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The Shape of Sola Scriptura
In what shape do we find the doctrine of Sola Scriptura today? Many modern Evangelicals see it as a license to ignore history and the creeds in favor of a more splintered approach to Christian living. In the past two decades, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox apologists have strongly tried to undermine Sola Scriptura as unbiblical, unhistorical, and impractical. But these groups rest their cases on a recent, false take on Sola Scriptura. The ancient, medieval, and classical Protestant view of Sola Scriptura actually has quite a different shape than most opponents and defenders maintain. Therein lies the goal of this book an intriguing defense of the ancient (and classical Protestant) doctrine of Sola Scriptura against the claims of Rome, the East, and modern Evangelicalism.
370 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 18, 2001
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412 people want to read
About the author
Keith A. Mathison
18 books57 followersDr. Keith A. Mathison is associate editor of Tabletalk magazine. He is also academic dean and professor of systematic theology at Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Fla., and author of From Age to Age: The Unfolding of Biblical Eschatology.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
June 14, 2023
Absolutely fantastic.
September 29, 2023
The Shape of Sola Scriptura by Dr. Keith A. Mathison was a delightful read! One of the best books I’ve read this year. In the last few months I’ve ran into more Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Messianic Jews than I ever had, and thus I felt the need to do my best at representing the Protestant position. It has been a fascinating journey. This book would be in my opinion, one of the best representations of Sola Scriptura as exemplified from the Apostolic or early Church and the magisterial reformers. Mathison takes the first few chapters and does a wonderful job taking you through the different epochs of Church history and their views of Scripture and tradition, this historical tour helps the reader understand the later accretions of the Romanist and Orthodox view to what was the first view held by the early church (later espoused by the magisterial reformers), what Mathison deems as Tradition I.
The later half of the book does a wonderful job at defending the doctrine of Sola Scriptura and also providing incredible critiques towards the views of Scripture & Tradition as defined by Rome, Constantinople, and modern Evangelical Christianity.
The critique leveled to Protestants who are largely unaware of what the actual doctrine teaches was phenomenal. It is the shallow view of Scripture and tradition from many Protestants that has produced this sort of hermeneutical chaos and fracture within Protestantism. I highly commend this work for every person to read.
The later half of the book does a wonderful job at defending the doctrine of Sola Scriptura and also providing incredible critiques towards the views of Scripture & Tradition as defined by Rome, Constantinople, and modern Evangelical Christianity.
The critique leveled to Protestants who are largely unaware of what the actual doctrine teaches was phenomenal. It is the shallow view of Scripture and tradition from many Protestants that has produced this sort of hermeneutical chaos and fracture within Protestantism. I highly commend this work for every person to read.
August 4, 2011
Mathison does a good job in carefully defining his terms and in reading historical movements. The following is not so much an analysis, but a summary of Mathison's main points:
Mathison says any discussion of sola scriptura is meaningless without a corresponding meaning of tradition. This is his strongest argument in the book. Mathison builds his argument from world-renowned medieval scholars and also from the greatest church historian of the past 3 centuries--Jaroslav Pelikan (ironically, an Eastern Orthodox guy).
Tradition 1: This is the view from the early church, or close to it. It says both that Scripture is interpreted by the church, but that tradition and the church can err (and have) and that doctrinal claims are ultimately determined by Scriptrue.
Tradition 2: This arose no earlier than the 4 century. It slowly evolved into the view that tradition is an alternative source of revelation. This crystallized in the counter-Reformation period. Eventually even Roman Catholic theologians in the 20th century saw the problems with this view: epistemologically it was unknowable; practically it meant that tradition usurped the role of Scripture. This lead Roman theologians to articulate...
Tradition 3: this is tied in with the doctrine of papal infallibility. However, Mathison demonstrates that the Roman Catholic church at one time repudiated papal infallibility (during the Franciscan controversies) and that man popes have made either contradictory or frankly embarrassing claims and such a doctrine cannot be taken seriously.
Mathison does a good job in disucssing scripture on the church. Even granting Rome's take on Matthew 16:18, it is curious to note that Roman apologists do not deal with Romans 11:22 where God warns the Roman church in particular they can be cut off and are not infallible. They also ignore the fact in Acts 15 where the apostle James, not Peter, ratified the Jerusalem Council. If we wanted to have apostolic authority and succession, perhaps it should go from James!
Mathison ends his book by debunking Evangelical claims to a *nuda Scriptura* reading. This he calls Tradition 0 or solO Scriptura.
Mathison says any discussion of sola scriptura is meaningless without a corresponding meaning of tradition. This is his strongest argument in the book. Mathison builds his argument from world-renowned medieval scholars and also from the greatest church historian of the past 3 centuries--Jaroslav Pelikan (ironically, an Eastern Orthodox guy).
Tradition 1: This is the view from the early church, or close to it. It says both that Scripture is interpreted by the church, but that tradition and the church can err (and have) and that doctrinal claims are ultimately determined by Scriptrue.
Tradition 2: This arose no earlier than the 4 century. It slowly evolved into the view that tradition is an alternative source of revelation. This crystallized in the counter-Reformation period. Eventually even Roman Catholic theologians in the 20th century saw the problems with this view: epistemologically it was unknowable; practically it meant that tradition usurped the role of Scripture. This lead Roman theologians to articulate...
Tradition 3: this is tied in with the doctrine of papal infallibility. However, Mathison demonstrates that the Roman Catholic church at one time repudiated papal infallibility (during the Franciscan controversies) and that man popes have made either contradictory or frankly embarrassing claims and such a doctrine cannot be taken seriously.
Mathison does a good job in disucssing scripture on the church. Even granting Rome's take on Matthew 16:18, it is curious to note that Roman apologists do not deal with Romans 11:22 where God warns the Roman church in particular they can be cut off and are not infallible. They also ignore the fact in Acts 15 where the apostle James, not Peter, ratified the Jerusalem Council. If we wanted to have apostolic authority and succession, perhaps it should go from James!
Mathison ends his book by debunking Evangelical claims to a *nuda Scriptura* reading. This he calls Tradition 0 or solO Scriptura.
August 4, 2024
This is one of those books that I couldn't possibly get entirely into my head, so I wouldn't want to be tested on it. But I'm glad I read it because it fortified my understanding and appreciation of what the Bible is and how we got it and why it is such a great gift from God. I appreciated that Keith was equally tough on the Cathodox errors and the solo Scriptura error of modern Evangelicals. I also appreciated how thorough it was, but another round of editing could have tightened it up a bit without losing any substance. And another round of copyediting could have cleaned up a few grammar bloopers I heard along the way. But mostly I'm just grateful for anybody who equips me to love and understand Scripture better.
Joffre's narration was spot-on — he reads with a comprehension that greatly facilitates the listener's own comprehension.
Joffre's narration was spot-on — he reads with a comprehension that greatly facilitates the listener's own comprehension.
January 6, 2024
This book is fantastic. Anyone wrestling with authority and tradition as it relates to Scripture and the church must read this book. Matheson explains that there is only one escape from the twin errors committed by much of Protestantism and all of Rome which is the centralizing of authority over Scripture either in and individual, private interpretation (many Protestants) or in the institution of the Roman church (all of Roman Catholicism) and that escape is found is retrieving the historical understanding of Sola Scriptura. Read this book and lean how to read the Bible with the church universal and gain a proper understanding of Sola Scriptura.
November 13, 2021
This book is a really helpful and comprehensive introduction to the issues surrounding doctrinal authority and arguments in favour of Sola Scriptura. Mathison offers a nuanced conception of Sola Scriptura that helpfully distinguishes the doctrine from Solo Scriptura - a doctrine embraced by many evangelicals and one often mistaken for that of the Reformers. He helpfully engages with a range of objections from Catholics, Orthodox and Evangelicals and considers historical, scriptural and logical arguments.
To date, I have been greatly concerned both with protestants little regard for the importance of tradition in interpreting scripture as well as with the lack of unity in the Church. This book has provided some comfort, and I greatly appreciated Mathison's appeal to evangelicals to embrace the historical roots of the faith to avoid the risk of the Church becoming even more fragmented. I am not yet as fully persuaded as Mathison regarding Sola Scriptura being capable of achieving church unity, given that Churches who consider themselves grounded in historic or apostolic Christianity differ in understanding on what seem to be significant issues. But I'm keen to explore Mathison's proposition further.
My overarching critiques of the book are 1) it is noticeably repetitive and 2) it seems to exaggerate the lack of evidence for the Catholic view in places as well as the implications of holding the Catholic view. As an example, Mathison claims that the Catholic view implies rejecting God's authority and therefore rebelling against God. Even if the Catholic view is incorrect, this seems to be a great exaggeration in my view. I am also a little skeptical of Mathison's claim that the early Church clearly supported the view of Sola Scripture, though I am not well-read on the subject so I will certainly reserve judgement.
For those interested in building on their understanding of the subject, this book will likely not disappoint.
To date, I have been greatly concerned both with protestants little regard for the importance of tradition in interpreting scripture as well as with the lack of unity in the Church. This book has provided some comfort, and I greatly appreciated Mathison's appeal to evangelicals to embrace the historical roots of the faith to avoid the risk of the Church becoming even more fragmented. I am not yet as fully persuaded as Mathison regarding Sola Scriptura being capable of achieving church unity, given that Churches who consider themselves grounded in historic or apostolic Christianity differ in understanding on what seem to be significant issues. But I'm keen to explore Mathison's proposition further.
My overarching critiques of the book are 1) it is noticeably repetitive and 2) it seems to exaggerate the lack of evidence for the Catholic view in places as well as the implications of holding the Catholic view. As an example, Mathison claims that the Catholic view implies rejecting God's authority and therefore rebelling against God. Even if the Catholic view is incorrect, this seems to be a great exaggeration in my view. I am also a little skeptical of Mathison's claim that the early Church clearly supported the view of Sola Scripture, though I am not well-read on the subject so I will certainly reserve judgement.
