Is Sola Scriptura Self-defeating?

Imagine a soccer game in the World Cup, a high-stakes game in the world’s most beloved sport. Now imagine that the game has no referees. Both sides try to disqualify the other team’s best players by issuing them red cards. Whenever one side scores a goal, the other tries to call offside. When the ball goes out of bounds, each side attempts to claim the ball as theirs. Chaos ensues.

Who finally decides which side is right? This is one example (of many) in which some authority is needed to make the final call, an authority that cannot be vested in the players or the teams themselves, who are prone to rule in their own favor.

The stakes are even higher when it comes to who decides the meaning of Scripture. A long-standing principle of the Protestant Reformation is that such authority does not reside with mere humans (individually or collectively), but in Scripture itself because God (the ultimate authority as Creator of all) has granted Scripture such authority as the rule of faith and practice.

In part, this crucial Protestant belief and practice is expressed in the sola scriptura principle. Briefly put, the sola scriptura principle teaches that Scripture alone is commissioned by God to serve as the uniquely normative rule of faith and practice (over which nothing else rules, except God Himself).[1]

This principle is often critiqued, however—and there are some prominent objections. Given that Scripture never explicitly says sola scriptura, doesn’t the principle contradict itself? Further, didn’t the church decide which books belong in the Bible? If so, doesn’t church authority actually precede Scripture, invalidating the sola scriptura principle?

These are serious objections.[2] Answering them well requires first being clear about what sola scriptura actually means and does not mean.

What Sola Scriptura Means

At its core, the sola scriptura principle makes two affirmations about Scripture’s unique role, both as a result of God granting Scripture unique authority.

First, Scripture is the uniquely normative, infallible source of divine revelation appointed by God as the rule of faith and practice. This does not mean that God reveals Himself only through Scripture or that only the Bible is worth reading. Nature bears witness to its Creator (Ps. 19:1-4; Rom. 1:18-23), and Scripture itself acknowledges genuine prophecy outside the Bible (Acts 2:17; 1 Cor. 14:29). But Scripture alone is the uniquely normative source God has commissioned as the rule of faith. Every other factor is to be tested, measured, and ruled by Scripture.

Second, Scripture is the uniquely authoritative and final norm of theological interpretation—the standard that defines all other standards. Creeds, confessions, tradition, reason, and experience are all fallible and are thus to be subjected to and tested by Scripture rather than employed as norms by which Scripture is interpreted.

Three Crucial Corollaries of Sola Scriptura

Three closely related principles clarify how sola scriptura functions in practice, and provide guards against common misapplications.

Tota scriptura holds that all of Scripture together functions as the rule (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16).[3] We are not to prioritize some parts of Scripture while ignoring or setting others aside.

The analogy of Scripturetreats Scripture as a unified and internally coherent collection of divinely inspired writings such that each passage should be understood in light of Scripture’s wider teachings as a whole (Isa. 8:20; Luke 24:27, 44, 45).

Since Scripture was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and we are merely fallible interpreters, we must always humbly seek and submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit’s guidance when interpreting Scripture.

Last but certainly not least, the principle that spiritual things are spiritually discerned (see 1 Cor. 2:11-14) emphasizes that, since Scripture was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and we are merely fallible interpreters, we must always humbly seek and submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit’s guidance when interpreting Scripture.

What Sola Scriptura Does Not Mean

Several critiques of sola scriptura rest on misunderstandings, so it is also crucial to understand what this principle does not mean.

Sola scriptura does not mean that Scripture is the only valid source of knowledge. We learn from nature, history, experience, and careful scholarship. Sola scriptura claims, however, that these and all other factors are to be continually tested by Scripture (with respect to all claims Scripture addresses). Of course, we inevitably use our faculties of reason whenever we read or interpret Scripture (or anything else; see Acts 17:2; 18:4). The sola scriptura principle simply claims that because human reason and experience are fallible, they should be intentionally and continually subjected to Scripture’s teachings (see 1 Cor. 3:19, 20; cf. Prov. 28:26; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 1:21; 1 Tim. 6:20).

The sola scriptura principle also does not mean that Scripture requires no interpretation or that every interpretation of Scripture is equally valid. Whenever humans receive any communication (oral or written), we interpret it, whether correctly or incorrectly. Think about it: When you try to understand someone speaking to you, you are interpreting what their words mean. The same goes for written words. You are interpreting the words you are reading right now, even if it seems like you are “automatically” understanding them. This is one reason the principles of spiritual discernment and the analogy of Scripture are so important.

Further, sola scriptura does not mean that church history should be ignored or dismissed. Many serious errors could be avoided by considering what thoughtful predecessors found, and also where some of them went wrong. What sola scriptura claims, instead, is that all of these should be subject to Scripture itself as the final authority and norm, in direct contrast to many who claim Scripture should be interpreted according to extrabiblical tradition.

Sola scriptura does not mean that every point of doctrine requires a word-for-word statement in the Bible. Sound theology may be derived from Scripture directly or by careful induction and deduction that corresponds to what Scripture as a whole teaches. Many doctrines are not stated in a single sentence in Scripture, but if they are derived from what Scripture consistently teaches, they are biblical doctrines in accordance with sola scriptura.

Is Sola Scriptura Unbiblical?

With these understandings in place, we now return to some common objections. The first runs like this: “The words sola scriptura appear nowhere in the Bible. If Scripture never explicitly teaches this principle, then sola scriptura refutes itself.”

