A Protestant Appraisal of Rock & Sand: Sola Scriptura Properly Understood

Fr. Josiah Trenham is one of the top online personalities influencing people to convert to Eastern Orthodoxy.^[1] Trenham has done a particularly effective job at reaching young men through his various teachings on a return to tradition, masculinity, marriage, and the like. Indeed, there is much to admire about the man. But perhaps his most influential resource is his 2015 book Rock & Sand: An Orthodox Appraisal of the Protestant Reformers and Their Teachings.^[2] In it, Trenham gives an overview and critique of the Protestant tradition and its major theologians.

Perhaps Trenham’s most notable criticism is against sola scriptura, the idea that Scripture alone is the only ultimate authority (as opposed to Eastern Orthodoxy’s claim that tradition is the life of the Holy Spirit within the church, in which the Scriptures are included). Indeed, he says, “From this fountain [sola scriptura] do the other major Protestant mistakes, errors, and heresies flow.”^[3] He continues, “The Protestant Reformers threw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. They rejected the innovations of the papacy by becoming even greater innovators. They rejected the pope and each Reformer made himself a pope.”^[4]

Trenham argues three main points in criticism against sola scriptura. First, he argues that Scripture itself does not teach sola scriptura. How are Protestants, he asks, able to justify sola scriptura when the doctrine itself is not present in the Scriptures? Second, he argues that the New Testament itself teaches apostolic authority as the ultimate authority. Finally, he argues that the fruit of Protestantism, fragmentation, is evidence that sola scriptura fails.

While Trenham’s critique is rhetorically forceful, it rests on a misidentified target, selective exegesis, and an argument that undermines his own position. My goal is to offer a brief good-faith response that clarifies the Protestant position, answers Trenham’s central claims, and invites both Protestants and Orthodox to examine the issue with greater precision and charity.

Misidentifying the Protestant Position

Trenham starts by defining sola scriptura as the “doctrine that the Bible alone is the only infallible rule for faith and practice, and that the Bible alone contains all the knowledge that is necessary for salvation.”^[5] The first clause of this definition is a good start.^[6] The key term here is “infallible.” Unfortunately, what Trenham says after betrays the very definition he laid out by refuting something different. A few sentences later, he says this:

The scriptura itself does not teach that it is sola. Scripture is the foundational authority in the Church, being itself the very words of the living God, the inspired and infallible truth, quoted supremely by Councils and Holy Fathers to establish doctrine, and read in depth and explained in every Orthodox liturgy, and in every Orthodox home by prescription of the Fathers. It is just this traditional biblicism that has always led the Orthodox Church to reject the heresy of sola scriptura, for the Bible itself clearly teaches that it is not a stand-alone authority.^[7]

Then he gives the clincher, “Why do Lutheran, Calvinistic, Zwinglian, and Anabaptist creeds all differ on fundamental points if the Bible alone is the only authority of the Reformers?”^[8]

While the diversity of the Protestant traditions will be addressed later, it’s simply false to say that the Protestant Reformers believed the Bible was the sole authority, and that the Bible alone is the only authority of the Reformers. The Reformers, as well as those who came after them, have always affirmed the contingent authority of church tradition, creeds, confessions, elders, priests, councils, and even reason. But these lesser authorities are all properly subordinate to holy, infallible Scriptures. The reformers regularly appealed to these authorities in their refutations of Rome, as well as within their own discourses among each other. The Augsburg Confession, for example, written by Philip Melanchthon, appeals to the church fathers, ancient creeds, and councils dozens of times as authoritative references.^[9] The Second Helvetic Confession plainly affirms the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds.^[10] The Westminster Assembly frequently cited patristic sources during debates.^[11] Virtually all of the major Protestant Reformers appealed to the early church. John Calvin famously said in his address to King Francis I in Institutes of the Christian Religion, “If the contest were to be determined by patristic authority, the tide of victory—to put it very modestly—would turn to our side. Now, these fathers have written many wise and excellent things.”^[12] Hundreds of pages could be filled with examples like this. The point is, those in the Protestant tradition appealed to sources outside of the Scriptures as authoritative. These sources held real weight. The only distinction is that they held the Scriptures as the primary authority. It’s simply wrong to say that Protestants believe that the Bible is a stand-alone authority. Note well the Protestant position: The Bible is the only supreme authority, but it is not the only authority.