For those interested in building on their understanding of the subject, this book will likely not disappoint.
August 30, 2024
Denne boken var nyttig for å sortere i hva vi faktisk mener når vi snakker om Sola Scriptura og hva det innebærer for hvordan vi skal forstå tradisjonens verdi.
Mathison bruker Luther-forskeren Heiko Obermans ulike tradisjonsbegrep til å inndele kirkehistorien. Tradisjon I viser til den tidlige oldkirkens (minimum de første 300 år) og reformatorenes (Luther og Calvin) forståelse av forholdet mellom Skrift og tradisjon. Her sammenfaller Skrift og tradisjon: NT er "the inscripturisation" av den apostoliske forkynnelsen og sammen med GT fungerer det som høyeste autoritet, norm og kilde for åpenbaring - foreløpig kjent stoff - men Skriftene skal også fortolkes i og av Kirken innenfor den hermeneutiske kontekst av regula fidei (altså de klassiske oppramsingene av det sentrale i den kristne tro som vi senere kaller bekjennelser). Mot denne tradisjonsforståelsen settes så Tradisjon II som handler om et to-kilde-konsept av tradisjon. Her adskilles Skriften og tradisjonen i større grad og denne forståelsen preger så den historiske romersk-katolske kirke (og ortodokse kirke) helt frem til i dag. Men i tillegg til denne tradisjonsforståelsen mener Mathison å vise til en Tradisjon III-forståelse som har vokst frem i den romersk-katolske kirke de siste århundrer koblet med læren om pavens ufeilbarlighet: kilden til åpenbaring synes her å være det nålevende magisterium.
Men til sist, den mest gjenkjennelige tradisjonsforståelsen, Tradisjon 0. Dette er arven vi har fra de radikale reformatorene og som gjerne impliseres når man snakker om Sola Scriptura i våre kretser, men som er en forvrengning av hva både Luther og Calvin mente med uttrykket. Her kunne vi, som noen endrer utrykket til, kalle det: solo scriptura eller kanskje enda bedre nuda scriptura. Den individuelle troende trenger bare Skriften og Den hellige ånd. Til syvende og sist er det det autonome selv som er autoriteten i møte med Skrift og tradisjon. Kirkens bekjennelsesdannelse har ikke noen reell autoritet over bibelfortolkningen, ikke på annet plan enn som andre samtidige lærde.
Et sentralt poeng i Mathisons analyse er dermed at det er denne posisjonen som assosieres med protestantisme og dermed angripes av alle katolske apologeter og som likeledes forlates av våre dagers protestantiske kirkepilgrimer som strømmer til Rom. For Mathison er det derfor et viktig poeng å rehabilitere det han mener både den tidlige kirke og reformasjonen lærte om saken og hvordan Bibelen selv forutsetter om Skrift og tradisjon.
Om han enn kunne hatt med mer fyldig stoff om Luthers tradisjonsforståelse (som ble stemoderlig behandlet, kanskje ikke så overraskende fra en reformert teolog) og senket polemikken til tider, så gav det hvert fall meg nyttige begreper å tenke i og dessuten en bred historisk, bibelsk og systematisk innføring i en viktig og aktuell debatt.
Mathison bruker Luther-forskeren Heiko Obermans ulike tradisjonsbegrep til å inndele kirkehistorien. Tradisjon I viser til den tidlige oldkirkens (minimum de første 300 år) og reformatorenes (Luther og Calvin) forståelse av forholdet mellom Skrift og tradisjon. Her sammenfaller Skrift og tradisjon: NT er "the inscripturisation" av den apostoliske forkynnelsen og sammen med GT fungerer det som høyeste autoritet, norm og kilde for åpenbaring - foreløpig kjent stoff - men Skriftene skal også fortolkes i og av Kirken innenfor den hermeneutiske kontekst av regula fidei (altså de klassiske oppramsingene av det sentrale i den kristne tro som vi senere kaller bekjennelser). Mot denne tradisjonsforståelsen settes så Tradisjon II som handler om et to-kilde-konsept av tradisjon. Her adskilles Skriften og tradisjonen i større grad og denne forståelsen preger så den historiske romersk-katolske kirke (og ortodokse kirke) helt frem til i dag. Men i tillegg til denne tradisjonsforståelsen mener Mathison å vise til en Tradisjon III-forståelse som har vokst frem i den romersk-katolske kirke de siste århundrer koblet med læren om pavens ufeilbarlighet: kilden til åpenbaring synes her å være det nålevende magisterium.
Men til sist, den mest gjenkjennelige tradisjonsforståelsen, Tradisjon 0. Dette er arven vi har fra de radikale reformatorene og som gjerne impliseres når man snakker om Sola Scriptura i våre kretser, men som er en forvrengning av hva både Luther og Calvin mente med uttrykket. Her kunne vi, som noen endrer utrykket til, kalle det: solo scriptura eller kanskje enda bedre nuda scriptura. Den individuelle troende trenger bare Skriften og Den hellige ånd. Til syvende og sist er det det autonome selv som er autoriteten i møte med Skrift og tradisjon. Kirkens bekjennelsesdannelse har ikke noen reell autoritet over bibelfortolkningen, ikke på annet plan enn som andre samtidige lærde.
Et sentralt poeng i Mathisons analyse er dermed at det er denne posisjonen som assosieres med protestantisme og dermed angripes av alle katolske apologeter og som likeledes forlates av våre dagers protestantiske kirkepilgrimer som strømmer til Rom. For Mathison er det derfor et viktig poeng å rehabilitere det han mener både den tidlige kirke og reformasjonen lærte om saken og hvordan Bibelen selv forutsetter om Skrift og tradisjon.
Om han enn kunne hatt med mer fyldig stoff om Luthers tradisjonsforståelse (som ble stemoderlig behandlet, kanskje ikke så overraskende fra en reformert teolog) og senket polemikken til tider, så gav det hvert fall meg nyttige begreper å tenke i og dessuten en bred historisk, bibelsk og systematisk innføring i en viktig og aktuell debatt.
May 25, 2024
Mathison does a good job exposing the major problems of “solo Scriptura” - enlightenment rationalism, individual hermeneutical thinking in Evangelicalism today as well as documenting some major holes in Roman Catholicism. He emphasizes the important distinction between solo vs sola but I wasn’t completely satisfied with his overall thesis of defending sola Scriptura. There is still an itch I can’t scratch on how to harmonize “the rule of faith” and hermeneutics with the ultimate authority being Scripture. Can Creeds develop in maturity over time? Or are they infallible exactly as they stand? How does Mother Church navigate this today? The East and the West even have a difference in the Nicene Creed. For me these issues were only addressed at the surface level and has encouraged me to go deeper on these foundational issues. This book is a good resource but not the one stop shop go to book for sola Scriptura.
August 2, 2024
A must read for every Protestant wrestling with the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. Simply excellent and historically illuminating!
April 5, 2025
Thoroughly enjoyed this in depth Birds Eye view, if I can call it that.
It made me enjoy reading my Bible even more, and love the tradition that stems from it.
Chuckling to myself, I couldn’t help but thank the Lord for my fantastic elders.
It made me enjoy reading my Bible even more, and love the tradition that stems from it.
Chuckling to myself, I couldn’t help but thank the Lord for my fantastic elders.
May 16, 2025
Going into reading this book, I had no expectations of what was going to be talked about, so like all things I kept an open mind. There were two points in which I am grading this: 1) if the section on the development of tradition in the early church through the medieval era; and 2) what positive scriptural case it gave for the doctrine of sola scriptura.
All in all, it failed on both points. While a much better book than my recent read through of Doug Wilson and James White's books on Catholicism, it still did not ultimately meet me where I need to be met. On the first point, the vast majority of Mathison's work through the early church and medieval era was a short overview, the vast majority of his citations are from historians or theologians. He bases his evaluation on schemas received from other historians/theologians, and runs with it. While this is not bad in-and-of-itself, it is impotent when it comes to bringing a positive historical case for what he is proposing. All that is to say, if his version of sola scriptura is correct, he needs to provide an actual historical case for this so that there is no doubt that he is correct. There has to be actual evidence, unanimously agreeing on this point from the Fathers. Basing research on modern historical and theological analysis from other scholars fails in bringing a good case forward. On the second point, He really doesn't provide a good scriptural basis for this. The vast majority of his time was spent dealing with what others say about sola scriptura regarding specific passages in the scriptures. I view this the same as the previous point, not providing a conclusive positive case from the scriptures is an impotent evaluation. If sola scriptura is true historically, we need to have undeniable proof from the historical record that it was held for the last 2,000 years, or that it was severed in the medieval era. Likewise, we need irrefutable proof that the doctrine is true from the scriptures themselves. As this is the very nature of the doctrine. Neither of these has been brought to the table in this book.
As a secondary note on why I gave this three stars, instead of one. On page 255, he states that the current arguments are usually scripture versus tradition, but he says the better question is scripture and which tradition. He provides his argument based on a version of scripture and tradition, that said tradition not going outside of what is found in scripture. This is a far better argument than any version I have heard. However, I still do not find it a compelling argument. Because if the dividing line is over tradition, then you truly cease to be protestant as we know of it now. There is also no real argument to be had with Catholics on this subject, because it is a difference of traditions, and not a difference of authority in that tradition. It would be no more a discussion than a Presbyterian talking with an Anglican on their traditional differences. The argument is set to hedge against modern Protestants and evangelicals, and say "I'm different, I'm unique from those people", when in fact the argument isn't all that different because you still fight against Catholics in the same way, over the same things. If you walk like a duck, quack like a duck, you aren't an eagle. You're a duck, simple as.
