Holy Tradition. Please define it.

[Albion]

What part of communion isn't "Holy"?

Are we now discussing the Eucharist? I don't quite get the relevance of that question to our thread.

My point is that people talk as though attaching the word holy to the word tradition makes whatever it is both holy and a second source--next to the Bible--of divine revelation. It isn't automatically either one of those just because that's what some churches call their system of doctrine-setting.

 

[Tigger45]

Are we now discussing the Eucharist? I don't quite get the relevance of that question to our thread.

My point is that people talk as though attaching the word holy to the word tradition makes whatever it is both holy and a second source--next to the Bible--of divine revelation. It isn't automatically either one of those just because that's what some churches call their system of doctrine-setting.

Really? You don't think the Eucharist is part of Holy Tradition?

 

[Albion]

Really? You don't think the Eucharist is part of Holy Tradition?

What? We were talking about misuse of the term "Holy Tradition."

I didn't say anything about the Eucharist other than to express my surprise that you'd suddenly introduced it into our discussion.

 

[Tzaousios]

Albion, are you selectively replying again?

 

[Standing Up]

"Stupid enough" seems to be a bit of inflated rhetoric. However, what is often NOT acknowledged along with the rosy picture of "taking the word of God (the Bible) as our guide to doctrine" is that a certain amount of interpretation of the word of God comes along with it and is even confused with it.

The issue of "interpreting the bible" as if it were like wearing different shades of blinders keeps coming up. Perhaps a new thread?

 

[Tzaousios]

The issue of "interpreting the bible" as if it were like wearing different shades of blinders keeps coming up. Perhaps a new thread?

What do you mean by "different shades of blinders?"

 

[MKJ]

What are you arguing then when you mistaken insist that Protestants define their doctrines in the same way as Catholics do?

Not the same, I think, but more similarly than those who say we don't use Tradition let on. The method is there though the details are different.

You'd find few Anglicans or Lutherans, or any of the related groups, who would not agree that we do use a Tradition of interpretation just like Catholics do, though it doesn't say the same things - perhaps the more traditional Lutherans most explicitly of all, but it is also an important part of Anglican teaching.

That is a big chunk of Protestantism that is quite alright with the idea.

 

[MKJ]

I think it has more to do with the fact that the concept of Tradition has become an evil word in their faith traditions; as it is used as a negative when comparing and contrasting my faith with theirs.

Well, I think that is true.

But I think it is very difficult for someone to have any real background - formally or informally - in reading books from really different cultures, or in different languages, or from different times, and not have some insight into the degree that our assumptions or way of reading the text are so much conditioned by our background and they way we have been taught to read and our cultural assumptions.

Once you have had that experience with other kinds of books, or maybe even other cultures, where you realized your own cultural assumptions and way of thinking were so different from another way, it is hard not to begin to intuit that the same thing is going on when you read Scripture.

And I think that ultimately, that is very likely to lead people to thinking about the nature of the Church community, and what you might call the meta-rules for reading Scripture that you find in your own community, and whether or not they were the same as those of the people who wrote it.

 

[Tigger45]

His Eminence Metropolitan Maximos of Pittsburgh
Orthodoxy, a way of life, is known for its experiential approach to faith and doctrine. Rooted in the Bible, its faith and doctrine is enriched by the living commentaries of the lives of the saints of the past and the present. It is enriched by the theological speculations of the Fathers and Teachers of the Church, and by the decrees of the various councils which dealt with doctrinal aberrations (heresies). As an introduction to the Doctrine of the Orthodox Church, we will deal with the Tradition of the Church and the Holy Bible, part of this tradition, as the source of our Christian faith and doctrine.

I prefer this definition of Holy Tradition rather than trying to separate out the Holy Bible. IMO the two are so intimately woven together by the loom of the particular paradigm being used, that to separate the two would cause the individual parts to be devoid of their fuller meanings.

 

[Albion]

Not the same, I think, but more similarly than those who say we don't use Tradition let on.

But using tradition in the understanding of Holy Scripture is not to create extra-Biblical doctrines through a selective use of custom, legend, and opinion, calling that "Holy Tradition," and considering it to be a second source of divine revelation equal to that of the Bible.

 

[Rick Otto]

It's almost as if a tradition of denying the authority of the bible has arisen.

 

[MKJ]

But using tradition in the understanding of Holy Scripture is not to create extra-Biblical doctrines through a selective use of custom, legend, and opinion, calling that "Holy Tradition," and considering it to be a second source of divine revelation equal to that of the Bible.

