Getting the Foundational Creed Right

“The table of contents in every Bible is a creedal statement. When I turn to the first pages of my Bible, I see the implied word of the ancient Jewish church in rejecting Bel and the Dragon. I see the word of my Protestant forefathers in their agreement with our Jewish fathers on this point. If I turn to a Roman Catholic Bible, I see an erroneous confessional tradition at this point . . . The solo Scriptura position therefore wants to do two things at once. It wants to keep the fruit of church authority (selectively) by having a Bible, while maintaining the right to dismiss that authority (equally selectively). This is done by treating the Bible as the Book That Fell from the Sky, an arbitrary starting point. In adopting this starting point, they look as helpless as Kant trying to kick start an ethical system. And this is why the Scriptures are appealed to as though they had nothing to do with the history of the church. This is an appeal that works for a time with the ignorant” (“Sola Scriptura, Creeds and Ecclesiastical Authority,” in When Shall These Things Be? p. 265).