Truth Unites - Did Augustine Affirm Sola Scriptura?

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

In this video I suggest that St. Augustine affirmed the essential content of the Protestant notion of sola Scriptura--that is, the view that the Bible alone is the infallible rule for Christian faith and  practice. I first offer a plea not to caricature sola Scriptura, and then work through three passages in Augustine's writings. Finally, I point to similar support of sola Scriptura in John Chrysostom. Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

Hey everybody. This video is going to be about Augustine's view of scripture and tradition. And I'm going to argue that Augustine is very resonant with the idea of Sola Scriptura. If someone had said that to me before I looked into this, if they had said Augustine believes in Sola Scriptura, I would have been very skeptical. I often find that the church fathers are misused and simplified. and they're so often not neatly serviceable for polemics and for any agenda we have. Oftentimes they're just sort of saying something a little differently than what we'd like them to say. So so often, so I would have thought in advance before looking into his writings that someone who says that, it's like, eh, probably there's some quotes like that, but then there's other quotes that show it's more complicated

and, you know, I would have been skeptical. Having looked into this, I'm going to steer away from my usual penchant for, being understated and put it as strongly as I think the evidence warrants. And that's, Augustine couldn't have been clearer in advocating principles that are basically synonymous with what we call Sola Scripter up. So that's what I'm going to argue in this video. I'm going to have three passages specifically that we'll walk through. And then I want to say one thing about John Chrysostom on this topic as well. So that's coming up in just a second. Okay, before I dive in, I want to have three points.

of kind of framing and clarifying. I'll go real quick with these. First, the point of this video is not to prove that Sola Scriptura is right. This video has a more modest goal. It might be relevant to that question, but it's not decisive to that question because someone could always say, okay, you're writing what you're saying, but Augustine was just wrong. So that's certainly possible.

So I just want to clarify what the goal here is. The goal is basically just historical accuracy, really. Secondly, I promise you I'm not taking these quotes out of context. People often worry if you read a quote and it says something you don't like or something it surprises you. Like, surely you're taking it out of context. It is true that people take the fathers out of context a lot and that's lazy to do that. It's also lazy to assume they're doing that. So if you have worries like that, please read these quotes in context.

I don't think I'm taking them out of context. Thirdly, I just want to define what Sola Scriptura is because obviously we need to know what it is we're looking for. in order to know if we found it somewhere, whether in Augustine or anywhere else. And I want to be really clear on this point because I think there's a lot of caricatures and misunderstanding of what Soliscriptura is. Soliscriptura is the claim that the scriptures are the only infallible rule for Christian faith and practice. Only infallible rule, faith and practice. What that means is there is a place for tradition, creeds and councils,

can even be binding and authoritative, but all that comes subsequent to the scripture is reformable in light of scripture. So there's nothing infallible in tradition. That is the point of contrast. And I think it's, if there's one area where ecumenical dialogue could improve in terms of how Protestantism is represented, one area where Protestantism over and over is just routinely caricatured, set up as a straw man, you know, set up and knocked down way too easily. It's on this issue of Sola Scriptura, and if I could just make a plea for people on this to be careful about this. It's easy to do because what people do is they define Sola Scriptura based upon its street

level practice rather than based upon its official expressions. And that's somewhat understandable, you know, but it still is a caricature. So like, as an example, if I were to go to a Catholic minister, majority country or an Orthodox majority country and observe something that was very frequent. And I were to then say, like let's say I said that Catholics worship Mary, which I know they don't. But I said, but I'm seeing this. And someone said, but that's a caricature. We don't actually worship Mary. And I would say, yeah, you do. I've seen it. You know, I saw it happen over there. A lot of people were doing it. I'd still be caricaturing because the street level practice

doesn't represent the official teaching of the tradition in question. And that's true with Soliscriptura as well. It is very routinely practiced poorly or misunderstood by Protestants themselves, but that doesn't mean we're not caricaturing when we stray from what the official Protestant teaching is about this. And I see this happens so often where these caricatures come up. For example, Soliscriptura is often expanded into not an infallible rule, faith and practice, but the exclusive source for faith and practice.

So the idea is, you know, everything you believe has to be located in the Bible. You have to have a chapter and verse for every doctrine. And so this is said over and over, you know, Soliscriptura says you have to, every, all your doctrines have to come from the Bible. Soliscriptura isn't in the Bible, therefore it's contradictory in that whole argument we hear so, so often. Or that the Bible alone gives us knowledge of God. the phrase for faith and practice is lopped off, as though the Bible were the only infallible

rule or the exclusive source for everything, for all kinds of knowledge. Another thing that happens is people amalgamate Sola Scriptura with other aspects of certain Protestant traditions and what they have said about scripture, like the perspicuity of Scripture or the sufficiency of scripture. And that's a problem because lots of Protestants believe in Sola Scriptura, but not those things. And so we've got to be accurate. in how we portray what Sola Scriptura is. Another thing that happens is people individualize Sola Scripura, as though it were a doctrine for each Christian, particularly,

regardless of their historical context or their circumstances. Sola Scriptura is, again, only infallible rule for faith and practice, and it is for the church as such. So there will be lots of people, whether you live before the canon is completed, maybe you live in a part of the world where the Bible hasn't yet been translated. Maybe for whatever reason, your circumstances are such you don't have access to the Bible. None of that is a problem for Soloscriptura. It's completely irrelevant.

