Scripture Principle
Sozzini did not soften the Reformation's sola scriptura; he sharpened it. In De Sacrae Scripturae Auctoritate he unfolds the authority, clarity and sufficiency of Scripture — against humanist scepticism and Roman teaching authority.
1. Three properties of Scripture
Sozzini formulates the scripture principle in three sentences which together form the entire methodological foundation of the Polish Brethren:
- Auctoritas — authority: the Bible is the word of God because its content is divinely attested (fulfilment of prophecy, moral majesty, internal consistency). It needs no magisterium to authorise it.
- Perspicuitas — clarity: in matters of salvation Scripture is clear. What is necessary for salvation can be understood without dogmatic training.
- Sufficientia — sufficiency: Scripture is enough. What it does not teach, no council and no tradition can make binding.
If the Bible is authoritative, clear and sufficient, then all post-biblical confessions — the Athanasian Creed, Nicene-Constantinopolitan, Augsburg, Heidelberg — are historically valuable but theologically secondary. They hold insofar as they correspond to Scripture — not the other way round.
2. Scripture and reason
The scripture principle does not mean abandoning reason. On the contrary: only a reasonable reader can understand Scripture at all. Sozzini distinguishes carefully:
- Something can be above reason (e.g. the resurrection): we do not understand the how but believe it because Scripture clearly teaches it.
- Nothing may be against reason (e.g. "one person is three persons"): that would be a logical contradiction, and God does not contradict the reason which he himself created.
3. Tradition — useful but not normative
Sozzini does not reject tradition. He reads the Church Fathers, respects the ecumenical councils, knows medieval theology. But he denies them the status of a second source of revelation. They are the history of interpretation — and interpretations can be argued, tested and corrected.
The famous question "why does only Sozzini teach this when the Church has believed otherwise for 1500 years?" he answers from Scripture itself: even in the New Testament we are warned of distortions (2 Pet 3:16; 2 Tim 4:3–4). In matters of faith, majority is no criterion of truth.
4. Practical application
Whoever takes the scripture principle seriously tests every doctrine by the Bible — even when it is old, popular or official. Concretely this means:
- Terms which do not occur in the New Testament (homoousios, Trinity, hypostasis) are not standards.
- Confessions are summaries of scriptural exegesis — not scriptural authorities.
- Where Scripture is silent, we are silent: on Mary's conception, purgatory, the precise nature of the Holy Spirit, we leave the matter open, just as the Bible does.
- Where Scripture speaks clearly, we speak clearly too — even against the mainstream.
5. Scripture as standard — even of one's own teaching
The scripture principle does not only apply against trinitarians. It also applies against the Socinian himself. If anyone can refute us from Scripture, we must hear him. This is exactly what Sozzini himself practised: he publicly corrected himself where new arguments convinced him — for example in the question of the worship of Christ, against Christian Francken.
The scripture principle means: Scripture is judge, tradition is witness, reason is instrument, obedience is fruit. In that order.
- Trinity — the scripture principle applied to the most important disputed question
- Philosophy of Socinianism — reason, Scripture and revelation
- Books — De Sacrae Scripturae Auctoritate in English