"Sola Scriptura" is Not for Me!

This is a comment on May 1, 2011 at "Spectrum" following an essay by Jeffrey Kent titled "An Open Letter to Educate Truth."  It is at http://spectrummagazine.org/blog/2011/04/26/open-letter-educate-truth#comment-88190.

Sun, 05/01/2011 - 06:30

I don't believe the doctrine of "sola scriptura" in the sense that this term is used by many today and neither did Martin Luther.

Please notice his appeal to both the "testimony of Scripture" and "manifest reasoning" when he was ordered to disavow his beliefs at the Diet of Worms:

Your Imperial Majesty and Your Lordships demand a simple answer. Here it is, plain and unvarnished. Unless I am convicted [convinced] of error by the testimony of Scripture or (since I put no trust in the unsupported authority of Pope or councils, since it is plain that they have often erred and often contradicted themselves) by manifest reasoning, I stand convicted [convinced] by the Scriptures to which I have appealed, and my conscience is taken captive by God's word, I cannot and will not recant anything, for to act against our conscience is neither safe for us, nor open to us.

I find it interesting and instructive that this translation of Luther's words refer not to "reason" as such but to "manifest reasoning" or what we might call "clear thinking." Whether or not Luther had this distinction in mind, for us it opens the possibility of seeing both sides of this debate as talking past each other.

Those who reject "human reason" apparently think of it substantively whereas those who affirm it view it methodologically.

This is why those in the first group think that members of the second are arrogant and that those in the second believe that members of the first are ignorant. Given their different understandings of "human reason," each group is right. But if the measure is how well each group undersands the other one, both groups are wrong.

Sadly, this debate will never end until both groups realize that they are using the term "reason" differently.

 

Comments

[Jan Webb McQuistan]

Could you explain what you mean by "Substantively" vs "methodologically" relative to human reason?

[David R. Larson]

I'll try!

I am among those who believe that it is possible to explain at least in part why Christians who say positive things about human reason and those who say negative things about it seem unable to reconcile their differences.

This is that the parties are using the word "reason" in at least two different ways.

Those who speak positively about it use the word "reason" to refer to how we should think. This is its "methodological" meaning. It goes along with having an "open mind."

Those who speak negatively about it often use he word "resason" to refer not merely to how we should think but to what we should think as well. This is the "substantive" use of the word. It often results in a "closed mind."

The troubles Galileo and others had convincing people that the earth circles the sun instead of the sun circling the earth might be a good example.

Some said that they should make use of human reason because they were thinking about how to figure out which circles which. But others said that they should not use human reason be cause to do so would violate what the Bible and Aristotle both had taught, namely that the sun circles the earth. Their conclusions were already in hand, the "substance" of their thought was as hard as concrete.

Or so the story is often told.

Yet we should all be so lucky to live in a home as attractive as the one Galileo was kept in "house arrest" for a while!

Ron Numbers has put out a book partially debunking this legend about Galileo and many others like it.

[Tom Zwemer]

Reasoning has to have a substrate of facts and propositions--one cannot reason in a vacuum. Luther compared Paul with the Pope's decrees etc. He came down on the side of Paul. So do I.