An Impromptu Study In Protestant Understanding of “Tradition”

As a related aside, the following two posts of mine marry well to the topic below:

Reading a book on hyper-preterism recently has been a great read. I am a pretty classic “pre-mil” guy, but recently I was watching a vlogcast and the guy started getting into his beliefs that were hyper-preterist. I had studied a bit of preterism in my theological studies… but this guy was saying some crazy, unorthodox, shite. So I got this book to learn more about this foreign viewpoint.

A small sentence from said book got my apologetic blood circulating:

  • Below I will highlight a few danger signals that suggest that we may be witnessing the sprouting of a new unorthodox sect that could eventually blossom into a full-fledged cult. (p. 13)

However, as I am reading through this book, I purchased a used book to follow the footnote a bit more thoroughly.

Wow.

So, I will first give the section in the original book, then the very extended excerpt from the book I got via footnote #175:

“Creeds Are Constantly Revised”

Hyper-preterists attempt to protect themselves from creedal con­demnation by arguing that the creeds are continually being revised. Stevens frequently argues that creeds “are constantly being made obso­lete by an ever better understanding” (CPO). He muses: “If the creeds of the early church were perfect and needed no revision, why were they revised and updated in succeeding councils?” (WICW). And “if the earlier creeds, confessions and catechisms were such infallible bas­tions of orthodoxy, why did the Reformers in various European coun­tries compose new ones or make changes to them?” (RGA). He quotes a statement made by the Reformed historian and social critic Gary North regarding the “progress of Christian creeds,” concluding that “That the creeds have been steadily improved” (RGA). Stevens asks of var­ious theological movements, “Why are even more doctrines constantly being developed today (such as the Reconstructionist movement, etc.)? Doesn’t this tell us something?” (WICW). Noe asks: “After all, if the creeds had it all right, what was the Reformation about?” (BET, 216).

We may quickly dispose of the question “What was the Refor­mation all about?” by referring the reader to the previous objections regarding the Reformation principle and the (alleged) contradictions in creedalism. In addition, I would point out that Davis reminds us that “it is important to realize that the sola scriptura principle did not imply for the Reformers a rejection of all church tradition. They affirmed the value and validity of the ecumenical creeds of the early church, and in fact believed that the weight of patristic authority supported the Reformed cause.”175 In fact, in section 4 of his “Prefatory Address to King Francis” in his Institutes, Calvin writes of his papal opponents: “It is a calumny to represent us as opposed to the Fathers (I mean the ancient writers of a purer age), as if the Fathers were supporters of their impiety. Were the contest to be decided by such authority (to speak in the most moderate terms), the better part of the victory would be ours.”

However, the hyper-preterist argument is not just confused; its entire premise is mistaken. The creeds were not revised because of a change in the understanding of biblical doctrine; rather, they were expanded to include additional details that responded to new heresies. The later creeds left the system of truth unchanged, but the volume of truth declared was expanded. Ursinus writes: “Why were other creedsformed and received in the church after the Apostles’ creed? To this we would reply, that these are not properly other creeds differing in substance from the Apostles’ creed, but are merely a repetition and clearer enunciation of its meaning, in which some words are added, by way of explanation, on account of heretics, who took advantage of its brevity, and corrupted it.”176

Thus, it is absurd to allege that creeds are “constantly being made obsolete” (CPO). The newer material did not render the previous the­ology “obsolete,” but rather filled in more details. This is why, for instance, John Calvin could structure much of his discussion in the Institutes around the Apostles’ Creed. He agreed with it even at this much later stage of theological development. In the introduction to the McNeill edition of the Institutes, we read: “The body of the trea­tise of 1536 consists of six chapters. Four are on topics familiar in the history of Christian instruction and then recently employed in Luther’s Catechisms: the Law, the [Apostles’] Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.”177


  1. John Jefferson Davis, Foundations of Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 226.
  2. Ursinus, Commentary of Dr. Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism, 117-18.
  3. Calvin: Institutes, ed. McNeill, 1:xxxv-xxxvi.

Keith A. Mathison, ed., When Shall These Things Be? A Reformed Response To Hyper-Preterism (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004), 55-56.

After finding and reading the portion from Dr. Davis’ book, I loved the surrounding topic so much that I ended up reading the entire chapter (seven) where the quote was pulled from:

Tradition As Theological Authority

It was a great reading on Protestant tradition compared to the Catholic view.

So, here is footnote #175 expanded quite a bit. I will also expand a bit more footnote #176 as well. Both quotes from the source will be emphasized in the larger excerpts

  • PRO-TIP: I will put links in the footnote numbers, if you click it it will “jump” you to either the first-half of the notes, or the second half. Hit the back arrow in your browser to return to your place in the text.

John Jefferson Davis,
Foundations of Evangelical Theology
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 226-243.


Tradition in Protestantism

Sola scriptura and the Reformation

The principle of sola scriptura, a hallmark of the Protestant Re­formers, emerged in Luther’s debate with Johann Eck at Leipzig in 1519. Luther argued that scripture and scripture alone was to be the standard by which councils, creeds, and all ecclesiastical traditions were to be measured. In the seventeenth century the principle was epitomized in the well-known statement of the Eng­lishman William Chillingworth: “The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants.”5

Luther was not the first to voice this “Protestant” principle. John Wyclif, one of the forerunners of the Reformation in England, stated, “Even though there were a hundred popes and though every men­dicant monk were a cardinal, they would be entitled to confidence only in so far as they accorded with the Bible.” As J. Loserth has noted, “In this early period it was Wyclif who recognized and formulated the formal principle of the Reformation—the unique authority of the Bible for the belief and life of the Christian.”6

The authorities of the late medieval church did not appreciate the reforming spirit of John Wyclif and his criticisms of the papal system. After his death the Council of Constance (1414-18) de­clared Wyclif to be a stiff-necked heretic, ordered his books to be burned and his body exhumed. This last decree was carried out some twelve years later under the authority of Pope Martin V. Wyclif’s body was dug up, burned, and the ashes thrown into the Swift River flowing through Lutterworth, England.

It is important to realize that the sola scriptura principle did not imply for the Reformers a rejection of all church tradition. They affirmed the value and validity of the ecumenical creeds of the early church, and in fact believed that the weight of patristic authority supported the Reformation cause. As Calvin stated the point, “If the contest were to be determined by patristic authority, the tide of victory—to put it very modestly—would turn to our side.” The Reformers were convinced that it was the papacy, and not they, who in fact had departed from the early Christian tradition. Later historical scholarship has confirmed this judgment.7

Sola scriptura meant the primacy of scripture as a theological norm over all tradition rather than the total rejection of tradition. Creeds, confessions, and councils were to be received insofar as they were consistent with scripture. The sola scriptura principle also presupposed the essential clarity of scripture. The central saving message of the Bible was plain enough to be understood by all and needed no priestly hierarchy to explain it. The Holy Spirit, and not the Roman hierarchy, was the true illuminator of scriptural truth. This Reformation principle of the perspicuity of scripture was later articulated in classic fashion in the Westmin­ster Confession of Faith’s chapter on scripture: “All things in Scrip­ture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and ob­served, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them” (I.vii).

This Reformation emphasis on the perspicuity of scripture has unfortunately been lost in some streams of later Protestantism. Luther complained about the “Babylonian captivity of the church;” with the rise of the historical-critical method there is some reason to be concerned about a “Babylonian captivity of the Bible” at the hands of the biblical critics. Many lay people in the churches have been alienated from the simple biblical message by the imposing developments of critical scholarship.8 By stressing the diversity or even “contradictions” of scripture, critical scholarship has ob­scured the essential clarity of the Bible’s saving message.

In a dialogue at Harvard Divinity School on liberal and evan­gelical theology, Gordon Kaufman stated his belief in the Bible’s obscurity. “There are many biblical positions on almost any topic you wish to take up,” he said. “The Bible is a pluralist library of books, of theological ideas, of values, of points of view. What the biblical position is is unclear. … Even if we could find the biblical position, how to interpret this as bearing on our situation is unclear.”9

It indeed seems ironic that the brand of Protestant liberalism represented by Kaufman has essentially reverted to the position of the late medieval Roman Catholic Church on the question of scripture. The message of the Bible is not plain; it must be me­diated to the people through either an ecclesiastical or scholarly elite. The result in both cases—Catholicism and Protestant mod­ernism—is a loss of spiritual vitality in the churches and the usur­pation of scripture’s divine authority by various human authorities.10

American Protestantism

American Protestantism has not been noted for its appreciation of church tradition. Thomas Jefferson once remarked, “As to tra­dition, if we are Protestants, we reject all tradition, and rely on the scripture alone, for that is the essence and common principle of all the Protestant churches.”11 Such comments need to be under­stood in the light of Jefferson’s own Unitarian and otherwise het­erodox views, but they are illustrative of a significant element in the American religious temperament. The streams of Protestantism influenced by deism and rationalism tended to appeal directly to the moral teachings of Jesus; later developments in church history—especially the great orthodox creeds—were an “obfusca­tion” of the simple religion of the Sermon on the Mount. As the English Unitarian Joseph Priestly saw it, church history was little more than a “sordid history of corruptions.”

