Understanding Sola Scriptura: The

Evangelical View of the Authority of the

Bible
Robert M. Bowman Jr.
Post date:
February 1, 2018

The term sola scriptura, meaning “only Scripture” or “Scripture alone,” is a

key concept in evangelical Protestant theology. The Formula of Concord
(1584), a Lutheran confession, contains a classic statement of the doctrine:
“We believe, confess, and teach that the only rule and norm, according to
which all dogmas and all doctors ought to be esteemed and judged, is no
other whatever than the prophetic and apostolic writings of both the Old and
of the New Testament.” The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978)
expresses the same idea as follows: “We affirm that the Scriptures are the
supreme written norm by which God binds the conscience, and that the
authority of the Church is subordinate to that of Scripture.” Here is a
definition that we will explain and defend here:

Sola scriptura means that Scripture is the only infallible rule of

doctrine and practice for Christians today.1

Now, with conservative Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox believers, the

controversial part of this concept can be reduced to the word “only” in that
proposition, or more precisely the words “the only.” This is because the
Catholic and Orthodox Churches historically have affirmed that Scripture is
an infallible rule of doctrine and practice for Christians today. The Catechism
of the Catholic Church gives the following affirmations:

God is the author of Sacred Scripture….

God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. “To compose the
sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in
this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he
acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to
writing whatever he wanted written, and no more.”

The inspired books teach the truth. “Since therefore all that the inspired
authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy
Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and
without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation,
wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.” 2

According to John Anthony McGuckin in his 2008 book The Orthodox

Church states, “Orthodoxy ascribes infallibility to the Scriptures as the Word
of God.”3

The issue here that divides evangelical Protestants from both Catholics and
Orthodox is not the infallibility of Scripture. Rather, the issue is whether the
Church (in either of those institutional forms) or any of its pronouncements
outside the Bible is also an infallible rule of doctrine and practice for
Christians today. The debate over sola scriptura is a debate among
Christians who accept the infallibility of Scripture but who disagree about
whether the church has any infallible source of authority distinct from
Scripture. In this article, therefore, I will not be defending the infallibility of
Scripture here, since that doctrine should be a given, common ground
between evangelical Protestants and other traditional, conservative
Christians. Of course, when we discuss the matter with liberal Protestants or
Mormons, we cannot take the infallibility of Scripture as a given, since both
of those religious movements deny the infallibility of Scripture. I have
discussed the infallibility (or inerrancy) of Scripture elsewhere. 4

Clearing Away Misunderstandings of Sola Scriptura

The focus here, then, is on the sola, the word “only,” in the Reformation
slogan sola scriptura. Like all words and especially all slogans, this one can
be misunderstood, so let’s be clear about what it doesn’t mean.

First, sola scriptura does not mean that the Bible is all Christians
need to be saved or to live a faithful Christian life. “Me and my Bible”
is not a complete picture of the Christian life. More than anything, what I
need to be saved and to live a life pleasing to God is Jesus Christ. “Jesus and
me” isn’t a complete picture of the Christian life, either, but at least it would
express the right priority. In addition to Christ’s saving work on my behalf, I
need the Holy Spirit, the Bible, prayer, and so on. I also need the church for
many purposes. I need to hear the gospel, and that happens through the
witness of people who are part of the church. I need to participate in
corporate worship of God. I need the encouragement of fellowship with other
believers. I need to be instructed, exhorted, challenged, rebuked, and
comforted by other Christians, including Christian leaders to whom I am
accountable. Sola scriptura does not deny or diminish the importance of any
of these things.

Second, sola scriptura does not mean a rejection of all tradition. The
historic evangelical doctrine of sola scriptura is that taught by the Protestant
Reformers of the sixteenth century such as Luther and Calvin, who held the
traditions of Christianity, especially those of the early church fathers,
generally in high esteem. So, for example, the Second Helvetic Confession
(1566), the most detailed confession of Calvinist or Reformed theology,
states:

Wherefore we do not despise the interpretations of the holy Greek and Latin
fathers, nor reject their disputations and treatises as far as they agree with
the Scriptures; but we do modestly dissent from them when they are found
to set down things differing from, or altogether contrary to, the Scriptures.
Neither do we think that we do them any wrong in this matter; seeing that
they all, with one consent, will not have their writings matched with the
Canonical Scriptures, but bid us allow of them so far forth as they either
agree with them or disagree. And in the same order we also place the
decrees and canons of councils.

This Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura should be clearly distinguished

from what is sometimes called biblicism but which is better
termed restorationism. Restorationism maintains that the church either
ceased to exist altogether or that it was so thoroughly corrupt that the
proper approach was to start over from scratch and reinvent Christianity.
Restorationists often reject the classic Christian doctrines of the Trinity and
the Incarnation, and even those who don’t reject these doctrines typically
view the early creeds, such as the Apostles and Nicene Creeds, with
suspicion. The Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura doesn’t fall into this
erroneous way of thinking. It respects what the early church fathers called
the regula fidei, the “rule of faith,” which was the essential, basic confession
articulated in the Apostles Creed and elaborated in the Nicene Creed. From
an evangelical perspective, these creeds carry weight insofar as they are
based on creedal statements in the New Testament. Indeed, the creeds
consist almost entirely of affirmations taken directly from the New
Testament.5

The Sola in Sola Scriptura

So what does sola scriptura mean and why should Christians accept it? Let
me answer this question by explaining and defending three points: the basis,
meaning, and significance of the sola.

First, the basis of the sola: Scripture is the only verbal word of God available
or accessible to the church. There are two parts to the argument here. (A)
Scripture is the only written word of God available to us today. (B) We have
no human beings living on the earth today whose oral teachings are the
word of God.

(A) That Scripture is the only written word of God is really true by definition:
whatever is the written word of God is by definition Scripture, and whatever
extant, available texts that are the word of God are and should be
recognized as Scripture by the church. Other written materials accessible to
us may be true, uplifting, faithful, and valuable, but they are not the word of
God and therefore are not Scripture. What makes Scripture unique, what
makes it stand apart, is that it is the only written word of God in the church’s
possession. Christ and the authors of the New Testament affirmed this
unique character of Scripture in many ways. In numerous places they
attribute the very words of Scripture to God as his word. Jesus, for example,
refers to Scripture as “the word of God” in Mark 7:13 and John 10:34-35.
(B) Catholic and Orthodox Christians generally agree with evangelicals that
we have no human beings living on the earth today whose oral or written
teachings are the word of God. In other words, we don’t have living prophets
and apostles. Again, in a discussion with Mormons this claim would be a focal
point of disagreement, but it isn’t with most non-evangelical
Christians.6 Neither the Orthodox Church nor the Catholic Church claims that
its leaders are prophets and apostles whose speeches or writings carry the
same authority as those of the New Testament apostles of Christ. Apostles
were individuals who had personally seen and heard the risen Christ (Acts
1:21-25; 1 Cor. 9:1) and who had received their commission directly from
Christ, as Paul emphasizes he had (Gal. 1:1, 11-12). Paul says that the
church was built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ
Jesus himself as the church’s cornerstone (Eph. 2:20). That term
“foundation” is a metaphor picturing the apostles in their unique,
unrepeatable role as the first-generation, founding members and witnesses
of the church. I mean no disrespect to any Christian leaders living today, but
none of them can claim to be an apostle or prophet. None of them can claim
that his teaching is the word of God. This is why I included the word “today”
in my definition of sola scriptura: Scripture is the only infallible rule of
doctrine and practice for Christians today.

The biblical arguments that non-Protestants often use to establish an oral

tradition distinct from the written word of God in Scripture fail because the
biblical texts they cite are not referring to an oral communication available to
us today. Take, for example, Paul’s statement in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, “So
then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by
us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.” Only by ripping this text out
of its context can it be imagined to support the idea of an authoritative oral
tradition existing in the 21st century that is distinct from the written word of
God in Scripture. Paul is saying that the Thessalonians should hold on to the
apostles’ teaching whether they received it orally in person or in writing in
the form of an epistle. If we had audio recordings of the apostles’ teachings
those could function as authoritative alongside the epistles, but we don’t. If
we want to know what the apostles taught, we can find out only (there’s that
word again) through the writings they left behind in the New Testament.
If we have no oral word of God available to us today, and Scripture is all of
the written word of God available to us today, then only Scripture is the
verbal word of God available to us today. And this is really the whole
basis of sola scriptura. The doctrine of sola scriptura is really an appeal to
Christians to look to God alone as the final, infallible authority for the
church. If I may put it this way, sola scriptura is really based on solus
deus, God alone. It means that God is the sole infallible authority. God is
infallible, and what God says—his word—is infallible. No other verbal
communication or material available to us has this character of being the
absolutely trustworthy, infallible, word of God. Creeds, for example, may be
admirable, noble, and even faithful statements, but they are not the word of
God. The church may and should learn by them and be guided by the early
creeds that simply expressed the rule of faith that epitomized the teachings
of the apostles that is found in the New Testament, but the creeds are not
the word of God.

