Can Theology be Protestant and Pro-Nicene? On Evangelical Grammar, Hermeneutics, and Ontology

Can theology be simultaneously Protestant and pro-Nicene? Critics contend that sola scriptura either undermines the authority of the Nicene Creed or only pays it lip service, agreeing with its result but not its mode of theological reasoning. Some Protestants fear that affirming Nicene normativity compromises the Reformation's signature principle. This essay argues that the apparent contradiction disappears when sola scriptura is understood within the broader Protestant pattern of authority, which accords church tradition a ministerial rather than magisterial role. Drawing on the magisterial Reformers and recent scholarship on pro-Nicene theology, the essay proposes that Nicaea functions as a grammatical rule for reading Scripture and thinking truthfully about God. Its authority is both hermeneutical (a grammar of the gospel) and ontological (a grammar of God), making explicit the theological judgments implicit in Scripture's witness and providing rules for expressing those same judgments in different conceptual terms.