Second Thoughts on Sola Scriptura

I sometimes wonder if "sola scriptura" is really a worthwhile category given the mass confusion over it's meaning and the variety of views that fall under its umbrella. A few things are important to clarify for Anglicans, however. 

First, the scriptures are themselves the product of a traditioning Church. For the first three centuries especially there was no "canon" to which Christians could point and a number of "dubious" texts among various Christian communities were selected and rejected as Canonical despite their use and disuse prior to the fourth century. While Protestants are quick to affirm that the Church only "recognized" the inherent, self-attesting inspiration of those texts that made the cut, it remains that this is a theological claim as opposed to an historical claim. The course of the church's "recognition" of the inspired texts is, after all, phenomenologically indistinguishable from the rational and political forces that would be operative in the church's "establishment" of a canon consistent with an existing traditionary rule of faith. So, while the oft-used distinction between the canon as "a collection of inspired books" vs. "an inspired collection of books" may be rhetorically useful for fights among Protestants and Catholics, but I'm not sure of the practical difference.

Second, this issue of practical difference is precisely what comes to the fore when adjudicating between Anglican and Puritan approaches to church practice. It seems to me that the Puritan regulative principle of worship has pride of place when it comes to a true "sola scriptura" approach to things because church & tradition are allowed no authoritative claims whatsoever. Only that which is explicitly prescribed by the scriptures or of necessary consequence immediately derived from the scriptures is permitted. Anglicans, however, have traditionally recognized the authority of the church and its traditions so that there is freedom to order our doctrine and worship by light of reason and the church's own "more than maternal" authority (Hooker). It may confidently do so as long as there is no explicit prohibition of what she chooses in the scriptures. In other words, the church can bind the conscience of Christians to affirm a belief in the Trinity and diphysitism despite both doctrines being extra-Scriptural theological developments. As Hawkins argued, both of these are in some sense provable by Scripture-informed reasoning, but the source of the doctrine itself is ecclesial--that is, it is the product of theology and not the immediate recitation of revelation. Here there is a crucial difference between Westminster's "good and necessary consequence" deductions and the Articles' "may be proved thereby" approach to reasoning from the scriptures. As Article 21 makes clear, the decrees of councils only have authority if they "may be" ("possint" in the Latin is subjunctive) shown to come from Scripture. So also Article 6, which establishes the authority of Scripture after affirming the first four ecumenical councils, declares that doctrines may be insisted upon only if “tested” or “shown as good” (deinde probari potest). In the latter, the presumption is against a theological doctrine or practice proposed by church authority. In the latter, the presumption is in favor of the church's authority as she is guided into all truth by the Spirit of God.

Third, private judgment has its limits regardless of the tradition in question, so the "5 people, 7 opinions" issue is something of a red herring. Puritans have tradition and church courts just like Anglicans and Catholics. Whether we speak of a magisterium in a formal or informal sense, such a thing is an ecclesial-hermeneutical necessity. The only difference is the level of magisterial self-awareness and the processes, ordered or chaotic, by which it operates. That being said, it is very hard to see how a "regulative principle" approach to doctrine and practice can be sustained practically. While most any evangelical or Presbyterian would readily argue that the doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine "of good and necessary consequence" derived from the Scriptures, this is hard to defend once you take five-minute's look into church history. The best argument that Arius had was that "Trinity" and its distinction between the single "ousia" of God and three-fold "hypostases" were not prescribed by the Scriptures. For that very reason, the doctrine remained highly controversial for over a century (from the 280s and Paul of Samosata at least to the Council of Chalcedon in 381). Even then, however, the doctrine of the Trinity has continued to be challenged whenever a strident "sola scriptura" tradition has come to the fore. Michael Servetus and Fausto Sozzini exemplify this in the 16th century as do John Biddle and Henry Hedworth in the 17th, and Blanco White and Francis Newman in the 19th. The reason for this is that recourse to Trinitarian language is not the only possible or necessary doctrine that can be rationally derived from the biblical witness. One may argue that it is the "best" or "most historically durable" explanation, but then you're back on Anglican grounds. This is not the same thing as the Puritan argument that it is the only necessarily possible and consequent doctrine. 

The issue is not, finally, where we look for a court of final appeal in matters of doctrine and practice. No one thinks that a council or Pope can overturn or directly contradict scripture. This would be to set revelation and theology at odds with one another. Neither is it whether the clarity of Scripture is sufficient to lead someone to saving faith apart from the church's witness. I think that folks who seriously entertain the pragmatics of such a thing would admit this this is difficult to defend regardless of whether one is an Anglican or a Puritan. The issue, or it seems to me, is whether the Church is permitted to impose on an individual's conscience a doctrine that is not of necessary and immediate consequence ("immediate," here meaning unmediated the church) derived from Scripture. In other words, is "defensible by Scripture, but authoritatively taught by the church" enough to burden someone's conscience with a doctrine or practice? If it is, "sola scriptura" disappears in a poof of endless qualifications.