jaymack2

I was raised Catholic, and so I never had the same death-grip on the Bible that the fundies have. We were taught that God spoke to us through Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium. I never learned that the Bible was the inerrant word of God, but what I did learn was that it had to be intepreted through tradition, the oral tradition handed down by the apostles and re-interpreted by the Magisterium, or the church hierarchy. I've questioned all of this as I've gotten older, and the biggest thing that bothers me now is, who decides what the Sacred Tradition is? I mean, this "tradition" is something that's been passed down for millenia, and who's to say it's been passed down accurately? There are tribes of Ethiopian Jews, and also some Jewish people in remote parts of China, who've passed down traditions for millenia that have only a vague resemblance to actual Jewish rituals as practiced today. I guess you could say the transmission was garbled because they were in isolated, remote communities, but still, oral tradition can be a very flawed system for transmitting knowledge. Why is it that apologists, at least Catholic ones, always have an out when you show them the inconsistencies in the Bible? They always say, "Well, we don't only depend on the Bible -- we have tradition, passed down from the early Church." There is no way to prove that the tradition has been passed down accurately, is there? Or am I wrong?

WishboneDawn

Isn't that sort of going back to the anality of biblical literalists though, just through tradition rather than scripture?

The thing about tradition is that it isn't static (like the bible. Curse you, printing press!). It will change and those changes often reflect the changes in society and culture. An obsession with discovering if they've been passed down accurately seems to sort of defeat that.

Keep in mind I'm an Anglican. We put tradition high on the pedastal too although we don't have a pope to sqeeze it through.

As to, I don't see why you're pointing out inconsistencies to Catholics. They aren't, in general, inerrant literalists.

jaymack2

Well, I guess I'm anal then. I just don't get how you can set up "tradition" as an authority when tradition is such a malleable thing. I've heard many Catholic apologists say about this or that doctrine, "This goes back to the earliest days of the church. . ." well, how do they know that? I'm talking about oral tradition, where there's no clear reference in anything that's been written down.

I like that the Catholic church doesn't get tied up in knots over Biblical inerrancy, but I don't like resorting to such a vague concept as "tradition" to cover up the holes in the written record. You basically have to accept that they (the church) know what's best when you buy into that argument. They're the arbiters of what is and is not a valid tradition.

HaRaAYaH

Ultimately all traditions were oral until they were written down. Yes your religious tradition will interpret what the text means. The words and letters are analyzed carefully for a deeper or hidden meanings. That's why it;s foolish to attack the OT, you have attack what a specific religion says about the OT. If it's the fundies and then you have more leeway. But Judaism and now I have learned Catholicism work in a similar way.

llamaluvr

I would not agree that Sacred Tradition would be nearly as malleable as what are normally understood as cultural traditions. Sacred Tradition refers to a very specific subset of everything that has, is, or will be part of Catholic life. It only has an impact on those teachings which must be immutable in order to keep the church from contradicting itself (Christology, morality, etc.). These traditions may have started orally, but stayed that way only briefly. Extrabiblical writings exist from the late first century, and almost all of Sacred Tradition directly corroborates with Biblical text. In particular, the resolutions to doctrinal controversies are very well documented- these were resolved in the Church councils, which themselves become part of the tradition.

More fundamentally, though, Sacred Tradition is simply the passing of the faith from one generation to the next. A little more specifically, this plays into the concept of Apostolic Succession, where authority started with the Apostles, and then was passed (along with the correct teachings) to the next generation of bishops, etc., who would teach it to the masses and to the next generation of bishops after themselves.

For Catholics, though, tradition takes on more than a historical significance- they believe that the Church is supernaturally protected from error in its officially promulgated teachings on faith and morals. I believe the historical record does not refute that fact; I challenge anyone to find evidence of the Church holding a non-historically rooted belief, or abandoning a portion of historic Christianity.

Even nontheists, who obviously don't believe that, should be positive about tradition informing understandings of scripture, I believe. It encourages scholarly approaches to scripture. Instead of dissecting words and meanings, and trying our best to take everything literally, as if we knew that the original author would understand his original work as we understand a translation of a translation of his work today, we can invite history, logic, and even science into how we make sense of the Bible. After all, what's the point of arguing over the Biblical support for ideas no one had even thought of until the 16th century? What are the odds that that was the intended understanding?

jaymack2

Can you please tell me how Sacred Tradition is less malleable than cultural traditions? How can you prove that, when you're talking about an oral tradition from 2,000 years ago? Unless you have a time machine, and you can take me back there, how can I know that the words and traditions were passed down faithfully, without any human tampering?

You're acting as if there were no disputes about apostolic succession. Isn't that where the Eastern church had a bit of a problem -- at least when it comes to Peter? Obviously, they had a major problem with the tradition of Peter being designated the leader of the church.

