(earlier discussion moved to Sola scriptura Talk archive)
I doubt that most fundamentalist Protestants support the idea that all individuals have the right to their own interpretation of the Bible. They almost certainly believe that there is only one correct interpretation of the Bible, and where the various denominations disagree is on what that correct interpretation happens to be--hence the variety of denominations. But the way the article phrased it, it almost suggested some kind of embracing of pluralism of biblical interpretations among conservative protestants, and I doubt that this is quite they way they view it. soulpatch
- Most fundamentalist Protestants believe they have the right to interpret the Bible for themselves, though they would probably call it a responsibility. They believe there is only one correct interpretation of the Bible: their own. They often cite the passage in Acts... 15 or 17 I think, when Paul preached to the people in Berea(?), and the Bereans searched the scriptures to see if what Paul said was true, and it was credited to them as righteousness. They don't have a central authoritative interpretation of scripture; they would probably see that as bad as appointing a new Pope. The first item in a fundamentalist home-brewed Statement of Faith typically concerns the authority of the Bible. If the article seems to suggest a kind of pluralism where multiple conflicting interpretations are ok, then it should be revised to clarify that point. Thanks for the catch. Wesley 18:28 Nov 25, 2002 (UTC)
- "Fundamentalist" is a very wide spectrum; the people who call themselves Fundamentalists (as opposed to that much larger group, whom non-evangelicals call "fundamentalists") have the attitude that you describe, and separate themselves not only from those who do not have the same interpretations, but also from those who do not have the same attitude about separation.
- Right. This also includes the more conservative Amish and Mennonites who wouldn't necessarily call themselves Fundamentalist, but are still separatist for similar reasons. Probably a few other groups like that. Wesley
- However, the larger part of the fundamentalist movement are not what you are describing at all. Most are of a vanilla, non-specific, "Bible-believing" sort - who send their kids to "non-denominational Christian schools", go to "non-denominational" churches or hop from one church to another sampling various evangelical traditions, even dipping into the charismatic circles in non-evangelical churches. They are Baptists who listen to the Methodist James Dobson, and list among their favorite authors calvinist Anglican J.I. Packer, Arminian Anglican layman C.S. Lewis, or Anglican clergyman John Stott. They consider Presbyterian Dan Quayle, and Baptist Billy Graham both to be "Bible believers". They admire the Christian Missionary Alliance author, A.W. Tozer, as well as hyper-calvinist, A.W. Pink, and listen to the "Lutheran hour", "Through the Bible", "White Horse Inn", or "Family Radio" although they don't agree with everything they hear. A growing number of them are charismatics who go to churches that don't speak in tongues or have healing services. They have mild opinions about the differences between the Lutheran, Calvinist, and Arminian interpretations of the Atonement, and think that there are probably Catholics and even Mormons who have a personal relationship with Jesus despite bad teachings. By age 40, they have had at least one experience in an "abusive church". They tolerate a lot of disagreement by keeping the non-negotiables very small in number. They have changed their views on a great many things over the years, which they consider to be a healthy thing. Usually their churches have never disciplined anyone for doctrinal differences (which they tend to resolve by simply moving on to a different church), although they have chosen sides in a church split, probably at least once. Typically, they are ecclectic in their appreciation of other evangelical approaches, and in their churches try to accomodate different backgrounds and preferences. They pray together at mealtimes, their kids wear Jesus T-shirts and listen to Christian rock toward which their parents are ambivalent. They sing "praise choruses" and participate in "neighborhood bible studies", and want to learn more about how to "witness". They are enthusiastic about Christian education, but suspicious of theological seminaries (which they believe are inclined to "go liberal"). Their highest values are the Christian family, voluntary association, liberty of conscience as well as social conservatism, and above all, belief in the Bible: not any particular set of doctrines. Non-evangelicals tend to stereo-type these people one way (narrow, right-wing, bigoted), and separatist Fundamentalists tend to stereo-type them in another way, quite the opposite (ecumenists, worldly, liberals). I think that these people outnumber the separatists by a very wide margin. Mkmcconn
- Aieeee, you're right of course. How quickly I forget. One reason we converted to Orthodoxy was to escape that "steeplechase" (old Steve Taylor song), and because none of the churches we went to could tell us what their hermeneutic was, or principle/method for interpreting scripture. (There were other reasons too of course.) My wife went and got an M.Div., but even that didn't help. So I suppose the group you describe could almost be described as pluralist up to a point, being ready to agree with both sides of conflicting issues like calvinism/arminianism, possibility or necessity of speaking in tongues, etc. In most Bible studies and Sunday Schools we went to in evangelical churches, flat-out contradictory interpretations of a passage would be met with "Isn't that interesting" with no means of resolving the conflict, or even seeing a need to. Wesley
