Appendix I

Scripture and Tradition

Introduction

The relationship between Scripture and tradition has been a matter of longstanding dispute among Christians. Reacting against a perceived overemphasis on the authority of church tradition, some Christians during the Protestant Reformation adopted the slogan sola scriptura, Scripture alone. Today, almost half a millennium after the Reformation, sola scriptura is still a contentious issue, and while there are some very difficult issues connected with this debate, there is a substantial middle ground that all Christians ought to be able to confess. This short essay tries to explain and defend that middle ground.

Why is Sola Scriptura an Issue Today?

Contemporary Christianity has become almost synonymous with splintering factions. This is a horrible scandal, and some want to lay the blame at the feet of sola scriptura. If every man can interpret the Bible for himself, these critics say, what is to prevent a continuation of this factionalism?

On the other side of the debate, some Christians accuse the church of following man-made customs that are in some cases foreign to, and in some cases antithetical to Scripture.

As we will see, while both these concerns have some merit, there are more fundamental questions involved that can put the other issues in perspective.

The debate over sola scriptura has taken on a greater urgency recently as some Christians, converting from one set of church loyalties to another, have claimed that their first motivation was their "discovery" that sola scriptura is unbiblical. Such claims have prompted books and articles and public debates about the biblical foundation for the slogan.

And so, a slogan born in the midst of partisan bickering is being discussed again — in the midst of partisan bickering, which is not the best place for cool-headed analysis. Neither side will yield an inch, so a broad and substantial middle ground that both sides should be able to confess has been ignored.

Establishing a Few Terms

Part of the confusion over sola scriptura revolves around the words "fallible" and "infallible," so it is necessary to begin with a short discussion of these terms. Simply put, something that is fallible is subject to the possibility of error, while something that is infallible cannot err. A fallible person can be completely correct on a given subject or at a given time without thereby becoming infallible.

Consequently, being fallible does not mean being wrong, it only means that error is a possibility. On the other hand, something that is infallible cannot err.

For example, some Christians believe that God protects the bishop of Rome from error when he speaks to the whole church on a matter of faith and morals. But they don't believe this protection applies at all times, so they could assert both propositions, "the pope is fallible," and "the pope is infallible." He is infallible, they say, only in special circumstances, and he is fallible in all others.

Scripture, on the other hand, is completely infallible because it is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3.16). Since it consists of the very words of God, it cannot err, because God is the Truth (Jn. 14.6), and He cannot lie (Heb. 6.18).

A side issue in this discussion is whether it is more appropriate to say that the Scriptures are inerrant rather than infallible, the point being that a person, like the bishop of Rome, can be infallible, while a document, like Scripture, can only be inerrant. While there is some merit in the distinction, it seems to overlook the fact that Scripture is not a lifeless document, but the living and active word of God, through which the Holy Spirit speaks. Consequently, it seems inappropriate to refer to Scripture as an inerrant "object."

To summarize, what is infallible cannot err, while what is fallible can, but might not. Scripture is infallible because it is the Word of God, who cannot err.

Mistaken Views of Sola Scriptura

Part of the problem with debates about sola scriptura is that some people take the slogan to assert things about Scripture that simply can't be maintained biblically. This provides an easy target for the opponents of sola scriptura, and, due to the party spirit that often prevails in such discussions, causes the defenders to waste their credibility defending the indefensible. So the first task is to clear away mistaken views of sola scriptura.

The First Common Error — God's Word is Synonymous with Scripture

In addressing this point, it is necessary at the start to exclude any discussion of preaching and teaching as "God's word." While there may or may not be legitimate grounds for calling uninspired preaching "God's word," in this paper "God's word" will only refer to God-breathed revelation, which is by its very nature infallible.

When the defenders of sola scriptura equate God's word with Scripture, they mean that the only God-breathed revelation we know of today is contained in Scripture. But has that always been true?

Certainly not. At other times in redemptive history, God's word was given and preserved in the community in both written and oral form, which directly contradicts the notion that God's word is synonymous with Scripture. However, we cannot immediately conclude that because the statement was not true in the past it's not true now.

This distinction is easily overlooked, so let's go over this again. When the prophet Elijah spoke God's word, it is quite obvious that not all of God's words were written down in Scripture, e.g., certainly not the ones that Elijah had just spoken. In those situations, "God's word is synonymous with Scripture" would be a false statement.