Historian Kenneth S. LaTourette has noted the marked tendency of nineteenth-century American Protestants “to ignore the devel­opments which had taken place in Christianity in the Old World after the first century.”12 This low view of tradition is understand­able in part in view of the frontier conditions of early American experience. For those who came to America, and who later extended its boundaries in the West, the nation represented a new beginning, even a “new Eden.” Why encumber the new religious venture with the strife and controversy of the European past?

This ahistorical mentality was also reinforced by the revivalism of the nineteenth century. If the spiritual experience of the New Testament church could be reduplicated through the agency of revival preaching, what more could the believer need? Why bother with the ancient creeds? This anti-creedal mentality found expres­sion in the work of frontier revivalist Barton Stone (1772-1844). Stone was ordained as a Presbyterian, but later rejected Calvinism and in 1804 established the Christian Church (“Disciples of Christ”) through his preaching in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The Disciples of Christ were associated with the slogan, “No creed but the Bible.” Eighteen hundred years of church history were of little or no value; Stone had rediscovered the true “New Testament church.”

There is undeniable value in reaffirming the theology and prac­tice of the New Testament as an essential element of church re­form. However, the problem in rejecting all church history and tradition is that the reflections of less gifted minds tend to be substituted for the wisdom of the spiritual and theological giants of the past. Evangelicals can affirm the primacy of scripture with­out implying that the Holy Spirit has taught nothing to the church over nineteen hundred years. A slogan such as “No creed but the Bible” does not really eliminate all church tradition; it merely sub­stitutes new traditions—those of the denominational leader and his followers—for older ones.13 Anti-creedal and anti-traditional attitudes can lead, theologically and ecclesiastically, to counter­productive efforts that merely “reinvent the wheel.”

Recent developments

There are signs that American evangelicalism is seeking a greater appreciation of the traditions and liturgies of the early church. In Common Roots: A Call to Evangelical Maturity, Robert E. Webber of Wheaton College argues that “a return to the historic church, to the great fathers of the first five centuries, is a return to evangelical foundations.”14 Evangelicalism is certainly rooted in the Refor­mation of the sixteenth century and the great revival movements of the nineteenth century, but Webber is urging his fellow evan­gelicals to rediscover their roots in the faith and life of the ancient church. He argues that evangelical understandings of the nature of the church, of worship, of spirituality, of mission, and of theo­logy can all be strengthened through a new study and appreci­ation of the patristic heritage.

In May of 1977 a group of some forty-five evangelical leaders met to draft a statement which came to be known as the “Chicago Call.” The results of this conference, together with explanatory essays, was published in 1978 in a volume titled The Orthodox Evangelicals, edited by Robert E. Webber and Donald Bloesch, which affirmed: “We believe that today evangelicals are hindered from achieving full maturity by a reduction of the historic faith.There isa pressing need to reflect upon the substance of the biblical and historic faith and to recover the fullness of their heri­tage.”15 The drafters of the statement sought to recall their fellow evangelicals to a greater sense of “historic roots and continuity,” “biblical fidelity,” “creedal identity,” “holistic salvation,” “sacramen­tal integrity,” “spirituality,” “church authority,” and “church unity.”

The new interest in the theological and liturgical heritage of the early church is not limited to evangelicals. Thomas C. Oden, a professor of theology at Drew University, has chronicled his own personal pilgrimage from theological liberalism back to “classical Christianity” in Agenda for Theology. Liberal theology’s fascination with and subservience to the “modern mind” has reached the end of its tether, Oden concludes. It has become intellectually barren and spiritually and pastorally unsatisfying. Consequently, it is time for liberal Protestantism in America to rediscover the resources of classical Christianity–“the ancient ecumenical consensus of Christianity’s first millennium, particularly as expressed in scrip­ture and in the Seven Ecumenical Councils affirmed by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox traditions.” Oden’s aim is to “help free persons from feeling intimidated by modernity, which . . . is rap­idly losing its moral power, and to grasp the emerging vision of a postmodern Christian orthodoxy.”16

The new appreciation for the patristic heritage among evangel­icals (and those newly sympathetic to evangelicalism) is an encouraging sign in the life of American Protestantism. While the early church can hardly be considered a model of either theolog­ical or spiritual perfection, nevertheless the new interest in patristics offers evangelicals some much needed historical depth and perspective. The early fathers faced a challenge much like our own—preserving and extending the Christian faith in a declining social order permeated by a decadent humanism. As evangelicals attempt to “recontextualize” the faith to meet changing social con­ditions, and to reconstruct a new social order on biblical foun­dations, there is much to be learned from the fathers of the early church.

In a somewhat different context the work of Brevard Childs in Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, also represents a renewed appreciation for the positive role of tradition in American Protestantism. Childs argues that Old Testament scholarship must take more seriously the canonical shape of the biblical text as it has actually been mediated through the life of the religious com­munities which have preserved it. The dominant tendency of older critical scholarship was to virtually bypass the canonical text as a literary whole in its own right in a search for the (hypothetical) sources and documents behind the text. On the contrary, Childs argues, where the actual text of the Old Testament is concerned, “One begins with the tradition and then seeks critically to under­stand it.”17 This emphasis has the value of recognizing the tradi­tional role that the text played in the life of Israel as a religious community; the Old Testament becomes more than merely a text studied in the abstraction of a modern academic setting. The shape of the canonical text, reflecting actual religious traditions, also provides helpful clues for understanding the thematic unity of scripture as over against the fragmenting approaches of nine­teenth-century scholarship.

Beyond the confines of biblical and theological scholarship there are signs of renewed interest in the role of tradition in the knowing process among twentieth-century philosophers. The German phi­losopher Hans-Georg Gadamer has recently issued sharp criti­cisms of the Enlightenment’s rejection of tradition in a quest for secular, self-grounded certitude. This quest, Gadamer believes, has not been successful. In ‘Ruth and Method, widely read by biblical and theological scholars for its insights in the area of hermeneu­tics, Gadamer argues that tradition is in fact the “horizon” within which we do our thinking. The process of human understanding involves placing oneself “within a process of tradition in which past and present are constantly fused.”18 Tradition is the embod­iment of the linguistic and intellectual heritage of a culture; one can no more think without the influence of tradition than one can think without language.

Michael Polanyi has written that “all mental life by which we surpass the animals is evoked in us as we assimilate the articulate framework of our culture.”19 Or again, “Human thought grows only within language and since language can exist only in a society, all thought is rooted in society.”20 Polanyi is arguing that the precon­ditions of all human knowledge are found in the linguistic heritage of a culture, a heritage which is traditional in nature.

A similar point was made by Ludwig Wittgenstein in the Phil­osophical Investigations, when he stated that the linguistic prac­tices of a community become conditions through which we see the world.21 These observations by Gadamer, Polanyi, and Witt­genstein, based on new insights in the philosophy of language, help to correct the Enlightenment’s rejection of tradition and to restore to its rightful place the role of the intellectual labors of the past in the knowledge and discoveries of the present.

Tradition in Roman Catholicism

Early positions

Tradition plays a more prominent and authoritative role in Ro­man Catholic theology than in evangelical Protestantism. At the Second Vatican Council it was stated that “it is not from sacred Scripture alone that the church draws her certainty about every­thing which has been revealed. … Both sacred tradition and sa­cred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of devotion and reverence,” (Documents of Vatican H, p. 117).

This position, however, represents a long process of development in Roman Catholicism away from an earlier one in which scripture was granted clear primacy over all church tradition. Prior to the fourteenth century the church fathers and medieval theologians generally held that the Bible was the unique and sole source of divine revelation. Aquinas, for example, could state that “arguments from scripture are used properly and carry necessity in matters of faith; arguments from other doctors of the church are proper, but carry only probability; for our faith is based on the revelation given to the apostles and prophets who wrote the ca­nonical books of the scriptures and not on revelation that could have been made to other doctors” (Summa Theologica 1.1,8).

In late medieval theology, however, the theologians begin to speak of church tradition as that which authorizes scripture. Duns Scotus, for example, claimed that the “books of the holy canon are not to be believed except insofar as one must first believe the church which approves and authorizes those books and their con-tent.”22 This latter formulation represents a clear denial of what came to be known during the Reformation as the principle of the self-attesting authority and essential clarity of scripture.