Solo Scriptura is a doctrine, it's a conceptual framework for the relation of scripture and tradition for the church as such. So I really hope that our dialogue can continue to improve in talking about these, talking about Soliscriptura and getting a clear understanding, if nothing else, if people would just do this. Like, let's say somebody's watching this and you disagree with me and you think, no, that definition, only infallible rule for faith and practice isn't the right one, you could at least still acknowledge it's a disputed claim. Like you could say, Soliscriptura means every doctrine has to come from the Bible. That's wrong. That's self-contradictory. It itself doesn't come from the Bible.

But there's also some Christians who maintain that Solo Scripture shalloscriptura means this, and here's why they're wrong. In other words, it could at least be factored into the nature of the criticism. And my main appeal would be to read the historic Protestant stalwarts on this to get an accurate definition of what Soliscriptura means. You could read William Whitaker, his famous treatment of this. Francis Turriton is always good. Of course, Martin Kempnitz, Richard.

Hooker and the Anglican tradition would be good. Read the historic Protestants on this. Don't assume you know what Solo Scriptura means just because you saw it somewhere at a church. That's not a sound basis for representing the whole of Protestantism. So I hope we can keep improving our dialogue as we better understand this. Read the Methodists too. The historic Methodists on this are fascinating, them and the Anglicans together. Okay, having said that, let me say that definition of Solo Scriptura infallible rule for faith and practice? I think that is exactly what Augustine believed. And again, I don't think he could have been clearer in affirming it. Let me give three examples, and there are others as well. In his treatise on baptism against the Donatists, he's criticizing the Donatists,

well, he's criticizing the Donatists for a lot of reasons, and very strongly so. One of the things he criticizes them for is their appeal to Cyprian. And in the context of that, he says, but who can fail to be aware that the sacred canon of Scripture, both of the Old and New Testament, is confined within its own limits, and that it stands so absolutely in a superior position to all later letters of the bishops, that about it we can hold no manner of doubt or disputation, whether what is confessedly contained in it is right and true, but that all the letters of bishops, which have been written, or are being written, since the closing of the canon, are liable to be refuted if there be anything contained in them which strays from the truth, either by the discourse of someone who happens to be wiser in the matter than themselves, or by the weightier authority and more learned experience of other bishops, by the authority of councils. And further, that the councils themselves, which are held in several districts and provinces, must ye beyond all possibility of doubt to the authority of plenary councils, which are formed for the

whole Christian world, and that even of the plenary councils, the earlier are often corrected by those which follow them, when, by some actual experiment, things are brought to light which were before concealed, and that is known which previously lay hid. And he continues for a little bit there. What's interesting there is, first of all, the very clear and qualitative distinction he draws between scripture and all subsequent. He calls them letters, but that doesn't mean just letters like you're writing a letter to your friend, all the writings of the bishops. So they're very clear demarcation of authority there. And then he's got a hierarchical conception of authority within that latter category. So you've got, you know, lesser bishops yielding to wiser bishops.

wiser bishops yielding to councils, local councils, yielding to plenary or ecumenical councils, councils of the full church. And yes, let it be said very plainly. Augustine maintains that ecumenical councils can err and be corrected by those that follow them. Now that passage is not anomalous or out of the grooves of how Augustine generally thinks. Let me read another example here. this one I'll read out of the actual text. This is from his reply to Faustus. Faustus has been arguing that Paul contradicts himself, and Augustine is saying, you know, perish the thought.

No, Paul does not contradict himself. The apostle Paul can correct something he said earlier without it being a contradiction. And then he goes, but our writings do often contradict each other or make errors. And listen to how he phrases this. as regards our writings, which are not a rule of faith or practice, but only a help to edification,

we may suppose that they contain some things falling short of the truth, an obscure and recondite matters, and that these mistakes may or may not be corrected in subsequent treatises. For we are of those whom the apostle says, and if ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. That's a quote from Philippians 3. By the way, I'll put all these, I'll make sure to put, I'm trying to get better about putting the citation for these quotes so you can look them up and read the larger context. He continues, such writings are read with the right of judgment without any obligation to believe. In order to leave room for such profitable discussions of difficult questions, there is a distinct boundary line separating all productions subsequent to apostolical.

times from the authoritative canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. And he goes on to basically say, there can be errors after the Bible. But in the Bible, there's no errors. If you think there's an error, you either got a bad translation or you're not understanding it. And he says, scripture has a sacredness peculiar to itself. And the distinction, and he even uses the word fallibility, the distinction that he's drawing between scripture, and everything subsequent to scripture is precisely on this point. Infallible, fallible. The Bible does not ever err.

