- The Authority of Scripture
- The Authority of Jesus and the Authority of Paul
- Is the Bible Inerrant?
- How the Bible Applies to Us Today
- Scripture and Tradition: The Case for Protestant Theological Methodology
Theological Method
Before beginning an investigation of a particular subject, it is important to establish a clear and consistent method for determining what is true as it relates to that subject. This is true regarding the subject of theology, just as much as it is with other subjects, such as science and history. A person is not justified in making whatever theological claims they want; they need to back up their claims with evidence or good reasons for believing them. Otherwise, their theological claims end up being arbitrary, and they cannot expect anyone to take them seriously. Thus, before engaging in any theological discussion, dialogue, or debate, it is necessary to establish a sound method for determining theological truth.
According to the basic message of the Christian Gospel, God has brought salvation to the world in and through the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. However, individuals can only share in that salvation if they believe this Good News about Jesus and become united to Him by faith and by baptism into the Church, the Body of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has tasked His Church with bringing salvation to the world by going out into the world, preaching the Christian Gospel, and making people into disciples of Jesus.
The Church is God’s plan for the salvation of the world. There is (as far as we know) no plan B. It would make no sense for the Creator of the universe to task the Church with bringing about the renewal of His Creation, and then to give no firm guidance to it for how it is to go about doing this. There must be something God has given the Church to provide firm guidance in carrying out His purposes in His creation and building His Kingdom.
There are three basic views that Christians have held about the correct method for the Church to go about determining theological truth:
- The Holy Spirit directly leads Christians to theological truth, making Scripture and Church tradition unnecessary.
- Scripture is the Church’s highest theological Authority, and is a sufficient source for the Church’s theological beliefs (Protestantism).
- Church Tradition is equal in Authority to the Authority of Scripture (Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy).
Here I will argue that positions 1 and 3 are false, and that Protestant theological methodology is the most coherent and reasonable position for Christians to hold.
The Direct Guidance of the Holy Spirit?
Many Christians do not believe that they need Scripture or Church Tradition to tell them the truth about God and what He wants them to do. Instead, they look inside for the internal leading of the Holy Spirit to tell them what to believe and how to live. If the very Spirit of God lives inside us, they reason, why should we look to any external authority?
It is true that God’s Spirit dwells within the Church, and, in a secondary sense, within each individual Christian. It is also true that the Holy Spirit sometimes directly leads Christians to do certain things. However, we have no good reason to believe that this is how God typically operates.
It is obvious to anyone who knows much about Church history, or even just about the contemporary state of the Church, that even genuine Christians frequently have significant disagreements about theology and ethics. If the Holy Spirit directly leads each individual Christian into theological truth, then we would expect these disagreements to not exist, or at least to be much less frequent. A Christian who believes that the Holy Spirit directly leads them into theological truth might just claim that anyone who disagrees with them must be a false Christian who does not have God’s Spirit. Such a narrow-minded way of thinking is unreasonable and dangerous because it leads to a situation where every Christian can claim that they are right, without any possibility of being convinced otherwise. Church history is full of examples of Christians doing foolish and wicked things, including murders and other atrocities, sincerely believing that God was telling them to do these things.
Just because a Christian feels that God’s Spirit is telling them something, that is not a sufficient reason for them to believe that it is theologically true. John tells us, “Beloved, do not believe every Spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1). If we are going to “test” the spirits, there must be some objective standards we can test them against. That objective standard is the word of God. Throughout Scripture, we see that the Holy Spirit does not typically directly cause people to have correct theological beliefs. Rather, the Holy Spirit always acts in conjunction with God’s word, empowering people to respond in faith and obedience as they hear and understand this word. We must submit our subjective feelings and opinions to the objective standard of God’s word, which reaches us through Scripture and/or the tradition of the Church.
The Authority of Scripture and the Authority of Tradition
In the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions, Scripture and Church Tradition are understood to be equal in Authority. Jesus promised that His Church would never fall (Matt 16:18), and so, the argument goes, He will never allow His Church to fall into error. While parts of the Church may error and fall into heresy, the Church as a whole will never error; God’s Spirit is at work in the Church, ensuring that the Church infallibly speaks God’s truth, just as surely as Scripture infallibly teaches God’s truth. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, this infallibility is understood to reside in the consensus of the council of bishops, while in the Roman Catholic tradition, this infallibility is understood to reside more locally in the teaching Magisterium of the Church, with the pope as its infallible spokesperson. In either case, the Church’s teachings are understood to be the infallible, Authoritative word of God.
It is certainly the case that God’s Spirit is active in His Church and will never allow the Church to fall completely into heresy. It is also true that Christians must acknowledge Church tradition to some extent to be authoritative. However, to elevate Church tradition to the same level of authority as Scripture is problematic. Church tradition is diverse, and changes over time. It is clear that, in some cases, ideas have developed in church tradition and have become widespread, even though they have no basis in the teachings of the apostles.
To say that Church Tradition is equal in Authority to Scripture begs the question: “Which tradition?” Since the Great Schism of the eleventh century, the Church has been split between the Eastern and Western halves of the Church. Both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches claim to be the true Church whose Tradition is Authoritative, yet their claims contradict one another. How do we determine which claim is correct? An appeal to Church Tradition does not help, since each side claims to have the truly Authoritative Tradition. What all major Church traditions agree on is that Scripture is Divinely Authoritative.
God’s Spirit is at work in the Body of Christ, but at the same time Christians must have the humility to recognize that they are still sinful, fallible human beings who often go wrong. There needs to be a fixed, objective standard of Divine revelation that can be there to prevent us from elevating our merely human ideas to the status of God’s word. It is Scripture which provides that standard. Christians, and the Church as a whole, always stand under the Authority of God’s word, not the other way around.
In the early centuries of the Church, when Church traditions about the apostles were highly accurate and the Scriptures had not yet been widely circulated, people could access God’s word (i.e., the apostle’s teachings) through Church tradition alone. But over time, Church tradition gradually became more diverse and unreliable. After a few centuries, Scripture had become the only sure way to access the apostle’s teachings.
A Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Christian might object that we cannot just assume that all of the teachings of the apostles were recorded in the writings of the New Testament. What if there are some significant apostolic teachings that were handed down in Church tradition independently of Scripture? It is true that we cannot just assume that all of the teachings of the apostles were written down in the writings of the New Testament. However, I believe careful study of the writings of the earliest Church Fathers shows that there were not any significant apostolic teachings left out of the New Testament Scriptures.
Church tradition is authoritative and important. But it is Scripture which is the Church’s highest theological Authority, and a sufficient source for the Church’s theological beliefs. This position of Protestant theological methodology is the most reasonable position for Christians to take.