Of all five solas of the Reformation, I would argue that it is the doctrine of sola Scriptura that has been the most badly misunderstood.1 Critics fixate on the “sola” and imagine the isolated Protestant chanting, “Just me and my Bible,” each one coming up with his very own doctrine on just about every topic. The fact that many modern “spiritualists” have done just that has not helped matters! A straw man of “nuda Scriptura” or “solo Scriptura” is often dragged out on stage to paint the Reformed as casting off all of church history as a hindrance to seeing the Bible in its purity. 

This was not the view of the actual Reformers of history. Any familiarity with their writings will demonstrate this. Yes, they appealed to Scripture as the final word, but their writings were filled with citations of the early church fathers and even, at points, the medieval scholastics. There was no confusion as to which was a greater authority; but the appeal to church history was simply to maintain that the shoe was on the other foot when it came to novelty. The idea was that it was late medieval Romanism that had departed from the catholic faith. Now one may disagree with the claim, but if we would pretend to be rooted in history, then we ought not rewrite it when it comes to the form of the early Protestant arguments.

What This Doctrine Is and Is Not.

Sola Scriptura is about two aspects of God’s revelation to us—source and norm. It answers the questions: (1) What is the sole medium through which God has communicated his permanent special revelation? and then, (2) What is the sole, final authority in all matters of faith and practice? In other words, this principle is where the sufficiency and the authority of Scripture intersect. 

2 Timothy 3:16-17 teaches that the Scriptures are sufficient for “every good work.” Or does it? It certainly uses the language of equipping us for every good work. There is a wrong way to take this. Obviously the Bible does not give instructions on how to fix your lawnmower or change the oil in your car. It does not even tell you who to marry or what job to take. Such examples may range from the silly to the more serious; but as we mature in Christ our own expectations to think with increasing wisdom rises to the challenge of applying Scripture to those matters not explicitly spelled out.

What we need to see is that what is true about application is also a kin to how interpretation works. Even things that are taught by Scripture are not really “spelled out” in a way that absolves us from the responsibility to read and to think and to put the pieces together into what we might call a logical system of belief. That brings up some other misconceptions of this doctrine. 

Sola Scriptura and Interpretation

Sola Scriptura is not a denial of other legitimate authorities or of other interpretive helps and lenses. It was never meant to be an alternative to epistemology as a whole. In the first place, it does not minimize tradition, reason, personal experience, academic expertise, or present Christian counsel, much less the leading of the Holy Spirit. Consider what an “authority” is by means of a few examples.

A parent is one kind of authority in relation to their children. The local weatherman is another kind of authority. We may believe both to greater or lesser degrees, though we must obey the one and are only advised by the other.

Now fideists of all stripes confuse these two kinds of authorities, and so have a needless fear of sources outside of the Bible contributing to the biggest ideas in their worldview. 

To expand our field of examples, an older brother may be left in charge by parents. The younger children are told to mind their older brother. He not only directs behavior when dad and mom are away, but becomes arbiter in the directions that the parents have left. So he is a delegated authority for obedience, but also a provisional authority for knowledge. In fact, he is a hybrid of the parent and weatherman analogies.

Most Evangelicals will struggle with this, but historic creeds and confessions and even theologians and pastors are like this hybrid figure. As the older brother ranks under the parents and yet (if he is a good son) helps his siblings to understand and obey, so the church of past and present plays the role of lesser authority.

Notice that whether or not these lesser authorities are a help or a hindrance is relative to how well they serve the communication of Scripture—that is, how well they bring to the minds of Christians the objective meaning of the text. And of course those who are uneasy with this may appeal to the example of the Bereans in Acts 17:11. Actually, their example of searching the Scripture to test Paul’s doctrine perfectly makes our point. They were neither mindless skeptics of Paul, nor equally mindless drones of Paul. They were hungry to see if his words were really so. What is the real lesson? We ought to avoid both the extreme of biblicism (“Bible only” without any mediating categories or help) and the extreme of holding to two or more sources of special revelation. The genuine article of sola Scriptura is the position that rises above both of these forms of irrationalism.

Sola Scriptura in Real Life

Contrary to the straw men versions of sola Scriptura, the doctrine does nothing other than to insist that Scripture is the only infallible authority,2 and therefore the only final authority, in all matters of faith and practice. That little expression simply means that it is God’s own truth over what we are to believe (faith) and what we are to do (practice). As the Westminster Shorter Catechism answers to Question 3, “What do the Scriptures principally teach?” 

“The Scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.”

What would the Christian life be like if we attempted to find God’s love for us or his will for our life by some other means? In fact, many professing Christian spend their whole lives looking for these in all the wrong places. They have their Bible. Indeed most American Christian households have dozens of Bibles. And yet they collect dust on the shelves, while we submit ourselves to man-made rules, or to online spiritual gurus, or to private visions or dreams.  Whether we think about it or not, these are all functioning as ultimate authorities over God’s word.

Finally, we should note that the epistemological question is not detached from real life. If you think so, then you may soon find someone you love detaching themselves from your church tradition in search of something “more rational” or “more historical.”

Many will ask, “How can I have certainty when there is so much division between Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox?” At the end of the day, increased and protracted struggles with uncertainty over religious matters only serve to clarify the truth of the Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura. The notion that all views are circular, and that someone “needs to settle” the dispute between everyone’s subjective viewpoint is self-defeating. All answers in favor of the antiquity of one group, or of the authority of one man—all of these will only raise the next question which will require another standard back behind the supposed historical line or the authoritative man.

The point is not that there are no answers to these, nor that there is not a method of inquiry that breaks out of circular reasoning (i.e. the classical view). For the moment, I must content myself to say that for most believers, the great practical need is to hear from God for all of life. It is certainly not rational to postpone life until or unless one has found exhaustive knowledge. For we know with certainty that we will die and that our minds will remain finite, with no sufficient reference point but One who is infinite. Consequently, sola Scriptura is also the only view answering to man’s need to have God’s own certain words spelled out.

It also helps to know that this was the Catholic and Orthodox doctrine as well for centuries. All of those whom both East and West hail as great theologians spoke of the Scriptures as the fundamental source of divine truth that settles all other controversies.2

I would encourage anyone struggling with whether or not this was so to move beyond the intersection of indecision and find out.

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1. Arguably sola fide occupies this position. However, misunderstandings of the “faith alone” concept are easier to correct. The hard truth is that, within our own Reformed tradition, sola Scriptura has been so decisively warped by fideism that a new body of theological reflection is required to map out the true contours of the doctrine and with fresh applications to historic theology, natural theology, and natural law.

2. To anticipate another objection, while the objective content of general revelation is also infallible—after all, God is the Speaker of both general and special revelation—the sentence above terminates on “matters of faith and practice” in the context of a beginner’s article on the subject of special revelation. Therefore, I choose to leave this subject aside for the reader and for other opportunities to spell out general revelation’s objective (and thus, infallible) status.

3. Keith Mathison, The Shape of Sola Scriptura (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2001).