You can't claim that "the leaders of the early Church did not encounter the notion that scripture and tradition were mutually exclusive sources of authority" and then two paragraphs further down describe a clear example of exactly such an encounter. soulpatch
- Hmmm. There may be a better way to say that. It's also not necessarily true that they "rejected" the idea that they were mutually exclusive, as I don't find that scripture and tradition were pitted against each other. Were the Ebionites even a Christian sect at any time? I had thought that they were more a Jewish sect, but could be wrong. As for Arius, I'm sure he claimed that he was following the teachings of the earlier apostles as well as scripture; he didn't suggest that the scriptures contradicted the apostles who wrote them, but that his contemporaries misunderstood both the scriptures and the teachings of the first apostles. In the middle of the fourth century when Arianism was very prevalent, those who disagreed and affirmed the divinity of Christ did so based on both the scriptures they had and the earlier teachings of the apostles and other church leaders as they received them.
- Historically, the books of the New Testament were not packaged and sold at bookstores, or distributed through inns to be found by chance strangers. They were the books that were read in the churches, and recommended for people to read because they taught and expressed the Christian faith. Those people that believed this, had to have trusted the people telling them that these particular books expressed the Christian faith. And if they trusted them in this, they generally would have also trusted other things taught about the Christian faith. Any disagreements or arguments involved appeals not only to scripture but also to tradition. Wesley 17:30 Nov 26, 2002 (UTC)
- Soulpatch, I'm uncomfortable with the bias that is being applied by emphasis on "the leadership". I'm sure it's true that Christianity has never been anarchistic, so that if the Church is going to define explicitly what the Church is, then it's going to be the leadership that defines this. But, they defined it in terms of universal practices and beliefs, as evidenced in tradition and Scripture. The Arians never really claimed that tradition was on their side. They appealed to the Bible against tradition. Over against them, the Catholics appealed to formularies of prayer, some of which exalted Mary, and the writings of earlier fathers and the apostles, some of which were used even in the Arian churches, to show that the universal faith was and always had been that the Son is of the "same substance" as the Father, eternally existent and uncreated. Constantine's original intent was to effect a reconciliation between Athanasius and Arius. To do so would have been to alienate the church of New Rome from the church of history and of the rest of the world; and so he was pursuaded to support the orthodox party rather than seek an accomodation of Arianism. It wasn't an arbitrary decision of "the leadership". Furthermore, this is the pattern by which heresies were combatted everywhere - the examples are quite literally "beyond count", that it was a specific interpretation of Scripture that was being defended, which did not originate in the councils which vindicated it, but was found throughout the civilized world over against which the heresies were found by the councils to be incompatible aberrations. — Mkmcconn
- Mkmcconn, any good pointers so I can read up on what the Arians did claim? All I can recall are some scattered quotes from Eusebius. In any case, they could not have appealed to the "Bible" per se, as the collection we have today wasn't finalized until much later, or even listed until Athanasius' 367 Easter letter. Of course they may have appealed to specific books that were later canonized, but it seems they would be relying on the books' traditional widespread usage for any weight such quotations would be expected to carry in a debate. At that point in time, I don't think you can really show a dichotomy between scripture and tradition, though you could certainly show that some traditions were given more weight or were more widespread than others. Unless you mean they were relying on Old Testament passages to support their christology? Just trying to learn. Wesley
- It's important to remember that in the early church, "the Scriptures" are the Jewish Scriptures, as well as the writings commonly accepted as having apostolic authority. Cardinal Newman's book on the conflict with the Arians gives a thorough account of the way that the Catholics viewed the Arians, and the way that the Arians defended themselves by a philosophizing argument based on a handful of texts, especially from the first chapter of John, which guide the interpretation of some statements elsewhere by Paul. Florovsky's book on Scripture and Tradition has a compatible view of the controversy. Appeal to "the Scriptures", meaning the Apostolic writings inclusive, did not originate with the closing of the canon. The two books I mentioned are the sources I've relied on for my understanding of the issue. As I recall, the article on Arianism in the Catholic Encyclopedia is written by Newman. ...