All in all, it failed on both points. While a much better book than my recent read through of Doug Wilson and James White's books on Catholicism, it still did not ultimately meet me where I need to be met. On the first point, the vast majority of Mathison's work through the early church and medieval era was a short overview, the vast majority of his citations are from historians or theologians. He bases his evaluation on schemas received from other historians/theologians, and runs with it. While this is not bad in-and-of-itself, it is impotent when it comes to bringing a positive historical case for what he is proposing. All that is to say, if his version of sola scriptura is correct, he needs to provide an actual historical case for this so that there is no doubt that he is correct. There has to be actual evidence, unanimously agreeing on this point from the Fathers. Basing research on modern historical and theological analysis from other scholars fails in bringing a good case forward. On the second point, He really doesn't provide a good scriptural basis for this. The vast majority of his time was spent dealing with what others say about sola scriptura regarding specific passages in the scriptures. I view this the same as the previous point, not providing a conclusive positive case from the scriptures is an impotent evaluation. If sola scriptura is true historically, we need to have undeniable proof from the historical record that it was held for the last 2,000 years, or that it was severed in the medieval era. Likewise, we need irrefutable proof that the doctrine is true from the scriptures themselves. As this is the very nature of the doctrine. Neither of these has been brought to the table in this book.
As a secondary note on why I gave this three stars, instead of one. On page 255, he states that the current arguments are usually scripture versus tradition, but he says the better question is scripture and which tradition. He provides his argument based on a version of scripture and tradition, that said tradition not going outside of what is found in scripture. This is a far better argument than any version I have heard. However, I still do not find it a compelling argument. Because if the dividing line is over tradition, then you truly cease to be protestant as we know of it now. There is also no real argument to be had with Catholics on this subject, because it is a difference of traditions, and not a difference of authority in that tradition. It would be no more a discussion than a Presbyterian talking with an Anglican on their traditional differences. The argument is set to hedge against modern Protestants and evangelicals, and say "I'm different, I'm unique from those people", when in fact the argument isn't all that different because you still fight against Catholics in the same way, over the same things. If you walk like a duck, quack like a duck, you aren't an eagle. You're a duck, simple as.
January 8, 2013
Great book that seeks to recover what the magisterial Reformers meant by "Sola Scriptura". I would recommend this with the book "Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings" by James Payton. I have never heard of the view of Heiko Oberman that breaks the whole thing down to different views of Tradition. Tradition I= Single exegetical tradition of interpreting Scripture (i.e. Early Church view, what the reformers were trying to get back); Tradition II= Two source exegetical tradition of interpreting Scripture, Allows for extra-scriptural revelation as authoritative as Scripture itself; Tradition III= Infallibility of the Church or Sola Ecclesia (i.e. modern Roman Catholic view) I learned that the issue of papal infallibility started with a dispute with the Pope and the Franciscans around 1300 A.D. He got his information from a scholarly book "Origins of Papal Infallibility: 1150-1350" by Brian Tierney. There is a section that answers objections that Catholics and Orthodox raise and most of it comes down to them confusing Tradition I with Tradition 0 (i.e. no Tradition). I did not give it a 5 star rating just because I think much more needs to be done with the Early Church Fathers. I am still reading and reaching this subject so if you have any suggestion from any perspective I would love to hear about them. I am going to start reading parts of John Morrison's Book "Has God Said:Scripture, the Word of God, and the Crisis of Theological Authority". Then I am going to start the book "Not by Scripture Alone" which Peter Kreeft said was one of the best treatments against Sola Scriptura. We will see!
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December 1, 2025I so wanted this book to convince me. It didn't.
Lutheranism: Martin Luther, who had an epiphany of "faith alone" and attempted to reform the Catholic Church
Calvinism: John Calvin, wrote The Institutes of The Christian Religion and attempted to reform the Catholic Church back to the early church
Mennonites: Menno Simons
Baptists: John Smyth (who baptized himself)
Pentecostals: Charles Fox Parham
Mormons: Joseph Smith, who claimed to have a special revelation from God and sought to restore the early church (and wrote the Book of Mormon)
Catholic Church: traces back to the early church Fathers (there is highly credible evidence for this kept through consistent records)
Eastern Orthodox Church: traces back to the early church Fathers (there is highly credible evidence for this kept through consistent records)
The Protestant might argue that the Catholic Church was corrupt so it had to be Reformed. (Catholics themselves acknowledge this, and did in fact make a lot of changes.) However, seeing as how Luther and Calvin were attempting to reform the Catholic Church and **bring the church back to its earliest patristic form**, the burden of proof is on Protestants to prove that Protestantism (and Sola Scriptura, which Protestantism hinges on) is in fact the closest belief and practice to the beliefs and practices of the early Church Fathers. This is where it gets wilding.
Mathison quotes Calvin, who said, "You know...not only that our agreement with antiquity is far closer than yours, but that all we have attempted has been to renew that ancient form of the Church."
So the question is, was that the actual outcome of the Reformation? Did it in fact renew the ancient form of the Church?
Mathison begins his book attempting to prove just that. But immediately one runs into problems.
The first section is a very quick overview of early church fathers. It leaves out two important voices (relevant to the topic): Ignatius and Origen. The quotes that are used are extremely selective and only taken from those passages that appear (removed from their context, and perhaps most importantly, the context of the lives and practices of the church fathers) to set the groundwork for sola scriptura. (This was a doctrine that was introduced by the Reformers.)
There is little to no attempt to set the quotations of these Fathers in their broader framework (like the fact that a lot of the fathers were bishops (episkopos), a role that was distinctly separate from the role of priests (or pastor, if that's more comfortable)…the "presbyters".
The Fathers believed the authority of the Church as established through apostolic succession was the prerequisite to interpret Scripture. (This is laid out in great detail in Tertullian’s Prescription Against Heretics.)
According to Tertullian, the church was not simply a hermeneutical context for interpretation, as expressed through creeds, as Mathison suggests. Rather, the rule of faith was not only the creeds, but the creeds embedded in the living tradition and authority of the church itself, as passed down through title and deed to those who could verify their apostolic succession as carefully handed down from the apostles. (The church kept records of succession in great detail.)
Tertullian’s prescription against heretics was the challenge that heretics needed to prove their apostolic succession. If the heretic could not prove his succession, Tertullian refused to even discuss scripture with them (knowing that they would twist it.) In addition, heretics needed to prove that their doctrine was fully in alignment with the ancient church.
For the early church, having a bishop (or not) was a big deal. In fact, Ignatius, one of the earliest fathers, even went so far as to compare the bishop as acting in the place of God. Other Fathers, too, can be heard saying things like "obey the bishop." It was a clear appeal to authority unified under a bishop, and it's really different than merely saying (like Mathison does) that the Church collectively exercises a "hermeneutical context" through creeds (which you can just pick and choose from as it suits the fancy of your group or even just write a new church code as desired.)
Those passages taken from Church Fathers that were included in Mathison’s book on the admission that —when taken at face value— taught that the early church fathers relied on the authority of the church rather than sola scriptura were dismissed through mental gymnastics.
In the section on Vincent of Lerins (450) taken from Comonitory, Lerins clearly states that Tradition/church authority are necessary for proper Scriptural interpretation.
Mathison comes away with the odd conclusion that Vincent was consistent with the "one-source" concept of tradition, and that for Vincent Scripture was “the only, primary and ultimate, canon of Christian truth.” (pg. 43)
Compare that statement with this one, from Vincent’s Comonitory:
“"What ground have you for saying that I ought to cast away the universal and ancient faith of the Catholic Church? [The heretic] has the ready answer: "For it is written." And forthwith he produces a thousand examples, a thousand authorities from the Law, from the Psalms, from the apostles, from the prophets, by means of which, interpreted on a new and wrong principle, the unhappy soul may be precipitated from the height of Catholic truth to the lowest abyss of heresy.”
Taken as a whole, the early church fathers baptized infants. They saw the Eucharist as the true body and blood of Christ. They widely read the deuterocanonical books and quoted them in a way that was indistinguishable from the rest of Scripture (!!) They prayed facing East (like the Orthodox.) They made the sign of the cross. And they did those things because they said they were passed down to them by the apostles.
The early Fathers believed church authority and tradition were inseparable from Scripture. Revelation came through one living stream of Holy Tradition, which came through two modes, both written and oral.
In Mathison’s book there is a definition of “Tradition I” (allegedly a sola scriptura type view using the creeds as a rule of faith) versus “Tradition II” (allegedly two separate streams of tradition, written and oral) that summarizes a shift from the views of the church fathers to later views that began to emerge in the Catholic Church around the 12th-14th century.
He establishes this framework to attempt to make the argument that the early church was “Tradition I” (basically sola scriptura.) But these categories are insufficient and far too tidy to describe the actual mindset of the early church.
Taken *as a whole* the early church Fathers agreed on a great deal of things, and consensus of the gatherings of bishops was affirmed in the ecumenical councils. When you embrace a non-Protestant narrative it's wonderful because you no longer have to slice and dice history into categories like the “pure” first four centuries versus afterward, when allegedly the church became rife with accretions.
Instead one can simply embrace the whole of church history, the Fathers, and the consensus of the councils. Protestants, by contrast, are forced to rely on a few random people like the theologian Ratramnus (an outlier who believed in a spiritual concept of the Eucharist) to try to create a more Protestant picture of history.
When Protestants come across early church views that don’t align with the reformed lens, they must blame it on “developments” of the 3rd or 4th century. Unfortunately this makes almost everything up for grabs. It isn’t at all surprising that we end up with a largely “solo scriptura” evangelical church.
Keeping in mind that the canon of scripture itself wasn’t fully affirmed until the 4th century A.D., it isn’t at all surprising to find some variety of opinion amongst the early church fathers, and there’s no need to prove that something must be seen as operating in its completely developed form in the first century or two of church history. (Of course we find some things in seed form because the church was brand new, growing, under persecution, and forming its identity.) However, it is fair to ask if the fully developed tree at all resembles its seed.