I think that it is precisely the same thing. They, like the Catholics or Orthodox, see the source of revelation as the Christian community, past and present - that is what constitutes or defines Holy Tradition, and that is what tells "Bible-believers" that they should believe the Bible, and what the Bible includes, and in many cases the rules for reading it correctly.

Since you can't read the Bible in any useful way without this revelation, it is prior to it. If it isn't as reliable as you say the Bible is, you are stuck with saying the Bible can't be more reliable than the revelation of the community about what it is and how to read it. And obviously that information can't itself be from the Bible.

So - there you have a second source of extra-biblical, divine revelation, and indeed one on which Scripture depends for its place and use.

However, my main point is that you are incorrect to say that Protestants disput that they have a Tradition of this type. Some do, but by no means the largest or oldest members of the Protestant groups. Anglicans, Lutherans, and I believe also the Reformed, Methodists, all would quite willingly admit their paradigm or set of rules setting out how to know Christian truth was extra-biblical and the same kind of thing as what the Catholics call Holy Tradition. In fact, their claims to being correct in their views against the Catholic view generally rest on saying their Tradition is correct and the Catholic one is corrupted.

What they would quibble about is what precisly the Tradition says and what it can include, and generally it would be much more limited in what it stated dogmatically that Catholics typically are.

I suspect that the Protestant groups that would deny this actually may represent fewer individuals than the ones that would agree, if not I think that is a recent state of affairs.

 

[Rick Otto]

There's nothing wrong with traditions that conform to truth in scripture.

 

[Albion]

There's nothing wrong with traditions that conform to truth in scripture.

Certainly. What I don't understand is why people can't get straight that when we speak of "Holy Tradition" we're not talking about tradition or traditions.

We're talking about a method of determining doctrine by accepting as divine revelation the extra-Biblical customs and opinions of Christian from the past. That's Holy Tradition. It could just as easily have been called Holy Input or something else.

Anyway, it's not just whatever happens to be traditional. Protestants, of course, have some traditions, but they don't use Holy Tradition as a source of doctrine.

(Apologies for attaching this to one of your posts, Rick, if it seems better suited for other of our friends.)

 

[Rick Otto]

Protestants, of course, have some traditions, but they don't use Holy Tradition as a source of doctrine.

That's what the anti Sola Scriptura element didn't seem to get when they wanted to call Sola Scriptura a tradition or a doctrine.

 

[Albion]

That's what the anti Sola Scriptura element didn't seem to get when they wanted to call Sola Scriptura a tradition or a doctrine.

That is the essence of the matter, it's true, but considering that it's been explained to them dozens of times, I keep wondering if they really don't get it.

 

[MKJ]

That is the essence of the matter, it's true, but considering that it's been explained to them dozens of times, I keep wondering if they really don't get it.

Where do you think the idea that the Bible is the source of revelation comes from, and where does our knowledge that the Bible is made up of such and such particular texts comes from?

If the source of that information isn't an authoritative and a divine revelation, does that not mean that we cannot accept the Bible itself as authoritative and a divine revelation? If you think we can despite the fact that we haven't got a divine revelation saying so, how do you see that as working?

 

[Rick Otto]

That is the essence of the matter, it's true, but considering that it's been explained to them dozens of times, I keep wondering if they really don't get it.

It's an interesting disconnect. From their side it just looks like we have an authority problem, and in a sense that's true, but it is a specific type (not sect or denomination), of authority... that gets overlooked as well.

 

[Standing Up]

Certainly. What I don't understand is why people can't get straight that when we speak of "Holy Tradition" we're not talking about tradition or traditions.

We're talking about a method of determining doctrine by accepting as divine revelation the extra-Biblical customs and opinions of Christian from the past. That's Holy Tradition. It could just as easily have been called Holy Input or something else.

Anyway, it's not just whatever happens to be traditional. Protestants, of course, have some traditions, but they don't use Holy Tradition as a source of doctrine.

(Apologies for attaching this to one of your posts, Rick, if it seems better suited for other of our friends.)

You've touched on a core issue here. Holy Tradition so-called and Scripture are sources they use. But it is the Magisterium (RC) and ???? (councils maybe for EO) by which a doctrine is determined. The method the Magisterium or Council uses to decide it is actually unknown.

 

[Albion]

You've touched on a core issue here. Holy Tradition so-called and Scripture are sources they use. But it is the Magisterium (RC) and ???? (councils maybe for EO) by which a doctrine is determined. The method the Magisterium or Council uses to decide it is actually unknown.

Well, the "Magesterium" idea is purely fictional--a talking point. No one actually keeps tabs on what all the bishops of the world think about this or that religious theory; and we know for a fact that when some of them do oppose the majority's opinion on something or other, it's discounted as being "wrong." So that Magisterium theory is just talk.