What, then, does sola scriptura mean? It means that Scripture is the only
publicly accessible, infallible verbal expression of God’s truth in the world.
There are all sorts of fine expressions of God’s truth, but the only verbal
expression of God’s truth in the world that is publicly accessible and infallible
is God’s word in Scripture. The sacraments are wonderful expressions of the
gospel but they are non-verbal (though there are verbal elements in the
liturgy that are generally taken from Scripture). Private promptings of the
Holy Spirit to individuals are expressions of God’s truth but they are not
publicly accessible. Creeds are publicly accessible, verbal expressions of
God’s truth, but they are not infallible—that is, they are not guaranteed to be
unfailingly true because they are not God’s word. Infallible means more than
“true”; it means that what is said cannot fail to be true, or that it cannot be
false in any way. A creed can be “true” without being infallible; it can be
reliable without being unimpeachable. The church is free to rewrite and
expand its creeds, as the early church did when it expanded the Apostles
Creed into the Nicene Creed in 325 and then expanded the Nicene Creed
into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed in 381. The church is not, however,
free to rewrite and expand the Bible. This is because creeds, as wonderful as
they are, are merely the words of men, whereas the Bible is the word of God.
The basis of sola scriptura is that only Scripture is the written word of God
available to us today. The meaning of sola scriptura is that only Scripture is
a publicly accessible, infallible verbal expression of God’s truth available
today. What, then, is the significance of sola scriptura? Its significance is
that only Scripture is the infallible rule of doctrine and practice for
Christians today. If Scripture is the only infallible verbal expression of
God’s truth available to Christians today, then it follows that Scripture is the
only infallible rule of doctrine and practice for Christians today. This means
that only those truths about God and our saving relationship with him, which
Scripture clearly teaches or that follow from the teaching of Scripture, may
be required of Christians to believe.

Non-Protestants constantly argue that this conclusion is not itself taught in

Scripture and therefore is self-defeating. If Scripture does not teach sola
scriptura, so the argument goes, then sola scriptura cannot be true. Not a
few Protestants have been misled into accepting this reasoning and
consequently have left Protestantism for some other form of Christianity,
whether Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, or even a heretical group such as
the Mormon religion. This argument against sola scriptura is quite flawed
because in fact the doctrine does follow from what Scripture clearly teaches.
Scripture clearly claims infallible authority for itself and just as clearly denies
infallible authority to any other verbal communication accessible to us today.
I have already summarized the scriptural basis for saying that Scripture is
the only written word of God. I have also summarized the scriptural basis for
saying that apostles and prophets were temporary ministries of the
foundational period of the church and that without such figures we do not
have any other infallible verbal communication of truth from God that can
function as a standard or rule for Christians today. This is really the whole
basis of the doctrine of sola scriptura, and it comes straight from Scripture
itself.

Of course, while the apostles were still alive, they expected Christians to
treat their oral teaching as equally authoritative to their written teaching. In
this respect, the first-generation church’s infallible rule was not limited to
Scripture, a fact that non-Protestants take out of historical context to exploit
as an argument against sola scriptura. But we see the apostles themselves in
the later NT writings pointing the way as the church was about to make the
transition from the apostolic era to the post-apostolic era. We can see this in
the final epistles written by three of the apostles: Paul, Peter, and Jude.

Pau’s final epistle was 2 Timothy. In this epistle, Paul tells Timothy in 2
Timothy 2:2 to pass on his teaching to faithful men who will be able to teach
others also. The church and its leaders are therefore part of the picture;
again, we are not denying the importance of the church and its role in
transmitting the gospel from one generation to the next. But Paul does not
say anything to suggest that this transmission process would be infallible.
There were false teachers within the church even in Paul’s day, as he points
out later in the same chapter. Paul goes on to acknowledge that after his
departure difficult times were coming when many people would profess
Christian faith but lack its reality, and some would teach myths instead of
the truth. It is in this context that Paul affirms that all Scripture is inspired by
God and that what it teaches will prepare the man of God to do all God calls
him to do (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Faithful—not infallible—men would be adequately
and sufficiently prepared to continue maintaining the faith as they are taught
to know and believe and teach the Scriptures.

In 2 Peter, the apostle Peter recognizes that his life is coming to an end and
that the church is going to be assaulted by false teachers. His instruction for
standing firm against such teachers is to “remember the words previously
spoken by the holy prophets and the commandment of our Lord and Savior
through your apostles” (3:2). The true faith will be maintained not by
submitting without question to the bishops or creeds but by remembering
what God said in the past through the prophets and the apostles of Christ.
We have those words preserved for us in the Old and New Testaments, and
nowhere else.

