Sola scriptura is one of the pillars of Protestant Christianity, and one of its most recognizable features. It is the doctrine that Scripture alone is authoritative for the faith and practice of the Christian. The primary prooftext for it is 2 Timothy 3:16, “Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” It is Scripture alone that is named by Paul as being the ultimate source and standard for Christian teachings. In contrast to Catholicism and Orthodoxy, later church tradition is not included in this.
While sola scriptura may seem evident, it has certainly been challenged, primarily by the Catholic and Orthodox churches that it stands at odds with. Two objections that are relevant to the discussion that will take place in this article are, one, the “Canon Conundrum” and, two, what we may call the “indeterminable terminability of authority” argument. Let me explain either first.
First, the Canon Conundrum. The argument goes as follows: On one hand, Protestantism rejects the authority of sacred (extrabiblical/church) tradition. On the other hand, Protestantism endorses a 66-book canon for the Holy Bible. How do they know what the canon is? If Protestantism knows the canon through the traditionally accepted canon of the Church, then Protestantism accepts an extrabiblical tradition as authoritative. The sola is then forfeited because Protestantism is not solely scriptural.1
Second, the indeterminable terminability of authority. What I mean by calling the argument this is easy once I explain it. Catholic apologists, from my experience, are willing to accept the Protestant conviction that only those with authority granted from God should be listened to. However, Catholics respond by asking on what grounds do Protestants stop the count at the nine authors of the New Testament. On what grounds do they say that Clement, Irenaeus, Augustine, Athanasius, Gregory the Great, and other eminent Christian theologians did not have authority from God? The argument is closely related to apostolic succession, the doctrine that the authority of the apostles was passed onto their successors in the churches they founded, such as how Paul seems to prop Timothy up as a successor in Ephesus and evidenced by the apostles choosing a replacement (successor?) to Judas in Acts 1:12-26.
That sola scriptura, as commonly understood, cannot really answer either concern is true. How do we know what the canon is when, within the New Testament, there is no specific list of authoritative books, and, in fact, wouldn’t such a list be a circular argument because we would need to establish the canonicity of the book such a list would be in, lest we canonize the Muratoriun fragment or the Marcionite canon because of their traditional authority? And, yes, how and why do we cut off the Bible where we cut it off at, why not go further? Clement certainly says some neat things, perhaps we should give him an ear. All that I am going to say in the following paragraphs might be part of other’s understanding of sola scriptura, can be found “out there” in pieces, and is altogether not unprecedented in Christian theology, but I am simply collating it all here and giving it a specific name by which to refer to it.
First, what makes someone authoritative in the Bible? If we look at the most fundamental similarity between all the authors in the Bible, what we find is that they were all prophets. A prophet, both in the etymology of the word and in the Bible, is an interlocutor or spokesperson for God. In Exodus 7:1, the Hebrew word for prophet (nabi, נָבִיא) is used of Aaron, “See, I have made you as a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet.” Aaron’s primary role was to speak on behalf of Moses, to compensate for Moses’ stutter, as Scripture makes clear (Ex. 4:14-17, 6:28-7:7). Thus, again, to be a prophet is to be someone who speaks on behalf of God. The logic behind men who heard God and wrote down what He said to them as possessing authority is beyond obvious. Indeed, God chastises the Israelites repeatedly for failing to listen to such men: “But they rebelled and were rebellious against You and cast Your law behind their back and killed Your prophets, who had warned them to turn back to You, and they did great blasphemies” (Neh. 9:26).
Building off of this, Jesus’ apostles were prophets. They spoke on behalf of God, facilitating the dissemination of the words of Christ (God Himself), and they themselves were of special prophetic/theological significance, their duodecople numbering antityping the Twelve Tribes of Israel, their ministry and service to Christ serving as the restoration of Israel.2 Matthew, Mark, John, Luke, Paul, James, Jude, and Peter are all authoritative because they were prophets who spoke on behalf of the Lord Christ, their words being His. The New Testament is not authoritative because it is the New Testament, it is authoritative because it contains the true words of true prophets. Clement, Irenaeus, Augustine, and whoever else, are not included in this because they did not have the special significance of the Apostles; sure, they succeeded them, in a sense, but it was the apostles in whom the authority to restore Israel was placed, the Christian communities that gave rise to the Church Fathers being fruits of their labor, but the fruit is not the planter. The Bible, then, isn't authoritative because it is The Bible, but, rather, it is authoritative because it binds together 66 documents that come from the prophets of God. It is those documents which are authoritative (because of their authors), not the vessel for them. Hence, sola apostolorum, or, to include the Old Testament, sola prophetarum.
