'Sola Scriptura' or Church Tradition?

[Steve Born]

In this post, I'd like to start addressing some of the misconceptions about what I've been saying.  I'm not going to attach the names of individuals to quotations here and in subsequent posts because my argument is not with individuals but with a common tendency of thought that damaged my own faith in Christ in the past and isolated me from membership in any church, and by which I've seen others similarly misled or troubled.

"...heterodoxy on other matters does not invalidate one's position on the authority of scripture."

I've never said it does.  As I've noted before, the issue for me is not the authority of Scripture, because I of course accept that.  The issue is the allegation that acceptance of the creeds of the church (i.e., the ecumenical creeds accepted by Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox alike) is due to tradition and not to a belief that they represent the intended sense of Scripture; or that they are anything but a statement of the apostolic Christian faith, made necessary by heretical challenges to the sense of the Scriptures as intended by the apostles and their co-workers who penned them under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  I believe that claim is shown to be clearly false by a study of Scripture and of the historical claims made by opponents of those creeds, as well as by the observed fact that the opponents of the creeds cannot consistently agree on what is true in their place and have no example of a church that teaches what they say is the true doctrine of God revealed in the Scripture concerning the nature of God and His Son.

"How a church council, bishop, Pope, priest, Augustine, Zwingli or Calvin later read or misread a scripture in subsequent centuries has little bearing on [the effort to understand Scripture in its originally intended sense]."

The problem here is the assumption embedded in this statement that a "church council, bishop, Pope, priest, Augustine, Zwingli or Calvin" always misread the Scriptures, or that what I am doing is defending the decisions of Popes, church councils, early church fathers, or Reformers as opposed to the intended sense of the Scriptures.  This assumption is precisely the issue, but I've found it to be false in instance after instance (along with its companion assumption that 16th century anabaptists were better and more knowledgeable interpreters!).  Instead, I've found that more often or not the opponents of the creeds are the guilty ones.  In my own studies, I've found that they read both Scripture and history far worse than the early fathers or the Protestant Reformers ever did.  (One example is discussed in my study of the early church history taught by the Chapel found here: A Perversion of History).

More later...

[lanny]

SB writes, "In this post, I'd like to start addressing some of the misconceptions..."
---One misconception is that those disagreeing with you are against ALL creeds, traditional doctrines, established churches, etc. Speaking for myself, I accept much of what the traditional church believes and teaches. I do reserve the right to not be bound by EVERY tradition, creed, and traditional practice of the established church. Nor do I need the traditional church to speak for me in matters of doctrine.
---It is never all or nothing. Probably 99% of what I believe is taught by some established church. I include Pentecostal churches in that group. I hold no "private interpretation" apart from every other Christian.
---The verse is declaring that God is not giving revelation to anyone that He does not give to all. That is, if you are the only one holding a particular view it probably didn't come from the Holy Spirit. I doubt I could write anything I believe on this board that is not also believed by others here. Thus, I (we) do not hold to any "private interpretation." We may differ from the Lutheran church but so does MOST OF CHRISTIANDOM!!!
---On that note, Lutherans hold to "private interpretation." They are the only ones who hold their views!   Duh!
---It is clear to me that the Scriptures place the responsibility upon ME to "Study to show myself approved..." And does not allow me to just believe whatever "the church" tell me to believe.
Lanny

[Helen]

SB writes, "In this post, I'd like to start addressing some of the misconceptions..."
---One misconception is that those disagreeing with you are against ALL creeds, traditional doctrines, established churches, etc. Speaking for myself, I accept much of what the traditional church believes and teaches.

In an attempt to more accurately understand Steve, it’s easily seen in the very first sentence of this thread Lanny, that he clearly stated his concern stemmed from another’s comments about rejecting all church tradition.  Since your stance is that you accept much of what the traditional church believes and teaches, I’m uncertain why you are arguing about individual understanding as private interpretation?  

[candy]

Lanny you said,

The verse is declaring that God is not giving revelation to anyone that He does not give to all. That is, if you are the only one holding a particular view it probably didn't come from the Holy Spirit.

Thanks for reiterating that for me.  I like the way you put that.  I had forgotten what that verse meant.

And Nomad, thanks for the quote from Eusebius of Ceasarea.   I have especially enjoyed him in the reading I have done. 

He is a good example of a true brother in Christ with whom I might disagree and with whom the Alexandrians disagreed.  Nevertheless, a true brother and a good one. 

Wasnt he excommunicated because he said "begotten befor all the ages" instead of saying "eternally begotten"? 

Those Alexandrians were too much. 

We can be sure that God will set it all right one day, and we will be so busy rejoicing before his throne and thanking him that we will probably hardly notice these old arguments!

[Steve Born]

A couple more comments on the misconceptions I've seen here about my posts over the past few days...

