Some Arguments Against Sola Scriptura

Sola Scriptura is the Protestant doctrine that holds that Sacred Scripture, i.e., the Bible, is the sole infallible theological authority for Christians. Consequently, a Christian is not bound to assent to a doctrine that is not deducible from Sacred Scripture alone. According to Lutheran theology, for instance:

[T]he Word of God alone should be and remain the only standard and rule of doctrine...to which everything should be subjected (Formula of Concord, "Comprehensive Summary, Foundation, Rule and Norm", par. 10).

Similarly, according to traditional Reformed theology (as expressed in the Westminster Confession):

The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture (Westminster Confession I.X).

Thus, Sacred Tradition and the teaching authority of the Church are not infallible, and the Church is consequently not capable of giving an infallible interpretation of Scripture. Rather, as the Westminster Confession declares:

The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself; and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly (ibid., I.IX).

What follows are a few arguments against the doctrine of sola Scriptura.

Argument 1:

1. Either the canon of Sacred Scripture is known infallibly, or it is not.
2. If the canon of Sacred Scripture is not known infallibly, then Sacred Scripture is a fallible collection of infallible books.
3. A fallible collection of infallible books is incoherent.
4. Therefore, Sacred Scripture is not a fallible collection of infallible books (3).
5. Therefore, the canon of Sacred Scripture is known infallibly (2, 4).
6. Either the canon of Sacred Scripture is known by Sacred Scripture itself or by Tradition.
7. The canon of Sacred Scripture is not known by Sacred Scripture itself.
8. Therefore, the canon of Sacred Scripture is known by Tradition (6, 7).
9. If the canon of Sacred Scripture is known infallibly and is known by Tradition, then there is an infallible Tradition (pertaining to the Christian faith) outside of Sacred Scripture.
10. Therefore, there is an infallible Tradition outside of Sacred Scripture (5, 8, 9).
11. If there is an infallible Tradition outside of Sacred Scripture, then sola Scriptura is false.
12. Therefore, sola Scriptura is false (10, 11).

 Argument 2:

1. If sola Scriptura is true, then the Church must not dogmatically teach anything that is not deducible from Sacred Scripture (otherwise sola Scriptura is violated).
2. If sola Scriptura is true, then the Church must dogmatically teach the canon of Sacred Scripture (otherwise sola Scriptura is empty).
3. The canon of Sacred Scripture is not deducible from Sacred Scripture.
4. Assume for reductio that sola Scriptura is true.
5. Then, the Church must not dogmatically teach the canon of Sacred Scripture (1, 3, 4).
6. Then, the Church must dogmatically teach the canon of Sacred Scripture (2, 4).
7. Contradiction (5, 6). Therefore, sola Scriptura is false.

Counterargument and Response: A Protestant could try to flip the tables and ask how we know that there is a visible, authoritative Church. Here, we can appeal to Scripture, but we don’t have to rely on its inspiration. If we did, the Protestant could claim that we are caught in a vicious circle: We need an authoritative Church to know what inspired Scripture is, but we need inspired Scripture to tell us that there is an authoritative Church. But we can escape from this circle by simply treating Scripture in this context (especially the Gospels) as generally reliable historical documents, which can be strongly supported and argued for on theologically independent grounds. From there, we can argue that the best explanation of the facts surrounding Jesus of Nazareth and His ministry is that God raised Him from the dead. This fact vindicates Jesus’ teachings. So, Jesus is who He said He was, namely God. And Jesus founded, according to the historical accounts, an authoritative Church built on the foundation of the Apostles (cf. Matthew 18:15-18, Ephesians 2:20) with Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, at the head (cf. Matthew 16:18). Christ gave authority to His Church (cf. Matthew 16:19; 18:18) and promised that the Holy Spirit would guide her into all truth (cf. John 16:13, 1 Timothy 3:15) and that Christ would be with her until the close of the age (cf. Matthew 28:20). Since Christ is God, His giving authority to the Church means the Church really has that authority. So, there is a visible, authoritative Church founded by Christ who is God and who gloriously arose from the dead. This Church is guaranteed by Christ’s promise to endure forever (cf. Matthew 16:18). This Church then went on to decree the canon of Sacred Scripture. Since this Church has the infallible authority given to her by Christ, this decree is infallible, and we therefore know the canon of Sacred Scripture infallibly. This line of argumentation is not open to the Protestant. Even if the Protestant tried to just treat the Gospels (or any other book of the Bible for that matter) as merely generally reliable historical documents, the canon of Scripture is found nowhere in Scripture. It is clear, therefore, that the doctrine of a visible, authoritative Church is much better founded by the evidence than the doctrine of sola Scriptura. And we should follow the evidence to where it leads: the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church! :)

Argument 3:

1. If Protestantism is true, then sola Scriptura is a dogma, i.e., a binding doctrine.
2. If Protestantism is true, then sola Scriptura is true.
3. If sola Scriptura is true, then there are no dogmas that are not deducible from Sacred Scripture.
4. Sola Scriptura is not deducible from Sacred Scripture.
5. Therefore, if sola Scriptura is true, then sola Scriptura is not a dogma (3, 4).
6. Therefore, if sola Scriptura is true, then Protestantism is false (1, 5).
7. Therefore, if Protestantism is true, then Protestantism is false (2, 6).
8. Assume for reductio that Protestantism is true.
9. Then, Protestantism is true and Protestantism is false (7, 8).
10. Contradiction (9). Therefore, Protestantism is false.

