Tradition, Bible, or Both?
Fundamentalists say the Bible is the sole rule of faith. Everything
one needs to believe to be saved is in the Bible, and nothing needs to be
added to the Bible. The whole of Christian truth is found within its
pages. Anything extraneous to the Bible is simply wrong or hinders rather
than helps one toward salvation.
Catholics, on the other hand, say the Bible is not the sole rule of
faith and that nothing in the Bible suggests it was meant to be. In fact,
the Bible indicates it is not to be taken by itself. The true rule of
faith is Scripture plus Tradition, as manifested in the living teaching
authority of the Catholic Church, to which were entrusted the oral
teachings of Jesus and the apostles plus the authority to interpret
Scripture rightly.
In Dei Verbum, Vatican II explained the relationship between Tradition
and Scripture this way: "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. Thus, by the light of the Spirit of
truth, these successors can in their preaching preserve this word of God
faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely know. 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 devotion
and reverence."
The fundamentalist side usually begins its argument by citing two
verses. The first is this: "So much has been written down, that you may
learn to believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and so believing find
life through his name" (John 20:31). The other is this: "Everything in the
scripture has been divinely inspired, and it has its uses; to instruct us,
to expose our errors, to correct our faults, to educate in holy living" (2
Tim. 3:17). These verses demonstrate the reality of sola scriptura, say
fundamentalists.
Not so, reply Catholics. The verse from John's Gospel tells us only
that the Bible was composed so we can be helped to believe Jesus is the
Messiah. It does not say the Bible is all we need for salvation, nor does
it even say the Bible is actually needed to believe in Christ. After all,
the earliest Christians had no New Testament to appeal to; they learned
from oral, not written, instruction. Until relatively recent times, the
Bible was inaccessible to most people, either because they could not read
or because printing had not yet been invented. All these people learned
from oral instruction, passed down, generation to generation, by the
Church. Granted, it would have been advantageous for them to have the
Bible at hand also, but it was not necessary for their salvation.
Much the same can be said about 2 Tim. 3:17. To say that all inspired
writing "has its uses" is one thing; to say that such a remark means that
only inspired writing need be followed is something else. Besides, there
is a telling argument against the fundamentalists' claim. It is the
contradiction that arises out of their own interpretation of this verse.
John Henry Newman explained it in an essay, written in 1884, titled
Inspiration in its Relation to Revelation.
He said, "It is quite evident that this passage furnishes no argument
whatever that the Sacred Scripture, without Tradition, is the sole rule of
faith; for, although Sacred Scripture is profitable for these four ends,
still it is not said to be sufficient. The Apostle requires the aid of
Tradition (2 Thess. 2:15). Moreover, the Apostle here refers to the
Scriptures which Timothy was taught in his infancy. Now, a good part of
the New Testament was not written in his boyhood: some of the Catholic
Epistles were not written even when St. Paul wrote this, and none of the
Books of the New Testament were then placed on the canon of the Scripture
books. He refers, then, to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and if the
argument from this passage proved anything, it would prove too much, viz.,
that the Scriptures of the New Testament were not necessary for a rule of
faith."
The Bible actually denies that it is the complete rule of faith. John
tells us that not everything concerning Christ's work is in Scripture (John
21:25), and Paul says that much Christian teaching is to be found in the
tradition which is handed down by word of mouth (2 Tim. 2:2). He instructs
us to "stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether
by word or by our epistle" (2 Thess. 2:15). We are told that the first
Christians "were persevering in the doctrine of the apostles" (Acts 2:42),
which was the oral teaching that was given long before the New Testament
was written--and centuries before the canon of the New Testament was
settled.
This oral teaching must be accepted by Christians as they accepted the
written teaching that at length came to them. "He who listens to you,
listens to me; he who despises you, despises me" (Luke 10:16). The Church,
in the persons of the apostles, was given the authority to teach by Christ;
the Church would be his stand-in. "Go, therefore, making disciples of all
nations" (Matt. 28:19). And how was this to be done? By preaching, by
oral instruction: "See how faith comes from hearing, and hearing through
Christ's word" (Rom. 10:17). The Church would always be available as the
living teacher. It is a mistake to limit "Christ's word" to the written
word only or to suggest that all his teachings were reduced to writing.
