Open Letter to Protestants

I recently came upon an idea - and though I am not entirely convinced by it, I am partially persuaded - that the sacred text was never intended to teach doctrine, but only to prove it, and that, if we would learn doctrine, we must, as Newman says, have recourse to the formularies of the Church (for instance to the Catechism, and to the Creeds).

What begins to persuade me even more of this is that neither the doctrine of the Trinity nor the Incarnation is explicit in Scripture, or at least the doctrine as explained in the Nicene Creed, though it is present and suggested in many statements which were only more fully understood after the Council defined the doctrine. And not only is the Council's declarations inferred from Scripture, even the Arian doctrine is inferred from Scripture - and what standard is there to determine and judge between conflicting interpretations, between inferences which arrive at contradicting conclusions, between true developments and corruptions? And if Christianity professes to be a revealed religion, to be given from above, and it is a duty for men to learn its message, then how has Providence, who knows how men are weak and easily error morally and intellectually, insured that the message He revealed will not become forever corrupt?

Since I hope to make a formal argument against sola Scriptura, I will begin with its definition, given by A. A. Hodge: "The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, having been given by Inspiration of God, are the All-Sufficient and Only Rule of Faith and Practice, and Judge of Controversies."

(1) The first objection that presents itself to my mind is that this doctrine is not itself found in Scripture. If one is going to claim that Scripture is the "Judge of Controversies," then in the controversy of whether or not Scripture fulfills this role, Scripture itself must have a say. Hodge maintains they do, and gives four reasons (question 6); but I maintain no clear evidence for sola Scriptura is found in Scripture.

(a) The first reason, Hodge says, is that "the Scriptures always speak in the name of God, and command faith and obedience." Granted; but here we need to make some observations and distinctions. The Scriptures as a whole speak in the name of God, and so rightly deserve the title Word of God (since no one confuses it with the Word of God who became flesh). For any Word, whether it be prophetic or Scriptural, by the very fact of being "of God," demands our faith and obedience; indeed, all Revelation implies the imperative to believe it. And while all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, yet even so Paul says that on some topics he has no command from the Lord but is giving his own opinion ("as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy"). Paul's advice that follows certainly is not spoken in the name of God; he makes that much clear. Nonetheless, while individual passages may not be speaking directly in the name of God, I agree that Scripture considered as a whole, that is, considered as a Divine Message, is spoken in the name of God and commands our faith and obedience. The question, however, is whether Scripture is the only authority, the only rule of faith and practice, and the only judge of controversies; this only proves that Scripture is an authority, rule and judge, not that it is the only one. Any organ that speaks (not just claims but in fact speaks) in the name of God ought to command our faith and obedience.

(b) Second, says Hodge, "Christ and his apostles always refer to the written Scriptures, then existing, as authority, and to no other rule of faith whatsoever." Honestly, this objection always confuses me. Not only is it inaccurate, it is also impossible. If Christ and his apostles held the Old Testament (which were the Scriptures "then existing") and nothing else to be the rule of faith, then the proclamation of the Gospel is nothing more than the propagation of Judaism. Is Hodge suggesting the Old Testament is the only valid authority and rule of faith? By no means! No Christian of course confuses Christianity with the Jewish religion. The objection, then, seems to mean that since Christ always appealed to Scripture, we should always appeal to Scripture -- but here the argument is based on an equivocation in the word "Scripture," in one case meaning the Old Testament, and in the other meaning both the Old and New Testaments. Consequently, because the terms aren't equal, and even Hodge does not consider Scripture what the Apostles considered Scripture, all that can be concluded (to my mind) is that Christ and His Apostles appealed to the written word of God because it is an authority, rule and judge in controversies - not necessarily because it was the only one.

Furthermore, Christ and the Apostles did not always appeal only to the Old Testament. While Christ appealed to the Jewish Testament primarily because His mission was to the lost house of Israel, though He constantly taught with an authority higher than the scribes and Pharisees knew or could conceive of, this practice of referencing the Law broadened when Christianity spread beyond Palestine to make disciples of all nations. Paul says to the Corinthians:

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.

Here of course is the appeal to the Old Testament. But what I deny to Hodge is that there is "no other rule of faith whatsoever" Paul appeals to. On the contrary, he appeals first to the gospel he preached to them (which obviously is not the message of the Old Testament); and then he further declares that he preached the same message he received, that is, that he was a faithful organ of transmission. Only after this does he speak of Christ's death, burial and resurrection "according to the Scriptures" - which I take to mean not the Gospels but the Law and the Prophets, not the New but the Old Testament (for except in a few cases when Christ and the Apostles speak of Scripture they mean the sacred Hebrew writings). Thus while the appeal to the Old Testament is preserved, something more important is appealed to: the gospel message itself of Jesus Christ who fulfilled the prophecies by his death and resurrection.

