On the nature of truth, regarding Sola Scriptura

"It was clear that if Scripture could mean whatever any individual wanted it to mean it had millions of different literal meanings.  And that was as good as saying it had no meaning at all.  Of what use is a public revelation made to the whole Church, if it has no one meaning which the whole Church can agree in accepting? " 

- Thomas Merton "ASCENT TO TRUTH" P138

 

Declaring scripture alone to have authority in all matters seems a large miscalculated risk for Luther to have taken.  Either the previous 1100 years of designating and affirming the canon were a mistake or Luther's actions in deleting the books he did was an error, and a bold declaration that one man "guided by the Holy Spirit through his conscience" might know better than 1100 years worth of his spiritual ancestors.  This declaration is both the spark that lit the revolution and the fuel that continues to feed it, for as soon as Luther thought he might be wiser than all of those before him, others suspected that they might just as easily be wiser than Luther himself.  After all, if one man could so boldly challenge the authority of the Church, how much easier would it be to challenge that single man?  And so it continues today; every new sect is proof, as they appear, steadily, each claiming to be a reformation and a purification of preceding falsehood.

 

If Luther was right, if the entire millennium before him had somehow gone off course from the will of God, then everything from that period should be open to re-evaluation - including the books that make up the Holy Scriptures as we know them today.   That is the scepter of Protestantism, its major premise that is denied and yet articulated between the lines of its golden promises.  For as soon as a false Catholic doctrine was struck down by the Reformers, numerous others sprang up to take its place.  The nature of truth, as we all know, is such that two opposing ideas cannot both be true, and so given the choice between one false Catholic doctrine and numerous false Protestant doctrines, there is a good chance that nearly as many Protestants were in error of belief as Catholics - assuming the Catholic doctrine was in error to begin with.

 

If one says that Sola Scriptura is THE doctrine upon which all your arguments will be based and that it is not open for discussion, you are short-circuiting the conversation completely.  This is the doctrine from which all Protestant thought flows, the lens whose tint determines the hue of everything in its scope of vision.

 

I will not fault anyone for answering every question posed with a reference from scripture; that may be your way and a way you believe to be the only way, but that is that very doctrine I am trying to make a decision about.  Was the outworking of Christian theology meant to remain in its infant form, never to develop, to flower, to grow as a tree from its roots?  Or was there a directive given to the Apostles to grow and nurture the work that was started?  Either the time to rely completely on individual conscience is at the moment we decide for or against joining Christ's Church or we are to use it over and over again for every issue and controversy we face.  I suppose in simple form that is precisely the crossroads at which we find ourselves.

 

If it is scripture plus the Holy Spirit, why own commentaries?  Isn't consulting commentaries and citing various authors really just the same thing as the Catholic system of relying on the tradition of belief of various clear thinkers throughout history?  It is really not much different than the magisterial system except that you are not obligated to believe anything these trusted beacons of doctrinal fidelity are teaching.  Why not? Do they not each claim to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit?  Do they not all claim to have spent a lifetime seeking, studying, and then teaching, all under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  I think we all desire the comfort of absolutes, and so we choose a system because we need to.  Whether we choose Catholicism, a particular strain of Protestantism, or make a hodgepodge of belief to call our own, I think we do it out of necessity.  I have often been reminded these last months of these well-written lyrics by Emily Saliers of one of my favorite duos, Indigo Girls

"We're sculpted from youth

The chipping away makes me weary

And as for the truth

Its seems like we just pick a theory

Its the one that justifies our daily lives

And backs us with quiver and arrow

To protect openings

Because when the warring begins

How quickly the wide-open narrows"

 

Saying that we will, nay must, come to the same conclusions because we are working from the same source - intellect guided by the Holy Spirit - strikes as the same brave naivety that I have placed my faith in for so long.   I wish it was true but the historical evidence is piled against it.  Whenever we make this claim we consign one party or both to certain failure.  Isn't this is the story of the Church for the last 500 years: one 'Spirit-led' man after another imposing his ideas upon people while in clear conflict with other "Spirit-led" men imposing their ideas on anyone who will listen and follow.  How can this be explained?  Who is to be believed and who has the authority to say who is to be believed?  It smacks of spiritual schizophrenia, and one that was greatly exacerbated in the years immediately following the revolution that was begun begun, or was at least greatly accelerated by Martin Luther.

 

Contrast this system of truth determination with that of the Catholic magisterial system, something I don't claim to have a complete understanding of I admit, but from the basics I know does it not seem more like the system modeled in Acts 15. Don't you think if Jesus had intended for so much theological and structural variety in HIs Church (often referred to affectionately as "flavors" in Protestant circles) he would have made that clear to the Apostles , then sent them on their way with a list of which doctrines and practices were to be carried on precisely and which were open for modification?  Instead, when a controversial issue rears its head, we see them coming together to reason, pray, and issue a unified, documented, doctrinal response - a decision which may not have been the consensus but became official doctrine nonetheless when Peter pronounced it to be so.

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