A very brief review of the scriptures makes it plain that God's word is usually preached, and some of those words are later written down in Scripture. The "word of the Lord" spoken under inspiration by a prophet or apostle is the infallible word of God, whether or not it is ever included in Scripture. That preached word is an authoritative, infallible standard, just as much as Scripture, because it is the word of God. Those who heard the preaching of the apostles and prophets were hearing God's word, and were obligated to believe and obey it, whether or not what the prophet said was subsequently written down.

Here are a few examples.

In 1 Cor. 11:2 and 34, Paul refers to instructions he gave to the Corinthian church about the Eucharist. We have no reason to believe that those instructions were ever written down. Paul also makes reference to other extra-biblical standards in 2 Thes. 2.15, where he urges the Thessalonians to observe the traditions they had received, whether by word or by epistle. And there is the famous passage in John that says the whole world couldn’t contain the books if everything Jesus said and did was written down (Jn. 21:25).

Some defenders of sola scriptura will try to deal with these unwritten words of God by claiming that they are identical in content to what is elsewhere contained in Scripture. They assume that the pattern of revelation takes the following form: a temporary, oral proclamation, which serves as an authoritative rule until the permanent written standard is given in Scripture. There are several difficulties with this idea, the first being that this pattern is not taught in Scripture — it is just the invention of people who want to defend the Reformation slogan. But there are other problems that will become obvious later.

Back to 1 Corinthians. The simplest reading of 1 Corinthians 11 leaves the strong impression that "the rest" of Paul's teachings on the Eucharist go quite a bit beyond the minimal information we have on the Lord's Supper in Scripture. The apostles preached and taught in Jesus' name for decades before most the NT documents were written, and the faith of the early church was formed by that apostolic instruction, not by the NT writings. It is clear, therefore, that sola scriptura was not in effect in apostolic times: the early church had words from God in Scripture, mostly the OT, and in the authoritative teaching of the apostles, which had not yet been written down in Scripture. And there is no biblical basis for the assertion that the entire content of their oral teaching was subsequently summarized in Scripture.

At this point someone might say that we really don't know if Paul's other instructions — the ones that weren't written down — were God-breathed revelation. In other words, someone could argue that Paul was only inspired, properly speaking, when he wrote Scripture.

That is a reasonable idea. Certainly Paul wasn't inspired in everything he said. But there is no reason to take an extreme position either way. We can't say that all of Paul's instructions were inspired, but we can't say that none of them were inspired either, since Paul explicitly says that his preaching to the Thessalonians was "the word of God." (1 Thes. 2:13.) Also, while we can reasonably say that at least some of Paul's instructions were fallible, we can't say that about Jesus. All of Jesus' words were God-breathed, and we know that not everything He said was written down. (See John 21:25.)

And then there are the prophets. We have clear and unequivocal biblical support for saying that the inspired words of the prophets were preserved, apart from Scripture.

[Hezekiah] then stationed the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, with harps, and with lyres, according to the command of David and of Gad the king's seer, and of Nathan the prophet; for the command was from the Lord through His prophets. (2 Chron. 29:25)

David, Gad and Nathan had been dead a long time before Hezekiah became king, and there is nothing in the canonical books that could be taken as the scriptural basis for Hezekiah's actions. Nevertheless, the instructions are identified as coming from the Lord, even though they were never recorded in Scripture. In other words, commands from the Lord through His prophets were preserved outside of Scripture from the time of David, Gad and Nathan at least until the time of Hezekiah.

A similar theme comes out in passages describing Josiah's reforms. Josiah told the Levites,

... prepare yourselves by your fathers' households in your divisions, according to the writing of David king of Israel and according to the writing of his son Solomon. (2 Chron. 35:4)

These writings of David and Solomon are not in the canonical scriptures. Like Hezekiah, Josiah relied upon authoritative teachings of prophets that were not included in the canon (see also 2 Chron. 35:15).

Furthermore, it seems there was no dispute over the authority of these divine instructions that had been preserved for hundreds of years apart from Scripture, i.e., no one objected to the reforms based on this "extra-biblical" material. Nobody accused Josiah and Hezekiah of violating sola scriptura. Rather, the prophetic teachings they relied on retained the same divine mandate for later generations that they had for the prophet's contemporaries: "for the command was from the Lord, through His prophets" (2 Chron. 29:25).

Lest there be any misunderstanding, these passages do not support the introduction of human traditions into the church. Hezekiah and Josiah were reforming the OT congregation on the basis of the normative word of God. The relevant point is that those words from God were not preserved in Scripture.

