We all, as good Protestants, want to hold to an idea of sola scriptura (or prima and/or solo); my point being, we want to say the that the Scriptures are our authority for doctrine, life, and practice. Within the history of the church we have had many commentators, theologians, and teachers who have provided the body of Christ with layers and layers of dogmatic formulation and exegetical articulation that have come to be known as the ‘Tradition’ of the Church — your respective view of this will depend, of course, upon your particular ecclesial affiliation (I have no intention engaging that issue with this post). In many ways this is a great gift, a needed gift, for the Church’s self-identification as a historic body of people defined by a historic and Apostolic teaching. Yet, this can pose problems as well; the kind of problem that the Protestant Reformers — like Luther — sought to 
rectify by going back to the ‘sources’ (Ad fontes). The climate that fostered going back to the ‘sources’ — e.g. the ‘sources’ being the Bible (in its original languages & the Patristics or Church Fathers) — was a movement largely initiated by a guy named, Lorenzo Valla, and was called Humanism (I’ve written about that here). The movement, which the Church prior to this (during the Medieval era specifically) had been stewing in can be called scholasticism. This style of thinking and methodology operated through three points held in dialectic tension, they are: 1) Thesis, 2) Anti-thesis, 3) Synthesis . . . then the ‘synthesis’ became the new ‘thesis’, and the whole process of disputation started over and rolled on (to state this all very simply). The unattended consequence of this kind of methodology results in ‘Tradition’ building, or a ‘Commentary’ tradition; so that, in effect, as the years pass by we move further and further away from the original source which we are purportedly talking about in the first place — in this case the “source” that we are talking about (as Christians) is the Scriptures. The net result is that when we think we’re talking about Scripture, in fact, instead, we’re talking about a ‘Tradition’ that barely resembles what it tenuously says it is discussing. This was the situation Luther faced.
I want to suggest, that this kind of ‘tradition’ building — the scholastic kind — is alive and well today! All one has to do is peruse the theo-blogosphere and it becomes quickly evident that the reference points of many discussions revolve around what this theologian said, or that Biblical commentator said; whilst the concern to see how what is being said measures up against its original ‘source’ it typically absent. In fact, for many, the Bible has become part of the ‘Tradition’ and relegated to the level of a ‘Symbol’ much like the Augsburg Confession became for the Lutherans; in other words, the Tradition and Scripture sit side by side in practical force.
The ideal that we all seek, as Protestants, is to always allow the ‘Scriptures’ themselves to be both the norm and rule by which we adjudicate all ‘tradition’ and ‘theological formulation’; the Scriptures are to provide the ‘Check-and-Balances’ on tradition or our theologizing (purportedly of the inner-logic provided by the Scriptures and whom they bear witness to, Jesus Christ). This is a tenuous task, one that I think we all probably fail at in one way or the other. For example, we might elevate a ‘Pet Teacher’, like T. F. Torrance, attributing to him the functional status as Christ’s vicar on earth π . We might casually assume that since we believe this or that particular teacher or school of thought has said things that are sound on some things; that things they say on all things are true or consonant with the Scriptures, ipso facto — thus we give them a pass, as it were.
Let me close my little reflection this way: I don’t think theologizing, tradition building, or commentary building are inherently bad things; in fact all of this is inevitable, we’re going to build and stand on the shoulders of giants that have gone before us. The common assumption, for Protestants, is that the giants are standing on the Word of God (Scripture in this case) as their foundation. So what we need to constantly be doing is looking down at the ‘giant’s feet’ to make sure that we’re standing on the “right shoulders.” I honestly don’t think this is being done so often. The next question is how can this be done? The “giant’s feet” are way down there (i.e. there are lots of layers to get through — our own preundestandings and presuppositions betrothed to us by these metaphoric “giants”), is there a way to actually get to the Scriptures; or are we so conditioned that this task is seemingly impossible? Can we, and/or should we even attempt to say that we can get to the Sources?
My next post or a post some time soon will seek to engage my question, further, here.
