Scripture and Salvation: What the 39 Articles Don't Say

Article VI of the Episcopal Church's Thirty Nine Articles of Religion, adopted in 1801, states:

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.

To me, what Article VI does not say is important. Its omissions leave room for each of us to be prayerfully judicious in the weight and importance we assign to different passages in Scripture.

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Here are some things that Article VI does not say:

• It doesn't say that everything in Scripture is necessary to salvation. It says only that if something is not found in Scripture, it cannot be deemed necessary to salvation.

• Similarly, Article VI doesn't say we are required to believe everything that's found in Scripture or provable thereby. It says only that if something is not found in Scripture and cannot be proved thereby, we're not obligated to believe it as an article of the faith.

• In the same vein, Article VI doesn't say that scriptural proof will always be dispositive, but only that if a proposition cannot be proved by Scripture, then we can stop right there, because the proposition fails as a required belief. In other words, scriptural proof is necessary, but it may not be sufficient, to establish an article of faith.

  Some might argue that Article VIII is to the contrary on this particular point. (Article VIII reads: "The Nicene Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed: for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.") But this argument does not stand up to scrutiny.

  • The original English Article VIII included the Athanasian Creed as well, yet the Athanasian Creed was dropped in the American version, suggesting that belief in the creeds is not an immutable requirement.
    
  • Article VIII notably uses the phrase "ought . . to be received and believed" instead of stronger language such as "must" or "shall." This suggests that belief in the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds is encouraged (because those creeds could be proved by Scripture, or so thought the authors of the Articles) but was not regarded by the authors as mandatory.
  
  

In summary, Article VI states that Scripture defines the outer boundaries of what the church may require its members to believe. This Article was adopted in reaction to the Roman Catholic Church's insistence that Christians must believe a variety of doctrines not found in the Bible (e.g., the doctrine of purgatory, which among others is specifically rejected in Article XXII).

As explained in this Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles: "At the Reformation, the leaders of our Church stoutly resisted any suggestion that they were departing from Catholic teaching. They maintained that they were merely reforming the teaching of the Church to bring it into line with the teaching and practices of the Primitive Church, by rejecting the new articles which had been added to the Faith by the Church of Rome." (Emphasis added.)

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--D. C.