8/6/2019 Tradition and Authority in Reformed Protestantism 7

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Tradition and Authority inReformed Protestantism Page 7 of 11

"convicted by the Scriptures". It 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 Luther alone had recovered the true gospel? Is it possiblethat 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 notice of the entirety of the

Church's theologians since the beginning of the Church? Itwould seem that this is good

advice when it concerns modern-day cults, but not when it applies to the Reformers

themselves!

The Reformed Protestant cannot escape the need for a Church 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 overthe 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

confessions (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 aheretic in doing so (in the mind of the Protestant). Or worse yet, you could even reject the

confessional Reformed beliefs by going back to the dreaded "error ofRomanism"! But to

reform these doctrines in any meaningful theological sense a Protestant cannot attempt to

do. These doctrine 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 (ifnot 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?

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