Sola Scriptura & Canon
Earlier this month, a group of art experts in Amsterdam dropped an art world bombshell: “Rijksmuseum Researchers Discover New Painting by Rembrandt van Rijn.” The painting in question, Vision of Zacharias in the Temple, had been rejected by scholars as inauthentic since 1960. After recently finding the painting in a private collection, the museum began a lengthy process that proved the work genuine. The press release states:
“This two-year study has revealed that all the paints used for the Vision of Zacharias in the Temple are found in other Rembrandt van Rijn works from the same period. The painting technique and the build-up of paint layers are also comparable to other early works by Rembrandt… Research into the signature shows that it is original, and dendrochronological analysis of the wooden panel confirms that the date of 1633 on the painting is correct.”
The labor of the research team impacts how we understand and enjoy the Dutch master, which is pretty exciting. All the same, their significant work contributed nothing to the authenticity of the Vision. The painting was Rembrandt’s from the moment it left his brush; the art world has simply recognized and received the painting for what it has always been.
The discovery of Rembrandt’s “lost” painting helps illustrate an important principle when it comes to our understanding of the Bible and the doctrine of Sola Scriptura (“Scripture Alone”). The Bible, as the Word of God, is authentic from the moment God sets it down. As with any Rembrandt, we do well to investigate the Bible to discover the many “incomparable excellencies” that evidence it to be what it is (WCF I.5). Yet none of that “discovery” confers any status or standing to the Bible. God’s Word is and always has been authentic, and therefore the authoritative rule for faith and life.
“But how do I know I have a genuine work?”
The question that kept Dutch art historians up for 66 years can also bother Bible believers. Even if we affirm Sola Scriptura, at some point we may begin to wonder whether a book or two (or seven) might still be out there… or whether one of the books we currently possess is actually an imposter. How can I know?
To begin addressing that question, it might be best to turn to a story from the Bible itself.
Authority: Here They Stood
In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul expresses his gratitude for this young and thriving church, partly owing to the church’s immediate reception of his teaching as “what it really is, the word of God” (1 Thess. 2:13). The Thessalonians recognized that this word, though proclaimed by men, was not merely “the word of men.” God had spoken, and the Thessalonians knew they were obligated to hear and heed His authority.
We could say (if anachronistically) that the Thessalonians followed a policy of Sola Scriptura.[1] They rightly understood that only God’s Word can and must have the final authority in matters of life and faith.
Contrary to a popular misconception, Sola Scriptura does not mean “Scripture and nothing else” (Solo Scriptura). There are certainly other authorities that we ought to heed. I may consult Betty Crocker if I want to cook a meal, or Haynes if I want to perform some maintenance to my car (hopefully not the other way around). Likewise, when it comes to matters of faith and life, it would be ill-advised for me to ignore church teaching as expressed in the Creeds, confessions, and catechisms. Even the words of pastors, teachers, and other recognized and trusted authorities in the church today and throughout time should be taken with weight. Otherwise, you should probably stop reading this article.
Nevertheless, every other authority is a lesser authority, and must be tested against the Word of God. All Church authority is based on and derived from the Bible. This means that the Church’s authority is ministerial, while the Bible’s authority is magisterial. Or, as Michael Horton put it, “Scripture is the master; the church is the minister.”
The Thessalonians knew this, and staked their lives on it (cf. Deut. 8:3). Nothing less would be worth the suffering and rejection they encountered in pursuing a life pleasing to God (1 Thess. 2:14). Like Martin Luther fifteen centuries later, the Thessalonians had a conscience captive to the Word. They stood thus, and could do no other.
Canonicity: But By Which Books?
At this point, we might envy the Thessalonians’ certainty. They were confident that what they received really was God’s Word. And yet they had no “voice borne from heaven” to confirm it. No audible instruction or golden tablet descended to Thessalonica stating which words by which speakers carried divine authority. If we affirm Sola Scriptura, we affirm that this collection of books is the highest authority. But how do I know which books belong to this collection?
This question brings the matter of authority alongside another important subject: canonicity. The word canon simply means “rule” or “standard.” When talking about the canon of Scripture, we are talking about the rule or standard for the collection of books that comprise the Word of God.
The “canon question” has challenged Christians throughout the centuries, from learned doctors of theology to little girls and boys in Sunday School. As some have bluntly described it, there is no “inspired table of contents” in the Bible. This has led even some dependable voices in the Reformed world to conclude (I believe problematically) that we have “a fallible collection of infallible books.”
Meanwhile, opponents of Sola Scriptura are not convinced, and continue pointing to canonicity as a serious flaw in the Protestant doctrine. “How can you say ‘Scripture Alone’ without another authority defining what that Scripture is?” In contrast, they would argue that we can only know for certain which books belong because something other than the Bible told us in the Christian community.
“Community”: Rome with a View
The Roman Catholic Church answers the questions of authority and canonicity with a three-fold framework, sometimes illustrated as a three-legged stool. According to Rome, we need not only the authority of Scripture, but also the authorities of the Church Magisterium and Tradition.[2] In this way, the Bible is defined, determined, even created by the Church. There was no canon, so to speak, until the Church authoritatively declared it to be such in the fourth century.[3] To put it in song form, “Here’s the Bible, this I know / For the Church has told me so.”
