In this episode, Jimmy explores an idea that is seldom proposed in Protestant circles—the claim that their core principle of sola scriptura (“by Scripture alone”) is not actually a doctrine. Instead, it’s an interpretive principle.

The motivation for this claim is that, if sola scriptura is a doctrine then—since it holds that all doctrines have to be proved by Scripture alone—sola scriptura itself must be proved by Scripture alone, and it can’t be. It’s thus self-refuting.

This has led a few Protestants to propose that sola scriptura is not a doctrine but an ordinary rule of interpretation that should be justified by reason alone rather than by passages of Scripture.

One of the most sustained treatments of this idea is from Austin Suggs of Gospel Simplicity, and in this episode Jimmy interacts with Austin’s proposals and sees how well the idea of sola scriptura as an interpretive principle rather than a doctrine holds up.

 

Transcript:

Coming Up

AUSTIN SUGGS: And I know that the majority of people who watch my videos will disagree and perhaps quite strongly with the notion of so scriptura, and that’s fine. I’m not here to convince you to become Protestant or to adopt solo scriptura. However, if you watch my videos, I like to think you value intellectual rigor and honesty, and that’s what today’s video is all about. I want to look at some common arguments against solas scriptura and explore where they might be lacking.

Let’s dive in!

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Who Is Austin Suggs?

Austin Suggs is a really nice guy. He’s a young gentleman who runs the Gospel Simplicity channel on YouTube.

Although an Evangelical by background, he’s been on a bit of an ecumenical journey—which he has publicly shared—and he creates videos looking at theological issues affecting Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox.

I’ve been on his channel, myself!

Austin is not on a quest to convert anybody, as you heard in our opening clip.

I gather that he regards Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox as fellow Christians who have more in common than what separates us.

He’s also a very charitable and thoughtful guy, which I very much appreciate. In fact, I think that he thinks more deeply about many of these issues than most apologists producing content online, which leads us to the subject of today’s video.

 

Sola Scriptura

Recently, Austin published a video on the topic of sola scriptura—a Latin phrase that means “by Scripture alone.”

The video was titled “My Thoughts on Sola Scriptura: Responding to Common Objections,” and in it, Austin does something really interesting.

In fact, he takes an approach toward sola scriptura that very few people take, and he offers the most sustained and thoughtful exploration of this approach that I’ve seen on YouTube, which is why I wanted to interact with his video.

I really appreciate what Austin is trying to do here—because he’s trying to find a way to approach sola scriptura that is more defensible than the way it is normally presented. I admire that, and it deserves interaction.

Let’s start with Austin’s definition of the concept.

For today’s purposes, I want to describe sola scriptura as a theological principle. That’s key that says scripture is our most reliable witness to the revelation of God in history and therefore should act as the rule against which we measure all other theological claims. If that’s a bit too Barthian for you, maybe it is. Here’s Gavin Orland’s description of it in his book, What It Means to Be Protestant that sola scriptura is the claim that scripture is the only authority standing over the church that is incapable of error. There’s plenty of others. You could look to the Westminster Confession and things like that for ways in which this principle has been expressed. But here are just a couple Anyway, now you know what we’re working with in this video.

Now, Austin has already mentioned what’s unique about his approach, but here he calls attention to it.

So one important word to note here is that of principle. Properly speaking, Sola scriptura is not an exegetically derived doctrine. It means we’re not going to scripture to get it and pull it out. This is not like a theological slight of hand. Rather it’s a logical necessity to say that the method we use to interpret has to come prior to that which we are interpreting.

So that’s the key thing that makes what Austin is doing different than what most do. He’s explicitly rejecting the idea that sola scriptura is a doctrine and instead claiming that it’s an interpretive principle.

This is not what most Protestants do. Most regard sola scriptura as a doctrine rather than a simple interpretive principle, and if you ask them why they believe it, they will try to come up with passages in Scripture to prove it.

The problem is that none of the proposed passages do, and so a few individuals—like Austin—have tried abandoning the idea that sola scriptura is a doctrine and instead propose that it is an interpretive principle. That’s what sets Austin’s position apart from most folks.

I normally interact with people who hold that sola scriptura is a doctrine, but there are a few who have tried exploring the position Austin is taking, and so it’s worth accompanying them on this journey and looking at what they have to say—which is what I’ll be doing in this video.

Having proposed an understanding of sola scriptura, what Austin does next is go through five common objections to sola scriptura and evaluate how well they hold up in light of this alternate conceptualization.

