Posted on 01/06/2003 8:09:14 AM PST by lockeliberty
In the 1980s and early 1990s, a controversy erupted among dispensationalists which came to be referred to as the Lordship Salvation controversy. On one side of the debate were men such as Zane Hodges1 and Charles Ryrie2 who taught a reductionistic doctrine of solafide which absolutized the word “alone” in the phrase “justification by faith alone” and removed it from its overall theological context. Faith was reduced to little more than assent to the truthfulness of certain biblical propositions. Repentance, sanctification, submission to Christ’s Lordship, love, and perseverance were all said to be unnecessary for salvation. Advocates of this position claimed that it was the classical Reformation position taught by Martin Luther and John Calvin. On the other side of the debate was John MacArthur who argued that these men were clearly abandoning the Reformed doctrine of justification by faith alone.3 In addition to the books written by the primary dispensationalist participants, numerous Reformed theologians wrote books and articles criticizing this alteration of the doctrine of solafide.4 A heated theological controversy began which continues in some circles even to this day.
Ironically, a similar drastic alteration of the classical Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura has occurred over the last 150 years, yet this has caused hardly a stir among the theological heirs of the Reformation, who have usually been quick to notice any threatening move against the Reformed doctrine of justification. So much time and effort has been spent guarding the doctrine of sola fide against any perversion or change that many do not seem to have noticed that the classical and foundational Reformed doctrine of sola scriptura has been so altered that is virtually unrecognizable. In its place Evangelicals have substituted an entirely different doctrine. Douglas Jones has coined the term solo scriptura to refer to this aberrant Evangelical version of sola scriptura.5
Modern Evangelicalism has done the same thing to sola scriptura that Hodges and Ryrie did to solafide. But unfortunately so little attention is paid to the doctrine of sola scriptura today that even among trained theologians there is confusion and ambiguity when the topic is raised. Contradictory and insufficient definitions of sola scriptura are commonplace not only among broadly Evangelical authors but among Reformed authors as well. In this chapter we shall examine this aberrant modern Evangelical concept of solo scriptura and explain why it is imperative that the Evangelical church recognize it to be as dangerous as the distorted concepts of solafide that are prevalent in the Church today.
EVANGELICAL INDIVIDUALISM
The modern Evangelical version of solo scriptura is nothing more than a new version of Tradition 0. Instead of being defined as the sole infallible authority, the Bible is said to be the “sole basis of authority”6 Tradition is not allowed in any sense; the ecumenical creeds are virtually dismissed; and the Church is denied any real authority. On the surface it would seem that this modern Evangelical doctrine would have nothing in common with the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox doctrines of authority. But despite the very real differences, the modern Evangelical position shares one major flaw with both the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox positions. Each results in autonomy. Each results in final authority being placed somewhere other than God and His Word. Unlike the Roman Catholic position and the Eastern Orthodox position, however, which invariably result in the autonomy of the Church, the modern Evangelical position inevitably results in the autonomy of the individual believer.
We have already seen that there is a major difference between the concept of Scripture and tradition taught by the classical Reformers and the concept taught by the Anabaptists and their heirs. The Anabaptist concept, here referred to as Tradition 0, attempted to deny the authority of tradition in any real sense. The Scriptures were considered not only the sole final and infallible authority, but the only authority whatsoever. The Enlightenment added the philosophical framework in which to comprehend this individualism. The individual reason was elevated to the position of final authority. Appeals to antiquity and tradition of any kind were ridiculed. In the early years of the United States, democratic populism swept the people along in its fervor.7 The result is a modern American Evangelicalism which has redefined sola scriptura in terms of secular Enlightenment rationalism and rugged democratic individualism.
