The following is lifted from another ongoing thread white cliffs of dover :

My question has to do with Sola Scriptura and the Adventist church. Does the SDA church subscribe to the idea of Sola Scriptura? Or is that a *personal* subjective thing that members can decide for themselves?

I ask, because I was under the impression that Adventists maintain Sola Scriptura, but on another forum I was rather brutally informed that Adventism is not orthodox in its doctrines, but, rather, heterodox...that SDA's bring in their own ideas in the form of the writings of Ellen White.

Can Adventism stand by its doctrines without the writings of Ellen White, and ONLY on Sola Scriptura?? Or is Adventism truly heterodox, bringing in non-scriptural dogma? Sometimes it *does* seem as if people take some obscure statement that Ellen White made to an individual and then try to find scriptural texts to back up what *they* think her statement meant.

I've noticed a LOT of *proof* texting on some topics are from EGW, rather than the Bible. Why? Why is that?

One more thing I have wondered about is the idea purposed by some that EGW is on the same par as the minor prophets in the Old Testament. Do Adventists honestly believe that had Ellen White's writings been available when the Bible was being compiled that *her* writings would have been included? i.e., The Book of White, Letters and Epistles to the *Church*, Dress Reform?

Just as an aside, I have found one of the primary books on health that Ellen White lifted her health reform ideas from: The author is L.B. Coles, M. D., and written in the 1850's with various editions through the 1860's. Philosophy of Health: Natural Principles of Health and Cure; or, Health and Cure Without Drugs. Also, The Moral Bearings of Erroneus Appetites (with) The Beauties and Deformities of Tobacco-Using; or Its Ludicrous and Its Solemn Realities

I'm truly not trying to diss Ellen White. But I AM concerned about whether Adventism honestly adheres to Sola Scriptura or if it is heterodox. Because if it is the latter......that bothers me....

True Adventism can! Will the real Adventist please stand up.... teehe

I personally use EGW for Adventists. If talking to Mormons I would use the good things Joseph Smith said....If Catholics, the Pope. If the Lutherans, Martin Luther. If the Baptists, Calvin...etc, etc....

Of course only two groups of people place high authority on others outside the Bible: SDA and RC

HEY CHARIS

every S.D.A. should be able to support all of the
church doctrines from " Sola Scriptura".
E.G. White said that her light is a lesser
light to the greater light (the bible)

so I hope this helps you CHARIS

dgrimm60

I don't think the SDA church can claim "sola scriptura" with honesty and integrity. Heavy emphasis on the Spirit of Prophecy and naming EGW is listed in the 28 fundamentals.

I can't see sola scriptura compatible with that.

I hadn't thought about it until just now. I just know I don't use her writings as principle source material, but rather as further expansion for a topic in which the Spirit has led me to study... and she is simply one of many.

Clio

Sola Scriptura, of course, doesn't mean you don't study anything but the Bible. Lutherans believe in Sola Scriptura, for instance, but they study Luther's writings a great deal, and Luther never even claimed to be a prophet or to've received visions and dreams directly from God.

While I do understand your concern about the church overemphasizing Ellen White's writings, and while I believe that the major emphasis should always be on the Word of God, yet the writings of Ellen White must also be given some emphasis. The question, I guess, is how much is just right? Many in the church would like her to evaporate. Others are happiest when they don't have to read or hear about her at all.

Therefore, just what does one do with the messages of someone whom one believes to be a true, inspired prophet of God? Does one ignore them? Doesn't the Bible itself say to pay attention to them? We're to test the spirits by the Bible and if someone is found to be a true prophet, the Bible says we are to hold fast to what is good. Ephesians 4: 11-16 and 1 Cor. 12: 10 both show that God has placed the gift of propehcy in the church to help guide it until we all come in the unity of the faith, etc.

I don't see anything in the chapter in Seventh-day Adventists Believe, "The Gift of Prophecy," that violates the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, at least the way the Bible teaches it. Our official doctrine states, "Her [Ellen White's] are a continuing and authoritative source of truth which provide for the church comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction. They also make clear that the Bible is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested." p. 247.

Do you see this as a self-contradiction?