By this point it should be obvious that sola scriptura has not always been true. First, it was not true during the ministry of a prophet or an apostle. Second, it is not true even after the death of a prophet if his inspired teachings are reliably preserved apart from Scripture — as, for example, the words of the prophets that Hezekiah and Josiah relied upon.

It is also important to note that the church cannot be indifferent to these other teachings that might be preserved outside of Scripture. There's not only the positive example of Hezekiah and Josiah, who show that extra-biblical divine commands can and should be used as a standard for the church, there is an explicit command from God to follow them. In 2 Thes. 2:15, Paul commanded the Thessalonians to observe all traditions whether they were transmitted orally or in writing. So Scripture itself tells us that we are not permitted to use an exclusively written standard -- assuming only that there are genuine traditions, reliably preserved.

We should note that Paul gave no indication that this instruction to follow oral and written traditions should cease after a certain time period, or that after the close of the canon this command would no longer be in effect. After all, how could the writing of the last book of the NT be taken to diminish the authority of God's preached word? It doesn't make sense. On the contrary, 2 Thes. 2:15 establishes a rule: to the extent that the church has sure access to any apostolic teachings, from written or oral sources, those teachings ought to be obeyed.

By way of review, let's get into a time machine and go back to Corinth in the year 125. Just for fun, let's assume that the church in Corinth has a copy of every book of the NT. So we go to worship in Corinth and notice that they have certain customs that we've never read about in Scripture. We pull one of the elders aside and ask him why the church does these things, since the NT says nothing about it.

He retrieves a copy of Paul's first letter to the church and quotes, "'and the rest I will set in order when I come.' I was a young man when Paul preached to this church, and I remember that he told us to do these things."

Our imaginary trip to Corinth should teach us some humility. The fact that we can't derive something from Scripture, thousands of years later, does not mean that the early church was wrong to do it. The apostles taught more than they wrote, and there is no reason to suspect that oral instructions from the apostles were intended to pass away with the close of the canon. It is quite likely that the early church did many things in obedience to the preaching of the apostles for which there is no clear command in Scripture.

Where Does This Leave Sola Scriptura

Given all this, how can sola scriptura stand? If the church is under the authority of both the oral and the written word of God, how can anyone say that we are limited to the written Scriptures as an infallible rule?

The answer is very simple. The imagined Corinthian presbyter above had sure access to Paul's very words — he and others heard them. It would have been impious for him to ignore them. Following his example, to the extent that we have sure access to such teachings, we ought to observe them as well. Furthermore, we have to ask in what sense these things can be called an infallible rule?

It's one thing to admit that the oral teachings of the apostles are authoritative, and it's another thing to produce them. When the opponents of sola scriptura say that the oral teachings of the apostles are an infallible rule in addition to Scripture, the defenders can call the bluff. "Show me an infallible teaching of the apostles that isn't in Scripture."

The opponent of sola scriptura might claim that the oral preaching of the apostles is preserved in the life and liturgy of the church, as well as in the writings of the church fathers. That is certainly true, and it's a very good thing, but there is a sharp distinction between the apostles' very words, spoken by inspiration and therefore infallibly true, and summaries of apostolic doctrine and practice contained in liturgy or preserved in patristic writings. Even if any given church practice or document accurately and faithfully reproduces the teachings of an apostle, it is no more than a summary of infallible teaching — analogous to a commentary on Scripture. It isn't the infallible teaching itself.

To make his argument stick, the opponent of sola scriptura has to come up with examples of extant NT prophecies or apostolic instruction preserved outside of Scripture. The sola scriptura advocate can (and should) freely admit that the inspired utterances of the apostles are infallible rules; what he claims is that, unhappily, none have been reliably preserved outside of Scripture. He can admit all these things and still hold to sola scriptura (Scripture is the only infallible rule) as a description of our circumstances — that only in the Bible do we have the very words of God and the only infallible material to regulate Christian faith and practice.

A sola scriptura advocate need not, and he ought not, undermine the authority of the apostles' oral teaching. He simply claims that, in God's providence, the only inspired material that has been preserved in a reliable form is Scripture. Men are fallible, and they are especially fallible when they speak of God. This applies to the church fathers as well as anybody else. It is only because of God's inspiration that we trust Scripture. In other words, Scripture is not true because it has Paul for its author, but because it has God for its author. Only those things that carry the promise of God's protection from error can be trusted as an infallible standard.