- Furthermore, especially in the east, "Tradition" is not just what is written or decided in councils, but the whole life experience of the Church, which the councils affirm. Arianism is not compatible with this living commonality of experience, and that is why "the leadership" decided against it - it is counter-factual, that the Church has ever been Arian. And, the Arians acknowledged this. Leaving aside their claim that their ideas could be proven from the Scriptures including the apostolic writings, they traced their understanding to Arius (this is more in line with Florovsky's approach, as distinguished from Newman's more "textual" explanation). — Mkmcconn
A couple of points. First, I would argue that "tradition" has not been as monolithic as claimed, that in fact there were multiple traditions, going back to the very beginning, which is why I made the point of pluralizing the word in the article. Second, the matter of Church hierarchy is very critical, which is why I make this point. The leadership are the winners in the theological debates, and the losers don't even get to write a minority report, because they are marginalized and suppressed, labeled as heretics and excluded from being defined as part of "tradition". When you have a hierarchy, rather than the faithful as a whole, that gets to decide what is "true" and what isn't, and they get to determine from among the various competing traditions the one they like, and call it "tradition" (singular instead of plural), then of course they can claim that they are simply "affirming" tradition. The tradition they are "affirming" is the one they agree with. In my view, that is why it is important to stress that the leadership, namely the winners in these theological debates, are the writers of history, as all winners get to do, and to point out that the Church leadership claims that only those from a self-perpetuating and self-selecting hierarchy (namely, themselves) get to decide what is true and what isn't. I am no fan of "sola scriptura"--in fact, I reject it out of hand as utter nonsense. But I also think that this article should make it clear that theology within Christian history was the province of a self-selected hierarchy; the fact that the doctrine that only they get to decide what is true and what isn't is, in the final analysis, self-serving, but we can leave that as an exercise for the discerning reader to figure out for themselves. soulpatch
- This perspective comes through clearly in what has been added. That's why I think that your most recent edits are not in fact "neutral", and rather than leaving the readers to decide for themselves whether "orthodoxy" is nothing more than history the way that the "winners" have written it, the article is in danger of being over-weighted toward trying to tell them that that's the way it is. Mkmcconn
- I agree. For much of this we have a clear historical record, albeit with some gaps, like any other record. Soulpatch seems determined to undermine and discredit what happened. It seems ridiculous to me to suggest that the early church 'leaders' were being self-serving in the first few centuries when persecution was rampant. They also returned a lot of money to Marcion of Sinope for example, when it was clear he was wanting the church to change its theology. Marcion took his money and founded a set of competing churches. This isn't about something abstract like the nature of the Trinity or the deity of Jesus Christ, this is about a clear historical record. Challenges to the record should be based on well-founded evidence, not speculation. Wesley
- Ok, I just tried to compromise on things like multiple traditions, and also break up and clarify some rather long and confusing sentences, like the one mentioned below. Hope we can work towards a decent article that will actually be helpful to someone unfamiliar with the topic. Wesley
"However, this view was not universally accepted within the Church. Throughout the history of the Church who argued that the prevailing Catholic Tradition was in conflict with Scripture. Those who took that position were labeled heretics [.....]".
Sorry, I cannot extract the meaning of this passage.
S.
