A question on my mind a lot lately, if you look at the previous few posts on this blog, is whether or not Wesley held to the Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura.
The interest comes from hearing here and there people say things like, "Wesley held to prima scriptura."
In a few previous posts, I pointed out that just from a cursory read of the standard edition of Wesley's Works you can see that Wesley affirms the doctrine of sola scriptura.
So why do some persist in saying Wesley held to prima scriptura?
Perhaps it comes from Albert Outler's compendium of some basic Wesly writings in his great book "John Wesley," published in 1964.
Outler is the great Methodist historian who single-handedly made the study of Wesley respectable and available. Outler's influence on United Methodism is huge.
Outler writes: "The great Protestant watchwords of sola fide [by faith alone] and sola scriptura [scripture alone] were also fundamental in Wesley's doctrine of authority. But early and late he interpreted 'solus' to mean primarily rather than exclusively." (p. 28) Now, Outler drops this on us without much else, other than a footnote, in which he says,
"we are justified by faith alone, but by such a faith as is not alone.... In the year 1730 when I began to be 'homo unius libri [a man of one book]' regarding none comparatively but the Bible". Outler then asks in the footnote, "why comparatively if unius libri meant 'exclusively?' (footnote 101)
Now, I'll set aside the sketchy nature of asking rhetorical questions in footnotes. What I am interested in is why Outler seems to think sola scriptura means the Bible is the only thing we can read?
That, I think, gets us to the meat of the issue. I suspect that we are allowing some of our cultural struggles to determine how we understand a crucial doctrine. Put another way, some might be thinking we must reject sola scriptura because otherwise we have to believe in a literal 6 day creation.
But does sola scriptura mean that the Bible is all you can read? Or that we cannot learn anything outside of it? The very work of the Reformation was built on investigating what early Christian writers had to say; the Bible is seen as the only text that can speak authoritatively about what is necessary for salvation; the life and governance of the Church; and the standard of morality for the believer. But nothing in that precludes studying what others have said. It means that whatever else we may do, in the critical matters of the church, scripture is the determinative, authoritative voice.
I hope we can remain clear on that, and not allow what we think about the Creation Museum, for example, or other current controversies, to impact our thinking on a timeless doctrine.
If we pull back from sola scriptura, we will also pull away from the others. Bt, of course, we already have. We can see a shift towards a desire to believe, teach, and preach salvation by some faith and some good deeds on our part.
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