How the 5 Solas Do More Than Respond to Catholicism
“What is Reformed theology?” This is the question I get asked all the time. Especially since I teach at a school called Reformed Theological Seminary!
While there are many ways to answer that question, I have found that the 5 Solas of the Reformation provide one of the best summaries of what it means to be Reformed: sola scriptura (Scripture alone), solus Christus (Christ alone), sola fide (faith alone), sola gratia (grace alone), and soli Deo gloria (glory to God alone).
Since the 5 Solas are borne out of the Protestant Reformation, then it would not be surprising to know that, in many ways, they reflect the circumstances of the … Continue reading...
Do We Have the Right Books in Our Canon?
I was recently interviewed by Gavin Ortlund on his podcast: “Which Canon is the Right One?” Enjoy!
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Did the Church Create the Bible?
The perennial question in the debate over sola Scriptura is whether the church is over the Bible or the Bible is over the church.
The latter position is (generally speaking) a Protestant one—the Scriptures, and the Scriptures alone, are the only infallible rule and therefore the supreme authority over the church.
The former position (generally speaking) is a Roman Catholic one—the church decided the canon and also, through the pope, decides how these books are to be interpreted. In this way, the authority of the Bible rests on the (prior and more foundational) authority of the church.
Of course, Catholics would not word it quite this way. The Roman church … Continue reading...
Are Protestants Closer to Catholics than Martin Luther? A Response to the Recent Pew Study (Part 2)
Last week, I posted the first of a two-part response to a recent Pew study which claimed that modern Protestants sound more like Catholics when it comes to issues like sola scriptura and sola fide.
While modern Protestants certainly have some significant theological weak spots, I pushed back against the results of this study on the grounds that the questions being asked were fundamentally misleading. Indeed, the theological descriptions of the Protestant (and Catholic!) positions were flat out wrong.
Having already dealt with the sola scriptura issue in the prior post, we now turn to the issue of sola fide. Here is the summary of the Pew survey … Continue reading...
Roman Catholicism and the NT Canon: Today on the Dividing Line with James White
My new book, The Question of Canon, is designed to challenge a particular approach to the New Testament canon that is prevalent in the modern academy. It is the approach that suggests that in the earliest stages of Christianity the canon was in disarray; the canonical process was a wide-open affair where no one agreed on much of anything and no one was able to distinguish canonical books from apocryphal ones.
What is ironic about this critical approach is that it has an unexpected ally: Roman Catholicism. The Catholic claim is remarkably similar to the one of critical scholars (at least in its premise). Both claim that the canonical … Continue reading...