Mathison critiques the Orthodox Church’s ambiguity as to how acceptance of an ecumenical council is achieved, but he fails to provide a better alternative. Although the East is more comfortable with mystery, however, Orthodox are not ambiguous on their acceptance of the first seven ecumenical councils, which they hold dear.
He even goes so far as to equate the Orthodox view of the authority of the church Fathers with blasphemy. The Orthodox do not claim that the Fathers were infallible, but rather taken as a whole, authoritative.
The quote on pg. 234 containing the alleged blasphemy is worth further investigation, when such a strong claim by Mathison is made from a single quote. The Orthodox Church teaches that Christ is the head over the church. This was confirmed by the Fathers and the Ecumenical Councils which Orthodox submit to. This reality contradicts Mathison’s accusation that the Orthodox Church sets itself up as God, or is autonomous.
On the contrary, it submits itself to the consensus of the patristic fathers and the councils of the bishops and is in unity with them (that’s how they can claim to be equivalent to the mind of the fathers.) pg. 235
This is important because once a person begins to reject the consensus of the Fathers and the councils, Christianity is bound to become a choose-your-own-adventure buffet.
My takeaway is that one must read primary sources for ourselves. When one reads the apostolic Fathers directly in their context (and within the context of how the Fathers practiced their faith), reads the ecumenical councils, and reads church history books written from a neutral source…a different picture begins to emerge from the haze over time.
But Mathison attempts to paint a proto-Protestant picture from the church Fathers. He even went so far as to list Thomas Aquinas as a person who belongs in the list of "Tradition I." Thomas Aquinas would surely not have agreed. Aquinas said, "A man is bound to believe those things which are in the doctrine of the church, even if they are not contained in Scripture." (Summa Theologiae). He was a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic! That's why the Catholic Church endorsed his teachings and considered them authoritative. To suggest that he did not fully embrace church Tradition and its authority alongside Scripture is a serious misinterpretation.
On page 184 Mathison says the patristic consensus of the early church in regards to Matthew 16:17-19 (on this rock I will build my church), was that they almost always thought that it was a reference to Christ himself. But actually, most church fathers viewed that passage as referring to the faith of Peter. The second most common understanding was Peter himself. And the most rare interpretation was that it was Christ.
Even when Fathers did view it as a reference to Christ himself, it was usually a reference alongside the confession of faith or Peter’s representative role. While this doesn’t in and of itself prove the papacy, it does reflect the need to check primary sources for oneself.
The section in the book on the canon of Scripture, likewise, is problematic because it relies on a few obscure Bibles from the Middle Ages to argue for the concept that the church of the Middle Ages was “confused” and was uncertain of its Biblical canon. This is an overstatement at best; the Vulgate was widely used by the church in liturgy and the life of the church, and the Catholic Church had (again) re-affirmed the validity of the deuterocanonical books in the council of Florence in the 1400’s. But reformers have to rely on scanty evidence to support their claim that Luther was justified in shifting seven books to “secondary to scripture” status.
Which brings me to a really important point. If we are to believe that Protestants have the highest view of Scripture, on what grounds do we accept that Luther effectively demoted seven books of Holy Scripture that were widely used by the early church and confirmed by the early church at the Councils of Carthage and Hippo?
Protestants must downplay the practice of the early church and its councils (even though we rely on them for foundational doctrines like The Trinity and The Divinity of Christ, and take our creeds from them). It's inconvenient to the Protestant narrative to acknowledge that it’s a big deal that the councils affirmed the deuterocanonical books.
Instead, they must rely on Luther's opinion and the single voice of Jerome who suggested omitting them. Mathison attempts to paint selectively accepting creeds or councils as only a “solo-scriptura” problem, but it is also true for adherents to sola scriptura.
Protestants can't truly affirm the importance of the councils and the consensus of the church (the only Church there was for the first 1,000 years) because that would be to affirm the deuterocanonical books, icons, and many other “un Protestant” but very Christian beliefs grounded in the history of the church.
Luther preferred the Hebrew canon, and he also disliked James because it was too Catholic for his liking, Revelation, Hebrews, and the book of Esther. A person can read his critical comments on these books for themselves, and we should read them if we rely on this person to give us our (new and improved) canon of Scripture.
Mathison argues for the idea that Luther had to choose between “apostolic succession” and “an apostolic life.” But it’s more complicated than that. Luther encouraged the princes to kill an uprising of German peasants (which they did and killed 100,000 of them) but still for some reason we tend to overlook this. The New Testament teaches that “they will know we are Christians by our love.” We are taught to test the fruits. Downplaying this is not wise, because we end up rejecting the abuses of Catholicism but giving a pass to the violence of one our greatest heroes of the faith.
Next the book gets into the problem of attempting to distinguish "magisterial Reformers" like Luther and Calvin with "radical reformers" like the Anabaptists. Mathison must distance sola scriptura from “Tradition 0” which he calls solo scriptura.
But this too is problematic. Why? First, it's a problem because it sets up Calvinistic and Reformed churches as the only truly valid church (anything less is just radical individualism.) But even if one takes that route, there remains another problem. It doesn't work theoretically or pragmatically.
Mathison sets up a distinction between the "magisterial Reformers" as submitting to Scripture as the highest authority but acknowledges they must interpret it by the consensus of "the church." He recognized the problem with solo scriptura and makes the argument that the church provides the interpretation through “hermeneutical context,” found in creeds. He also acknowledges that the church has the authority to do that.
Well, who is the church? What creeds? And why those and not others? “The church” becomes one’s own group and the creeds they decide to pick. This is a different picture than the church as a whole entity, whose beliefs and authority was passed down from the apostles, as in the time of the early church Fathers.
Isn’t Mathison’s Magisterial Reformers church framework still a form of individualism as expressed through one’s own sectarian group? The baptists write their own church codes and pick their creeds. The Lutherans do the same. The Presbyterians have their own as well.
Mathison recognizes that solo scriptura is unworkable. If it is self-evident what books of the Bible belong in the canon and what they mean, why do we end up with so many different interpretations from “the church”?
But he is unable to solve the problem with sola scriptura. Under the whims of Luther, Protestants received a new canon with demoted deuterocanonical books. Unlike the early church fathers, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli disagreed among themselves on what the Eucharist consists of. Mathison’s “Reformers As the Authority” doesn’t solve the problem of solo scriptura. It just sets the reformers up as the new church fathers.
Calvin appeals to a type of reading Scripture "with pure eyes" and then the Holy Spirit will reveal the inherent truth of the Bible. But who decides whether this interpretation is correct? Calvin wrote his own interpretation. Luther had another. They both were by definition individualists, and for them “the church” consisted of their own followers. They became the new unquestionable authority.
This is the biggest problem with the concept of Sola Scriptura as laid out by Mathison. It relies on circular reasoning. The Reformed Church interprets Scripture. The Reformed Church claims its interpretation is correct because it aligns with the creeds/kerygma. How do we know the Reformed Church’s reading aligns with the kerygma? Because the Reformers say so.
Mathison mentions the "Keys to Sacred Scripture," presumably as an example of how reformed theology should work, which is the text written by Matthias Flacius Illyricus in 1567. What were these keys to interpret sacred Scripture? Certainly they were just pulled from the Church Fathers, since the intent of the Reformers was to reform the Catholic Church back to its original ancient state, right?
Wrong. The keys for interpretation, in this case, were The Lutheran Confessions, including the apostles creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, AND the Augsburg Confession (1530), the apology of the Augsburg Confession, The Schmalkald Articles, The Small and Large Cathechisms of Martin Luther, and the Formula of Concord (taken together these were The Book of Concord.) The Book of Concord is explicitly Lutheran, and its doctrines were considered binding.
This is proof that while Sola Scriptura sounds great, in practice it is impossible and must result in sectarian and individualistic interpretations. Effectively it simply shifted the authority from the Catholic Church to Luther. Or Calvin. Or whichever reformer your church holds up as having the correct interpretation. Or the Archbishop of Canterbury. Or your pastor.
Surely these reformed books and doctrines were simply restatements of the church Fathers, right? Well, no, not exactly. One is hard pressed to find the doctrine of Sola Fide or Sola Scriptura from the writings of the Church Fathers (when read in their context, and the context of the lives and practices of those fathers.) Would the early church fathers and bishops recognize sola fide? Or sola scriptura? If they visited a Protestant church, would they recognize it as anything even vaguely resembling the early church? Would 4th century bishops approve of later Christians disregarding the authority of the 7th ecumenical council?
Essentially one is left with the conclusion that far from restoring the church back to its original state, the Reformation instead brought into birth something totally new and *not* totally ancient. That's why Protestantism doesn't even have the same fullness of the sacred texts as the early church. And it’s why most Protestants don’t know who the church fathers were, let alone what they wrote or how they practiced the faith.
Wouldn’t you think that if the reformation restored the church to its ancient practice and belief that we Protestants would be extremely familiar with all of these? The fact that we’re not—and even generally view them with suspicion—is pretty telling.
If Protestantism deserves to be taken seriously it must prove from the early church (the first bishops who were appointed from the apostles) that the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is valid. The problem is, when you look for it with your own eyes from primary sources taken in their context, it just doesn’t seem to be there.
Lutheranism: Martin Luther, who had an epiphany of "faith alone" and attempted to reform the Catholic Church
Calvinism: John Calvin, wrote The Institutes of The Christian Religion and attempted to reform the Catholic Church back to the early church
Mennonites: Menno Simons
Baptists: John Smyth (who baptized himself)
Pentecostals: Charles Fox Parham
Mormons: Joseph Smith, who claimed to have a special revelation from God and sought to restore the early church (and wrote the Book of Mormon)
Catholic Church: traces back to the early church Fathers (there is highly credible evidence for this kept through consistent records)
Eastern Orthodox Church: traces back to the early church Fathers (there is highly credible evidence for this kept through consistent records)
The Protestant might argue that the Catholic Church was corrupt so it had to be Reformed. (Catholics themselves acknowledge this, and did in fact make a lot of changes.) However, seeing as how Luther and Calvin were attempting to reform the Catholic Church and **bring the church back to its earliest patristic form**, the burden of proof is on Protestants to prove that Protestantism (and Sola Scriptura, which Protestantism hinges on) is in fact the closest belief and practice to the beliefs and practices of the early Church Fathers. This is where it gets wilding.