Jude makes a similar point in his epistle. After urging his readers in verse 3
to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints, he tells them how
to do that in verses 17-21: remember the words of the apostles of Christ,
build themselves up in the faith, pray in the Holy Spirit, and keep themselves
in the love of God. There is not one word here about looking to an infallible
Church to be the unquestioned rule of doctrine and practice.
The doctrine of sola scriptura is itself scripturally based. It follows from the
unique character of Scripture as the only available verbal word of God for the
church today. We must test all teachings, creeds, confessions, and opinions
by Scripture because it alone is the infallible word of God for the church
today.

Sola Scriptura in Church History

Evangelicals do not view the church fathers or medieval theologians as

authoritative in matters of Christian doctrine. However, since Catholic and
Orthodox Christians often claim that the doctrine of sola scriptura is a
modern evangelical innovation, we should take notice of what some famous
Christian teachers have said on the subject in the past. What follows are just
a very small sampling of such statements—enough to establish that sola
scriptura has significant precedent in church history.

Irenaeus (second century):

If, however, we cannot discover explanations of all those things in Scripture

which are made the subject of investigation, yet let us not on that account
seek after any other God besides Him who really exists. For this is the very
greatest impiety. We should leave things of that nature to God who created
us, being most properly assured that the Scriptures are indeed perfect, since
they were spoken by the Word of God and His Spirit; but we, inasmuch as we
are inferior to, and later in existence than, the Word of God and His Spirit,
are on that very account destitute of the knowledge of His mysteries.—
Irenaeus, Against Heresies 2.28.2.

Augustine of Hippo (fifth century):

…it is to the canonical Scriptures alone that I am bound to yield such

implicit subjection as to follow their teaching, without admitting the slightest
suspicion that in them any mistake or any statement intended to mislead
could find a place (Letters 82.3).

…there is a distinct boundary line separating all productions subsequent to

apostolic times from the authoritative canonical books of the Old and New
Testaments…. In the innumerable books that have been written latterly we
may sometimes find the same truth as Scripture, but there is not the same
authority. Scripture has a sacredness peculiar to itself (Reply to
Faustus 11.5).

Thomas Aquinas (thirteenth century):

We believe the prophets and apostles because the Lord has been their
witness by performing miracles…. And we believe the successors of the
apostles and prophets only in so far as they tell us those things which the
apostles and prophets have left in their writings (De veritate, 14.10, ad 11).

…only the canonical Scriptures are normative for faith. Whereas others
who write about the truth do so in such a way that they do not want to be
believed unless what they affirm is true (Comm. on John 21, lect. 6).

….only to those books or writings which are called canonical have I learnt
to pay such honour that I firmly believe that none of their authors have erred
in composing them (Summa theologiae, 1a.1.8).

Answering Objections to Sola Scriptura

Critics of evangelical Christianity have voiced numerous objections to the

doctrine of sola scriptura. It will be helpful to look at a few of the most
common such objections.

Objection: The doctrine of sola scriptura is self-defeating because it is not

taught in Scripture.
Answer: Actually, it is taught in Scripture, since (as explained above)
Scripture teaches that Scripture is an infallible source and standard for
Christian doctrine and denies infallibility to other sources (such as human
traditions and religious leaders).

Objection: Sola scriptura is false because Scripture is not the only or even
the most important Word of God; Jesus Christ is the living Word of God and is
therefore the Word of God in the ultimate and most important sense.
Answer: Sola scriptura does not detract from the fact that Jesus Christ is the
definitive personal, living Word of God. Rather, sola scriptura means that
Scripture is the only infallible verbal revelation of who and what Jesus Christ
is and of what it means to believe in him. This objection to sola scriptura
rests on a category mistake, since Scripture and Christ are “the Word of
God” in different and non-competing ways. Evangelicals affirm both sola
scriptura and solus Christus: Scripture is the only written word of God, and
Christ is the only living Word of God.7

Objection: Protestants don’t really use the Bible alone, because they appeal
to church traditions where it seems to support their beliefs.
Answer: Protestants don’t claim that Christians may only use the Bible alone
but that it alone is an unquestionable, unimpeachable, infallible authority for
Christian faith and practice.

Objection: The sola scriptura principle cannot be of God because it has

given rise to over 20,000 denominations disagreeing among themselves
about what Scripture teaches.
Answer: The raw number of denominations is misleading (many are simply
regional organizations within the same denomination; many denominations
are liberal or heretical sects that reject sola scriptura; etc.), but in any case
the problem is not sola scriptura but human fallibility and sin. If church
tradition was sufficient to preserve Christian unity, there would not be
Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, both claiming to be the
guardians of that unity. The claim that sola scriptura is at fault needs to be
shown by more than a post hoc propter hoc fallacious argument.