Perhaps the best way to explain the fundamental problem with the modern Evangelical version of solo scriptura would be through the use of an illustration to which many believers may be able to relate. Almost every Christian who has wrestled with theological questions has encountered the problem of competing interpretations of Scripture. If one asks a dispensationalist pastor, for example, why he teaches premillennialism, the answer will be, “Because the Bible teaches premillennialism.” If one asks the conservative Presbyterian pastor across the street why he teaches amillennialism (or postmillennialism), the answer will likely be, “Because that is what the Bible teaches.” Each man will claim that the other is in error, but by what ultimate authority do they typically make such a judgment? Each man will claim that he bases his judgment on the authority of the Bible, but since each man’s interpretation is mutually exclusive of the other’s, both interpretations cannot be correct. How then do we discern which interpretation is correct?
The typical modern Evangelical solution to this problem is to tell the inquirer to examine the arguments on both sides and decide which of them is closest to the teaching of Scripture. He is told that this is what sola scriptura means — to individually evaluate all doctrines according to the only authority, the Scripture. Yet in reality, all that occurs is that one Christian measures the scriptural interpretations of other Christians against the standard of his own scriptural interpretation. Rather than placing the final authority in Scripture as it intends to do, this concept of Scripture places the final authority in the reason and judgment of each individual believer. The result is the relativism, subjectivism, and theological chaos that we see in modern Evangelicalism today.
A fundamental and self-evident truth that seems to be unconsciously overlooked by proponents of the modern Evangelical version of solo scriptura is that no one is infallible in his interpretation of Scripture. Each of us comes to the Scripture with different presuppositions, blind spots, ignorance of important facts, and, most importantly, sinfulness. Because of this we each read things into Scripture that are not there and miss things in Scripture that are there. Unfortunately, a large number of modern Evangelicals have followed in the footsteps of Alexander Campbell (1788-1866), founder of the Disciples of Christ, who naively believed he could come to Scripture with absolutely no preconceived notions or biases. We have already mentioned Campbell’s naive statement, “I have endeavored to read the Scriptures as though no one had read them before me, and I am as much on my guard against reading them today, through the medium of my own views yesterday, or a week ago, as I am against being influenced by any foreign name, authority, or system whatever.”8
The same ideas were expressed by Lewis Sperry Chafer, the extremely influential founder and first president of Dallas Theological Seminary. Chafer believed that his lack of any theological training gave him the ability to approach scriptural interpretation without bias. He said, “the very fact that I did not study a prescribed course in theology made it possible for me to approach the subject with an unprejudiced mind and to be concerned only with what the Bible actually teaches.”9 This, however, is simply impossible. Unless one can escape the effects of sin, ignorance, and all previous learning, one cannot read the Scriptures without some bias and blind spots. This is a given of the post-Fall human condition.
This naive belief in the ability to escape one’s own noetic and spiritual limitations led Campbell and his modern Evangelical heirs to discount any use of secondary authorities. The Church, the creeds, and the teachings of the early fathers were all considered quaint at best. The discarding of the creeds is a common feature of the modern Evangelical notion of solo scriptura. It is so pervasive that one may find it even in the writings of prominent Reformed theologians. For example, in a recently published and well-received Reformed systematic theology text, Robert Reymond laments the fact that most Reformed Christians adhere to the Trinitarian orthodoxy expressed in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.10 He openly calls for an abandonment of the Nicene Trinitarian concept in favor of a different Trinitarian concept. One cannot help but wonder how this is any different than the Unitarians rejection of creedal orthodoxy. They call for the rejection of one aspect of Nicene Trinitarianism while Reymond calls for the rejection of another. Why is one considered heretical and the other published by a major Evangelical publishing house?
An important point that must be kept in mind is observed by the great nineteenth-century Princeton theologian Samuel Miller. He noted that the most zealous opponents of creeds “have been those who held corrupt opinions?”11 This is still the case today. The one common feature found in many published defenses of heretical doctrines aimed at Evangelical readers is the staunch advocacy of the modern Evangelical notion of solo scriptura with its concomitant rejection of the subordinate authority of the ecumenical creeds. The first goal of these authors is to convince the reader that sola scriptura means solo scriptura. In other words, their first goal is to convince readers that there are no binding doctrinal boundaries within Christianity.