Rent and later developments

In response to the challenge of the Reformers’ sofa scriptura principle the Roman Catholic position on tradition as it had de­veloped in the medieval church was officially formulated at the Council of Trent in 1546. “Following, then, the example of the orthodox Fathers,” the council declared, “it receives and venerates with the same piety and reverence all the books of both the Old and New Testaments—for God is the author of both—together with all traditions concerning faith and morals, for they came from the mouth of Christ or are inspired by the Holy Spirit and have been preserved in continuous succession in the Catholic Church” (Denz. 1501).

The position of Trent was reiterated by the First Vatican Council in 1870, called to bolster Catholicism against the challenge of mod­ernism. On the matter of revelation and tradition, this council declared that “this supernatural revelation, according to the uni­versal belief of the church, declared by the Sacred Synod of Trent, is contained in the written books and unwritten traditions which have come down to us” (Denz. 3006). Again, the reference to the “universal belief of the church” is an assertion that can hardly be sustained by careful historical examination of the patristic sources.

The Second Vatican Council (1963-65) attempted to soften the distinction between scripture and tradition as it had been devel­oped at Trent and at Vatican I. According to this most recent coun­cil, “Sacred tradition and sacred scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God. … Both . .. flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end” (Documents of Vatican II, p. 117).

Vatican II was faced with an intramural Catholic debate be­tween two opposing views of scripture and tradition, prompted by revisionist interpretations of the meaning of the Council of Trent.23 The “two-source” view held that Trent had really under­stood scripture and tradition as separate and independent sources of revelation; the “one-source” view held that scripture alone, as interpreted by the church’s tradition, was the sole source of rev­elation, and that this view had been the real intention of Trent. As Wells has pointed out, the revisionist “one-source” interpretation of Trent lacks credibility in that it is in fact quite new. For three centuries after Trent, Roman Catholics understood that council to support a two-source view. This seemed especially clear during the nineteenth century.24 Vatican II did not resolve the debate but left the precise relationship between scripture and tradition some­what open. It did, however, wish to claim both as forms of divine revelation.

Some recent Roman Catholic scholars—e.g., Karl Rahner (The Vatican Council) and Hans Kling (Justification) —have spoken of the Bible as the “primary” and “unique” source of revelation. While such expressions may signify a greater appreciation of the Refor­mational sola scriptura principle, their critical views of scripture and appeals to “church consciousness” as a source of theological authority prevent any simple identification of their views with those of the Reformers.

Characteristic Roman Catholic traditions

Three Roman Catholic traditions in particular are held to be divinely revealed doctrines essential for salvation and represent special obstacles for Protestant-Catholic relations: the dogma of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary; the dogma of papal infallibility; and the dogma of the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven. All three dogmas lack credible biblical and his­torical support.

The way for the proclamation of the dogma of the immaculate conception in 1854 by Pius IX had been prepared years earlier. In an encyclical letter to the Roman Catholic bishops of February 2, 1849, Pius IX had expressed his own zealous veneration of Mary: “You know full well, venerable brethren, that the whole ground of our confidence is placed in the most holy Virgin, since God has vested in her the plenitude of all good, so that henceforth, if there be in us any hope, if there be any grace, if there be any salvation, we must receive it solely from her, according to the will of him who would have us possess all through Mary.”25

Pius IX officially proclaimed the dogma on December 8, 1854, at St. Peter’s in Rome, with over two hundred cardinals, bishops, and other ecclesiastical dignitaries present, declaring it to be a divinely revealed dogma, to be firmly believed by all the faithful on penalty of excommunication, “that the most blessed Virgin Mary, in the first moment of her conception, by a special grace and privilege of Almighty God, in virtue of the merits of Christ, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin.” Schaff describes the response of those present at the papal proclamation: “The shouts of the assembled multitude, the cannons of St. Angelo, the chimes of all the bells, the illumination of St. Peter’s dome, the splendor of gorgeous feasts, responded to the decree. Rome was intoxicated with . . . enthusiasm, and the whole Roman Catholic world thrilled with joy over the crowning glory of the immaculate queen of heaven, who would now be more gracious and powerful in her intercession than ever, and shower the richest blessings upon the Pope and his church.”26

For biblical support of the dogma Roman Catholic apologists cite Gen. 3:15; Song of Sol. 4:7; 12; and Luke 1:28, but none of these texts will bear the weight that is placed upon them. The citation of Gen. 3:15 from the Vulgate (“she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt assail her heel”) is based on a mistranslation of the Hebrew, which makes the reference masculine, not feminine. In the Catholic misinterpretation, which refers the “she” to Mary, it is argued that the enmity between Mary and Satan is an eternal one, which would not be the case if she had ever been subject to original sin. Poetic descriptions of the fair and spotless bride (Song of Sol. 4:7) and references to the “garden enclosed, and fountain sealed” are fancifully applied to Mary. The Vulgate of Luke 1:28, “Hail [Mary], full of grace,” is said to imply her immaculate conception. Schaff’s comment on this type of biblical interpretation is apt: “frivolous allegorical trifling with the Word of God.”27 The dogma is explicitly contradicted by texts such as Rom. 5:12, 18; 1 Cor. 15:22; and Eph. 2:3, which include all in original sin except Christ.

The dogma’s rootage in ancient tradition is equally weak. Au­gustine, who surprisingly believed that Mary was free from actual sin, did not believe that she was conceived without original sin. The heretic Pelagius was apparently the first to espouse the doc­trine. It was opposed by Bernard of Clairvaux, Anselm of Can­terbury, Bonaventure, Aquinas,28 the popes Leo I, Gregory I Innocent III, Gelasius I, Innocent V, and Clement VI.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century the dogma was ad­vocated by Duns Scotus, the “subtle doctor.” During the medieval period the belief became common in the church that though Mary was conceived in sin, she was sanctified in the womb like John the Baptist, and thus prepared to be a pure receptacle for the Son of God. Others, however, held the view that Mary was fully sanc­tified only when she conceived Christ by the Holy Spirit, not at the time of her own conception.

After the fourteenth century the question of Mary’s relation to original sin became a point of controversy between Thomists and Scotists, and between Dominicans and Franciscans, the various parties charging one another with heresy. Schaff notes that four members of the Dominican order, “who were discovered in a pious fraud against the Franciscan doctrine, were burned [at the stake] by order of a papal court in Rome on the eve of the Reformation. The Swedish prophetess, St. Birgitte, was assured in a vision by the Mother of God that she was conceived without sin; while St. Catherine of Siena prophesied for the Dominicans that Mary was sanctified in the third hour after her conception.”29

Needless to say, such accounts do not bolster confidence in the credibility of the dogma of the immaculate conception. A candid examination of the exegetical and historical data reveals the in­adequacy of their claims.

The doctrine of papal infallibility, also proclaimed by Pius IX, was officially defined on July 18, 1870, at the climax of the First Vatican Council, meeting at the Vatican in Rome. The dogma as­serted that the Roman pontiff, when speaking from his chair (X cathedra) on faith and morals, is infallible, and that such defini­tions are irreformable and not in consequence of the consent of the church. The pope on his own authority claimed the authority to define new and binding articles of faith, apart from either scrip­ture or general council.

The arrangements for the Vatican Council had been carefully orchestrated by Pius IX to secure a vote in favor of infallibility. The pope had selected the committee members responsible for pre­paring the draft reports in such a way as to secure the pre­ponderance of infallibilist sentiment. A revised order of business issued February 22, 1870, changed the traditional procedure re­quiring absolute or at least moral unanimity in definitions of faith and substituted for it a new rule requiring a mere numerical ma­jority. The ancient rule of catholic tradition (quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est) was abandoned in order to secure a positive vote for infallibility despite the objections of a powerful minority. The pope also sought to control public opinion in Rome. Nothing was allowed to be printed in Rome during the council which opposed infallibility, while the proponents of the proposed dogma were given the full freedom to publish whatever they wished.

When Bishop Strossmayer, one of the most outspoken members of the opposition, during one of the debates criticized the prin­ciple of deciding matters of faith by mere majority votes, he was loudly interrupted by shouts from all sides of “Shame! Shame! Down with the heretic!” Other bishops leaped from their seats, rushed to the speaker’s platform, and shook their fists in Strossmayer’s face. The bishop was forced by the uproar to leave the platform.30

In a preliminary vote on infallibility eighty-eight bishops voted in the negative, including many distinguished for their learning and scholarship. Later, fifty-six of these and sixty others left Rome before the final vote was taken, rather than oppose Pius IX. As a result, when the final vote was taken on July 18, 1870, the new dogma of infallibility received an overwhelming vote of 533-2.

