However, Sola Scriptura may not be the defining issue over authority as we might think. Clearly both Protestants and Catholics affirmed Scripture as authoritative. When pushed, Catholics themselves would have affirmed that Scripture alone was the basis for their doctrine. It is not the authority of Scripture that separated the two sides, but interpretation. Whose interpretation (Protestant or Roman Catholic) determined orthodoxy?
In other words, is Scripture clear enough to be understood by the laity or does an authoritative person or entity interpret Scripture for the laity? This is the question over Scripture’s perspicuity and it is this doctrine that separated Protestants and Catholics. If Scripture was clear and perspicuous, then Christians would not need the Pope or tradition to serve as authoritative interpreters equal to Scripture.
By rejecting Scripture’s clarity, the Church determined the Pope to be the authority over the meaning of Scripture. Supported by tradition, precedent, and councils, the Roman Catholic Church taught that only the See of Rome correctly understood what the texts of Scripture meant. While everyone else saw obscurity, the Pope, through the Spirit’s guidance, saw clarity. As a result, Catholics were subject to the Pope’s interpretation without the freedom to question official Church dogma. After all, Scripture’s obscurity prevented any lay person from ever seeing theology clearly. If only the Pope possessed insight, who are you to question his interpretation?
Luther and the Protestant movement, on the other hand, affirmed the perspicuity of Scripture and considered it to be foundational to their theological movement. It is under this doctrine that led to the many vernacular translations of the Bible from men like John Wycliffe and William Tyndale. To them, Scripture was clear even for the common Christian and if people could read the Bible themselves, they argued, they could see how stretched the Church’s interpretations really were. To the Reformers, the Bible in the Christian’s hand was seen as a weapon that the Church could not stop.
Among the Reformers, Martin Luther was among its most vehement supporters who referenced it frequently. But this foundational divide was not just echoed by Luther. Many Catholics took note of the seriousness of Luther’s argument for perspicuity. The Catholic theologian John Eck relished in the heated debate among the Reformers over the Lord’s Supper. Eck wrote:
By this example, taken from the modern heretics (who reject any other judge than Scripture) is shown how the Lutherans and Oecolampadians and Zwinglians fight over the sacrament of the Eucharist . . . Who among them will be judge? Who will ever bring them into harmony? Scripture or the Church? (Apart from these no other judge can be provided). It is not indeed upon Scripture, which each contends to be the judge, that they lay their foundation – all the while in their self-same words of Scripture – and thus they do not admit Scripture as judge against their own doctrine but they make themselves judges over Scripture. Accordingly, the Church will necessarily judge.*
Eck, then argues that at the end of the day someone must judge over the right interpretation of the text. As a faithful and ardent Catholic, Eck sides with the Church’s historic interpretation. Since Scripture is not clear, the Church must serve as its interpreter. Furthermore, as Eck suggests, if Scripture is clear for everyone and Protestants have no central interpreter, then Protestantism will continue to break off and be divided over almost every and any doctrine. To a certain extent, this accusation has proven true.
This is all to say that what really divided Catholics and Protestants was over the doctrine of Scripture’s perspicuity and this is perfectly demonstrated within the life of Martin Luther whose battle with the Church was epoch. Everywhere he turned and whatever doctrine he was debating, the issue almost always came down to perspicuity. This means that Luther and the Protestants were not debating justification, but perspicuity; not the Papacy, but perspicuity; not indulgences; but perspicuity; not Church dogma, but perspicuity. It is perspicuity that was at the heart of the Reformation debate that revealed itself everywhere the German Reformer went.
* As quoted in James Patrick Callahan, The Clarity of Scripture: History, Theology, and Contemporary Literary Studies (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 134.
For more:
Theology - Luther: Right Doctrine and Righteous Living Go Hand-in-Hand - A Message the Church Needs to Recover
Reviews - Reviews in Brief: Martin Luther and the Reformation
Reviews - The Theology of the Reformers
Reviews - The Unquenchable Flame
Reviews - Luther: Man Between God and the Devil
Reviews - The Trial of Luther
Reviews - Martin Luther: The Christian Between God and Death
Reviews - "On the Necessity of Reforming the Church" by John Calvin
Reviews - John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, & Doxology
Reviews - Christianity's Dangerous Idea
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