Gerhard Pfandl’s “Sola Scriptura”

If you’d like to know the essentials of biblical authority—where we got our Bible, why we can rely on it, and why it forms the highest doctrinal authority for Seventh-day Adventists—you should pick up Gerhard Pfandl’s book Sola Scriptura. It offers a brief but comprehensive overview of how sola scriptura (often referred to as “the Bible, and the Bible alone” by many Adventists) became a key tenet in Protestant thought, and why that remains important for us.

The book covers nearly everything you’d want to know about the subject. There were moments I found myself asking “But what about . . .?” thinking that some important aspect of the discussion was missing—only to find it covered later in the book, usually in a context that made better sense than it would have earlier on. It’s not a large volume—more of a survey of the subject than an exhaustive treatment—but it will give you a good grounding in the issues surrounding scriptural authority, and more than enough material to point you in the right direction if you’d like to dig deeper.

There were a few times I found myself wishing for more details, including in the second chapter, in which Pfandl does a great job of explaining the various models of inspiration held by Christian groups over the years. He explains (and defends) the Seventh-day Adventist position well: We submit to the supreme infallible authority of the Bible, but we do not subscribe to a model of verbal inspiration that implies that the authors of Scripture were taking dictation. The distinction is important; many of our fundamentalist evangelical cousins certainly lean in that direction, making it important for Adventists to understand the difference.[1]

Pfandl provides readers with one of Ellen White’s better-known explanations of how inspiration works in order to help readers understand the difference between infallibility and inerrancy:

“The Bible is written by inspired men, but it is not God’s mode of thought and expression. It is that of humanity. God, as a writer, is not represented. Men will often say such an expression is not like God. But God has not put Himself in words, in logic, in rhetoric, on trial in the Bible. The writers of the Bible were God’s penmen, not His pen. Look at the different writers.”[2]

Adding this accessible volume from the Biblical Research Institute to your library will certainly aid in your understanding of how we ground ourselves in the Bible, but more important, why.

This, coupled with the statement found in the introduction to The Great Controversy,[3]are a good synopsis of the Adventist understanding of inspiration. If I were to suggest adding anything to this chapter, it might be an explanation of Ellen White’s statement that “the scribes of God wrote as they were dictated by the Holy Spirit, having no control of the work themselves.”[4] She makes the statement while emphasizing the utter reliability of biblical biographies, and it fits well with our overall understanding of inspiration when taken in context, but a brief treatment of this sometimes confusing statement would have been useful.

Chapter 3 offers a good explanation of what scholars mean when they say that the Scriptures are self-authenticating, and why we do not need to confirm their authority from outside sources. The next few chapters provide a good history of how we obtained the Old and New Testament canons. In particular, Pfandl offers a good defense of the New Testament canon’s early authority in the church, right back to the first century. He also offers readers a good understanding of why some books are considered apocryphal.

Good coverage of the impact of various church councils is also provided, from the Council of Laodicea and the Third Council of Carthage to the Counter-Reformation Council of Trent. What was missing was a discussion of Nicaea. While academicians did not take Dan Brown’s historical debacle The Da Vinci Code seriously, many laypeople certainly did—and the notion that the Council of Nicaea was responsible for choosing the four canonical and rejecting the Gnostic gospels certainly gained traction in popular circles. A brief rebuttal of this concept would have been a welcome addition in a book designed for a popular audience.

Moving through the rest of the book, you’ll discover it to be a well-written, handy reference volume. You’ll find material on the importance of the Dead Sea scrolls, the impact of the Scriptures over the centuries, the unique nature of the Bible, the confirmation provided by archaeological discoveries, how to navigate the seeming tension between science and Scripture, a good discussion of Bible translations . . . and much more. The abundant appendices provide readily accessible material for deeper study.

For many years Seventh-day Adventists have been known as a “people of the Book.” The church’s global motto for the next quinquennium is “Grounded in the Bible, Focused on the Mission.”Adding this accessible volume from the Biblical Research Institute to your library will certainly aid in your understanding of how we ground ourselves in the Bible, but more important, why. Whether you’re a longtime Bible student or a new one, you’ll be glad you added this valuable resource to your collection.

[1] Most scholars who subscribe to a model of plenary verbal inspiration do not suggest word-by-word dictation; it is more common to encounter it among laypeople.

[2] Ellen G. White, Selected Messages (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn.., 1958, 1980), book 1, p. 21.

[3] Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1911), pp. v, vi.

[4] Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1948), vol. 4, p. 9.