The procedural chicanery resorted to at the First Vatican Coun­cil reflects the intrinsic weakness of the arguments in favor of papal infallibility. The dogma is supported by the evidence of nei­ther scripture nor tradition. The evidence of church tradition and history is decidedly embarrassing to the dogma. The four great ecumenical creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, Chalcedonian, Athanasian) and the ecumenical councils of the first eight centuries have no references whatever to papal infallibility. In terms of the canon of true catholicity, “that which always, everywhere, and by all has been believed,” this lack of evidence alone is a decisive strike against the doctrine.

One of the most damaging pieces of historical evidence, how­ever, involves the famous case of Pope Honorius I (625 — 638), who was later officially condemned for teaching heresy by an ecumen­ical council. As Schaff has pointed out,31 Honorius, in two letters to his heretical colleague Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, taught ex cathedra the Monothelite heresy, which was condemned by the sixth ecumenical council in 680.32 This council was rec­ognized as valid by both the Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) branches of the church. The council condemned and excommun­icated Honorius as a heretic, and the seventh (787) and eighth (869) ecumenical councils repeated the anathemas of the sixth.

Subsequent popes down to the eleventh century, in a solemn oath upon their accession to the office, endorsed the canons of the sixth ecumenical council and pronounced an anathema on the authors of the Monothelite heresy together with Pope Honorius, who had aided and abetted the doctrine. The Roman Cath­olic popes themselves for more than three hundred years publicly recognized the facts that an ecumenical council may condemn a pope for heresy and that Pope Honorius was actually and right­fully so condemned.

Schaff remarks that the case of Honorius is “as clear and strong as any fact in church history.”33 Attempts by infallibilists to claim that the records of the councils or the letters of Honorius are forgeries are simply desperate expedients, without historical cred­ibility, to avoid the weight of the damaging evidence. The decisive fact remains, states Schaff, “that both Councils and Popes for sev­eral hundred years believed in the fallibility of the Pope, in flat contradiction to the Vatican Council.”34

The doctrine of papal infallibility is also discredited by the fact that forged documents were used during the Middle Ages to ad­vance the interests and power of the papacy. The Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, supposedly compiled by Isidore of Seville (d. 636), are now recognized to contain forged materials. The decretals contain letters of ante-Nicene popes, all forgeries; canons of councils, mostly genuine; letters from later popes, thirty-five of which are forgeries. The decretals were intended to help free the bishops from the authority of the secular powers and to exalt the papacy. These documents, unknown before 852, contain obvious historical anachronisms, such as the use of the Vulgate in the decretals of the earliest popes. The obviousness of these historical errors has led even Roman Catholic scholars to acknowledge their spurious nature.

The so-called “Donation of Constantine” was also used to ad­vance the claims of the papacy. This document, which was fabri­cated during the eighth or ninth century, probably in the Frankish empire, had a wide influence during the Middle Ages. According to this forgery, the Emperor Constantine supposedly conferred on Pope Sylvester I (314 — 335) primacy over the churches of Antioch, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, and dominion over all Italy, including Rome. The Donation made the pope supreme judge of all clergy. The document was apparently first used to support papal claims in 1054 by Leo IX, and was thereafter consistently used by his successors. The Renaissance scholars Nicholas of Cusa and Lorenzo Valla demonstrated its falsity during the fifteenth century.

The biblical texts cited in support of papal infallibility are as unimpressive as the evidence of church history and tradition. Most commonly cited are Matt. 16:18 (“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church”); Luke 22:32 (“I have prayed for thee, that thy faith may not fail”—paraph. of luv); John 21:15 —17 (“Feed my lambs…. Feed my sheep”). Of these, Matt. 16:18 is the most important.

With respect to Matt. 16:18, Protestants have seen the “rock” as Peter’s confession and ultimately as Christ himself. Peter acknowl­edges Christ as the “rock” or “stone”: “Come to him, that living stone” (1 Peter 2:4); cf. Eph. 2:20, the household of God “built upon the foundation of the prophets and the apostles [Peter not unique], Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.”

In Matt. 16:19 Christ says to Peter, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Note, however, that the “power of the keys” is given to all the apostles, not just Peter, according to John 20:22-23: “He breathed on them, and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven” And according to Matt. 18:17-18 the power of excommunication is exercised by the church as a whole, not by a single individual.

While Peter was certainly eminent as a leader in the early church, Matt. 16:18 and the related texts teach neither Peter’s infallibility nor Christ’s intention to establish a succession of infallible teach­ers. Significantly, when the comments of the church fathers on Matt. 16:18 are examined, it is striking that not one finds papal infallibility in the passage. Sixteen take the reference to the “rock” to mean Christ; forty-four, including Chrysostom, Ambrose, Hilary, Jerome, and Augustine, understand the “rock” to refer to Peter’s faith or confession. The “unanimous consent of the fathers”—a hermeneutical norm for Roman Catholicism in matters of inter­pretation—is on this point simply nonexistent.

It is claimed that the popes, as the successors of Peter, are the true successors of the apostles. The “apostolic successors” of today, however, lack the essential qualifications of a true apostle, as specified in the New Testament. One must have been a witness to the resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor. 9:1, “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?”; cf. Acts 1:21-22). A true apostle pos­sesses the power of performing miracles (2 Cor. 12:12; Rom. 15:18-19). The popes lack both qualifications.

The final Roman Catholic doctrinal tradition to be considered here is the dogma of the assumption of Mary into heaven. Pope Pius XII, on November 1, 1950, solemnly described what was be­lieved to be the crowning event of the Virgin’s life. In the papal proclamation Munificentissimus Deus the pope defined it to be an article of the Roman faith that the “immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” The language here teaches the perpetual virginity of Mary as well.

Belief in the assumption of Mary is reflected in apocryphal tra­ditions dating from about 400. The legend of the assumption was accepted as true by Pseudo-Dionysius and by Gregory the Great. Gregory relates the account thus: The apostles were assembled in the house of Mary to watch at her deathbed; Jesus appeared with the angels, received her soul, and gave it to the archangel Michael. On the following day the apostles were about to carry the body to the grave; Jesus again appeared and took Mary’s body up in a cloud into heaven, there to be reunited with her soul. John of Damascus relates the legend in yet a more elaborate form: Not only the angels but the patriarchs were present with the apostles at the deathbed; even Adam and Eve were there, blessing Mary for removing the curse which through them came upon the world.

As Hanson has observed, if the dogma involves belief in a his­torical fact, “it is a fact wholly unknown to the writers of the second and third centuries.”35 In other words, the dogma’s his­torical claims to be apostolic are nonexistent.

About the year 600 the emperor Maurice ordered the feast of the assumption to be celebrated in the Eastern church, fixing the date as August 15. About the same time Gregory the Great fixed the same date for the Latin church, where previously it had been celebrated on January 18.

At the First Vatican Council over two hundred bishops expressed a desire for a papal decree making the assumption an article of Roman faith. This desire was finally granted eighty years later by the pronouncement of Piux XII.

As to the possible biblical basis for this dogma, one Catholic scholar has admitted that there “is no explicit reference to the Assumption in the Bible.”36 Attempts have been made to relate the assumption to the doctrine of the resurrection, where sin and the sting of death are overcome in the victory of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:53-57). Mary, being free from sin, presumably “anticipated” the final resurrection victory of all believers in her assumption into heaven. Referring to Luke 1:28, “Hail [Mary], full of grace,” Pius IX suggested that the fullness of grace bestowed upon the Virgin was only finally achieved by her assumption. Perhaps Rev. 12:1, the description of the great sign in the heavens, a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and head crowned with twelve stars, has some reference to Mary as well as to the church. Mary as the “New Eve” in some sense shared in the re­demptive mission of Christ. “Christian intuition, guided by the Holy Spirit,” writes Langlinais, “gradually came to see that Mary’s share in Christ’s victory over sin began with her conception in a state free from all sin (the state in which Eve was created), and ended with her miraculous Assumption (an immunity from death and corruption which Eve enjoyed until the Fall).”37

Such references to the biblical data can have no claim to be recognized as serious historical-grammatical exegesis. “Christian intuition”—in this case, the vagaries of grass-roots piety—has led away from the teachings of the New Testament, obscured the su­premacy and uniqueness of the redemptive work of Christ, con­fused legend with historical fact, and placed the most serious obstacles in the path of Roman Catholic—Protestant relations. Evangelicals can learn much from a tradition of the patristic church, but can in no way compromise, in matters of doctrinal authority, the sola scriptura principle of the Protestant Reforma­tion. The Bible, and the Bible alone, must remain the final written authority for Christian faith and practice.