In his defense of annihilationism, for example, Edward Fudge states that Scripture “is the only unquestionable or binding source of doctrine on this or any subject?”12 He adds that the individual should weigh the scriptural interpretations of other uninspired and fallible Christians against Scripture.’13 He does not explain how the Christian is to escape his own uninspired fallibility. The doctrinal boundaries of Christian orthodoxy are cast aside as being historically conditioned and relative.14 Of course, Fudge fails to note that his interpretation is as historically conditioned and relative as any that he criticizes.15
Another heresy that has been widely promoted with the assistance of the modern Evangelical version of solo scriptura is hyper-preterism or pantelism.16 While there are numerous internal squabbles over details, in general advocates of this doctrine insist that Jesus Christ returned in AD. 70 at the destruction of Jerusalem and that at that time sin and death were destroyed, the Adamic curse was lifted, Satan was cast into the lake of fire, the rapture and general resurrection occurred, the final judgment occurred, mourning and crying and pain were done away with, and the eternal state began. The proponents of pantelism are even more vocal in their rejection of orthodox Christian doctrinal boundaries than Fudge. Ed Stevens, for example, writes,
Even if the creeds were to clearly and definitively stand against the preterist view (which they don’t), it would not be an over-whelming problem since they have no real authority anyway. They are no more authoritative than our best opinions today, but they are valued because of their antiquity.17
This is a hallmark of the doctrine of solo scriptura, and it is a position that the classical Reformers adamantly rejected. Stevens continues elsewhere,
We must not take the creeds any more seriously than we do the writings and opinions of men like Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, the Westminster Assembly, Campbell, Rushdoony, or C.S. Lewis.18
Here we see the clear rejection of scripturally based structures of authority. The authority of those who rule in the Church is rejected by placing the decisions of an ecumenical council of ministers on the same level as the words of any individual. This is certainly the democratic way of doing things, and it is as American as apple pie, but it is not Christian. If what Mr. Stevens writes is true, then Christians should not take the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity any more seriously than we take some idiosyncratic doctrine of Alexander Campbell or C.S. Lewis. If this doctrine of solo scriptura and all that it entails is true, then the Church has no more right or authority to declare Arianism a heresy than Cornelius Van Til would have to authoritatively declare classical apologetics a heresy. Orthodoxy and heresy would necessarily be an individualistic and subjective determination.
Another pantelist, John Noe, claims that this rejection of the authority of the ecumenical creeds “is what the doctrine of sola scriptura is all about.”19 As we have demonstrated, this is manifestly untrue of the classical Reformed doctrine of sola scriptura. The doctrine of Scripture being espoused by these men is a doctrine of Scripture that is based upon anabaptistic individualism, Enlightenment rationalism, and democratic populism. It is a doctrine of Scripture divorced from its Christian context. It is no different than the doctrine of Scripture and tradition advocated by the Jehovah’s Witnesses in numerous publications such as Should You Believe in the Trinity? in which individuals are urged to reject the ecumenical Christian creeds in favor of a new hermeneutical context.20 Yet the false idea that this doctrine is the Reformation doctrine pervades the thinking of the modern American Evangelical church. Unfortunately the widespread ignorance of the true Reformation doctrine makes it that much easier for purveyors of false doctrine to sway those who have been either unable or unwilling to check the historical facts.
(Please go to the link for the rest of the Authors arguements.)
SUMMARY
Proponents of solo scriptura have deceived themselves into thinking that they honor the unique authority of Scripture. But unfortunately, by divorcing the Spirit-inspired Word of God from the Spirit-indwelt people of God, they have made it into a plaything and the source of endless speculation. If a proponent of solo scriptura is honest, he recognizes that it is not the infallible Scripture to which he ultimately appeals. His appeal is always to his on fallible interpretation of that Scripture. With solo scriptura it cannot be any other way, and this necessary relativistic autonomy is the fatal flaw of solo scriptura that proves it to be an unChristian tradition of men.
