ORLAPUBS P. R121: WHEN SOLA SCRIPTURA IS A BOGUS SLOGAN

FAILING TO REALIZE THAT SOLA SCRIPTURA
IS NEVER SOLA MAKES IT AN IRRATIONAL
AND HENCE SUPERSTITIOUS
SLOGAN OR MANTRA

© 2002-2003 by Orchid Land Publications
[renamed & updated 20030527; last updated 20030705]

The problem being addressed here can best be illustrated with the following example: A number of groups claiming the Bible literally interpreted is their only guide to belief (and practice) reject the following verses:

2 Pet. 1:20: "Coming first to know this that each statement of Scripture is not open to private/individual explication."
Col. 2:23: This forbids ethelothresk(e)ía "self-invented Worship" or "self-invented piety"
John 3:5: "Very truly I say to you-all: Unless one is born of water and Spirit, one cannot enter the Kingdom
[or: "Reign"]."
John 6:53-54: "Very truly I say to you-all: Unless you-all eat the Flesh of the Son of Humanity and drink His Blood, you don't have Life (zoé) in you. Etc."
John 16:13 (rejected as applying to the time prior to the Reformers): "When That One,
the Spirit of truth, has come, He will lead you all into every truth[ or "all truth"]."

It should not be forgotten that a figurative or metaphorical translation is not a literal translation.

Every important word of Scripture (and of slogans about Scripture) carries the baggage of one's thought world, viz. the premises and axioms of one's cognitive paradigm: These of course determine what those words mean. The meanings are therefore different in different paradigms.

CLICK HERE FOR CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING
THE DESIRABILITY OF A "SIMPLE" RELIGION

At the most naïve level, oînos is "wine" in some paradigms and "grapejuice" in others--in some, the word means "wine" where forbidden and "grapejuice" when Jesus turns water into oînos. At a somewhat less naïve level, Gnostic paradigms premising a negative view of materiality and time in religion inevitably consider Mysteries (sacrament[al]s) and tradition of no religious or revelatory worth, whereas those taking a positive view of creation by the divine LOGOS and SOPHIA of God hold to the converse outlook. If you think the Creator is a WORD, then the logikós kósmos that He created is "wordy"; you will espouse a religion that boils down to a "word"--blending Creator, Scripture, and preaching--a religion in which creation is not energetic/evolutive and in which Salvation is instantaneous. But if you read the Greek Bible the way the Apostles and græcophone Fathers read it, matter (especially the Incarnation) and energy (spoken of 26 times by St. Paul) are soterial and time or tradition is revelatory--a religion in which the Creator LOGOS re-creates the world, making it slightly different at every moment, to keep it from falling back into nothingness and in which Salvation is becoming one with the risen Christ in order to share the benefits of His Resurrection--in other words, sharing the uncreated Energies of God's uncreated Life.

The problem lies in the set of axiomatic assumptions that tell one what is true or cannot be true. (These sets are called paradigms in learnëd discourse.) If, armed with one's axioms defining what can(not) be true, the words of the Bible can only mean what is in accord with the presuppositions and assumptions of one's axioms. Luther, the inventor of the sola scriptura slogan, went so far as to exclude six New Testament books from full canonical status--because their literal senses violated his premises, as he was clear-headed enough to see. It's easy to be "scriptural" when you exclude the parts you don't like. The first Biblical reference above was excluded, as were St. James's comments on faith and works. An early Gnostic, Marcion, reduced the whole NT to one book--selections from St. Luke's Gospel.

--religion and righteousness are a matter of rules to be obeyed or broken (the
juridical axiom);

--we are too imperfect and sinful (for whatever reason) to obey the rules;
--Salvation of our souls--not divine Worship through offerings to God to
     acknowledge His ownership of what He has made--are the prime focus
     and indeed essence of religion;
--Grace is not something (uncreated Energy)* but simply God's favor.

then certain conclusions follow; e.g. the resurrection of the flesh/body will play no significant role in Salvation; Jesus's Incarnation (and the role of His mother) and Resurrection will for Salvation be incidental to some legally-framed accomplishment by Him.
The Scriptures cited at the beginning--with no dishonesty--will be held to have "literal" meanings that are exactly the opposite of what the words say.
One can easily sympathize with Western reader's dilemma--pretending the literal meaning is what one's axioms want it to be vs. rejecting Scripture. Without an understanding of the New Testament concept of energy, the true literal senses of many NT passages do pose dilemmas. For example, faith and works cannot be reconciled--certainly not the way Phlp. 2:13 (in Greek) reconciles them.

The Western invention that a newborn can inherit another's guilt [CLICK HERE] is not only immoral; in effect, it makes God the Cause of evil. Even more absurd is the idea that a moral trait can be physically inherited (i.e. "by natural generation"). Neither absurdity has ever been part of the Eastern Christian thought world.

What does Scripture really mean--apart from the latter-day paradigms invented in the West with a paradigm whose "form" came from translations of the Muslim Aristotle of Córdova? It means what the consensus of the Greek Fathers over the ages (see John 16:13) have concluded it means. That consensus rises above subjective (private) interpretations which are as often fallible as correct.

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*The Latin Church maintains Grace is not uncreated and not energetic; the Reformers insisted that Grace is God's viewing a sinner as virtually righteous.