Graeme Goldsworthy on "Scripture Alone"

[The following is quoted from Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 48-49. I'm posting this because I've been thinking a lot about sola Scriptura recently.]

Nothing exists except by the decree of God. We know this fact, and we know that God, only because he has revealed himself through his Son, Jesus Christ. Furthermore, we know this fact, and we know Jesus Christ, only because he is revealed to us in Scripture. When the Reformers enunciated the principle of Scripture alone they asserted that there is no other source of truth available to us by which we can know Christ and, through him, God. Negatively, they repudiated the notion of a living tradition of the church as a separate source of truth that enjoys a similar authority to that of the Bible. They were not repudiating the role of tradition as such, but only seeking to subordinate it to the final authority of Scripture. It was not tradition that was the concern, but tradition that contradicted Scripture. They rejected the doctrine of a teaching magisterium that alone could provide the true interpretation of Scripture. Instead of the Roman Catholic assertion that, since the church gave us the Bible, the church alone could interpret the Bible, the Reformers rightly said that God, by his word, creates the church, which must therefore submit to biblical authority. For the ordinary Christian Scripture alone simply means that we must read the Bible or hear the message of the Bible if we are to know God. The relationship of the God of the Bible to the whole of reality is such that no empirical facts are ultimately understood until they are understood as facts of the Creator. To know God and his creation, we have to take account of the nature of Scripture and of the phenomena that present themselves in Scripture. Hermeneutics is concerned with the practical application of Scripture alone.