"...this much discussion has been generated by a simple posting of the words of Jesus from Mark 7:1-9 in a Facebook note."

I obviously can't speak for others' interest in this discussion, but my interest in it began when I asked this person about whether he thought all church traditions were in the same category as the Jewish traditions Jesus named in Mark 7.  No real answer was given; as is common in my experience with anti-Trinitarians, the direct question was evaded in favor of several paragraphs written about the need to base Christian doctrine upon Scripture alone, a premise I hadn't questioned, and even strongly agree with.

Because I have been misled in the past by allegedly Christian expositors claiming that they the beliefs they advocate come from Scripture alone, only to find out later on closer study that what they really mean is that they alone are the proper interpreters of Scripture in opposition to practically the entire church world, I think this is an important topic to pursue whenever one sees this kind of claim made.  An observation that occurred to me much later, which would be amusing were it not so tragic when people take the claims of these kind of people seriously, is that the discord and disagreement found among those who claim that they believe and teach "simply what Scripture says" is much greater than that caused by the denominational divisions within the church.  These doctrinal mavericks all agree that the doctrine of the Trinity is false, but they can't agree on what is true instead.

"[Steve Born's] own testimony speaks of searching the scriptures for himself, and by his own 'private interpretation' deciding that the Lutheran Church was the truest church."

This isn't accurate.  What happened was my own interpretation of Scripture was in shambles following the collapse of the Chapel.  For several years, I didn't really know what was true and though most of the time I went to church at various places, I didn't really care to investigate all the questions I'd been left with concerning God, the Bible, Christian faith and life, and church; my time and energy became absorbed by other things, namely, going back to school to obtain a degree while also working nearly full-time.

Later when I began seriously to seek to resolve my questions concerning church, I didn't start from my "own interpretation" of the Bible and then proceed to see which church might match it.  Instead I examined each church's teachings for internal consistency to see which really based their doctrine on Scripture alone and which based it on Scripture plus something else.  What I sought in "searching the Scriptures" for myself was not to justify any belief about the meaning of the Bible of my own but rather the teaching brought by the various church bodies.  To make a long story overly short and simple, I found that only the Lutheran church really based its doctrine on Scripture alone.

Here I always must add that I'm of course speaking of those Lutheran churches that teach the doctrine Luther taught.  He never claimed the doctrine he taught was his own interpretation, but rather claimed it was the true doctrine of God taught by the apostles and found in the Scriptures they wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, from which the Roman church had departed.  I'm aware that many liberal Lutheran churches are no longer concerned to teach what Luther taught, i.e. fidelity to Scriptural doctrine, but I don't mean those when I speak of truly Lutheran churches.

If anybody believes that I've made a mistake in this and that Lutheran doctrine is not Scriptural, I am always open to discussion of the question. I find, however, that what usually happens instead is that a case is brought based on (1) personal likes and dislikes concerning forms of worship;  on (2) misconceptions about what Luther and the other early Reformers actually taught; on (3) conclusions based on various strongly-held beliefs about church history, beliefs that after a considerable amount of study I have found to be false; or on (4) assertions based on my own motivation in choosing Lutheranism over Oneness Pentecostalism, assertions which are irrelevant to the question of whether or not any particular body of doctrine is Scriptural (as well as almost always being comically off, if the people making the assertions actually knew anything about me or my past).  I'm always open to discussing these things also, but my primary interest here is in discussing doctrine based on Scripture alone, particularly in light of our common background in the failed doctrinal structure of Chapel theology, a system which I think we all now agree did not base its doctrine on Scripture alone.

[Smokey Jack]

Lanny you said,

The verse is declaring that God is not giving revelation to anyone that He does not give to all. That is, if you are the only one holding a particular view it probably didn't come from the Holy Spirit.

Thanks for reiterating that for me.  I like the way you put that.  I had forgotten what that verse meant.

And Nomad, thanks for the quote from Eusebius of Ceasarea.   I have especially enjoyed him in the reading I have done. 

He is a good example of a true brother in Christ with whom I might disagree and with whom the Alexandrians disagreed.  Nevertheless, a true brother and a good one. 

Wasnt he excommunicated because he said "begotten befor all the ages" instead of saying "eternally begotten"? 

Those Alexandrians were too much. 

We can be sure that God will set it all right one day, and we will be so busy rejoicing before his throne and thanking him that we will probably hardly notice these old arguments!

We will not be able to forget the point of the argument for He will be before us as the object of our rejoicing, eh!

[candy]

Very true Mokey. 

What I really was trying to say was that we will be so busy rejoicing as we see him that we  wont have any "I told you so" or any "wow, I am so embarassed that I really missed it" in our hearts.