A question that remains is that of canon, and how sola apostolorum can resolve it. Fundamentally, it seems like this can only be answered in historical-critical terms. What documents do we have that are apostolic in nature? This we must study, and it cannot be determined from any Scripture itself (although Scripture can certainly help us, such as giving as a theological trend to look out for and giving us pointers, such as 2 Peter 3:15-16 and 1 Timothy 5:18). When we do look at the traditional New Testament canon we see that it is derived from the apostles, and in the case of the Gospels of Luke and Mark (disciples rather then apostles) it is clear from historical study that their gospels were sourced from Paul and Peter, respectively. I’ll note and honestly accept the implication of this understanding: the canon is open-ended (but incredibly static). If, at sometime in the future, a manuscript of a Christian gospel or epistle that is early, orthodox, and reliable is discovered, say, an actual Gospel of Thomas, then I’d accept it, because Thomas was an apostle and, historical-critically, this hypothetical manuscript is unimpeachable.3 Indeed, it is historical truth that there were other orthodox books of the Bible that were lost, in part due to the Roman emperor Diocletian’s persecutions, when Christians picked and chose what books to let him burn (thus, no wonder Paul’s writings survived in greater abundance than any other apostles, since Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, was certainly more popular among the Roman Christian communities).4 In order to have confidence in what we currently have we must become more aware of the textual-critical and historical-critical work that has been conducted to prove the reliability of the documents that have survived the test of Church history.5
With sola apostolorum in mind, let us review the two objections: how does the Church know what the canon is? Not because of Church tradition, but rather because of the apostolic authority of the canon (proven by historical-critical methods). If there is more than what we currently have, let it be so, but as it stands no other gospel, epistle, or acts is as well-grounded as the 27 traditionally accepted by the Church.6 That authority, also, ends with the apostles because of their unique and especial prophetic quality, as the ministers of Israel’s restoration, empowered by the authority of Israel’s eternal king, their rabbi, Jesus. The canon is not authoritative because of the pronouncements of the Church through the ages, nor is the Church more authoritative than the Bible because the Bible was organized by the Church. Rather, the canon is authoritative because it is apostolic in nature, and to give the Church precedence for simply giving the Bible its binding would be like attributing the authorship of Tolkien’s legendarium to his son Christopher because of his extensive hand in editing and organizing his father’s works posthumously.7 I, therefore, stand in agreement with Tertullian who once wrote, “We lay it down as our first position, that the evangelical Testament has apostles for its authors, to whom was assigned by the Lord Himself this office of publishing the gospel.”8
For a deeper analysis of the conundrum from a Protestant perspective see the video “Answering the Canon Conundrum,” uploaded by Scholastic Lutherans.
Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm, ch. 34.
To elaborate on my criteria, if a Gospel of Thomas were discovered it would have to be: early, dating to a time reasonably within the lifespan of the actual Thomas (33-100 AD); orthodox, promoting the undeniably uniform essence of Christianity as being a religion centered on the life of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the source of man’s salvation and relationship through God by faith and obedience in Him as confirmed through His death and Resurrection; and reliable, having a good textual-critical quality, making sense in its historical context, and possessing 1st century Jewish characteristics
Bruce Metzger, Canon of the New Testament, p. 229
I recommend Metzger, Canon of the New Testament; Lee Martin McDonald, The Biblical Canon; Andrew Hill and John Walton, A Survey of the Old Testament (3rd ed.); Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction (4th ed.). Also relevant are studies of the authorship of each New Testament book, many superb ones which can be found in some commentary series (such as the Word Biblical Commentary, New International Commentary, New American Commentary, and Baker Exegetical Commentary).
While I’m at it, for recommended material on the unreliability of the “extra gospels” see Craig Evans, Fabricating Jesus, esp. chs. 3-4; Darrel Bock, The Missing Gospels; Ronald Nash, The Gospel and the Greeks (2nd ed.); N.T. Wright, Judas and the Gospel of Jesus.
I like this analogy so I wish to expand upon it: the legendarium ultimately originated from Tolkien, and it was shaped and molded by him over the decades (1920s to 1960s). This parallels the process of inspiration of the Bible, of God as the ultimate source and His process of getting His revelation recorded and accepted. In the wake of his death (parallel to the end of the inspiration process/close of the Apostolic Age), what was left was a great body of raw legendarium material. In, then, came Christopher Tolkien (paralleling the later Church) who assembled this material and applied a thoroughgoing but conscientious editorial hand in organizing, assembling, and putting together all his father’s writings (paralleling the canonization process). In spite of the heavy hand of Christopher in the legendarium all recognize Tolkien as the genius behind it, Christopher being a genius, too, but in his own right and area.