The poster “T” at Scot McKnight’s blog carries on an interesting conversation on the basis of Christian theistic belief, as opposed to deism and presumably other options. You don’t need to follow the whole thing to get his main point: the ideal of sola scriptura is insufficient when it comes to providing the basis of faith.
T takes the argument in the direction of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. You need experience to understand how God acts on a personal level in your life.
It’s a fair point. There are other problems, though. Biblical literalism unnecessarily ties the hands of God in a couple of ways. For one, creationism limits understanding of God the creator. It’s possible to be faithful—to trust in God’s promises—without holding a literal view of Genesis, as John Haught demonstrates at that last link. (Contra RD’s own Davidson Loehr, Haught thinks that there’s room for chance within the framework of a grace-filled creation. Doesn’t anyone do process theology anymore?)
From my perspective, the view of “God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Scripture” also does damage even within a scriptural perspective. Among other things, staking the credibility of Christian faith on the first three chapters of Genesis ignores the God of Exodus, who uses creation in service of liberation. Not to mention Jesus?
Hey, I’m just one of those heathens who thinks God is still speaking. But from where I sit, trust in God makes a lot more sense based on how he (or she) continues to free people in the here and now. Take, for example, the current mess in the Gulf of Mexico. Praying for God’s miraculous intervention is one thing. Understanding God as freeing people from pollution by the non-supernatural means of engineering is another. Even better, God calls us out of the mess by leading us to a future beyond oil. I don’t know about anybody else, but that’s a hope I’m willing to trust in.