Mkmcconn, could you clarify something for me concerning the passage that begins Sola scriptura did not originally signify a radical rejection of all authority of the Church to interpret the Scriptures, but rather represented a claim that the teaching authority of the Church is regulated by the Bible, constrained by Scripture in both a limiting and a directing sense. Did the Reformers lay down any guiding principle(s) for interpreting the Scriptures, or did they assume that the correct interpretation would be obvious to anyone who read them? My presumption is that they did not lay down any guiding principals, but that may very well be due to my own ignorance. Thanks, Wesley 17:31 Dec 3, 2002 (UTC)
- Wow. That's a big topic that would go far beyond the limits of our little article, here. So, I'll post my answer on my talk page. I'll apologize ahead of time for being pretentious and presumptuous - because I can't see how I can presume to answer that question without being pretentious. Mkmcconn
- Returning to the current topic, I have to say that I strongly disagree with the referenced paragraph. In my opinion, the Reformers did in fact reject the authority of the Church to interpret Scripture, and transferred that authority to individuals. This is evident from the large number of conflicting interpretations that arose during the Reformation itself, with no authoritative mechanism to identify which were acceptable. They also did NOT reject every tradition that was not directly supported by Scripture. They continued to celebrate Christmas on December 25, for example; I don't recall any Bible passage saying that Christ's birth should be celebrated or commemorated each year, let alone on a particular date. Rather, they were selective in what they kept and what they rejected, and different reformers used different criteria. I realize that my opinion isn't NPOV either, but I think it needs to be somehow incorporated in a way that's fair and neutral. I'm presenting it here for suggestions of how best to do that. Wesley 17:08 Dec 9, 2002 (UTC)
- I don't know what you expect from them - they were excommunicated from their church. The Reformation view was that tradition is difficult to read and is self-contradictory - and to understand it, the clarity of the Scriptures is needed. So, they reversed the Catholic order of teaching authority. They did not deny the teaching authority of the Church, they subordinated it to the Bible. By turning tradition on its head this way, they opened it to continual re-evaluation in light of what the Bible says. This isn't radical enough of a view of what they did, for you? You want the article to say that they denied the teaching authority of the church entirely - but that simply is not the case ... Mkmcconn
- Well, an alternative response to their excommunication would have been to say "No, WE are the true church". This is what the Western church said in response to the Eastern Church and what the Eastern church said in response to the Western Church in response to the Great Schism, and also what the Coptic Orthodox Church did following Chalcedon. How about this: "They subordinated the teaching authority of the Church to each individual's interpretation of the Bible." Does that better reflect their stance? Wesley
- As for the Christmas issue - there is no Protestant church that makes the celebration of Christmas an article of faith. In fact, some Protestant councils recommended that if it becomes an issue of contention or seems to work against sanctifying the Lord's day, it would be better not to keep Christmas at all. Most do - and the reason they keep it on December 25 is because that's the traditional Western date. They also kept Easter according to the Western calendar, but not because the keeping of Easter is essential to the Christian faith. It is the traditional date, and many kept the custom. Even in Reformed churches, some continued to preach according to the liturgical calendar - but they forbade themselves to make the keeping of the calendar essential to the faith. "Christ said, 'I am the truth.' He did not say, 'I am the custom.'" (Libosa of Vega-Numidia). Mkmcconn
- That perfectly proves my point. The article says that the reformers began rejecting traditions that they didn't see backed up in Scripture, but the fact is that they kept a number of traditions which aren't explicit in scripture, but with which the reformers didn't personally disagree. In other words, scripture was not their sole criterion for accepting or rejecting traditions. Perhaps the article should say they rejected articles of faith that were not supported by their interpretation of the Bible? I presume that by 'article of faith' you mean a dogma. Wesley 19:32 Dec 9, 2002 (UTC)
The most recent changes help make it clear which traditions the reformers challenged: those which they believed the Roman church had made "central" to the Christian faith and which they did not believe were supported by scripture. I think my biggest problem with this article in general is that it tends to use the word "scripture" in places where it would be more accurate to say "individual interpretation of scripture". For example, one could argue as John of Damascus did that the veneration of images was in fact endorsed by the Bible, as in the example of the carved cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant, and the carved snakes which Moses held aloft (at God's direction) for the people to gaze at for their healing. Whether these passages endorse other uses of images is of course a matter of interpretation. Another interpretation is that of some Amish, who refuse to be photographed or to paint faces on their dolls because to do either would create a 'graven image', which they believe would violate one of the Ten Commandments. These things are a matter of interpretation of scripture, not a matter of "plain" scripture. Wesley 20:17 Dec 9, 2002 (UTC)
- I agree with you, mainly because I think it pretty much *all* boils down to interpretation of scripture. But my suspicion is that Protestants who hold to "sola scriptura" may think that (at least some or most?) scripture offers truth that is self-evident and needs no interpretation. (Perhaps Kpearce can offer a perspective on this.) soulpatch