The formal and material principles

Philip Schaff defines the formal and material principles of the Reformation thus:

the material of life principle (principium essendi) of the Reformation [...] is no other than the great doctrine, which is presented by Paul especially as the entire sum of the gospel - the doctrine of the justification of the sinner before God by the merit of Christ alone through faith [...]

the formal or knowledge principle [...] consists in this, that the word of God, as it has been handed down to us in the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, is the pure and proper source as well as the only certain measure of all saving truth.

(italics original, p.80-98, The Principle of Protestantism)

Martin Luther may be everyone's go-to guy for the material principle, but would we point to the person who called James an 'epistle of straw' as a great exponent of the formal principle? A lot could be written about Luther's doctrine of Scripture, but I think Oswald Bayer gets to the heart of why Luther doesn't fit into the standard neat distinction of formal and material principles. For Luther the 'authority of Scripture is not formal but is highly material and is content driven' (p.69, Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation). This means that we don't follow a two step plan to knowing the truth of God:

• Step 1: Establish source of revelation
• Step 2: From that source derive knowledge of God and how we relate to him

This is the way that many Protestant confessions seem to proceed (at least post-Reformation), and it is the way many systematic theologies are organised. Oswald Bayer certainly does not like to do things that way though:

one does not arrive at the solution to the question [of the authority of Scripture] "in the passionless calm of a knowledge which is in the element of pure thought alone" [Hegel]; instead, it includes a change in the existence of the reader and interpreter. The Holy Scripture verifies itself, in that it awakens faith. As has been stated already, it does not work for one to take the so-called scriptural principle and try to differentiate between a "Protestant formal principle" and a "Protestant material principle," which states the teaching about justification; one certainly ought not to treat them as separate. Both are one and the same: wrapped up in the event that takes place when the righteousness of God is actually given as a gift, at the moment the promissio is articulated, one encounters the authority of Scripture, its efficacy and clarity - its ability to enlighten - as well as its sufficiency: its power to bring one to salvation - if indeed Scriputure is given "for the salvation" of human beings (2 Tim. 3:15). The question about the significance of the reformational turning point in Luther's theology and the question about Luther's understanding of biblical authority are the same; they are one and the same question.

(p.75-76, ibid)

I think this is related to what Mike Reeves is getting at when he says when you treat revelation as 'the ladder to get you up into the actual playroom of Christian theology, you tend to treat revelation and scripture in a non-Christian way because it is outside the room' (beginning of talk 2 here). Mike Reeves concern here is with the relation between Christology and revelation, but one thing I have begun to see lately is that Christology, revelation and salvation are all so bound up together that you cannot really separate them without doing some serious harm. John Calvin's Geneva Catechism, 1541, exemplifies that:

1. Minister. What is the chief end of human life?

Child. To know God

[...how do we know?...]

C. By His Word, in which He declares His mercy to us in Christ, and assures us of His love toward us

14. M. Then the foundation for true reliance upon God is to know Him in Jesus Christ (John 17:3)?

C. That is true

(pp.5-7, Trans. and ed. TF Torrance, The School of Faith: The Catechisms of the Reformed Church - that is the beginning and end of the introduction section prior to the section on the Apostles Creed)

This may seem to be the height of obscure theological discussion, but if you think that just meditate a while on what this means for how you try and witness to the truth of the Gospel to non-Christians.