Is Sola Scriptura in the Bible? A Reply to R.C. Sproul Jr.
Nov 5th, 2009 | By Bryan Cross | Category: Blog PostsR.C. Sproul Jr. recently wrote a short article titled “Is Sola Scriptura in the Bible?” In light of our recent article treating the subject of sola scriptura, it might be helpful to examine Sproul’s comments from a Catholic point of view.
R.C. Sproul Jr.
Sproul begins his essay with the following paragraph:
No, and yes. The Bible does not have specific text that suggests that the Bible alone is our final authority in all matters of faith and practice. Those who delight to point this out, however, typically Roman Catholics and the eastern Orthodox, typically miss the point. First, their energies more often than not are aimed at the Anabaptist error that we call solo Scriptura. Here the person affirms that all he needs is himself and his Bible. The wisdom of the church in history, the community of believers, are all deemed irrelevant to understanding the things of God. Solo scriptura is reprehensible and ignorant and a-historical.
Here Sproul first acknowledges that the Bible does not have a text that suggests that it alone is our final authority. Then he claims that Catholics and Orthodox who point this out are missing the point, because they are aiming their energies at solo scriptura. However, if the point of the Catholics and Orthodox who state this is straightforwardly to point out that the Bible does not have a text that suggests that it alone is our final authority, then these Catholics and Orthodox are not “missing the point,” but in fact making a true claim, one that Sproul himself acknowledges. We agree with Sproul that solo scriptura is “reprehensible.” But if, as Neal Judisch and I have recently argued here, there is no principled difference between solo scriptura and sola scriptura, then the fact that the Bible does not have a passage that suggests that the Bible alone is our final authority, is deeply problematic for those who claim that the Bible alone is our final authority.
Sproul continues:
Sola Scriptura, like the Scriptures themselves, recognizes that God has gifted the church with teachers and pastors. It recognizes that the church has progressed and reached consensus on critical issues in and through the ancient ecumenical creeds. It affirms with vigor that we are all standing on the shoulders of giants. But it also affirms that even these giants have feet of clay. And there is where the Bible does in the end teach sola Scriptura.
If by “feet of clay” Sproul means that every mere human, during this present life, is capable of sin and error, then the Catholic Church agrees, in which case the fact that men have “feet of clay” does not entail sola scriptura. But if by “feet of clay” Sproul means that there was no oral Apostolic Tradition, and/or that the Holy Spirit failed to preserve this oral Apostolic Tradition, and/or that the Holy Spirit fails to protect the Church’s Magisterium from error when it definitively determines doctrine on matters of faith and morals, then Sproul needs to demonstrate that these results are entailed by the fact that men have “feet of clay.” Merely pointing out that men have “feet of clay” does not by itself set limitations on what the Holy Spirit is able to do through men.
Sproul then writes:
Sola Scriptura is a biblical doctrine not because the Bible says so. That would be a tautology- the kind of argument we find in that collection of lies the Book of Mormon. Instead the Bible is our alone final authority because it alone is the Word of God. It has been attested, authenticated, by God Himself. Miracles serve as the divine imprimatur, the proof that this is a message of God. This is how Nicodemus reasoned when he said, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him” (John 3:2). This is also how Jesus Himself reasoned when He first forgave the sins of the paralytic lowered through the roof. In response to the unspoken charge that He had blasphemed, Jesus told the man, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house” (Matthew 9:1-8).
Sproul claims that “the Bible is our alone final authority because it alone is the Word of God.” Nothing he says here actually demonstrates that only the Bible is the Word of God. In other words, nothing Sproul says here shows that the oral teaching of the Apostles was not the Word of God, or that this oral Apostolic Tradition, as it was passed down orally in the Church, was not the Word of God. The Catholic Church agrees that the Bible is the Word of God written. That’s not the point of disagreement. The point of disagreement (between Protestants and the Catholic Church) regarding sola scriptura is twofold: First, whether the Word of God written is the entirety of the Word of God given to the Church from the Apostles, or whether the Word of God spoken, and orally transmitted and handed down by the succession of bishops, is also the Word of God given to the Church from the Apostles. Second, whether or not Christ established a unique interpretive authority by way of apostolic succession from one Apostle to whom Christ gave the keys of the Kingdom. Sproul’s prooftexts do not substantiate the Protestant position regarding either of those two points of disagreement.