Mathison quotes Calvin, who said, "You know...not only that our agreement with antiquity is far closer than yours, but that all we have attempted has been to renew that ancient form of the Church."
So the question is, was that the actual outcome of the Reformation? Did it in fact renew the ancient form of the Church?
Mathison begins his book attempting to prove just that. But immediately one runs into problems.
The first section is a very quick overview of early church fathers. It leaves out two important voices (relevant to the topic): Ignatius and Origen. The quotes that are used are extremely selective and only taken from those passages that appear (removed from their context, and perhaps most importantly, the context of the lives and practices of the church fathers) to set the groundwork for sola scriptura. (This was a doctrine that was introduced by the Reformers.)
There is little to no attempt to set the quotations of these Fathers in their broader framework (like the fact that a lot of the fathers were bishops (episkopos), a role that was distinctly separate from the role of priests (or pastor, if that's more comfortable)…the "presbyters".
The Fathers believed the authority of the Church as established through apostolic succession was the prerequisite to interpret Scripture. (This is laid out in great detail in Tertullian’s Prescription Against Heretics.)
According to Tertullian, the church was not simply a hermeneutical context for interpretation, as expressed through creeds, as Mathison suggests. Rather, the rule of faith was not only the creeds, but the creeds embedded in the living tradition and authority of the church itself, as passed down through title and deed to those who could verify their apostolic succession as carefully handed down from the apostles. (The church kept records of succession in great detail.)
Tertullian’s prescription against heretics was the challenge that heretics needed to prove their apostolic succession. If the heretic could not prove his succession, Tertullian refused to even discuss scripture with them (knowing that they would twist it.) In addition, heretics needed to prove that their doctrine was fully in alignment with the ancient church.
For the early church, having a bishop (or not) was a big deal. In fact, Ignatius, one of the earliest fathers, even went so far as to compare the bishop as acting in the place of God. Other Fathers, too, can be heard saying things like "obey the bishop." It was a clear appeal to authority unified under a bishop, and it's really different than merely saying (like Mathison does) that the Church collectively exercises a "hermeneutical context" through creeds (which you can just pick and choose from as it suits the fancy of your group or even just write a new church code as desired.)
Those passages taken from Church Fathers that were included in Mathison’s book on the admission that —when taken at face value— taught that the early church fathers relied on the authority of the church rather than sola scriptura were dismissed through mental gymnastics.
In the section on Vincent of Lerins (450) taken from Comonitory, Lerins clearly states that Tradition/church authority are necessary for proper Scriptural interpretation.
Mathison comes away with the odd conclusion that Vincent was consistent with the "one-source" concept of tradition, and that for Vincent Scripture was “the only, primary and ultimate, canon of Christian truth.” (pg. 43)
Compare that statement with this one, from Vincent’s Comonitory:
“"What ground have you for saying that I ought to cast away the universal and ancient faith of the Catholic Church? [The heretic] has the ready answer: "For it is written." And forthwith he produces a thousand examples, a thousand authorities from the Law, from the Psalms, from the apostles, from the prophets, by means of which, interpreted on a new and wrong principle, the unhappy soul may be precipitated from the height of Catholic truth to the lowest abyss of heresy.”
Taken as a whole, the early church fathers baptized infants. They saw the Eucharist as the true body and blood of Christ. They widely read the deuterocanonical books and quoted them in a way that was indistinguishable from the rest of Scripture (!!) They prayed facing East (like the Orthodox.) They made the sign of the cross. And they did those things because they said they were passed down to them by the apostles.
The early Fathers believed church authority and tradition were inseparable from Scripture. Revelation came through one living stream of Holy Tradition, which came through two modes, both written and oral.
In Mathison’s book there is a definition of “Tradition I” (allegedly a sola scriptura type view using the creeds as a rule of faith) versus “Tradition II” (allegedly two separate streams of tradition, written and oral) that summarizes a shift from the views of the church fathers to later views that began to emerge in the Catholic Church around the 12th-14th century.
He establishes this framework to attempt to make the argument that the early church was “Tradition I” (basically sola scriptura.) But these categories are insufficient and far too tidy to describe the actual mindset of the early church.
Taken *as a whole* the early church Fathers agreed on a great deal of things, and consensus of the gatherings of bishops was affirmed in the ecumenical councils. When you embrace a non-Protestant narrative it's wonderful because you no longer have to slice and dice history into categories like the “pure” first four centuries versus afterward, when allegedly the church became rife with accretions.
Instead one can simply embrace the whole of church history, the Fathers, and the consensus of the councils. Protestants, by contrast, are forced to rely on a few random people like the theologian Ratramnus (an outlier who believed in a spiritual concept of the Eucharist) to try to create a more Protestant picture of history.
When Protestants come across early church views that don’t align with the reformed lens, they must blame it on “developments” of the 3rd or 4th century. Unfortunately this makes almost everything up for grabs. It isn’t at all surprising that we end up with a largely “solo scriptura” evangelical church.
Keeping in mind that the canon of scripture itself wasn’t fully affirmed until the 4th century A.D., it isn’t at all surprising to find some variety of opinion amongst the early church fathers, and there’s no need to prove that something must be seen as operating in its completely developed form in the first century or two of church history. (Of course we find some things in seed form because the church was brand new, growing, under persecution, and forming its identity.) However, it is fair to ask if the fully developed tree at all resembles its seed.
Mathison critiques the Orthodox Church’s ambiguity as to how acceptance of an ecumenical council is achieved, but he fails to provide a better alternative. Although the East is more comfortable with mystery, however, Orthodox are not ambiguous on their acceptance of the first seven ecumenical councils, which they hold dear.
He even goes so far as to equate the Orthodox view of the authority of the church Fathers with blasphemy. The Orthodox do not claim that the Fathers were infallible, but rather taken as a whole, authoritative.
The quote on pg. 234 containing the alleged blasphemy is worth further investigation, when such a strong claim by Mathison is made from a single quote. The Orthodox Church teaches that Christ is the head over the church. This was confirmed by the Fathers and the Ecumenical Councils which Orthodox submit to. This reality contradicts Mathison’s accusation that the Orthodox Church sets itself up as God, or is autonomous.
On the contrary, it submits itself to the consensus of the patristic fathers and the councils of the bishops and is in unity with them (that’s how they can claim to be equivalent to the mind of the fathers.) pg. 235
This is important because once a person begins to reject the consensus of the Fathers and the councils, Christianity is bound to become a choose-your-own-adventure buffet.
My takeaway is that one must read primary sources for ourselves. When one reads the apostolic Fathers directly in their context (and within the context of how the Fathers practiced their faith), reads the ecumenical councils, and reads church history books written from a neutral source…a different picture begins to emerge from the haze over time.
But Mathison attempts to paint a proto-Protestant picture from the church Fathers. He even went so far as to list Thomas Aquinas as a person who belongs in the list of "Tradition I." Thomas Aquinas would surely not have agreed. Aquinas said, "A man is bound to believe those things which are in the doctrine of the church, even if they are not contained in Scripture." (Summa Theologiae). He was a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic! That's why the Catholic Church endorsed his teachings and considered them authoritative. To suggest that he did not fully embrace church Tradition and its authority alongside Scripture is a serious misinterpretation.
On page 184 Mathison says the patristic consensus of the early church in regards to Matthew 16:17-19 (on this rock I will build my church), was that they almost always thought that it was a reference to Christ himself. But actually, most church fathers viewed that passage as referring to the faith of Peter. The second most common understanding was Peter himself. And the most rare interpretation was that it was Christ.
Even when Fathers did view it as a reference to Christ himself, it was usually a reference alongside the confession of faith or Peter’s representative role. While this doesn’t in and of itself prove the papacy, it does reflect the need to check primary sources for oneself.
The section in the book on the canon of Scripture, likewise, is problematic because it relies on a few obscure Bibles from the Middle Ages to argue for the concept that the church of the Middle Ages was “confused” and was uncertain of its Biblical canon. This is an overstatement at best; the Vulgate was widely used by the church in liturgy and the life of the church, and the Catholic Church had (again) re-affirmed the validity of the deuterocanonical books in the council of Florence in the 1400’s. But reformers have to rely on scanty evidence to support their claim that Luther was justified in shifting seven books to “secondary to scripture” status.
Which brings me to a really important point. If we are to believe that Protestants have the highest view of Scripture, on what grounds do we accept that Luther effectively demoted seven books of Holy Scripture that were widely used by the early church and confirmed by the early church at the Councils of Carthage and Hippo?
Protestants must downplay the practice of the early church and its councils (even though we rely on them for foundational doctrines like The Trinity and The Divinity of Christ, and take our creeds from them). It's inconvenient to the Protestant narrative to acknowledge that it’s a big deal that the councils affirmed the deuterocanonical books.
Instead, they must rely on Luther's opinion and the single voice of Jerome who suggested omitting them. Mathison attempts to paint selectively accepting creeds or councils as only a “solo-scriptura” problem, but it is also true for adherents to sola scriptura.
Protestants can't truly affirm the importance of the councils and the consensus of the church (the only Church there was for the first 1,000 years) because that would be to affirm the deuterocanonical books, icons, and many other “un Protestant” but very Christian beliefs grounded in the history of the church.
Luther preferred the Hebrew canon, and he also disliked James because it was too Catholic for his liking, Revelation, Hebrews, and the book of Esther. A person can read his critical comments on these books for themselves, and we should read them if we rely on this person to give us our (new and improved) canon of Scripture.