Well, if it's "supernaturally protected from error", you're talking about a belief, not a fact. And, your point about challenging anyone to find evidence of the Church holding a non-historically rooted belief, I think there are a few thousand Protestant denominations who would take up your challenge.

andrewcriddle

There is an interesting book by the late RPC Hanson "Tradition in the Early Church (or via: amazon.co.uk)" which discusses this. (Hanson was a Patristic scholar and Anglican Bishop.)

However IIUC it is long out of print and may be hard to get hold of.

Andrew Criddle

Solo

Can we not invite history, logic, and even science without the Catholic Profession of Faith ? Or are you saying that without the Church these tools are completely useless as you will be led astray (by the :devil3 ?

I am not sure I follow. You are not going to dispute, I hope, that the Church from very early on, anathemized and in most cases obliterated "ideas" which did not conform to what the RCC now tauts as "Sacred Tradition". So when you speak about "intended understanding", you mean "intended" by whom ? You do not mean to deny that there were heretics ("false teachers" if you will) before even the gospels were written ? Or do you ?

Jiri

llamaluvr

Picture a timeline that exists for a given doctrine. Let's say...infant baptism, for example. You have oral/ teaching tradition spreading across the entire timeline, which doesn't necessarily produce evidence, but still has a footprint, because of its impact on each generation. Then you have discrete points, where you have physical/ written evidence of the teaching for that doctrine. You might start with Paul's comparison between circumcision and baptism, along with statements in the NT inviting entire households to be baptized. You move out of the bible into the 2nd century. You have writings commenting on universal infant baptism (I know Iraneus, there may be another I cannot recall). Iraneus was born in a Christian household in Smyrna around 140 AD. There's a good chance he was baptized by the bishop at the time, Polycarp. Polycarp was a disciple of John. Of course, you have plenty of writings after the 2nd century that speak of infant baptism, and no documents for a very long time speaking against it.

What are the odds that Jesus really taught adult-only baptism and the whole thing flipped over to adult baptism in well less than 100 years? The icing on the cake for Catholics is that one of the churches that has stuck by this teaching since the beginning is also the one that has been there since the beginning, and thus has right to the claim of Jesus that "the gates of hell will not stand against it."

That's not an issue of apostolic succession. The Orthodox churches have no problem with the Catholic Church's apostolic succession, and, likewise, the Catholic Church recognizes the apostolic succession of all of the eastern churches, which is why the Catholic Church also recognizes all seven sacraments of those churches. You're thinking of Papal Infallibility. The Orthodox churches/ believers vary on this- I'd really be shocked to find a devout that believes there is no magisterial authority whatsoever; the argument generally centers around where/ in whom that authority ultimately rests- is it the bishop of Rome or not?. Proof in the pudding- all Orthodox churches recognize the early Church councils as authoritative.

The other thing that complicates the issue is that the Orthodox churches are still not that far removed from a sort of "dark ages," so to speak- Orthodox/ Catholic dialogue is still a pretty new thing. The split in the Church was exasperated by the political climate of the areas that are occupied by the Eastern church, which is the opposite of what generally happened in the West, where religious dissent fueled political unrest. Having half the Church under Muslim occupation for around a thousand years didn't really do a lot for church unity.

Of course there are. But think about it- all they really have is their own interpretations of the Bible. Take any Protestant distinctive and try to trace it back to the early church. It doesn't work, because these doctrines didn't exist back then. How in the world could they be right about them? There's people all over the place that say stuff that doesn't make sense, and they say it loudly and proudly; it doesn't make them right.

No, you can use these tools can still be used by any number of creeds...as long as they're not employing sola scriptura, which puts them off-limits, or, at best, as a very minor second fiddle. Sola scriptura also encourages people to employ scripture where it was certainly never intended to go- ie, having it serve as a scientific text (ever wonder why so many post-Darwin Christians believe in a literal seven days, when many Christians even a thousand years or more before Darwin didn't believe in that?)

Can you rephrase? I'm not sure what you're saying here.

There have been false teachers as long as there has been falsehood. By "intended" I mean, "intended by the authors/ speakers of the New Testament writings." It's very easy to add to/ subtract from the meaning that an author of any work intended to communicate. That's why you need context to better understand what they were trying to convey. And this is also why a purely book religion never really works- everybody reads the book differently. Thus, Christianity is not really a book religion, despite what is advertised by several Christian groups today.

Solo

I don't think you understand the difference between the texts as sacred scripture on one hand, and as object of historical study on the other. What you are saying that the latter use is contingent on the acceptance of them as authoritative in the former sense. This is evidently illogical and false.

Does the "Sacred Tradition", in your understanding, include also the history of persecution of non-conforming opinion on the meaning of the texts ?


But you see, we don't do religion here (on Infidels), "book religion" (whatever that is) or any other kind. We analyze the texts, each according to his or her (hopefully) wits and (hopefully) education. To set your mind at ease, most of us here are ok with the proposition that everybody reads "the book" differently.

Jiri