The Supreme and Infallible Judge

Francis Turretin's section on Scripture, his 2nd topic, is marvelous, wonderful, invigorating, and Biblical. I recommend it for all who are interested in the Protestant view of Scripture. The 20th question in the Topic is:

Whether the Scriptures (or God speaking in them) are the supreme and infallible judge of controversies and the interpreter of the Scriptures. Or whether the church or the Roman Pontiff is. We affirm the former and deny the latter against the papists. 

He then says:

This is a primary question and almost the only one on account of which all the other controversies about the Scriptures started. From no other cause is either that authority of Scriptures called in question by the papists or their integrity and purity attacked or their perspicuity and perfection argued against, than to prove the Scriptures cannot be the judge of controversies and the necessity of having recourse to the tribunal of the church. 

He then gives seven reasons why Scripture is the supreme and infallible judge.

First, "God in the Old and New Testaments absolutely and unconditionally sends us to this judge."

Second, "The practice of Christ and his apostles confirms this for in controversies of faith they appeal to the Scriptures."

Third:

A supreme and infallible judge is one who never errs in judgment, nor is he able to err; is uninfluenced by prejudice and from whom is no appeal. Now these requisites can be found neither in the church, nor councils, nor pope, for they can both err and often have erred most egregiously.

Fourth:

Man cannot be the infallible interpreter of the Scriptures and judge of controversies because he liable to error. Our faith cannot be placed in him, but upon God alone from whom depends the sense and meaning of the Scriptures and who is the best interpreter of his own words. 

Fifth:

If there was such a judge as the papists maintain: (a)  it is a wonder that the Lord never mentions this interpreter who is so essential; (b) that Paul in his epistles...does not inform them even by a single word of so great a privilege; (c) that Peter in his catholic epistles did not arrogate this as about to be transmitted to his successors, much less exercise it; (d) that the popes were neither able nor willing by that infallible authority to settle the various most important controversies which the Romish church cherished in her own bosom (i.e., between the Thomists and the Scotists, the Dominicans and the Jesuits, the Jesuits and Jansenists, etc.). 

Sixth:

The church cannot be regarded as the judge of controversies because she would be a judge in her own cause and the rule of herself.  For the chief controversy is about the power and infallibility of the church, when the very question is whether the church is the judge, or whether the church can err. 

Seventh, "the ancients here agree with us." Turretin then goes on to quote church fathers who agree that the Scriptures are the final judge.

Here are a couple of other quotes from this section and the next, which is on what authority the church fathers should have in the church. All parentheses are his.

When we say that the Scriptures are the judge of controversies, we mean it in no other sense than that they are the source of divine right, and the most absolute rule of faith by which all controversies of faith can and should be certainly and perspicuously settled. 

The orthodox (although they hold the fathers in great estimation and think them very useful to a knowledge of the history of the ancient church, and our opinion on cardinal doctrines may agree with them) yet deny that their authority, whether as individuals or taken together, can be called authoritative in matter of faith and the interpretation of the Scriptures, so that by their judgment we must stand or fall. Their authority is only ecclesiastical and subordinate to the Scriptures and of no weight except so far as they with them. 

Therefore we gather that the fathers neither can nor ought to be regarded as judges in our controversies, but as witnesses who (by their wonderful consent) give testimony to the truth of Christianity and prove (by their silence or even by weighty reasons) the falsity of the doctrines introduced by the papists beyond and contrary to the Scriptures. Their writings must be respectfully received and read with profit. Yet at the same time they cannot have any other than our ecclesiastical and human authority (i.e., subordinate and dependent on the Scriptures. 

Every Blade Declares His Glory: Turretin Takes on Evolution

I am slowly working my way through Francis Turretin's Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Turretin was a professor in Geneva in the mid-1600s. He died in 1687.  His Institutes are divided up into twenty topics, which he then works through by asking and answering various questions. I am currently on his third topic, which is "The One and Triune God."  The first question in this third topic is:

Can the existence of God be irrefutably demonstrated against the atheists? We affirm

Turretin then gives four demonstrations that God exists.
1. The voice of universal nature
2. The contemplation of man himself
3. The testimony of conscience
4. The consent of all mankind.

In the midst of arguing his first point about the "voice of universal nature" he has a wonderful section about how the order of universe proves God. All the bold and brackets are mine.

The wonderful beauty and order of the universe is another proof. For if order requires wisdom and intelligence, the most perfect supposes the most perfectly necessary and infinite wisdom which we call God. Now he is blind who does not see the most beautiful order everywhere and most wicked who does not acknowledge it. There is so suitable disposition of parts, so constant a concord of things so discordant, so harmonious an agreement and consent of creatures the most diverse, so swift and at the same time equable motion of the heavenly bodies and so immutable a stability and constancy of the order once established. So not only do the heavens declare the glory of God, but every blade of grass and every flower of the field, every pebble on the shore and every shell in the ocean proclaim not only his power and goodness, but also his manifold wisdom, so near each one that even by feeling, God can be found. Augustine says, "The prophetic voices excepted, the world itself by its own most regular mutability and mobility and the exquisitely beautiful appearance of all visible things, silently as it were proclaims both that it was made and could be made only by a God unspeakably and invisibly great, and unspeakably and invisibly beautiful."  

But what about chance? Could chance plus time plus matter bring this all into existence?  This may sound like a 21st century question, but Turretin answers it almost four hundred years ago.

