Can the Bible Be Alone?

Clayboy asks whether “the Bible alone” is an oxymoron.  Now I sympathize with the question, because I have been dealing in another forum (the issue arises in the last 100 messages or so) with someone who seems to think that a text can have meaning with no context at all, or more precisely that the obvious meaning of English words to a 21st century audience is somehow “the meaning of the text” as opposed to something built on the context in which it was actually uttered.  Using all that ancient language and culture stuff is changing what the text actually says.

But that is a caricature of sola scriptura, but it is one which many people in the pews of our churches hold.  They believe that by sitting down with the Bible, and perhaps a concordance, they can discover what God actually said, and they don’t need to depend on anyone else–no tradition, no outside sources, no experts.  It’s an interesting view, but I don’t believe it is what the reformers intended by sola scriptura, and I’ve never encountered anyone who could be called “Biblically trained” who held that position.  (I responded on YouTube to someone who made that claim, and yet couldn’t get his English straight, much less his Greek.)

But there is a more serious issue with the actual sola scriptura position, part of which has been raised in other discussions around the blogosphere.  Without tradition we do not have a Bible.  It is the tradition of the church that produced the canon as we have it, and there is not a 100% agreement even now with respect to just what books should be included in the canon, and whether the canon should be (or is) open or closed.

But there is also the question of inspiration and just what can demonstrate that a book is inspired by God–God-breathed.  There are numerous ideas, but the question I would raise is just where those standards came from.  For example, why did the early church think there should be apostolic authority behind those books to be included in the New Testament canon?  To a certain extent I can accept the standard, though not completely.  For example, I don’t care whether Hebrews was written by Paul or some other person, whether Revelation by the apostle John or some other John, or whether the pastorals are genuinely Pauline or not.  I regard them as authoritative scripture in any case.

Why?  Tradition.  It’s as simple as that.  I don’t even regard the books of the Bible as the only ones that are inspired, nor as the only ones that give me guidance.  They are the books that God guided the church to accept as the general authority for the church, and I submit myself to that general authority.  (The sense in which I do so is another topic!)

There’s a sort of chicken and egg debate as to whether the church or the Bible comes first.  I don’t really see the answer to that as either possible or important.  The Bible and the community of faith grew together, with one supporting the other.  People lived as followers of God for many centuries without the complete canon, and yet somehow they managed.  Abraham believed God, as our lectionary passage for the coming week says, and it was counted as righteousness (Gen 15:6, loosely).

Somehow Abraham managed to recognize God and believe him without a canon and also with precious little tradition.

I do believe that the Bible is foundational, but one of the reasons I believe that is that it is the most tested source of tradition and experience–the experience of the community of faith with God passed down from generation to generation.

It should be no surprise to anyone that one of the things that attracted me to the United Methodist Church was the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.  When I came to that in reading the United Methodist Discipline (and yes, I read the first hundred pages or so before I joined) I was hooked.  I do emphasize, however, that the quadrilateral should be more of a four layer filter than a four lane highway.

In any case, my answer would be that the Bible cannot be alone, but more importantly is not, and has never been, alone.  We should not be afraid either to drive people back to the Bible as the source or to to admit that the history of our faith, God-guided I firmly believe, was the instrument God used to produce it.