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In order to establish a useful and reasonable context for an examination of the Classical Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, Keith Mathison first presents an historical overview of the Church’s concept and understanding of authority. This he traces from the fathers of the Early Church, through the Middle Ages to the Reformation of the 16th century, and thence to the Post-Reformation and the present day.

Citing many of the fathers of the first three centuries after the apostles, Mathison demonstrates a clear consensus among them that what eventually became the New Testament Scriptures are the inscripturisation of the apostolic kerygma, and as such, together with the Hebrew Scriptures, are inherently authoritative and hence the final court of appeal for all controversies. It is clear that the Early Church understood inspired Scripture to have been entrusted to the Church and that it was to be interpreted in the Church and by Church according the regula fidei, the rule of faith. The regula fidei is the essence of the apostles’ doctrine, the foundational and essential truths of the Faith drawn from what was first proclaimed by the living apostles, and then preserved for and committed to the Church in Holy Scripture. The regula fidei finds expression in the ecumenical creeds such as Nicea and Chalcedon. It serves the Church as a compass or guide to the faithful interpretation of Scripture and as a guard against heresy. The Early Church did not conceive of the regula fidei as a separate “tradition” or a second source of authoritative revelation in addition to Scripture, but rather as being of a piece with Scripture, having been deduced and derived from it as a concise summary of the apostolic kerygma.

This view that Scripture is the sole infallible authority for the Church, and that it is to be interpreted in and by the Church according to the regula fidei, the author terms ‘Tradition I.’ This belief continued to be the consensus of the church throughout most of the Middle Ages. It was not until the early 14th century that a two-source conception of authority, termed by the author ‘Tradition II,’ was clearly articulated. Tradition II holds that both written Scripture and some extra-biblical oral traditions are equally authoritative. It was during this period that the Roman church was particularly plagued by corruption and worldliness, and the Tradition II position was used to legitimize skirting the clear commands of Scripture on the authority of some oral tradition. From this point on, the Tradition I and Tradition II positions each had their adherents and they continued in parallel until the Reformation of the 16th century, when they at last came to a head.

As we come to the Reformation, it is critical in any discussion of the doctrine of sola scriptura to understand that Luther, Calvin and the other magisterial reformers were not pioneering a radically new concept of authority in their conflict with Rome, but rather were calling the Church to return to Tradition I, the consensus view for over a millennium. They were indeed reformers, not revolutionaries. To them this battle was unavoidable because the Roman church, upon the strength of Tradition II, had become a law unto herself, whitewashing heinous failures in faith and morals, and causing the sheep of the Lord to suffer under her yoke. While the opponents of the Reformation seek to characterize it as a reckless breaking away from the apostolic mother Church, it was in fact for Luther and Calvin precisely the opposite: an attempt to bring the Church back to her former apostolic state. The reformers’ affirmations regarding the authority of Scripture appeared radical and novel to some only because they were made against the backdrop of a church that had become almost completely apostate, no longer submitting to the authority of her Lord in Scripture. The reformers used the slogan sola scriptura to appeal to Scripture alone as being divinely inspired and infallibly authoritative, over against Rome’s claims of an equally authoritative tradition, by which she justified her wickedness. For the magisterial reformers this slogan was tantamount to Tradition I, viz. that Holy Scripture, alone infallible, must be interpreted in the Church and by the Church according to the regula fidei. Rome reacted against this threat to her unbridled authority by formalizing her Tradition II position at the Council of Trent in 1546. In the centuries since the council of Trent, Rome has gone the next step to what the author terms Tradition III, the view that neither Scripture nor tradition have final authority, but rather the present living Roman magisterium, thus making her doctrine more internally consistent with her practice. Whatever Rome says now is authoritative and supercedes all prior decrees. Hence it is now the task of her theologians to read today’s pronouncements back into Scripture and oral tradition.

Though Luther, Calvin and the other magisterial reformers were not iconoclastic revolutionaries, there were others who pursued a more radical course after the initial break with Rome. Many of these rejected not only the Tradition II concept of authority (Scripture and oral tradition), but also Tradition I, the ancient view of the fathers, as well. They affirmed that the Christian should submit to no authority but Scripture as he understands it. This individualistic concept of authority tends to disregard the legitimate authority of the Church, the lessons of her history, and her ecumenical Creeds. Since whatever the individual believes the Bible to say is authoritative, the inevitable result is that the absolute authority of Rome is replaced by the absolute authority of the individual and his subjective understanding of Scripture. Unlike Tradition I this view has little or no regard for the regula fidei or the consensus of believers through the history of the Church. Hence ecclesiastical tyranny gives place to individualistic anarchy. This concept of authority the author aptly terms Tradition 0.

