What's Wrong with the Sola Scriptura?

First published @ http://radio-awakening.com/index.php/96-solascriptura

I was asked by a friend of mine to write an article on the controversial Protestant doctrine of the “Invisible Church” some time ago. I must admit that this turned out to be an immensely difficult task for me because the topic is so broad and embraces so many sub-topics that it is really worth a book of a thousand pages [1]. That was why I decided to devote a series of articles, rather than just a single article, to cover all those sub-topics. The article you are reading right now is the first of this series, and it deals with one of the main pillars of the Protestant beliefs – the Sola Scriptura doctrine - utilising scientific method and common sense. In the forthcoming weeks, I plan to write more articles of the series, which will include:

1. Differences in the Protestant and the Orthodox understanding of salvation. “Once Saved, Always Saved "?
2. Theological implications of the reality of the Eucharist. “Eating His Flesh and Drinking His Blood – Sounds Tough, Isn't It?”
3. and finally, Structure and Management of the Church. “Unity in Diversity or Diversity without Unity?”

Hopefully, all these articles will serve to outline the major differences of Protestant versus Orthodox views and give a start for a friendly and thoughtful exchange of opinions.

What is “Sola Scriptura”? A historian's criticism of the Sola Scriptura.

Sola Scriptura (“by Scripture alone”) is a slogan coined by the Fathers of Reformation and used to declare that the Holy Bible is the highest source of authority and guidance in all ecclesiastical matters. Sounds great, doesn't it? Why don't we all agree to it? Let's take a look at the history of Church interpretation of the Scripture and the way the early Church was managed – they were closer to the roots, weren't they?

The Church, founded at the moment of the descent of the Holy Spirit onto the disciples, grew and multiplied. Persecutions it had to face since its very birth could not quench the fire of love of God but helped to spread it throughout the universe instead. Time flew, and the first generations of the disciples – the holy Apostles – had to leave this land of sorrow and finally get into the Kingdom of Heaven they had so boldly proclaimed. Their spiritual experience of meeting the God-man had to be passed on to the future generations of Christians. Naturally, they had to resort to writing, even if this meant losing some of its unique flavour (and it did because one simply cannot describe the indescribable!) The only Scriptures that they had at the time were the Jewish Torah and Prophets – and we see that the early Church borrowed a lot from its Jewish predecessors both in terms of worship and methods of exegesis. However, there was a serious problem with the Jewish holy books. Christianity claimed to be an absolutely new religion [2], the New Covenant, which rendered much of the Mosaic Law virtually useless – Apostle Paul uses a lot of his writings to explain that. Therefore, the disciples of Christ could not completely rely on the Sola Scriptura principle at that time, just because there was no New Testament.

It must also be noted here that Jesus did not write anything Himself: it took efforts of several of His disciples to write the Gospel (and the New Testament in general). What Jesus did was salvation and foundation of the Church united in His Flesh and Blood. Even if we choose to speak about the New Testament, we will soon notice that the Bible did not descend from the Heaven as a single volume, as – according to the Muslims - was the case of Quran. It is not a single book but a collection of four Gospels and twenty-three epistles, attributed to various Apostles. However, if we dig deeper, we will soon learn that there used to be many other books, which were also attributed to the Apostles (like, say, Gospel according to St Thomas, Gospel according to St Peter, etc.) Such books are called apocrypha and they are not included into the canon of the Bible. The question is, Why? It was the visible Church, led by the holy Apostles and their successors and united in the same faith, which decided which books were truly God-inspired, and which weren't. And it's amazing how they managed to do it, given that they didn't have cell phones or the Internet, and given the persecutions they had to endure! Thus, the Bible is the Book by the Church, of the Church and for the Church. And it is always very funny to hear people say they do everything according to the Bible, if they reject the One Holy Apostolic Church that compiled this Bible and handed it over to them at the same time. The Church can exist – and in fact, it did exist for the first couple of centuries – without the Scripture; the Scripture cannot exist without the Church.