Second, Trenham’s view wrongly assumes that the Protestant position depends on Scripture explicitly declaring itself the sole authority. He says, “Neither Jesus nor His Apostles ever passed on to the Church the teaching that the Bible alone is the authority for Christians.”^[13] Protestants agree with Trenham that the Bible does not contain a verse outlining the exhaustive doctrine of sola scriptura, but he’s wrong to say that this idea is a Protestant distinctive. Protestants have a category for constructing theology based on a host of scriptures, as the Westminster Confession of Faith summarizes,

The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men.^[14]

So, according to one of the primary confessions of the Protestant tradition, doctrine need not be formulated through explicit Scriptural references, but from good and necessary consequences, that is, conclusions that follow necessarily and logically from what Scripture explicitly states. Therefore, there is no basis for Trenham to criticize Protestants for affirming something they do not affirm. It’s telling that Trenham doesn’t quote a single Protestant theologian by name here. A critique that doesn’t reckon with the best defended version is insufficient in its understanding of the classical Protestant position.

In regard to the classic Protestant doctrine of Scripture, individual passages speak of the uniqueness of Scripture in a way that accords with sola scriptura. No other writing is said to be breathed out by God himself (2 Tim 3:16). While human beings apart from God are darkened in their understanding (Eph. 4:18) and thus prone to error, the inspired biblical authors were carried along by the Holy Spirit as they wrote (2 Pet. 1:21). And because God does not lie (Titus 1:2), we know that his words are true (Ps. 19:7)—Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35). Eastern Orthodoxy may affirm these truths above while decrying the ability to rightly interpret Scripture: how do we know which interpretation is correct? The apostle Paul’s Spirit-inspired words to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:7 are telling: When faced with the challenge of interpreting apostolic writ, Paul says, “Think over what I say . . .”. Why? Because of this promise: “. . . for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” The right interpretation of apostolic writ comes by thinking about words, the context, the grammar, and the logic of the passage. This is only a small snapshot of a Protestant theology of Scripture, but it becomes quickly apparent that what God says about his Word leads to a sola scriptura position.^[15]

15. For a greater development of this topic, see The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), 1.7; John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), esp. 25–28, 183–84; Mark D. Thompson, A Clear and Present Word: The Clarity of Scripture, New Studies in Biblical Theology 21 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press; Nottingham: Apollos, 2006).

The Church as Its Own Final Authority

Trenham appeals to Jesus’s words in Acts 20:35 that do not appear in the Gospels to demonstrate that authoritative teaching exists outside of written Scripture. Protestants don’t necessarily dispute this, as the living apostles were unquestionably authoritative. What Trenham is actually arguing is that the apostolic deposit, including its oral component, was not closed and contained within the canon at the apostles’ death, but was instead handed to and preserved by the Church as a living, ongoing tradition.^[16] In other words, the apostle Paul knew sayings of Jesus that the Gospels don’t record (such as Christ’s words in Acts 20:35), and, therefore, the oral tradition has the same binding authority that the Scriptures have. Trenham says, “He (Paul) knew because there existed more of Jesus’s teaching than was recorded in writing in the canon, and that teaching was authoritative and remains so… Apostolic Tradition, therefore, is the ultimate authority in the Church, the very touchstone of all truth, that by which all is judged.”^[17]

There are a few problems with this line of reasoning. First, all Acts 20:35 does is prove that not every word Jesus spoke was written down in the Gospels, just as the apostle John acknowledges in John 21:25. But Trenham does not explain how it follows that because there are unrecorded words of Christ, therefore, “the Orthodox Church is the verifiable custodian of those words.” It does not, by itself, identify any particular institution as the infallible and exclusive guardian of that tradition, much less demonstrate that Eastern Orthodoxy uniquely preserves it in a historically verifiable way.