(Excerpt) Read more at the-highway.com ...
There was/is an ongoing body of Tradition and Doctrine/Dogma:
2 Timothy 2:2
1 Thou therefore, my son, be strong in Christ Jesus:
2 And the things which thou hast heard of me by many witnesses, the same commend to faithful men who shall be fit to teach others also.
3 Labour as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
Titus 2:1
1 But speak thou the things that become sound doctrine
That become is important. Paul's imploring Titus to ordain bishops and priests and and to speak things that *become* (present tense) sound doctrine.
Except that God doesn't say it.
178 posted on 01/07/2003 9:01 PM MST by RobbyS
and the following in not in the Roman Bible ?
2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
2 Timothy 3:17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
All followers of the Christ consider the Bible to be the Word of G-d.
chuck <truth@YeshuaHaMashiach>
<> No, I am basically saying the Church God Himself established (Matt 16:18) is infinitely superior to a Church begun by a sinful man. I don't think the point argueable.
I also think it is true that I see these things clearer than do others born in protestant churches. I do NOT blame protestants for embracing the truths taught by their various traditions. ALL truth is, ultimately, from God. I don't blame protestants to holding to what they have been taught and desiring to worship in the same ways as did their parents and their parents parents. I think that the most natural thing in the world.
However, I do ojbect to the thought that one church is as good as another. I think it demonstrably incorrect. A church established by a sinless GodMan is infinitley superior to one began by a sinful man in opposition to the church established by the GodMan
My defense of objective reality is not intended as an attack on you.<>
Put up or shut up,sister.<>
1 Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples, 2 Saying: The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses. 3 All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not. For they say, and do not.
<> Care to try again :)<>
Your dull, ignorant, anti-Catholic bigotry is disgusting.
I find it extremely funny you posted this when you did. Jan 10 is the FEAST DAY of St. Gregory of Nyssa. His writings are included in every colection of the writings of The Catholic Church Fathers.
"I'm sitting on the back porch drinking Orange Crush
Wondering if it's possible for me to still blush..." (John Prine song lyric)
Mar, can you blush?<>
And yet, take heed of the words used in this protestant publication to describe it.
<> LOL Yes, Mar, you do appear to take as Gospel any protestant history or criticism of the Church Jesus established)<>
The three-day sack of Constantinople is unparalleled in history.
<> Wanna bet? :)<>
All the more significant because of the many years which have passed and yet it remains "unparalleled in history".
<> Yeah, right<>
Yet there had been several similar scandalous atrocities or unsavory, treacherous incidents which occurred before the sack, on the part of the Byzantines, which have not received their due attention. For the sake of fairness and historical objectivity (not polemics and controversy), we will review some of these. Warren Carroll notes:
Horrible and utterly indefensible as the sack was, it should in justice be remembered that it was not totally unprovoked; more than once (as in the massacre of 1182) the Greeks of Constantinople had treated the Latins there as they were now being treated . . . Historians who wax eloquent and indignant - with considerable reason - about the sack of Constantinople . . . rarely if ever mention the massacre of the westerners in Constantinople in 1182 . . . a nightmarish massacre of thousands [about 2000 Greeks were killed in Constantinople in 1204, according to secular historian Will Durant: The Age of Faith, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1950, p. 605], . . . in which the slaughterers spared neither women nor children, neither old nor sick, neither priest nor monk. Cardinal John, the Pope's representative, was beheaded and his head was dragged through the streets at the tail of a dog; children were cut out of their mother's wombs; bodies of dead Westerners were exhumed and abused; some 4,000 who escaped death were sold into slavery to the Turks.
