In fact, the doctrine of sola scriptura is crucial to the understanding of the following four sola.  Without the testimony of the scriptures alone as inerrant and inspired word of God, which provides a clear message of redemption to the people of God, it is impossible for a Christian to conceive of a belief in salvation by faith alone, by grace alone, through Christ alone, thereby bringing glory to God alone.

Does God speak to us, and if he does, can we understand him?

This two-part question, much more than the question of the existence of God, is particularly relevant today. Most polls of religious views show that somewhere between seventy and ninety percent of Americans believe in God (74% in this Harris poll, 86% inthis Gallup one, 89% of this Pew one), an indication that, beyond the celebrity atheists, the question of the existence of God is largely settled for the current population.

The question that continues to nag, however, is whether we can really know God. Is he intelligible to the likes of us, or is he forever shrouded behind the veil, a thing to be gestured at clumsily but hardly known, rarely encountered, and surely not loved. (Or, to paraphrase Woody Allen, I wouldn’t want to know a God who would allow a person like me to know him.)

This is not a new question, either. This is an issue that, I would contend, lay at the center of the Reformation program.

I grew up in a broader evangelical context, before this recent resurgence of new Calvinists took hold in the church. For me, Reformed theology was understood pretty much only by that troublesome doctrine of predestination.  I still meet people who think Reformed theology begins and ends with the idea of election.

Of course, the Reformation and its theological descendants can be understood from a variety of perspectives: as a revolution, a revival, ressourcement, and so on. One illuminating way to think about the Reformation is as a movement founded upon a doctrine of the holy scriptures that was as rigorous as it was simple, and that is the doctrine that God’s Word is our only authoritative way to know him

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