And while Paul's letters to Gentile Christians often quote from the Law and Prophets, it need not be because he believed in sola Scriptura. (Indeed, that a Scripture writer would believe in sola Scriptura , when no collection of apostolic writings existed, strikes me as extremely improbably, if not impossible; since how could they believe in the sole authority of a letter or narrative unwritten, half-written, or just written as the case may be?) Being himself a Jew and well-studied in the Old Testament, Paul would recall verses and passages of the Law by the natural processes of the mind in composition (just as, being a literature student, lines of poetry return to me when I write); or, at least in some cases, he could have had in mind the converted Jews of that community, since Jews constituted the Church at Rome, Alexandria, and elsewhere; or, perhaps, because he means to show the continuity and fulfillment of Judaism in Christianity during these last days. But it was certainly not because he believed that the Old Testament (again, what Christ and, for the most part, the Apostles mean when they say Scripture) was the "all-sufficient and only rule of faith and practice"! This much is clear, for when Paul went to convert those without the Law he had no problem becoming like those without the Law "for the sake of the Gospel." His faith was not circumscribed by the Law. Also, the Council of Jerusalem ordained the rule of faith for the Gentiles which, even as it fulfilled the prophecy, went beyond the boundaries of the Old Covenant; for here in the Church is one greater than Moses and the Prophets, one who is the source of all authority. And it was by this Authority the Council's decision was promulgated: "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us," etc. (15:28).

(c) Third, says Hodge, "The Bereans are commended for bringing all questions, even apostolic teaching, to this test." It is true that when the Bereans heard the Gospel they "received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." But again, the terms of the objection contain an equivocation: the Scriptures the Bereans examined were the books of the Old Testament, but the subject of Hodge's definition is "the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament." As a result, this illustration from history only argues for sola Scriptura if apostolic teaching were subservient to the Old Testament. Since that is not what Hodge is maintaining, and all Christians agree the proclamation of the Gospel transcends and fulfills the Law, even as Christ said it would, then in this context the only thing the passage proves is that when the Old Testament is devoutly studied in the light of apostolic teaching, its truth will be revealed - for it would be absurd to say that the Bereans could have found the fullness of the Gospel without apostolic preaching; and it would be strange to say that, amid their eagerness, the Bereans were not reading the Law and the Prophets in the light of Paul's message. The Bereans continue the precedent of seeing Christ as the fulfillment of what the Old Law suggests, hints, and points to - but I fail to see how this supports the thesis that Scripture is the " All-Sufficient and Only Rule of Faith and Practice, and Judge of Controversies."

(d) Fourth, says Hodge, "Christ rebukes the Pharisees for adding to and perverting the Scriptures." The charge of Scriptural addition is a frequent objection by Protestants. The objection, however, presupposes the doctrine itself: the existence of a living tradition which predates Scripture and faithfully develops doctrines, drawing out explicitly what previous generations held implicitly, is only an "addition" to Scripture if the doctrine of sola Scriptura is true. If the doctrine is not true, then such a divinely guided tradition is no threat to Scripture. The objection, then, begs the question; it assumes the doctrine in question is true. The oral tradition and the teaching authority of the Church are not added to the Scripture, for they existed prior to the writing and collection of the New Testament into the canon of Scripture - for the Apostles were given the directive by Christ to preach and make disciples of all nations, and with authority and power they preached primarily by word of mouth, and only later wrote letters and the Gospels. If anything then, the Church added the New Testament writings on to the oral tradition when they wrote them down for the instruction of later generations: though the Gospels and Epistles, by their inclusion in the canon of Scripture, are now a focal point of that tradition.

Furthermore, Christ did not object to tradition per se, but traditions of human origin being treated as traditions of divine origin. And since the claim of the Catholic Church is that her tradition is of divine origin, her claim is not refuted by the charge that the tradition "added" to the Scriptures is of human origin. The objector must first prove that the sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church is of human origin, and only after that has been done, accuse Catholics of adding to the Word of God. One might add here that all Christianity began with certain "additions" or developments of the Jewish Scriptures then existing.

As an example illustrating how a living tradition can explain what was not initially expressed with clarity, take the question of infant baptism. Origen (b.185 ) says: "There may be added to the aforementioned considerations the fact that in the Church, baptism is given for the remission of sins; and according to the usage of the Church, baptism is given even to infants" (Homilies on Leviticus 8:3); and later he writes: "The Church received from the Apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants." (Commentary on Romans 5:9). If we are to take as true the testimony of a man who lived just over one hundred years after the new Dispensation, can we not read Scripture in light of this? And, though some Protestants like James McCarthy object to infant baptism on grounds of sola Scriptura, when Acts mentions the baptism of households, it is conceivable infants were included, though the text makes no mention of them directly (cf. 16:15). (Note: I do not mean to use Mr. McCarthy as a representative of all Protestants who believe in sola Scriptura, or any group of them, but instead as an example of an individual using the doctrine in question to contradict an apostolic practice.)

