Paradise Lost - Universitatea "Emanuel"

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PERICHORESIS 2/2 (2004)
TIM GRASS
In this paper, we are thinking in terms of doctrines and practices which
have been passed down within the Church. Two scholars, Heiko Oberman
and Alister McGrath, have examined differing conceptions of the
relationship between Scripture and tradition in Western theology during
the Reformation era. 1 However, the criticism of A. N. S. Lane should be
noted, that Oberman’s analysis (which McGrath follows) omits the role of
the Church and thus provides a distorted account of the relationship
between Scripture and tradition. 2 If we reflect on our own experience of
church life, we see that it is within the Church that a “tradition” of sound
teaching and church practice is handed down to us, by such means as
preaching, teaching, and writing, as well as through simply living, working,
and praying together as fellow-believers. Thus this paper does not merely
examine the relationship between Scripture and tradition, but broadens the
scope to include the Church, and also the work of the Holy Spirit.
Sola Scriptura?
The humanist movement had stressed the need for scholars to return to the
writers of classical antiquity for intellectual, aesthetic and spiritual
inspiration. For theologians, this meant a return to the Bible and to the
earliest Christian writings, those of the Patristic period. Reformational
theology took over this emphasis and developed it, providing a rationale for
placing the Bible in a unique position of authority. For the Reformers,
Scripture possessed an inherent authority as divinely-revealed, a truth
which was brought home to the believer by the witness of the Holy Spirit;
thus their approach differed from late-medieval Catholicism, which taught
that the authority of the Scriptures was guaranteed by that of the Church.
Accordingly, theology needed to return to Scripture as its primary source
and supreme authority, since it was deviation from this, which had resulted
in the errors prevalent in late-medieval Roman theology.
All other sources of Christian teaching were to be subject to correction in
the light of Scripture, whether Fathers, Councils, theologians or popes. The
Magisterial Reformers (those, such as Luther and Calvin, who retained the
medieval concepts of a Christian society and a territorial church, and so
believed that the state should aid the process of reform) still valued the
theological tradition of the Church, often appealing to the earlier and more
authentic tradition of the Fathers and the early Councils over against later
distortions of the tradition seen in the medieval church; but they held that
this tradition must be seen as always open to further reform (semper
reformanda).
This concept of Scripture as supremely authoritative is what is meant by
the Latin phrase sola Scriptura, one of the four famous slogans
summarising Reformational theology, the others being sola gratia (by
grace alone), sola fide (by faith alone), and solo Christo (through Christ
alone). As far as I know, the phrase was not used by the Reformers