With these sad features of the radical reformation in mind, it is not difficult to understand why Protestantism has since been a history of schism and fragmentation. Fueled by this individualist doctrine, along with the 18th century Enlightenment emphasis on human reason as the basis of authority and the populist democratic principles of our new nation, the American evangelical Church in the 21st century is still predominantly in the grip of the Tradition 0 view of authority, and thus the fragmentation continues. Not only so, but most of those who are even familiar with the term sola scriptura wrongly believe that they are upholding the Reformation doctrine when in fact they are fighting against it. The misinformation is so pervasive that Catholic and Eastern Orthodox apologists who do battle against sola scriptura are almost always fighting against Tradition 0, rather than Tradition I. It is largely due to the manifest logical and practical untenability of Tradition 0, wrongly held to be the classical Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura, that we find evangelicals in our day leaving Protestantism for Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

Having provided an instructive historical overview and analysis of the Church’s view of Scripture, tradition, and authority over the centuries, the author turns to examine what Scripture actually says about itself, tradition, and the Church. He does not undertake an exhaustive study on these subjects, but instead seeks to evaluate the particular texts that are most often used by the proponents of Tradition II and Tradition III to make their arguments. On the nature of Scripture he discusses Acts 17.10-11, 2 Timothy 3.16-17 and 2 Peter 1.19-21 et al.; on tradition Luke 1.1-4, Mark 7.5-13 and 2 Thessalonians 2.15 et al.; and on the Church Matthew 16.17-19, Luke 22.31-32 and John 16.12-15, et al. For each text, he addresses the arguments commonly drawn from it, e.g. that Peter’s confession in Matthew 16 proves papal supremacy. In this particular case, even were Peter to be positively identified with “the rock,” there is still nothing in the text, or elsewhere in Scripture, which legitimizes a human apostolic succession through Peter, which is to reside in the church at Rome. With each of the other texts, the results are similar, viz. that the proponents of Tradition II and Tradition III find more in them than is warranted by an honest reading. All of the texts examined display no inconsistencies whatever with the mainstream teaching of the early church, Tradition I.

In critiquing the respective positions of the Roman Catholic church, the Eastern Orthodox church, and the modern evangelical churches vis a vis sola scriptura, the author demonstrates the theological necessity of this doctrine. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox positions result in an autonomous church, which undermines the sovereign rule of our Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover they are not only biblically unjustified, but also historically and theologically untenable. And while the evangelical adherents of Tradition 0, or “solo scriptura” (Scripture, to me), may believe that they are honoring the classical Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura (Scripture alone), they are in fact making an indefensible travesty of it. By setting aside the legitimate authority of the Church under the keeping power of the Holy Spirit, and hence discarding any sense of a normative interpretation informed by a regula fidei as expressed in the ancient ecumenical creeds, they in effect make the individual autonomous. Rather than relying upon Scripture alone as the infallible authority, they are actually relying on their own fallible, subjective and relativistic interpretation, and thus the Church is plagued with division upon division. There is only one concept of authority which does not inexorably lead to improper autonomy and manifest absurdity: the position held by the early Church for centuries, which the magisterial reformers sought to revive under the banner of sola scriptura. The criticisms raised by Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox apologists against sola scriptura, are nearly all made against the Tradition 0 caricature of the doctrine, a very handy straw man indeed. There have been no objections of substance to the doctrine of sola scriptura set forth which are not also objections to the faith taught by the apostles and the early fathers.

In conclusion, the author reminds us that the Spirit of Christ our Head alone is the final arbiter of truth. The Holy Spirit speaks infallibly in Scripture, and also speaks through Christ’s body, the Church, to whom He has given His own authority. The voice of the Church is authoritative, while it is in submission to the Holy Spirit in Scripture, but the Church, though having real authority, is fallible because her members are fallible men. The fact of the indwelling Holy Spirit, He who was sent to “lead into all the truth,” alone can account for the broad unanimity among the churches on what is indeed canonical Scripture. The Church did not, as Rome claims, authorize what is Scripture and what is not, and therefore has authority over Scripture. The Holy Spirit, the divine author of Scripture, bears witness to His own revelation in the hearts and minds of God’s people, whose one accord on the canon is clear evidence of His work. There is a wonderful and perhaps not easily explicable reciprocal relationship between Scripture, the Church and the regula fidei, the Creed. The Scripture testifies to the identity of the Church and the truth of the Creed. The Creed serves as an hermeneutical guide to Scripture and, and provides a means by which the true Church may be recognized. And the Church by the power of the indwelling Spirit bears witness to the voice of her Shepherd in her recognition of the canon, and her faithful confession of the Creed.