Everything else can. And unless someone say, oh, no, he's just meaning individual writers. It's like, no, he's just talked about plenary councils and said the same thing. Here's a third example. This is a famous one from his letter to Jerome. It's letter 82 from about 405 AD. It's a long letter. Towards the front, Jerome has been talking about amusing,

themselves by Scripture. And that leads to Augustine, kind of an extended reflection on what our proper attitude to Scripture should be. And he says, I have learned to yield this respect and honor only to the canonical books of Scripture. Of these alone, do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error? As to all other writings, in reading them, however great the superiority of the authors to myself and sanctity and learning, I do not accept their teaching as true on the mere ground of the opinion being held by them, but only because they have succeeded in convincing my judgment of its truth, either by means of these canonical writings themselves, or by arguments addressed to my reason. And then he goes on to basically say,

Jerome, I know this is your view as well. I don't know how that could be clearer. I don't know how someone could more clearly articulate Bible infallible, everything else not. I don't know how that could be more clearly said. There's also many other passages I could reference where Augustine will even extend even further and say things that sound a lot like the reformed articulation of the principle of the sufficiency of scripture. For example, in his on Christian doctrine book two, chapter nine, among the things that are plainly laid down in scripture are to be found all matters that concerned faith and the manner of life. Now, some people try to evade the force of these statements by pointing to others,

because I was trying to listen to the counter perspective, because, and this is part of my concern with when people set up and knocked down Sola Scriptura too quickly, a lot of times, look, there's 900 million Protestants, give or take a bit. If you can envision the problem with Sola Scriptura within 10 seconds or 30 seconds of thinking about it, there's probably a little more to it because 900 million people are probably not just like that dumb that they didn't think of something, you know? And similarly, all of these passages are well known, so I want to listen, like, okay, how is the other side interpreted

these passages? And I'm not impressed by the other interpretations of them. They seem to be sort of what, I would say, evading what I see is the more natural, plain sense of what Augustine is saying. And then the other thing that you see a lot is people just try to pit some passages against others and say, well, yes, Augustine said this, but look what he says over here. And because of what he said over here, we have to privilege that and interpret the first statement in light of this, this kind of way of thinking. And I actually don't think there's anything else Augustine says that is contradictory with this basic distinction he draws, Bible infallible, everything else not. I'd certainly acknowledge Augustine says, many things that are out of alignment with other Protestant views and ways of thinking. But even the famous statement about Augustine says, I wouldn't believe the gospel apart from the, unless moved by the authority of the Catholic Church. I don't even think that statement. People often will pivot to that as kind of a hermeneutical control center to navigate through these other quotes.

I don't even think that quote is contradictory. He's writing, that quote, that's one to read in context. He's writing against a manichy who is seeking to enforce a gospel of his own. And Augustine's whole way of thinking is, no, you can't do that. You need the consent of the church. And John Calvin is a treatment of this passage, I think is helpful. He's basically saying, Augustine isn't saying the truth of the gospel is established on the authority of the church. He's saying an unbeliever must have the consent of the church in order to know the gospel.

Now that gets a bit nuanced there, but it is a valid distinction, and I don't think what Augustine is saying, however you interpret that, is at odds with the idea that all subsequent writings within the church are fallible, unlike Holy Scripture, which alone is infallible. And I actually think there's many ways that a Protestant would agree with that quote from against the fundamental epistle of Manichias. But that's maybe something to talk about more another time. Let me respond to one final objection, and this is where I'll invoke John Chrysostom as well. One of the things other people will say is, yeah, you know, Augustine had some quirky views. He was kind of out there on some things. Great church father, but he had his oddities, you know. And I just want to show, this wasn't just Augustine.

There's many church fathers you can find the basic import of Soliscriptura. Obviously, they're not articulating it in the same self-conscious way. So that's why I try to say it's resonant with Soliscriptura, because they're in a different context. They're not facing the same exact battles that come about later in church history, like in the 16th century. But there's lots of church fathers that I think, A, betray no awareness whatsoever of an equality

between sacred scripture, sacred tradition. They're both the Word of God. There's an infallible teaching office in the church. No awareness of that. And do emphasize the uniqueness of Scripture as, and it's paramount authority over all else. That's not just Augustinian. And I'll just read this quote from John Chrysostin because I think it's a good example of it as well.

