Tradition and Authority in Reformed Pro tes tantis m Page 7 of 11 "convicted by the criptures". I t is Luther himself who appeals to Scripture to prove his case. Luther denies to the Catholic Church, and her councils what he claims for himself: possession of the true gospel, and the true and correct interpretation of the Scriptures. Luther (and all the Reformers) assert their autonomy over and against the Church and set themselves up (with their new doctrines) as a new authority. Does anyone really believe that L ther alone had recovered the true gospel? Is it possible that the entire Church had lost the very gospel itself'? Should we not (as I've heard Reformed Protestant theologian R.C. Sproul say) be wary of those men who purport to have discovered a new doctrine which has escaped the otice of the entirety of the Church's theologians since the beginning of the Church? I t would seem that this is good advice when it concerns modern-day cults, but not wh n t applies to the Reformers themselves! The Reformed Protestant cannot escape the need for a C urch authority as the final authority. They can rail against the Roman Catholics for "placing the Church over the Bible", but it is they who have placed Reformed theology, and the Reformed Church over the Bible, and over the Reformed Protestant himself. A Protestant submits, in the end, not to the Bible, but to the Reformed Protestant interpretation of the Bible expressed in the Reformed confessions of faith. While denying that councils can make infallible declarations of dogma, the Reformed church authorities declare a Reformed dogma which cannot then be reformed. They codify doctrine and declare it to be true on the authority of Scripture, and on the authority of the Apostles who wrote the gospel in Scripture. These confes ions (e.g., the Westminster, Augsburg, Thirty-Nine Articles) have undergone almost no change in over 400 years; why? Because they assert that they correctly (infallibly?) proclaim and expound the apostolic gospel revealed in Scripture. How can anyone change that? ! You would have to revolt against the truth and would become a heretic in doing so (in he mind of the Protestant). Or worse yet, you could even reject the confessional Reformed beliefs by go ng back to the dreaded "error o Romanism"! But to reform these doctrines in any meaningful theological sense a Protestant cannot attempt to do. These doc rine are, to the Protestant, the very embodiment of true doctrine. Although they deny that they can defme doctrine without the possibility of error, they hold to these doctrines as though they are given without the possibility of error. The very assumption in Protestantism that their councils and divines may and do err is an acknowledgment that there is at least the possibility ( if not the likelihood) that the councils and divines have erred. Luther, the Protestant must admit, may have been wrong. Likewise, Calvin and the Westminster divines. After all, these men are not protected from error. But, the Protestant says, I have examined the Scriptures, and I think they teach Reformed doctrine (autonomy strikes again!). But have you, oh Reformed man, examined the Scriptures from an unbiased viewpoint? Without any presupposed theological concepts? Were you not instructed by men in authority who, in actuality, proclaimed to you Reformed theology and doctrine, and who then purported to back these up with passages from Scripture? http://www.snider.net/home/theophilus/tradition.html 7/1/99