While Protestant denominations vary among one another a great deal, they all share a common view of what constitutes ultimate religious authority: sola scriptura. Latin for "scripture alone," the doctrine of sola scriptura claims that the Bible alone is the sole infallible rule of faith for Christians. Martin Luther, in the Diet of Worms, employed this doctrine to officially reaffirm his Protestant views before Pope Leo X. He stated, "Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason...I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God." The point is that sola scriptura is deeply revered by Protestants, who claim to be Bible-believing Christians. However, is the doctrine of sola scriptura even found in the Bible, either implicitly or explicitly?
During my conversations with Protestants, this topic inevitably comes up. Catholicism is usually seen as unbiblical for having not one, but three sources of ultimate authority: the Bible, sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium (the teaching authority of the pope and bishops). However, it's the Catholic understanding of the role of the Bible that is in fact biblical, and not sola scriptura. For Protestants to prove that the Bible is the sole infallible rule of faith, they have to show where in the Bible alone this is taught. Otherwise, they would contradict sola scriptura. What I am going to do in this post is show that the most common verses used to defend sola scriptura do not actually prove what Protestants want.
In the classic 1993 debate on sola scriptura between Catholic apologist Patrick Madrid and Calvinist apologist James White, one of the verses from scripture that was repeatedly brought up was 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which says "All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." White's argument was that because all scripture is God-breathed (theopneustos), and because Paul writes scripture equips the man of God for every good work, the Bible alone is therefore our sole infallible authority. After all, if scripture by itself makes the man of God complete and equipped, then why do we need anything else?
However, this is a case of reading something into the text, trying to force the verse to say something about sola scriptura when it really is not. All 2 Timothy tells us is that scripture is good for enabling believers to become righteous, so that we can be complete and equipped for every good work. But this says nothing of scripture's authoritative role. It only says that scripture is profitable for these things. Take a math textbook, for example. It is undoubtedly profitable for teaching, for correction, and for training in mathematics, and it can equip the student for every mathematical problem it covers. Does this automatically mean that all you need is the textbook and no other authority? Of course not! You can't interpret that book on your own if you're learning math. You also need a teacher to guide you, extra problems to practice, and various other resources. These other sources of authority in no way challenge the authority of the textbook. Nothing taught by the teacher or the homework problems contradict what is written in the book. The math book needs other sources of interpretation to guide the student as to what the book actually says, but that doesn't negate the fact that the book is still profitable for learning and that it is capable of equipping the student.
In the same way, the Bible is profitable for everything listed in 2 Timothy 3:16, and it can indeed equip us for every good work, but the verse doesn't tell us anything about how that equipping comes about. Do we pick up the Bible and just read it on our own, or do we interpret the Bible according to parameters set by another teaching authority? Either interpretation is left open in this verse, so Protestants cannot use it to defend sola scriptura.
Another popular verse that Protestants use to argue for scripture alone is 1 Corinthians 4:6, which states "I have applied all this to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brethren, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another." Isn't this as clear as it gets? Surely, no one can deny sola scriptura after reading that! Except...that's not what Paul is saying here. To understand what exactly Paul is writing to the Corinthians, we need to examine the whole context of 1 Corinthians.
To begin with, one of the chief motivations for Paul's writing to the church in Corinth was that the Corinthian Christians were dividing themselves into factions: "[E]ach of you says, 'I belong to Paul,' or 'I belong to Apollos,' or 'I belong to Cephas,' or 'I belong to Christ'" (1 Cor. 1:12). Throughout chapters 1 through 4, Paul repeatedly criticizes the Corinthians for prioritizing whoever baptized and taught them over Christ, calling them fleshly and worldly thinkers. Only after explaining that a Christian's allegiance should only be to Christ, and that he, Apollos, and Peter are merely Christ's servants, he says that he has told them this so that they may not go beyond what is written and not be puffed up with factional division. Clearly, Paul can't be referring to sola scriptura here; it just doesn't fit the context. The writing he refers to, whatever it is, is something that will teach the Corinthian church to stop dividing themselves along worldly lines and to unite around Christ. Paul didn't just randomly insert in the text "Oh, by the way, scripture alone is your infallible source of authority." He wasn't writing about that. He could be referring to Old Testament writings prophesying about the crucified Christ, or some other writing. Bottom line: this isn't an endorsement of sola scriptura.
One final verse that I'll touch upon here is Mark 7:8-9, where Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for observing man-made traditions that contradict God's commandments: "'You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the traditions of men.' And He said to them, 'You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God, in order to keep your tradition!'" Many Protestants will point to this verse to prove that the Catholic Church is wrong to hold sacred Tradition as equally authoritative as sacred scripture. If Jesus is condemning the Pharisees for observing Jewish tradition, then shouldn't Catholics be condemned for observing sacred Tradition?
There's one problem with this, though: Jesus was rebuking the Pharisees for inventing traditions that prevented them from following God's commands. In other words, He was rejecting man-made traditions. He was in no way rejecting all traditions, but only those that contradicted God's revelation. For example, the Pharisees had a tradition called Corban, in which they would donate money to the temple that they otherwise could have used to support their parents. Knowing that this obviously goes against the fourth commandment to honor your father and mother, they would rationalize this practice by saying that their money is being dedicated to God, and God is more important than their parents. Another Pharisaic tradition was to adorn themselves with ornate religious clothing in order to appear more holy. Jesus condemned this practice because their external appearance of holiness prevented them from cultivating the inner holiness of the heart.
However, the sacred Tradition (with a capital "t") that Catholics believe has nothing to do with external appearances or rationalizations of practices that contradict divine revelation. On the contrary, we believe that sacred Tradition is the oral teaching that has come down to us through Christ Himself, the apostles, and the earliest Christians. We can know how the early Church viewed certain doctrines by reading what the Church Fathers wrote in the 1st through about the 8th century AD. I won't be defending sacred Tradition in this article, but I mention this just to show that Jesus is rejecting human traditions in Mark 7, not all tradition. If we can prove that sacred Tradition is divinely inspired, then Jesus' words Mark 7 would not apply.
While these were only a handful of verses, hopefully I've demonstrated that the most popular verses used to defend sola scriptura actually don't serve this purpose in the slightest. In future posts, I plan on refuting the logical flaws behind sola scriptura, showing that Jesus couldn't have possibly intended for His Church to only have the Bible as its sole infallible source of authority. But until then, stay tuned.
Comments