So how does Orthodoxy verify which oral traditions are actually apostolic? The same way they verify which books of the Bible belong in the canon: the church, guided by the Holy Spirit, as the guardian of the deposit. One Orthodox text summarizes this saying, “By setting the canon of Scripture, the Church, in turn, established the Scriptures as the canon. In defining the rule of faith, the Church created the rule of faith.”^[18] Protestant theologian Keith A. Mathison outlines a couple of problems with this view in his book The Shape of Sola Scriptura. First, he notes that the definition does not entail creation;^[19] that is, just because physicists have defined the laws of physics does not mean they created those laws. They’re simply acknowledging what God has already created. In this scenario, just because Eastern Orthodoxy rightly identifies that there was authoritative teaching that was verbally spoken outside of the scriptures, it does not mean that they get to define what that authoritative teaching is.

18. Chrysostomos and Auxentios, Scripture and Tradition (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1984), 18, emphasis added.

The bigger issue that Mathison rightly points out with Trenham’s view is that Orthodoxy makes the church a law unto itself.^[20] The church is rendered as her own self-authenticating judge of her own tradition. The church is the final standard of what is true or false. What’s remarkable is that one Orthodox text puts the Church above Christ as an authority, saying, “Not even Christ should be understood and looked upon as an authority to which the Church is subordinated.”^[21] Mathison perceptively notes what’s at stake here, saying,

Yet what else can the Orthodox church say when it claims that the final source and standard of truth is the mind of the fathers which is equivalent to the mind of the Church? If the mind of the present Church is the final source and criterion of truth, then either the Church is God or the Church is autonomous. One option is blasphemy of God, and the other option is rebellion against God. Both options must be rejected by any Christian who believes that the Church must be in obedient submission to Christ.^[22]

Oddly enough, as we’ve seen previously, Trenham criticizes Protestants for being self-referential, when we’ve already determined that this is not the case. And yet, Orthodoxy does exactly what he accuses Protestants of doing, though at a higher level. The Church verifies traditions, and tradition is whatever the Church has received. Protestantism offers a better way because Scripture is not authenticated by an autonomous church declaring itself infallible, but by God speaking in Scripture itself, which the Church receives ministerially rather than magisterially, and that Scripture is the final authoritative norm of doctrine and practices, but interpreted in and by the Church, and according to the rule of faith.^[23]

23. Mathison, The Shape of Sola Scriptura, 225.

Fragmentation and Ecclesial Consistency

The final argument I’ll address that Trenham makes is an appeal to the apparent fragmentation of Protestantism as the negative fruit of sola scriptura, saying,

Why do Lutheran, Calvinistic, Zwinglian, and Anabaptist creeds all differ on fundamental points if the Bible alone is the only authority of the Reformers? Why could not Luther and Zwingli and the other Reformers agree on the nature of the very central act of Christian worship, the Holy Eucharist, if they were both simply reading the Bible and following its teachings?^[24]

24. Trenham, Rock and Sand, 165.

The result, he argues, is that division and diversity among Protestants, as well as every conceivable heresy, is laid by the doctrine of sola scriptura.

There are two main problems with this. First, if the mark of a true Church is institutional authority, then Orthodoxy itself has the same problem he accuses Protestantism of having. Orthodoxy regularly appeals to the Cappadocian and Desert Fathers, but can they show their distinctives being universally accepted in the early church? What about the disunity and contention between Moscow and Constantinople?^[25] Why was the Calvinist Patriarch Cyril Lucaris canonized as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria despite Calvinism being anathematized at the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672?^[26] How can Orthodoxy account for David Bentley Hart being in good standing with the Orthodox church despite his universalism receiving no formal censure from the Orthodox Church?^[27] Or what about Eastern Orthodoxy’s anathema against Oriental Orthodoxy? Orthodoxy has a host of its own internal divisions; based on Trenham’s own standard, his ecclesial authority principle also fails because he is begging the question. His objection assumes institutional unity is the correct metric for a true church. But Protestants locate the marks of the true church in the faithful preaching of the Word and the right administration of the sacraments.

