Is Sola Scriptura Biblical? Exploring the Fundamental Divide Between Protestants and Catholics

The doctrine of sola scriptura is the conviction that Scripture alone is infallible and should be given the final say in all matters of faith and practice. 

Here is how the Westminster Confession of Faith explains the doctrine:

Notice, the Confession does not say Scripture is the only witness to which we can appeal. We can bring many authors, writings, traditions, creeds, and confessions forward as witnesses to defend and support the truth. The “alone” in sola scriptura does not mean that we have the Bible and nothing but the Bible. Rather, sola scriptura maintains that the Bible is the supreme judge—the final, ultimate, absolute, decisive arbiter in all controversies of religion.

The Confession then lists four kinds of testimony that are not final judges but sit under the judgment of Scripture: 

• councils, 
• ancient writers, 
• human doctrines, and 
• private spirits (feelings, experiences, claims of divine prompting or revelation). 

All of these must be examined by Scripture, tested against Scripture, and in every matter of faith and practice Scripture gets the last word.

This is not what the Roman Catholic Church believes. The Catholic Catechism teaches that the deposit of faith includes Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. This means that Scripture is not the supreme judge, but rather an equally authoritative source of doctrine along with the teaching of the Church. When the pope, and the bishops in union with him, exercise teaching authority, they are referred to as the Magisterium (magister is the Latin word for teacher). The Magisterium is an infallible interpreter of both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

The key, for our purposes, is that, according to Catholic teaching, Scripture’s authority is not alone. It stands alongside Tradition. Roman Catholic theology affirms an inspired Bible and an infallible Bible. But it does not believe in a Bible with unique or final authority. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains: 

The question, then, is whether Scripture is “the supreme judge” over all tradition (WCF), or “equal” with Tradition (CCC). There is no more consequential difference between Protestants and Catholics than this. Peter Kreeft, the prolific and popular Catholic author, hits the nail on the head: 

He’s right. The primary disagreement, and the one on which the others depend, is the question of whether Scripture is the authority on all matters of faith and practice or whether Scripture is an authority on par with the dogmatic tradition of the church and the pronouncements of the pope. 

As Protestants, we believe that the Bible is the norma normans (“the rule that rules”) while creeds and councils and church fathers ought to be considered the norma normata (“the rule that is ruled”). We do not believe the Scriptures are the only source of knowledge, the only witness to the truth, or the only book we can consult when doing theology. What we do believe is that 

• Scripture alone is unerring, 
• Scripture alone has the final word, and 
• Scripture alone rules all other rules and is ruled by nothing else.

Scriptural Argument

Catholics consider the Scriptures infallible, so it matters to them, as it does to us, what the Bible teaches. Both sides should agree that if the Bible teaches sola scriptura, then we should believe it, and if it doesn’t, we shouldn’t. So let me give five reasons the Bible supports sola scriptura. 

Reason #1: The perfection of Scripture

Second Timothy 3:15–17 is the classic text on the inspiration of Scripture, but the reason for mentioning it here is not because of the line “breathed out by God” (v. 16). The key phrases, as far as sola scriptura is concerned, are “able to make you wise for salvation” (v. 15) and “equipped for every good work” (v. 17). Yes, Paul is referring most immediately to the Old Testament, but we know that the early church counted the apostolic writings as Scripture (1 Pet. 3:16), so we can fairly apply 2 Timothy 3 to all of Scripture. The important point is this: Paul considers Scripture perfect, lacking in nothing, able by itself to save us and to make us competent for every good deed. In other words, with the Bible alone we have what we need for life and godliness.

Reason #2: The example of God’s people in the Old Testament

The constant refrain in the Old Testament is that God’s people must do all things according to what is written. When God’s people prepared to enter the Promised Land in Joshua’s day, they were told to commit themselves not to any tradition but to the Book of the Law and that they should be careful to do according to all that is written in it (Josh. 1:8). They were reminded of this throughout the conquest and again once they entered the land. When God’s people fell away, it was because they disregarded what was written. When Josiah sought to reform God’s people, it was according to the book of the law that they rediscovered. When the exiles returned, the book of Ezra recounts over and over that they were to do everything as it is written in the law of Moses.

