Authoritative Definition of Sola Scriptura

[sastark]

Can someone on the Board provide an authoritative definition for the meaning of "Sola Scriptura"? I see Muller's definition in his Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, but am wondering if there are others.

Thank you!

 

[Reformed Thomist]

The Bible is the only infallible authority on faith and practice/morals -- tradition, the Fathers, councils, etc., though authoritative, to varying degrees, are in no way infallible (contra Rome's position). The Bible is thus the final authority. The Bible also contains all knowledge necessary to salvation -- no one has the authority to require another to submit to doctrines, as if necessary to salvation, which cannot be clearly demonstrated/deduced from the Bible (contra the Roman way).

As my definition above shows, Sola Scriptura is really only understood within its unique historical context. It is the position of the Reformers on the Bible, which we boldly carry forth, contra the position of Rome with respect to the Bible. It is negative and positive; a what it is not doctrine as much as a what it is doctrine.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

WCF Chapter I:

X. The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.

You will note from excerpts of Muller's Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics that the Reformed principle is not to treat Scriptural exegesis as if we are revolutionaries or breaking new ground every time we deal with the Scriptures but that the Church's formulations are to be regarded respectfully and helpfully:

1. The early Reformation: Luther, Zwingli, and Bucer. The early Reformation view of Scripture, for all that it arose in the midst of conflict with the churchly tradition of the later Middle Ages, stands in strong continuity with the issues raised in the theological debates of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The late medieval debate over tradition and the late medieval and Renaissance approach to the literal sense of the text of Scripture in its original languages had together raised questions over the relationships between Scripture and churchly theology, between the individual exegete and the text, and between the exegete and established doctrine that looked directly toward the issues and problems addressed by the early Reformers. It is, thus, entirely anachronistic to view the sola scriptura of Luther and his contemporaries as a declaration that all of theology ought to be constructed anew, without reference to the church’s tradition of interpretation, by the lonely exegete confronting the naked text. It is equally anachronistic to assume that Scripture functioned for the Reformers like a set of numbered facts or propositions suitable for use as ready-made solutions to any and all questions capable of arising in the course of human history. Both the language of sola scriptura and the actual use of the text of scripture by the Reformers can be explained only in terms of the questions of authority and interpretation posed by the developments of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Even so, close study of the actual exegetical results of the Reformers manifests strong interpretive and doctrinal continuities with the exegetical results of the fathers and the medieval doctors.

Muller, R. A. (2003). Post-Reformation reformed dogmatics: The rise and development of reformed orthodoxy; volume 2: The cognitive foundation of theology (2nd ed.) (63–64). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

2. A second generation: Bullinger, Vermigli, Calvin, and Musculus. Zwingli’s successor, Heinrich Bullinger, also produced several important treatments of the doctrine of Scripture: his De scripturae sanctae authoritate, subsequently incorporated into the Decades, is one of the earliest Reformed treatises dealing with the subject. Bullinger’s treatise on The Old Faith (1539) also deals with Scripture, but more historically, from the perspective of the history of revelation and covenant. Bullinger also composed three works in which he surveyed what his English contemporaries would have termed a “complete body of divinity.” The most famous of these is his personal statement of faith, which became the Confessio Helvetica Posterior. It was written in 1562 but only published in 1566. Next in the order of eminence is the series of sermons commonly called the Decades, the first volume of which appeared in 1549. This is by far Bullinger’s largest systematic essay. Least known but most interesting from the point of view of order and emphasis is his Compendium christianae religionis of 1556. Here Bullinger sets forth a system of doctrine from a covenantal perspective.
Bullinger begins the entire series of Decades with a sermon on “The Word of God; the cause of it; and how, and by whom, it was revealed to the world.” The second sermon continues this theme dealing with the hearing of the Word and the fact “that it doth fully teach the whole doctrine of godliness.”31 Next, Bullinger treats of the right exposition of the Word and with faith defined as “an assured belief of the mind, whose only stay is upon God and his Word.” In continuity with the later Compendium and Confessio, Bullinger sets forth the objective ground of the doctrines he will subsequently expound. This extended treatment of Scripture as Word parallels the order of Calvin’s Institutio and would prove normative for later Reformed thought. Bullinger also includes here an element which is absent from his other systematic works: faith as the faculty or capacity of receiving the word. Thus, in the earliest systematic structure he produced, Bullinger presents Word and faith as the twofold ground of doctrine—the objective and subjective foundations: there is nothing of Christian knowledge that is not “drawn, taught, or … soundly confirmed … out of the word of God.”
In his Compendium, where, more than in the Decades, Bullinger was concerned to show the underlying rationale of the Reformed theology and to manifest the interconnection of doctrines, he devotes the beginning of his second book, “of God and his most excellent works,” to an analysis of the transition from the prolegomenon on Scripture to the doctrine of God: in short, he adumbrates the later discussion of the principia theologiae, their order and relationship. His argument also parallels very closely Calvin’s initial discussion of the true knowledge of God and of man in the Institutes. The Scriptures, he begins, have a definite goal and end toward which they “lead the godly reader”—the knowledge of God and of man, “which is unto God’s honor and man’s salvation.” This dictum leads Bullinger to state in brief, the contents of his system and to manifest again the evangelical tone of the whole.
Bullinger’s expositions of doctrine manifest both a close attention to the scriptural ground of his formulations and a careful use of the tradition. Bullinger has read the fathers closely. He views their interpretation of doctrine as of greatest importance to Christian doctrine—and he frequently dwells on ancient heresies and their refutation as essential to the understanding of the dynamics of correct doctrinal formulation. The issue of the use and abuse of tradition was, therefore, a basic issue to be dealt with among one’s doctrinal presuppositions. Moreover, in all three of his more or less systematic works Bullinger was intent upon demonstrating both in principle and in specific doctrinal argument the continuity of the Reformation with the tradition of patristic interpretation and theology and, therefore, the catholicity of the Reformation.


