Scripture in the Lutheran tradition

The Lutheran doctrine of Sola Scriptura is actually not that far from the Roman Catholic view of Scripture

Lately, pope Francis (or whoever runs his Twitter account) has caused some ruckus, from this Tweet:

In the midst of the confusion and vanity of human words, we need the #WordOfGod. Scripture is the only true compass for our journey, and it alone is capable of leading us back to the true meaning of life amid so much woundedness and confusion.

As can be seen from the many quote tweets and replies, he has been accused or lauded (depending on who you ask) for teaching sola scriptura. But has he? And how far or close is he to the Lutheran position? In this post, I will reflect on that, attempting to show that Lutherans and Roman Catholics are not, in fact, particularly far from each other.

In Lutheran theology, Scripture has primacy. But what does that mean? What, exaxtly, is meant by what some call sola scriptura? To understand that, we need to ask what that sola is in reference to. To do so, I will start with some points made by Thomist philosopher Edward Feser years ago in a post on philosopher Paul Feyerabend’s thoughts on empiricism and sola scriptura.¹ There, he points out that there are serious problems with, at least an “unsophisticated” or “fundamentalist” doctrine of sola scriptura. He compares it to the empiricism of the 17th century; the view that reduced experience to just some “basic” components – saying “there is currently a reddish patch in the center of my field of vision” instead of “this apple is stale.” Quoting Feyerabend, Feser’s points out that the (larger) context of experience into which we read (or experience) something is “the sum total of what is observed under normal circumstances (bright daylight; senses in good order; undisturbed and alert observer) and what is then described in some ordinary idiom that is understood by all” and where the thing experienced is interpreted in light of “tradition” or “preconceived opinion.” Feyerabend, says Feser, is taking as his starting point, an early Jesuit critique of sola scriptura, and notes that “(a) scripture alone can never tell you what counts as scripture, (b) scripture alone cannot tell you how to interpret scripture, and (c) scripture alone cannot give us a procedure for deriving consequences from scripture, applying it to new circumstances, and the like.” Feser elaborates on this, and I want to highlight two passages:

This larger context -- tradition and Magisterium -- is analogous to the larger context within which both common sense and Aristotelianism understand “experience.” Experience, for common sense and for the Aristotelian, includes not just sense data -- color patches, tactile impressions, etc. -- but also the rich conceptual content in terms of which we ordinarily describe experience, the immediate memories that provide context for present experience, and so forth. Just as modern empiricism abstracts all this away and leaves us with desiccated sense contents as what is purportedly just “given,” so too does sola scriptura abstract away tradition and Magisterium and present (what it claims to be) scripture as if it were just given. And just as the resulting experiential “given” is too thin to tell us anything -- including what counts as “given” -- so too is scripture divorced from its larger context unable to tell us even what counts as scripture. The modern empiricist inevitably, and inconsistently, surreptitiously appeals to something beyond (what he claims to be) experience in order to tell us what counts as “experience.” And the sola scriptura advocate inevitably, and inconsistently, surreptitiously appeals to something beyond scripture in order to tell us what scripture is.

(...)

[There] is a crucial feature of the sola scriptura and early modern empiricist positions that makes them open to the Jesuit/Feyerabend attack, but which the Catholic and Aristotelian positions lack -- namely, commitment to a “myth of the given,” as it has come to be called in discussions of empiricism. In the case of early modern empiricism, the myth in question is the supposition that there is some basic level of sensory experiences whose significance is somehow built-in and graspable apart from any wider conceptual and epistemological context (as opposed to being intelligible only in light of a body of theory, or a tradition, or the practices of a linguistic community, or what have you). Aristotelian epistemology not only does not commit itself to such a “given,” it denies that there is one. In the case of sola scriptura, the myth is the supposition that there is a text whose exact contents and meaning are somehow evident from the text itself and thus knowable apart from any wider conceptual and epistemological context (as opposed to being intelligible only in light of a larger tradition of which the text is itself a part, or an authoritative interpreter, or what have you). The Catholic position not only does not commit itself to such a scriptural “given,” it denies that there is one.