FOOTNOTES

  1. F.F. Bruce, Tradition Old and New, p. 168.
  2. Loserth, “Wyclif, John,” p. 463.
  3. E.g., it is interesting to note that the church father most frequently cited by Calvin in the Institutes is Augustine, the great exponent of divine grace and predestination.
  4. Recall the comments made in relation to James Smart’s The Strange Silence of the Bible in the Church in Chapter 6.
  5. Priscilla Whitehead and Tom McAlpine, “Evangelical/Liberal Theology—a False Dichotomy?” p. 10.
  6. In the Harvard dialogue (1981) Kaufman prefaced his remarks by saying, “I am just speaking for myself.” This is indeed the Achilles’ heel of Protestant modernism: it speaks not by the authority of the Bible or tradition; it speaks merely “for itself.”
  7. Sidney E. Mead, “Protestantism in America,” p. 293.
  8. Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, vol. IV, p.428.
  9. Ably pointed out by F. F. Bruce in Tradition Old and New.
  10. Robert E. Webber, Common Roots, p.22.
  11. Robert E. Webber and Donald Bloesch, eds., The Orthodox Evangelicals, 11.
  12. Thomas C. Oden, Agenda for Theology, xii.
  13. Brevard Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, 101.
  14. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Puth and Method, 258.
  15. Michael Polanyi, The Study of Man, 31.
  16. Ibid., p.60.
  17. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 116.
  18. Donald G. Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, I, p. 57.
  19. See G. C. Berkouwer, The Second Vatican Council and the New Catholicism, 89 —111; A. N. S. Lane, “Scripture, Tradition and Church: An Historical Survey”
  20. David F. Wells, “Tradition,” p. 59.
  21. Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, I, pp.108-9.
  22. Ibid., p.110.
  23. Ibid., p.115.
  24. Aquinas, however, did believe that Mary, like John the Baptist, was sanctified in the womb after the infusion of the soul.
  25. Schaff, Creeds, 1:124.
  26. Ibid., p.145, n.2.
  27. Ibid., pp. 178-80.
  28. The Monothelites held that Christ had only one will, the divine. The orthodox position is that Christ had two wills, a human and a divine—will being an attribute of the nature rather than of the person. The Logos, the second person of the Trinity, pos­sessed a divine will; Christ, possessing a fully human nature, also possessed a human will. The Monothelite heresy thus denied the full and true humanity of the Savior. If in the incarnation the Logos did not assume a full human nature, then the comprehen­siveness of the redemption of human nature has been compromised.
  29. Schaff, Creeds, 1:179.
  30. Ibid., 1:180.
  31. Hanson, Tradition, 238.
  32. W. Langlinais, “Assumption of Mary,” p. 972.
  33. Ibid., pp. 972-73.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berkouwer, G. C. The Second Vatican Council and the New Catholicism, tr. L. Smedes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965.

Bloesch, Donald G. Essentials of Evangelical Theology, Vol. I. San Francisco: Har­per, 1978.

Bruce, F. F. Tradition Old and New. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970.

Childs, Brevard. Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979.

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. ‘Muth and Method. London: Sheed and Ward, 1975.

Gallup, George, Jr., and Poling, David. The Search for America’s Faith. Nashville: Abingdon, 1980.

Hanson, R. P. C. Tradition in the Early Church. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962. Kiing, Hans. Justification. New York: Nelson, 1964.

Lane, A. N. S. “Scripture, Tradition and Church: An Historical Survey,” Vox Evan-gelica 9 (1975):37-55.

Langlinais, J. W. “Assumption of Mary,” New Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.

Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A History of the Expansion of Christianity, vol. IV. New York: Harper, 1941.

Leith, John H., ed. Creeds of the Churches. Richmond: John Knox, 1973.

Loserth, J. “Wyclif, John,” The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1912.

Mead, Sidney E. “Protestantism in America,” Church History 23 (1954):291-320.

Oden, Thomas C. Agenda for Theology. San Francisco: Harper, 1979.

Polanyi, Michael. The Study of Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959.

Rushdoony, R. J. Infallibility: An Inescapable Concept. Vallecito, Calif.: Ross House, 1978.

Schaff, Philip. The Creeds of Christendom, Vol. I. New York: Harper, 1877. Thiselton, Anthony C. The TWo Horizons. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.

Webber, Robert E. Common Roots: A Call to Evangelical Maturity. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978.

Webber, Robert E., and Bloesch, Donald, eds. The Orthodox Evangelicals. Nash­ville: Thomas Nelson, 1978.

Wegenast, K. “παραδίδωμι,” New International Dictionary of New Testament Theo­logy. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978. III, 772-75. (I added the PDF of this entire note for the Greek minded researcher)

Wells, David E “Tradition: A Meeting Place for Catholic and Evangelical Theol­ogy?” Christian Scholar’s Review 5 :(1975):50-61 .

Whitehead, Priscilla, and McAlpine, Tom. “EvangelicaVLiberal Theology—a False Dichotomy?” TSF Bulletin, Mar/Apr., 1982, pp. 8-11.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. New York: Macmillan, 1958.

Zockler, 0. “Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ,” The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1910.

Okay, here is the Zacharias Ursinus quote from footnote #176


Zacharias Ursinus and G. W. Williard,
The Commentary of Dr. Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism
(Cincinnati, OH: Elm Street Printing Company, 1888), 117–118.


exposition

The term symbol or creed (symbolum) signifies in general a sign or mark by which one person or thing is distinguished from another, as a military symbol is a sign which distinguishes allies from enemies. The German has it: ein Feldzeichen, oder Losung. Or, it (symbola) signifies a collation or bringing together, as to a feast—zufammen schiessen. In the sense of the church, it signifies a brief and summary form of christian faith, which distinguishes the church and her members from all the various sects. There are those who suppose that this summary of our christian faith, as just recited, is called a symbol, or creed, because it was collated or formed by the Apostles, each one furnishing a certain portion of it. This, however, cannot be proven. It is more probable that it was so called because these articles constitute a certain form or rule with which the faith of all orthodox christians should agree and conform. It is called apostolic, because it contains the substance of the doctrine of the Apostles, which the catechumens were required to believe and profess; or because the Apostles delivered this sum of christian doctrine to their disciples, and the church afterwards received it from them. It is called Catholic, because it is the one faith of all christians.

We must here inquire, Why were other creeds, as the Nicene, the Athanasian, the Ephesian, and Chalcedonian, formed and received in the church after the Apostles’ creed? To this we would reply, that these are not properly other creeds differing in substance from the Apostles’ creed, but are merely a repetition and clearer enunciation of its meaning, in which some words are added, by way of explanation, on account of heretics, who took advantage of its brevity, and corrupted it. There is, therefore, no change as it respects the matter or substance of the Apostles’ creed in those of a later date, but merely a difference in the form in which the doctrines are expressed.

There are other weighty reasons which may have led and compelled the Bishops and teachers of the ancient church to form and construct these brief formulas of confession, especially when churches were multiplying, and heresies were springing up in different places. Among these reasons we may mention the following: 1. That all the young, as well as those of riper years, might be able to remember the chief points of christian doctrine, as thus briefly summed up and expressed. 2. That all might constantly have before their eyes the confession and comfort of their faith, knowing what the doctrine was on account of which they were called to suffer persecution. It was in this way that God formerly had the substance of the law and promises expressed and comprehended in a brief form, so that all might have a certain rule of life and ground of comfort continually in view. 3. That the faithful might have a certain badge or mark by which they might then and in all future ages be distinguished from unbelievers and heretics, who cunningly corrupt the writings of the Prophets and Apostles. This was also a reason on account of which those confessions were called creeds or symbols. 4. That there might be extant some perpetual rule, short, simple, and easily understood by all, according to which every doctrine and interpretation of Scripture might be tried, that they might be embraced and believed when agreeing therewith, and rejected when differing from it.

But although other confessions were formed, the Apostles’ creed greatly surpasses all others in importance and authority, and that for the following reasons: 1. Because almost the whole of it is expressed in the very language of the Scriptures. 2. Because it is of the greatest antiquity, and was first delivered to the church by apostolic men, either by the Apostles themselves, or by their disciples and hearers, and has been regularly transmitted down to the present time. 3. Because it is the basis and type of all the other creeds which have been formed by the consent of the whole church, and approved of by general synods, for the purpose of preventing and refuting the perversions and corruptions of heretics, by explaining more fully the meaning of the Apostles’ creed.