{Carroll, ibid., pp. 157, 131}
Bishop Ware also honorably writes about the Orthodox share of the blame in these massacres:
Each . . . must look back at the past with sorrow and repentance. Both sides must in honesty acknowledge that they could and should have done more to prevent the schism. Both sides were guilty of mistakes on the human level. Orthodox, for example, must blame themselves for the pride and contempt with which during the Byzantine period they regarded the west; they must blame themselves for incidents such as the riot of 1182, when many Latin residents at Constantinople were massacred by the Byzantine populace.
{Ware, ibid., p. 70}
Catholic historian Warren Carroll recalls two other lamentable Byzantine incidents:
In 1171, on the orders or at least with the tacit approval of the Byzantine government, thousands of Venetians in the Eastern empire had been killed, mutilated, or arrested and held for years in prison.
{Carroll, ibid., p. 150}
[In 1188] Frederick Barbarossa . . . requested permission of the Eastern Emperor, Isaac II Angelus, for passage of his army through Byzantine dominions on the way to the Holy Land, and for the right to purchase food for his troops within them. Isaac said he agreed . . . but in fact Isaac was resolved to oppose the passage of the crusaders, and made contact with Saladin [the Muslim commander] to concert plans "to delay and destroy the German army." About this "Byzantine treachery" there is no doubt; even the many modern Western historians sympathetic to Byzantium and hostile to the Crusades have to admit it [e.g., Emperor Isaac, in 1187, had written Saladin to congratulate him for his great achievement of re-taking Jerusalem from the Latin crusaders] . . .
[Frederick's envoys, imprisoned for a time] returned to Frederick . . . with infuriating (and accurate) reports of the Byzantine alliance with Saladin, plans to destroy the crusading army as it crossed the Dardanelles, and the violent anti-Western attitude of Patriarch Dositheus of Constantinople, who had offered unconditional absolution to any Greek killing a Westerner. Frederick passed on this information to his son Henry, . . . to ask the Pope's approval for a crusade against the Eastern Empire because of its treachery and dealings with the enemy. No Papal approval was given and Frederick soon thought better of the idea . . . Though a war against Christians was indubitably a perversion of the crusading ideal, Emperor Isaac's acts against the crusaders had clearly been acts of war . . . Everything that the Fourth Crusade later did to Christendom's discredit, Frederick Barbarossa refused to do, though he was directly provoked as the leaders of the Fourth Crusade never were. The extent of Byzantine provocation of the Third Crusade is obvious from the sequence of events. It would be a long time before anyone in the West would trust them again.
{Carroll, ibid., pp. 130, 132-133}
In conclusion, it is altogether to be expected that certain adherents (real or supposed) of both parties in any massive, long-running dispute such as that between Eastern and Western Christianity, will be guilty of serious sin. It has been established that the indefensible sacking of Constantinople was not without previous precipitating events on the part of the Byzantines, scarcely any less evil or immoral. Thus, the "sin" or "corruption" argument (as with Catholicism and Protestantism) cuts both ways (as is always the case). As such, it ought to be discarded, and ecumenical discussions profitably confined to matters of theology, liturgy, ecclesiology and moral theology.
<> Mar, your Catholic-baiting reveals a troubled soul. You have, many timnes, gone out of your way to attack the Pope and the Catholic Church. For some reason, you think it wise to make common-cause with some protestants in attacking the Catholic Church.
I can inform your ignorance; it isn't, I don't think, invincible. I can't heal your troubled soul.
Cease the ugly hatred. It does neither you nor your Orthodox Church any good.<>
<> You claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit when you read the Bible
How's things in your Cult? Do you serve Kool Aid?:)<>
<>APOSTLES<>
22 When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. 23 Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.
You say - Was that given only to the officers of a newly formed Corporation or was it given to all followers of the Christ ???
<> Corporation, new officers? Jesus established a CHURCH.
I note that you frequently challenge me and other Catholics as though we don't follow the Bible.
