We cannot assert that
Scripture is self-sufficient, and this not because it is incomplete, or inexact,
or has any defects, but because Scripture in its very essence does not lay
claim to self-sufficiency. We can say that Scripture is a God-inspired scheme
or image (eikon) of truth, but not truth itself. Strange to say, we
often limit the freedom of the Church as a whole, for the sake of furthering
individual freedom of individual Christians. In the name of individual freedom
the Catholic, ecumenical freedom of the Church is denied and limited. The
liberty of the Church is shacked by an abstract biblical standard for the sake
of setting free individual consciousness from the spiritual demands enforced by
the experience of the Church. This is a denial of catholicity, a destruction of
catholic consciousness; this is the sin of the Reformation. Dean Inge neatly
says of the Reformers: “their creeds has been described as a return to the
Gospel in the spirit of the Koran” (The Platonic Tradition in English
Religious Thought [1926], p. 2). If we declare Scripture to be
self-sufficient, we only expose it to subjective, arbitrary interpretation, thus
cutting it away from its sacred source. Scripture is given to us in tradition. It
is the vital, crystallizing centre. The Church, as the Body of Christ, stands
mystically first and is fuller than Scripture. This does not limit Scripture,
or cast shadows on it. But truth is revealed to us not only historically.
Christ appeared and still appears before us not only in the Scriptures; He
unchangeably and unceasingly reveals Himself in the Church, in His own Body. In
the times of the early Christians the Gospels were not yet written and could
not be the sole source of knowledge. The Church acted according to the spirit
of the Gospel, and, what is more, the Gospel came to life in the Church, in the
Holy Eucharist. In the Christ of the Eucharist, Christians learned to know the
Christ of the Gospels, and so His image became vivid to them. (Georges
Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View [Belmont,
Mass.: Nordland Publishing Company, 1972], 48)
Further Reading
Not By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura
