Sola Scriptura, like the Scriptures themselves, recognizes that God has gifted the church with teachers and pastors. It recognizes that the church has progressed and reached consensus on critical issues in and through the ancient ecumenical creeds. It affirms with vigor that we are all standing on the shoulders of giants. But it also affirms that even these giants have feet of clay. And there is where the Bible does in the end teach sola Scriptura.
A couple of other references here and here in contrast to the typical postmodern innovator approach of negating something before properly understanding and then replacing it with some fluffy sounding misdirection to ultimately undermine truth.
One emergent puts it this way:
The end of Sola Scriptura actually means that we are coming to terms with our limitations to get it right. It means we’re realizing that we have to listen to community, science, imagination, history AND the Bible to create a more robust picture. Because as broken human beings we sometimes get it wrong.
So because we fail in some of our understanding, we will deny the Scripture is our final authority? The pretense is that we fail. So what confidence should we have in our understanding of these other things? And how does undermining the authority of Scripture address our problem with understanding?
But this emergent goes further:
The final subject in the turn away will be how we address homosexuality in the church. [Phyllis Tickle] reiterated that it’s not if Sola Scriptura ends but when. ...
And now we see what's really behind this. If we can undermine the authority of Scripture, we can substitute our works based thinking and false definition of love and God Himself in place of God's standard. Interestingly, the sin the emergent embraces is the lust Paul tells us God gave man over to as man "suppressed the truth" (Rom 1.18-32). So in this context, as man rebells against God and embraces his own lusts, yes, Sola Scriptura ends.
Furthering his error, this emergent writes:
Tickle talked about the faulty logic of Luther’s choice for Sola Scriptura and the inevitable consequences of it but she mentioned something today that really caught everyone’s attention. She went extensively into the concept of division and how Sola Scriptura is naturally bent towards division, which is eventually a recipe for chaos and unending conflict.
Again, correct, if we throw out a final authority and allow anything, we can have what appears to be unity. But that in the end will fail. If we hold up truth, yes, there will in fact be division (e.g., the sheep and the goats) but not chaos and unending conflict.
"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths" (2 Timothy 4:3-4). I guess the post modern innovator is right in terms of what is happening in practice. He just doesn't realize it is happening to him.
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