Question: Are the Scriptures Sufficient for the Church? We distinguish. This question may be taken in various forms, and a great deal of confusion has arisen in light of these varieties. Some of them admit of a “no” and others of a “yes” answer.
I. As given by Richard Baxter, a 17th century English Puritan: “Who be they that give too little to the Scripture, and who too much; and what is the danger of each extreme?” There is an extreme in giving too much to Scripture. While Scripture is the sufficient and sole ultimate guide for the Church in matters of faith and moral living; it is not the sole nor sufficient guide for matters outside of faith or moral living. Scripture is clearly not the guide for the mathematician or the mechanic. It is possible to, in the words of Baxter, give “too much” to Scripture if we extend its sufficiency past this realm of faith.
II. It can’t be that Scripture is required for even all theological knowledge, as natural man has natural knowledge of God. If we were to reject natural knowledge of God, then the distinction between revealed and natural revelation would collapse. Francis Turretin, 17th century Reformed theologian, speaks of the “presupposed articles,” or those theological beliefs that may be reached through reason.
III. Some theological beliefs can be common, that is, understood and believed on the principles of two sources—reason and Scripture. This means that a theological belief can have two principia if it is a belief common to both reason and Scripture, such as the belief in the existence of God. But as Turretin says, "Hence the same conclusion may be of faith (inasmuch as it is proved from Scripture) and of knowledge (inasmuch as it is demonstrated by reason). Yet we must not from this infer that reason is the principle and rule by which doctrines of faith should be measured.” We can grasp the common-articles along two dimensions: Faith-wise and Reason-wise. Sola Scriptura holds that, as far as faith-wise grasping goes, Scripture is the sole norm.
IV. An analogy may be helpful in understanding the common articles. Imagine that you have two separate sources for the belief that there’s a bicycle in front of you: Your senses and someone’s testimony. Both sources of the belief converge on the same conclusion, that is, the conclusion is common to them both. Does it follow that the person’s testimony is the principia (for a source to be a principia for a field of knowledge it must be that beliefs derive from the principia in some way) for beliefs based on sense-experience? No. Beliefs based on sense-experience still have the sole principia of sense-experience. Likewise, Sola Scriptura claims that the sole source of faith-wise belief is the Scriptures and that this source, though it can converge on conclusions with reason, is independent of it.
V. Further, Scripture is the only principium of specially revealed theology insofar as the articles are not common or presupposed. We need to probe what it means to say that Scripture is the only rule for faith-wise belief. I mean this: Faith is responsive to a special and infallible divine testimony, and Sola Scriptura identifies that special divine testimony as the Scriptures. Accepting the Scriptures faith-wise means accepting them on the basis of their being special divine-testimony and not on the basis of having separate prior reasons to believe the doctrines contained therein, though it is possible that one does have such prior reasons (as is the case in the common articles).
VI. These points lead us to the multiplicity of starting points thesis. Humans possess more than one principium for their knowledge. The Scriptures are just one of the starting points, regulated to matters that are grasped along the lines of fides. Reason is an independent principium separate from Scripture. Sense-experience is another.
VII. This does not mean that Scripture must be verified by reason in order for belief in it to be justified. In the words of Turretin, “The mysteries of faith . . . are only above and beyond right reason and are not taught by it . . . it [cannot] be called their principle." Scripture may make claims that are independent of reason, though these claims are always consistent with right reason. Charles Hodge’s position is in full agreement with Turretin on this point.
