is tradition the locus of the orthodox faith?

[FireDragon76]

I'm curious why you say this is more Catholic? (If by that you mean in communion with Rome.) I ask because it is Catholicism that considers itself less constrained by the deposit of faith, it would seem.

It's the exact argument that Catholics use against Protestants (and to a lesser extent, Orthodox). There's this deposit of faith Jesus gave the Church a real, but abstract substance, but you guys don't have an infallible interpreter, ergo you are defective, cannot identify the actual deposit of faith, and need our gift of the Papacy to interpret that deposit in its fullness. Papal infallibility directly corresponds to this notion.

The problem I see with this is that it's an unnecessary extra burden on Christian consciences, of course. Not only am I trusting in Jesus, but I'm also having to trust that one man, the Pope ,correctly interprets certain things about Jesus. And that he is free to interpret other doctrines about Jesus in the future. And we're supposed to just trust all that... because supposedly Protestantism or Orthodoxy is so horribly confused that nobody ever managed to be a Christian without the Pope.

It's not surprising only Catholic apologists use this argument. I think Pope Francis is too busy flying around the world trying to shake everybody's hand and get some good will to bother with stuff like this.

 

[FireDragon76]

I actually think the Lutheran self- understanding of our "tradition" corresponds more with the Orthodox understanding, of the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church. We are critical of all institutions, but of course we also tend to see implicitly God at work in our church's history. We just don't call it Sacred Tradition.

 

[~Anastasia~]

It's the exact argument that Catholics use against Protestants (and to a lesser extent, Orthodox). There's this deposit of faith Jesus gave the Church a real, but abstract substance, but you guys don't have an infallible interpreter, ergo you are defective, cannot identify the actual deposit of faith, and need our gift of the Papacy to interpret that deposit in its fullness. Papal infallibility directly corresponds to this notion.

The problem I see with this is that it's an unnecessary extra burden on Christian consciences, of course. Not only am I trusting in Jesus, but I'm also having to trust that one man, the Pope ,correctly interprets certain things about Jesus. And that he is free to interpret other doctrines about Jesus in the future. And we're supposed to just trust all that... because supposedly Protestantism or Orthodoxy is so horribly confused that nobody ever managed to be a Christian without the Pope.

It's not surprising only Catholic apologists use this argument. I think Pope Francis is too busy flying around the world trying to shake everybody's hand and get some good will to bother with stuff like this.

Ah ok I think I see what you mean. Catholics are (historically speaking) a kind of middleman. I can see them using that statement against Protestant theology. It doesn't work against Orthodox theology, and in fact is more likely to be a complaint we have against them, with their acceptance that certain theologies can "develop" in cases we don't accept.

A certain interaction with society is important - from an Orthodox point of view. Languages, music, and so on can adapt for a people. But we insist that certain core theologies not change or "develop" ... if a theoligical point was true 2000 years ago, it should remain true today.

Thank you for the explanation. It just makes less sense from our perspective and I wasn't grasping your choice of position.