First things first. The Catholic Church wrote every single word of the New Testament. The New Testament Consists of Catholic Letters written by Catholics to already established and existing and functioning Catholic Communities.
Secondly, we are the only Christian Church that folows every single word of the New Testament.
Now, I have a question for you. Why omit the "o" when you spell God? The New Testament, which you claim to follow and also claim others don't used the word "Lord and God." For instance
28 Thomas answered and said to him: My Lord and my God
You appear at Liberty to change the words and the spelling of the New Testament,and you think yourself at Liberty to follow some things in the Bible and to ignore other things so, why do you not extend that same Liberty to others? Double Standard?
I suppose I will have to note that this is no admission Catholics change or ignore a single word of the New Testamant that they wrote<>
I think you might be misunderstanding Catholic teaching regarding Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium.
Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition represent the Deposit of Faith. In fact, Sacred Scripture can be said to have begun as Sacred Tradition and can be thought of as a subset of Sacred Tradition. Christ's Church teaches that divine revelation closed with the death of the last Apostle. Sacred Tradition is not "ongoing." You are probably confusing Sacred Tradition and the Church's magisterial teaching and the development of dogma.
How can dogma develop if divine revelation closed two thousand years ago? The answer is actually quite simple. The Church merely draws logical conclusions from divinely revealed facts in a way analogous to the development of mathematical proofs from basic axioms.
One must also distinguish Church discipline from dogmatic teaching. Much Church legislation is disciplinary (like priestly celibacy) rather than dogmatic. Disciplines are changed for pastoral and prudential reasons. There's an old aphorism which says, "Of faith, hope and charity, the greatest of these is prudence."
The traditions described here became the Scriptures!
How do you know that?
In fact, many Traditions have been handed down to us from the early church that are not included in Scripture. You may even subscribe to some, like the authorship of the New Testament books, the canon of Scripture (although erroneous if you adhere to the traditional Protestant canon) and the fact that divine revelation ceased with the death of the last Apostle.
Finally, you should consider the examples of Tradition cited in the New Testament such as "the seat of Moses":
Matthew 23:2Just before launching into a blistering denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus delivers this command to the crowds: "The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice" (Matt. 23:2-3).
Although Jesus strongly indicts his opponents of hypocrisy for not following their own teaching, he nevertheless insists that the scribes and Pharisees hold a position of legitimate authority, which he characterizes as sitting "on Moses’ seat." One searches in vain for any reference to this seat of Moses in the Old Testament. But it was commonly understood in ancient Israel that there was an authoritative teaching office, passed on by Moses to successors.
As the first verse of the Mishna tractate Abôte indicates, the Jews understood that God’s revelation, received by Moses, had been handed down from him in uninterrupted succession, through Joshua, the elders, the prophets, and the great Sanhedrin (Acts 15:21). The scribes and Pharisees participated in this authoritative line and as such their teaching deserved to be respected.
Jesus here draws on oral Tradition to uphold the legitimacy of this teaching office in Israel. The Catholic Church, in upholding the legitimacy of both Scripture and Tradition, follows the example of Jesus himself.
In addition, we see that the structure of the Catholic Church—with an authoritative teaching office comprised of bishops who are the direct successors of the apostles—follows the example of ancient Israel. While there are groups of Christians today that deny continuity between Israel and the Church, historic orthodox Christianity has always understood the Church to be a fulfillment of Israel. This verse about Moses’ chair illuminates why we say that the successor of Peter, when he gives a solemn teaching for the whole Church, is said to speak ex cathedra or "from the chair."
Whereas under the Old Covenant the administration of God’s people came from the "chair of Moses," Christians under the New Covenant look to the "chair of Peter" for direction on questions of faith and morals. But there is a notable difference between the magisterium under the Old Covenant and our teachers under the New Covenant. The successors of the apostles, and especially Peter’s successor, have the Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth, and they have Jesus’ promise that the "gates of hell will not prevail" against the Church (Matt. 16:17-19).
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