More Thoughts on Sola Scriptura

      The doctrine of Sola Scriptura, which originated with the Reformation in the 1500s, says that all one needs for correct theology and Christian practice is the Holy Scriptures, that is, the Holy Bible. There are so many churches and denominations that claim Sola Scriptura as a part of their fundamental creed that it can be said that it is the prevalent or dominant teaching of doctrinal authority among the Christian churches today.
     The problem with it is that, while it sounds great in theory, it doesn't work in actual practice. In virtually every church and denomination which holds to Sola Scriptura in their statements of faith, in practice, there is always Scripture "and" commentaries, Scripture "and" the works of Luther, Scripture "and" the works of John Calvin, Scripture "and" [fill in the blank] in order to bring the preaching of those Scriptures in line with the doctrinal stance of that church, pastor, or denomination.
     Why is this? If the Scriptures alone were sufficient, then there would be no need for any extraneous sources.
     The answer is that Sola Scriptura assumes something about the Scriptures which simply isn't true, as any cursory reading or perusal will attest. Sola Scriptura assumes that the Scriptures are written like an instruction manual, a systematic theology, or some other work where the theological doctrines of faith are clearly laid out and said plainly. This is just not the case at all.
     The Holy Scriptures are 66 (72 if you're Catholic or Orthodox) individual works representing over forty different authors, three languages, a fifteen hundred year time span, and multiple genres of literature such as history, poetry, private letters, prophecies, proverbs and anecdotes, and so on. It gets even more complicated when you realize that the very first five were likely translations from an older language into Hebrew and heavily redacted or even paraphrased. They were all written from the worldview of the authors at the time, which meant some of them honestly thought the Earth was flat, while other later authors understood it to be at least round or a sphere. None of them were ever meant to be taken as a systematic theology, and in many cases (especially the N.T. letters), the authors assumed the reader would know what they were talking about to begin with.
      The truth is that when taking the Scriptures on their own, without any theological presumptions, they reveal a progression of theological thought interspersed among their narratives, prophecies, and personal writings. There is in fact a single narrative which emerges, but it is a narrative, not a systematic theology. It is a story, not a doctrinal outline. It was meant to exist as special revelation within the general revelation of the natural world, and to work set in the context of history, culture, societies, worldviews, and what we can deduce from what the natural world tries to tell us. It was never meant to "operate" apart from them or ripped from their contexts. It was certainly never meant to be confined to this or that theologian's ideas about what God should look like.
       I personally have come to the conclusion of "Prima Scriptura" where Scripture is the primary authority, set in its proper contexts, but not the only authority divorced from them. And my thought is that interpretation must remain fluid and dynamic, not because the Scriptures change, but because our understanding does.