The truth of the other creeds, however, does not consist in the authority or in the decrees of men, or of councils, but in their perpetual agreement with the holy Scriptures, and with the teachings of the whole church from the time of the Apostles, retaining and holding fast to the doctrine which they delivered, and at the same time giving testimony to posterity that they have received this doctrine from the Apostles and those that heard them, which agreement is obvious to all those who will but give the subject a careful consideration. The power to give new laws concerning the worship of God, or to give new articles of faith binding the conscience, belongs to no assembly of men or of angels, but to God alone. We are not to believe God on account of the testimony of the church, but the church upon the testimony of God.

2 Thessalonians 2:15… Oral Tradition (Roman Catholicism)

Can the things which Rome wish to bind upon us in the name of Oral Tradition had been taught to the Thessalonians?

Then we looked at 2 Thess. 2:15 as quoted by Jay Dyer in his “10 Reasons” video we started responding to last week. All Dividing Line Highlights’ video productions and credit belong to Alpha and Omega Ministries®. If this video interested you, please visit aomin.org/ or http://www.sermonaudio.com/go/336785


2018 Flashback


Is Roman Catholic Views of Tradition, Biblical?

This is from a larger debate between Ken Samples and Fr. Mitch Pacwa . I think this intro does it’s due diligence in explaining many of the false views I have heard from people as of late. In other words, one should not define Protestants as believing Sola Scriptura wrongly, and then responding to this false view.

The below is from an excellent book by William Webster:

  • William Webster, Salvation, The Bible, and Roman Catholicism (Edinburgh, UK: Banner of Truth Trust, 1990), 13-20

AUTHORITATIVE STATEMENTS OF ROMAN CATHOLIC TEACHING ON TRADITION AND THE WORD OF GOD

The Documents of Vatican II

Hence there exist a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit. To the successors of the apostles, sacred tradition hands on in its full purity God’s word, which was entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit . . . Consequently, it is not from sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of devotion and reverence. Sacred tradition and sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, which is committed to the Church.[1]

The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism

59. Where do we find the truths revealed by God?

We find the truths revealed by God in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

60. How does Sacred Scripture compare with Sacred Tradition?

Both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are the inspired word of God, and both are forms of divine revelation. Sacred Scripture is divinely inspired writing, whereas Sacred Tradition is the unwritten word of inspired persons.[2]

89. Why is Sacred Tradition of equal authority with the Bible?

The Bible and Sacred Tradition are of equal authority because they are equally the word of God; both derive from the inspired vision of the ancient prophets, and especially from the infinite wisdom of God incarnate who gave to the apostles what he came down on earth to teach, through them, to all of mankind.[3]

TRADITION AND THE WORD OF GOD – SUMMARY OF NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING

The first issue to be addressed in any discussion of spiritual truth is that of authority. To say something is true or false implies an authoritative standard by which we can make such a judgment. But is there such an authoritative stand­ard by which we can judge whether a particular teaching or system is true or false? The answer is an unequivocal ‘yes’. That authoritative standard is the Word of God, the Bible. Jesus Christ himself said of the Bible, ‘Thy word is truth’ (Jn. 17:17). In settling issues of spiritual controversy the Lord Jesus always appealed to the Word of God as an authoritative standard by which to judge truth and false­hood.

Mark’s Gospel records an incident in which certain Sad-ducees came to Jesus to question him. The Sadducees were the religious liberals of Jesus’ day and they rejected many of the teachings espoused by the more orthodox sect of the Pharisees. They did not believe in angels or in the resurrec­tion of the dead. A number of these men came to Jesus to ask him a trick question about life after death. Jesus demolished their trick question but went on to say this:

Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures, or the power of God?… But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken (Mk. 12:24,25-27 NASB 1963).

Twice in this passage Christ tells these men they are greatly mistaken in their views. The reason is that they do not understand the Scriptures. He appeals to those Scriptures to correct the false concepts these men held. He points to the Word of God as an authoritative standard by which to judge truth and error. These men are greatly mistaken because the views they hold and the doctrines they teach contradict the Word of God.

Here you have two opposing views of truth. One says there is no resurrection from the dead, the other says there is. How do you determine which is true? You go to the Word of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is God in human flesh and therefore whatever he teaches is absolute truth. And according to him the Word of God is the final and authoritative standard by which all claims to truth are to be judged.

This principle obviously has a direct bearing upon the whole issue of tradition. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that tradition as well as the Bible constitutes the revealed Word of God. It teaches that the teaching of the Church Fathers, the Church Councils, and the Traditions of the Church are all ‘one sacred deposit of the Word of God’.

John Hardon S. J. makes the following statements in his Question and Answer Catholic Catechism:

Sacred Tradition is the unwritten word of God that the prophets and apostles received through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and, under His guidance, the Church has handed on to the Christian world.[4]

Both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are the inspired word of God, and both are forms of divine revelation. Sacred Scripture is divinely inspired writing, whereas Sacred Tradition is the unwritten word of in­spired persons.[5]

Jesus Christ had some interesting things to say about tradition:

Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem, saying, ‘Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.’ And He answered and said to them, `And why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, “Honor your father and mother”… But you say, “Whoever shall say to his father or mother, ‘Anything of mine you might have been helped by has been given to God,’ he is not to honor his father or his mother.” And thus you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men”‘ (Matt. 15:1-9).

In a parallel passage in Mark 7:5-13 much of the same teaching by Jesus is recorded. The Pharisees ask why the disciples do not walk according to the tradition of the elders. In response Jesus denounces the scribes and Pharisees and their observance of tradition which is in violation of the Word of God. In effect they have elevated the teachings of men above the Scriptures. The following sums up Jesus’ evaluation:

  1. You teach as doctrines the precepts of men.
  2. Neglecting the commandment of God you hold to the tradition of men.
  3. You set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.
  4. You invalidate the Word of God by your tradition which you have handed down.

We should note that Jesus is not condemning tradition simply because it is tradition. All tradition is not wrong. What he is condemning is the elevating of tradition or the teaching of men to equality with the Word of God. He condemned the scribes and Pharisees for following tradition which violated and invalidated the Word of God. And then he rebuked them for so teaching others.

Tradition is not necessarily wrong, but tradition is not the Word of God, and for tradition to be acceptable to God, it must never contradict or violate the clear teaching of the Bible. All tradition must be judged by the truth of Scripture, including traditions which have their original roots in Scripture. The traditions that the scribes and Pharisees adhered to, but which Jesus denounced, were traditions which had their roots in mistaken interpretations of the Bible.

There is one obvious and definitive test which we can apply to all teaching and tradition to determine if it is true. That test is this: if the tradition or the teaching, even though it arises from the interpretation of a passage of Scripture, contradicts the clear teaching of another portion of Script­ure, then that particular tradition or teaching is incorrect, for Scripture never contradicts Scripture.

The Word of God alone is our final authority, never tradition. We are told in 2 Timothy 3:16,17 that ‘All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.’ All Scripture is inspired and is therefore authoritat­ive. And because it is inspired, that is, because it is the Word of a self-consistent God, it will never contradict itself.

Consequently, we can judge whether or not a particular teaching or tradition is true by comparing it to the Word of God. If it is consistent with the Word of God, then we can accept it as truth. However, if it clearly contradicts the teaching of the Bible or makes the Word of God contradict itself, then we know that it is error, and is to be rejected. Otherwise we shall fall into the same condemnation which Jesus uttered against the Pharisees.

One question this whole issue brings up is this: can the true church of God fall into error? The answer to that question, based upon the history of God’s people in the Bible is ‘yes’. It is possible for the church leadership to fall into error and be led astray from the truth. For example, the apostle Peter was publicly rebuked by Paul for the hypocrisy of which he was guilty (Gal. 2:11-14).

On an earlier occasion the apostle Peter was rebuked by Christ because he tried to hinder the Lord from going to the cross. ‘But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s”‘ (Matt. 16:23). The Lord Jesus actually addressed Peter as Satan, for Satan was using Peter to try to divert him from the will of God. This all transpired after Peter had been told that he was to be given the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 16:18-19).

Of course, the example of God’s chosen people, the Jews, during the time of the Lord Jesus himself, shows us clearly that it is possible for the church’s leadership to be deceived. Jesus’ words about tradition were spoken against the scribes and Pharisees, the religious leadership of God’s chosen people and the true church of that day. They had fallen into error and had become so blind that they failed to recognise

Jesus as the Messiah. They fell into the error of misinterpret­ing the Word of God and of elevating tradition and the teachings of the elders to a level equal in authority to the Scriptures, even though those teachings contradicted the Word of God. In addition to this Jesus claimed that the religious leadership of his day, because of their adherence to tradition and misinterpretation of Scripture, were actually responsible for hindering people from entering the kingdom of God: Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered’ (Lk. 11:52). ‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from men; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in’ (Matt. 23:13). If this was true of the religious leadership of God’s chosen people in the day of Jesus Christ, there is absolutely no guarantee that a church leadership will not fall into error and mislead people.

