--On Friday, I raised the objection against the doctrine of Sola Scriptura that the rampant doctrinal disunity among Protestants seems to argue against our shared belief that the Bible and only the Bible is sufficient to guide us into the kind of harmonious community Christians are supposed to create.
--So, does Protestant disunity discount the doctrine of Sola Scriptura?
--First of all, I think it’s entirely fair to admit that the fractured nature of Protestantism is lamentable and embarrassing for Protestants. The question is whether abandoning Sola Scriptura would solve it, and I don’t think so.
--Second of all, we should be more clear about how “rampant” the disunity really is. Although there is certainly lots of disagreement among Protestants, agreement about the basic tenets of Christianity (justification by faith, the Trinity, e.g.) is actually pretty good, particularly among those who actually profess Sola Scriptura. Liberal Christians may disagree wildly with conservatives, but most liberals do not hold to this doctrine, which conservatives think is precisely their problem.
--Moreover, it’s also fair to notice that although Catholicism as an official entity holds a very clear doctrinal position on almost everything, the constituents of the Catholic Church very often do not share or live these views.
--Thus, Catholic unity and Protestant disunity can both easily be overstated.
--But then, even though disunity is indeed a serious problem, the question is what price unity justifies? If the Bible is the very Word of God, but the Catholic Church (or any other Christian authority) is wrong about it, what should be done? Should unity trump error? It would seem like the answer to that would depend entirely on the significance of the error and not at all on whether the Bible is the final authority on the question itself.
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