profession of faith

On my application to teach Latin at a classical Christian (and Protestant) high school, I was asked if I could sign their Statement of Faith without any mental reservations. The first article concerned the doctrine of sola Scriptura, the Trinity only coming in second. Although I can with reasonable confidence say that these brothers in Christ were sincerely devoted to the one triune God, nevertheless I find the organizing principle of their statement unsettling. The arrangement of the other doctrines makes sense - the same as that of the Apostles creed and the Nicene creed - but why did this come first? At any rate, I checked "No" and, as the application directed, wrote out my reservations on a separate sheet of paper, attaching them to the application.

With the exception of the following article, after which I have professed my own belief, I am in full agreement with C---’s Statement of Faith.

WE BELIEVE... the Bible to be the inspired, only infallible, authoritative, inerrant Word of God. (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:21)

I believe all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation and discipline in righteousness.

I believe that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author. I believe that in composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him, they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted.

I believe, therefore, that since everything asserted by the inspired authors must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.

However, seeing as our infallible Lord is truly the Word of God, I cannot believe that Scripture is the only infallible Word of God, although the sacred writings are without a doubt the only infallible written Word of God.

Furthermore, since a final authority is by definition that authority above which there is no other, I cannot accept the assertion that Scripture is our final authority in all matters of faith, truth, and conduct. Rather, Christ alone is our final authority, and we treasure in our hearts the words of Scripture because He is their author.

Finally, because Scripture does not teach that it is the only medium of God’s revelation to His people and because, moreover, Jesus Christ is Himself the full self-revelation of the Father, I am led to profess that the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27), whether or not found in Scripture (cf. John 20:30; 21:25), must be without error or the possibility of error, for God can neither deceive nor be deceived in His revelation.

The first three paragraphs - taken word for word from Vatican II's Dei Verbum - are devoted to what we hold in common, hopefully thereby making it more clear with what I am disagreeing and with what I am not disagreeing. In each of my last paragraphs, I wanted to show that statements (in this first article and elsewhere in the application) that were predicated exclusively of Scripture belongs properly to Christ.

As I was writing this I thought, even Protestants don't believe this articulation of sola Scriptura! After carefully choosing my words and laboring over the language, when I showed it to a friend he said that I just spent a lot of time not getting the job. He is right, but I hope that it was also because some more qualified person had applied.