(Please read pp. 258, 259 of that same book because those pages discuss quite well the relationship between the Gift of prophecy and the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. If you like, perhaps you could go into some detail as to how you see this chapter, that is, whether it contains things you find disagreeable.)

You say that she is one of many. I myself read many other books and writers, but nothing takes the place of the Protestant Bible and the writings of Ellen White in my mind in terms of authority for doctrine, faith, and practice. The thing we have to remember, however, is that everyone must study and come to their own very private conclusions about this issue based on prayer and careful reflection. It does no good to believe it because you are told you must believe it, any more than one should believe the Bible simply because someone commands you to do so. In fact, I would argue that such a belief is not true belief at all. For that reason I am opposed to making the Spirit of prophecy as manifested in the writings of Ellen White a test of membership in the SDA church. James White was right.

That begs the question, then, what you do when the Bible does not contradict Ellen White but her writings say things that are contrary to things written by those "many" other writers.

How much authority does she carry with you? (I'm not asking this in order to receive an answer but rather to simply stimulate thought about the question.)

There are some rather large, very well known groups who are proud of their false prophets. One of the groups sends missionaries to all parts of the world in order to tell people about his life and writings. Why, then, are SDAs made to feel that they somehow do wrong to quote and study and, yes, perhaps give a certain emphasis at times, to their true prophet of God?

HEY ROBERT
I agree that " Sola Biblica" does not mean we only
read the bible.
you said that only 2 groups put a higher authority over
the bible SDA AND CATHOLICS well I can think of one more
the MORMONS. NOW both the CATHOLICS AND MORMONS
BOTH said the their authority is above the bible.
the SDA said that E.G.WHITE is not over the bible.
now some SDA may use E.G. WHITE more to prove things.
but as for as I know SDA don't claim they have
some one over the bible authority like the CATHOLICS
and MORMONS DO.

and I STILL say that we can explain every SDA
DOCTORINE from the "Sola Biblica"

dgrimm60

Yet these same people who say these things think nothing of basing much their beliefs on many other sources, such as ancient creeds, theologians and writers: Ribera, Luther, Calvin, Hal Lindsay, John Darby, Scofield, Chuck Smith, Tim LaHay, Jerry Jenkins, and a dozen various popular tele-evangelists. Did you ask them about the sources of their non-biblical doctrines?

Often they would not even be aware that their beliefs are influenced by the above men, yet they are. For instance, how about their doctrine that Sunday has replaced the Sabbath under the New Covenant? How about their probable belief that the Antichrist will rule 3 1/2 years before Christ returns in glory with the church that was secretly, silently raptured 7 years earlier? How about their belief that all prophecy stopped at the end of the book of Revelation? And finally, how about their belief that the dead know more after they die than they did while alive on earth and that they are all in heaven now with Christ? None of these doctrines are based on the Bible but rather on tradition and on the writings of some of the men I mentioned above.

As I said earlier, if one is convinced that Ellen White was a true prophet of God and received visions and dreams directly from Jesus Christ, which she claimed happened, then for us to reject the messages given by Christ is really a rejection of the One giving the messages.

When the children of Israel rejected Moses and Aaron, whom did God say the people were actually rejecting?

Yes, we as Seventh-day Adventists need to make sure our doctrines are based solidly on the Bible alone, but we also, as individuals and as the body of Christ, need to pay attention to what God said to us through His prophet.

Question: What would have happened to the church in the wilderness if they had completely rejected Moses as a prophet and started wandering off on their own? Would they have reached the Promised Land? As it is, what happened to all the million+ people whom God saved out of Egypt, except for Caleb and Joshua? With the exception of the two just named, every last person died and their bodies rotted in the desert. Why? Because of unbelief, disobedience, and rebellion. (Hebrew 3: 7-4:11.)

I believe that the answer to the first question is yes, the Seventh-day Adventist church can stand by all of the major doctrines on the solid basis of Scripture alone.

