The Communio Sanctorum as Scripture’s Home: Sola, Singing and the Literal Sense

My aim in this essay is to add an additional, but I think important, layer of analysis to a book that is already exceedingly rich, informative and precise. I will do so by drawing attention to an important but often overlooked aspect of Martin Luther’s exegetical practice: the moral psychology that it entails. The overarching claim I would like to defend is that that scripture (and scripture alone) is the prime textual coordinate of the church’s worship, a wider theological claim that I understand as an intentional broadening of the narrower question of the historical reformed scripture principle. I do so in sympathy with the main lines defended by the systematic theologians in this volume: