Last time we identified some presuppositions that must be held by anyone who adheres to the doctrine of sola scriptura. First of all, one must assume that only that which is written down by an apostle or other inspired writer can be considered truth. Underlying this presumption are two others. First of all, that truth, from God’s point of view, is something that can only be trustworthily conveyed through rational processes, through knowledge: knowledge conceived in ideas and arguments. Hand in hand with this assumption goes the assumption that, of course, human experience can never be considered a reliable source of truth. As I said last week, we will begin today our examination of these presumptions.

First, let me ask: Did the apostles operate on the premise that members of the body of Christ are only obligated to uphold those doctrines and practices which they, the apostles, had specifically spelled out in writing in their epistles and gospels? Interestingly, the Scriptures say no. Listen to St. Paul’s words to the Thessalonians:

But we are bound to give thanks to God always, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which he called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle (2 Thessalonians 2:13-15).

“Stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.” For the Apostle Paul, a doctrine or practice didn’t need to be written down in order to be considered binding on Christian believers. Something orally conveyed to the Church was just as authoritative.

Most of my sola scriptura friends will admit this, but they always countered by assuring me that every important and necessary oral tradition was eventually written down in an epistle or a gospel—that’s what makes the Scriptures the sole source of Christian truth. But why should we assume that? To make this point, I sometimes ask my Scriptures-only friends a simple question: Just which traditions is St. Paul referring to when he commands the Thessalonians to obey those traditions by word of mouth? The only answer they can give me, of course, is: “Well, we… can’t really say.”

So if they’re not sure what oral traditions St. Paul has in mind here, how can they be certain that they all ended up somewhere in the New Testament canon? Nowhere do the Scriptures themselves plainly state that all the traditions which the apostles and the Lord Jesus Christ expect the Church to follow are spelled out somewhere in the New Testament, and nowhere do the Scriptures tell us that any belief or practice not explicitly detailed and delineated in the New Testament writings is to be rejected. So, unless one terribly misinterprets Revelation 22:18-19, that passage we discussed last time, there is no scriptural support at all for this key sola scriptura presupposition.

That leaves only one defense for the notion that all the binding traditions which the early Church received from the apostles were eventually spelled out in an epistle or a gospel. The argument must go like this: If sola scriptura is true, then all important Christian doctrines and practices had to have been written down in the Scriptures. Sola scriptura must be true, therefore all those traditions must have been written down eventually. In logic, we call that—several things, but one thing we call it is “begging the question.” Rather than proving sola scriptura, it just assumes that sola scriptura is true. To be convinced of sola scriptura by this line of reasoning is to be convinced without any evidence at all.

More fundamentally, though, and more serious than this question of written versus oral authority is the sola scriptura assumption that truth cannot be discovered by experience: only rational knowledge, in fact, only rational knowledge of the Scriptures can yield truth. On this view, Christian faith is, at its base, a rational, philosophical religion. Now, those who believe in the Scriptures alone may protest my characterizing their faith as philosophical, but the term fits. In fact, it seems to me that the essential difference between Western and Eastern Christianity is the degree to which the Christian faith has evolved into a philosophy within those traditions.

Certainly, in the early centuries of the Church’s life, the Greek East possessed its fair share of great philosophical minds. Men like St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, and St. Gregory the Theologian were schooled in philosophy and logic. What’s more, they applied their philosophical skills in their struggles against heresies, especially in the careful and precise definitions they developed regarding the Holy Trinity and the dual natures of Christ. But we must never forget that, first and foremost, the great thinkers of the Christian East were devoted ascetics who were fully engaged in a deep, intuitive, living encounter with the Christ who dwells within. The Christianity they embraced and handed down to succeeding generations is a life of mystical union with the divine, a life of direct participation in the activity of the Holy Trinity.

On this spiritual path, we meet the living God experientially. We meet him in the ascetic practices of fasting, extensive prayer, and continual acts of self-sacrifice. Sacramental rituals like the Eucharist, baptism, chrismation, together with the veneration of icons, communion with the most-holy Theotokos, the mother of God, and the departed saints—these allow us to entwine our lives with God in a holy dance that binds our being with his.

But, as the monumental theological accomplishments of the great ascetic Fathers indicate, correctly defined doctrine is important to those of us who follow this mystical way. It helps us to understand our experience. It illumines our spiritual world and helps us to stay in step as we dance with the living God. This is why the Scriptures are so revered in the Eastern Church—but it also explains why the Eastern Church is not sola scriptura. On the Eastern mystical path, neither the Scriptures nor our ascetic, sacramental experiences can stand alone. They exist in an inseparable, symbiotic relationship.