Muller, R. A. (2003). Post-Reformation reformed dogmatics: The rise and development of reformed orthodoxy; volume 2: The cognitive foundation of theology (2nd ed.) (70–72). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

Calvin, surely the most prolific exegete among the major theologians of his generation, devoted considerable space in his Institutes to the doctrine of Scripture, its authority and certainty, and he offered a series of comments, largely in his exegetical works, on the interpretation of the text and the relation of the text to Christian doctrine. As in the case of Luther’s teaching, Calvin’s also has been subjected to close historical and theological scrutiny in recent times, with rather diverse conclusions. Doumergue, Niesel, Reid, and McNeill, for example, can hold Calvin forth as teaching a dynamic doctrine of Scripture in which Christ alone is truly Word and Scripture Word only because it is the revelation of Christ. Studies such as those by Warfield, Dowey, Wendel, Gerrish, Kantzer, Johnson, and Forstman, however, offer a view of Calvin more in continuity with later Reformed theories of Scripture as Word on grounds of the direct revelatory activity of God, understood in terms of a theory of verbal inspiration. As subsequent discussion will demonstrate, the dynamic elements in Calvin’s doctrine in no way undermine but perhaps even rest on his identification of Scripture as the verbally inspired Word of God—and that, although the balance between the dynamic statement of the power of the biblical Word and the dogmatic identification of Scripture as inspired and revelatory Word and, therefore, as the source of doctrinal truths about God, shifted somewhat between the time of Calvin’s Institutes and the high orthodox era, substantial continuity can be argued in the development of the Reformed doctrine of Scripture.
Like that of his Reformed contemporaries, moreover, Calvin’s theology evidences a healthy respect for the patristic tradition. He draws on the church fathers—Augustine, Jerome, Gregory the Great, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Ambrose, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Chrysostom, Cyprian, Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, and the Cappadocians—both for polemical purposes and for support in developing his own positive formulations, but always with the qualification that the fathers “serve” rather than rule in doctrinal matters. They are helpful but, he declares, also “ignorant of many things”—they frequently “disagreed” with one another and sometimes contradicted themselves. Scripture alone is the “Lydian stone” against which the Church rightly “tests all doctrines.”51 Thus, writes Calvin,

although we hold that the Word of God alone lies beyond the sphere of our judgment, and that the Fathers and Councils are of authority only in so far as they accord with the rule of the Word, we still give to the Councils and the Fathers such rank and honor as is meet for them to hold, under Christ.

Muller, R. A. (2003). Post-Reformation reformed dogmatics: The rise and development of reformed orthodoxy; volume 2: The cognitive foundation of theology (2nd ed.) (73–75). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