Mathison argues for the idea that Luther had to choose between “apostolic succession” and “an apostolic life.” But it’s more complicated than that. Luther encouraged the princes to kill an uprising of German peasants (which they did and killed 100,000 of them) but still for some reason we tend to overlook this. The New Testament teaches that “they will know we are Christians by our love.” We are taught to test the fruits. Downplaying this is not wise, because we end up rejecting the abuses of Catholicism but giving a pass to the violence of one our greatest heroes of the faith.
Next the book gets into the problem of attempting to distinguish "magisterial Reformers" like Luther and Calvin with "radical reformers" like the Anabaptists. Mathison must distance sola scriptura from “Tradition 0” which he calls solo scriptura.
But this too is problematic. Why? First, it's a problem because it sets up Calvinistic and Reformed churches as the only truly valid church (anything less is just radical individualism.) But even if one takes that route, there remains another problem. It doesn't work theoretically or pragmatically.
Mathison sets up a distinction between the "magisterial Reformers" as submitting to Scripture as the highest authority but acknowledges they must interpret it by the consensus of "the church." He recognized the problem with solo scriptura and makes the argument that the church provides the interpretation through “hermeneutical context,” found in creeds. He also acknowledges that the church has the authority to do that.
Well, who is the church? What creeds? And why those and not others? “The church” becomes one’s own group and the creeds they decide to pick. This is a different picture than the church as a whole entity, whose beliefs and authority was passed down from the apostles, as in the time of the early church Fathers.
Isn’t Mathison’s Magisterial Reformers church framework still a form of individualism as expressed through one’s own sectarian group? The baptists write their own church codes and pick their creeds. The Lutherans do the same. The Presbyterians have their own as well.
Mathison recognizes that solo scriptura is unworkable. If it is self-evident what books of the Bible belong in the canon and what they mean, why do we end up with so many different interpretations from “the church”?
But he is unable to solve the problem with sola scriptura. Under the whims of Luther, Protestants received a new canon with demoted deuterocanonical books. Unlike the early church fathers, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli disagreed among themselves on what the Eucharist consists of. Mathison’s “Reformers As the Authority” doesn’t solve the problem of solo scriptura. It just sets the reformers up as the new church fathers.
Calvin appeals to a type of reading Scripture "with pure eyes" and then the Holy Spirit will reveal the inherent truth of the Bible. But who decides whether this interpretation is correct? Calvin wrote his own interpretation. Luther had another. They both were by definition individualists, and for them “the church” consisted of their own followers. They became the new unquestionable authority.
This is the biggest problem with the concept of Sola Scriptura as laid out by Mathison. It relies on circular reasoning. The Reformed Church interprets Scripture. The Reformed Church claims its interpretation is correct because it aligns with the creeds/kerygma. How do we know the Reformed Church’s reading aligns with the kerygma? Because the Reformers say so.
Mathison mentions the "Keys to Sacred Scripture," presumably as an example of how reformed theology should work, which is the text written by Matthias Flacius Illyricus in 1567. What were these keys to interpret sacred Scripture? Certainly they were just pulled from the Church Fathers, since the intent of the Reformers was to reform the Catholic Church back to its original ancient state, right?
Wrong. The keys for interpretation, in this case, were The Lutheran Confessions, including the apostles creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, AND the Augsburg Confession (1530), the apology of the Augsburg Confession, The Schmalkald Articles, The Small and Large Cathechisms of Martin Luther, and the Formula of Concord (taken together these were The Book of Concord.) The Book of Concord is explicitly Lutheran, and its doctrines were considered binding.
This is proof that while Sola Scriptura sounds great, in practice it is impossible and must result in sectarian and individualistic interpretations. Effectively it simply shifted the authority from the Catholic Church to Luther. Or Calvin. Or whichever reformer your church holds up as having the correct interpretation. Or the Archbishop of Canterbury. Or your pastor.
Surely these reformed books and doctrines were simply restatements of the church Fathers, right? Well, no, not exactly. One is hard pressed to find the doctrine of Sola Fide or Sola Scriptura from the writings of the Church Fathers (when read in their context, and the context of the lives and practices of those fathers.) Would the early church fathers and bishops recognize sola fide? Or sola scriptura? If they visited a Protestant church, would they recognize it as anything even vaguely resembling the early church? Would 4th century bishops approve of later Christians disregarding the authority of the 7th ecumenical council?
Essentially one is left with the conclusion that far from restoring the church back to its original state, the Reformation instead brought into birth something totally new and *not* totally ancient. That's why Protestantism doesn't even have the same fullness of the sacred texts as the early church. And it’s why most Protestants don’t know who the church fathers were, let alone what they wrote or how they practiced the faith.
Wouldn’t you think that if the reformation restored the church to its ancient practice and belief that we Protestants would be extremely familiar with all of these? The fact that we’re not—and even generally view them with suspicion—is pretty telling.
If Protestantism deserves to be taken seriously it must prove from the early church (the first bishops who were appointed from the apostles) that the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is valid. The problem is, when you look for it with your own eyes from primary sources taken in their context, it just doesn’t seem to be there.
September 2, 2022
Solid book defending the biblical doctrine of Sola Scriptura. I particularly appreciated the historical overview that both grounds the Reformational view solidly in the views of the early Church Fathers and points out the many times when Catholic tradition solidly contradicts itself. I would have appreciated more of a focus on defending the Reformational view against the modern evangelical view, particularly since I have some concerns with the Reformational view. (While I don't hold the modern evangelical view, I think traditional Reformational rhetoric needs to be nuanced some in order to deal with certain longstanding traditions that contain theological errors, particularly with regards to gender issues.) That being said, while I would have loved to see Mathison dialogue with the modern evangelical view as extensively as he does with the RCC view, this was still a helpful book to read.
Rating: 4 Stars (Very Good).
Rating: 4 Stars (Very Good).
July 27, 2025
This has been, by far, the most helpful book on this topic. (My notes on the book exceeded 7000 words!)
Using Heiko Oberman’s definitions of Traditions 0, 1, 2, and 3, Mathison explains both the historical and biblical cases that Sola Scriptura is, in fact, Tradition 1 (Scripture is the final authority and rule of faith, but can not be divorced from other authorities like the church) and not Solo Scriptura or Tradition 0 (which says scripture is the ONLY rule of faith.) In addition to that, he spends time going through claims and objections and how they, most of the time, simply misunderstand Tradition 1.
This is one of those books that have changed my thinking and I likely will use it for the remainder of my Christian walk.
Using Heiko Oberman’s definitions of Traditions 0, 1, 2, and 3, Mathison explains both the historical and biblical cases that Sola Scriptura is, in fact, Tradition 1 (Scripture is the final authority and rule of faith, but can not be divorced from other authorities like the church) and not Solo Scriptura or Tradition 0 (which says scripture is the ONLY rule of faith.) In addition to that, he spends time going through claims and objections and how they, most of the time, simply misunderstand Tradition 1.
This is one of those books that have changed my thinking and I likely will use it for the remainder of my Christian walk.
October 19, 2018
Très très bon livre sur Sola Scriptura, une défense à la fois historique (qui à elle seule vaut le coût du livre), exégétique et philosophique de ce principe, et un souci d'équilibre doctrinal remarquable. A la fin de ce livre, je suis plus que convaincu que nous devons nous éloigner des interprétations solitaires des écritures, et embrasser le modèle d'interprétation qui a toujours prévalu depuis les apôtres: Seule l'Ecriture est l'autorité suprême, mais la Tradition aussi a son autorité sur l'interprétation de l'écriture. Sola Scriptura et non Solo Scriptura.
A lire pour tous ceux qui sont intéressés par le débat ou même le problème de l'interprétation protestante.
A lire pour tous ceux qui sont intéressés par le débat ou même le problème de l'interprétation protestante.
September 19, 2024
I cannot reccomend this book enough. Rather than doing a normal review here is my presentation for part of my ministry at SSBS using this book: https://www.youtube.com/live/bJ_1YNB5.... It goes live September 21st, if you see this before then feel free to join us live and interact!
July 5, 2024
A very important book.
March 23, 2025
This is a neat volume. Although a bit repetitive by the end, it puts forth its arguments with clarity. Really appreciated the author's dedication to defining the term Sola Scriptura as well as stating what it isn't defined to be. The number and quality of citations in this book is inspiring.
April 17, 2022
This book is filled with Church history. The author takes you through the centuries starting with the Church fathers all the way through to our modern day. He attempts to pull out of the writings of the fathers what the Church believed about tradition and Scripture prior to the 4th century. Then, he shows you how various ideas of tradition begin to develop from the 4th century on, namely after the Great Schism.
This book puts on full display the issue with Rome's claim of being the true Church. The fact is, Rome is a schismatic. She did several unorthodox things (adding the filioque to the Nicene Creed, changing out the element of unleavened bread for the Eucharist, etc.), which the rest of the Church, i.e. Constantinople, didn't agree with. Rome eventually "excommunicated" Constantinople and the other 3 patriarchates as a result of her pride. Protestantism, whether we like it or not, is the product of division. We, Protestants, are the children of a schismatic; Rome. Just as wisdom is justified by her children, so is division. Rome divided from the Church in the Great Schism around the 11th century, magisterial reformers (Luther, etc.) divided from Rome in the 16th century (Luther didn't want to divide; Rome excommunicated him), and the Anabaptists further divided from the magisterial reformers for the sake of "solo Scirptura"; absolutely no tradition at all (not to be confused with "Sola Scriptura"). The Anabaptists left the interpretation of Scripture up to the individual and no longer respected the hermeneutical context Scripture is to be interpreted within; the Rule of Faith passed down by the Apostles to the fathers as seen in the creeds. Mix that with the experimentalist movement of the Puritans during the founding of America, the second Great Awakening's revivalism with people like Alexander Campbell (Church of Christ) and the restoration movement, Enlightenment rationalism over systematizing theology in the seminaries, and voila you've got the American church of our modern day.
