Orthodox Critique Of Sola Scriptura

[addai]

Well this thread actually is mostly a copy of another I have on the ooze.com (An American, mostly Protestant evangelical website). But I figured some folks here might like and find it helpul.

 

Years ago, (actually six years or so,) when I was first looking into Orthodoxy, I got this book

 

Sola Scriptura,

An Orthodox Analysis of the Cornerstone of Reformation Theology

 

By Fr. John Whiteford

 

 

So anyway I'm going to do "the Deacon Raphael thing" Namely, type in an entry or two, in the morning, and maybe some more late at night. Until I have all the salient points covered in the book. I like the book a lot. It does cover that Credo from most of the hermaneutics used by Protestants. The only thing I think would change is its style. So its a little more pomo friendly But anyway that is the basic plan of the thread. And of course I will be answering comments, both in the positive and of course in the negative as well. If nothing else, I'm sure some may gain some insight in why we (Orthodox) think the way we do....

Edited November 3, 2003 by addai

[addai]

WHY SCRIPTURE ALONE?

 

If we are to understand what Protestants think, we will first have to know why they believe what they believe. In fact, if we try to put ourselves in the place of the early reformers such as Martin Luther, we must certainly have some appreciation for their reasons for championing the doctrine of Sola Scriptura (or "Scripture Alone"). When one considers the corruption in the Roman Church at the time, the degenerate teachings it promoted, and the distorted understanding of Tradition that it used to defend itself - along with the fact that the West was several centuries removed from any contact with its former Orthodox heritage - it is difficult to imagine within those limmitations how one such as Luther might have responded with signifcantly better results. How could Luther have appealed to tradition to fight these abuses, when Tradition (as all in the Roman West had been led to believe) was embodied in the very papacy that was responsible for these abuses? To Luther, it was Tradition that had erred. And if he were to reform the Church, he would have to do so with the sure undergriding of the Scriptures.

 

 

However, Luther never really sought to eliminate Tradition altogether, and he certainly did not use the Scriptures truly "alone". What he really attempted to do was to do was to use Scripture to get rid of those parts of the Roman tradition that were corrupt. Unfortunately, his rhetoric far outstripped his own practice, and more radical reformers took to the idea of sola Scriptura to its logical conclusion.

[addai]

Section I

 

PROBLEMS WITH THE DOCTRINE OF SOLA SCRIPTURA

 

A. It is based On False Assumptions

 

An Assumption is something that we take for granted from the outset, usually quite unconciously. As long as an assumption is a true and valid one, all is well. But a false assumption obviously leads to false conclusions. One would hope that even when someone has made an unconcious assumption, if his conclusions are proven faulty, he would then ask himself where his underlying error lay.

 

Protestants who are willing honestly to assess the current state of the Protestant world, for instance, must ask themselves, "If Protestantisms foundational teaching of sola Scriptura is of God, why has it resulted in the formation of over twenty thousand something differing groups that can't agree on the basic aspects of what the Bible says, or even what it means to be a Christian? If the Bible is sufficent apart from Holy Tradition, why can a Baptist, a charismatic, a Methodist, and even a Jehovahs Witness all claim to believe what the Bible says, yet no two of them agree on what it is that the Bible says?

 

 

Clearly, here is the situation in which Protestants find themselves, which is without a doubt at odds with the Church we find in the New Testament. Unfortunately, most Protestants, are willing to blame this sad state of affairs on almost anything except the root problem.

 

Mind you, the problem here is not the integrity of the Bible. The Bible is the inspired by the Holy Spirit, and is received by the Church as the Word of God. We are not arguing here the inspiration of Scripture, but rather its proper use.

 

The idea of sola Scriptura is so foundational to Protestantism, to them it is tantamount to denying God even to question it. But as our Lord said, "every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a bad tree brings forth evil fruit (Matthew 7:17). If we judge sola Scriptura by its fruit, then we are left with no other conclusion than that this tree needs to be "hewn down, and cast into the fire" (Matthew 7:19).

[addai]

FALSE ASSUMPTION #1: The Bible was intended to be the final word on faith, piety, and worship.

 

a) Do the Scriptures themselves teach that they are "All sufficent" apart from Church Tradition?

 

The most obvious assumption that underlies the doctrine of "Scripture alone" is that the Bible has within it all that is needed for the Christian life - for true faith, practice, piety, and worship. The passage that is most often cited to support this notion is:

 

....From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2nd Timothy 3:15-17).

