Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Scriptura

In the passage I quoted below, Peter Leithart says:

Solus Christus answered the question, How can I have communion with God? Sola Scriptura answered the logically prior epistemological question, From what source do I learn how I can commune with God? Solus Christus means Jesus alone can bring sinners into true life, the life of fellowship with the Triune God. Sola Scriptura means the Scriptures are Christ’s unique revelation of the way to life; it means that Scripture alone, being the Word of God, identifies where the living and life-giving Christ can be found. The Reformers found in Scripture that Christ had promised to meet with His gathered people through His Spirit, His Word, and the Sacraments of Holy Communion and Baptism. To see Him elsewhere is to search in vain.

In this understanding, Scripture is important as a witness to Jesus Christ, who is the means by which we can have communion with God. But one obvious objection to the principle of sola Scriptura is forcefully brought home in this quote from Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson (via Among the Ruins):

It was the historical and already conflicted church that gathered and winnowed documentary relics of apostolic proclamation. The canon of Scripture, that is, a list of writings together with the instruction, “Take all these writings and none other as standard documents of the apostolic witness,” is thus a dogmatic decision of the church. If we allow no final authority to churchly dogma, or to the organs by which the church can enunciate dogma, there can be no canon of Scripture. The slogan sola scriptura, if by that is meant “apart from creed, teaching office, or authoritative liturgy,” is an oxymoron.

Accordingly, the church is prior to Scripture both chronologically (i.e. there was a chuch before there was a NT canon) and in that it is the church that decides which books will count as canonical and how they are to be interpreted. Thus there is no Scripture in any meaningful sense without the believing community.

On the other hand, what the Protestant Reformers wanted to uphold, it seems to me, was the principle that Scripture stands over the Church as a standard by which the church could be criticized and reformed. This doesn’t mean they wanted to throw out tradition; both Luther and Calvin were fond of appealing to the Fathers to support their interpretations of Scripture. Our understanding of Scripture has always to be in conversation with those who’ve gone before us. But tradition, they thought, must ultimately be tested by its fidelity to the text of Scripture. Certain Protestants have emphasized that they only reject tradition when it is understood as a source of revelation independent from Scripture.

Moreover, it should be noted that pointing out the dependence of Scripture on the believing community doesn’t tell us which believing community is authoritative. More in the way of argument is required to show the identity of the church that forged the canon with any present-day ecclesiastical body.