This applies to such "controversial" main pillars of our faith as the Investigative Judgment and the Spirit of prophecy itself. (On the Investigative Judgment, see a recent book showing the biblical support, The Silencing of Satan, the Gospel of the Investigative Judgment, Bradley Williams. It is available at the ABC. Here is a link to a discussion of the Williams' new book: http://www.forthegospel.org/forum/general_discussion/new_sanctuary_book#comment/)

However, saying our major doctrines can stand on the basis of Scripture alone is different from saying that (a) the church came to every last belief that we hold by the Bible alone; and (b) that we hold no beliefs whose primary basis is the writings of Ellen White. Ellen White was important in the development of church's belief system. (An example of this is what happened during the Sabbath conferences.) And there are some beliefs, rather minor ones-- which do not contradict Scripture-- that we hold because of visions and dreams of Ellen White.

Just because SDAs discuss what Ellen White said doesn't mean that they are putting her writings above the Bible. For SDAs-- at least for those who do accept her as a true, inspired prophet of God-- it is natural to discuss what she wrote and to come to a clear understanding of her teachings.

Either a prophet is inspired by God or he/she is not inspired. There is no such thing as a partly inspired prophet any more than there is a partly pregnant woman. Paul was not less inspired than Moses, nor was John less inspired than Paul, and so on.

Authority is a different matter. The canon-- the measuring stick for truth-- was closed about 100 AD when John stopped writing his last book. Everything that purports to be by a prophet of God after that must pass the tests which the Bible itself sets up as a way of knowing whether someone is genuine or not. So the Bible is the only authority for testing truth.

Every prophet who came after Moses had to agree with the previously recognized true prophet. For instance, Joshua had to agree with Moses, and Samuel had to agree with Joshua, and David had to agree with all the prophets who came before him. And so on, down to Ellen White. In other words, all the prophets have to agree, or they are shown to be false prophets, because God doesn't inspire one prophet to say one thing and another prophet to say something entirely different. It may surprise some to find out that when Paul preached, there were many who would withhold belief in Paul's message until they compared it to the Old Testament and found Him to be in agreement with what the previous inspired prophets had written. And Paul was OK with this! And so was Ellen White. Every true prophet will be. In fact, every true prophet will insist that you compare what they say with the Bible.

May I suggest that you read 1 Selected Messages, pp. 16-48.

Would Ellen White's writings have been selected as part of what we know today as the Bible had she been alive 2000 years ago? That is hard to say, because not all inspired writings made it into the Bible; letters written by Paul, and even some of the Psalms and some books mentioned in the Old Testament also did not "make it" into the Bible. So whether it would have or wouldn't have-- answers to both questions of which we have no answer-- doesn't help us reply to the question about authority or inspiration.

Be that as it may, the Seventh-day Adventist church definitely and unapologetically believes that Ellen White was a true prophet of God.

Does that mean every word she said or every word that she wrote was inspired from God? No, of course not.

Again, for the best answer to this, please read 1 Selected Messages, pp. 16 to 48 (at least).




As to whether Ellen White "lifted" health reform ideas from Coles, there are two good books that discuss this issue. The first is titled, More Than a Prophet and is written by Graeme S. Bradford; and the second is, The Prophet and Her Critics, Leonard Brand and Don S. McMahon.

While it is quite true that Ellen White absorbed many ideas from things she read and studied, just like any human being, yet she claimed that she was given dreams and visions concerning the issue of health in relation to the gospel. Ellen White did not borrow people's ideas whole-sale but rather selected those ideas that she found to be in harmony with the things she had been shown in vision. This explains why she selected some things and rejected others. As it happens, she somehow always selected the things that modern science has largely substantiated. I don't know of anything she said God showed her that afterwards modern science has proven to be wrong. I can think of several things that modern science says may be wrong but nothing it has indisputably proven wrong.

By the way, the charge that Ellen White lifted her health message ideas from Coles is not true. The same charges have been made for many years, even long years before she died, that Ellen White got those ideas from James C. Jackson, Sylvester Graham, William Alcott, and from John H. Kellogg.

Ellen White herself taught "Sola Scriptura" so it kind of hard to make the case that she would be the cause of Adventists not believing "Sola Scriptura".

This issue isn't if we use something other than the Bible to shape our worldview. The issue is if we use something other than the Bible to interpret the Bible. Being born and raised in a capitalistic republic has greatly influenced my worldview but that does not impact my belief of Sola Scriptura.

In a word, yes.

What the above passage is saying is that we believe the Bible is the standard because Ellen White said so.

aldona

SDAs believe the Bible is the standard because it is the teaching of the Word of God itself. If Ellen White had taught something different, the church would rightly have rejected Ellen White because such a teaching would prove she was false.