All of our past will be overwhelmed by his love and glory and we will be giving thanks to him who got us there by his grace.  I really am convinced of this.  When we see him as he is, we may be surprised.  But whether we are or not,  we will be very pleased.

It will be joy unspeakable and full of glory.

[Smokey Jack]

Very true Mokey. 

What I really was trying to say was that we will be so busy rejoicing as we see him that we  wont have any "I told you so" or any "wow, I am so embarassed that I really missed it" in our hearts.

All of our past will be overwhelmed by his love and glory and we will be giving thanks to him who got us there by his grace.  I really am convinced of this.  When we see him as he is, we may be surprised.  But whether we are or not,  we will be very pleased.

It will be joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Candy,

Yes, the glory of Yawweh and Him alone!  Ezekiel 36vs22-23 shows us why.  This is why it is so important to get started now; to hold to the truth of who He is no matter what.  I think we might be flat on our face for a time when this happens.  I hope I am not in the feedlot when it starts.

Mokey

[candy]

Mokey you make me laugh.  Just the vision of you in the feed lot at that "wrong" moment!!  Ha ha ha.  On your face you go!!!

Wheeee!   Hilarious.

[Smokey Jack]

Mokey you make me laugh.  Just the vision of you in the feed lot at that "wrong" moment!!  Ha ha ha.  On your face you go!!!

Wheeee!   Hilarious.

Candy,

I am not really trying to be funny.  I would still like to see this crowd learn to count to 4 without the fractions in between. They seem to be a few head short.

Smokey Jack

[candy]

Well ok but the funniest people are those who are funny without trying to be funny!

[Steve Born]

A Facebook note addressed to me today, in response to my thoughts about "Sola Scriptura vs. Church Tradition:"

Wrong, Steve; as always go to scripture; Colossians 2:8, "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy that depends on HUMAN TRADITION and the basic principles OF THIS WORLD rather than on Christ." You are not only held captive to tradition, youre trying to convince others to do the same. So tradition is meaningless. If services are based upon the realities of Christ, you don't continue that out of tradition anyway; you continue it because it's based on the realities of Christ. Tradition is based on keeping things the same. That comes from fear of growing in Christ. Life, on the other hand means growth. So tradition means death, life means life.

This note illustrates another misconception about what I'm saying, a view that writes off all tradition as the same (i.e., as false, meaningless, "opposed to the realities of Christ," and arising because of "fear of growing in Christ") and pictures me as making a blanket endorsement of it as an authority either equal to or greater than Scripture.  But that's not what I'm doing.   What I'm doing instead is claiming that there is proper church tradition as well as the many obvious and improper human traditions that have crept into the church, into the anti-liturgical branches as well as into the liturgical branches.  Proper church tradition is that thread in church teaching and practice that serves the truths revealed in Scripture and upholds them against the many attacks upon the Word of God that Scripture itself shows us will come from both within and outside of the church.  Any authority that this tradition may have can operate only in areas not explicitly addressed by the Scriptures.

Another way of saying the same thing is that I'm protesting a false idea about the authority of Scripture, one that pictures it as meaning the discarding of all church tradition, period.  It goes without saying that of course "human traditions and basic principles of this world" are bad, as are any traditions within the church that contravene Scripture.   I'm not defending those kinds of traditions.  I'm saying there are good church traditions, those such as the traditional liturgical forms that uphold the Word of God and serve for good order in worship, glorifying Christ and the truth of His Gospel.  I'm saying that the church, properly considered, is not of human origin but is of divine origin and therefore that its traditions, the ones that don't contravene Scripture (I'm not claiming that none have ever done so) but instead serve its truths, are not the "human traditions" referred to in such passages as Colossians 2:8.  Human traditions are those that glorify man and promote human works and human righteousness, denying and disparaging the righteousness of God revealed in Christ apart from all human works.

I'm also saying that it is now obvious to me that, contrary to what the Chapel taught and other cults like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses still teach, Trinitarian doctrine is solidly grounded in Scripture.  Its various theological terms arose historically in post-apostolic times because teachers in the church needed precise answers to certain other teachers who introduced new questions about the sense of Scripture, particularly about those passages that spoke of the nature of God and the identity of His Son, using terms and concepts current in the day.  I find in my own study of Scripture and history that the ecumenical creeds (those early creeds accepted by Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox churches alike) accurately represent the Scriptures on the questions they addressed, properly resolving the historical controversies they were meant to address and therefore still serving today as solid confessions of the apostolic, Biblical faith in opposition to attacks upon it.  The fact that new terms were introduced is irrelevant.  The important thing is to measure the intended meaning of those terms against the intended sense of Scripture;  I've found the modern-day advocates of anti-Trinitarian views fail in both respects, twisting both history and Scripture in service to theological bias and prideful religious prejudice.