"Sola Scriptura"

Having taken up a course in Reformation theology this semester, I have already begun to realize that one of the great tenants held by modern Protestants concerning the Reformation is little more than a myth. I am speaking of the notion that the Reformers--Luther, Calvin, and others--finally got "back to the Bible" after a long dry-spell of any biblical truth in the so-named "Dark Ages." This myth is often summarized in the polemical battle-cry--"sola scriptura!"--which is so often shouted by one Christian group over against another Christian group (both of whom believe the Bible to be the true words of God).

The truth is this: The dominant stream of the Christian Church has always, even pre-Reformation, believed that the Scriptures are the primary source of theological truth. The Reformers did not differ from their Medieval counterparts, nor from their Roman-Catholic antagonists, in this regard. The Bible has always been the source of theological truth for the Church, and here's a few Medieval theologians who recognized this long before the Reformers were even born:

Duns Scotus (13th c.): "theology does not concern anything except what is contained in Scripture, and what may be drawn from this."

The whole Medieval Augustinian Tradition: a group of clergy who, according to world-renown Oxford Dean of Theology Alister McGrath, "emphasized that the basis of Christian theology was scriptura sola." (From McGrath's Intellectual Origins of the Reformation)

Augustine (5th c.), who wrote an entire volume called "On Christian Doctrine" that was little more than a handbook on how to understand and interpret the Bible.

Nicholas of Lyra (14th c.), who emphasized the need to listen to the "literal meaning" of Scripture long before Luther or Zwingli.

Thomas Aquinas (13th c.), the great "doctor" of the Medieval Church, and one of the most influential theologians of all time, who said long before the Reformers that Scripture is the fidei fundamentum, the "ground of faith"

This is a brief overview of some of the most important Medieval voices to have given credence to the notion of "sola scriptura" long before the Reformers. These theologians dominated the Medieval Church's understanding of Scripture, so we can assuredly conclude that "sola scriptura" was not a new innovation of the Reformers.

The Reformers did not "get back to the Bible," they just began to read the Bible in different ways than it had been read before. The issue has never been--nor is it today--about some Christians who are "Bible-believing" and some who are not. Those who earnestly follow Christ and take his message seriously have always grounded their faith in the Scriptures. The issue has always been an interpretive one: It's not about whether we believe the Bible is true, it's about how we read the Bible.

This is the reason I believe this is important for us today: If the Church pre-Reformation really already based their understanding of God on the Scriptures in the same way the Reformers did, then we Protestants who hardly ever give credence to any reading of the Bible that came before Luther or Calvin (or in some cases our own pastor)--we need to be attentive to how the Church read the Bible for the 1500 years prior to the Reformation. We can go a step further: we need to be attentive to how other Christians outside our own small circles of modern, Protestant, evangelical, American Christians read and have read the Bible.

One of the great tests of "orthodoxy" developed by St. Vincent of Lerins in the 5th c. was to ask the question: "What has been believed by all Christians, everywhere, at all times?" Let us rephrase slightly: "In what way have the Scriptures been read by all Christians, everywhere, at all times?" (Of course all might only mean the vast majority in some cases.) This test guards us against claiming certain "doctrines" (which are nothing more than interpretations of the Bible) that are only local to our time period (i.e. the 20th-21st centuries) and our geographical location (i.e. America). (A good example of such an unorthodox doctrine is "dispensationalism," which has only been believed by a handful of Christians, almost completely in America, and only since about 1850. Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons could pass the test of orthodoxy as easily as dispensationalism.)

Well, let the lesson be this: The Bible has always been our source for knowing God and his truth. The Reformers didn't come up with this, and the myth that "sola scriptura" originated with them is simply not true. We must, therefore, recognize that the Church all throughout history and throughout the world has sought to be faithful to the Bible. We need to listen to these voices, or else we are sure to find ourselves as innovators of a new faith rather than as defenders of the faith.