The reason the statement says Ellen White taught that the Bible is the standard is that it's important for people to understand Ellen White herself made this view clear in her own writings. Also, because some people have misunderstandings about the relationship between Ellen White's prophetic ministry and the Bible.

To demonstrate that Adventists elevate Ellen White above Scripture one would have to show where EGW's understanding of Scripture clearing contradicts the Scripture itself and the Adventist church chooses EGW's misinterpretation. That cannot be done.

Ellen White never would have encouraged anyone to first study her writings to understand the Bible. She always emphasized the importance of the Bible student's going directly to the Scriptures and praying for the Holy Spirit to be our teacher. For example, she gave specific instructions that people were not to use her writings to settle a difference of interpretation of "the daily." (See 1 Selected Messages 164-168.)

On the subject of "the daily" of Daniel 8, Ellen White had an idea that was common in her day but I believe Uriah Smith and others were wrong. Their idea was that "the daily" was paganism. I believe the best Bible evidence is that the "daily" or "continual" refers to Christ's work of salvation. Sister White merely said that she did not have any instruction from God on the question, except that people were making too much of the subject and of the differences between people's opinions on it.

She said that rather than arguing over the meaning of "the daily," people needed to be "daily converted." That was the most important thing about anything "daily," in her view. I like that.

The Bible clearly states that Adam and Eve, before they sinned, were "naked and not ashamed."

Ellen White states that they were clothed with some kind of "robes of light."

Every single Adventist I have spoken to, when I point out this difference, chooses Ellen's version without hesitating.

Likewise:
The Bible states clearly that I "MAY EAT" clean meats and fish which meet certain criteria.

Ellen White states that I may not, and implies in some places that those who eat flesh foods will not be fit to inherit the kingdom of heaven.

Once again, when confronted with the discrepancy, the vast majority of my fellow Adventists unhesitatingly choose Ellen over the Bible.

I could go on, and on, and on.

aldona

Thank you aldona... I would not have been so gentle.

I think that is needed because the two examples given do not make the point required.

While the Bible teaches Adam and Eve were naked, it also teaches they didn't know they were naked until the sinned. Now why was that? Why didn't they know they were naked? EGW says they were covered with a robe of light. While the Bible doesn't say that, it certainly doesn't conflict what the Bible does say.



EGW says no such thing. In fact, she tells us we are NOT to teach that eating meat, eggs and cheese is a sin.

Next example please?

Good points Shane. I was going to add some pts. of my on, but you had already taken care of it.

DB

I probably won't have time to reply in detail for the next 3 days or so, I have a very heavy few days ahead at work...

It's not just the detail in the content of what Ellen said, but the automatic default acceptance of everything that comes from her pen, even though it may appear to be different from something that the Bible says.

If you are talking to an Adventist and you say "The Bible says X but Ellen White seems to be saying Y", regardless of the actual content, what troubles me is the instant and unhesitating acceptance of Ellen's version, and the subsequent mental and verbal gymnastics that occur to try to defend Ellen's version and make the Bible version fit hers.

That is what leaves me in no doubt as to whose word is being used as the standard.

Try it sometime. Find a passage where the Bible and EGW seem to be saying something different, quote both versions to your pastor or local theology scholar, and see if the above is what happens.

aldona

Like for instance, Adam being at the tree with Eve...

I thought you were on vacation...

Disappointed?

I'm not disappointed, Tom. But you're right... It did sound like there was some disappointment there...

I happen to disagree with the first part of the above.

Do any of us really believe that any human has a perfect understanding of 100 per-cent of Biblical truth? I think not. I will suggest that the Biblical prophet Daniel did not fully understand aspects of the visions that he recieved. I will also suggest that it is clear that Ellen White did not fully understand some aspects of Biblical truth that she wrote about. No human, in my thinking can be said to fully understand all aspects of the Bible.

As to the second part of the above quote in regard to the SDA Chruch choosing EGWs misilnterpretation, I am not commenting on that.

In my personal opinion, many of us here would benefit from reading the book MORE THAN A PROPHET. I peprsonally think it is very helpful.

Exactly which passages are you referring to???