Sola Scriptura

Sola scriptura, “Scripture alone,” is the principle that the Bible is the sole rule of faith, sufficient by itself, without Tradition or the authority of the Church to guard and interpret it. It is one of the foundations of the Protestant Reformation. It collapses under its own principle as under the witness of Scripture itself.

A rule Scripture does not teach

The principle first refutes itself. If the rule is to hold what Scripture teaches, and Scripture nowhere teaches that it is the sole rule, then sola scriptura fails its own test: it lays down a norm the Bible does not give. The verse usually cited states the inspiration and usefulness of Scripture, not that it suffices by itself: “All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, refuting, correcting, and training in righteousness.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “Useful for” does not mean “sole source”; and when these words are written, the Scripture in question is the Old Testament, from which no one would conclude that it dispenses with the New.

It is objected further by the example of the Jews of Berea. “These Jews were more open-minded than those of Thessalonica: they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures every day to check the accuracy of what they were told.” Acts 17:11 They were testing Paul’s oral preaching by the light of the Old Testament; the scene supposes both, Scripture and the living preaching received from an apostle, and praises their being brought into accord, not that Scripture be held as the sole rule.

Scripture points to Tradition

Scripture itself commands us to hold to the teaching handed on, whether it comes by word or by letter. The Word of God passes through both. “So then, brothers, stand firm, and hold to the traditions you learned from us, whether by word of mouth or by letter.” 2 Thessalonians 2:15 Preaching received by living voice and the written text are set on the same level. It is objected that Christ himself condemned tradition, when he reproaches the Pharisees for setting aside God’s commandment in favour of their customs: “So you nullify the word of God by the tradition you hand down.” Mark 7:13 Yet one word covers two opposed realities. Christ and Paul reject the tradition of men, human inventions set against the divine commandment: “that empty deceit based on human tradition, on the elements of the world, and not on Christ.” Colossians 2:8 They command, on the contrary, to hold fast the tradition received from the Apostles, whether by word or by letter (2 Thessalonians 2:15). To condemn the first touches the second in no way: it is the human custom set against the Word that Christ casts aside, not the apostolic deposit that bears it. This deposit is handed on through a living chain, from one generation to the next: “What you have heard from me before many witnesses, entrust to trustworthy people who will be able in turn to teach others.” 2 Timothy 2:2 And Scripture praises those who faithfully keep this transmission: “I commend you for remembering me in everything and for keeping the traditions just as I handed them on to you.” 1 Corinthians 11:2

The Church before the Book

The Church preceded the New Testament. Born at Pentecost, she preached, baptized and celebrated the Eucharist for some twenty years before a single line of the New Testament was written: the earliest letters date from the fifties, and the last book was completed only at the end of the first century. More than this, the settled list of the holy books, the canon, was fixed only at the end of the fourth century, at the councils of Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397: nearly four centuries during which the Church taught, baptized and forgave sins without possessing a closed Bible. Faith is born first of preaching: “faith is born of the message that is heard, and this message comes through the word of Christ.” Romans 10:17 Above all, the Bible carries in itself no table of its own books: nothing in Scripture says which writings are inspired and which are not. It is the Church, led by the Spirit, that discerned and received this canon. The first centuries bear witness to this. Saint Irenaeus, around 180, answers the heretics who appealed to Scripture alone that one must follow the Tradition handed on by the Apostles to their successors in the churches, faithfully kept even where nothing was written. Saint Basil counts among the traditions received from the Apostles, and never set down, usages the whole Church observes, such as the sign of the cross. And what is held as catholic is what has been believed everywhere, always and by all, by the rule of Saint Vincent of Lérins. To hold a given book as Scripture is therefore already to rely on the authority of the Church and on her Tradition. Sola scriptura cannot even say which books make up the Scripture alone it invokes.

A word that calls for an interpreter

Scripture does not explain itself to whoever opens it. It contains difficult passages, which the unstable twist to their ruin: “in them there are some passages hard to understand, which the ignorant and the unsteady distort, as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.” 2 Peter 3:16 It shows for itself the need of a guide: to the eunuch who was reading Isaiah without grasping him, Philip asks whether he understands what he reads, and the man replies: “How could I, unless someone guides me?” Acts 8:31 Left to each one’s private judgment, reading does not found unity: it breaks it, and one sees the fruit in the multitude of communities that claim the same Bible and contradict one another. The following verse gives the reason: prophecy was not born of a human will, “it was carried along by the Holy Spirit that men spoke on behalf of God.” 2 Peter 1:21 Given by the Spirit, it is understood in the same Spirit, who lives in the Church, not under the isolated light of each reader. Scripture warns of it: “Know this above all: no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private interpretation.” 2 Peter 1:20

The pillar of truth

Christ founded a Church, and to her he entrusted the keeping of the truth. He himself wrote nothing; he sent his own to teach and to hand on: “Go therefore! Make disciples of all the nations… teach them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Matthew 28:19-20 He gave this Church an authority that speaks in his name: “Whoever listens to you listens to me.” Luke 10:16 In disputes, it is she who decides: “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the Church.” Matthew 18:17 This is why Scripture gives this title to the Church, and not to a book: “the Church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.” 1 Timothy 3:15

Scripture within the Church

Scripture remains the Word of God, supremely venerated, the soul of all preaching and all theology. It lives in the Church that received it from God, discerned it, guards it and interprets it. Scripture and Tradition form one single deposit of the Word of God, entrusted to the Church that guards and interprets it: three realities so bound together that none stands without the others. Against the Reformation, the Council of Trent had already defined that the truth of the Gospel is kept both in the written books and in the unwritten traditions received from the Apostles, the two held with equal reverence; the Second Vatican Council took this up in the constitution Dei Verbum, teaching that Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium that serves them are so bound together that none stands without the others. To cut it off from the Tradition and the Church that bear it is to sever it from the life in which it was given and in which it is understood.