The Bible nowhere supports either notion.
After all, God, speaking through Isaiah, promised a living voice in
the Church that Christ would establish: "This is my covenant with them,
says the Lord: My spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in
your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, nor out of the mouth of
your children, nor out of the mouth of your children's children, says the
Lord, from now until forever" (Isa. 59:21). This prophecy must refer to a
living Church, the culmination of Israel, and not to a book because no
book, not even the Bible, is a living teacher.
The oral teaching would last until the end of time. "But the word of
the Lord lasts forever. And this word is nothing other than the Gospel
which has been preached to you" (1 Pet. 1:25). Note that the word has been
"preached"--that is, it was oral. This would endure. It would not be
supplanted by a written record like the Bible (supplemented, yes, but not
supplanted), but would continue to have its own authority.
In this discussion it is important to keep in mind what the Catholic
Church means by Tradition. The term does not mean legends or mythological
accounts, nor does it mean transitory customs or practices which may come
and go, as circumstances warrant, such as styles of priestly dress,
particular forms of devotion to saints, or even liturgical rubrics.
Tradition means the teachings and teaching authority of Jesus and,
derivatively, the apostles. These have been handed down and entrusted to
the Church (which means to its official teachers, the bishops in union with
the pope). It is necessary that Christians believe in and follow this
Tradition as well as the Bible (Luke 10:16). The truth of the faith has
been given primarily to the leaders of the Church (Eph. 3:5), who, with
Christ, form the foundation of the Church (Eph. 2:20). The Church has been
guided by the Holy Spirit, who protects this teaching from corruption (John
14:16).
Paul illustrated what Tradition is: "The chief message I handed on to
you, as it was handed on to me, was that Christ, as the scriptures
foretold, died for our sins. ... That is our preaching, mine or theirs as
you will; that is the faith that has come to you" (1 Cor. 15:3,11). He
said also, to Timothy, who was a bishop, "You have learned, from many who
can witness to it, the doctrine which I hand down; give it into the keeping
of men you can trust, men who will know how to teach it to others besides
themselves" (2 Tim. 2:2). In other words, Timothy, one of the successors
to the apostles, was to teach what he had learned from his predecessor,
Paul. The apostle praised those who followed Tradition: "I must praise you
for your constant memory of me, for upholding your traditions just as I
handed them on to you" (1 Cor. 11:2).
The first Christians "occupied themselves continually with the
apostles' teaching" (Acts 2:42) long before there was a Bible. The
fullness of Christian teaching was found, right from the first, in the
Church as the living embodiment of Christ, not in a book. The teaching
Church, with its oral traditions, was authoritative. Paul himself gives a
quotation from Jesus that was handed down orally to him: "It is more
blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). This saying is not found in
the Gospels and must have been passed on to Paul. Indeed, even the Gospels
themselves are oral Tradition which has been written down (Luke 1:1-4).
What's more, Paul does not quote Jesus only. He also quotes from early
Christian hymns, as in Eph. 5:14. These and other things have been given
to Christians "by the command of the Lord Jesus" (1 Thess. 4:2).
Fundamentalists have objections to all of this, of course. They say
Jesus condemned tradition. They note that Jesus said, "Why is it that you
yourselves violate the commandment of God with your traditions?" (Matt.
15:3). Paul warned, "Take care not to let anyone cheat you with his
philosophizings, with empty fantasies drawn from human tradition, from
worldly principles; they were never Christ's teaching" (Col. 2:
. But
these verses merely condemn erroneous human traditions, not truths which
were handed down orally and entrusted to the Church. These truths are part
of what is known as Tradition (with an upper-case T, to distinguish it from
lower-case human traditions or customs).
Consider Matt. 15:6-9, which fundamentalists often bring up: "So by
these traditions of yours you have made God's laws ineffectual. You
hypocrites, it was a true prophecy that Isaiah made of you, when he said,
This people does me honor with its lips, but its heart is far from me.
Their worship is in vain, for the doctrines they teach are the commandments
of men." At first glance, this seems to undercut the Catholic position,
but look at the context.
