David's Daily Diversions

Aha, you're setting some Protestant bait! OK, I'll take it ... (I suppose as a Lutheran pastor I have a type of obligation to argue/defend propositions such as sola scriptura, etc. - on the other hand, as "just a guy on a journey" I'm reevaluating everything, including my own beliefs/presuppositions. Both will no doubt be reflected in my comments)

Clifton's post is good & challenging, though he understates Luther's real improvement over time in his opinion of James (not that that makes any dogmatic difference, even in the Lutheran church), and he makes a few small leaps of logic here and there, due, I think, mainly to compact writing rather than sloppy thinking.

Clifton says, "Sola scriptura adherents simply fail to acknowledge that the canon is not derived from sola scriptura but from the received authority of the Tradition of the Church." I've heard this type of argument a number of times, and it's never satisfied me. I agree that the canon is ratified in the Tradition of the Church, but I don't see that as the same thing as the canon being "derived" from the authority of Church Tradition. I don't believe, for example, that the doctrine of the Trinity is "derived" from the Councils; it's an eternal truth about the LORD which the Church discovered and the councils ratified. It's the same way with the books of the Bible. They were God-breathed in their own right before any councils ever ratified them as such.

I don't feel like I've really finished, but I'm up way too late & the brain is getting fuzzy - maybe we can work through this a piece at a time?!