The Authority of Scripture in Reformed Theology
/The divinity or inspired character of Holy Scripture is revealed to the believer first of all as the attribute of authority itself. “The authority of Holy Scripture is a dignity and excellence pertaining to Holy Scripture alone, above all other writings, by which it is and is held to be authentic, i.e., infallibly certain, so that by absolute necessity it must be believed and obeyed by all because of God its Author” (Polan, i, 16).
In virtue of this, Holy Scripture is the principle of the whole of theology, the exclusive norm of Christian doctrine, and the infallible judge in all doctrinal disputes; and in such wise that all that the vocabulary of Scripture, or its unquestionable inferences contain, is dogma; whereas the opposite of it is error; and anything else, even if it does not contradict Scripture, is indifferent and unnecessary for the soul’s salvation.
—LIEDEN SYNOPSIS (iii, 18–19): “This Scripture alone is the principle from which and the substance from which all saving truth is to be deduced, the canon and norm by which every true and so every false doctrine of things divine must be measured—in a word the αὐτόπιστος and irrefutable witness and judge, i.e. its own evidence, by which every controversy raised about divine things should be judged. The criterion or norm of judgment is contained in the following axioms; (1) whatever is contained in it or agrees with it either expressly or by a valid inference is true dogma; (2) that which disagrees must necessarily be false; (3) while whatever is not contained in it, although it does not directly disagree with it, is not a dogma necessary to salvation.”
The authority of Scripture i.e. its divinity and authenticity in no wise rests, even quoad nos, upon the Church’s acknowledgment, but simply and solely upon Scripture itself, which as God’s word is αὐτόπιστος and ἀνυπεύθυνος. The sole evidence with which absolute certainty assures the Christian of the divineness and authority of Holy Scripture is therefore the evidence which Scripture bears to itself, or which God bears to it in the conscience of the believer—the evidence of the Holy Spirit. This is given to the believer in the fact that the longing for salvation which fills him reaches full satisfaction through the Holy Spirit, that the Spirit of God which animates him is recognized again in Holy Scripture, and that his own life of faith is furthered by it more and more, in an ever more benedictory fashion. But as a result, the divinity and authority of Scripture can also be recognized only by the Christian who can experience the evidence of the Holy Spirit.
Other proofs which are used to ground the divine authenticity of Scripture have therefore value for the Christian only so far as they can be used to uphold the authority of Scripture from without. To these belong the evidence of the Church, which transmits Holy Scripture to the individual Christian as the word of God acknowledged by it at all times (which tradition has no more value than the evidence of heretics, Jews and heathen); as well as the fulfilled predictions of Scripture (especially the destruction of Jerusalem and the earlier divine guidance of the Jewish nation); and the miracles by the performance of which the authors of Scripture are certified by God Himself to be men of God.
But the question of the authority is identical with the question of the knowability of its divinity or inspiration. And in answering this question all Reformed dogmaticians are in essential agreement, since all adduce the testimonium Spiritus sancti as the real proof, besides which (with various deviations from each other) they adduce various other arguments as auxiliary proofs of lesser value.
—WESTMINSTER CONFESSION (1.5): “We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the holy Scripture; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.
—CALVIN argues thus (I, vii, 4): If we are asked for a proof of the divineness of the content of H. Scripture, we must reply that “the testimony of the H. Spirit is more outstanding than all reason. As God alone can properly bear witness to His own words, so these words will not obtain credit in the hearts of men, until they are sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. Thus the same Spirit who spake by the mouth of the prophets must penetrate to our hearts, to persuade us that they have faithfully delivered what they were entrusted with by God”.
Only for him who has this witness of the Holy Spirit can other arguments have significance as supports of faith, to convince him of the divinity of Scripture. Scripture is thus αὐτόπιστος, its repute rests purely on itself and is therefore in no wise dependent on the authority of the Church.
The expression of Augustine adduced by the Papists to contradict this statement: “I should not believe the Gospel, were I not moved thereto by the authority of the Catholic Church” is rightly connected by Calvin with Augustine’s situation, in which “he was involved with the Manichees”; so that his view was: “since he was a stranger to the faith, he could not otherwise be brought to embrace the gospel as the sure truth of God, unless he was overcome by the authority of the Church”. All later dogmaticians explain this expression in exactly the same way.
—MUSCULUS rightly remarks, p. 181, that here ‘crederem’ is equivalent to ‘credidissem’. Those who assert that “all authority of Scripture depends on the Church” act foolishly (as Virellius says in Relig. Christ. compend., p. 3), “as though one should say that the light of the sun depends upon the testimony of man. As the sun will not cease to shine although all men should be blind, so the divine word will never take harm, whether it be approved of men or not”.
—URSINUS (Loci, p. 436) teaches exactly the same. The most essential “evidence” of the “certainty of Scripture” is the testimony of the H. Spirit. “This testimony is unique, proper only to those reborn by the Spirit of Christ and known only to them. And it has such power that it not only attests and seals abundantly in our souls the truth of the prophetic and apostolic doctrine, but also effectually bends and moves our hearts to embrace and follow it.”