Sproul continues:
I would be quite content to add as a second infallible and inerrant authority the ancient creeds of the church under the following conditions. First, those who gathered to formulate these creeds would need to have their message authenticated by miraculous works. Let them raise men from the dead. Second, we must add those creeds to our Bibles. If both sources are equally authoritative, why do we separate them? In like manner, I’d be content to add as a second infallible and inerrant authority the statements of the Pope when He speaks ex cathedra. First, however, let him raise men from the dead. Second, let us add his words, assuming he would even tell us what they were, to our canon.
Here Sproul says that he would be content to add the ancient creeds as a second infallible and inerrant authority [along with the Bible] if those who formulated the creeds performed miracles, and those creeds were added to the Bible. In reply, Sproul’s being content to recognize the ancient creeds as inerrant and “infallible” on the basis of miracles performed by those who wrote them does not show whether or not the Holy Spirit protected the Church from error when formulating them. Sproul’s statement is a statement about himself. No statement about Sproul himself (or what would make him content) should determine what all Christians should believe about sola scriptura or about the authority of the Church’s creeds. Sproul’s claim presumes (without any substantiation) that only if the bishops in an ecumenical council performed miracles, and raised men from the dead, could we know that the Holy Spirit protected that council from error in its definitive determination of doctrine regarding faith and morals. Does Sproul know that every author of Scripture performed miracles and raised men from the dead? Did the author of Hebrews perform miracles? Did the author of Jude? Did Luke perform miracles? Sproul has just mutilated his own Bible in Marcion-style, being required by his own criterion to excise from it every book whose author was not recorded as performing some miracle. If he wishes then to appeal to the decisions of the Church regarding which books were canonical to avoid this problem, he will need to know which men in the Church made these decisions and that each of them performed miracles. But that is something he does not know, and cannot know. So his position commits the fallacy of special pleading — requiring that his interlocutor’s position be subject to a criterion he does not apply to his own position. Moreover, he does not show that the way the Catholic and Orthodox know ecumenical councils’ definitive statements on faith and morals to be divinely protected from error is insufficient.
Sproul likewise presumes (without substantiation) that there is no possible distinction between inspiration and infallibility. In other words, he [falsely] assumes that whatever is uttered infallibly is divinely inspired. A council’s being divinely protected from error in its decisions regarding faith and morals does not entail that its rulings are divinely inspired. Hence they need not be included in the Bible.
He adds:
But wait, there’s more. I want an authoritative list, in both instances of what these messages are. Ask someone Orthodox to show you exactly where you can read their infallible tradition and you will receive slippery ooze. Ask someone Roman Catholic for a list of infallible papal or consiliar [sic] statements, and you will receive the same.
Apparently Sproul is unaware of Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. But even if Ott hadn’t published this book, whether or not such a list is published does not show that there is no principled way for the Catholic Church to draw up such a list. The non-existence of a published list of infallible Church dogmas would not demonstrate that no Church teaching is infallible. Nor would it demonstrate that we cannot know whether there are any infallible dogmas, or that the Church does not know which of her teachings are infallible. So Sproul’s insistence on an “authoritative list” is a red herring.
Sproul then writes:
Finally, there is this problem. In both instances, Rome and Orthodoxy, you run headlong into the problem of the infinite regress. That is, those who are less strident in their views on tradition, who deny that tradition carries additional content to the Scripture, instead argue that tradition gives an infallible and inerrant interpretation of Scripture. Okay. Where then can we find an infallible and inerrant interpretation of the interpretation? Assuming we could succeed there, of course, we would need an inerrant interpretation of the interpretation of the interpretation. Ad nauseum.
Neal Judisch and I respond to that objection in section V of our article, “Solo Scriptura, Sola Scriptura, and the Question of Interpretive Authority.”
Sproul continues:
No, the Bible is God’s Word. It is perspicuous, understandable. It says what it means and means what it says. It is attested by the miraculous power of God. And it is all these things, alone. It alone, all by itself, equips us for every good work. Flee anyone who tells you that more is required to understand, or more is required to obey.
Catholics agree, of course, that the Bible is God’s Word written. But Sproul has not demonstrated that the unwritten Apostolic Tradition is not God’s Word. The [oral] preaching of the Apostles was in fact attested by miracles. So was the authority of the Apostles themselves, the authority that Christ had given to them to preach and teach in His Name (i.e. as His authorized representatives), and the authority that they gave to their successors. The miracles done by the Apostles attest to the enduring authority and binding requirement on the Church of their practice of authorizing episcopal successors no less than it does to the authority of their written words. Sproul arbitrarily picks from the Apostles’ actions only one subset (i.e. their act of writing) as authoritative for the Church, and in that respect his position is ad hoc.