To interact with this, I’ll briefly review Austin’s thoughts on how well the objections hold up, and then I’ll offer my own thoughts on the alternate understanding of sola scriptura itself.

 

Objection 1: Sola Scriptura Isn’t in Scripture

So the first objection that Austin considers in light of his proposal that sola scriptura is a principle rather than a doctrine is that sola scriptura isn’t taught in Scripture. He says:

Okay, so the first and most obvious, most popular argument against so scriptura is that solo scriptura is not taught in scripture. Some people will define solo scriptura as scripture should be the source for all doctrines and people will assume solo scriptura is also a doctrine and say that this is contradictory since the Bible nowhere teaches solo scriptura. However, if we take it as a theological principle, not an ex energetically derived doctrine, I think we can already see that we can avoid some of this quagmire.

I’d actually put it more strongly than Austin does. If sola scriptura requires that all doctrines be taught in Scripture and sola scriptura is a doctrine, then it would have to be taught in Scripture to meet its own test.

But if it’s not a doctrine then it doesn’t have to be taught in Scripture.

The first argument thus would be completely undercut if sola scriptura is not a doctrine.

Of course, you’d need some other basis to assert sola scriptura—and we’ll come back to that—but the idea that sola scriptura is self-refuting because it’s a doctrine not taught in Scripture would be completely undercut. That argument just would not work.

Now, Austin was less definite and only said that we could avoid a lot of the quagmire, but he goes on to talk about the issue of which books do and do not belong to the canon of Scripture, and that’s getting into his second argument, so let’s turn to that.

 

Objection 2: Sola Scriptura Couldn’t Work Before the Canon

The second objection that Austin considers is that sola scriptura would not have worked before the canon of Scripture was identified. He says:

The next argument, solos scriptura couldn’t work for the first 400 years of the church. Many Protestants, many Christians in general actually are not very familiar with the history of the Bible, so it’s understandable that some Protestants are swayed by the idea that solo scripture must be false because the early church didn’t have a complete canon and therefore couldn’t know what the scripture was for us to judge doctrines with.

Austin says that he does not find this persuasive, and I would agree, but on somewhat different grounds than he articulates.

What I would say is that sola scriptura could not be implemented the way it is today by Protestants before the canon was identified, but that doesn’t mean that the principle couldn’t be used before it was.

Let me give you an example. The canon had not been fully identified in the early A.D. 300s, and the early Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea summarizes the state of opinion among Christians around the year 300. He says that Christians put books related to Scripture into three categories—the accepted books, the disputed books, and the rejected books.

Accepted Books:

• The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
• Acts
• The letters of Paul
• 1 John
• 1 Peter

Disputed Books:

• Letter to the Hebrews
• James
• 2 Peter
• 2-3 John
• Jude
• Revelation of John
• Shepherd of Hermas
• Gospel of the Hebrews

Rejected Books:

• Revelation of Peter
• Letter of Barnabas
• The Didache
• Gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Matthias
• Acts of Paul, Andrew, and John

See Eusebius, Church History, 3:25:1-6 with 3:3:4-6.

The accepted books were those that all orthodox Christians accepted as Scripture, and they included things like the four Gospels, Acts, and the letters of St. Paul apart from Hebrews.

The rejected books were those that all orthodox Christians rejected as Scripture, and they included things like the Revelation of Peter, the letter of Barnabas, and most of the non-canonical Gospels.

In the middle were the disputed books, and here orthodox Christians had different opinions. Some thought that these books were Scripture and some thought that they were not. Books in this category included Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2-3 John, Jude, Revelation, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Gospel of the Hebrews that was favored by Jewish Christians.

So some Christians would think—for example—that Hebrews was Scripture but Revelation was not, while others would think that the Shepherd of Hermas was Scripture but 2 Peter was not. There were many variations, with different Christians holding different views on different books in this category.

Now, let’s suppose that you’re an orthodox Christian living in the year 300. Could you apply the principle of sola scriptura? Sure! You could say, “Sola scriptura holds that every item of binding Christian belief needs to be taught or implied in Scripture, so if you want me to believe something, you need to show it to me from the books that I regard as Scripture.”

Thus, you might prove a doctrine by appealing to one or more of the accepted books—like the four Gospels, Acts, or the letters of Paul excepting Hebrews.

If I’m also a Christian who accepts Hebrews but rejects Revelation and isn’t sure whether 2 Peter is Scripture or not, then you could also prove it to me by appealing to Hebrews. You could not prove it by appealing to Revelation, since I reject that one. And you could make an argument for it based on 2 Peter, but it won’t be a conclusive argument for me since I’m not sure if 2 Peter is Scripture or not.