There were scribes and priests to teach the law and interpret the word of God, and there were prophets to correct the people when they disobeyed the word of God, but the final standard by which the people were measured—and by which the prophets, the priests, and the kings were measured—was whether they had been careful to do according to all that was written.

Reason #3: The example of Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament

Like the Jews of the Old Testament, Jesus and the apostles appeal to Scripture as the final arbiter in controversies of faith. Jesus quoted Deuteronomy to the devil, believing that “it is written” was all that was needed to establish what was true and what was false (Matt. 4:4, 6, 7). Jesus told the Sadducees they were wrong because they did not know the Scriptures, implying that the Scriptures would never lead them astray even when their own traditions might (Matt. 22:29). When Paul preached Christ, he refuted the Jews by turning to the Scriptures (Acts 18:28). The Jews in Berea were considered more noble than the Jews in Thessalonica because they tested everything against the Scriptures (Acts 17:11). 

And as for Peter, supposedly the first bishop of Rome and the first pope, he never says anything about possessing some unique authority in the church. He calls himself simply a “fellow elder” (1 Pet. 5:1). Paul in his letter to the Romans does not utter a single word about so great a privilege that will supposedly fall to their bishop. Instead, both Peter and Paul—even as they write with apostolic authority—constantly appeal to Scripture as decisive in all matters of faith and practice.

Reason #4: The way Jesus talks about Scripture and tradition

It’s true that the New Testament can speak positively about tradition. Paul passes on to the Corinthians what he received from the Lord (1 Cor. 11:23). He reminds the Corinthians of the gospel they received and in which they stand (1 Cor. 15:1). He tells Timothy to guard the good deposit entrusted to him (2 Tim. 1:14). Protestants should not be anti-tradition. We want to pass along what we have learned from the Bible and even what we have learned from the saints who have gone before us (2 Tim. 2:1–2). But tradition is authoritative only insofar as it accords with Scripture. 

The example we see in Jesus is that Scripture sits in judgment over tradition. Jesus said the Scriptures cannot be broken (John 10:35), but he often criticized the traditions of the Jews. We see this most famously in the Sermon on the Mount (“you have heard it said, but I say to you . . . ”). If we want an example of appealing to tradition as an equal authority to Scripture we can find it not from Jesus but from his opponents. “For the sake of your tradition,” Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees, “you have made void the word of God” (Matt. 15:6). This was the perennial mistake Jesus found in many of the Jewish leaders, that they were “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt. 15:9). For Jesus, the written word of God always took precedence over the traditions of men.

Reason #5: The covenantal nature of Scripture

Covenants come with stipulations and warnings, with blessings and curses. By their very nature, they cannot be added to or subtracted from (Deut. 4:2). Once they are written in full, they become the norm against which everything else is normed. Even if the Apostle John did not think “I’m writing the last book of the Bible,” he understood that with the close of the apostolic age, the time of new covenant documents was also coming to an end. So it’s not surprising that the book of Revelation echoes the language of Deuteronomy: 

When the Catholic Church adds new doctrines that cannot be found in Scripture (either explicitly or by good necessary consequence), it is forgetting the nature of the Bible as a covenantal book. 

Common Objections

Having laid out some of the main scriptural arguments in defense of sola scriptura, let’s deal with a few of the most common objections to the doctrine. I’ll mention four of them and offer a brief response to each one.

Objection #1: No one taught this doctrine before Martin Luther.

This is simply not true. Not only did the Church Fathers use the Bible differently than any other source of authority, they explicitly taught that the canonical scriptures alone were unerring and were to be followed unreservedly. The Council of Trent (1546) taught that the traditions of the fathers pertaining to both faith and practice should be received “with an equal affection of piety with the Old and New Testaments” (First Decree, Fourth Session). But that’s not what the fathers themselves believed. We could cite many examples, but let me give just two.