 

Those who would use these verses to advocate sola Scriptura argue that this passage teaches the "All sufficency" of Scripture - because, "If, indeed, the Holy Scriptures are able to make the man pious man perfect......then, indeed to attain completeness and perfection, there is no need of tradition" (ft2) But is this really what this passage teaches?

 

FT2 George Mastrantonis, trans., Augsburg and Constantinople: The Correspondence between the Tubigen Theologians and Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople on the Augburg Confession (brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1982, p.114

[addai]

To begin with, we should ask what the Apostle Paul is talking about when he speaks of the "Holy Scriptures" Saint Timothy has known since he was a child. We can be sure that Saint PAul is not refering to the New Testament, because the New Testament had not yet been written when Saint Timothy was a child. In fact, only a few of the books of the New Testament had been written when St. Paul wrote to Timothy. They certainly had not been collected together into the canon of the New Testament as we know it today.

 

Obviously here, and in most references to the Scriptures that we find in the New Testament, Saint Paul is speaking of the Old Testament. Therefore, if this passage is going to be used to set the limmits on inspired authority, not only will Tradition be excluded, but this passage itself - and the entire New Testament!

 

In the second place, if Saint Paul meant here to exclude Tradition as not being profitable, then we would wonder why he uses the oral tradition in this very chapter. The names Jannes and Jambres are not found in the Old Testament, yet in 2 Timothy 3:8 Saint Paul refers to them opposing Moses.

 

The Apostle is drawing here upon the oral tradition that the names of the two most prominent Egyptian magicians in the Exodus account (chapters 7;8) were Jannes and Jambres. (Ft3) And this is by no means the only time a nonbiblical source is used in the New Testament. The best known instance is in the Epistle of Jude, which quotes from the Book of Enoch (Jude14,15;cf Enoch 1:9).

 

FT3 A.F. Walls, "Jannes and Jambres", The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, vol2 (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1980).pp.733-734

[addai]

The primary purpose in the Church establishing an authoritative list of books which were to be received as sacred Scripture was to protect the Church from spurious books which claimed apostolic authorship, but were in fact written by heretics, such as the "Gospel of Thomas." Heretical groups could not base their teaching on Holy Tradition because their teachings originated from outside the Church. So the only way they could claim any authoritative basis for their heresies was to twist the meaning of the Scriptures and to forge new books in the names of the Apostles of the New Testament.

 

In establishing an authoritative list of sacred books that were received by all as being divinely inspired and of genuine Old Testament or apostolic origon, the Church did not intend to imply that all of the Christian Faith and all information necessary for worship and good order in the Church was contained in these writings. (ft4) In fact by the time the Church settled the Canon of Scripture, it was already, in faith in worship, essentially indistinguishable from the Church in later periods. This is an historical certainty. As for the structure of Church authority, it was the Orthodox bishops, gathered together in the various councils, who settled the question of the canon. The Church as we know it was in place BEFORE the Bible as we know it was in place.

 

FT4 Indeed this list did not even intend to comprise all the books which the Church has perserved from antiquity and considers part of the larger Tradition. For example, the Book of Enoch, though quoted in teh canonical books, was not itself included in the canon. I will not pretend to know why this is so, but for whatever reason the Church has chosen to perserve this book, and yet has not appointed it to be read in Church or to be set alongside the canonical books.

[addai]

B ) what was the purpose of the New Testament writings?

 

In Protestant biblical studies,it is taught (and I think correctly) that when studying the Bible, among many other considerations, one must consider the genre (or literary type) of a particular passage; different genres have different uses. Another consideration is the subject and purpose of the passage.

 

In the New Testament we have, broadly speaking, four literary genres:Gospel, historirical narrative (Acts), epistle, and apocalyptic/prophetic (Revelation). The Gospels were written to testify of Christ's Incarnation, life, death, and Resurrection. Biblical historical narratives recount the history of God's people and also the lives of significant figures in history, and show God's providence in the midst of it all. Epistles were written primarily to answer specific problems that arose in the various churches; thus, things that were assumed and understood by all, and not considered problems, were not addressed in any detail. Doctrinal issues that were addressed were generally disputed or misunderstood doctrines. (ft5) Matters of worship were only dealt with when there were related to problems (for example, ! Corinthians 11-14). Apocalyptic writings, such as Revelation, were written to show God's ultimate triumph in history.

 

FT5 For example, there is no place where the question of the inerrancy of the Scriptures is dealt with in detail, precisely because this was not an issue of dispute. In our present day, with the rise of religious skeptiscism, this is very much an issue, and if the epistles were written today, this would certainly be dealt with at some point. It would be foolish to conclude that since this issue is not dealt with specifically, that the early Christians did not think it was important or did not believe in it.