Comments: This argument, if sound, demonstrates that Protestantism, insofar as it is committed to sola Scriptura, is committed to self-defeating principles. To avoid the conclusion, a Protestant must deny at least one of premises (1)-(4). Premises 1 and 2 will be difficult to deny given sola Scriptura's status as the "formal principle" of the so-called Protestant Reformation. Premise 3 is true by definition. The only premise, therefore, that a Protestant can reasonably hope to rebut is 4. The problem is that premise 4 is true. Nowhere in Scripture is it taught that "The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture." Therefore, Protestantism finds itself in the unfortunate position of being committed to principles which imply its own falsehood.

Practical Considerations: 

Aside from all of these theoretical problems with sola Scriptura, there are many practical problems as well. Due to sola Scriptura, Protestants seem hardly able to agree on anything. Nick's Catholic Blog has an excellent compilation of doctrines that Protestants cannot agree on due to sola Scriptura. As a doctrine, sola Scriptura seems tailor-made to breed endless divisions among Christians and seems to lead to either doctrinal relativism or a kind of hyper-sectarianism. Hence, the idea that the only wise God (cf. Romans 16:27) would implement sola Scriptura in His Church when He desires that Christians be unified (cf. John 17:20-23) and be guided into all truth (cf. John 16:13) is, a priori, very implausible.

Imagine if the founding fathers of the United States had instituted the doctrine of "Constitution Alone" such that there was no legislature or judiciary or executive power. Instead, each American was to interpret the Constitution for himself. It is obvious that this would be very foolish and would lead to disaster in a very short amount of time. American society would quickly crumble into chaos. Naturally, there would at the very least have to be a judiciary, an authority outside of the Constitution which could give an authoritative interpretation of the Constitution when disagreements inevitably arise among different citizens as to the correct understanding of the Constitution. If even mere men can see the necessity of a judicial power for interpreting the Constitution, how much more would the only wise God see the necessity of a judicial power for interpreting Sacred Scripture?

In fact, Scripture clearly presents the need for such an authority outside of itself in Acts 15 with respect to the Council of Jerusalem. There was a doctrinal dispute that could not be resolved by Scripture alone. Hence, a Church council was convened which made a definitive and infallible doctrinal ruling. Such was necessary to secure true doctrine and preserve the unity of the Church. What was true then remains true today. Sola Scriptura was not, is not, and never will be, the principle of authority in the true Church. St. Paul writes, "I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgement...Is Christ divided?" (1 Corinthians 1:10,13). The doctrine of sola Scriptura, as history demonstrates, renders such agreement and unity impossible and must therefore be rejected. Explaining the disunity among Protestants caused by sola Scriptura and comparing the degree of unity in the Catholic Church to that in Protestantism, the historian Brad S. Gregory writes,

Seeing the historical consequences of the commitment to sola scriptura does not depend on examining all the myriad, biblically based truth claims made by those Christian groups and individuals who rejected the authority of the Roman church between the early 1520s and the mid-seventeenth century. The important point is that every anti-Roman, Reformation-era Christian truth claim based on scripture fits into this pattern of fissiparous disagreement among those who agreed that Christian truth should be based solely on scripture...

[W]ith respect to the relationship between unity and diversity since the Reformation, Protestantism is dramatically different from Catholicism. They are not meaningfully comparable. As a historical and empirical reality between the early Reformation and the present, "Protestantism" is an umbrella designation of groups, churches, movements, and individuals whose only common feature is a rejection of the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Despite the desires and intentions of anti-Roman Christian protagonists, but as a result of their actions, beginning in the early 1520s Protestant pluralism derived directly from the Reformation's foundational truth claim. The assertion that scripture alone was a self-sufficient basis for Christian faith and life—independent in principle of papal, conciliar, patristic, canon-legal, and/or any other traditional authorities in conjunction with which scripture was understood in the Roman church—produced not even rough agreement, but an open-ended welter of competing and incompatible interpretations of Luther's "one certain rule" (ein gewisz regel) or Karlstadt's "naked truth" (The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society, pg. 91, 94).

Along the same lines, philosophers Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli write,

Every heretic in history has appealed to the Bible and argued that his interpretation of the Bible was the correct one. It is a historical fact that the Bible alone is not sufficient if you want to know what God has revealed. There are over twenty thousand different Protestant denominations, and they all appeal to the Bible—and contradict each other. (That is why there are over twenty thousand, not just one! If they didn't contradict each other, they would be one.) 

So if you love the Bible because it is God's revelation to man, you must love the Church that protects it...The Church gave us the Bible, brought the Bible into the world, knows the Bible profoundly and truly, and protects it and its authority (Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, pg. 445-446).

"For my part, I should not believe the Gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church" (St. Augustine, Contra Epistolam Manichaei, 5.6).