To Catholics who know their Faith the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura seems self-evidently silly. It is obvious from the vast and ever growing number of Protestant denominations that Scripture alone is not the all sufficient norm of doctrine. The problem with this is that a certain number of perfectly intelligent and intellectually honest people who are not themselves necessarily apostates (having been raised apart from the Catholic Church) hold to this doctrine. Consequently, were it as completely absurd as it seems it would be hard to understand how such persons could be duped.
In attempting to understand the perspective of such persons I was recently struck by the analogy of logical positivism. If one held that nature subjected to the hypothetico-inductive method was the only valid source of knowledge then the fact that one clearly cannot pursue this method without scholarly literature (analogous to the Fathers) and universities (analogous to the Magisterium) is not really an objection. It remains the case that the scholarly literature and universities are only useful insofar as they accurately and rigourously apply the right method to nature. Looked at in this way one can see why Protestants would make use of a ‘church’ and have recourse to the Fathers and yet still hold to the doctrine of sola scripture.
Of course sola scriptura is open to the same sorts of criticisms as logical positivism. The method cannot be vindicated in its own terms (i.e. scripture never says it is the all-sufficent norm of doctrine, in fact it denies it). The exegesis of scripture like the hypothetico-inductive method presupposes certain things it cannot provide, logic & mathematics for the latter the canon for the former.
This second problem also illustrates a difficulty faced by sola scriptura which logical positivism does not face. Whereas the existence of nature is not controversial (modernist philosophers pretend to doubt it but they don’t really) the material content of revelation needs to be established by authority and the scriptures cannot authorise themselves. The counter-argument that Scripture is self authenticating (because the believer recognizes its saving truth) doesn’t seem much of a runner as a) this doesn’t seem to work as a form of textual criticism b) it renders scripture itself redundant as doctrine is really transmitted through a kind of private revelation of which the text is merely the occasion.
Another problem peculiar to sola scriptura is the fact that the method and its strange results (or alleged results) did not arise until the sixteenth century and consequently the means of knowing the saving truth and key elements of that truth were not adequately established until one and a half thousand years after the Incarnation. So for the Protestants, like the Muslims, Jesus might be the messiah but the seal of the prophets (in this case Calvin or Luther) still had to come along to complete his work.
So I’m not saying that sola scriptura isn’t silly but it is possible to see how its superficial neatness can hold the mind entranced without necessarily imputing stupidity or malice to its victims.
Laodicea 
January 12, 2012 at 4:42 pm
I think the two important disanalogies between sola scriptura and logical positivism are:
1) the principles of logical positivism (esp verificationism) are supposed to be rationally demonstrable whilst the principle of sola scriptura is supposed to be established by revelation. (LP comes off better here: it does has a certain intellectual force, whilst it’s very hard to see any justification in the history of Christ’s revelation for sola scriptura.)
2) the general principles established by logical positivism are reasonably clear whilst the principles established by sola scriptura can be used to justify just about anything. (Again, LP comes off better!)
I’m not sure sola scriptura is exactly silly in human terms: Muslims after all hold a similar viewpoint. (And lawyers?) But it isn’t Christian. (Christ clearly established a Church. He didn’t establish a printing press.)
January 12, 2012 at 5:27 pm
I think I dealt with 1) in the post. I can’t see how the principles of logical positivism could be rationally demonstrable as they are precisely an exclusive claim about what counts as rational demonstration and they can’t establish themselves. I suppose that is one better than sola scriptura as the natural sciences are merely silent about LP while scripture denies SS.
As to 2) surely LP doesn’t make concrete claims in the natural sciences just claims that only the natural sciences are entitled to make claims of any sort. It is true that (though intrinsically provisional) the claims of the natural sciences are more less unstable than those of Protestant theology (if one includes liberal Protestants). However, there is perhaps an analogy between the way in which the natural sciences have (at least for most of the time since the seventeenth century) limited themselves to a mathematical/geometric account of realty and the way in which Protestantism (if it is to retain the key salvific claims of Christianity) is compelled to take the seemingly most obvious interpretation of scripture lest something more than common sense be held necessary to access revelation.