3. The Reformers’ doctrine and modern interpretation. Most contemporary theologians and historians have emphasized the discontinuity between the dynamic and seemingly “existential” declarations of the Reformers concerning the Word of God and the generally static, objective doctrine of the orthodox concerning Scripture as Word. Although this contrast can be made, and made rather pointedly, when comparing the occasional or homiletical statements of Luther with the strictly dogmatic argumentation of the Protestant orthodox, the conclusion of discontinuity drawn from the linguistic and attitudinal contrast fails to consider either the underlying genetic reasons for the contrast or the nature of the doctrine being stated. In the first place, a dictum concerning the power of the Word stated homiletically or polemically—as is the case with Luther’s assertions—will be phrased differently from a statement concerning the nature of Scripture presented in a system of doctrine. The issue of genre is of considerable importance. In the second place, the subjective or “existential” statements of the Reformers concerning the Word ought not to be separated from their objective dogmatic basis—any more than the sometimes lengthy presentations of the objective authority and divinity of Scripture made by the orthodox ought to be separated from their frequent subjective assertions concerning the necessity of the testimonium internum Spiritus Sancti.
The context in which the Reformers wrote and the genre of their writings account easily for the dynamic, “existential” or subjective emphasis of their doctrine of the Word—just as the context of orthodoxy and the genre of orthodox writings, namely, fully-developed theological system, in particular, account for their emphasis on the objective authority of the text. Nevertheless, the Reformers assume the objective ground of their pronouncements, and the orthodox assume the subjective reality of the impact of the Word alongside of their objective doctrinal declarations. Nowhere do the Reformers reject the long-established tradition of the objective authority of the text, and nowhere do the orthodox reject the reformers’ insight into the personal and subjective power of the Word. The problem of the development of the Protestant doctrine of Scripture, therefore, must be framed both in terms of a movement from kerygma to dogma in the thought of the Reformers and their successors and in terms of the long-standing objective dogma of the authority of Scripture in its history from the time of the medieval doctors to the end of the seventeenth century.
In tracing this development, particular attention needs to be given to literary genre. Thus, despite the absence of an explicit doctrine of sola scriptura (as distinct from the many medieval descriptions of Scripture as the sole ultimate authority in matters of doctrine), the declarations concerning the authority, perfection, soteriological necessity, and redemptive sufficiency of Scripture found in medieval theological systems provide significant antecedents for the doctrinal declarations concerning Scripture in Protestant scholastic systems. There is a historical continuity of scholastic models and, indeed, a historical continuity in certain instances of the language of theological system. On the other hand, the presence of declarations of sola scriptura, the so-called scriptural principle of Protestantism, in sermons, commentaries, and tracts of the Reformation era does not necessarily make these writings genuine antecedents of Protestant system. Kerygmatic or “existential” pronouncement contributes little to the language of system: at best, we can raise questions concerning the relationship of the implicit doctrinal underpinnings of such pronouncements to the explicitly doctrinal statements of system. The documents of the Reformation era that provide the clearest antecedents of Protestant orthodox system are the explicitly dogmatic and systematic statements of the Reformers, particularly their confessional writings.
The systems and confessions of the Reformation, moreover, must be examined in their proper historical relationship to the theological systems of Protestant orthodoxy. Systematic essays like Calvin’s Institutes, Bullinger’s Compendium, and Musculus’ Loci communes all belong to the early Protestant effort to state the body of Christian doctrine in a Reformation perspective, as resting on the primary foundation of Scripture, over against the doctrinal assumptions of various adversaries—and, as such, belong to a process of systematic development that eventuated in Protestant scholastic system. Indeed, the exegetical method used by Reformers like Bucer and Musculus included a movement from textual study to doctrinal statement in the construction of theological loci as a final step in the work of exegesis. These loci pointed directly from an exegetically grounded theological formulation to the gathering of doctrinal topics into theological compendia and systems. In a very real sense, the Reformation systems provide the doctrinal basis, though not always the linguistic foundation and only seldom the methodological ground, of Protestant scholastic theology: as I have argued elsewhere, there is a strong element of doctrinal continuity between the Reformers and the Protestant scholastics coupled with an equally strong element of methodological continuity between the medieval and the Protestant scholastics—with, however, doctrine affecting method and method affecting doctrine. In addition, the locus de Scriptura, like the other loci of scholastic system, participates in the alterations of method and logic that took place during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as witnessed by the locus method itself.
Once we have made this set of important distinctions concerning genre and attitude, we are in a position to recognize both the continuity of the scholastic view of Scripture as principium or fundamentum of theology (or as the source of individual principia or axiomata) from the thirteenth through the seventeenth century and the discontinuity in the approach to Scripture between the late Middle Ages and the Reformation. This discontinuity, moreover, can be seen at the root both of the Reformers’ kerygmatic appeal to sola Scriptura and of the Protestant orthodox theologians’ massive development of a distinctively Protestant locus de Scriptura separate from the prolegomena (where the medieval doctors had placed it) and far more elaborate than the discussions of Scripture available to the orthodox in medieval systems. Some elements of the medieval discussion of the doctrine of Scripture pass over into the Reformation as the doctrinal presuppositions of the teaching of the Reformers while other elements are modified. In particular, evidencing both continuity and discontinuity, the identification of Scripture as the sole source of necessarily authoritative truth belongs to both the Middle Ages and the Reformation—as does the assumption that the church is the proper context for the interpretation of Scripture—yet the Reformers were able, as the medieval doctors were not, to identify considerable disjunction not only in relative authority but also in content between Scripture and the tradition of the church. Those elements of the discussion accepted at a presuppositional level by the Reformers reappeared, virtually unchanged, when Protestantism moved to formulate its own orthodox theological system, while the modifications brought about by the Reformation together with new elements and emphases pressed by the Reformers become formal elements in the orthodox doctrinal synthesis that distinguish it from the patterns already present in the medieval scholastic doctrine of Scripture.

Muller, R. A. (2003). Post-Reformation reformed dogmatics: The rise and development of reformed orthodoxy; volume 2: The cognitive foundation of theology (2nd ed.) (78–80). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

 

[sastark]

Thanks Rich and RT. I will read through that tonight, Rich!