The Beauty of the Christian Faith Faith: Introduction: Sources: Scripture

I’m working on an adult curriculum titled “The Beauty of the Christian Faith.”  It explores the basic elements of Christian faith as expressed in the Nicene Creed.  I’ll be posting excerpts as they’re done.  Here’s the second part of the introduction.  Prior posts can be accessed through the Beauty of the Christian Faith Page.

Introduction

The sources of Christian theology are scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.  Every variety of Christian theology draws on each of these sources.  One of the first decisions we must make when thinking theologically is how to understand the nature of, and relationship between, these sources.

If you grew up in the Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches, for example, you might have believed that Christianity is all about “tradition.”  If you grew up Protestant, particularly in an independent evangelical church, you might think “scripture” is the only source that matters.  In fact, these poles are distortions.  Neither pole properly reflects the interplay of sources in the historic Christian faith.

It is true that Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants have had very different views about the role of scripture and tradition in relation to each other, and that this remains one of the basic differences between these streams of Christian faith.  But properly understood, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism each emphasize both scripture and tradition as sources of theological authority, and each also in different ways draw on reason and experience.  The perspective we will develop in this section is broadly Protestant, but we will also interact with Catholic and Eastern Orthodox views.

Scripture

Scripture is the canonical text of the Bible.  By “canonical” we mean those texts that Christians historically have recognized as authoritative.  The Latin term “canon” means “rule.”  The “canonical” scriptures therefore are the “rule” or standard for our faith and practice.  For Protestants, this includes the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments.  Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians also include some other books, some of which were written during the “intertestamental” period (between the Old and New Testaments).[1]

The canon of Christian scripture was formed over an approximately three-hundred year period following the birth of the early Church.  It included the portions of the Old Testament traditionally recognized as canonical by the Jewish people, as well as additional books written after the death and resurrection of Christ.  Leaders of the early Church evaluated texts for inclusion in the canon based on whether the texts were “apostolic” and consistent with the “Rule of Faith.”   “Apostolic” meant that the book was believed to have been written by one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus (including Paul, who became an Apostle after Jesus’ death and resurrection).  The “Rule of Faith” was a basic summary of Christian belief that emphasized the divinity, death and resurrection of Christ.

This process of defining the Biblical canon took hundreds of years partly because there was not always full agreement on which texts met these criteria.  This is an important point, particularly for those of us from independent Protestant churches:  we only possess a “Bible,” a canon of scripture, because the Church patiently evaluated different texts based on a tradition.  The “story” of Jesus – of his death and resurrection and his founding of the Church – predated the “Bible” and in fact defined the “Bible.”

Christians of various traditions agree that the Bible is not merely a human book.  The Bible is “inspired” by God – it is “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16).[2]  Exactly what the “inspiration” of the Bible implies is a matter of debate, both within and across the different Christian traditions.  Most Christians throughout history have always recognized that, although the Bible is “inspired” and is therefore not merely a human book, it nevertheless is indeed a product of human authors and editors (“redactors”).  Modern Biblical scholarship continues to uncover the fascinating ways in which the cultural settings of the Bible’s human authors and redactors informed their writings.  Nevertheless, Christian theology asserts that because the Bible is “inspired” by God, it is uniquely trustworthy and reliable as the Church’s text.  The Bible is “scripture,” which means that we must read it, understand it, and apply it in a way that differs from a merely human text.

As mentioned in the Introduction, even with this broad agreement about the Bible as “scripture,” Christians of different kinds agree that the Bible is a key source of theological authority, but we do not all agree on the precise nature and role of the Bible as an authority.  All Protestants are heirs of the Reformation, which was an enormous and diverse theological, social, and political movement sparked in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.  A central feature of the Reformation was an emphasis on “scripture alone” – “sola scriptura” – as the final source of authority for Christian faith and practice.  This emphasis was part of the Reformation’s break from the traditional authority of the Roman Catholic Church.

Sola scriptura means that there is no source of theological authority that is higher than the Bible.  It does not mean there are no other sources of authority – the slogan is not “solo” scriptura.  But it does mean that, for Christians in the Reformation tradition, there is no court of appeal beyond scripture, and that no Pope or other person or institution can issue a finally binding statement about Christian faith or practice.