This is very interesting post, and Feser is good at describing what often goes under the term sola scriptura in modern (evangelical or reformed) theology. He does not, however, describe the original view of the Lutheran reformers. In a follow up post to his Feyerabend post,² Feser answers a Reformed critique of that original post. There, he states that “sola scriptura tells us that scripture alone suffices to tell us what we need to know in matters of faith and morals.” While that is a true characterisation of certain evangelical and fundamentalist views of Scripture, it is not an entirely true characterisation of the Lutheran view. We can find descriptions of this in Luther’s Smalcald Articles (of 1537) and in the Formula of Concord (of 1577).³ In the former document, Luther writes:

It will not do to formulate articles of faith on the basis of the holy Fathers’ works or words. Otherwise, their food, clothes, houses, etc., would also have to be articles of faith—as has been done with relics. This means that the Word of God—and no one else, not even an angel—should establish articles of faith.⁴

And we find it quite explicitly stated in the introduction to the Epitome (hereafter: Epit.), the summary part of the Formula:

We believe, teach, and confess that the only rule and guiding principle according to which all teachings and teachers are to be evaluated and judged are the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testaments alone, as it is written, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 119[:105]), and Saint Paul: “If … an angel from heaven should proclaim to you something contrary, … let that one be accursed!” (Gal. 1[:8]).

Other writings of ancient or contemporary teachers, whatever their names may be, shall not be regarded as equal to Holy Scripture, but all of them together shall be subjected to it, and not be accepted in any other way, or with any further authority, than as witnesses of how and where the teaching of the prophets and apostles was preserved after the time of the apostles.⁵

As this shows us, the role of the adjective or adverb sola is not a “rejection” of Church teaching or Tradition (‘dogmas’) or of persons with the authority to teach (‘teachers’), but a confirmation that both are subject to Scripture, and that Scripture is the only rule that can rule all other rules or rulers. In Lutheran theology, we therefore make a distinction. On the one hand, we have Scripture as norma normans (the “normative norm,” i.e. the norm which norms, rules, or regulates other norms) or norma normans non normata (the “normative norm which is nor normed,” i.e. the norm which norms, rules, or regulates other norms, while not being normed by other norms). And on the other hand, we have Tradition, in particular the creeds and symbols, as norma normata (the “normed norms,” i.e. the norms which are normed, ruled, or regulated by a more normative norm, in this case, Scripture, while still being normative for us).⁶ Feser writes, in a second follow up-post,⁷ that the difference between (his representation of) sola scriptura and the Roman Catholic position “is not fundamentally about how many texts there are. Rather, the Catholic position is that it can’t all be just texts in the first place. Rather, we have to be able to get outside of texts, to persons who have the authority to tell us what the texts mean.” But that is not really a problem for the classic Lutheran position (or even the classic Reformed one).

Reformed scholar Keith A. Mathison maintains that the view of the early Church, and the view of the Reformers, is what we might describe as Feser’s “natural” view, though Mathison is, of course, not writing in response to Feser, as this was written eight years before Feser’s posts. He writes:

The sole source of divine revelation and the authoritative doctrinal norm was understood to be the Old Testament together with the Apostolic doctrine, which itself had been put into writing in the New Testament. The Scripture (sic) was to be interpreted in and by the church within the context of the regula fidei (“rule of faith”), yet neither the church nor the regula fidei were considered second supplementary sources of revelation. The church was the interpreter of the divine revelation in Scripture, and the regula fidei was the hermeneutical context, but only Scripture was the Word of God. Heiko Oberman (1930-2001) has termed this one-source concept of revelation “Tradition 1.”⁸

This “Tradition 1” seems curiously close to Feser’s position and it is distinct from “Tradition 0” (where neither the Church nor Tradition has any authority) and “Tradition 2” (where Tradition is also a source of revelation, alongside Scripture).