Jesus was not here condemning all traditions. He condemned only those
that made God's word void. In this case, it was a matter of the Pharisees
making a pretended dedication of their goods to the Temple so they could
avoid using them to support their aged parents. By doing this, they dodged
the commandment to "Honor your father and your mother" (Ex. 20:12).
Elsewhere, Jesus instructed his followers to abide by traditions that
are not contrary to God's commandments. "The scribes and the Pharisees, he
said, have established themselves in the place from which Moses used to
teach; do what they tell you, then, continue to observe what they tell you,
but do not imitate their actions, for they tell you one thing and do
another" (Matt. 23:2-3).
He told the Pharisees that they were hypocrites who "will award to God
his tithe, though it be of mint or dill or cummin, and have forgotten the
weightier commandments of the law, justice, mercy, and honor; you did ill
to forget one duty while you performed the other" (Matt. 23:23). In short,
Jesus insisted we should follow all legitimate traditions. In all these
cases he was referring to traditions in the sense of customs (lower-case
tradition), not to Tradition in the sense of the Church's teaching
authority (upper-case). The latter is wider than the former and includes
it.
The big problem, no doubt, is determining what constitutes authentic
Tradition. How do we know what had been handed down by the Catholic Church
is correct doctrine and practice? We know it is correct because Christ
promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church (Matt.
16:18). The Church would be indefectible; its official teaching would be
infallible. To it, through Peter, Christ gave his own teaching authority
(Matt. 16:19, Matt. 28:18-20).
"But the Bible itself says it is the sole rule of faith!" insist
fundamentalists. They quote John 5:39, in which it is said, "search the
scriptures," but they don't take the phrase in context. They imagine it to
be a command to the reader: "Get your Bible and verify that all Christian
truths can be discovered the plain sense of the text." But that isn't what
Jesus was saying. He was rebuking disbelieving Jews, not claiming that the
Bible is the sole rule of faith. Jesus was pointing out to the Pharisees
that the messianic prophecies were fulfilled in him. "If you read the
Scripture, you can verify this for yourselves!" He was referring to a
single theme. This verse can't be stretched to mean that all religious
truth can be found on the surface of the Bible.
Fundamentalists also refer to Acts 17:11, which refers to the Bereans,
who "welcomed the word with all eagerness, and examined the scriptures, day
after day, to find out whether all this was true." Again, here is a verse
taken out of context. What really happened is that these people had first
been taught Christianity orally and now checked to see if its claims
matched the Old Testament prophecies. The verse does not at all mean one
uses the Bible as a check-list for all Christian doctrines. (If it meant
that, there would be, again, the problem Newman brought up, that the Old
Testament alone would be sufficient as a rule of faith, the New Testament
unnecessary.)
What fundamentalists often do, unfortunately, is see the word
"tradition" in Matt. 15:3 or Col. 2:8 or elsewhere and conclude that
anything termed a "tradition" is to be rejected. They forget that the term
is used in a different sense, as in 2 Thess. 2:15, to describe what should
be believed. Jesus did not condemn all traditions; he condemned only
erroneous traditions, whether doctrines or practices, that undercut
Christian truths. The rest, as the apostles taught, were to be adhered to.
The notion of sola scriptura arose when the Reformers rejected the
papacy. In doing that they also rejected the teaching authority of the
Church. They looked elsewhere for the rule of faith and thought they found
it in the Bible. Really, they had no place else to look. By default, the
interpretation of the Bible would be left to the individual, as guided by
the Holy Spirit.
In theory this may sound fine, but it has not worked well in practice,
and that argues against the truth of the theory. Actually, both reason and
experience tell us the Bible could not have been intended as each man's
private guide to the truth. If individual guidance by the Holy Spirit were
a reality, each Christian would understand the same thing from any
particular verse since God cannot teach error.
But Christians have understood contradictory things from Scripture--
even Christians whose "born again" experiences cannot be doubted. Indeed,
fundamentalists often differ among themselves on what the Bible means.
They may agree on most major points, but the frequency and vehemence of
their squabbles on lesser matters, which should be just as clear if the
Holy Spirit is enlightening them, prove the sacred text can't explain
itself.
--Karl Keating
Catholic Answers
P.O. Box 17181
San Diego, CA 92117
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