{"id":20620,"date":"2013-07-28T07:00:56","date_gmt":"2013-07-28T14:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=20620"},"modified":"2015-03-19T16:37:12","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T23:37:12","slug":"bible-alone-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2013\/07\/28\/bible-alone-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Bible alone? Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday<\/a> I began speaking about the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. A lot could be written concerning the problems with this Formal Principle<\/em> of the Reformation, but I will leave that to better minds. Instead, over the next two days I would just like to focus on the two main problems which drove me to consider more deeply the validity of the doctrine. After being involved in the Protestant world for a few years, two problems nagged at me:<\/p>\n

Problem #1: Correct interpretation<\/strong><\/p>\n

This first problem was one that I saw first-hand.\u00a0In my various non-Catholic wanderings, I had encountered some great pastors: faithful, holy and insightful. I was greatly encouraged by their witness and learned a great deal from them.<\/p>\n

However, I began to notice that, even within the same parish, there was quite often a considerable diversity in theological opinions.\u00a0Within the home groups there was also considerable latitude in belief and when a dispute arose, there wasn’t a clear path towards finding a resolution other than asking one of the church staff, and even then you couldn’t guarantee that you’d get the same answer from two different staff members. There was also a mild form of dissension\u00a0in that the Pastor’s Sermon was often critiqued after the service and it would be discussed as to whether or not everyone agreed with it.<\/p>\n

Denomination Diversity<\/h2>\n

These are only personal, anecdotal impressions, of course. However, when you consider different denominations, these interpretive disputes can be seen more clearly. Some denominations believe in infant baptism, others do not. Some denominations believe that baptism actually does<\/em>\u00a0something in the soul of the one being baptised, others affirm that it is just an outward symbol. Likewise, some denominations affirm some concept of Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist, while others say that it is, again, just a symbol. Some denominations have female pastors, others say that’s invalid. Some affirm the Trinity, others deny it. This lack of doctrinal unity in the Protestant world concerned me greatly.<\/p>\n

Right at the dawn of the Reformation you had Luther and Zwingli, two early leaders of the Reformation, disagreeing over the correct interpretation of\u00a0\u201cThis is my body\u201d – Luke 22:19<\/em><\/span>. Each presented his own private, fallible interpretation of that passage, but with no Church Authority to resolve the dispute, there was no possible way to resolve the deadlock.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So what happened? What happened was a foretaste of what was going to happen forever after in the Protestant world \u2013 there would be a split. Two different churches would be formed and the Body would be further fragmented.\u00a0Luther had unwittingly made each individual Christian his or her own Pope. If you read some of the letters Luther wrote towards the end of his life he seemed to recognize this chaos.<\/p>\n

The Response<\/h2>\n

The most common Protestant response I have received when I’ve brought up this issue has been something akin to: “Oh, it doesn’t matter, just as long as we agree on the essentials”<\/em><\/span>. However, this begs the question: what are the essentials and who gets to decide what’s essential and what isn’t?! One view of Baptism says that it is of highest importance for salvation, another view says that it’s just public declaration of faith. This one issue alone relates to the very core questions of salvation – it’s hardly a peripheral issue.<\/p>\n

The question of interpretation<\/h2>\n

So if doctrinal unity is<\/em> important, how do we ensure that we have the correct interpretation of Scripture? When I raised this question I was told something like “Well, you have to study the Word carefully, interpret it in context, pray and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you to the truth”<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

The sentiment here is lovely, but it really doesn’t bear out when placed against the canvas of history. That mode of exegesis, more or less, has been affirmed by every Protestant in history, but has this resulted in doctrinal unity? From the vast number of denominations I think it’s clear that the answer is a clear and resounding “No”<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Let’s do a hypothetical. Imagine a scenario in which two intelligent, Bible-believing pastors at the same church, both well-versed in Greek and Hebrew and living lives of fruitful virtue, disagree over the interpretation of a passage of Scripture. Now what? How is this deadlock resolved? As far as I see it, there are only two possible options:<\/p>\n

1. They have to “agree to disagree”<\/em> and declare the matter relatively unimportant. However, as we saw above many of these questions surround the very issue of salvation, something of utmost importance.<\/p>\n

2. The only alternative is the modus operandi<\/em> of Protestantism since the dawn of the Reformation, division. The pastors will go form new congregations and teach what it is they believe the Scriptures say. If at some future point there is new disagreement within the new congregations, the congregation will split again. Rinse and repeat.<\/p>\n

It seems to me that what is needed is an authoritative interpreter. However, when I was in Protestant circles I would often hear things like\u00a0“The Bible is all you need!”<\/em><\/span>. Is the Bible all you need? Is it sufficient? In the Catholic Church we would say that it is materially sufficient, but not formally sufficient. \u00a0For example, if you had a canvas, some paint and a woman with a curious smile you would\u00a0materially\u00a0have all you needed to paint the Mona Lisa. However, without being a great artist like Leonardo DaVinci, it’s unlikely that your painting would end up in the Louvre! Raw materials are not enough, they must be used correctly.<\/p>\n

The Many Popes of Protestantism<\/h2>\n

I remember that as I started to think about this problem, the reason for the doctrinal variations in the Protestant world over critical aspects of belief started to become clear to me. If the Bible is your only source of authority, then who is to say that you’re interpretation is wrong?<\/p>\n

The presence of thousands of Protestant denominations started to seem to be an inevitable consequence of this doctrine, there being as many churches as there are individual interpretations. So when somebody says \u201cI believe what the Bible says…\u201d<\/em><\/span>, don\u2019t they really mean \u201cI believe what I interpret the Bible to say\u201d<\/em><\/span>? To read Scripture is to interpret Scripture.\u00a0The locus of final authority really resides not in Scripture, but in the person interpreting it.This is why the more nuanced definitions of Sola Scriptura are pretty redundant; they all boil down to the same thing: my own personal, fallible interpretation of Scripture.\u00a0 As a former pastor of mine says \u201cIf nobody is Pope, then everybody is Pope\u201d<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow I’ll look at the second problem which pursued me…<\/p>\n

Part 1<\/a> | Part 2 | Part 3<\/a> | Part 4<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I began speaking about the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. A lot could be written concerning the problems with this Formal Principle of the Reformation, but I will leave that to better minds. Instead, over the next two days I would just like to focus on the two main problems which drove me to consider more deeply the validity of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,17],"tags":[302,2274,2402,2969,373,539],"class_list":["post-20620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologetics","category-faith","tag-bible","tag-bible-alone","tag-bible-alone-series","tag-featured","tag-sacred-scripture","tag-sola-scriptura"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20620"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55985,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20620\/revisions\/55985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}