Trenham assumes visible institutional unity is evidence of the true church, and fragmentation is evidence of its absence. But they are only thinking in terms of visible unity when Protestants believe, at least on a fundamental level, that the church is invisible (albeit with visible expressions). Therefore, true unity is not constituted by the visible membership of the church. Protestant political philosopher Stephen Wolfe recently made this point, saying,

the one, true, visible church of Christ is not a single, centralized, global institution, and thus institutional membership is not a necessary condition for unity of faith. It is, in principle and in practice, anti-sectarian. But if your institution claims that it is the ‘one true visible church of Christ’, then the unity of faith is found in it alone, and no true unity can be extended to those outside of it. It is, by its nature, sectarian, no matter how big it is.”^[28]

In other words, Protestants—Anglicans, Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc.—can have intrinsic unity on the basis of being part of the invisible church despite being a part of different Protestant denominations that may differ. True fellowship can be had on this basis. In this way, Protestants can rightfully reject the claim of sectarianism because they extend genuine fellowship across confessional lines without contradicting their own ecclesiology. Orthodoxy and Rome, by grounding unity in a single visible institution, must treat everyone outside of that institution as separated from the true church by definition. Who are the true sectarians here? Historically and theologically, Protestantism is a tradition with identifiable doctrinal standards, ecclesiology, and confessional continuity that would exclude novel sects and heterodox movements on the same grounds it has always used to identify the true church: fidelity to the apostolic rule of faith as confessed in the ecumenical creeds.^[29] As Mathison states, “We can identify the fragments of the true visible Church by their acceptance of the common testimony of the Holy Spirit in the rule of faith, especially as expressed in written form in the ecumenical creeds of Nicea and Chalcedon.”^[30]

28. Stephen Wolfe (@PerfInjust), “…the one, true, visible church of Christ…”, X, January 3, 2025.

Conclusion

29. This is why cults such as Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are not Protestants. As Keith Mathison rightly argues in his book, the criterion for identifying the true visible church is the corporate witness of the Holy Spirit, expressed through adherence to the apostolic rule of faith as confessed in the ecumenical creeds of Nicea and Chalcedon. Therefore, cults could not be regarded as Protestant in any meaningful sense. See The Shape of Sola Scriptura, 273–279.

Many of the criticisms of sola scriptura that Trenham brings up are not the true characteristics of the doctrine rightly understood. They are, in actuality, an abandonment of this doctrine. But it would be a mistake to write off Trenham as if he is not noticing something that is worth pointing out. No doubt that evangelicals broadly have adopted a form of individualistic biblicism wherein they rely on their own personal experience and develop their own creed. Similar to Orthodoxy making the church a law unto itself, the individual now becomes a law unto himself or herself. So while his assessment of sola scriptura may not be satisfactory, he is touching on something that helps explain why many people, especially young men, see Eastern Orthodoxy as an alternative to the rootless, chaotic, and, at times, dysfunctional ecclesiology that is common among evangelicals. Fr. Trenham is responding to a distortion of sola scriptura that plagues evangelicalism.

It is no wonder, then, that many people, especially young men, find Eastern Orthodoxy compelling. There is a feeling of rootedness and order that they find is absent in many evangelical churches. Orthodoxy appears to be an alternative to a church that regularly reinvents itself. The impulse here is not wrong, but they don’t need to reject Protestantism to find the catholicity, gravitas, and roots that they desire. What is needed, then, is not a retreat to Rome or Constantinople, but a retrieval of the Protestant tradition that predated the individualism and heart religion that came from the Great Awakenings. Protestantism is the solution, not the problem.

30. Mathison, The Shape of Sola Scriptura, 258.

Rock and Sand is useful, then, not as a refutation of classical Protestantism, but as a mirror held up to evangelical weakness. But do not mistake the reflection for the thing itself. Sola scriptura did not cause the fragmentation and hermeneutical chaos present in much of contemporary evangelicalism. But recovered, confessed, and lived with rigor and humility, it may well be the rock that endures through the storm. How is it that I know this? For the Bible tells me so (Matt. 7:24–25).