This could be considered a “community determined” view of the canon.[4] We allegedly cannot rely solely on the Bible as our final authority, because in order to know what the Bible is we need the authority of the Christian community as expressed through the Church Magisterium and Tradition.
As author Michael Kruger points out, this line of thinking bears some similarity to that of critical, secular scholars. Contrary to Rome, such scholars deny that the Bible has any divine authority. Yet they share with Rome the same premise that the church created the Bible. Walter Bauer famously argued in the early 20th century that New Testament canon only developed through years of competition between a variety of “Christianities.”[5] His theory has since been called into question, but the thrust of his argument remains alive and unfortunately well.[6]
Certainty: Rightly Holding the Canon and Sola Scriptura Together
Is it true that the Church determined the canon? Since the human authors of the Scriptures are themselves members of the Church, you could say that they are the proximate or “near” cause. But it would be wrong to say that the Bible was ultimately created by the Church, or that the Church somehow stands in authority alongside or over the Bible in determining its canon. The canon is God’s canon. He is its ultimate cause, having set the boundaries of the Bible no less than he has set the limits of the sea (Prov. 8:29).
Sola Scriptura does not require us to concede that this canon itself is “fallible.” The Thessalonians certainly didn’t think so; they were able to recognize God’s Word for what it was because of what it was, and because of who it was who gave it to them. By the power of the Holy Spirit speaking in His Word, we can have the same assurance, just as Jesus promised:
“When [the shepherd] has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers… My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:4–5, 27).
We may not have an audible voice from heaven, but we have something better, as Peter tells us in 2 Peter 1:18–21:
“…we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
In Peter’s view, the “prophetic word” must be reckoned with because it shines out as the very word of God. The image of light is fitting, because light requires no external authentication to allow us to see. A child experiences the brightness of the sun before anyone begins to explain its existence to her. Likewise, the Biblical canon does not require any other authority to authenticate it, because the Bible “bears evidence within itself of its own divine origins.” These books are “self-authenticating.”[7]
It shouldn’t surprise us to find Peter subsequently commending Paul’s letters as Scripture, even though no church council had at that point presented them as such (3:16). Each of the 66 books of the Bible was canonical from the moment it was penned and placed in the church’s hands.[8] The Church did not create the canon; it recognized and received it.[9]
This is the situation we find in Thessalonica, and in every church “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20). In His providence, God has preserved for us all the canonical books, all that is necessary for faith and life. Our task is simply to recognize that canon, as a child recognizes the rosy-fingered dawn, or researchers the brushstrokes of a Rembrandt.
* * *
“Believe the things that are written,” wrote Basil of Caesarea, “seek not those that are not.”[10] We are right to esteem the witness and discussion of the Church over the centuries, but only the Written Things — the complete canon of God’s Word set down for us in Scripture — can serve as our final authority.
[1] Most Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox apologists would almost certainly counter this assertion by pointing 2 Thessalonians 2:15. For an interesting perspective on why that verse does not contradict Sola Scriptura, see “The ‘Traditions’ of 2 Thes 2:15” by Eastern Orthodox apologist Craig Truglia.
[2] See Dei Verbum, II.10. It would be inaccurate to say that, on paper, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that either the Church Magisterium or Sacred Tradition are superior to Sacred Scripture. However, it is difficult to see how the view espoused in Dei Verbum does not ultimately elevate Church authority over that of Scripture.
[3] For one popular Catholic expression of this view, see “Was the Canon of Scripture Determined before the Church Councils That Decided It?” at Catholic.com.
[4] Michael Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Authority and Origins of the NT Books (Crossway, 2012), 29.
[5] See Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, available online here.
[6] e.g. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Contexts: Reconsidering the Bauer Thesis, ed. by Paul A. Hartog (James Clarke & Co, 2015); Ehrman, “Wasn’t Early Christianity Basically Unified? Why Fret About Occasional Diversity?”
[7] See Kruger, Canon Revisited, 88–121, for a detailed explanation of the self-authenticating nature of Scripture, as well as some of the implications of and possible defeaters to this view.
[8] B.B. Warfield put it well: “The Canon of the New Testament was completed when the last authoritative book was given to any church by the apostles… .” In “The Formation of the Canon of the New Testament” (American Sunday School Union, 1892), available online here.
[9] As NT scholar Paul J. Achtemeier notes, “The formation of the canon represented the working out of forces that were already present in the primitive Christian community and that would have made some form of canon virtually inevitable.” Introducing the New Testament and Its Literature, 1st ed., with Joel Green and Marianne Thompson (Eerdmans, 2001), 589. Quoted in Kurger, The Question of Canon (IVP, 2013), 78.
[10] Basil, Opera Omnia, vol. II. ed. by J. Garnier (1839), p. 870–871 (author’s trans). Credit to Bryan Cross, who shared this citation in a response to Horton’s article (cited earlier). Cross argues that Protestants like Horton have taken Basil’s words out of context, since the Cappadocian Father’s point is to attest to the doctrine of the Trinity. Nevertheless, Basil’s method in arriving at the Trinity displays a similar deference to the Bible’s authority as that of Sola Scriptura, though the father’s view on authority and tradition in other places is more complex.