In this situation, you’d be using sola scriptura to try to convince me of a doctrine, you just wouldn’t be using it with the modern canon. Instead, you’d be using the canon that I personally accept.

This is like when Catholics and Orthodox try to convince Protestants of doctrines by only appealing to the smaller canons that they accept. It’s the same principle.

To return to our situation, let’s let some time go by and suppose I’m the same Christian but living in the year 320. By this point, I’ve become convinced that 2 Peter is Scripture, so you can now appeal to that book also when you’re arguing for a doctrine.

The principle of sola scriptura is the same; it’s just that now I have a larger canon, and so you can appeal to an extra book.

What you can’t do is employ sola scriptura the way modern Protestants do—with a 66-book canon—before that 66-book canon has been identified and accepted. But you can apply the principle with whatever canon a person accepts at a given moment.

And this is true whether or not sola scriptura is a doctrine or a principle. It’s just that if it’s a doctrine, it must be taught or implied in the books that a person accepts.

 

Objection 3: The Fathers Don’t Teach Sola Scriptura

We now come to the third objection that Austin considers, which is the fact that the early Church Fathers do not teach sola scriptura.

Put most strongly, it is formulated along the lines that if sola scriptura is the most reasonable hermeneutical principle for the church today, why is it that the church didn’t come to this conclusion until later in her life?

He also adds this:

After all, if we formulate solo scriptura as a principle and not a doctrine, we must argue for it based on reasonableness or fittingness as a way of approaching scripture not solely off of a proof text.

And that’s something we’ll come back to when we look at whether sola scriptura should be understood as a principle or a doctrine, but for now, let’s focus on the Fathers.

If sola scriptura is a principle that needs to be justified on the grounds of reasonableness—if it really is the most reasonable position—why didn’t the Fathers see it? Why did they go for centuries—around 1500 years—without seeing it?

That would seem very odd and implausible, and Austin confesses that he thinks this is one of the better arguments against the understanding of sola scriptura he is proposing.

He does have some ways to reconcile it with the fact that the Fathers didn’t teach sola scriptura—so it’s not that the two things are totally incompatible—but he does note that this argument has some force.

And I agree with that. I tend not to use this argument from the Fathers, because I think sola scriptura needs to be understood as a doctrine, and it fails on that basis alone. However, I agree that—if it is meant to be a reasonable exegetical principle rather than a doctrine—then it’s very odd but not impossible that the Fathers wouldn’t have spotted it.

 

Objection 4: We Can’t Agree on What Sola Scriptura Is

We now come to the fourth objection.

Number four, okay, we talked about this early on and that is that we can’t agree upon a definition of sola scriptura. I mentioned at the beginning that some people will point to different definitions of sola scriptura and say, see, with sola scriptura, you can’t even come to agreement on what sola scriptura is. It’s certainly true that people have defined the principle in different ways. However, I don’t see this as all that surprising. . . .

While people define it differently, it doesn’t mean that the concept is inherently wrong or incoherent.

And I definitely agree with Austin here. The mere fact that there are different definitions for sola scriptura doesn’t prove that the concept is false.

All it proves is that different, mutually exclusive definitions can’t all be right, but that doesn’t mean that none of them are right.

Austin points out that Catholics sometimes use different definitions of Tradition, but that doesn’t mean that all understandings of Tradition are false, and the same thing is true of sola scriptura. Multiple definitions, and even multiple, mutually exclusive definitions does not prove universal falsity.

Frankly, I’m not sure who Austin is thinking of when he says some people use this argument. Personally, I never use such an argument. Given the breadth of quality in apologetic discussions, though, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there are people using the argument.

Where I think this kind of reasoning can play a role is in two areas.

First, there are situations in which Protestants seek to minimize the amount of doctrinal diversity in their own movement. They may portray Protestants as unified around the positions of sola scriptura and sola fide—or “by Scripture alone” and “by faith alone”—but this unity is purely verbal, and it masks actual doctrinal diversity.

For example, what a Lutheran means by sola fide is different than what a Baptist means by sola fide. Thus, a Lutheran sees no problem in saying that we are justified by faith alone and that this doesn’t rule out baptism as a means of salvation. While a Baptist will say that justification by faith alone absolutely does rule out baptism as a means of salvation.

