The Church Fathers' Support of Sola Scriptura

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Swiss Protestant Reformer Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575)

It is not uncommon on social media nowadays to find attacks on Protestants from Roman Catholic apologists. Certainly some criticisms, especially of some of the practices and representatives of contemporary American evangelicalism, are warranted. However, the attacks inevitably fall short when they are leveled against the two foundational pillars of Protestantism, Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide — that Holy Scripture is the sole authority and sufficient for all matters of Christian faith and practice and, grounded in that truth, that justification is by faith alone, apart from all works.

One form of such an attack is the mocking of Protestants for allegedly being ignorant of the Church Fathers. While the Church Fathers are not considered infallible by the Roman Catholic Church, a certain measure of authority is attributed to them, as part of Roman Catholicism's view that Scripture plus Tradition, together infallibly interpreted by its Magisterium, are what's authoritative for matters of faith and practice. While Roman Catholicism holds the Bible to be holy, it does not believe that the Bible is sufficient as an authoritative source of truth for the church. Since the Roman Catholic Magisterium ultimately decides for Roman Catholics what the Bible and church Tradition teach, the authority of the Roman Catholic Church could be fairly characterized as Sola Roma. In any case, a Roman Catholic apologist sees ignorance of the Church Fathers as an impoverishment of understanding Christian truth.

As one example of this type of attack, Patrick Neve, host of a comedy podcast for young Roman Catholics, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, posted on X not too long ago, "Protestants be like 'yeah I've read the Church Fathers." Below the post are photos of Joel Osteen, C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, and Dave Ramsey.

The biting humor of the post does (unfortunately) hit its mark with contemporary evangelicalism, which largely lacks a sense of history beyond the the middle of the 20th century and seems more focused on charismatic personalities, celebrities and influencers, gurus who claim to show the way to a better life in this world, and Christian entertainers than even on the teaching of Scripture itself. The Protestant Church could certainly benefit from more attention to the writings of great teachers of the past from the time of the early Church Fathers through the time of the Protestant Reformation and into the 20th century. However, implicit in Mr. Neve's criticism is the underlying notion that the Church Fathers are integral to the proper authority of the church for matters related to faith and practice.

What Roman Catholic apologists like Mr. Neve doubtless miss is the fact that all the major Protestant reformers were extremely well read in and influenced by the early Church Fathers, and that this significantly contributed to the Protestant Reformation. How so? The answer is exemplified in the experience of the great Swiss reformer Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575), who, though not well known by most English-speaking Christians, has been called "the common shepherd of all Christian churches."

Prior to entering the University of Cologne in 1519, Bullinger's ambition was to become a Carthusian monk. Awakened to the private study of theology (while earning his MA) by the controversy surrounding Martin Luther, he discovered in reading the works of early Church Fathers such as Augustine and Chrysostom that they appealed exclusively to Scripture in support of their theological propositions and in defense of the Christian faith. This led Bullinger to purchase his first New Testament and read it thoroughly. Historian George Ella, in his biography of Bullinger, gives a more detailed account of Bullinger's experience after his interest in theology had been awakened by Luther.

"Bullinger gained access to the local Dominican library which had a good store of works on the Fathers and consulted Peter Lombard and Gratian on them. Studying literally day and night, although it was not in his MA curriculum, Bullinger read as much as he could find on theology. He discovered that the Roman Catholic writers claimed their authority came from the Church Fathers and so he made a careful study of the sermons and expository works of the earliest Christian saints, especially John Chrysostom on Matthew's gospel, Origen, Ambrose and Augustine. He found that they appealed to Scripture, so Bullinger bought his first New Testament and he tells us in his diary account of his conversion that he read it day and night throughout 1521–1522 parallel with Jerome's commentaries. He discovered that not only did the Church Fathers teach in full opposition to Rome's 16th century novelties but that the Scriptures presented the faith and fellowship of Christians in a radically more spiritual and far less legal and 'churchy' manner than Rome. He also discovered that Luther, who was now under the pope's bull Exsurge domine, stood much closer to the Church Fathers than the 12th and 13th century papist scholars he had been studying and who professed to interpret the Church Fathers correctly."

Through the reading of Scripture, while still at the University of Cologne, Heinrich Bullinger came to a living faith in Jesus Christ. He also came to a conviction, from the Scriptures, that the Scriptures are to be, as Ella explains, the "sole guide (Richtschnur) in matters of faith and Christian practice."

If one spends time reading Chrysostom's sermons or Augustine's City of God, one will notice, as Bullinger did, that the only absolute authority appealed to is Sacred Scripture. Even though these two men lived well over three hundred years after the time of the apostles, they make no appeal to any Tradition, much less to a Magisterium. Rather, they always cite the Bible, God's holy, infallible word, as the basis for their teaching and exhortations.

2 Timothy 3:16 reads, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." The underlying Greek word for "thoroughly equipped" has the meaning of "complete" or "exactly fitted." In other words, nothing more is needed. Scripture, which is God-breathed, and therefore infallible and absolutely authoritative, is sufficient. And we must not forget the closely connected truth, also recovered by the Protestant reformers, that the best interpreter of Scripture is Scripture.