Who Gets to Decide Doctrine? - Part 1
Authority, Unity, and the Question of Interpretation
I used to believe the answer was simple: The Bible decides doctrine.
God’s Word was clear. All you had to do was read it with the help of the Holy Spirit, and the truth would reveal itself. If people disagreed, it meant someone was interpreting it wrong—or being dishonest. But over time, especially as a pastor, I began to see how fragile that framework really was.
People I loved and respected came to completely different conclusions about what the Bible taught—on salvation, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, church leadership, and moral issues. We couldn’t all be right. And if the Bible alone was the final authority, then why couldn’t we agree?
The real question wasn’t what the Bible said.
It was: Who gets to decide what it means?
That question changed everything.
Sola Scriptura and the Right to Interpret
At the heart of the Protestant Reformation was a bold claim: every believer, guided by the Holy Spirit, has the right and responsibility to interpret Scripture. The Reformers didn’t trust Rome to preserve sound doctrine. They believed the Magisterium had become corrupt, adding to Scripture and distorting the gospel. Their solution was to return to Scripture itself—sola scriptura.
But with that came another doctrine, often assumed rather than named: the perspicuity of Scripture—the idea that the Bible is clear enough that anyone can understand its essential truths.
Wayne Grudem writes:
“The clarity of Scripture means that its teachings are able to be understood by all who read it seeking God’s help and being willing to follow it.”¹
That sounds comforting. But what happens when two Spirit-filled, Bible-loving believers read the same passage and come to opposite conclusions?
Who decides what’s true?
D.A. Carson writes:
“Although sola scriptura rightly insists that Scripture alone is the final authority, it was never meant to encourage solo scriptura, a stance that refuses to listen to the wisdom of the church.”²
But if that’s true, why do sincere Christians come to contradictory doctrinal positions?
That tension is felt across every Protestant tradition. John Piper believes that the Holy Spirit gives insight to believers as they read Scripture—but even he admits that disagreement is inevitable and sometimes unresolvable without appeal to a higher authority.³
So the question remains: If not the Church, then who?
The Protestant Problem of Doctrinal Drift
In the Protestant model, there is no final authority outside of the individual or local congregation. Yes, denominations have councils and confessions, but these are voluntary associations—not binding expressions of universal Christian truth.
What one denomination affirms, another denies.
What one preacher insists is essential, another calls optional.
Doctrines can change based on votes, cultural shifts, or internal rebranding.
This isn’t a caricature—it’s the reality of doctrinal autonomy.
Gregg Allison, in Historical Theology, acknowledges this fragmentation:
“The diversity of doctrinal perspectives among Protestant denominations is a reality that must be dealt with honestly. It is both a testimony to freedom and a challenge to unity.”⁴
The problem is that doctrinal freedom eventually leads to doctrinal instability. Without a central interpretive authority, Protestant churches can—and often do—reinterpret the essentials of the faith.
Who gets to decide which doctrines are “closed-handed” and which are “open-handed”?
Who defines orthodoxy when every group thinks they’re being faithful to Scripture?
The Magisterium: A Different Vision of Authority
In contrast, the Catholic Church teaches that Christ did not leave His people to navigate truth alone. He entrusted His teaching to the apostles, who in turn passed it down through apostolic succession. The Magisterium—the teaching office of the Church—does not replace Scripture but serves it by interpreting it faithfully through time.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
“The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God… has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.”⁵
This doesn’t mean that Catholics are forbidden from reading Scripture or that individual conscience is suppressed. It means that there is a visible, living authority that helps the Church remain anchored in truth.
Think of it this way: just as the Bible needs translation from Greek and Hebrew into English, the meaning of Scripture often needs translation from the first-century world into the modern one. The Magisterium does that—not by inventing doctrine, but by protecting it from distortion.
Teaching Without a Net
When I was a Protestant pastor, I often found myself in situations where I had to make judgment calls on theological questions that didn’t have easy answers.
Is remarriage after divorce always a sin?
Can a person lose their salvation?
What exactly happens at baptism?
I searched Scripture. I consulted commentaries. I prayed. And I offered my conclusions, sincerely and with pastoral care. But deep down, I knew—I was just one man’s interpretation. I had no guarantee that what I was teaching had been believed “always, everywhere, and by all,” as the early Church fathers described orthodoxy.
I began to see the danger of trusting individual pastors—even well-intentioned ones—with the final word on doctrine. If my convictions shifted over time (and they did), then so did the teachings I passed on.
That’s not apostolic teaching. That’s theological drift.
I remember once standing before my church and teaching on the meaning of the Lord’s Supper. I emphasized the symbolic nature of the bread and wine, just as I had been taught. But something inside me paused. I remembered reading Ignatius of Antioch, who called the Eucharist the “flesh of our Savior,” and Justin Martyr, who insisted it was not ordinary bread or wine, but the very Body and Blood of Christ.⁶
I had dismissed their views as “Catholic bias.” But now I had to ask—what if they were right?
What gave me the authority to decide they were wrong?
References:
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, Zondervan, 1994.
D.A. Carson, “Three Lessons on Sola Scriptura,” in Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible, ed. Don Kistler (Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1995), p. 31.
John Piper, Desiring God, Sermon Archives.
Gregg R. Allison, Historical Theology, Zondervan, 2011.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §85.
Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, A.D. 110.
