N
Nicea325
Guest
Indeed study and scholarship were part of the tradition… Problem I encounter with many Protestants is the fact they always make it an either/or dichotomy. Second, when and where did the early church decide tradition became less reliable and scripture was the “only” way? How we understand and interpret scripture to the faithful to this day is based on Sacred Tradition which never faded away or became less reliable.I’ve been dreading posting this as it will surely get some angry replies, but as a Protestant who is studying Catholicism it is a question that has to be asked. I actually posted this on the James faith/works thread but don’t want to hijack that thread.
Keep in mind, I don’t consider tradition a bad thing and realize that the primary way the gospel was told was orally in the early church. I’m in the middle of my third book on the history of the church and realize that the 2nd century church started to weed out the different writings in order to make sure the correct writings were being uses as scripture. Also, but the writings of the pre-nicene church fathers considered many of the books we used today scripture because they quoted those books often in their writings. They also developed the “rule of faith” and used apostolic succession to combat false teachings, primarily those of the gnostics. So I freely admit that oral teachings played a huge role in the development of the church.
Let me qualify by saying that I don’t consider the development doctrine to be tradition. I see it as being developed by study and scholarship. Certainly, oral tradition, in the early church played a great role in the development of the rule of faith and apostolic succession and the early creeds. The premise I was led to believe (I want say taught because I never remember anyone teaching me this) is that **as time passed oral tradition became less and less reliable to the point where the written scriptures are the only way **we can determine correct doctrine and practice.
Basically it was implied to me that as the centuries passed, the church did exactly what they were warned about in Colossians 2:8
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
and that the church, in time, essentially did the same thing that the Pharisees did in New Testament times.
Matthew 15:1-9
*Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” 3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 5 But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” 6 he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. 7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
8 “‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
9 in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” *
So in the Faith/Works thread PRmerger said
and I replied
There were a couple of replies in the other thread but I thought I would move it over here to get more response. I’m probably not going to reply to the answers you give because that wouldn’t be productive. But this way of thinking is probably what most protestants think, especially in the USA, even if we don’t realize we think this way. I had never really thought about it until I came to this forum. I don’t want to leave this forum without giving you a chance to refute this way of thinking and correct my errorThis may very well be my last post here.
Thank you all putting up with me.
Scripture was not written or intended to replace Tradition.