If by ‘we’ you mean can I get to the Scriptures, then the answer is no. This is where the Reformation tradition deviated, and produced (and persecuted) those individual claimants like the anabaptists. There is a right tradition, the account of what others have heard scriptures say, and have passed on to us. But we are not exempt from making that effort ourselves. Nor can we make that effort apart from everyone else. I used to read the books of someone who made great claims about his self imposed isolation for 7 years as he ‘just read the Bible’. Naturally, he has gone off the rails.
The Source (shades of The Matrix), is of course Jesus Christ, and the various Quests are recognition, but also deviations, of this fact. It is Christ speaking today. This is where the Reformed go wrong, I think. Just as God elected yesterday, so Christ lived yesterday, spoke yesterday, and this was encapsulated in official doctrine yesterday. All the rest is catechism. This is why I am in a charismatic church; not because they believe in new revelation, God forbid, but because Christ’s word is alive today.
SG,
To read Barth’s “The Theology of the Reformed Confessions” is good on this. He argues that the principle of sola scriptura within the Reformed Tradition is to always, and dynamically, be going back to the text; checking our Confessions, as provisional and broken confessions. He illustrates this point by showing how through the history, these confessions were either ammended and/or dumped or both. He juxtaposes this with the Lutheran approach wherein they basically have a static view on the ‘confessions’ and place the Augsburg Confession on par with Scripture. So, in this light, I don’t think the “Reformed” go wrong; instead it is those who claim to be representative of “Reformed Orthodoxy” today, who claim things like the “Three Forms of Unity” who have coopted the “Reformed tradition” for their own ends; in the end violating the very principle of sola scriptura which they portend to be preserving.
What do you mean on your NO? Could you elaborate? I plan on dealing with this more via another post, but I’m just curious about what you’re saying here. Are you saying that the Reformed have made something static, that is really dynamic?
I should add that this was my view before reading Barth, as I had encountered the stultifying effects of Reformed fossilization. We had The Truth, and that was it, It was preserved from 1835 onwards, and needed little tinkering. The world moved on, and they didn’t. No one could hear what the Spirit said to the Churches, unless it was couched in certain phrases and King James English. Certainly we stood on giants shoulders, but not to see further.
We crossed posts..
The No is to the idea that individually, by ourselves, we can get to the sources, which is the opposite error to the fossilisation of the Reformed (and Lutheran) in their confessionalism. (By the term Reformed, i mean confessional, since I have had little experience of anything else apart from books and blogs.)
Yes, the matter has become static. Just try raising a challenge to an issue in a reformed institution. Remember Mark Seifrid and the issue of Imputed Righteousness at SBTS nearly 10 years ago. Heresy trial, and no books of any substance since then.
Oh, yeah, I agree with you on the “me and my Bible approach;” that’s a loud NO! And you don’t even have to be discussing “Reformed” folk, like you said, the “Free” church has its own issues with this. My contention is that their similar Doctrine’s of God have everything to do with this; since both, metaphysically are “classical theists” — or follow the Aristotelian God. A monad, not dynamic, Divine simplicity in its essentialist and “traditional” form, Thomistic, and unmoved Mover, etc. etc. This has an affect on how theology is done. It’s unmoved, monadic, and static. As you note, this takes on different expressions; but the core is all the same, it starts, epistemologically with me, and then tries to move, analogically back towards God. Of course, Torrance puts the hammer on this, with his critique on the inherent dualism that drives this. The kind that does not place an order of being before and order of knowing, and that does not ground it, of course, in the person of Jesus Christ. This is where many Christian traditions continue to err, I think, and why I find TFT so appealing — well one of the reasons.
I honestly haven’t been ‘Reformed’ for 10 years (at the most, 7yrs); and my ‘Reformed’ has only been mediated through Barth and Torrance (and maybe Sibbes), so I don’t have all of that background (like you do). I’m unaware of Seifrid, but I’ve seen other things like this in other ecclesial situations. π