts as the young man who ran off naked. Luke traveled with Paul and talked with the Blessed Virgin Mary as he painted her portrait.
You are missing a lot.
Nice theory but it does not work. There were bishops who lived, and gave their lives for Christ, before Constantine. The writings of the pre-Constantinian church Fathers show that they were Catholic. The theory of the Constantinian origins of the Catholic Church also does not work because one would have to believe that the church survived 300 years of brutal persecution only to be crushed by Constantine without a single word of objection. Sorry, that does not work.
Try to reads for comprehension, not to add your learned twist. I did not say there is ONLY the spiritual Chruch. I have told you over and over that the ONE True Church is the Spiritual Church that is The Body of Christ, made up of ALL who believe He is Their Messiah and Lord. There are lots of human institutional churches, and tens of thousands of denominations of same. Catholicism is not one institution, it is fractured into many institutional gatherings. YOU conflate the spiritual with the physical every chance you get, making your posts nonsense sometimes.
Of course the errors of the Catholic Church were begun before Constantine. Paul spoke of many of them and John revealed in Revelation some of them. It wasn't crushed by Constantine. The Catholic Church errors were just expanded, accepted, and spread under and after Constantine. Constantine was just the facilitator of the expansion of error.
The strategy used by those under a 'strange power' is to relate the miracles at Peter's hand and Philip's hand and Paul's hand, etc, as evidence they had the power to also forgive sins.
When they try this twist, recall that Jesus told His disciples before ascending into Heaven that: John 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. The word is 'works' not judicial decrees. Forgiving sin is a judicial decree. Miracles of healing are works.
Um, the apostles were all Jews.
Sorry, but that still does not establish how such a purely spiritual church authenticates what is the canon of Scripture. There needs to be a recognizable VISIBLE CHURCH that has the authority to make that judgment.
Christ taught every time He spoke. Christ was God with us in a flesh body. He was teaching any and all that, even on our best day, how easy it is to puff ourselves up and take pride in what is not ours from the beginning.
The mind Peter exhibited when Christ called him out was just like that of Satan. It was a lesson, that few ever take to heart.
Perhaps if you read the entire post you would not need to play opposition games.
So it is not just to the Jews but to a select group of Jews, the Apostles. Where does it say that their office is to be reserved just to Jews? Paul says that there is not distinction between Jew and Greek. Timothy and Titus were both non-Jews were ordained and lead their local churches. The Gospels of Mark and Luke were not even written by Jews. It was not to the Jews but to the office of apostle and their successors that Jesus entrusted his church.
2 Peter 3:16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
>>And when did Jesus say to anybody during his earthly sojourn “write this down”?<<
That really doesn't even deserve a response. The better question is, "when did God/Jesus stop requiring them to write it down?
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