Were the Pharisees and scribes of Jesus’ day intentionally trying to deceive people? Not necessarily! Many of them were doing what they sincerely felt was right. But they were wrong and consequently they were deceiving people and leading them astray. Sincerity is no guarantee against error. A man can be sincerely wrong. In the final analysis, as Christ taught, the Word of God is the final authority for determin­ing what is truth and what is error. Any teaching which contradicts the Word of God must be rejected: ‘To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them’ (Is. 8:20, A.V.).

Luke records that when Paul came to Berea, and preached the gospel in the local Jewish synagogue, the Bereans ‘were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so’ (Acts 17:11). The Bereans compared Paul’s doctrines with the Word of God to see if his teachings were consistent with the teachings of the Word of God. Only then would they accept the gospel he was preaching. They knew that any teaching that truly originates from God would not contradict what he had already revealed in his Word.

It is in this spirit that we shall examine the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church….

[1] Walter M. Abbot S.J., The Documents of Vatican II (Westchester, IL: Follett Publishing Co., 1966), 177.

[2] John A. Hardon, S.J., The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism (New York, NY: Image Books, Doubleday, 1981), 37.

[3] Ibid., 41.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., 41.

Are Roman Catholic Views of Tradition, Biblical?

This is from a larger debate between Ken Samples and Fr. Mitch Pacwa . I think this intro does it’s due diligence in explaining many of the false views I have heard from people as of late. In other words, one should not define Protestants as believing Sola Scriptura wrongly, and then responding to this false view.

The below is from an excellent book by William Webster:

  • William Webster, Salvation, The Bible, and Roman Catholicism (Edinburgh, UK: Banner of Truth Trust, 1990), 13-20

AUTHORITATIVE STATEMENTS OF ROMAN CATHOLIC TEACHING ON TRADITION AND THE WORD OF GOD

The Documents of Vatican II

Hence there exist a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit. To the successors of the apostles, sacred tradition hands on in its full purity God’s word, which was entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit . . . Consequently, it is not from sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of devotion and reverence. Sacred tradition and sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, which is committed to the Church.[1]

The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism

59. Where do we find the truths revealed by God?

We find the truths revealed by God in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

60. How does Sacred Scripture compare with Sacred Tradition?

Both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are the inspired word of God, and both are forms of divine revelation. Sacred Scripture is divinely inspired writing, whereas Sacred Tradition is the unwritten word of inspired persons.[2]

89. Why is Sacred Tradition of equal authority with the Bible?

The Bible and Sacred Tradition are of equal authority because they are equally the word of God; both derive from the inspired vision of the ancient prophets, and especially from the infinite wisdom of God incarnate who gave to the apostles what he came down on earth to teach, through them, to all of mankind.[3]

TRADITION AND THE WORD OF GOD – SUMMARY OF NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING

The first issue to be addressed in any discussion of spiritual truth is that of authority. To say something is true or false implies an authoritative standard by which we can make such a judgment. But is there such an authoritative stand­ard by which we can judge whether a particular teaching or system is true or false? The answer is an unequivocal ‘yes’. That authoritative standard is the Word of God, the Bible. Jesus Christ himself said of the Bible, ‘Thy word is truth’ (Jn. 17:17). In settling issues of spiritual controversy the Lord Jesus always appealed to the Word of God as an authoritative standard by which to judge truth and false­hood.

Mark’s Gospel records an incident in which certain Sad-ducees came to Jesus to question him. The Sadducees were the religious liberals of Jesus’ day and they rejected many of the teachings espoused by the more orthodox sect of the Pharisees. They did not believe in angels or in the resurrec­tion of the dead. A number of these men came to Jesus to ask him a trick question about life after death. Jesus demolished their trick question but went on to say this:

Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures, or the power of God?… But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken (Mk. 12:24,25-27 NASB 1963).

Twice in this passage Christ tells these men they are greatly mistaken in their views. The reason is that they do not understand the Scriptures. He appeals to those Scriptures to correct the false concepts these men held. He points to the Word of God as an authoritative standard by which to judge truth and error. These men are greatly mistaken because the views they hold and the doctrines they teach contradict the Word of God.

Here you have two opposing views of truth. One says there is no resurrection from the dead, the other says there is. How do you determine which is true? You go to the Word of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is God in human flesh and therefore whatever he teaches is absolute truth. And according to him the Word of God is the final and authoritative standard by which all claims to truth are to be judged.

This principle obviously has a direct bearing upon the whole issue of tradition. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that tradition as well as the Bible constitutes the revealed Word of God. It teaches that the teaching of the Church Fathers, the Church Councils, and the Traditions of the Church are all ‘one sacred deposit of the Word of God’.

John Hardon S. J. makes the following statements in his Question and Answer Catholic Catechism:

Sacred Tradition is the unwritten word of God that the prophets and apostles received through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and, under His guidance, the Church has handed on to the Christian world.[4]

Both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are the inspired word of God, and both are forms of divine revelation. Sacred Scripture is divinely inspired writing, whereas Sacred Tradition is the unwritten word of in­spired persons.[5]

Jesus Christ had some interesting things to say about tradition:

Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem, saying, ‘Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.’ And He answered and said to them, `And why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, “Honor your father and mother”… But you say, “Whoever shall say to his father or mother, ‘Anything of mine you might have been helped by has been given to God,’ he is not to honor his father or his mother.” And thus you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men”‘ (Matt. 15:1-9).

In a parallel passage in Mark 7:5-13 much of the same teaching by Jesus is recorded. The Pharisees ask why the disciples do not walk according to the tradition of the elders. In response Jesus denounces the scribes and Pharisees and their observance of tradition which is in violation of the Word of God. In effect they have elevated the teachings of men above the Scriptures. The following sums up Jesus’ evaluation:

  1. You teach as doctrines the precepts of men.
  2. Neglecting the commandment of God you hold to the tradition of men.
  3. You set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.
  4. You invalidate the Word of God by your tradition which you have handed down.

We should note that Jesus is not condemning tradition simply because it is tradition. All tradition is not wrong. What he is condemning is the elevating of tradition or the teaching of men to equality with the Word of God. He condemned the scribes and Pharisees for following tradition which violated and invalidated the Word of God. And then he rebuked them for so teaching others.

Tradition is not necessarily wrong, but tradition is not the Word of God, and for tradition to be acceptable to God, it must never contradict or violate the clear teaching of the Bible. All tradition must be judged by the truth of Scripture, including traditions which have their original roots in Scripture. The traditions that the scribes and Pharisees adhered to, but which Jesus denounced, were traditions which had their roots in mistaken interpretations of the Bible.

There is one obvious and definitive test which we can apply to all teaching and tradition to determine if it is true. That test is this: if the tradition or the teaching, even though it arises from the interpretation of a passage of Scripture, contradicts the clear teaching of another portion of Script­ure, then that particular tradition or teaching is incorrect, for Scripture never contradicts Scripture.

The Word of God alone is our final authority, never tradition. We are told in 2 Timothy 3:16,17 that ‘All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.’ All Scripture is inspired and is therefore authoritat­ive. And because it is inspired, that is, because it is the Word of a self-consistent God, it will never contradict itself.

Consequently, we can judge whether or not a particular teaching or tradition is true by comparing it to the Word of God. If it is consistent with the Word of God, then we can accept it as truth. However, if it clearly contradicts the teaching of the Bible or makes the Word of God contradict itself, then we know that it is error, and is to be rejected. Otherwise we shall fall into the same condemnation which Jesus uttered against the Pharisees.

One question this whole issue brings up is this: can the true church of God fall into error? The answer to that question, based upon the history of God’s people in the Bible is ‘yes’. It is possible for the church leadership to fall into error and be led astray from the truth. For example, the apostle Peter was publicly rebuked by Paul for the hypocrisy of which he was guilty (Gal. 2:11-14).

On an earlier occasion the apostle Peter was rebuked by Christ because he tried to hinder the Lord from going to the cross. ‘But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s”‘ (Matt. 16:23). The Lord Jesus actually addressed Peter as Satan, for Satan was using Peter to try to divert him from the will of God. This all transpired after Peter had been told that he was to be given the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 16:18-19).

Of course, the example of God’s chosen people, the Jews, during the time of the Lord Jesus himself, shows us clearly that it is possible for the church’s leadership to be deceived. Jesus’ words about tradition were spoken against the scribes and Pharisees, the religious leadership of God’s chosen people and the true church of that day. They had fallen into error and had become so blind that they failed to recognise

Jesus as the Messiah. They fell into the error of misinterpret­ing the Word of God and of elevating tradition and the teachings of the elders to a level equal in authority to the Scriptures, even though those teachings contradicted the Word of God. In addition to this Jesus claimed that the religious leadership of his day, because of their adherence to tradition and misinterpretation of Scripture, were actually responsible for hindering people from entering the kingdom of God: Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered’ (Lk. 11:52). ‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from men; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in’ (Matt. 23:13). If this was true of the religious leadership of God’s chosen people in the day of Jesus Christ, there is absolutely no guarantee that a church leadership will not fall into error and mislead people.