Only for him who has experienced this testimony of the Holy Spirit in his heart can the other arguments (antiquity of doctrine, prophecies, miracles, etc.) adduced for the inspiration of the canonical books in Scripture, have the real force of proof. For the individual of course, the authority of the Church may be the means by which he attains to belief in Scripture, since it stimulates and educates him, etc. But it does not follow that the repute of Scripture is dependent upon the authority of the Church. It is rather the same here with the Church as it is with the woman at Sychar, Jn. 4:42.
“Many of the Samaritans are said to have believed in Christ because of the woman’s words in testimony, that he had told her all things that she had done. But after they had had Christ with them for two days, many more believed because of his words. Therefore, as the men of Sychar were first moved by the woman’s tale to believe in Christ, after they had seen and heard Christ himself they were so confirmed, that they now said that they would believe, even if the woman were silent. So it may be the case that those not yet converted or still weak, may, by the testimony of the Church as more impressing them visually, be moved to have faith in Scripture; yet after they have been irradiated by the richer light of faith, they experience confirmation that Scripture is the word of God by a far higher and surer testimony—though all angels and men should be persuading them of something different” (Ursinus?).
Thus the solely real witness to the divinity of Scripture is the witness that Scripture gives of itself, “because God Himself bears this witness”. Hence the constant description of Holy Scripture as αὐτόπιστος and ἀνυπεύθυνος.
—BULLINGER (I, 2) is most precise in describing the Reformed Church conception of the certitudo of H. Scripture: “Briefly, since Scripture is the Word of God, it must be believed without doubt.”
Summing up the most essential statements in this doctrinal development PISCATOR (p. 16) teaches that Holy Scripture proves itself to be θεόπνευστος and αὐτόπιστος, purely by the witness of the H. Spirit; in addition to which he emphasizes the following “proofs” for establishing faith in Scripture:
“(1) its heavenly majesty, (2) the mutual consent of all its parts, (3) the admiration which it draws us into, (4) the number and greatness of its miracles, (5) the wonderful fulfillment of prophecies, (6) the consent of the Church, (7) the blood of the martyrs.”
Even later this conception of Holy Scripture was retained unchanged alike in the Federal theology and in Scholasticism, and the nature of the testimony of the H. Spirit was defined with special care.
—HEIDEGGER (Corp. Theol. II, 14): “This witness of the Holy Spirit is not a bare persuasion of mind which may be liable to error, or an irrational movement of the heart such as enthusiasts hawk as divine. But it is its glow and shining in our dark hearts, affording us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Cor. 4:6, so that, natural obstacles having been thus removed, we may be able to look within at all the excellency and wealth of the divine word.”
The relation of the witness of the Church about Scripture to that of the Holy Spirit is described by HEIDEGGER (Medull. Theol. II, viii): “The witness of the Church” is “not authentic and fundamental but εἰσαγωγικὸν and ὑπηρετικόν”. In the same sense WOLLEBIUS p. 3: “This witness is twofold, fundamental and ministerial. The witness of the Holy Spirit is fundamental (principale)—while the witness of the Church is ministerial.”
—VOETIUS V, 14: “As there is no objective certainty about the authority of Scripture, save as infused and imbued by God the Author of Scripture, so we have no subjective certainty of it, no formal concept of the authority of Scripture, except from God illuminating and convincing inwardly through the H. Spirit. As Scripture itself, as if radiating an outward principle by its own light (no outsider intervening as principle or means of proof or conviction), is something ἀξιοπιστόν or credible per se and in se—so the H. Spirit is the inward, supreme, first, independent principle, actually opening and illuminating the eyes of our mind, effectually convincing us of the credible authority of Scripture, from it, along with it and through it, so that being drawn we run, and being passively convicted within we acquiesce.”
—ALSTED (31) gives the strongest expression: “The authority and certitude of Scripture depends on the witness of the H. Spirit and this proof is the greatest of proofs. For the authority of any saying or writing depends upon its actual author. Much depends upon this rule, which is the basis of the whole of theology.”
Since the authority of Holy Scripture coincides with the authority of God, it is essentially an absolute authority. At the same time, there is founded on the contents of Scripture a distinction in its authority. So far as everything that Scripture recounts is absolutely certain historical truth, it possesses “historical authority or authenticity”. But so far as it contains the absolutely divine norms of faith and life, it possesses “normative authority or authenticity”. From this it is clear that the “historical” stretches further than the “normative” authority. The former applies to the entire content of Scripture, the latter only to a part of it, since what Scripture records about the works, words, and thoughts of the devil and the godless has historical authority but not normative.
—TURRETIN (II, iv, 2) says briefly: “One authentia is of history or of narrative: there is another over and above of truth and of norm. According to the former whatever is narrated in Scripture is most true, just as it is narrated, whether good or bad, true or false. But the latter those things are said to possess, which are true in themselves, so that they may be transmitted as the norm of faith and morals. Not everything in Scripture has authentia normae, as those recorded to have been said by the godless or a devil. Yet everything has authentia historiae.”
Likewise pretty well all the dogmaticians.
Taken and adapted from: Reformed Dogmatics, by Heinrich Heppe, and translated by G. T. Thomson (2007), 19-28