Scripture is Not the Only Source of Apostolic Teaching

The view of sola scriptura discussed above makes a very modest claim — that today, right now, the only place that we can find the infallible word of God is in Scripture. This version of sola scriptura admits the authority of the apostles' oral instructions (cf. 2 Thes. 2:15), and even admits that the word of God can be preserved outside of Scripture (cf. 2 Chron. 29:25 and 35:4). It simply asserts that those other sources have been lost -- or, what would be better, professes agnosticism about them. Maybe they exist, but we haven’t seen any evidence; there are no reliable records of infallible teaching outside of Scripture.

So where does that leave the sola scriptura advocate with respect to church tradition?

As has been described above, the apostles taught more than they wrote, and that teaching is normative for the church. To the extent that we have sure access to those teachings, we are obliged to obey them. (Cf. 2 Thes. 2:15.) Whether we have those teachings or not is another question, and it is important that we don't allow pet theories and slogans to get in the way of a fair analysis. For example, there are some early liturgies that claim to have been written by the apostles. We can't rule out that possibility on the basis of a slogan. If these liturgies are from the apostles, and if they ought to be regarded as an infallible rule for the church, then even the modest version of sola scriptura I’m describing would have to be abandoned. Likewise, belief in the infallibility of church decrees would be the death of sola scriptura, since they would constitute an extra-scriptural infallible rule.

But however all that turns out, it is certainly true that we have summaries of apostolic teachings in the writings and beliefs of the early church. Our situation with respect to apostolic preaching may be compared to a man only had a catechism, and not a Bible. He could (and should) learn the faith from the catechism, even though it's not infallible. He could reasonably rely on this fallible, imperfect summary of the faith. The catechism would be a fallible witness to God's infallible word. It might err on some points, and it would certainly be better for the man to have God's word in Scripture. But it would be foolish of him to refuse to obey what he learned of God from the fallible witness of the catechism simply because he didn't have the originals from which the catechism was derived.

Tradition is like that catechism. The practices, beliefs and writings of the early church serve a similar role with respect to the oral teachings of the apostles. These traditions, preserved in the writings of the early church, are not the word of God, but they are a witness to the word of God. We should learn all that we can from them, and when we have reasonable cause to believe they are genuine, we should observe them. (See 2 Thes. 2:15)

Even though we don't have the inspired preaching of the apostles, we do have a fallible and imperfect witness to that preaching. God has left us a witness to the oral teaching of the apostles in the tradition of the church. It is not tradition that is authoritative, but the apostolic teaching to which tradition is a witness. And just as that unfortunate soul who has a catechism and not a Bible should still seek the truth of God in that catechism, so we ought to learn about apostolic teaching from the tradition of the church.

The Final Challenge to Sola Scriptura

If sola scriptura is defined as suggested in this paper — Scripture is the only infallible rule, but not the only rule; the only reliable source of God's word, but not the only reliable source of apostolic instruction — the opponents of sola scriptura still have one argument to make: what about infallible decisions of the church, and most especially, the canon of Scripture?

Some Christians claim that the declarations of ecumenical councils and the ex cathedra statements of the bishop of Rome are infallible because God has promised to preserve them from error, so, e.g., while it is true that the Nicene Creed is the work of men, they say, God by His Spirit preserved those men from the possibility of error. This is a direct challenge to sola scriptura because it asserts another infallible rule. But note that it doesn't assert another infallible source of dogma. A man could believe that Scripture is the only source of dogma for the church and also believe that God preserves councils and popes from error in certain situations. The Nicene Creed would be an infallible interpretation of the infallible source of dogma.

This is where the real discussion about sola scriptura ought to take place. All sides should admit that Scripture is an infallible rule. All sides should admit that other infallible sources of dogma have been and can be preserved outside of Scripture. All sides should admit that the summaries of apostolic doctrine that we have in the faith and life of the early church are authoritative, but not necessarily infallible.

What remains to be discussed is first, whether there are any other sources of infallible dogma, e.g., in the liturgies that purport to have been written by the apostles, or in various non-canonical documents that quote alleged sayings of Jesus, and second, whether councils and popes are ever protected from error in their decisions.

Conclusion

The sola scriptura advocate can freely admit that extra-biblical, infallible standards have existed in the past, in the days when prophets or apostles were speaking the word of God, or at any time afterward when their inspired words were preserved for the church. That admission doesn't hurt sola scriptura, which is a statement about the way things are now. Sola scriptura is merely the assertion that Scripture is the only place we can be sure that we have an infallible rule, since prophetic and apostolic teachings have not been accurately preserved any place other than in Scripture alone.