Lastly, Sproul concludes:
If you’d like to learn more, I’d encourage you to get and read my friend Keith Mathison’s outstanding book The Shape of Sola Scriptura.
For a Catholic response to Mathison’s book, see the article mentioned above, by Neal Judisch and myself, titled, “Solo scriptura, Sola Scriptura, and the Question of Interpretive Authority.”
A wonderful response. Clear and concise. Thank you very much!
I would also add that Mr. Sproul should intend to level the playing field by defining the version of the canon of the bible he wishes to work from. The Protestant canon uses only those boks of the Hebrew Scripture that survived the Jewish Reformations around 90 AD when Christians were officially booted and certain books necessary for the continuity of the messianic teaching of Jesus were demoted. Jesus taught from an earlier Jewish canon that today’s protestants do not recognize as canonical.
Additionally, I would argue that we no where have the complete word that God. Jesus would have had to have been followed around by a stenographer from the time he learned to speak in order to make that a fact. We have a record of many of Christ’s teachings. It is up to us to apply those to life in our times.
Finally, I would simply say John 16:12-14. Jesus said it himself.
Wow!, this is an incredibly circular argument if I’ve ever seen one.
“It is perspicuous, understandable. It says what it means and means what it says.”
Obviously it isn’t so since thousands upon thousands of “Bible-fearing Christians” are pitted against each other over this so called “understandable” Scriptural interpretation.
quote: “No, the Bible is God’s Word. It is perspicuous, understandable. It says what it means and means what it says. It is attested by the miraculous power of God. And it is all these things, alone. It alone, all by itself, equips us for every good work. Flee anyone who tells you that more is required to understand, or more is required to obey.”
Then why is it necessary for Ruling and Teaching Elders in OPC and PCA churches to vow to accept in all sincerity the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms if the Bible is “perspicuous, understandable”; if it “alone, all by itself, equips us for every good work”?
I should think it would be somewhat redundant, requiring for ordination, a 400-year old commentary in an ecclesial community that claims scripture alone.
Perhaps more ministers should flee, then…
Found this site by reading Imonk. Great interview. Thanks. Guess you would say I’m a former evangelical hanging out with Orthodox and Catholics. The part about not being able to work through the labyrinth by perfect exegesis was well formed. Underlying philosophy being a major role and what that philosophy is seems to be a rare search which in itself is a bit perplexing. Oh well. Apparently the “bible alone,(in a bubble)” slogan pretty much squelches most thoughts on those lines.
Was wondering if your familiar with this guy. You guys might have crossed paths in the night while swimming the Tiber ;).
http://www.chriscastaldo.com/chris.php
“No, the Bible is God’s Word. It is perspicuous, understandable. It says what it means and means what it says. It is attested by the miraculous power of God. And it is all these things, alone. It alone, all by itself, equips us for every good work.”
If this is true then the Holy Spirit would not have led Philip to the Ethiopian official.
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/acts/acts8.htm#v27
The scriptures are clear that we do need teachers to help us with God’s written word. The Bible alone is not what God intended.
Bryan, I really admire the respectful tone of your article, and your point by point analysis and refutation of arguments advanced by R. C. Sproul Jr.
In regards to the doctrine of sola scriptura, I believe that your point gets to the heart of the matter: … “the fact that the Bible does not have a passage that suggests that the Bible alone is our final authority, is deeply problematic for those who claim that the Bible alone is our final authority.” I would like to make a few comments about that point.
I don’t know if the Catholics and Orthodox “delight” in pointing out the obvious, but I disagree that the Catholics are missing the point because they don’t understanding the distinction between sola scriptura and solo scriptura. The real point is that there is nothing in the Bible that says that the Protestant Bible is the ONLY source of infallible authority for Christians. Catholics that point out the obvious are defending their faith against a Protestant doctrine that has never been part of their faith. All confirmed Catholics are called to defend the faith, and all confirmed Catholics have been given the sacramental grace to defend the faith:
I believe that just about any Catholic can use two simple arguments to refute the doctrine of sola scriptura; simple arguments that make use the internal contradictions inherent in sola scriptura. While the arguments may be simple, the hard part in using them is not letting the conversation get sidetracked!
To use these two arguments one must first remember that Luther’s doctrine of sola scriptura is not primarily a doctrine about the infallible authority of scriptures – it is instead, a doctrine that was created to deny the authority of the teaching office of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
In refuting sola scriptura one should remember that one is not refuting that scriptures speak with infallible authority (since that is what the Catholic Church teaches); one is refuting the ONLY in Luther’s novel doctrine, i.e. that ONLY the Protestant Bible has infallible authority for Christians.