This book contains some history and positions of the Orthodox church, but since Protestant history is more directly attached to Rome than orthodoxy, Rome is where the author spends most of his time. I would encourage Christians to dive deeper into the other side of the fence (Greek Orthodox), because, disagree with them about the use of icons or not, they are still in communion today and never divided, unlike Rome, of whom we, Protestants, in one form or another, are all children.
Fantastic book! Especially for those who haven't gotten their feet wet in Church history yet. This is a great taste of how recovering an understanding of what the Church has gone through can help guide us today, so we can continue building on the legacy we've been given.
---------------------------
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This book puts on full display the issue with Rome's claim of being the true Church. The fact is, Rome is a schismatic. She did several unorthodox things (adding the filioque to the Nicene Creed, changing out the element of unleavened bread for the Eucharist, etc.), which the rest of the Church, i.e. Constantinople, didn't agree with. Rome eventually "excommunicated" Constantinople and the other 3 patriarchates as a result of her pride. Protestantism, whether we like it or not, is the product of division. We, Protestants, are the children of a schismatic; Rome. Just as wisdom is justified by her children, so is division. Rome divided from the Church in the Great Schism around the 11th century, magisterial reformers (Luther, etc.) divided from Rome in the 16th century (Luther didn't want to divide; Rome excommunicated him), and the Anabaptists further divided from the magisterial reformers for the sake of "solo Scirptura"; absolutely no tradition at all (not to be confused with "Sola Scriptura"). The Anabaptists left the interpretation of Scripture up to the individual and no longer respected the hermeneutical context Scripture is to be interpreted within; the Rule of Faith passed down by the Apostles to the fathers as seen in the creeds. Mix that with the experimentalist movement of the Puritans during the founding of America, the second Great Awakening's revivalism with people like Alexander Campbell (Church of Christ) and the restoration movement, Enlightenment rationalism over systematizing theology in the seminaries, and voila you've got the American church of our modern day.
This book contains some history and positions of the Orthodox church, but since Protestant history is more directly attached to Rome than orthodoxy, Rome is where the author spends most of his time. I would encourage Christians to dive deeper into the other side of the fence (Greek Orthodox), because, disagree with them about the use of icons or not, they are still in communion today and never divided, unlike Rome, of whom we, Protestants, in one form or another, are all children.
Fantastic book! Especially for those who haven't gotten their feet wet in Church history yet. This is a great taste of how recovering an understanding of what the Church has gone through can help guide us today, so we can continue building on the legacy we've been given.
---------------------------
Follow!
www.laymansprogress.com
https://www.instagram.com/laymansprog...
June 26, 2022
Really interesting read. The book is for the position of “sola Scriptura”. However, though he critiques the Catholic and Orthodox positions on the topic, he also critiques the highly individualistic tendencies of many modern American Protestants, arguing that the classical Protestant view was that the Reformers were not seeking to create a new doctrine but rather return to the structure of the church and the relationship between Scripture and Tradition as they saw it in the early church. I think Catholics should read this book to get a better understanding of the doctrine of Sola Scritptura as the Reformers originally formulated it.
August 13, 2016
I didn't re-read this book, but I read this: http://johannulusdesilentio.blogspot.... and essentially I agree and, looking back, see all the historical shiftiness about it. I'd still recommend it above most Protestant explanations, but historical theology needs to be more careful and less willing to see the "right answer" as the original one held by the Church Fathers. Also, that our version develops.
January 25, 2014
The best presentation and defense of the Reformed doctrine of Sola Scriptura. In the end, I still swam the Tiber.
January 26, 2019
Mathison outlines the original position on Church authority in areas of Scriptural interpretation, and submits that what he calls Tradition 1 is the Biblical, consistent, continuous, and Protestant view:
Tradition 1: Original interpretation. Irenaeus, founded on a regula fidei. Scripture is to be interpreted by the church within the context of a faithful hermeneutic. Scripture first and only, and the church faithfully interprets it. Luther, Calvin, and all early fathers held this view.
Tradition 2: Roman Catholic view in response to Luther/Calvind. Hinted at by Augustine and Basil, but Mathison submits that this is a misinterpretation of their writings. This view says that the church has *autonomous* authority alongside Scripture.
Tradition 3: Real source of revelation isn't Scripture or tradition at all, but is the modern magesterium of the church. Yikes!
Tradition 0: There's no tradition at all, there's no authority of the church over Scriptural interpretation. You just need the Holy Spirit and Scripture. This is the American evangelical view, and comes directly from an enlightenment view of rationalism and democratic populism. "Just me and my Bible." This has fractured the church in America as, not surprisingly, everyone believes in their own private interpretation.
RANDOM NOTES:
Church Authority as it relates to the interpretation of Scripture:
- Roman Pope Authority - where did it come from?
- Augustin & Basil hint at "Tradition 2", aka, Church's extra-scriptural revelation is itself authoritarian. This is probably a misinterpretation of their writing, but nonetheless, it's been taken that way.
- Fall of Rome in 410 and 476: Political leaders relied on the unity of the church, which led to increasing influence coming out of the church of Rome (as opposed to the church of Galatia, for example)
- There were a number of legitimately good popes (Leo, Gregory) who came from Rome.
- 1054, Leo IX dispute between eastern/western churches on worship rites: Excommunicating Cerularius on grounds of "universal pope authority."
- 1198-1216: Pope Innocent III claimed the title "vicar of Christ", allowing him to deprive entire countries of public sacraments. Regarded as the height of pope power.
- After this, 300 years of corruption and tax impositions leading up to the Reformation in 1516 (Luther).
- Allegory vs. Literal: Pgs 67-68
- Luther on Tradition 1, Pg 100
- Calvin, pg 105: Scripture supersedes the church.
- Regula Fidei, crucial to Tradition 1, pg 23, 147, 148
- Hodge, American theologican, Tradition 1, why do we need the church? 146: "Scripture teaches us all the same, so if there's an outlier who disagrees w/ the rest of the universal church, it's the same as rejecting Scripture itself."
-Texts that subject tradition to Scripture (contra Roman Catholics): Mark 7:5-12 (176), Romans 11:17-22 (199).
-Texts that tradition is important (contra American Evangelicals): 2 Thes 2:15 (180, 204), Acts 15, 6-29 (196), "Peter on this Rock" (189)
- 1 Timothy: "Submit to church authority" and council at Jerusalem in Acts. The church universal interprets Scripture. Pg 267-268. Ephesians 3:10, Luke 10:16.
One big question I still have is, what do we do today with the insane variety in Church denominations? As he says, we claim to have the Truth, but aren't united as Christians in what that truth is for the unbelieving world. Jesus prayed that the disciples would be one "that the world may believe that You sent me." (John 17:21). But the reality is that we aren't one, when we can't interpret the creation account, the role of the law in the life of Christians, the OT prophets, the sacraments, Revelation, etc. Mathison, maybe appropriately, throws his hands up and says it's impossible (pg 275), and we just need to cling to the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, and other confessions of faith. He says that the "apostolic gospel that served as the hermeneutical context and rule of faith for scriptural interpretation during the early centuries of the Church when she was under attack from numerous heresies must regain its place in our hermeneutics today. Without it, the task of hermeneutics is essentially an exercise in subjectivism and a denial of absolute truth. This hermeneutical context which is so ably and concisely set for in the Nicene Creed and in the Chalcedonian Definition cannot be abandoned in the name of some modernistic appeal to the sovereignty of the individual or the so-called irrelevance of the past."
Tradition 1: Original interpretation. Irenaeus, founded on a regula fidei. Scripture is to be interpreted by the church within the context of a faithful hermeneutic. Scripture first and only, and the church faithfully interprets it. Luther, Calvin, and all early fathers held this view.
Tradition 2: Roman Catholic view in response to Luther/Calvind. Hinted at by Augustine and Basil, but Mathison submits that this is a misinterpretation of their writings. This view says that the church has *autonomous* authority alongside Scripture.
Tradition 3: Real source of revelation isn't Scripture or tradition at all, but is the modern magesterium of the church. Yikes!
Tradition 0: There's no tradition at all, there's no authority of the church over Scriptural interpretation. You just need the Holy Spirit and Scripture. This is the American evangelical view, and comes directly from an enlightenment view of rationalism and democratic populism. "Just me and my Bible." This has fractured the church in America as, not surprisingly, everyone believes in their own private interpretation.
RANDOM NOTES:
Church Authority as it relates to the interpretation of Scripture:
- Roman Pope Authority - where did it come from?
- Augustin & Basil hint at "Tradition 2", aka, Church's extra-scriptural revelation is itself authoritarian. This is probably a misinterpretation of their writing, but nonetheless, it's been taken that way.
- Fall of Rome in 410 and 476: Political leaders relied on the unity of the church, which led to increasing influence coming out of the church of Rome (as opposed to the church of Galatia, for example)
- There were a number of legitimately good popes (Leo, Gregory) who came from Rome.
- 1054, Leo IX dispute between eastern/western churches on worship rites: Excommunicating Cerularius on grounds of "universal pope authority."
- 1198-1216: Pope Innocent III claimed the title "vicar of Christ", allowing him to deprive entire countries of public sacraments. Regarded as the height of pope power.
- After this, 300 years of corruption and tax impositions leading up to the Reformation in 1516 (Luther).
- Allegory vs. Literal: Pgs 67-68
- Luther on Tradition 1, Pg 100
- Calvin, pg 105: Scripture supersedes the church.
- Regula Fidei, crucial to Tradition 1, pg 23, 147, 148
- Hodge, American theologican, Tradition 1, why do we need the church? 146: "Scripture teaches us all the same, so if there's an outlier who disagrees w/ the rest of the universal church, it's the same as rejecting Scripture itself."
-Texts that subject tradition to Scripture (contra Roman Catholics): Mark 7:5-12 (176), Romans 11:17-22 (199).