First, notice that this objection hinges on the assumption that sola scriptura requires every doctrine to appear in Scripture in a word-for-word fashion (or nearly so). But the sola scriptura principle involves no such claim. The question is not whether the phrase appears in the text, but whether the principle is genuinely taught by Scripture.

Scripture consistently proclaims its own unique authority. For example, the apostle Paul asserts: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16), and Jesus Himself teaches, “The Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). Further, 1 Thessalonians 2:13 identifies the apostolic message (which the New Testament contains) “not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God.”

Just as consistently, the teachings of Scripture place other factors in a subordinate position. For example, Scripture repeatedly describes human reason and experience as fallible and prone to deception:

The complex and sometimes messy history of recognizing the canon does not change certain books being canonical any more than a long debate about whether something is gold would change whether that thing is indeed gold.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9).

“He who trusts in his own heart is a fool” (Prov. 28:26).

“The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God,” and “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile” (1 Cor. 3:19, 20).

Further, Scripture repeatedly subjects tradition to God’s Word. Christ Himself rebuked those who “have invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition” (Matt. 15:6, NASB). And Scripture elsewhere indicates that religious authorities are to be subject to God’s teachings: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

Scripture applauds the Bereans for modeling this commitment. When Paul preached among them, they tested Paul’s teachings by previously recognized Scripture—they “searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11).

These are only a few of many biblical teachings that together set forth the sola scriptura principle.[4]

Isn’t This Just Circular Reasoning?

Another objection often follows: “Isn’t appealing to Scripture to defend Scripture just circular? You believe the Bible’s claim to unique authority because the Bible claims such authority. That sounds like circular reasoning.”

This concern warrants acknowledgment, but its intuitive force is misleading. There is a sense in which any claim a source makes about its own identity or authority will be self-referential. Yet self-reference is not at all the same thing as a viciously circular argument. For example, suppose we just met and I introduce myself as John. You then tell your friend that my name is John, and your friend asks, “How do you know he is John?”

“He told me so,” you reply. Wouldn’t it be silly for your friend to then say, “That’s circular reasoning”? They are free to doubt that I am who I claim to be, but there is no logical fallacy in recognizing that I claim to be John.

Similarly, the claim is not that Scripture deductively proves its authority in a circular loop. The claim is that Scripture includes many passages that teach that Scripture is uniquely authoritative, defeating the objection that Scripture itself does not teach sola scriptura. Whether one accepts the claim that Scripture is uniquely authoritative is, of course, another question.

Which Books?

An objection along similar lines targets the canon, claiming: “The Bible has no inspired table of contents. Centuries after Christ, church councils decided which books belonged in the biblical canon. Doesn’t that mean the church has authority over Scripture?”

This objection holds force only if one believes the church determined the canon by its decisions. But Protestants typically believe that God Himself determined the biblical canon, and the church merely recognized it. The decisions of church councils did not make the books of Scripture canonical; instead, those writings that God has appointed are intrinsically canonical apart from humans recognizing them as such, because of God’s action in (among other things) inspiring and commissioning them to be the rule of faith and practice.

Just as a geologist identifying a diamond does not thereby make it a diamond, Christians recognizing certain books as given by God to be the rule of faith (and, thus, as canonical) does not make them so. The complex and sometimes messy history of recognizing the canon does not change this, any more than a long debate about whether something is gold would change whether that thing is indeed gold. Similarly, many do not recognize Jesus as Lord, but that does not change the fact that He is indeed the Lord—whether or not you or I or anyone else recognizes that.

As I have explained elsewhere in detail, Scripture itself points toward how humans may recognize which books God commissioned to have ruling authority, identifying traits that such books must have, including: (1) prophetic or apostolic origin of a special kind, pointing forward to Christ or back to Christ as first-generation witnesses to the risen Christ (2 Peter 3:1, 2; Eph. 2:20), (2) consistency with past revelation (Isa. 8:20), and (3) self-authenticating characteristics whereby Scripture shows itself (to those willing to receive it, see John 7:17; 10:4, 5) to be, not merely the words of human beings, but in truth the Word of God (cf. 1 Thess. 2:13).[5]

Scripture, the Standard Set by God

Given this understanding, we realize that Scripture’s unique authority comes from God Himself. Because God revealed, inspired, and commissioned Scripture to hold such authority, Scripture stands alone as the standard by which every community, tradition, council, and private reading (including our own) is to be tested and (where necessary) reformed.

But this principle is not merely something to believe; it is something to practice. How? In short, to practice the sola scriptura principle simply entails that we continually, day by day, seek to employ Paul’s counsel to bring “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5) by testing all things by Scripture, remembering that while Scripture is infallible, our interpretations of it are not.

[1] Sola scriptura is variously defined in different circles. In this article I employ a definition I call canonical sola scriptura. See John C. Peckham, Canonical Theology: The Biblical Canon, Sola Scriptura, and Theological Method (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), chap. 6.

[2] I will address some other objections and potential pitfalls in my next article.

[3] Some assume 2 Timothy 3:16 applies only to the Old Testament, since the New Testament was still in the process of being written. Yet there are good reasons to believe the term translated Scripture is used (in this and similar contexts) as a technical term referring to the writings God reveals, inspires, and gives as the rule of faith and practice, which would include later writings that qualify as Scripture.

[4] For an academic treatment of this, see Peckham.

[5] For an academic treatment of these and other issues regarding canonicity, see Peckham, Canonical Theology, chaps. 1-3.