From his 33rd homily on Acts, He's basically in the context, he's talking about heresy and he's saying, don't be alarmed when heresy springs up. Because it means God is doing something good. Whenever the true gospel is preached, there will be offenses and evils and false views that surround it and also start growing and the good and bad are growing together. And so then he envisages this scenario of what about when a pagan is coming to the church and doesn't know which side to believe? and this is exactly the kind of scenario people often leverage against Protestants as grounds why we need an infallible magisterium. Well, because the pagan is wondering, okay, who's right? Like are the Aryans right or is the other side right? So listen to how he poses and then answers this scenario. What then shall we say to the heathen?

There comes a heathen and says, I wish to become a Christian, but I know not whom to join. there is much fighting and faction among you, much confusion, which doctrine am I to choose? How shall we answer him? Each of you, says he, asserts, I speak the truth. Now here's how John responds. No doubt, this is in our favor. For if we told you to be persuaded by arguments, you might well be perplexed. But if we bid you believe the scriptures, and these are simple and true, the decision is easy.

for you. If any, agree with the scriptures, he is a Christian. If any, fight against them, he is far from this rule. Now, notice, first of all, that John erects the scriptures as the ultimate test by which to measure these competing claims within the church. Secondly, he distinguishes, at a practical level, the scriptures from arguments on the grounds that arguments will confuse the person, whereas the scriptures are simple and true. Thirdly, notice what he doesn't say. he doesn't say, ah, yeah, there's all these competing options. That's why you need an infallible magisterium to adjudicate between them. In fact, listen to as he keeps going.

This is where the quote gets interesting because he anticipates this problem. So here's how it keeps going. And this is the heathen. He's envisaged who is talking and says, But which am I to believe, knowing as I do nothing at all of the scriptures? The others also allege the same thing for themselves. What then if the other came and say that the scripture has this? this, and you that it has something different, and you interpret the scriptures diversely

dragging their sense each his own way. You see, that is exactly the problem that's leveraged against Protestants as a reason why we need an infallible magisterium, the problem of interpretive pluralism. I don't know how many times I have gotten this problem articulated to me in YouTube comments, as though it were a death knell, obvious defeater for Solo Scriptura. Here's how he responds. Quote, and you then, I ask, have no understanding, no judgment? John then proceeds to anticipate all these various possible maneuvers that this heathen person could make and how you should try to convince them at each turn.

And throughout, he's assuming the ability to convince this person. At one point, he even questions their sincerity if they don't, uh, if they cannot see the truth between these different competing claims within the church. He says, quote, if he should say what you say about the Christians, there is such a multitude of men and they have different doctrines, this, a heathen, that, a Jew, the other a Christian, no need to accept any doctrine, whatever, for they are at variance with one another. But I am a learner and do not wish to be a judge.

But if you have yielded so far as to pronounce against one doctrine, this pretext no longer has place for you. Just as you were able to reject the spurious, so here also having come, you shall be able to prove what is profitable. And a bit further, let us not make pretext and excuses, and all this will be easy. See, at no point in here does John think you need the church's sort of come, the church's infallible magisterium to come in and adjudicate between these different options. He's assuming this person has the ability to judge which is right and which is wrong. He clearly articulates that the scriptures are the ultimate judge over that task.

In fact, he goes on to say basically, if this heathen person maneuvers the conversation to a place of total skepticism, like I can't decide between these different options, they're just making excuses. That's basically what John says. And, you know, I guess I could put it like this. I mean, obviously people are welcome to disagree with John or Augustine and what they're saying here. I think the way I would put it is not that these passages, which I think are representative of how many church fathers functioned, are a defeater for the other side. I think they show the way I would leverage all of this to a head, what is the upshot of all this, is I would say, this shows the reasonableness of Soliscriptura. It shows the modesty of the claim.

It makes a lot of sense. Like I understand what Augustine is saying. if there's something that's Theanustas, God breathed, to want to measure everything by that. And it shows a lack of any awareness of the notion of tradition as possessing infallibility. At no point do they say that there is such a thing or seem to anticipate the need for such a thing. And I find that very relevant to the conversations that are happening today. my own feeling, I guess I could put it as strong as I can just to, I'm trying to learn not to shy off from things too much or not to be too gentle. So if the evidence warrants it, I'll put it as strong as I can.

And I think I'd say, I don't think Augustine could be clearer in advocating for Sola Scriptura. Scripture alone is infallible. Everything else is reformable that comes after. I don't think he could have said it more clearly. It doesn't prove that it's right, but in my mind it certainly gestures towards its reasonability. and its modesty. And hopefully someone could look at it and at least say, oh, I could understand how someone could come to that view.

So let me know what you think in the comments. I'd love to hear how that strikes you, and I really appreciate you watching this video. God bless you, and let's stay in context.