Objection: When the NT refers to Scripture, as in 2 Timothy 3:16, it is

referring to the OT, so if such texts prove that only Scripture is an infallible
authority for the church then they would exclude the NT.
Answer: The fact that in many places in the NT the term Scripture refers in
context to the OT does not disprove that what it says about the authority of
the OT does not also apply to the NT. If one accepts the NT as being just as
much Scripture as the OT, one cannot deny to the NT the authority that the
NT accords to the OT. That the limits of Scripture were in the process of
being expanded in the first century to include the NT writings does not
warrant the claim that doctrinal sources outside the parameters of Scripture
also carry the same authority as Scripture. Here’s an illustration of the
principle here: A school policy statement published in 2011 requires students
to follow the instructions of all school employees during a fire alarm. In 2012
the school hires ten new employees. The policy extends to include those new
employees but not to include other adults not mentioned in the policy, such
as parents of other children.

Objection: 2 Timothy 3:16 cannot support sola scriptura because in the

same chapter Paul uses a non-biblical oral tradition when he gives the names
Jannes and Jambres for two of the Egyptian magicians in the Book of Exodus
(2 Tim. 3:8).
Answer: The doctrine of sola scriptura does not deny that extracanonical
sources can be useful but rather than such sources are not guaranteed to be
infallible, as Scripture is. The same answer applies to other NT citations of
extracanonical sources. It also applies to the question of why Protestants
publish study Bibles, systematic theologies, and other books of instruction.

Objection: Scripture provides no list of the writings that belong in the

canon; therefore, Scripture is not sufficient to establish the doctrine of the
canon of Scripture.
Answer: Tradition also provides no list of the traditions that are infallible;
therefore, by this reasoning, tradition is not sufficient to establish the
doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture plus tradition (plus whatever else one
wants to add). Tradition clearly did not have infallible information on this
subject because the church discussed and debated the precise extent of the
NT canon for a century. The objection is fallacious because it assumes a
sufficient source of information on the canon must take the form of a list.
Scripture can inform us as to what makes a book authoritatively from God
without giving us a list of approved books.

Objection: God may have inspired writings in the past to which we no longer
have access. For example, we don’t have all of Paul’s letters to the
Corinthians.
Answer: Sola scriptura does not claim that all inspired writings of the past
must exist and be accessible to us today. Might any of Paul’s missing letters
to the Corinthian congregation have been inspired? Sure, but since we don’t
have them, the point is moot. Scripture is by definition
whatever extant writings there are qualifying as the word of God. 8

Recommended Reading

Barrett, Matthew. God’s Word Alone—The Authority of Scripture: What the

Reformers Taught...and Why It Still Matters. 5 Solas Series. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2016.

Lillback, Peter A., and Richard B. Gaffin, eds. Thy Word Is Still Truth:
Essential Writings on the Doctrine of Scripture from the Reformation to
Today. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2013.

Mathison, Keith A. The Shape of Sola Scriptura. Moscow, ID: Canon Press,
2001. One of the best defenses of the evangelical doctrine.

Putman, Rhyne R. In Defense of Doctrine: Evangelicalism, Theology, and

Scripture. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015.

Sproul, R. C. Scripture Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R,

2005.

NOTES

1. This definition is verbally almost identical to the one given by evangelical

teacher Michael Patton: “Sola Scriptura: the belief that the Scripture alone is
the final and only infallible source for matters of faith and practice.” See
“The Danger of Sola Scriptura,” Bible.org, Oct. 3, 2005.

2. Catechism of the Catholic Church 105-107.

3. John Anthony McGuckin, The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Its
History, Doctrine, and Spiritual Culture (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008),
101.

4. Robert M. Bowman Jr., “Is Scripture without Error? The Bottom-Line Guide
to the Bible, Part 5 (Cedar Springs, MI: Institute for Religious Research,
2015).

5. Robert M. Bowman Jr., “Why Do You Believe the Creeds Instead of the
Bible?” (Cedar Springs, MI: Institute for Religious Research, 2014).

6. See Robert M. Bowman Jr., “Prophets Today? Prophets in the Bible and in
the LDS Church,” Gospel Principles and the Bible (Cedar Springs, MI: Institute
for Religious Research, 2011).

7. Stephen Wellum, Christ Alone—The Uniqueness of Jesus as Savior: What

the Reformers Taught…and Why It Still Matters, Five Solas Series (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 2017).

8. See further Robert M. Bowman Jr., “The Canon of the Bible and the LDS
Standard Works,” Why Christianity Is True but Mormonism Is Not, Part 5
(Cedar Springs, MI: Institute for Religious Research, 2016), and the additional
articles listed there.