On your last point, if Muslims believe that God can do the logically impossible then no stable meaning can be attributed to anything God says and the words of the Koran are effectively magical rather than revelatory. In this context sola scriptura would not be silly but the context is very silly. As to lawyers if one sees statute, equity and common law as three different ways of transmitting and applying natural law then the English legal system is not so different to the fundamental theology of the Catholic Church. (I can’t comment on Scots law, though I’m told it is based on a Curial model so if it parallels Catholic Fundamental Theology less closely I expect there is some sort of irony lurking there…).
January 12, 2012 at 6:06 pm
1) I wasn’t claiming that LP is in fact rationally self-demonstrable -merely that it claims to be. But I do think there’s a certain rational, initial plausibility to it (a sort of bluff, no nonsense view of the world) in a way that there isn’t to sola scriptura. (Which does lead on to why sola scriptura is attractive at all. I’d guess: a) the human need for definiteness; b) in the historical circumstances of the Reformation, a desperation to find an alternative source of authority to a (perceived) corrupt church. Its success does mystify me though.(But see 3 below).)
2) I was thinking more of the fundamental claims of LP here. If you are a logical positivist, you know pretty much what you’ve signed up to. (Verification etc.) If you are a sola scripturist, you’re in for a roller coaster ride to who knows where!
3) My remarks about Muslims and lawyers were really just observations that, in a context outwith Christian revelation, there is a human tendency to want an authoritative, written manual. If this is an inbuilt human tendency, then it does go some way, I suppose, to explaining why it’s infected Christianity.
January 14, 2012 at 12:17 am
I have been listening to a bible-based evangelical Christian radio station over here in Canada (I came across it by accident). It really is fascinating. Some of it is straightforward biblical exegesis and much of it quite orthodox. and uplifting. There is a nasty Wee Free who’s on at 5pm when I’m driving home, though.
Where it falls down is when it starts claiming all sorts on the basis of sola scriptura at which point I tend to start shouting at the radio “Who defines the canon of Scripture?” “Who defines how and in what context to inetrpret scripture?”.
Of course, the result is that everone becomes their own Pope (someone else said that, didn’t they?) and you can pretty much make it up as you go along. If you don’t like the ‘church’ you are in at the moment, don’t worry, there’ll be another one along any minute…
March 7, 2012 at 7:08 am
How do you interpret the papal creeds? How do you interpret all the councils? Church fathers? You case is not helped by simply pushing your ultimate authority to the Catholic church because you still have the same problem you claim the Protestant has. You need to interpret but you need to interpret even more literature than I do.
Look what Pope Boniface VIII said in the Bull Unam Sanctam in 1302:
“We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”
Now look at what Vatican 2 says about Muslims:
“But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Moslems: these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”
Now interpret what they say. Pope Boniface says there is no salvation unless someone is subject to the Roman Pontiff. Then Vatican 2 says that Muslims adore the one, merciful God and the plan of salvation includes them.
In Christ,
Travis (AnotherChristianBlog.org)
March 7, 2012 at 12:36 pm
The first passage means that for anyone who is aware of their obligations to him (which all have) to refuse to submit to the Roman Pontiff is a sin which unrepented will damn you. The second means that Christ died for all men and has provided the means (actual grace, reason, preaching and the sacraments) so that all who reach the age of reason have the means to come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. Adoration of the one God is required but is not sufficient for salvation, living faith in Jesus Christ is also necessary. But the real point here is that the magisterium is a living and public tribunal if you dispute the meaning of one or another teaching of scripture, tradition or the existing magisterium this tribunal can be appealed to and through a solemn definition (such as Unam Sanctam) the question can be publicly settled and those who refuse to listen to the Church excommunicated. For a Protestant there is no public and definitive tribunal to settle such disagreements and thus the true and false disciples of Christ cannot be identified and Christ is implicitly accused of failing in His purpose to bring the saving truth about himself to mankind.
March 8, 2012 at 2:12 am
aelianus,
How do you know that your interpretation is the correct interpretation? Did a Pope spell out the clear contradtiction for you or is this just your private interpretation? If it is your private interpretation then what good is a, so called, infallible magisterium?
Travis (AnotherChristianBlog.org)
March 8, 2012 at 2:25 pm
But the real point here is that the magisterium is a living and public tribunal if you dispute the meaning of one or another teaching of scripture, tradition or the existing documents of the magisterium this tribunal can be appealed to and through a solemn definition (such as Unam Sanctam) the question can be publicly settled and those who refuse to listen to the Church excommunicated. For a Protestant there is no public and definitive tribunal to settle such disagreements and thus the true and false disciples of Christ cannot be identified and Christ is implicitly accused of failing in His purpose to bring the saving truth about Himself to mankind. Which means that a consistent protestant assents not to God when he makes an act of faith but to himself (or to some other creature or group of creatures) and therefore does not have saving faith.