There are similar disagreements with numerous aspects of justification—like whether you can be justified through infant baptism or not, whether you can lose the state of justification or not, what causes you to lose the state of justification, whether you can regain the state of justification, whether people get different rewards in heaven, whether you need to obey God’s law for salvation after justification, and numerous other issues.

So even though Protestants adhere to the slogan sola fide, they interpret it in radically different ways.

The same thing is true of the slogan sola scriptura. What “by Scripture alone” means to a traditional, high church Anglican is very different than what it means to a low church Baptist, and what it means to a low church Baptist is very different than what it means to a Word-Faith Pentecostal.

The truth is that—while Protestants use the formulas sola scriptura and sola fide—they interpret these formulas in very different ways, and when they use their verbal unity to mask the real doctrinal diversity they have, it’s fair to point that out.

The second area where the different definitions of sola scriptura is fair to point out is when an individual Protestant tries to disguise his definition.

Very often in discussions, Protestant apologists will offer one definition for sola scriptura when they use another in practice. They will thus offer a more modest, more minimal formulation of sola scriptura in apologetic discussions for defensive reasons—because a smaller target is harder to attack—but then they will turn around and demand that Catholics be able to prove their doctrines using a more robust definition of sola scriptura.

For example, a Protestant apologist trying to defend sola scriptura might say that it only means that Scripture is uniquely inspired and that nothing can contradict Scripture, and that’s a very modest claim. In fact, it’s so modest that a Catholic would agree with it. Scripture is uniquely inspired, and nothing can contradict Scripture.

But then the same Protestant will go on the offensive and say, “You must prove Catholic doctrine X by showing me proof texts in the Bible that positively teach it!” Okay, that’s a different definition of sola scriptura.

What the apologist has done in that case is use the more modest definition when he’s on the defensive and the more robust definition when he’s on the offensive. He’s switching between different understandings of sola scriptura and picking whichever suits him at the moment.

That inconsistency means that he’s engaging in intellectual hypocrisy, and he may not even realize that he’s being a hypocrite. He may be doing this unconsciously. But when he is doing it, it’s fair to point that out and insist that he pick a definition and stick with it. He can’t have it both ways.

However, these are limited situations. If a Protestant isn’t trying to hide the doctrinal diversity in the Protestant movement by appealing to sola scriptura, and if he isn’t switching between different definitions of it, then the fact there are different definitions isn’t relevant.

One might take note of what definition a person is using, but the existence of other definitions doesn’t mean that the definition a person is using is false. What we need to do is identify the definition that’s under discussion and then evaluate that definition.

 

Objection 5: Sola Scriptura Makes Everyone the Pope

Now we come to the fifth and final objection Austin considers.

Number five, sola scriptura makes everyone the pope and causes divisions.

So this is really two objections: That sola scriptura makes everyone the pope and that it causes divisions. Austin deals with the second of these first.

When non Protestants object to sola scriptura based on the divisions it creates, I think in some ways Protestants must be honest and lament the divided state of Protestantism. It is a scandal and we should not merely waive it away as though it weren’t. At the same time, Protestants do have a right to investigate the twofold claim that Sola scriptura is at fault for this and that this means sola scriptura is false.

On the first point, I would largely agree that decreasing the relative authority of the church vis-a-vis scripture has resulted in people feeling a greater liberty to break away from an ecclesial body when they deem it is at odds with things that the Scripture teaches. In this way, solid scripture could be said to lead to splintering in this way. One could say that a certain amount of divisiveness is a side effect of sola scriptura. To continue the medical metaphor, the question is whether the side effects are justified by the cure.

I basically agree with what Austin says here. Sola scriptura—which by its nature incorporates a greater degree of private judgement than other systems, since Scripture alone is considered authoritative for a Christian’s beliefs—will result in a greater degree of disagreement and doctrinal diversity, as it has in Protestantism.

It’s fair to point that out, as Austin does.

But I also agree with him that this does not settle the matter. Just because a principle leads to a higher or lower degree of doctrinal diversity doesn’t tell us whether the principle is true or false.

As a result, I don’t use the argument from disagreement when I’m critiquing sola scriptura. It’s worth noting that the disagreement happens, and that the disagreement is undesirable, but it doesn’t prove that sola scriptura is false.

To see why, consider the alternative position of determining doctrine by Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium rather than Scripture alone. In this case, we have an additional source of information besides Scripture—namely, apostolic Tradition. We also have an interactive interpreter—the Magisterium—to guide us in the correct interpretation of Scripture and Tradition.

Having these additional resources—apostolic Tradition and the Magisterium—m... Read more on Catholic.com