Another attempt. . .

The principle of sola Scriptura is often made out to be something it is not and is often paid lip service by those intent upon violating it.  What is sola Scriptura?  Let me put it this way.  Scripture is the only infallible rule or norm of faith and practice.  Okay, what does that mean?  It does not mean only Scripture or Scripture outside of Christian tradition or Scripture in opposition to creed and confession.  What it does mean is that Scripture is what informs and reforms everything else.  

So for the Lutheran, tradition has not only place but authority.  And, by the way, the beating heart of tradition is how and why we worship as we do.  The center of tradition is the liturgy.  We do not disdain orthodox Christian tradition.  We do not ignore such Christian tradition.  But neither do we place such tradition above the Word of God.  All Christian tradition is viewed in light of Scripture and not the other way around.  Tradition has binding authority upon us because it accords with Scripture.  Liturgy binds us because it is Scripture prayed and sung.  Creeds and councils can have binding authority.  They have this authority not because they are above or even in competition with Scripture but because they reflect what Scripture says and teaches.  Tradition is reformable by Scripture.  So is creed.  So is confession.  So is the liturgy.  The only thing that is not subject to reform is Scripture.  Criticism which stands over and above Scripture is rejected precisely because it makes that which is the rule and norm subject to another.  Scripture is our norming norm for all things.

The critics of sola Scriptura love to laugh off this position as bibliolatry or as intellectually untenable.  But what is the alternative?  Is it not the loss of such authority entirely?  If pope (whether one in Rome or thousands in Protestantism), where is the guarantee of infallibility and how can it be held when everyone knows that popes (as well as councils) have erred.  Such infallibility cannot be narrow so that it is rarely invoked or it is a useless infallibility.  It cannot be an infallibility invoked once in 1950 for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and then put back on the shelf in the face of liturgical disconnects like Vatican II or invented truths like different paths to salvation apart from Christ or the challenges of higher criticism or the mockery of God that parades as feminism or sexual and gender freedom.  What use is an infallibility that is silent where Scripture clearly speaks?

The critics of sola Scriptura insist it is a fundamentalistic concept that is unworthy to the God-given gift of reason.  But where has reason gotten us?  Is the invention of purgatory or the creation of a divine economy and central bank of merits or predestination -- all entirely logical -- to be believed where Scripture and Christ are silent?  Reason is a gift and a blessing but it is no guarantee of infallibility nor does it lead us to a truth beyond Scripture or even hidden in Scripture but plain only to the few.  This is not to say that Scripture is clear in all things (it is not) but that lack belongs not to the Word of God.  It belongs to the fragile mind and frail understanding we bring to that Word because of sin since the Fall and because, in any case, we are creature and He is Creator.  If His ways were not above ours and reason could lead us to Him, then there would be no need of faith (which is, perhaps, the essential problem in finding an authority outside of Scripture which is above Scripture.  The very existence of the Nicene Creed proves the point.  Scripture is not only infallible but clear and its clarity remains so that even a child can confess its mystery.  

Certainly the early fathers affirm this.  Look at how Augustine treats this On Baptism 2.3.4:

But who can fail to be aware that the sacred canon of Scripture, both of the Old and New Testament, is confined within its own limits, and that it stands so absolutely in a superior position to all later letters of the bishops, that about it we can hold no manner of doubt or disputation whether what is confessedly contained in it is right and true; but that all the letters of bishops which have been written, or are being written, since the closing of the canon, are liable to be refuted if there be anything contained in them which strays from the truth, either by the discourse of some one who happens to be wiser in the matter than themselves, or by the weightier authority and more learned experience of other bishops, by the authority of Councils; and further, that the Councils themselves, which are held in the several districts and provinces, must yield, beyond all possibility of doubt, to the authority of plenary Councils which are formed for the whole Christian world; and that even of the plenary Councils, the earlier are often corrected by those which follow them, when, by some actual experiment, things are brought to light which were before concealed, and that is known which previously lay hid, and this without any whirlwind of sacrilegious pride, without any puffing of the neck through arrogance, without any strife of envious hatred, simply with holy humility, catholic peace, and Christian charity?

Or in Letter to Jerome, 82:

I have learned to yield this respect and honor only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. . . . As to all other writings, in reading them, however great the superiority of the authors to myself in sanctity and learning, I do not accept their teaching as true on the mere ground of the opinion being held by them; but only because they have succeeded in convincing my judgment of its truth either by means of these canonical writings themselves, or by arguments addressed to my reason.

Augustine does not disdain the Church and insists that the authority of the Church moved him to believe the Gospel but neither does Augustine place the Church above Scripture.  Certainly this is exactly as St. Luke suggests when he insists that he writes to give the believer confidence in the things in which he or she has been catechized (by the Church).  Augustine stands with Jerome who insists that the one who agrees with the Scripture is the Christian.  I have many other quotes from the fathers which I have put up on this blog before but this will suffice for now that sola Scriptura is not only the position of the fathers but show that it is the credible position against those who deposit such infallibility in the Church, councils, creeds, confessions, popes, reason, and intellect.  It does not take more faith to believe Scripture is infallible but greater faith to believe that anything else is and Scripture is not.