Position · 1519

Sola Scriptura

The Protestant principle that Scripture is the only infallible rule of faith, and that church tradition, councils and teachers are subject to it.

Martin Luther argued at the Leipzig Disputation in 1519 that popes and councils can err, and at Worms in 1521 he appealed to Scripture and plain reason. The principle became a mark of the Reformation. It does not mean rejecting all tradition: the magisterial reformers kept the early creeds as faithful summaries of Scripture. Anglican and Methodist churches also teach that Scripture contains all things necessary for salvation, though they give tradition and reason a larger role in interpreting it.