-Texts that tradition is important (contra American Evangelicals): 2 Thes 2:15 (180, 204), Acts 15, 6-29 (196), "Peter on this Rock" (189)
- 1 Timothy: "Submit to church authority" and council at Jerusalem in Acts. The church universal interprets Scripture. Pg 267-268. Ephesians 3:10, Luke 10:16.
One big question I still have is, what do we do today with the insane variety in Church denominations? As he says, we claim to have the Truth, but aren't united as Christians in what that truth is for the unbelieving world. Jesus prayed that the disciples would be one "that the world may believe that You sent me." (John 17:21). But the reality is that we aren't one, when we can't interpret the creation account, the role of the law in the life of Christians, the OT prophets, the sacraments, Revelation, etc. Mathison, maybe appropriately, throws his hands up and says it's impossible (pg 275), and we just need to cling to the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, and other confessions of faith. He says that the "apostolic gospel that served as the hermeneutical context and rule of faith for scriptural interpretation during the early centuries of the Church when she was under attack from numerous heresies must regain its place in our hermeneutics today. Without it, the task of hermeneutics is essentially an exercise in subjectivism and a denial of absolute truth. This hermeneutical context which is so ably and concisely set for in the Nicene Creed and in the Chalcedonian Definition cannot be abandoned in the name of some modernistic appeal to the sovereignty of the individual or the so-called irrelevance of the past."
August 30, 2022
~everything in quotation marks is summarization/extrapolation, not actual quotes!~
Great historical overview of the development of sola scriptura doctrine. The book begins with a history of the role of tradition within the Church, starting from fairly early sources and concluding with the modern American evangelical movement. The author uses a very helpful disambiguating tool, describing the positions as Tradition I, Tradition II, and Tradition III. The later evangelical variation is referred to as solO Scriptura.
That’s by far the best part of this book, and it provides a very convincing argument against the evangelical and Roman Catholic positions on Scripture and Tradition.
The second half of the book consists of
-refutations of the RC, Orthodox, and evangelical positions
-apologetics-based responses to common objections -responses to a few questions about the outworking of sola scriptura on a practical and ecclesial basis.
Once again, greatly effective in its refutation of the RC and evangelical positions, but I found it’s response to Orthodoxy quite lacking. The author seems to know this as well, seeing as the EO position is barely addressed in comparison to the thorough beating the RCC gets. When it is addressed, the author reconstructs the EO argument from repurposed RC statements (“they use the apocrypha!”) and rather obscure/nonstandard sources. (Sergei Bulgakov is hardly a typical source for Orthodox ecclesiology.) I’d have liked to see greater engagement with mainstream Orthodox thought, as I think the author might find more in common than he asserts.
Additionally, I wasn’t swayed by his attempt to address the practical problems that come along with sola scriptura - such as; how can we prevent it from becoming the hermeneutical morass that is contemporary evangelicalism, when that’s where the doctrine has inevitably led every time it’s used?
The author makes the same argument that American Communists tend to make: “but that wasn’t REAL sola scriptura”. By claiming that the fracturing of Protestantism only happened because of a poor understanding of sola scriptura (“if they had just gotten it right this wouldn’t have happened”), the author makes his idealized position unassailable. In the same way that an effective argument for Communism would need to own and address the abuses of Stalin and Mao, an effective defense of sola scriptura needs to own and address its natural result: solO Scriptura.
The book certainly ADDRESSES that problem, but doesn’t OWN it. Instead the hermeneutical chaos is DISowned, dismissed with a handwave-y “but that wasn’t REAL sola scriptura”.
Even with these weaknesses of argumentation, this is 100% worth reading, especially for the historical survey in the first half. Very well-written and easily readable too. Academic without being inscrutable. 😊
Great historical overview of the development of sola scriptura doctrine. The book begins with a history of the role of tradition within the Church, starting from fairly early sources and concluding with the modern American evangelical movement. The author uses a very helpful disambiguating tool, describing the positions as Tradition I, Tradition II, and Tradition III. The later evangelical variation is referred to as solO Scriptura.
That’s by far the best part of this book, and it provides a very convincing argument against the evangelical and Roman Catholic positions on Scripture and Tradition.
The second half of the book consists of
-refutations of the RC, Orthodox, and evangelical positions
-apologetics-based responses to common objections -responses to a few questions about the outworking of sola scriptura on a practical and ecclesial basis.
Once again, greatly effective in its refutation of the RC and evangelical positions, but I found it’s response to Orthodoxy quite lacking. The author seems to know this as well, seeing as the EO position is barely addressed in comparison to the thorough beating the RCC gets. When it is addressed, the author reconstructs the EO argument from repurposed RC statements (“they use the apocrypha!”) and rather obscure/nonstandard sources. (Sergei Bulgakov is hardly a typical source for Orthodox ecclesiology.) I’d have liked to see greater engagement with mainstream Orthodox thought, as I think the author might find more in common than he asserts.
Additionally, I wasn’t swayed by his attempt to address the practical problems that come along with sola scriptura - such as; how can we prevent it from becoming the hermeneutical morass that is contemporary evangelicalism, when that’s where the doctrine has inevitably led every time it’s used?
The author makes the same argument that American Communists tend to make: “but that wasn’t REAL sola scriptura”. By claiming that the fracturing of Protestantism only happened because of a poor understanding of sola scriptura (“if they had just gotten it right this wouldn’t have happened”), the author makes his idealized position unassailable. In the same way that an effective argument for Communism would need to own and address the abuses of Stalin and Mao, an effective defense of sola scriptura needs to own and address its natural result: solO Scriptura.
The book certainly ADDRESSES that problem, but doesn’t OWN it. Instead the hermeneutical chaos is DISowned, dismissed with a handwave-y “but that wasn’t REAL sola scriptura”.
Even with these weaknesses of argumentation, this is 100% worth reading, especially for the historical survey in the first half. Very well-written and easily readable too. Academic without being inscrutable. 😊
November 1, 2025
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am Roman Catholic. I read this book for a podcast my two friends are doing. We do a rotating book selection from each of our denominations (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant-Evangelical) and discuss the book. This was my Protestant friends' selection so I was reading it with as much of an open mind as I could but will admit to my bias going in.
THE ONE POSITIVE: I certainly did walk away from this book with a better understanding of traditional Protestantism's view on what 'Sola Scriptura' means and what they believe it meant to the Early Church immediately following the apostles. So, Mathison certainly achieved the goal of defining his terms well and I am thankful to know the distinction between different Protestant views on Sola Scriptura.
NEGATIVES THAT MADE ME RATE IT 2 STARS: 1. There are many Straw Men in this book, especially towards the Catholic Church. I'm not sure he actually understands what Roman Catholic's mean by 'Church' and 'Magisterium' and none of the quotes he selected as evidence for our position convinced me he took time to thoroughly understand our position. 2. Mathison is INCREDIBLY REPETITIVE. You will read some variation of the phrase 'they aren't talking about sola scriptura they are talking about solo scriptura' more than you can imagine. This book feels like it could have been 150 pages shorter and still succeeded in making the point it was trying to make. The entire third part said absolutely nothing new from the first sections. 3. There are several quotes of evidence that do not actually state what he asserts they do and in many of the Catholic criticism sections he uses exactly 1 apologist as his baseline for Catholic belief.
Overall, not impressed. But, again, I am bias towards the Roman Catholic position. I just wish it felt more honest and thoroughly researched than it did.
THE ONE POSITIVE: I certainly did walk away from this book with a better understanding of traditional Protestantism's view on what 'Sola Scriptura' means and what they believe it meant to the Early Church immediately following the apostles. So, Mathison certainly achieved the goal of defining his terms well and I am thankful to know the distinction between different Protestant views on Sola Scriptura.
NEGATIVES THAT MADE ME RATE IT 2 STARS: 1. There are many Straw Men in this book, especially towards the Catholic Church. I'm not sure he actually understands what Roman Catholic's mean by 'Church' and 'Magisterium' and none of the quotes he selected as evidence for our position convinced me he took time to thoroughly understand our position. 2. Mathison is INCREDIBLY REPETITIVE. You will read some variation of the phrase 'they aren't talking about sola scriptura they are talking about solo scriptura' more than you can imagine. This book feels like it could have been 150 pages shorter and still succeeded in making the point it was trying to make. The entire third part said absolutely nothing new from the first sections. 3. There are several quotes of evidence that do not actually state what he asserts they do and in many of the Catholic criticism sections he uses exactly 1 apologist as his baseline for Catholic belief.
Overall, not impressed. But, again, I am bias towards the Roman Catholic position. I just wish it felt more honest and thoroughly researched than it did.
February 8, 2020
Great explanation of the difference between Sola Scriptura (taught by the Reformers) and Solo Scriptura (that which is believed today). This book does a wonderful job explaining the historical understanding of Sola Scriptura and the need for it to be tethered to the teachings of the Early Church Fathers. The modern understanding of this teaching is basically every man for himself. That is how we have ended up with the cults such as Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, The Word of Faith Movement and the Emerging Church. These groups as well as some fundamentalists have ignored the historical teaching of the Church (as taught in the first three centuries) before the corruption was ushered into the organized church. This is a must read to understand how our faith in Christ is should be consitent with the post apostolic age.
September 25, 2023
A masterclass on the **historic** doctrine Sola Scripture. Mathison not only shows how the arguments made by Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox fall short, but also how their arguments really aren't critiquing the historic protestant tradition, but the modern, Enlightenment influenced individualistic **Solo** Scriptura, and are therefore typically presenting a strawman against Sola Scriptura. Mathison is fair, well reasoned, on well versed (especially when it comes to the early church fathers). He's distinction between Tradition 1 (which is the protestant view) and tradition 2 is excellent.
If you have anyone considering Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism because they believe Protestants believe in "hermeneutical anarchy", then hand them this book.
If you have anyone considering Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism because they believe Protestants believe in "hermeneutical anarchy", then hand them this book.
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