I believe that it is not hard to show that it is unreasonable to ask me to believe in sola scriptura.
One well known way to refute sola scriptura is to ask where the Bible lists the books that belong in the Bible (the canon argument). One will be on unassailable grounds if one sticks to that point and doesn’t get sidetracked into an argument of how the canon was established for the Church. Matt Yonke’s article Hermeneutics and the Authority of Scripture made good use of the canon argument, but the comments to the article became sidetracked by a discussion of how the canon came to be defined. Which was too bad, IMO, because this is a very good article that showed how one can use the canon argument without getting into a discussion of how the canon came to be formally defined. Matt Yonke talks more about the canon argument in this podcast.
How the canon of scriptures came to be formally defined is a complicated subject that requires a fair amount of study before one is competent to argue in that realm. If one is interested in that topic, I have seen positive reviews for this book: Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger, The Untold Story of the Lost Books of the Protestant Bible , by Gary G. Mitchuta. I haven’t read this book yet, but it is on my list of books to buy. I also understand that CTC is planning to run an article about the canon, which I am also looking forward to reading.
The other easy way to refute sola scriptura is one I learned from listening to Scott Hahn’s conversion testimony. Simply ask to be shown the verses in the Bible that teach that the Protestant Bible is the ONLY source of infallible authority for Christians. The person that attempts to do that will, at best, only be able to show you verses in the Bible that teach that scriptures HAVE divine authority, which is not the point that you are refuting. It is unreasonable to ask me to believe in a doctrine that is not explicitly taught in the Bible if that doctrine claims the Bible is the ONLY source of infallible doctrine.
I think that just about any Catholic can use the two arguments given above to refute sola scriptura if they remember a few things; the argument is not about the infallible authority of scriptures; insist that the person that is advancing sola scriptura doctrine show you the verses in his Bible that explicitly support this doctrine, and don’t let yourself get sidetracked with arguments that are not explicitly taught by the Bible. If the person that is defending sola scriptura cannot defend this doctrine by using only what is explicitly taught in the Bible, I see no reason to believe that the Bible is the only source of infallible doctrine.
Oscar,
Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed the interview. I hope that it might be helpful to you in working your way through “the labyrinth.” I know of Chris Castaldo, but I haven’t had the opportunity to talk with him. When Chris hosted the discussion between Frank Beckwith and Timothy George, I wrote some comments on it here, if you are interested.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
It’s interesting that Sproul says he wants some miracles to verify the authority of the Catholic Church. One of the things that drew me to our Church is the fact that there seem to be more miracles from our Saints than from famous Protestants. Of course I haven’t collected proof for all of the miracles that have been claimed, and everyone believes that many claimed miracles are accidents or coincidences. But when someone with saintly honesty, surrounded by other people with saintly honesty, is claimed by others to have performed miraculous healings, etc. — and accepts this claim without denying it — then it does make me wonder. There have been so many of these saints, and the attempts to discredit them by atheists and religious opponents have sometimes been so dishonest, that I am left to conclude that many Catholic saints have performed miracles. Where is the reformed protestant Saint Teresa of Avila?
In any case, I think that’s why Sproul wants the council participants themselves to have performed the miracles. He knows that there are many honest people who believe in miracles performed by other Catholic saints, and that these miracles have lead millions to faith in Christ. But other than the fact that it’s useful for his argument, I don’t see any a priori reason why it should be the council participants themselves who need to perform the miracles, when the saints who obeyed the councils, upheld them, and taught them, performed miracles anyway.
It seems our only competitor in claiming miracles is evangelistic faith healers on T.V. Of course, there are other problems there.
Likewise, he’s quite off when he complains about a certain indeterminacy to Catholic infallible teaching. Men have learned to distinguish between the bible’s science and it’s doctrine: between what is, literally speaking, quite incorrect about what the bible teaches, and what is probably literally true, and what must be literally true. But these three categories are nowhere taught by the bible. And without definitive lists of what is in these three categories, there is a serious indeterminacy in what can be learned infallibly from the scriptures. A fool would then claim: “the bible’s infallibility is meaningless — it’s an empty claim.” But Spoul and I both know that such a claim is itself foolish. . . just because we can’t eliminate unavoidable indeterminacy in the bible’s infallibility, it doesn’t mean that the bible’s infallibility can’t be useful for bringing us definitively towards God.
Well if this is true of the unavoidable indeterminacy of our inerrant book, how much more is it true of the unavoidable indeterminacy of our merely infallible magisterium.
