The Reformers’ emphasis upon the authority of the Bible involved no simplistic substitution of the authority of a paper pope for that of a sumptuously garbed Renaissance bishop of Rome. They acknowledged a decree of a council or a tradition of the church only if it had scriptural warrant. And, in their debates with Roman Catholic disputants, the Reformers demonstrated an impressive grasp of patristic literature and incorporated aspects from it into their worship practices.
Roman Catholics shared a general commitment to biblical authority with the Reformers, but they placed that authority into a different theological matrix. Luther and Calvin associated the essential authority of the words of Scripture with the incarnated Word, Christ. They emphasized the witness of the Holy Spirit in confirming the Bible’s authority for the believer. Stressing the principle that Scripture should interpret Scripture, they affirmed that the Bible was a sufficient rule for determining faith and practice. Roman Catholics, on occasion, inferred that the church had a role in validating biblical authority and in establishing the canon. They maintained that the church’s teachings (papal pronouncements, tradition) should also be used in making judgments about faith and practice and in interpreting the Bible. In a word, the Bible belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, and her representatives were its only legitimate interpreters.
From: Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal by John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1982), p. 50.
