I have
recently run across an article by a Catholic person whose blog is identified as
the “Lonely Pilgrim.” On his blog, he
has some thoughtful articles and he seems to be very intelligent and
down-to-earth. The article I want to
address today is titled, “What Sacred
Tradition Is and Is Not: 7 Answers to Common Misconceptions” and you can
find it here:
Oral Versus Written
I would love
to respond to every item in his article, but that would make my response way
too long. So, I’ll just try to hit some
of the main points.
He starts
off saying that “Sacred Tradition – including Sacred Scripture – started out as
oral tradition.”
Ok, no
problem. It is true that the contents of
the Bible were first received orally (spoken) before they were ever written
down. Most things do start off that way. That’s not an issue and it doesn’t prove
anything against the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura, by the way.
Next, the
Lonely Pilgrim points out the fact that not
everything that Jesus and the apostles said or did was written down (i.e.,
in Scripture). He says:
“But
what do you suppose happened to all the stories of the other things Jesus said
and taught and did, all the other things that Paul and the Apostles
taught? …Everything that came from the mouth of Jesus was the Word of God.
Did it cease to be the Word of God, cease to be Divine Revelation, because it
was among those ‘many other signs Jesus did’?”
Ok, good questions, and
he is, of course, referring to John 20:30-31 that says that there
was much, much more information about Jesus than what is contained in John’s
gospel. Now, no one is saying that what
Jesus said (apart from the Bible) stopped
being Divine Revelation – but the problem is that no one knows with
certainty exactly what all was said in
the first place! Catholics are
willing to take the word of certain men (who, by the Lonely Pilgrim’s own
admission, were not speaking infallibly) and put some of what they said on the
same level as Scripture.
Now, of course, many from
the early church claimed to know what
Jesus said. What they’re telling us He
said may, or may not, be accurate. Now,
no doubt, they got at least some of
the things right that Jesus and the apostles said. After all, some of them lived in the same
time period. Nevertheless, “closer in
time” does not necessarily mean that everything they claimed that Jesus taught was
true (John
21:20-23).
The Lonely Pilgrim
then states that these sayings of Jesus were remembered and passed down to the
following generations. So, he is implying
that all these things that were spoken and done by Jesus (while never written)
were indeed known and kept by the early church.
But since they were not written,
they couldn’t be considered Scripture, so they had to fall under another
“infallible” category, one created by the Catholic Church – Sacred Tradition. It seems that the Catholic Church saw an
opportunity here, and they latched on to it.
But it is always dangerous to assign infallibility to something so
vague, to such a body of information that they can’t even tell us what it is!
Transparency?
The Lonely Pilgrim
says:
“Protestant critics
complain that ‘tradition’ is something nebulous and undefined that Catholics
can say is whatever they want it to be.”
And he then boasts:
“I have never seen an
organization [the Catholic Church] go to greater lengths to be open and
transparent as to the content and basis of its doctrines.”
He then goes on to
mention the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Church documents and Church
fathers, and how they can all be easily found online. He seems to boast of the “availability” of the
Catholic Church’s sources, but this all begs the question…
A Clear Definition?
Ok, so the big
question is this: What exactly were all those unwritten things Jesus said and
did? Can any Catholic tell us every word? Can anyone
know for sure, or tell us infallibly?
No, the best they can do with such information (that’s not in the Bible)
is read what the fathers said that
Jesus said. But that certainly doesn’t
imply any kind of infallibility.
As far as the content
of Sacred Tradition, some of the Catholic Church’s “definitions” include “the living and growing truth,” or “the common teaching, common life, and
common worship of the whole Church.” The Second
Vatican Council says that Tradition is “all that she herself [the Catholic
Church] is, all that she believes.”
(Dei Verbum, chapter. 2, paragraph 8).
THIS is supposed to be meaningful? Is this as understandable and exact as they
can make it? If so, is it any wonder why
Protestants complain about Sacred Tradition being nebulous or unclear? These “definitions” are not telling us
anything. Sorry, but that’s not being “open” and “transparent”
about the contents of your Sacred Tradition.
Remember,
we’re talking about teaching that is supposedly inspired and infallible
here. When he mentions the Catechism (above)
as Tradition, is the Lonely Pilgrim saying that every part of the Catechism is inspired? I certainly hope not. If not, then which parts? I don’t think anyone can tell us, and I know
of no infallible list of those parts.
But maybe we can find the perfect
definition of Tradition in Pope Pius IX, who was speaking with Cardinal Guidi
of Bologna about popes having infallibility.
The Cardinal pointed out that the idea of “papal infallibility” did not
agree with Church Tradition. So the pope
arrogantly roared, “I AM TRADITION!”
Yep, I think this pretty much sums it up. In essence,
he was saying, “Who are you to tell me what Tradition says? Whatever I, the Vicar of Christ, want
Tradition to be is Tradition!” This
speaks volumes.