Edited November 3, 2003 by addai

[addai]

Interestingly, none of these literary types present in the New Testament has worship as a primary subject, nor was any of them meant to give details about how to worship in church. In the Old Testament there are detailed, though by no means exhaustive, treatment of the worship of Israel (Exodus, Leviticus, and Psalms). In the New Testament, there are only the meagerest hints of the worship of early Christians. Why is this? Certainly not because they had no order in their services - Liturgical historians have established that fact that the early Christians continued to worship in the manner firmly based upon the the patterns of the Jewish worship, which they inherited from the Apostles. (ft6)

 

FT6 Alexander Schmemann, Introdction to Liturgical Theology (crestwood, NY: St. Vladmimir's Seminary Press, 1986), pp. 51ff.

 

(New Page)

 

However, even the few references in the New Testament that touch upon the worship of the early Church show that New Testament Christians worshiped liturgically, as did their fathers before them: they observed hours of prayer (Acts 3:1); they worshiped in the temple (Acts 2:46; 3:1; 21:26); and they worshiped in synagogues (acts 18:4).

 

We also need to note that none of the types of literature present in the New Testament has its purpose to comprehensive doctrinal instruction. The New Testament contains neither a catechism nor a systematic theology. If all we need as Christians is the Bible itself, why does it not contain some sort of comprehensive doctrinal statement? Imagine how easily all the many controversies could have been settled if the Bible had clearly answered every doctrinal question. But as convenient as it might have been, such things are not found among the books of the Bible.

Edited November 3, 2003 by addai

[addai]

Let no one misunderstand the point that is being made. None of this meant to belittle the importance of the Holy Scriptures. God forbid! In the Orthodox Church the Scriptures are believed to be fully inspired, inerrant, and authoritative. But the fact is that the Bible does not contain teaching on every subject of importance to the Church.

 

As already stated, the New Testament gives little detail about how to worship - and this is certainly no small matter. Furthermore, the same Church that handed down to us the Holy Scriptures, and preserved them, was the very Church from which we have our patterns of worship! If we mistrust this Churches faithfulness in perserving apostolic worship, then we must also mistrust her fidelty in perserving the Scriptures. (ft7)

 

FT7 And in fact, this is what Protestant scholarship has done. Though Protestantism was founded on its claim of beleiving the Bible to be the only authority for faith and practice, contemporary Protestant scholarship is dominated by modernists who no longer beleive in the inspiration or inerrancy of the Scriptures. They now place themselves above the Bible and only choose to use those parts that suit them, disacrding the rest as "primitve mythology and legend." The only authority left for such as these is themselves.

Edited November 3, 2003 by addai

[addai]

c) Is the Bible, in practice, really "all sufficent" for Protestants?

 

Protestants frequently claim they "just believe the Bible", but a number of questions arise when one examines their actual use of the Bible. For instance, why do Protestants write so many books on doctrine and the Christian life in general, if indeed the Bible was sufficent for one to undertand it, then why don't Protestants simply hand out Bibles and let it go at that? And if it is "all sufficent", as they suggest, why do Protestants not all believe the same?

 

What is the purpose of Sunday School, or the many Protestant study Bibles, if all that was needed was the Bible itself? Why do they hand out tracts and other material? Why do they even teach or preach at all - why not just read the Bible to people? Though they usually will not admit it, they instinctively know the Bible cannot be understood alone. And in fact, every Protestant sect, has its own body of traditions, though again they probably will not call them by this name.

 

It is not an accident that Orthodox Presybterians all believe the same things, and United Pentecostals generally beleive the same things, but Orthodox Presybeterians and United Pentecostals emphatically do not beleive the same things. Orthodox Presybterians and United Pentecostals do not each individually come up with their own ideas from an independent study of the Bible. Rather, those in each group are all taught to beleive in a certain way - from a common tradition.

 

Thus the question is not really whether we will just believe the Bible or whether we will also use tradition. The real question is, WHICH tradition will we use to interpret the Bible? Which tradition can be trusted - The Apostolic Tradition of the historic Church, or the modern and divergent traditions of Protestantism, which have no roots deeper than the advent of the Protestant Reformation?

[Sip]

... An Assumption is something that we take for granted from the outset, usually quite unconciously. As long as an assumption is a true and valid one, all is well. But a false assumption obviously leads to false conclusions. ...

 

...

 

Mind you, the problem here is not the integrity of the Bible. The Bible is the inspired by the Holy Spirit, and is received by the Church as the Word of God. We are not arguing here the inspiration of Scripture, but rather its proper use.