Sincerely,
K. Doran
This is an old thread and perhaps this comment will go unnoticed but I think the answer to the question of whether or not the Bible teaches Sola Scriptura can be answered in the resounding affirmative. Here I am not trying to defend RC Sproul Jr per se but answer the question biblically.
First of all, I grant that there is no explicit single passage that I can point to prove the point. However, to demand that kind of proof is facile and strawman argumentation. There is not a single passage that expounds the doctrine of the Trinity either or the keeping of the Lord’s Day and “Trinity” cannot be found in the Bible yet it is rightfully necessary for orthodoxy.
Where does one find biblical support therefore for the doctrines of Sola Scriptura and the Trinity? Well if I may borrow from Scott Hahn the answer is “everywhere”. He once argued that the idea of purgatory was for him as a former protestant easy to accept for it was taught in the Bible. Support for Sola Scriptura can be more easily defended biblically. It is found clearly in the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles who repeatedly argued from the Scriptures alone for final authority. How many times does Jesus say “It is written”? Also what of 2 Tim 3:16 to 17 which states that Scripture alone is sufficient for competence in the faith or Luke addressing his Gospel to Theophilus so that he might have “certainty” of what he had been taught or the noble-minded Bereans who checked what Paul taught by the Scriptures to see if what they said were true (Acts 17:9-11) or Jesus on the Road to Emmaus where He used Scripture to show that the Messiah had to suffer.
The list goes on but I think it is very evident that Scripture is the final authority upheld in the stories of Scripture and only the Word of God will never pass away (Matt 24:35) and Jesus is the Word incarnate.
But the scriptures Jesus is referring to are the Old Testament scriptures, to say nothing of New Testament. I have a hard time with Sola Scriptura for the basic fact that the majority of people were illiterate until the time of the printing presses, to say the least that bibles weren’t available for the lay person until well after said time as well. That’s not to say that scripture isn’t authoritative, because it is. But are we talking about OT scripture? or NT scripture? The official cannon was recognized by the church. Would there be a “bible” without the church? Would Paul have said his letters were scripture? In most of his letters he admonishes the people to keep/obey the things/traditions he has TOLD them. This is where tradition also plays a role. The Church, Scripture and Tradition must all work together. What is the Bible without tradition (a context)? What is scripture without the Church? I conclude, not much and given over to the whims and interpretation of man.
Michelle, Jesus would of course have been referring more directly to OT but once the NT canon was completed, His reference would have been to that as well. He said as much I believe when He said that the Holy Spirit would reveal truth that they were not able to hear at that time (John 16:12, 13). That was obviously referring to authoritative canon.
As for Paul’s epistles, Peter calls them Scripture (2 Pet 3:16) and I believe the apostles understood they were writing the words of God inspired by the Spirit (cf 1 Cor 7:10). Take note however, of the 2 Pet 3:16 passage and 2 Cor 3:3 – the Spirit is given to all of faith and it is the “ignorant and unstable” who twist them. Jesus says His sheep will hear His voice and turn from strangers by the very new nature He imparts on them, not by simply accepting a visible and established authority.
So Michelle, tradition is important. The Church has authority but it is derived and secondary to Scripture. It is not infallible as the Scripture is infallible.
Would there be a Bible without the Church? NO. However, this proves nothing. The Church bears witness to the truth and Jesus has charged her to guard it. The Church is the ground and pillar of truth. But what is primary? The Bible without the Church is like Jesus without disciples but obviously it is the Word which is Christ who is primary. Once Moses wrote the law, he fell under the same authority as the law and could not revise or add to it. This is why the unique exhortation in Rev 22:18 (the last chapter in the last book of the canon) is so remarkable. It applies directly to Revelation obviously but also applies to all Scripture by extension.
Therefore, we are not talking about the whims and interpretations of man but how Christ leads the Church into all truth by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Michelle, one other point about your illusion to illiteracy. I believe God judges us where we are at. If we are illiterate or if we do not have a Bible, then of course He does not expect us to look at Scripture in the same way He would expect you or me to look at Scripture since that is within our reach. This is one reason I find the Reformation so remarkable is that in God’s Providence it coincided with the invention in Europe of the printing press such that the writings that flowed could not be contained.
However, what is the goal we strive for? We are called to maturity in Scripture and to move on from elementary principles (Heb 5:12 and 6:1). In the OT, even there, God commanded Israel to study the law, read it and write it out (cf Deut 6:9, 11:20). So my question is, if the LORD commanded the less mature old covenant believers to do this, how much more would He command us to do so? (cf Heb 2:3).