Tradition Inspired?
Not only does the
Catholic Church seem to say that they have all the words of Jesus and the
apostles in Sacred Tradition (which is not true), but also that this “deposit
of faith” is equal to Scripture. After all, Sacred Tradition is also considered by Catholics as
“the Word of God.” The official Catholic
document, Dei Verbum, chapter 2, paragraph 9, says:
“Therefore both
sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and
reverence.” (Emphasis mine)
So that, to me, means
that Dei Verbum is saying the two would have
to be equal. But interestingly, the
Lonely Pilgrim says that Scripture and Tradition don’t have “equal authority,”
because they have “different characters.”
So, it seems he is free to disagree with a statement that the Catholic
Church considers infallible.
It is also
interesting that only the Catholic
Church can authentically interpret this Sacred Tradition (CCC #100)! Hmmm.
Seems to be self-serving, doesn’t it?
The Lonely
Pilgrim claims:
“The Church
Fathers are
not Sacred Tradition, but they do contain Sacred
Tradition. “
Well, he
needs to demonstrate exactly WHICH PARTS of the fathers’ teachings are
infallible. Can he give us all of them,
so we can know? Sorry, but just throwing
a bunch quotes into a pile, calling it the “deposit of faith,” and saying that
“Sacred Tradition” is somewhere in there just doesn’t cut it.
Concerning
the fathers, the Lonely Pilgrim admits:
“And sometimes they
are plain wrong. Sometimes, many times, the Church Fathers even disagree with
each other! But it is the things they agree upon, the core of apostolic
teachings, that we receive as Sacred Tradition.”
Agreeing upon a core
of “apostolic” teachings is fine if they are indeed apostolic. And if they are, they will be consistent with
Scripture. The Bible tells us to test
all things (1 Thessalonians 5:21), including Tradition. When determining doctrine, Scripture is not
tested by Tradition, but Tradition is tested by Scripture (Mark 7:1-13), thus
showing they are not equal.
Furthermore, when you
read the fathers, how do you know that you have interpreted them correctly,
since they are a long way off from our culture (as Lonely Pilgrim stated
elsewhere in his article about Scripture
interpretation)? If it is hard to
interpret Scripture (as Catholics often claim), why should it be any easier to interpret the fathers, since
they use language quite different from our own?
Taking Liberties with Scripture
As I said above, the key passage from
which all this stems is John
20:30-31:
“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of His
disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that
you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by
believing you may have life in His name.”
Now folks, let’s take
a deep breath and put aside any preconceived Catholic or Protestant ideas, and
just take this passage at face value.
What is the intention
of the apostle John here? He is
revealing the purpose of his book/gospel in this passage so that the reader
might believe in Christ and have eternal life.
That’s it.
He’s not saying that there
are many other signs that Jesus did and the church fathers will have all this external
information. He’s not saying that the
reader can find these signs in some other (infallible) source. He’s not saying that we are obligated to hunt
for and collect all these acts to preserve them for the church. And he’s not saying that we need to gather
them into some new infallible category alongside Scripture.
No, he’s simply
saying that there were too many deeds, sayings and signs to be included in his
book. In fact, there are more than could
ever be collected on earth (John 21:25), but these (in John’s
gospel) are sufficient to cause one
to believe. Reading anything else into
the passage is irresponsible Bible interpretation.
Conclusion
If anyone says he has
access to everything Jesus ever said, he is a liar. No person,
institution, or church has this information.
The point is, we don’t need
access to everything that Jesus ever said. But Scripture is sufficient to equip us for every good work when it comes to
doctrine, reproof, correction and training in righteousness (2
Timothy 3:16-17).
In other words,
correct doctrine comes from Scripture, not Tradition. That doesn’t mean that we can’t learn things
from the fathers, history or Tradition, but these things will not be infallible
like Scripture is.
I am not saying that
the things He said (outside of Scripture) were unimportant, but that we just
don’t have access to all of them. Each
and every one of these things He said were no doubt very important and infallible
– and none of it returned void, but it accomplished its godly goal (Isaiah
55:11).
But what we see is
Catholics taking liberties with this passage (John 20:30-31) and
making unfounded assumptions. They think
that every time Scripture uses, or alludes to, the term “tradition” in a
positive sense, it is talking of Catholic “Sacred Tradition.” But that’s just begging the question.
We have asked the one
question about Sacred Tradition that they never can seem to answer: What
exactly is Sacred Tradition? Don’t give
us examples of it, but tell us
exactly what it contains. All of it, not
some nebulous, ever-increasing and growing entity that changes year by year
through “development of doctrine.”
That is the
Protestant challenge to Catholics.
There is so much more
I would have liked to have covered in Lonely Pilgrim’s article, but I will stop
here. Perhaps, if there is enough
interest from readers to address more of it, I may do a “Part 2.”
See also this article
on Tradition:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-about-tradition.html
