The Gift of Prophecy

Sola Scriptura: New Hermeneutical Alternatives

Several post-Reformation hermeneutical trends began to overshadow the wide-ranging sola Scriptura principle and a more specific historicist interpretation of Bible prophecies. One of those trends was the Roman Catholic futurist and preterist responses to the Protestant historicist identification of the Papacy as the little horn that “grew exceedingly great” (Dan. 7:7-27; 8:9-14), the antichrist (2 Thess. 2:1-12), and the beast from the sea (Rev. 13:1-9). ³⁰ Robert Bellarmine’s Disputationes (1581-1593) ³¹ and Francisco Ribera’s commentary on the Book of Revelation (1591) ³² proposed that those apocalyptic entities would appear on the scene only in the far-distant future. By contrast, Luis del Alcazar’s exposition of the book of Revelation (1614) ³³ shifted the same entities back to the days of the apostles. Surprisingly, both futurism and preterism were welcomed into Protestant and Evangelical circles, becoming eventually their own highly influential schools of prophetic interpretation. So, the prophetic element of Scripture was largely restricted either to the distant future or to the faraway past, losing therefore much of its contemporary relevance. GOP 293.3

But no other post-Reformation hermeneutical alternative undermined so radically the sola Scriptura principle as higher criticism (also known as the historical-critical method) derived from the Enlightenment. The studies of such German rationalist theologians as Johann S. Semler, ³⁴ Julius Wellhausen, ³⁵ Ernst Troeltsch, ³⁶ and later on Rudolf Bultmann, ³⁷ questioned the historicity of Genesis 1-11, denied that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, rejected the predictive dimension of Bible prophecy, and swept away the miracles of the Bible. The Bible was considered only an ancient-cultural mosaic and, consequently, the sola Scriptura principle was viewed as a naive way for credulous believers to study the Bible. Arthur T. Pierson pointed out that like Roman Catholicism, higher criticism “practically removes the Word of God from the common people by assuming that only scholars can interpret it; and, while Rome puts a priest between a man and the Word, criticism puts an educated expositor between the believer and his Bible.” ³⁸ Placing human reason as the foundation of all else, the historical-critical method replaces sola Scriptura with sola reason. GOP 294.1

Another major hermeneutical trend that challenged the sola Scriptura principle was dispensational futurism, much indebted to John Nelson Darby (1800-1882). ³⁹ With a strong literal reading of the Bible, Darby ended up separating the church from Israel; dividing sacred history into several distinct dispensations; and proposing a pretribulation rapture of the church prior to Christ’s second coming. By breaking the unity of the Bible, the sola Scriptura motif, with its corollary principles of typology and analogy of Scripture, could no longer be applied consistently to the whole Bible. ⁴⁰ GOP 294.2

Thus, in the second half of the nineteenth century, Protestant-Evangelical Christianity was being challenged by the Roman Catholic futurist and preterist schools of prophetic interpretation, the liberal historical-critical method, and Darby’s dispensational futurism. Each of these used a human principle in place of the Bible, thus distorting or even destroying the sola Scriptura principle. During the twentieth century several socio-scientific hermeneutics would appear on the scene, challenging even further the sola Scriptura dictum. ⁴¹ GOP 295.1