Sola Scriptura and Western Hyperpluralism: A Critical Response to Brad Gregory’s Unintended Reformation

Nico Vorster

doi:10.5539/res.v5n1p52

Abstract

This paper discusses Brad Gregory’s claim that the Reformation era’s principle of sola scriptura is the ‘most important distant historical source of Western hyperpluralism’. After an explication of Gregory’s argument, the paper employs three counter arguments to Gregory’s claim. Firstly, it is argued that late medieval Europe was not a unified institutionalised society as Gregory suggests, but was characterised by doctrinal controversy, power struggles with the church and social discord. It would therefore be incorrect to regard the sola scriptura principle as the main historical origin of the fragmentation of Western society. Secondly, a series of intellectual revolutions from the 11th to 15th centuries played a pivotal role in the fragmentation of medieval Western society and the rise of individualist patterns of thinking. The rise of theological schools and universities, the discovery of printing and questions about the reliability of the Vulgate translation were three key factors that fractured medieval society. The sola scriptura principle was a partial phenomenon within this much larger intellectual environment. Lastly, it is argued that the sola scriptura principle was neither an invention of the Reformation, nor a novel idea, and that the Reformers did not employ the sola scriptura principle in the individualist sense that Gregory appears to belief. In the end it is a highly artificial and reductionist argument to describe the Reformation’s sola scriptura principle as the ‘most important distant historical source of Western hyperpluralism’.

Highlights

Brad Gregory’s book, The Unintended Reformation, is one of the most debated publications that appeared in the field of religious history in recent times
The first assumption is the idea that the sola scriptura principle was an invention of the Reformation, and the second is that the Reformers gave an individualist content to the sola scriptura principle by elevating private judgment above the authority of the church
The question posed in this article pertains to Gregory’s claim that the sola scriptura principle of the Reformation is the ‘most important and decisive historical source of Western hyperpluralism’

Summary

Introduction

Brad Gregory’s book, The Unintended Reformation, is one of the most debated publications that appeared in the field of religious history in recent times. The Reformation, according to Gregory, has replaced papal and ecclesial authority with the principle of sola scriptura that allowed individual believers to interpret Scripture for themselves This inaugurated an era of individualism and the proliferation of various truth claims that in the end contributed decisively to the hyperplurality of modern culture. Underlying Gregory’s argument, again, is the notion that the Reformation’s use of the principle of sola scriptura is the real source of disagreement that caused a proliferation of Christian pluralism that eventually led to religio-political conflict. His central argument is that the ‘secularity, specialized and segmented character of knowledge’ is inextricably linked to the doctrinal disagreements of the Reformation era and the ‘ideological and institutional responses they engendered’ (2012:304) Occam and his nominalist followers, utilising the univocal ontology of Scotus, already tended to pursue theology, metaphysics and moral philosophy without regard for the interrelatedness of knowledge (2012:318). In the light of these developments, Gregory identifies the sola scriptura principle as the ‘most, important distant historical source of Western hyperpluralism’ (2012:92)

Sola Scriptura and Western Hyperpluralism

The Origins and Meaning of Sola Scriptura

Scripture and Tradition

The Reformation and Interpretative Individualism

Conclusion