Graeme Goldsworthy on the Authority of Scripture

[The following is quoted from Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 194.]

For the Reformers this [i.e. the teaching that Scripture is authoritative] meant that other authorities, notably the church and its tradition, must submit to the authority of the Bible. The church can only recognize the canon and the authority of Scripture; it does not donate them. The Roman argument that the church gave us the Bible and thus has the right to interpret it was seen for what it was: a confusion of the source and the effect. It is an idolatrous assertion that allows the church to displace God as the effective author of Scripture. The same Word who called the universe into existence calls the church into existence and rules it. That Word is known to us only through the word of Scripture.