Five solae of the Protestant Reformation |
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Sola scriptura |
Sola fide |
Sola gratia |
Solus Christus |
Soli Deo gloria |
Sola scriptura (Latin for 'by scripture alone') is a Christian theological doctrine held by most Protestant Christian denominations, in particular the Lutheran, Reformed and Evangelical traditions,[1][2] that posits the Bible as the sole infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice.[2]
Sola scriptura is a formal principle of many Protestant Christian denominations, and one of the five solae.[2] It was a foundational doctrinal principle of the Protestant Reformation held by many of the Reformers, who taught that authentication of Scripture is governed by the discernible excellence of the text, as well as the personal witness of the Holy Spirit to the heart of each man.
By contrast, the Protestant traditions of Anglicanism and Methodism uphold the doctrine of prima scriptura,[3][4] with scripture being illumined by tradition and reason. The Methodists thought reason should be delineated from experience, though the latter was classically filed under the former and guided by reason, nonetheless this was added, thus changing the "Anglican Stool" to the four sides of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.[5] The Eastern Orthodox Church holds that to "accept the books of the canon is also to accept the ongoing Spirit-led authority of the church's tradition, which recognizes, interprets, worships, and corrects itself by the witness of Holy Scripture".[6] The Catholic Church officially regards tradition and scripture as equal, forming a single deposit, and considers the magisterium as the living organ which interprets said deposit.[7] The Roman magisterium thus serves Tradition and Scripture as "one common source [...] with two distinct modes of transmission",[8] while some Protestant authors call it "a dual source of revelation".[9]
Many Protestants want to distinguish the view that scripture is the only rule of faith with the exclusion of other sources (nuda scriptura), from the view taught by Luther and Calvin that the scripture alone is infallible, without excluding church tradition in its entirety, viewing them as subordinate and ministerial.[10][11][12][13][14]
[M]any passages...state sola scriptura, such as Revelation 22:18-19. If we cannot add anything to the words of Scripture and we cannot take anything away from them, that is Scripture alone.
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