But then, some will say, “All the Church did was passively recognise and receive the books that were already widely considered canonical.” Who did “widely consider” those books canonical? Wasn't it the Church? You see, the general Catholic and Protestant understanding of the Church as an organisation is that it has two distinct groups of people – the pastors and the flock, the leaders and those who they lead, and the clerics are the only ones vested with power and authority and thus constitute the Church, whereas the lay people are denied the right to speak and decide. This is far from the Orthodox – and I dare say, the original – understanding of the Church. We all are Church, bishops and laymen, clerics and housewives, deacons and children – we all are called to preserve and cherish the faith of Christ we received from the Apostles. Wasn't it something the Reformers tried to emphasise? Is the Catholic misunderstanding of this doctrine the reason why so many Protestants prefer to pay so little attention to ecclesiology?

A translator's criticism of the Sola Scriptura doctrine.

Adding up to the criticism of the Sola Scriptura doctrine from the “canonical” point of view (i.e., that the Bible was not a single volume and the Church had to select the books for the canon), there is another serious issue that is worth mentioning: the translation of the Bible. Needless is to say that most of the Christians throughout the centuries were unable to read the Bible (even if they were able to choose the “right” manuscript out of thousands, each of which has variations in rendering the same story – sometimes meanings are strikingly different and sometimes one manuscript simply adds more information to another, and the scholars now have to decide which of the manuscripts is more trustworthy. There are thousands of scholarly papers concerning these issues published every year) in their native languages so they naturally required a translation. One of the basic principles of the translation theory (and I'm actually a translation specialist, so I know what I'm talking about) is the ultimate inability of a translator to find full equivalents for words (and notions) in the source text, let alone to convey the poetry of an entire phrase or text. Therefore, there are basically two approaches to translation of the biblical text:

1. formal equivalence (where the words of “the source” text are translated word-for-word at the expense of the grammar and syntactic structure of the target language) – and even such translation does not safeguard from misinterpretation because words may have more than one meaning and it is up to the translator to choose what the meaning is in the given case, or there may not be an equivalent word for some reason (hint: cultural differences), and,

2. dynamic equivalence, where the translator attempts to convey the meaning of the text paying little attention to the actual words in the source text. Such translations are much smoother in terms of grammar and syntax of the target language but who can guarantee that the translator singled out the only possible meaning of the source text – and in the case of complex and/or ancient texts such as the biblical text there is usually more than one layer of meanings for each phrase. Therefore, a translation cannot be absolutely reliable even if we are 100 per cent sure that the source text is that very manuscript written by the Apostles, which we can never be sure of.

Thus, no translation (and in the case of the ancient texts, no manuscript) can be reliable enough to serve as the highest authority of faith and practice.

A Semiotician's criticism of Sola Scriptura

However, even if we find and select the absolutely reliable sources and the equal-to-apostles translator translates it for us, we still won't be able to use the resulting book as the rule of faith and practice! Why?

Even if we all had the same text of the Bible, each one of us would still be reading a different book. People tend to put more emphasis on their “favourite” verses and chapters (based on their cultural background and past experience), which is why there are so many Christian communities, each of which seems to focus on their “favourite” aspect of the Bible. Even worse, most of them claim their interpretation to be the only possible way to read the Bible and rebuke other denominations as 'un-biblical.'

Moreover, one and the same person may highlight different aspect of one and the same text every time s/he reads it – simply because people are prone to change.

Therefore, the Scripture depends on our imperfections and infirmities too heavily to be regarded the highest (or the only) authority in matters of faith and practice.

Final Remarks. “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”

Therefore, if we cannot avoid reading an interpretation of the text instead of the text itself – be it our own interpretation or our pastor's interpretation – the problem is: Whose interpretation we should follow? I'd rather follow interpretation of Church Fathers who were culturally and linguistically closer to the source of Christianity than of some 21st century pastor, however cool he might sound. And this is what we Orthodox call the Holy Tradition – ancient yet everlasting fountain of the Apostolic faith flowing through generations! The Scripture is an integral and a powerful part of the Tradition and should not be used to substitute all of it.

Your comments are welcome, as always!

[1] And there has been several good books on this topic, in fact. Try reading “Is There An Invisible Church?”

by Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky, “The Church is Visible and One: A Critique of Protestant Ecclesiology,” by Patrick Barnes, “Christianity or the Church?” by Saint Ilarion (Troitsky), “On the Unity of the Catholic Church,” by St. Cyprian of Carthage.

[2] I use the word 'religion' here in its original Latin meaning, “restoration of broken unity.”

Published @ http://radio-awakening.com/index.php/114-solascriptura-2