One Wellspring, Two Streams
Scripture and Tradition “flowing from the same divine well-spring” · the Magisterium as sole authentic interpreter · the Reformers’ sola Scriptura.
Rome does not hold a low view of the Bible. She confesses that Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, has God for its author, and teaches without error. R. C. Sproul warned Protestants against the caricature that “Protestantism believes the Bible is the final authority while Roman Catholicism believes that the pope or the church is the final authority, as if Rome had a low view of sacred Scripture.”1 The question between Rome and the Reformation is not whether Scripture is the Word of God, but whether it is the only infallible rule of faith. Rome answers that the one Word of God comes to us in two forms, Scripture and Tradition, and that its authentic interpretation belongs to the Magisterium, the teaching office of the pope and the bishops in communion with him.
Background
The early church fathers treated tradition as a faithful summary of the apostolic teaching found in Scripture, a servant of the written Word. Heiko Oberman called this view “Tradition 1.” In the late Middle Ages another view gained ground, “Tradition 2,” in which revelation has two sources, Scripture and an unwritten ecclesiastical Tradition, the latter “an equally infallible and inerrant authority.”2 Meanwhile the church tied the Bible to the Latin Vulgate and to the clergy. When John Wycliffe and Jan Hus appealed to Scripture against the hierarchy, the Council of Constance condemned both, and Hus was burned in 1415 (see Jan Hus).
History and Development
At the Leipzig Debate of 1519, Johann Eck pressed Luther until he admitted, “I assert that a council has sometimes erred and may sometimes err.”3 Two years later at Worms he would accept correction only from Scripture or clear reason. Rome replied at the Council of Trent. On April 8, 1546, in its fourth session, the council declared that the truth of the gospel is “contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions,” and that it “receives and venerates with equal affection of piety, and reverence” both the Scriptures and “the said traditions.”4 An earlier draft had said the truth is contained “partly [partim] in Scripture and partly [partim] in the unwritten traditions”; the final text dropped “partly,” but the cardinal legate Cervini announced that the meaning was “in substance” the same, and Bellarmine and the Roman Catechism read Trent as teaching two sources.5
The same session listed the canon, including the Apocrypha; declared the Vulgate “authentic”; and forbade anyone, “relying on his own skill,” to interpret Scripture “contrary to that sense which holy mother Church, whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures, hath held and doth hold.”6 Vatican I (1870) added that the pope, speaking ex cathedra, is infallible, and that his definitions are irreformable “of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church.”6 Vatican II’s Dei Verbum (1965) restated the doctrine in pastoral language but did not change it.
What Rome Teaches
Dei Verbum and the Catechism of the Catholic Church give the present form of the doctrine. Scripture and Tradition “make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God” (§ 97), “flowing from the same divine well-spring” (§ 80). The decisive sentence is this:
As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.7 Catechism of the Catholic Church§ 82
Interpretation is likewise reserved: “The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone” (§ 85), “that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him” (§ 100). Scripture is to be read “within the living Tradition of the whole Church” (§ 113), and the Magisterium’s definitions “must be adhered to with the obedience of faith” (§ 891). Rome adds that the Magisterium “is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant” (§ 86). Yet since only the Magisterium can say authoritatively what the Word means, there is no court in which Scripture can correct it.
The same principle governs the canon. As Sproul explains, Protestants hold that the Bible is “a fallible collection of infallible books,” while Rome holds it to be “an infallible collection of infallible books,” because the church infallibly identified them.8 The Paris theologians said it plainly in 1543: “many things are to be believed which are not expressly and specially delivered in the sacred Scriptures, but which are necessarily to be received from the Church by tradition.”9 Such dogmas as the Immaculate Conception (December 8, 1854) and the Assumption of Mary (November 1, 1950) rest on that principle (see Roman Catholic Dogmas).
The Reformers’ Response
Before the emperor at Worms on April 18, 1521, Luther stated the principle on which the Reformation stood:
Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God.10 Martin Luther
Answering the Paris article, Calvin wrote that since “the certainty of faith should be sought from none but God only, we conclude that true faith is founded only on the Scriptures which proceeded from him.”11 In the Institutes he called it “a most pernicious error” to suppose “that Scripture is of importance only in so far as conceded to it by the suffrage of the Church; as if the eternal and inviolable truth of God could depend on the will of men.” If the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Ephesians 2:20), then “the former must have had its certainty before the latter began to exist.”12
William Tyndale carried the principle to the people. Foxe records his reply to a learned cleric who preferred the pope’s laws to God’s: “If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.”13 Sola Scriptura never meant that the Reformers despised the fathers, the creeds, or the church’s teachers. They quoted them constantly. It meant that every other authority is subordinate and must be tested by the written Word. As the Westminster Confession puts it, the whole counsel of God “is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.”14
Rome’s Teaching and Scripture
Scripture is sufficient. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). What makes the man of God complete needs no second source. Paul taught the Corinthians “not to go beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6).
Tradition must answer to Scripture. Jesus did not reject the elders’ traditions because they were unwritten but because they overrode the written Word: “thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down” (Mark 7:13). Rome appeals to Paul’s command to hold “the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2 Thessalonians 2:15). But Paul speaks of what he himself taught the Thessalonians, not of doctrines first defined centuries later, and no one can show that any unwritten tradition now taught by Rome came from the apostles’ lips.
God holds His people responsible to read and test. The Bereans “received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). They tested an apostle by the Bible and were commended for it. Jesus answered the scholars of His day, “Have you not read?” (Matthew 19:4), assuming the text was clear enough to convict them. “The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple” (Psalm 119:130).
The Spirit speaks in the Word. Rome makes the Magisterium the Spirit’s authentic voice. Scripture says that “no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation” because “men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:20–21). The meaning of Scripture is the meaning the Spirit gave it, and “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).
Conclusion
Whoever has the final word on what Scripture means has the final word. If the Magisterium alone can interpret the Bible authentically, the Bible can never stand over the Magisterium and call it to repent, and doctrines unknown to the apostles may be bound on the conscience as the Word of God. The Reformers did not exchange one pope for many; they placed every pastor, council, and Christian under the same living voice of Christ in His Word. That is why the issue is not a technicality. It decides whether the church is ruled by her Lord or by herself. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8).
Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version.