(2) The second problem I see in this is that Scripture is not complete - or rather not in the sense that Hodge maintains it is (question 7-9). He begins saying that by completeness he does not mean that "the Scriptures contain every revelation which God has ever made to man," which is clearly not the case since John 20:30 affirms as much. Rather he means that "their contents are the only supernatural revelation that God does now make to man, and that this revelation is abundantly sufficient for man's guidance in all questions of faith, practice, and modes of worship, and excludes the necessity and the right of any human inventions." Here he is not arguing for but only restating the doctrine of sola Scriptura; but after this he gives reasons for it, though I maintain his conclusion does not follow from the evidence.

(a) First, appealing to the design of Scripture, Hodge says: "The Scriptures profess to lead us to God. Whatever is necessary to that end they must teach us. If any supplementary rule, as tradition, is necessary to that end, they must refer us to it." As I read this, three objections immediately come to mind. First, while the Scriptures profess to lead us to God, they do not profess to be the only thing that leads us to God. Consequently, it does not follow that whatever is necessary to that end is taught in Scripture. (For Christ himself continually leads Christians to the Father, whether or not they have read or do read Scripture; as the Apostles and the Church today, continuing her apostolic mission, convert people to Christ with the assistance of the Scriptures, whether Old or New.) Second, it may be noted that appealing to the "design of Scripture," when most of the books of the New Testament are letters and epistles, by itself argues for the existence a living community with beliefs necessarily larger and more extensive than what can be recorded in a few brief correspondences. I cannot trace every principle I hold, in detail or in full, in the letters I write to friends; much less could every teaching of Christ, whose three years of preaching contains more than my 23 years of living, be set down in a few hundred pages - or, for that matter, in a few hundred years by those reflecting on the content of Revelation. For Revelation was given not to a book, but to a people who subsequently, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote their impressions down in the Book. And third, the Scriptures do in fact refer to another rule of faith: the gospel of Jesus Christ which was preached by the Apostles (as I pointed out above).

(b) Hodge continues, "But while one sacred writer constantly refers us to the writings of another, not one of them ever intimates to us either the necessity or the existence of any other rule.--John 20:31; 2 Tim. 3:15-17." Not all writers refer to other sacred authors; Jude refers to the book of Enoch, and it is not clear from the text whether that is because he thinks Enoch part of the canon of Scripture, or because it was part of the local culture of his audience, or for some other reason. Also, the verse Hodge cites, especially the prior verse John 20:30, argues for the existence of something broader than a sacred book, namely a new people of God, that is, the Church. And even granting the point that no other tradition is appealed to (which I do not), even then, it is merely an argument from silence. Hodge feels that silence, but here incompleteness would only be falsehood if sola Scriptura were true, which can't be assumed in the argument for sola Scriptura - thus Hodge is again begging the question and assuming what he sets out to prove. If, on the contrary, sola Scriptura were false, nothing can be "certainly deduced" from the silence of Scripture.

(3) Another problem I see in this, related to the previous one, is that the Scriptures are not, as Hodge maintained (questions 10-13), perspicuous, that is, clear to the Christian that would but open the Book. Here, however, Hodge makes an important distinction in sense, saying (in question 10) that by affirming the clarity of Scripture Protestants do not mean that "the Scriptures are level to man's powers of understanding," since many are beyond understanding, nor that "every part of Scripture can be certainly and perspicuously expounded." Instead, what is meant is that "every essential article of faith and rule of practice is clearly revealed in Scripture, or may certainly be deduced therefrom." The Protestant claim then, according to Hodge, is that the essential articles of faith and rules of practice are clearly revealed in Scripture, or may be certainly deduced from Scripture. And yet, if this were true, how come the full orthodox doctrine of the Incarnation and the Trinity are not explicit in Scripture, but required the Arian heresy to bring about, after many years, a formal declaration? I agree that both are implicit - yet only doctrines explicitly stated are "clearly revealed", all the rest require inference and development.

(4) The last problem I see with this is that the Scriptures are not accessible, as Hodge maintains (question 14). Accessibility is not the "pre-eminent characteristic of the Scriptures" in any sense, but, as I see it, a material cause of the doctrine of sola Scriptura. If God had meant sola Scriptura to be the principle by which all Christians lived, then it is reasonable to apply this doctrine to all ages of Christianity. But there are a few necessary conditions which make this doctrine impossible on a practical level - not just to the early Church (when it was not clear what was in the canon of Scripture and what was not) but also to most of Christian history. If every Christian is to base their faith and practice solely on the Scriptures, then some necessary conditions are: universal Biblical availability (which was only made possible by the printing press), universal distribution (which still hasn't happened), universal literacy (at least in the vernacular if not Hebrew and Greek), universal leisure (once a week on Sunday probably will not be enough), and universal education (to learn how to discern good arguments). As none of these have been the case for the average Christian in world history, and as God does not ask of us something we are incapable of, I conclude that God does not expect the average Christian to use Scripture as "the All-Sufficient and Only Rule of Faith and Practice, and Judge of Controversies." Rather He expects the average Christian to obtain and maintain his knowledge of theology in another way, not through reading (though that is an essential part wherever and whenever possible) but through a living community of Christians tracing their origins back to Christ through the Apostles, back to that first generation which continued in the Apostles' doctrines, prayers, and fellowship.