Tag: Scripture

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Theology by Scripture Alone Alongside the Church Alone

The supreme authority for Christian theology is the Triune God and the Holy Scriptures through which he speaks. The Lutheran Scholastic theologians, beginning with Johann Gerhard, spoke of theology’s “principle of being” (principium essendi) and principle of knowledge (principium cognoscendi). Theologians in the Protestant tradition often speak of Holy Scripture as the supreme authority in Christian theology. This is not incorrect. But it should be qualified by recognizing along with the Lutheran Scholastics that although Holy Scripture is the inspired Word of God, its authority ultimately rests on the authority of the Triune God who through it addresses humanity. 

Affirming that Holy Scripture is the foundation and source of all true Christian theology does not rule out the reality that God speaks through other mediums. Indeed, Luther speaks of all creatures as God’s masks, channels, and created words through which God addresses humanity.  The eighteenth-century Lutheran philosopher Johann Georg Hamann spoke of humanity as enveloped by God’s address through creation. 

Nevertheless, we must make a distinction between God’s auditory and visible words. God acts on his creatures through the physical mediums of the whole of creation. However, God only tells humans how they are to know him in these physical mediums through his auditory Word. God’s auditory words were revealed to the prophets and the apostles and written down in the Bible. We know that the Scriptures are the inerrant Word of God because Jesus Christ affirmed their authority and proved his own by rising from the dead.  

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Justification in Jesus Christ is the Center of Theology

Theology is centered on, yet not exhausted by, the message of justification in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ offers a unilateral and unconditional promise of salvation. Therefore, the distinction between law and gospel is also central to the enterprise of Christian theology.

The central problem of human life is the question of justification. Social psychologists have demonstrated that across culture and times, humans are driven on by status seeking behavior in their relationships with other humans.  A given cultural group sets standards of behavior, and humans compete with one another to see who can best embody them. The ultimate goal of this competition is gaining a status of proper recognition before others (i.e., social justification).  In religion, this principle also holds true. Whatever the ultimate goal of salvation is in a given religion, adherents will invariably achieve it by performing a set a works (be they moral, ritual or both). Another option might be to mystically dissolve the self to escape the relentless demand of the gods or God. Even modern atheism embodies this impulse, since by pretending that God and his law do not exist, one is free from the need to justify oneself before God, or at minimum, religious authorities. Rather, the self dissolves upon death.

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Theology by Grace Alone through Faith Alone

Theology is fundamentally about knowing and confessing the Triune God through faith in his Word (Rom. 10:9). God the Holy Spirit works to create saving faith through the Word. Such faith is in no way the byproduct of human will or activity (Rom. 10:17, 1 Cor. 2:14-16). Scripture does allow that a natural knowledge of God accessible to all people exists (Ps. 19, Rom. 1-2). Yet, this philosophical recognition of God and his reality is not theology in its proper sense. At best, the natural knowledge of God is a partial, garbled knowledge that the sinful human heart will manipulate according to its own purposes. Since God saves by faith through grace alone, so too the theology that gives rise to that faith comes by grace alone.  

In this vein, the early Lutheran theologian Johann Gerhard (1582 – 1637) spoke of theology as a “practical habitus” that God implanted in the human heart and mind.  In the Aristotelian philosophy of the day, a “habitus” was an aptitude for developing a habitual behavior, such as a virtue. Gerhard argued that God’s grace made theology possible by means of the Holy Spirit working on the heart and mind of the theologian. This divine action enables readers to fully apprehend the truths present in the text of Scripture. Of course, the theologian might still draw on his own humanly acquired knowledge when studying Scripture. However, only God’s Spirit and the gifts that he bestows allows the theologian to properly apprehend the content and unity of the Faith. Such a divinely given “aptitude” is “practical” because its ultimate end is the proclamation of the grace of God in Christ through Word and Sacrament. 

From the draft manuscript for Lutheran Dogmatics: The Evangelical-Catholic Faith for an Age of Contested Truth (Lexham Press).

Cover image from: Tom Nash, “What Are Inspirations of the Holy Spirit?,” Catholic Answers, accessed June 23, 2025, https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-are-inspirations-of-the-holy-spirit; other image from Chantal LaFortune, “Sacred Scripture Unveiled,” Holy Apostles College & Seminary, December 8, 2023, accessed June 23, 2025, https://holyapostles.edu/sacred-scripture-unveiled/.

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The Pure and Clear Fountain of Israel: The Necessity of Inerrancy

Through providence and the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, men collected God’s auditory words into the written word of the Bible.  Contrary to common belief, pre-modern Christian orthodoxy consistently affirmed the inerrancy of the Bible as God’s Word.1   Sadly, modern Fundamentalist trajectories in theology have distorted this doctrine. Their attempts to wield inerrancy as a weapon against post-Cartesian forms of philosophical Foundationalism have only degenerated orthodox teaching.2 

A Sacramental Medium, not an Epistemic Foundation

Today, many conservative Evangelical and Fundamentalist theologians seem to hold that the Bible must provide its own indubitable “clear and distinct ideas”3 to build a foundation for further knowledge. From this perspective, the biblical “foundation” could counteract modern claims of autonomous knowledge. The Bible, however, is not primarily a tool of philosophers, but a channel of God’s creative, redemptive, and sanctifying Word.  

It is, indeed, important to affirm the absolute truthfulness of God’s auditory/written words. However, there are better and worse ways to employ the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy.  As noted, many modern conservative Christian theologians have conceptualized the doctrine of inerrancy in ways that largely reflect modernist and Foundationalist presuppositions.4  Rather, Christians must see the Word of God as a sacramental medium that facilitates both the creational and redemptive exchange between God and his creatures.  God speaks and thereby activates the response of his creatures through his auditory words.  As theologian Kevin Vanhoozer writes:   

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Speaking on the Authority of Scripture in Wittenberg

I am excited to be speaking at the North European Luther Academy‘s 2023 Annual Theological Symposium in Wittenberg, Germany. This year’s symposium topic will be “Inspiration, Authority, and Leadership.” I will be speaking on the “The Authority of Scripture and Tradition in Light of the Lutheran Confessional Paradigm” and “The Doctrine of Scriptural Inerrancy in Confessional Lutheran Perspective.” Other speakers include Daniel Johansson, Knut Alfsvåg, Rune Imberg, and Fredrik Sidenvall. If you can make it, I’d love to connect!