You may say perhaps that these things were so arranged by chance and by a fortuitous concourse of atoms. But I know not whether such an impious and absurd opinion is worthy of refutation, since these things denote not chance, but the highest art.  For things which come by chance are uncertain and ill-arranged and have nothing constant and similar; but nothing can be conceived more regular and composed  than this universal frame. To say, then, that this beautiful and highly decorated universe was produced by a fortuitous concourse of atoms is the same as to say that, "if innumerable forms of the one and twenty letters were thrown together, the annals of Ennius [An epic Roman poem] could be produced from them when shaken upon the earth and could afterwards be read" [Cicero]. 

In the same place he [Cicero] quotes from Aristotle: "If there were persons who had always lived under the earth in good and splendid habitation and yet had never come out upon its surface, but had heard that there was a deity and a power of the gods; then upon some occasion the jaws of the earth being opened they could come out and walk abroad in these places where we now live; when suddenly they would see the earth, and the sea and the heavens, and behold the sun, and know both its admirable magnitude and virtue, and contemplate the whole sky bespangled with stars, their rising and setting, their regulated and immutable eternal motion; when they saw these things they would assuredly think both that there were gods, and that these so magnificent works were theirs. 

Finally, Turretin turns to the human body as proof of God's existence.

Man himself has in his own breast a familiar teacher of this very truth. If he would withdraw his attention from all things and reflect upon himself, he would recognize no less wisdom in the little world [the human body] than in the great, and admire in his body a visible (and in his mind scintillating) divinity. For whence is the body constructed with such wonderful and stupendous skill? Whence so many different members created together by a mutual interweaving and so fitly disposed to their peculiar offices, unless from an immense spirit? When the mind, a particle of the divine breath, possessed of so many faculties, furnished with so many gifts, unless from a supreme intelligence? This image clearly bespeaks its prototype, and everyone who pays attention will not only hear and see God present in himself, but also in a manner touch and feel him. 

The questions we often hear about chance, matter, the existence of God, etc. are not new ones. The context might be different, but the questions are the same. And the answers have not changed either. Heaven declares God's glory (Psalm 19:1). Man is fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). All men have God's image stamped on them (James 3:9) All men have a conscience that reflects God's law (Romans 1:18-21, 2:14-15).  Man knows that God is and that this world was created by his power and wisdom. He always has.

Turretin on the Clarity of the Scriptures

One of the big issues plaguing the church is the failure to believe the Scriptures are sufficient and clear. Almost any debate today from evolution, to women's roles, to sodomy, to Protestants jumping to Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism are at least in part arguments about Scripture's sufficiency (evolution) and/or Scripture's clarity (Roman Catholicism).  So in the spirit of keeping the debate going here are some of Francis Turretin's questions and answers under his Second Topic: The Holy Scriptures. The way Turretin has set up his Elentic Theology is that he asks a question then gives a quick answer to the question. That is then followed by several paragraphs defending and proving his answer.  Obviously, I have not included his defense of his answer in this blog post. There are 21 total questions on this topic. I have only included the ones that I thought were most pertinent to the clarity of the Scriptures.

Turretin's Questions

Are the Holy Scriptures truly authentic and divine? We affirm.

Do real contradictions occur in Scripture? Or are there any inexplicable passages which cannot be explained and made to harmonize? We deny. [Turretin spends several pages addressing various apparent contradictions.]

From what source does the divine authority of the Scriptures become known to us? Does it depend upon the testimony of the church as to itself or as to us? We deny against the papists.

Have the original texts of the Old and New Testaments come down to us pure and uncorrupted? We affirm against the papists. [How many Christians would deny this today?]

Are the Hebrew version of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New the only authentic versions? We affirm against the papists.

Do the Scriptures so perfectly contain all things necessary to salvation that there is no need of unwritten traditions after it? We affirm against the papists. 

Are the Scriptures so perspicuous in things necessary to salvation that they can be understood by believers without the external help of oral tradition or ecclesiastical authority? We affirm against the papists. 

Can the Scriptures be profitably read by any believer, and ought he to read them without permission? We affirm against the papists. 

Whether the Scriptures are the supreme and infallible judge of controversies and the interpreter of the Scriptures. Or whether the church of the Roman Pontiff is. We affirm the former and deny the latter against the papists. 

Are the writings of the fathers the rule of truth in doctrines of faith and in the interpretation of the Scriptures? We deny against the papists. 

Observations
First, there is a lot of similarity between Roman Catholics (papists) and Pentecostals when it comes to the Bible. Both believe that you need something besides the Scriptures, tradition or special revelation, to help you know and obey God. For that matter, many Evangelicals do as well. Therefore the sufficiency of Scripture must be fought for on two fronts.

Second,  clarity on matters related to salvation is both implicitly and explicitly taught in Scriptures. Without this we are left with only a human authority to guide into truth and no way to check that human authority.

Third, reading this section in Turretin I realized that most questions have been asked and answered before. For example, Turretin address textual criticism, why we need various versions of the Bible, why pastors need to appeal to the original languages, the role the Septuagint, etc. Turretin is not the last word on these things. He is wrong in some areas. But too often we assume when we hear a question for the first that it is the first time it has been asked and answered

Finally, what I love here is that Turretin believes the Word is powerful, sufficient, and clear. It is all we need. He is not opposed to preachers, the ministry, reading the church fathers, or the creeds, but none of these are God's Word. God's Word must be held out above all in both theory and practice.