 

So in other words, let's assume something and then start talking.

 

What if that assumption is a false one? Isn't this what ALL religious discussions come down to? There is no way around that assumption.

[Armen]

Isn't this what ALL religious discussions come down to?

Sip,

 

Initial assumption is also valid for all the sciences (including the most modern natural sceiences) except for mathematics, which in its turn proves everything ONLY in the world of figures.

[Sip]

Sip,

 

Initial assumption is also valid for all the sciences (including the most modern natural sceiences) except for mathematics, which in its turn proves everything ONLY in the world of figures.

The main difference is, in the world of science you get to test those assumptions. In the case of religion and the "God" model, you can't test anything. Any model you build based on assumptions is only as good as how well it can predict things.

 

If you have a simple model that can predict outcomes of events on a consistent basis, then that's a strong argument for the potential validity of the initial assumptions that were used to build that model.

 

That's what makes science VERY different from religion.

[DominO123]

Sip, any scientific model will be modified later, and therefore will be rejected, they will get perfectioned, more compleat etc... In fact, science IS a little like religion, you find out a model to explain things, for you this model works, you try, and it seems to work, you keep it, it is introduced as a scientific model, introduced then in schools, where students learn them.

 

In religion, the Guru has a model that should explain the Universe, this model sounds to work for him and for his first believers, he then introduce it as a doctrine for the fooled ones that believe to his system.

 

Does the model brought by that religion work? It depend, for the believer it does work, since the believer do accept the possibility that his model works, so he will interprate the results positivaly, while you don't, all our reality is just an interpretation of our brains... our mind does not interface directly with the exterior world, our brain does that, what we observe as reality is what our brain observes as reality.

 

I came to see humans, and living species as collective psychotics.

 

Imagine that one person hallucinate, and see things that others don't, another person hallucinate another thing, in fact, each individual hallucinate his own world, each are psychotics. Imagine now that because of natural selection, only those that hallucinate things that will permit them to survive, surivive. Others which hallucinate things that will make them act in a way that won't make them srvive, won't survive.

 

We can therefore say that, natural selection will favour one sort of psychotics on others.... natural selection will narrow the possible type of psychosis, so that, everyone hallucinate pratically the same things on the same places.

 

This psychosis become the norme, it become what is normal persons.

 

I don,t know if you get what I am trying to say, I gave here a pictured explanation of what I meant by brain interpretation, this is how the brain is build, natural selection has favoured such brain against others, this interpretation of reality we have, may very well be a psychotic interpretation, since everyone has this psychosis, therefore we don't realise it ourselve.

 

Comming to religion, the believer is accepting the possibility of miracles and all the stuff that goes with his/her relision, he will interprate everything based on that, and a true believer will find evidences, mesurable evidences and repeatable, because of the interpratation of reality he does have. You on the other hand, does not accept the reality of that religion, you can't mesure something you think does not exist, because you don't know what to mesure in the first place.

 

I am not saying that science is no more than a religion, it is not, because it is close to mathematic, more closer of math you are, more youy approch Universal truth, there is nothing more pure and perfect than math.

[Sasun]

In religion, the Guru has a model that should explain the Universe, this model sounds to work for him and for his first believers, he then introduce it as a doctrine for the fooled ones that believe to his system.

Come on Domino, this is not right. A Guru is not trying to explain the physical universe. That is not his task although he may give some insights and some knowledge. Guru is not a scientist. And a true guru is not trying to fool anyone.

 

I will come back to this later...

[DominO123]

I have not said physical Universe, I said Universe, for a religious Guru that consider everythings essence as something spiritual and not physical, he explains the Universe in a spritual way.

 

Ah and yes! The large majority of them are people trying to fool others for different reasons, and others are just mild schizophrenics or sociopaths with exrem Narcissic disorder.

[Sasun]

I have not said physical Universe, I said Universe, for a religious Guru that consider everythings essence as something spiritual and not physical, he explains the Universe in a spritual way.

If that is what you mean then its not a model. The universe they are talking about is usually all physical and non-physical existence, but not the material aspects.

 

Ah and yes! The large majority of them are people trying to fool others for different reasons, and others are just mild schizophrenics or sociopaths with exrem Narcissic disorder.

 

Domino, a lot of people have come to the west and presented themselves as real gurus to make money. There are people who believe them for whatever reason, that's their problem if they are so easily fooled. That doesn't mean there are no real gurus. The word guru means "one who illumines". A real guru illumines ones consciousness and helps to realize truth. If you don't see it that doesn't mean it's not true. If you think that all gurus are either fake or schizophrenic you are making a big mistake.