VIII. Objection: Sola Scriptura is itself not found in Scripture, but seems to rest in the domain of faith. If Sola Scriptura is taken along the lines that all theological claims that must be grasped along the lines of faith must ultimately be found in Scripture, then this threatens to make Sola Scriptura incoherent, as it seems that Sola Scriptura is itself not found in Scripture. Response: There’s a few ways to respond to this claim. (a) One is to restrict Sola Scriptura to the claim that at least all first-order norms for faith and life are to be found in Scripture, and that Sola Scriptura is itself not a first-order norm. We come to the belief in the completeness of Scripture from the testimony of the Holy Spirit testifying to the perfection and completeness of the Scriptures. (b) Perhaps Sola Scriptura is not a doctrine in the domain of faith, but of reason. As the Westminster divine Thomas Ford claims: “I shall allege some of those rational grounds by which Protestants are induced to believe the Scripture to be divinely inspired, with the Conclusion which (we think) must unavoidably follow; That it is the only Rule of Faith.” So Sola Scriptura itself, as a teaching, would not be a part of the Rule of Faith. It’d be a part of the presupposed articles, or those articles believed on reason.. Perhaps it’d work along a conditional line of reasoning: If the Scriptures are the Word of God and make these sorts of claims, then. . . and If other sources of inspiration are fallible and corrupted, then Scriptures alone are the authority. This latter is the means by which Charles Hodge argued for the completeness of the Scriptures. Or perhaps Ford means something more mundane, in that Sola Scriptura can be deduced from various Scriptures just as the Trinity can be deduced. I don’t have much hope in the latter project, but the former may hold promise.
IX. Quoting at length Mastricht, who seems to indicate that Sola Scriptura may at least be a common article: “Nothing else is or is able to be the Word of God besides our Scripture. On the one hand, this is evident partly from induction, which we mentioned in §IV, and will confirm each in its own place, namely, that neither reason, nor the fathers, nor enthusiasms, nor the Talmud, nor the Qur’an, is the word of God. On the other hand, this is evident partly from reason, because mysteries that are necessary to know for the worship of God and the blessedness of the soul—of which sort are the Holy Trinity, the incarnation, the union of the two natures in the Mediator, regeneration, and so forth—are revealed, and can be revealed, in no other writings.” Note the similarity of argument to Charles Hodge. Maastricht does, however, evince some hesitation in regards to the idea that it is the province of reason that demonstrates the divinity of the Scriptures: “That the marks of divinity, from which the divinity of Scripture is demonstrated, belong to the province of reason, I respond that those marks belong to Scripture itself, so that Scripture is recognized as divine of itself, not from reason.” There seems to be a measure of tension here.
X. I do, however, have a stronger view of the capabilities of right reason than seems acceptable to the Reformed Scholastics. In the words of William Twisse: “In the state of innocence, do we think that Adam by natural reason was able to find out or justify the Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Deity?” Being broadly Anselmian in my outlook, I think that natural reason may very well be able to justify, or at least make plausible, a Trinitarian view even prior to special revelation. I’m thinking along the lines of argument given by Richard Swinburne for the Trinity. Further, I also think that Anselm’s attempt to show the necessity of the atonement for forgiveness of sins is at least somewhat plausible. Such projects broaden the range of common articles quite beyond what the Reformed Scholastics would have accepted.
XI. Wouldn’t (X) threaten to collapse the distinction between natural religion and revealed religion, but in the opposite way—Subsuming all of revealed religion under natural religion? Not necessarily. For, contrary to Anselm, I do not think that the arguments given for the prior likelihood of the atonement amount to a certain necessity. I instead think these arguments merely increase the prior probability of the atonement, still requiring the posterior special revelation to further increase sufficiently for warranted belief. Moreover, just because it’s in principle possible to provide some prior justification to doctrines like the Trinity or atonement does not mean that this does happen in fallen humanity apart from their special revelation. Nor are all the full range of detail given in revealed theology reachable by natural reason. Nor is natural religion and probable reason capable of giving the sort of confidence enjoined on us by revealed theology. Nor are these sorts of abstract arguments and speculative moves easy to grasp or discern, while revealed theology is made to us all despite our reasoning capabilities. Still, this sort of confidence in right reason does enlarge the possible common articles—but it’s important to keep in mind that these common articles still do have their sources of warrant from two distinct principia, and that this is rather important, even if they do converge on the same conclusion.
XII. It can’t be that Scripture is the only principium for religion, as there is natural religion. It can’t be that Scripture is the only principium for revelation, as natural religion is itself a revelation of God. It can only be said that Scripture is the only principium for special revelation, or for any purported revelation that is above and beyond that of natural revelation. What about the common articles, or those articles that are both a part of special revelation and general revelation? It seems that both reason and Scripture would be the principium of such common articles. Response: This is true, but insofar as these common articles are grasped as a response to God’s testimony in the Scriptures, then Scripture is alone the principium and not reason.