I believe we do have a problem of terminology here. As we see from the Formula of Concord, when we use the word sola, we do not mean that Scripture stands alone, as what Feser might call a “given” (or what Mathison calls “Tradition O”). Sola scriptura does not mean that Tradition is bad or irrelevant. If it was, then much of the content of Confessio Augustana would be irrelevant, as the Fathers and Canons are frequently cited. In fact, the first authority cited in Confessio Augustana is not Scripture but the Nicene Creed.⁹ As we see in the Formula of Concord, for the Lutheran tradition, sola scriptura means that Scripture is the highest rule which rules or norms Tradition (‘dogmas’) and the persons whom have been given authority to teach (‘teachers’), which is also what Mathison points out. Someone must be charged with its interpretation.¹⁰ That office, however, does not stand above Scripture, but is its servant, as a supreme court judge does not stand above the constitution but serves and upholds it. In many ways, we can compare the relationship between Scripture and Tradition (large T) to relationship between a state’s constitution and its other laws. The constitution has primacy but that does not mean that other laws cannot be binding.¹¹ Tradition is binding, then, but it is still inferior to Scripture. Or in other words; Scripture is norma normans; Tradition is norma normata. To use modern terminology, the Lutheran position could also be described as prima scriptura. This does not mean, of course, that Scripture (or a constitution) is always straightforwardly easy to interpret. We need to distinguish between the “scripture principle” of the Reformation on the one hand, and our view (and interpretation) of Scripture on the other.

But this is, incidentally, very close to Roman Catholic position, as we see from pope Francis’s tweet but also the the Second Vatican Council and the work of popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Take, for example, the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum. Describing the Magisterium, it says, in paragraph 10:

This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed.

Furthermore, in his’s encyclical Ut Unum Sint, pope John Paul II identifies five areas “in need of fuller study before a true consensus of faith can be achieved.” And two of them are central here, no. 1 and 4. No. 1 is “the relationship between Sacred Scripture, as the highest authority in matters of faith, and Sacred Tradition, as indispensable to the interpretation of the Word of God” (emphasis added), while no. 4 is “the Magisterium of the Church, entrusted to the Pope and the Bishops in communion with him, understood as a responsibility and an authority exercised in the name of Christ for teaching and safeguarding the faith.” What we see here is that John Paul II states that Scripture is “the highest authority in matters of faith,” and that its relation to Tradition is “indispensable to the interpretation of the Word of God.” Here we see that those charged with the interpretation of Scripture are placed there as its servants.

We find this also in pope Benedict XVI, or Joseph Ratzinger. As Ratzinger, he fleshed this out in detail in an article on preaching, published in the book Dogma and Preaching,¹² and as pope, he treated this in his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini. In the former, Ratzinger says that Scripture, Tradition, the Magisterium, and the concrete, contextual faith of the faithful depend on each other, but that primacy belongs first to Scripture, then to Tradition (focusing on the Creeds and Dogmas), then to the Magisterium (the servant of Scripture and Tradition), and then to the concrete faith as it is lived out in the dioceses and parishes. One key passage says: “[T]he Bible has such an absolutely unique normative importance because it alone is really the sole book of the Church as Church.”¹³ Furthermore, in Verbum Domini, he cites a crucially important image from Dei Verbum, that the “study of the sacred page [i.e. Scripture] should be, as it were, the very soul of theology.” The soul has primacy over the body, but it cannot exist in actuality without it. Likewise, Scripture has primacy over (the living) Tradition, but that Tradition, lived out in the Church, is its Sitz im Leben.

We need, again, to see this in analogy to the constitution of a nation or a state. The constitution has primacy, and every law must be read in light of it. Yet that does not mean that the lawmaker (God in this analogy) cannot, directly or through agents, posit new, binding laws, and it does not mean he cannot task someone with the duty, and right, to uphold, interpret, and enforce the constitution, as well as other laws.

But again it must be pointed out, with Dei Verbum, that for Rome, the teaching office “is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed.” And this is, incidentally, the same principles used in the Lutheran understanding of sola scriptura (or prima scriptura, to be more exact). Scripture is the normative norm which regulates other norms (norma normans non normata); Tradition (with emphasis on Creeds and Dogmas, and also on liturgy and Canon Law) are norms which are regulated by Scripture (norma normata). The ordained priesthood, with the bishops as leaders, has the task to preach and interpret that which has been handed over,¹⁴ and this has to be lived out in the context of the lives of the faithful.¹⁵

Feser’s critique is valid as a response to much of what we find in evangelical theology. I do not think that it hits its mark, however, with regards to classic Lutheran theology, which, as we have seen, is quite close to pope Francis’ stated position (as well as that of popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, as well as the Second Vatican Council). In fact, Feser’s concluding remarks are very close to the classic Lutheran position:

If either the Catholic position or the Aristotelian one “posit[ed] a foundation representable as a text,” then they would be open to the Jesuit/Feyerabend objection. But that is precisely what they do not do. The Aristotelian epistemological view does not conceive of “experience” in terms of a sensory “given.” And the Catholic position does not merely posit a larger text or set of texts (one that would add the deuterocanonicals, statements found in the Church Fathers, decrees of various councils, etc.). The trouble with texts is that you can never ask them what exactly they include, or what they mean, or how they are to be applied. But you can ask such questions of an authoritative interpreter who stands outside the texts. And such an interpreter -- in the form of an institutional Church -- is exactly what the Catholic position posits.

The important thing to remember, however, is that an interpreter is just that, an interpreter. He must interpret what is written, and see it in light of the Tradition. He cannot just posit whatever he wants. He must present us with what the text actually says. He must, in pope Francis’ words, hold that “Scripture is the only true compass for our journey, and it alone is capable of leading us back to the true meaning of life amid so much woundedness and confusion.” And that just is the Lutheran doctrine of sola scriptura.

1. Edward Feser, “Feyerabend on empiricism and sola scriptura” (Edward Feser, 13th July 2015). Feser is quoting Paul Feyerabend’s essay “Classical Empiricism,” in Problems of Empiricism, vol. 2: Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985): 34-51 (esp. pp. 35.37).

2. Edward Feser, “Fulford on sola scriptura, Part I” (Edward Feser, 18th July 2015).

3. For English translations of the Lutheran confessions, see The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, eds., Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Fortress Press, 2000, hereafter: BC). For a critical edition of the Latin and German originals, see Die Bekenntnisschriften der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche, vollständige neuedition, ed., Irene Dingel (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014, hereafter: BSLK).

4. Martin Luther, Smalcald Articles, II, 2:15 (BC, 304), cf. Galatians 1:8. See BC, 295-328; BSLK, 713-785.

5. Foreword to Epit. I, 1-2 (BC, 486), cf. the parts on the rule and norm in the Church in the introduction to Sol. Dec. 1-3 (BC, 527). See BC, 481-660; BSLK, 1165-1607.

6. It should be noted that this scripture principle tells us nothing about the inspiration of Scripture, or how Scripture is to be interpreted. That belongs to the “view” of Scripture, but the “scripture principle” of the Reformation is open to different view of what Scripture is.

7. Edward Feser, “Fulford on sola scriptura, Part II” (Edward Feser, 23rd July 2015).

8. Keith A. Mathison, “Solo Scriptura” (Modern Reformation, 3rd May, 2007). For a Roman Catholic critique of Mathison, see Bryan Cross, “Solo Scriptura, Sola Scriptura, and the Question of Interpretive Authority” (Called to Communion, 4th November, 2009).

9. Confessio Augustana I explicitly cites the Nicene Creed, while III alludes to Chalcedon without naming it (BC, 36-39). See BC, 27-105; BSLK, 65-225.

10. Confessio Augustana XIV, XXVIII (BC, 46-47, 90-103).

11. This varies in different Lutheran churches. In the LCMS, for example, the entire Book of Concord is binding, as we see from their website, while in the Church of Norway, where I serve, we only regard five of its confessions as binding: the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Augsburg Confession or Confessio Augustana, and Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. See Arve Brunvoll and Kjell Olav Sannes, Vedkjenningsskriftene til Den norske kyrkja (Oslo: Lunde, 2017), 7-9. The point is that though there are variations, all Lutheran churches see some extra-biblical documents as binding, though inferior to Scripture.

12. Joseph Ratzinger, “Standards for Preaching the Gospel Today” (chapter 2), in Ratzinger, Dogma and Preaching: Applying Christian Doctrine to Daily Life, first unabridged ed., trans. Michael J. Miller and Matthew J. O’Connell, ed. Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2011), 26-39.

13. Ratzinger, “Standards for Preaching the Gospel Today,” 38.

14. Confessio Augustana XIV, XXVIII (BC, 46-47, 90-103).

15. Confessio Augustana VII-VIII, cf. VI-XIII (BC, 42-43, cf. 40-49, 53-57).