[Sasun]

exrem Narcissic disorder

 

For a disciple his or her guru is the closest living thing to God. A real guru to a real disciple is like the closest friend, father, mother, advisor, practically everything. S guru helps the disciple to liberate, it is more than giving someone life. So the relationship between a disciple and a guru is almost like a believer and God. You don't see it that way therefore you think a guru has phychological problems. But again, that is a mistake.

[Sip]

In religion, the Guru has a model that should explain the Universe, this model sounds to work for him and for his first believers, he then introduce it as a doctrine for the fooled ones that believe to his system.

Once again there is a HUGE difference.

 

The Guru's religion model (all the ones I have seen so far) explain everything after they happen! They have no predictive abilities of any kind (none that can be tested and verified). For this, I will comfortably say their "models" are full of air.

 

With a scientific model of explaining things, you have experimental data to test and retest and verify things AND to predict future outcomes. That is what makes someone like me a believer in those models.

[Sasun]

Once again there is a HUGE difference.

 

The Guru's religion model (all the ones I have seen so far) explain everything after they happen! They have no predictive abilities of any kind (none that can be tested and verified). For this, I will comfortably say their "models" are full of air.

 

With a scientific model of explaining things, you have experimental data to test and retest and verify things AND to predict future outcomes. That is what makes someone like me a believer in those models.

Sip, what kind of prediction and verification do you need from religion? Like scientific type? There is science for that, you are asking something from the religions that they don't have. But what they have is a different type of prediction and verification. For example, "Those who seek will find" this is a much more significant truth for the man being than a scientific formula. And this prediction has been well tested and verified by those who have sought and found

 

Another example: it had been prophesized that a Messiah will come, and it did happen. Similar predictions religion does give. But to predict whether religion cannot

 

And I agree, there is a huge difference between religion and science. Religious scriptures should not be taken as scientific textbooks. (such as the story of genesis is taken by many literally as origin of earth/universe/mankind)

[Sip]

A prediction is different than a self-fulfilling prophecy!!! "A messiah will come" ... yah you start believing that and one day a messiah will come and you will believe he or she is the messiah

 

Science tells me, if I kick the ball with a certain force, it is going to go up with a certain height then come back down and hit the ground. Before believing this magical ability to predict the future, I go and kick a ball a few times and after a while I realize, gee, that prediction is awefully close to what I am seeing so I start to suspect maybe there is something to it!

 

Now of course I can also go and say after what happened to the ball that it was the will of God that caused it to go to that hight and then come back down. But that doesn't tell me anything about what will happen the next time I kick the ball. Who knows what mood God will be in then. Simplistic example, but I hope my point is clear that with "God" anything can be explained AFTER it happened. But that's not necessarily the correct explanation.

 

With God and bible, for all has been done before we have an explanation for it. It was God who did it. So? First of all I have no way to verify this amazing discovery, second of all, it doesn't do much to explain anything about how things are and will be! So that tells me it's too simplistic, it "overfits" the data, and it thus has no real value.

[Sasun]

I realize we are a little off-topic, but I want to ask this question to everyone who doubts that God exists: if you need proof of God, can you specifically desribe what such proof should look like?

[Arpa]

Aprophesy is not worth the stone tablet or the papyrus it is written on until it comes to pass. Only then we say; "Aha! (that idiot)Nostradamus & Co. had said that the 'yellow beast will rise in the East, or the Tigris will turn red'".

[Sasun]

A prediction is different than a self-fulfilling prophecy!!!  "A messiah will come" ... yah you start believing that and one day a messiah will come and you will believe he or she is the messiah

Actually before and after Jesus there have been many people who have claimed to be a new messiah or Jesus. How come they are not known as the Messiah? There is a big difference between self-fulfilling prophecies and real prophecies. One can tell the difference between a fake prophet and Jesus simply by sincerely understanding what Jesus has said (I don't want to mention miracles which I suppose many will doubt). A fake prophet will be like a selfish person trying to impress or a nuts.(like the guy who kidnapped a girl and claimed to be God in charge of the world). You can also compare their actions. It doesn't take a genius to understand divine actions are different from selfish actions.

 

As to the ball, if God didn't want you couldn't kick the ball

[Sip]

By the way, for the record, although I may not be a believer in God, I think Jesus was an amazing person. I certainly am a big subscriber to a lot of his teachings and his philosophies on how one should live. There is no doubt he was something special, especially for his times!

 

But my "belief" in him stops where "God" as we know it today enters the picture.