This understanding of sola scriptura doesn't reject the authority of early church tradition, and sensible Christians should not reject them, since we only know the extent of the canon of Scripture from the witness of early church tradition. Denying the authority and reliability of the early church is like sawing off the branch you are sitting on. In fact, reflection on the process of revelation and the canonization of Scripture in the early church should lead all Christians to a profound respect for Christian tradition, which provides a witness to the faith and life of the community that was formed under the preaching of the apostles.

Tradition should serve as a guide to Scripture, or perhaps as a restraint on radical interpretations. If the early church believed something, the odds are quite good that they believed it because the apostles taught it. And if the early church didn't believe something, we shouldn't be so sure that it's part of the deposit of faith, once for all delivered to the saints.

Afterward: Sola Scriptura in Historical Perspective

So why did the reformers assert sola scriptura in the first place, and why did it become such a contentious issue among Christians?

Ever since the church's early battles with heretics and schismatics, there has been a fairly constant teaching that the universal church enjoys some kind of preservation from error — that it cannot fail in the faith because Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to preserve the church in the truth (see, e.g., Jn. 14:26).

Some have inferred from these biblical promises that the church is infallible in some cases. Defining where this infallibility lies has been quite a challenge. Whenever the church has divided over a doctrine, both camps claim to be orthodox, the true church and, presumably, the ones through whom the promise of infallibility is expressed. Each side sees their position vindicated from their reading of Scripture, and each thinks it is quite clear that the other side has got it all wrong.

Without a clear standard to judge who is right and who is wrong, where is the Christian left? How does he know that this council is right and this other one is wrong? Theologians seem to have tried different "distinguishing marks" for where and when the promise of infallibility in the faith is expressed, and a broad consensus seems to have been that the church is infallible when it assembles in a general council (which, itself, was an application of St. Vincent's famous canon: that the sure rule of the faith is what is believed everywhere, always, and by all).

The infallibility of a general council seems to be a handy solution until you ask what defines a general council. Councils can't include everybody — especially not those who were pronounced heretics by a previous council — and majority and minority parties inevitably form, each claiming to be the true council, and on and on it goes.

Having decided that infallibility resides in a general council, the next logical step was to define what makes a council "general." This was particularly complicated by the fact that in some cases the orthodox position was defended by very small minorities. (St. Athanasius seems to have been alone during the Arian controversy.) Just as with the infallibility of the church, different "distinguishing marks" have been proposed for defining a general council. Some in the western church taught that a council is infallible when the pope or his delegate presides, or when he ratifies its decrees. The eastern church had a different view, as did some in the west.

In the years before the Reformation there was a lot of dispute about this. Some maintained the older, but less precise view that a general council — whatever that is — is infallible, while Rome insisted on virtually unlimited authority over councils. The papal defenders believed the pope had the power to call, transfer or dissolve a council, and to approve or disapprove its decrees. The Council of Constance repudiated that position, but the pope didn't ratify that decree (surprise!).

Some Christians, who don't believe that any councils are infallible in any circumstance, think this problem has been created out of whole cloth. But it is important to respect the fact that these men were trying to understand and defend an ancient belief that, as a result of the Holy Spirit's activity in the church, the church enjoys some measure of protection against error.

The problem was that everyone knew that a council could err. Many had. In fact, councils had overturned previous councils. The challenge was to find a sensible way to distinguish the good from the bad councils and to justify that distinguishing characteristic from the biblical information.

In the centuries before the Reformation, those who called for reform of obvious abuses in the church were condemned on the basis of council decrees. In some cases, the councils outlawed practices that were plainly taught in Scripture, such as serving the Eucharist in both kinds to the laity. Worse still, politics and civil power were frequently mixed up with the condemnation of these "heretics." (John Hus comes to mind.)

The reformers identified the root problem — dispute over the infallibility of councils — and decided that the dispute was based on a faulty assumption. The only sure rule was Scripture, and all councils and traditions had to be tested against Scripture. Even if a general council was infallible, they may have reasoned, what good does that do if we can't know which councils are general? To compound matters further, the popes resisted efforts to call a general council and resolve these issues.

Sola scriptura became one of their chief rallying cries against papal claims. There is no evidence for God's promise of infallibility on anything but Scripture, they said. We respect the tradition of the church, the decrees of ecumenical councils and the church's exercise of the office of the keys, but none of these things compare to the authority of Scripture, where God's own words are preserved for our instruction.