Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide

Strasbourg

This year, many people are celebrating the five-hundredth anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. But not everyone is. Some have raised severe criticisms against the Reformers and their work. The Reformers, they allege, replaced the authority of the church with the authority of the autonomous individual. Moreover, the doctrine of justification by faith alone, these critics claim, cut the nerve of morality and, effectively, baptized licentious living. Martin Luther and John Calvin, they continue, opened Pandora’s box, releasing two forces that not only rent the church but also went on to define the modern age: radical individualism and antinomianism. Understood on these terms, the Reformation is cause for lamentation, not celebration.

These criticisms rest on a profound misunderstanding of the Reformation and, specifically, a misunderstanding of two of the leading doctrines of the Reformation: sola scriptura (Scripture alone) and sola fide (faith alone). What were the Reformers saying when they declared that the Bible is the only rule of faith and practice? When they declared that a sinner is justified through faith alone, apart from the works of the law? As importantly, what were they not saying when they advanced these claims in the church? Read More

Also See:
5 Lessons from Reformation Women