Were the Pharisees and scribes of Jesus’ day intentionally trying to deceive people? Not necessarily! Many of them were doing what they sincerely felt was right. But they were wrong and consequently they were deceiving people and leading them astray. Sincerity is no guarantee against error. A man can be sincerely wrong. In the final analysis, as Christ taught, the Word of God is the final authority for determin­ing what is truth and what is error. Any teaching which contradicts the Word of God must be rejected: ‘To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them’ (Is. 8:20, A.V.).

Luke records that when Paul came to Berea, and preached the gospel in the local Jewish synagogue, the Bereans ‘were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so’ (Acts 17:11). The Bereans compared Paul’s doctrines with the Word of God to see if his teachings were consistent with the teachings of the Word of God. Only then would they accept the gospel he was preaching. They knew that any teaching that truly originates from God would not contradict what he had already revealed in his Word.

It is in this spirit that we shall examine the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church….

[1] Walter M. Abbot S.J., The Documents of Vatican II (Westchester, IL: Follett Publishing Co., 1966), 177.

[2] John A. Hardon, S.J., The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism (New York, NY: Image Books, Doubleday, 1981), 37.

[3] Ibid., 41.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., 41.

Tradition: Catholic/Protestant Views

Gregg Allison and Chris Castaldo, The Unfinished Reformation: What Unites and Divides Catholics and Protestants After 500 Years (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 68-72.

…. How does God speak to the world through such revelation? A major difference between Catholics and Protestants is found in the answer to this question.

Catholics affirm that God speaks to the world through Tradition and Scripture. Similar to the twofold way that Jesus’ apostles communicated the gospel—orally, through preaching, and in writing, through the biblical text—so God communicates to his people today in a twofold pattern: the teaching, or Tradition, of the Church’s bishops, who are the successors of the apostles, and Scripture. “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are bound closely together and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out of the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing and move toward the same goal” (CCC 80). Thus, these two modes are two streams of one source of divine authority.

Tradition is “the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit” (CCC 81). This oral communication was in turn handed over by the apostles to their successors, the bishops of the Church, who maintain this Tradition and, on occasion, proclaim it as Church doctrine. For example, the Church declares the immaculate conception of Mary and her bodily assumption (to be treated later) as part of Tradition. The other mode of divine revelation is Scripture. Though Catholics and Protestants stand together in their belief that the Bible is the God-breathed, written revelation of God, they part company on many other points in their understanding of Scripture. Significantly, the Catholic Church “does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence” (CCC 82).

Against the Catholic affirmation of Scripture and Tradition as authoritative divine revelation, Protestants assert the principle of sola Scriptura: Scripture, and Scripture alone, is authoritative divine revelation. God speaks to the world through his Word, which is written Scripture only, not Scripture plus Tradition. This Protestant critique of Tradition is grounded on several points.

First, Protestants believe that the Catholic position has thin biblical support. For example, to buttress their position, Catholics appeal to Jesus’ explanation to his disciples: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). They claim this passage as an example of Jesus underscoring the necessity of both Scripture and Tradition—what he could reveal to them as he was speaking with them, and what he would need to reveal to them later, when they were able to absorb it.

The Protestant response insists that this interpretation misses the point of that interaction. It is simply telling us that as Jesus was speaking with his disciples, they could not grasp his revelation—what he was saying to them at that moment. Indeed, in short order, they would express utter confusion about his impending death (John 16:16-24). Even when they thought they could understand the unfolding calamity, Jesus informed them that they would all abandon him (John 16:25-33), and soon afterward devil-prompted Judas was poised to betray him (John 13:2; 18:1-8), and Peter denied ever knowing Jesus (John 18:15-18, 25-27).

Following Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, however, the disciples received the Holy Spirit. As Jesus had promised, the Spirit taught the disciples all things, brought to their remembrance all that Jesus had said to them, and guided them into all the truth (John 14:26; 16:13). Having removed the prior dullness and igno­rance that had characterized the disciples, the Holy Spirit moved those who wrote Scripture to communicate the whole of divine revelation (our New Testament). This work was exactly what Jesus taught about his sending the Holy Spirit to inspire them to write Scripture. Protestants believe that, understood in context, there was no need for supplemental communication—Tradition—alongside of Scripture.1

Second, Protestants believe that the Catholic view has thin historical support as well. It is true that the apostles communicated the gospel both orally, through their preaching, and eventually in writing, through the New Testament. But when Paul points out “so then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2 Thess. 2:15), he is not saying that his oral teaching and his written communication consisted of different revelations which supplement each other. On the contrary, these two delivery systems presented the same divine revelation. The difference was in the form, not the content.

The early church did have a type of tradition: the doctrine that the apostles transmitted provided a proper understanding of Scripture and underscored sound doctrine. It stood in opposition to the wrong biblical interpretations of the time and the misguided beliefs of heretics. The early church’s “rule of faith” or “canon (standard) of truth” was a summary of its essential doctrines based on Scripture. The early creeds—for example, the Apostles’ Creed and the Chalcedonian Creed—affirmed the doctrines of the Trinity and of Christ derived very carefully from Scripture. Protestants embrace this type of tradition, finding it to be a fine source of wisdom from the past. But this is far from the Catholic notion of Tradition.

In fact, it was not until the fourteenth century that the Catholic Church began to make novel claims about Tradition, granting unwritten communication by Church leaders authoritative status as doctrine outside of, and in addition to, Scripture. Such an idea of Tradition is a relatively late development and is quite different from the notion as found in Scripture and in the early church.2

Standing opposed to the Catholic view of Scripture and Tradition as two modes of divine revelation, Protestants hold to the sufficiency and necessity of Scripture. Scripture is sufficient in that it provides everything that people need to be saved from sin and death, and everything that Christians need to please God fully. Specifically, God-breathed Scripture equips believers “for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Protestants see doctrines like the immaculate conception and bodily assumption of Mary as unnecessary and unbiblical. Protestants don’t need these doctrines to possess and believe the fullness of divine revelation. They don’t need practices like the sacrament of penance and praying for the dead in order to know and do all that God requires of them. They don’t need to believe that when they take the Lord’s Supper, the bread and the wine are transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ. These doctrines, practices, and beliefs are extra-biblical, not from Scripture alone. Thus, Scripture’s sufficiency and the prin­ciple of sola Scriptura—”Scripture alone”—are closely connected and contradict the need for Catholic Tradition.3

Scripture is necessary in that it is essential for knowing the way of salvation, for progressing in godliness, and for understanding God’s will. To put it another way, apart from Scripture there can be no awareness of salvation, growth in holiness, and knowledge of God’s will.4 Catholics, on the other hand, would maintain that Scripture is necessary for the well-being of the Church: for the Church to be robustly all that God intends it to be, Scripture is necessary. But Catholics would not hold that Scripture is necessary for the being of the Church: if Scripture were to be lost, the Church could still exist because it would still have Tradition, part of divine revelation. Protestants insist that the Church would lose its way without Scripture: if Scripture were to be lost, the Church would cease to exist because all of divine revelation would have disappeared.

How does God speak to the world? Catholics respond to this question by saying “through Scripture and Tradition.” Protestants reply, “through Scripture alone.”


FOOTNOTES


1. This affirmation does not mean that Protestantism ignores or rejects the theological wisdom that it has inherited from the church throughout the ages (a point to be made shortly).

2. Factors that contributed to this development included:

(1) exaggerated and indefensible claims for papal authority not only over the Catholic Church but the entire world as well;

(2) theoretical debates over which of the two options—the authority of Scripture and the authority of the Church—is supreme; (3) the introduction of the idea of apostolic succession; and (4) the novel claim that, because the Church had determined the canon of Scripture, the Church therefore possesses special revelation that is not found in Scripture. See Gregg R. Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), especially chapters 4 and

3. In more detail, Protestants gratefully use tradition (not Tradition, as in the Catholic sense), or wisdom from the past, as a servant to help their churches engage in the proper understanding and application of Scripture and the formulation of sound doctrine.

4. This attribute does not mean that people have to possess a written copy of Scripture and be able to read it. Rather, in the case of the majority of people today in whose language Scripture has yet to be translated and/or if those people are illiterate, they only need to be able to understand oral communication. Scripture read and heard is God’s necessary Word for them.