January 15, 2012 at 1:09 am
I think its also partly an emotional reaction – people think that Catholics are somehow insulting the Bible and get upset.
January 17, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Came across Luther’s introductions to Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation yesterday:
Hebrews “we cannot put it on the same level with the apostolic epistles”
James “I will not have him in my Bible”
Jude “an Epistle that need not be counted among the chief books which are to lay the foundations of faith”
Revelation “neither apostolic nor prophetic…I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it…My spirit cannot accommodate itself to this book…Christ is neither taught nor known in it.”
January 18, 2012 at 8:19 pm
Silly man.
January 18, 2012 at 9:08 pm
Erasmus, Calvin, and Cajetan also put Hebrews as less authoritative. Many people do not know that Cardinal Cajetan seemed to not wish to accept Hebrews as authoritative to the more extreme- According to what I read he seems to have taken it even further than the protestant reformers and Erasmus in doubting its canonicity.
Cajetan based his argument against Hebrews upon divergences of the text with other works of Paul. He cites as the greatest authority among commentaries, Jerome’s writing, as he interprets (it seems somewhat too narrowly if not unfairly) some words of his as doubting the authorship of St. Paul and questioning its canonicity. He cites several others as doubting its authorship as Pauls adding suspicion along with Jerome’s remarks. He cites Jerome as stating that the Latin custom does not receive Hebrews as Pauls and simply does not receive it. He does a commentary on its but states that he does not know whether or not to accept its canonicity and says that one can not base solving matters of the faith upon that text.
Cajetan considered that James, Jude and John I and II were inferior with respect to authority. Again citing St. Jerome as having the same view.
He did not seem to like the Apocalypse but I have not founded whether or not he denied its canonicity.
January 18, 2012 at 11:07 pm
I suppose that Cajetan’s record on scripture commentary is one reason why Cardinal Cajetan never had a cause for beatification or canonization and never became venerable. It seems to not be fitting that Thomists often take his commentaries so seriously when he was departing from the Angelic doctor so radically in the area of scripture exegesis.
January 19, 2012 at 12:14 am
It seems to not be fitting that Thomists often take his commentaries so seriously when he was departing from the Angelic doctor so radically in the area of scripture exegesis.
????
January 19, 2012 at 12:17 am
But Cajetan certainly accepted the authority of the Church to determine the canon and so his musings though unfounded are not intrinsically absurd. The ridiculousness of Luther’s position lies in the fact that he does not admit any authority other than scripture. That this renders it impossible to vindicate the existing canon is bad enough but that he should seek to alter the canons of both the Old and New Testaments makes his case even more bizarre as it eliminates the only remaining claim open to a Protestant: that the canon is somehow self-evident.
March 7, 2012 at 7:12 am
Hey aelianus,
You brought up the canon and it brings up an interesting question. How could Jesus hold the Jewish leaders to the Old Testament Scriptures if they hadn’t been defined by the Roman Catholic Church yet? Isn’t Jesus assuming that the canon is self-evident by holding them to what Scripture says in Mark 7 when he condemns the corban rule?
In Christ,
Travis (AnotherChristianBlog.org)
March 7, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Not at all. The Lord obviously knows which books are (and will be) inspired as He inspired them. In argument with the various Jewish groups he appeals to the true principles they already accept and not to true principles which they nevertheless do not accept. If Divine authority were self-evident then He would not have quoted the OT at all, as His own words would have been self-evidently divine. When He disputes with the Sadducees about the resurrection He only appeals to the Pentateuch because this is the only part of the OT they accepted. In disputing with the Pharisees He can appeal to the point that human interpretive tradition is secondary to Divine Law because they accept this point already. The approach of Our Lord to these various groups in the NT only underlines the fact (which is well known from other ancient sources as well) that at the time of the Incarnation there was no generally accepted canon.
January 24, 2012 at 11:07 pm
[…] scriptura, he says, is self-evidently silly, yet he explains how, with a bit of mental gymnastics, the thinking Catholic can eventually come to […]
January 24, 2012 at 11:09 pm
(I did notice, btw.)