First, Basil of Caesarea wrote to a physician named Eustathius:

Notice, Basil does not ignore church tradition, but when it comes to the decisive vote, he says it rests with the word of God alone.

Second, we see this same principle stated even more strongly in Augustine. He told Jerome that “I have learned to give this reverence and honor to those books of Scripture alone which are now called canonical.” He wrote further, “I do not suppose that you wish your books to be read as if they were the writings of the prophets or apostles, which beyond a doubt are free from any error” (Letter 82). Elsewhere, he said, “We ought not to consider the disputations of any men, though they be catholic and praiseworthy men, as canonical Scriptures” (Letter 148). 

Or consider Augustine’s statement in writing against the Manicheans:

Or this statement in writing against the Donatists who were trying to use Cyprian against him:

Earlier in the same work Augustine states this principle with regard to the canonical Scriptures: “We dare not judge them in any way; rather, we use them to judge freely concerning other writings, whether of believers or unbelievers” (2.31). We would be hard pressed to find a clearer articulation of Scripture’s norming norm than what we have here from Basil and from Augustine.

Objection #2: Without an authoritative Magisterium, the Protestant church has divided into thousands of denominations.

Five quick responses.

1. Yes, there are and have been schismatic Protestant churches. Some divisions have been needless and dishonoring to Christ. That is to our shame.
2. Not every division is the sin of schism. 1 Corinthians 11:19 says “there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.”
3. There is a fundamental unity shared by many, many Bible-believing Protestant denominations. The divisions are sometimes owing to different languages, or different traditions that grew out of different nations and languages.
4. There is just as much division within the Roman Catholic Church as there is among Protestant churches. The presence of an authoritative Magisterium has not ensured that every Catholic bishop or diocese or priest believes, practices, and teaches the same things. To give just one example from the news this past week. People had this headline: “Gio Benitez, Openly Gay ABC News Weekend Anchor, Joins Catholic Church and Reaffirms Faith with Husband by His Side.” In the article, Benitez explains that he was inspired to join the Catholic Church because Pope Francis was so welcoming and affirming of LGBTQ persons. So does the Catholic Church support gay marriage? Official teaching says no. Many people heard the last pope say yes. And some parishes will happily receive gay couples into the Church.
5. While it is true that Protestants disagree in many places on how to interpret the Bible, this pervasive interpretive pluralism (to use Christian Smith’s phrase) is not a Protestant problem; it’s a human problem. And having a Magisterium does not solve the problem. It only pushes the problem back another level. So now you can argue about what the Pope really means or what this papal encyclical really teaches. Catholics disagree about Christian faith and practice as much as Protestants do. They just end up arguing more about official Catholic teaching and less about the Bible than Protestants do. 

Objection #3: Protestants overlook the fact the church is called the pillar and buttress of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15)

We gladly affirm the central role God has given to the church in promulgating, promoting, and defending the truth. Indeed, the church supports and upholds God’s word as a pillar and buttress of truth. But we must not confuse the pillars of the building with the foundation, which is the testimony of the apostles and prophets (Eph. 2:20). The question is not whether the church should be listened to, or whether the Holy Spirit has been at work through the church, or whether the church has been an instrument in handing down the truth. Protestants affirm all this. The question is whether the tradition of the church is a source of authority on par with the Scriptures. This the Catholic Church affirms, and we deny.

Francis Turretin makes several distinctions that help us think carefully about what the role of the church is and is not. If the Scripture is the rule, Turretin says, then the church is like the hand of the architect applying that rule—essential to God’s work in the world, but with a different role than the Bible. We acknowledge that the church has handed down various creeds we affirm and passed along the Scriptures themselves, but the church only has the right to hand down what can be shown to be true from the Scriptures (Elenctic Theology, II.16.30).

Turretin talks about three kinds of judgment the church may be involved in. 

The first is supreme and infallible, legislating what is right and speaking with absolute authority. 

The second is ministerial, interpreting the law and applying it publicly through the preaching of the word and the discipline of the church. 

