Is Scripture the Ultimate Authority?

Is the ultimate, unquestionable authority for the church found in the Apostolic words of sacred Scripture or in the body of teachers who currently serve as overseers of God’s flock? That was the issue debated in the sixteenth century, at which time the Reformers determined that Scripture alone is the ultimate, authoritative revelation of God; the church does not have authority on an equal footing with Scripture. However, when the Roman Catholic Church convened at the Council of Trent in the middle of the sixteenth century to respond to the Reformation, the fourth session of that council addressed the relationship of the authority of the church and the authority of Scripture. In that session, the church professed confidence in the inspiration and authority of the Bible while also claiming that God reveals Himself through the tradition of the church.

We can find the truth of God in places besides the Bible. We can find it in sound books on theology, insofar as they are sound, but they are not the original source of that special revelation. However, the Roman Catholic Church holds to a “dual-source theory” in which there are two sources of special revelation, one of which is Scripture and the other of which is the tradition of the church. This theory has the effect of placing the church on an equal footing with the Bible itself in terms of authority.

The fourth session of the Council of Trent was dismissed abruptly when war broke out on the Continent, so some of the records of what actually occurred at the council are unclear. In the original draft of the fourth session, the decree read that “the truths . . . are contained partly [partim] in Scripture and partly [partim] in the unwritten traditions.” But at a decisive point in the council’s deliberations, two priests rose in protest against the “partim . . . partim” formula. They protested on the grounds that this view would destroy the uniqueness and sufficiency of Scripture. All we know from that point on is that the words “partly . . . partly” were removed from the text and replaced by the word “and” (et). Did this mean that the council responded to the protest and perhaps left the relationship between Scripture and tradition purposely ambiguous? Was the change stylistic, meaning that the council still maintained two distinct sources of revelation? We do not know the answer to those questions strictly from the records of the Council of Trent, but we do know the answer from subsequent decrees and decisions of the church, most recently in the papal encyclical Humani Generis (1950), in which Pope Pius XII put forth with no ambiguity that the church embraces two distinct sources of special revelation.

So, the Roman Catholic Church appeals to both the tradition of the church and the Bible for its doctrine, which is what makes ecumenical dialogue very difficult. When a particular doctrine falls under scrutiny, Protestants want to establish their position strictly on the authority of the Bible, whereas Rome wants to include the renderings of church councils or papal encyclicals. We see this with issues such as the immaculate conception of Mary. Although no such doctrine is found anywhere in the Scriptures, Roman Catholics establish the doctrine on the basis of tradition.

In response to those who uphold sola Scriptura, the Roman Catholic Church argues that since it was by the church’s decision that certain books were formally included in the canon, the authority of the Bible is subject to the authority of the church and, in a very real sense, the Bible derives its abiding authority from the even greater authority of the church itself. Protestants reject that for biblical, theological, and historical reasons. The Reformers restricted binding authority to the Scriptures because they were convinced that the Scriptures are the Word of God, and that God alone can bind the conscience and has absolute authority.

The Roman Catholic Church does claim that God alone is the ultimate authority, but it argues that He has delegated that authority to the church, which is what they believe happened when Jesus said to Peter, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). The authority of Peter and the Apostles then passed to their successors in what is called “Apostolic succession.” The Roman Catholic formulation of this belief asserts that the bishop of Rome, the pope, sits in Peter’s place as his successor and so exercises the authority of Peter as Christ’s representative on earth.

Whether the Bible clearly affirms Apostolic succession is open to dispute, and controversy continues as to exactly what Jesus meant at Caesarea Philippi when He said that He would build His church on the rock. We do know that there was a delegation process. Christ is the delegated Apostle par excellence, as was shown when He said, “I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak” (John 12:49). Christ claimed to speak with nothing less than the authority of God, so when the church embraces Christ as Lord, it is recognizing that Christ has authority as the head of the church and is therefore superior to any other part of the church.

In saying that it had “received” Scripture, the church recognized that the books of the canon have binding authority over all. The church was not so arrogant as to claim that it was creating the canon or that the canon received its authority from the church. If God were to appear before me today and I were to ask Him to verify His identity as God, and if He were to do so in such a way that I could not help but bow before His authority, my acquiescence to His authority would not bestow on Him any authority that He did not already have. I would merely be recognizing the authority that is already there and bowing before it. That is exactly what the church did during the early centuries when it was involved in the process of formally recognizing the canon of Scripture.

The church is always subordinate to the authority of the Bible. This does not mean that the church has no authority. Governments and parents have authority, but those authorities have been delegated by God. They do not have the absolute authority that goes with God’s own Word. So any authority held by the church is subordinate to the authority of Scripture.