In my book, Thirsting for God, I illustrate this by reflecting on a passage of Scripture. “Thy word is a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105). Our life with God, the psalmist says here, happens along a path that is illumined by a light. An obvious fact that many fail to recognize, however, is that the light and the path are separate things, and both are gifts from God. We live in a dark and fallen world that presents numerous obstacles as we journey with God. If our pilgrimage with him is to be successful, we need both a well-marked path and a guiding light to illumine it.

But in the sola scriptura world, there is only the light of the word. Believers try to discern their path by staring into the light, which, of course, is impossible. So when it comes to deciding where and how they need to walk, sola scriptura Christians are constantly experimenting. They just have to feel around with their spiritual feet. See, this is what drives the modern phenomenon that even many Evangelicals have begun to lament as “Christian fadism.” From Promise Keepers to What Would Jesus Do? to The Purpose-Driven Life to dream interpretation, those who accept only the light of the Scriptures struggle to find a path.

But for those of us in the ancient Eastern Church, there is no such struggle. There is no such fadism, for we possess both the light and the path. Our path is that well-defined life of ascetic and sacramental practices which we have inherited from the apostles. Every day, we Orthodox Christians, or at least those of us who seriously embrace our faith, find our spiritual course plainly laid out for us. “Will I go to church today? Will I receive the Eucharist? Will I fast? Will I observe a feast? Which saints will I celebrate today? How shall I pray? How shall I invest my time? How shall I deal with the people I encounter?” As an Orthodox Christian, I awake each day to find these questions answered for me. This path on which I dance with God is set before my feet, just as it has greeted Orthodox Christians for 100 generations. The only question I face is whether or not I will choose this day to walk it.

But I also have a light that shines on my path, a light that helps me to make sense of what I encounter along it. That is the Scriptures. As I said, though, as an Orthodox Christian, I’m aware of the symbiotic relationship between the two. I see my path in the light of the Scriptures, yet I understand the Scriptures in terms of the experiences I have as I dance with God along the path.

This also explains why the writings of the holy men we call the Fathers of the Church are so important to us. These men wrote about their experience of this intimate relationship between path and light, between our direct, intimate encounter with the indwelling Holy Spirit and our reading of the Scriptures. In their inspired words, we see the same relationship between experience in Scripture that we saw earlier in our discussion of Acts 15 and the decisions reached by the Council of Jerusalem. In our life with God, experience of the Holy Spirit brings correct interpretations of the Scriptures, and correct understanding of the Scriptures illumines our experience, until we reach that spiritual place with God which St. Paul says surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7).

But as I mentioned earlier, all this talk about an experience of truth may be unsettling for folks raised in a Western sola scriptura tradition. To them, the life I’ve described here sounds like a recipe for disaster. In their minds, the moment experience is figured into the equation, objective, absolute, universal truth goes out the window. Life with God becomes a purely subjective matter. People are free to believe whatever they want, Christianity becomes a chaotic conglomeration of conflicting, contradicting beliefs. Of course, the paradox is that what I’ve just offered is an accurate description of the sola scriptura Christian West. It is the mystical, experiential Christianity of the Christian East which preserves doctrinal unity, despite what the Evangelical, anti-Orthodox critics on the internet say to the contrary. They insist, of course, that Orthodox doctrinal unity is a myth. All I want to say here is, if you’re an inquirer into Orthodoxy, I plead with you not to consider such websites authoritative. Find more objective, reliable sources of information: history books, religious encyclopedias, maybe even people who practice Orthodoxy.

I’m sure these critics think they’re painting a truthful picture of the ancient faith. I certainly don’t want to believe that they’re being purposely misleading. In fact, a couple of years ago, I decided I would publicly respond to one very popular anti-Orthodox article that was circulating widely on the internet, just to set the record straight. It didn’t take me long, however, to realize it’s much easier to fire shotgun rounds willy-nilly into a wall than it is to dig out all the pellets. What I mean is that, in try to address the errors with which this particular individual had peppered his presentation of Orthodoxy, I found that I had written 36 pages, and I was only halfway through his article. I just gave up.

But when one understands canonical Orthodoxy, that is, when one knows just which of the churches that call themselves Orthodox actually represent the one, holy, ancient, and apostolic Orthodox faith, and when one looks at what they teach, at how they worship, and at the lifestyle to which their serious practitioners aspire, then the doctrinal unity that presents itself is uncanny.

So how is this possible in a faith that puts its members’ mutual, mystical experience of God on an equal footing with the Scriptures, or better, a faith that sees the Scriptures as just one integral part of its mystical experience of the Holy Trinity? That’s what we’ll consider next time.