The third is private, offering a judgment in matters of discernment and discretion. 

Turretin insists that Protestants do not deny the right of the church to make judgments that are ministerial and private (Elenctic Theology, II.20.3). This is what the Scriptures mean by calling the church a pillar and a buttress of the truth. What we deny is that the church has supreme, final, and infallible authority. This belongs only to the Scriptures.

Objection #4: If the Bible is infallible, then the Church must be infallible because the Church gave us the canon of Scripture.

This objection—you may have an inspired Bible, but where did you get the inspired table of contents—misunderstands the nature of biblical authority and the historical process that gave us the canon. Scripture never gives the impression its authority is derivative. There is no reason to think Israel had an infallible revelation from God that helped the Jews select the Hebrew Scriptures, and yet Jesus accepted them and considered them divine. Why? Because the writings proved themselves to be authoritative and inspired.

We accept the books of the canon not because the church voted on which books to accept, but because those books with apostolic authority imposed themselves upon the church. It’s important to remember that the canonical books were listed with the term “recognized.” The church didn’t have various theologians present various books before a church council like some canonical version of Shark Tank. Rather, the church instinctively started using the apostolic writings and treating them with the same reverence they showed to other Scriptures. As J.I. Packer put it, “The Church no more gave us the New Testament canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity. God gave us gravity. . . . Newton did not create gravity but recognized it.”

Think of an analogy. Suppose a child is separated from his family for a year. He barely remembers them. When he returns, there are many people around whom he thinks could be his family members. Some he quickly dismisses (different color, never seen them before, speaks another language). Most of the family he recognizes right away. But there are a few younger siblings he isn’t sure about. Eventually, after spending time with everyone, it becomes clear to whom he belongs. Now, has he made the family his family? Or did he learn to recognize who was whom? The family was not created by the child; the family members were self-authenticating, and over time the child came to recognize who the real family members were. This is in keeping with the pattern throughout the Bible. 

The people of God do not form or create the word of God. The word of God always forms the people of God and is a judge over them. 

Conclusion

Although the Catholic Church says many true things about the Bible, and its official theology considers the Scriptures to be an essential and indispensable source of authority, we have to consider the long-term fruit of denying sola scriptura. Although there are Catholic scholars who are experts in the Bible, and a few notable Catholic teachers who stress the importance of the Bible (often these teachers converted from Protestantism), most Catholic churchgoers would admit that they don’t know the Bible well and that most priests do not focus on teaching the Bible. In his autobiography about moving from Calvinism to Catholicism, Peter Kreeft acknowledges that Protestants are superior to Catholics in three things: sermons, hymns, and familiarity with the Bible. When evangelicals convert to Catholicism they almost always comment on the lack of in-depth Bible teaching in the Catholic Church. Sometimes they still send their kids to evangelical ministries, or join Protestant Bible studies, so they can continue to grow in the Scriptures. Could it be that in rejecting sola scriptura, the Catholic Church defaulted to modica scriptura (only a modicum of Scripture, or only a little Scripture)? 

One of the main arguments for Catholicism is that the Catholic Church can provide a full course meal while Protestant churches only offer mere appetizers. Come to the Catholic Church, it is said, if you want more. This is an attractive appeal, except that in religion as in life, more of everything can mean less of what really matters. Even if the Catholic more were true (and I don’t believe that it is), we would have to ask what has gotten less because of the more. In the lives of most Catholics, have more sacraments meant more assurance? Has more purgatory meant more confidence in the finished work of Christ? Has more about merit and indulgences meant more resting in the good news of grace through faith? There is a reason that the truths of the Reformation came to be defined as five solas and why the foundational difference between Protestants and Catholics comes back to the question of Scripture alone. When it comes to the veracity and vitality of Christian faith and practice, sometimes less is more.

Kevin DeYoung is the senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church (PCA) in Matthews, North Carolina and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary.

This article is based on a lecture given at the Faithful Conference at Christ Covenant Church on November 16, 2025.