Why I Do Not Believe In Sola Scriptura: A Journey into Christianity from the Start of my Faith
*****DISCLAIMER: I believe it would be dishonest not to put my denomination of Christianity before stating my opinions. I currently work for a United Methodist Church (UMC) school. My faith is Quaker Catholic. I joined the Quakers more as a social movement and I am in RCIA to become a Roman Catholic as I was not born a Roman Catholic. I was baptized as a baby as both Lutheran and Methodist but did not grow up with any connection to the churches as I was baptized against my atheist mother’s wishes. I have gone on to study early church history and theology at my college institution and believe I am now as an adult educated enough on the matter of Sola Scriptura to speak on it. I ask that you have grace with those who do not believe the same as yourself and not too bully or demean other Christians. Thank you and enjoy!
What Does Sola Scriptura Mean?
Sola Scriptura translates to “Scripture Alone.” It is a very popular belief among the Lutheran and Reformed traditions of protestant belief. This theological argument claims that the Bible is the infallible word of God and the source of all authority for Christians' faith and practices. Both the Catholics and Orthodox of all branches find this to be heterodox and contrary to the divine mysteries of the church. Sola Scriptura is a foundational doctrinal principle of the Protestant Reformation held by many Reformers, who taught that authentication of Scripture is governed by the discernible excellence of the text, as well as the personal witness of the Holy Spirit in every man's interpretation. A lot of evangelicals and Baptist denominations state the doctrine of sola scriptura more strongly: Scripture is self-authenticating, clear to the rational reader, its own interpreter ("Scripture interprets Scripture"), and sufficient of itself to be the final authority of Christian Doctrine and theology.
Compared to the evangelicals and Baptists, the Protestant traditions of Anglicanism, Methodism, and Pentecostalism uphold the doctrine of prima scriptura, with scripture being used with both tradition and reason. The Methodists thought reason should be used from experience. The Eastern Orthodox Church holds that to "accept the books of the canon is also to accept the ongoing Spirit-led authority of the church's tradition, which recognizes, interprets, worships, and corrects itself by the witness of Holy Scripture". The Catholic Church officially regards tradition and scripture as equal and considers the magisterium as the living Church which interprets and uses Scripture in daily practice. The Roman magisterium thus serves Tradition and Scripture as "one common source with two distinct modes of transmission", while some Protestant authors call it "a dual source of revelation".
Critiques From Churches On Sola Scriptura
The following paragraphs are pulled from this website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_scriptura and all of the sources used in said article are legitimate academic research.
Following the Protestant churches' separation from the Roman Catholic Church, the relatively new idea of sola scriptura came under serious critique by the Catholic and Orthodox Christians. In his 2001 The Shape of Sola Scriptura, the Reformed Christian writer Keith A. Mathison mentions several recent examples of such critics. In response, Mathison distinguishes what he considers to be the true doctrine of sola scriptura from the "subjective and individualistic version" of the doctrine that most Protestants have adopted.
The American Roman Catholic author and television presenter Patrick Madrid wrote that sola scriptura is self-referentially incoherent, as the Bible itself does not teach sola scriptura, and therefore the belief that the scriptures are the only source of Christian belief is self-contradicting given that it cannot be supported without extra-scriptural doctrine.
In the 2008 book Catholicism and Science, the authors Peter M. J. Hess and Paul Allen wrote that sola scriptura is "inherently divisive", citing the Marburg Colloquy where Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli debated the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist on scriptural grounds but were unable to reach agreement on Sacramental Union. Hess and Allen argue that, when scripture is seen as the only source of infallible teaching, its interpretation is subject to fallible interpretation, and without an infallible interpreter, a certainty of Christian belief is not possible.
The Roman Catholic Encyclopedia of Theology notes that, since the 27 books that make up the New Testament canon of scripture are not based on a scriptural list that authenticates them to be inspired, their legitimacy would be impossible to distinguish with certainty without appealing to another infallible source, such as the magisterium of the Catholic Church, which assembled and authenticated this list at Synod of Rome and the Synod of Carthage, both of which took place in the fourth century. Before this, a compiled and authenticated Bible as it is now known did not yet exist.
The American Roman Catholic writer Dave Armstrong wrote that there are several examples of Jesus and his Apostles accepting oral and extrabiblical tradition in the New Testament:
The reference to "He shall be called a Nazarene" cannot be found in the Old Testament, yet it was "spoken by the prophets" (Matthew 2:23). This prophecy, which is considered to be "God's Word", was passed down orally rather than through Scripture.
In Matthew 23:2–3, Jesus teaches that the scribes and Pharisees have a legitimate, binding authority based "on Moses' seat", but this phrase or idea cannot be found anywhere in the Old Testament. It is found in the (originally oral) Mishnah, which teaches a sort of "teaching succession" from Moses.
In 1 Corinthians 10:4, Paul the Apostle refers to a rock that "followed" the Jews through the Sinai wilderness. The Old Testament says nothing about such miraculous movement. But, this critic writes, rabbinic tradition does.
"As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses" (2 Timothy 3:8). These two men cannot be found in the related Old Testament passage (cf. Exodus 7:8ff.) or anywhere else in the Old Testament.
In the Epistle of Jude 9, a dispute is mentioned between the Archangel Michael and Satan over Moses' body, which is not mentioned elsewhere in the Bible, and is drawn from oral Jewish tradition.
In the Epistle of James 5:17, when recounting the prayers of Elijah described in 1 Kings 17, a lack of rain for three years is mentioned, which is absent from the passage in 1 Kings.
Armstrong argues that since Jesus and the Apostles acknowledge authoritative Jewish oral tradition, Christians can therefore not dispute oral tradition's legitimacy and authority. However, according to scripture, Jesus also challenges some man-made Jewish traditions. But Catholics also make a similar distinction today between Sacred Tradition, which is considered inerrant, and lesser ecclesiastical traditions or disciplines, which can be subject to change. In the Catholic view, one can know what belongs to Sacred Tradition and what is an ecclesiastical tradition or discipline by consulting the Magisterium of the Church. The difference between the two, in the Catholic view, is that Sacred Tradition is apostolic and part of the deposit of faith, while ecclesiastical traditions and disciplines are not.
Now My Opinions…
I do not believe Sola Scriptura as a theological concept to be valid. Church history from the start NEVER taught Sola Scriptura until Martin Luther and the restoration era. It was not a fundamental part of tradition, history, or early church politics. It is NOT biblical. As stated previously above, the bible does not teach Sola Scriptura as it is not stated anywhere in the bible explicitly. The Bible has been used as a political tool by all churches from the beginning. It has been weaponized by people who believe they were the “true believers” of the church. It caused an even worse schism than the one between the Catholics and Orthodox peoples. Sola Scriptura does disregard most traditions and the history of the church. Protestants have used the concept to call original churches “heretical”, “blasphemous”, and “Idolatry (in concerns to the holy mother and Christian art)”, and have called for the destruction of Catholic and Orthodox institutions. I can not in good conscience accept that or push that narrative. If you believe in Sola Scriptura that’s fine. You do you. I need protestants to not proselytize to other Christians who are Christians. Please stop calling Catholics and Orthodox "not Christians" when those were the first churches. Also, the bible has been translated so many times that it has lost a lot of its original passages and meanings. One of the worst offenders is the KJV. I encourage people to learn the Hebrew and Greek Bibles as they have the purest translations for both the Old and New Testaments. So I hope this encourages self-study and to reach out to other Christian denominations outside of your own!
-Roslyn Zimmer
