Tradition is pre-eminent over the Bible?

[Eden]

We have some posters here who post “sound-bytes” in response to substantial topics. Here is another such example:

Alfie:

Thank you for your honesty! Your admission that tradition for Catholics is pre-eminant over the Bible. The Bible is a mere appendage to the Catholic tradition.

.But why would God separate tradition from the Bible? Why wasn’t tradition and the Bible written down in one unified body of knowledge? If it is so important to salvation and preventing people from going to hell. What would be the point of having a separate oral tradition and the Bible? Why did the Protestant reformers reject tradition if it was so in their faces? There was no reason for men like Luther to reject it.Luther studied and studied both scripture and tradition.

This kind of statement deserves a thread of its own. Comments?

 

[gelsbern]

I would say that until it was actually written down that it was ALL oral tradition. The OT was oral tradition until it was written down, the NT scriptures were all oral tradition until they were written down. Just looking at the dates of when the books of the NT were written 50 A.D. and 140 A.D that means there was only oral tradition for 20 years after the death and resurrection of our Lord. Even then they were mass produced, or bound in a single convenent “collection of books” (the true definition of Bible), they were read in one place and then transmitted verbally in others.

So if one is to be honest, the church was founded on oral tradition.

The T/ttradition of the church has also been written down now for the most part in the writings of the early Church fathers as well as the various, bulls, encyclicals and constitutions that have come througout the years. The reason the two are separate, as I have said in other posts, is that God seems to always work in threes.

The Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)
The Sacraments (Matter, Form, Intent)
The Church ( Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium)

Tradition is not pre-eminent, but neither is the Bible, nor the magisterium, like everything else, they are equal and you can’t have the whole without all 3.

There are some good resources out there on the web.

memorare.com/apol/tradition.html

catholic.com/library/Scripture_and_Tradition.asp
catholic.com/library/Apostolic_Tradition.asp

 

[BryPGuy89]

Eden:

We have some posters here who post “sound-bytes” in response to substantial topics. Here is another such example:

This kind of statement deserves a thread of its own. Comments?

They don’t know what they are talking about. Bible is and has been the for-most leader in all that the Catholic Chruch does. Tradition changes and is not dominant.

 

[mtr01]

Eden:

This kind of statement deserves a thread of its own. Comments?

The quote you posted actually describes the Eatern Orthodox view of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition more so than the Catholic view.

 

[Scott_Waddell]

From my Chief Truths of the Faith by Fr. John Laux.

Scripture and Tradition are called the remote rule of faith, because the Catholic does not base his faith directly on these sources. The proximate rule of faith is for him the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, which alone has received from God the authority to interpret infallibly the doctrines He has revealed, whether these be contained in Scripture or in Tradition.

This often has our naysayers crying “*Sola Ecclesia!”. * This should not bother the Catholic in the least because as Christ IS the head of the the body, the Church, it is essentially saying *Sola Christi * (or whatever the Latin is for that )

Scott

 

[sadie2723]

Eden:

We have some posters here who post “sound-bytes” in response to substantial topics. Here is another such example:

This kind of statement deserves a thread of its own. Comments?

Does tradition trump the Bible? I think not. And, I do not see that anywhere in my Catechism.

What is all this business about Catholic Tradition. I would call it church tradition or even Biblical tradition. Why? Well, because the good people that wrote the Bible talked about that when they told us things like, “there were many other things done and seen that are not written in this book.”

And, let us remember that Jesus sent the deciples out to preach and teach without anything in writing for them to go off of. Thus, they were…wait for it…teaching via traditions that were handed down to them from Christ. Some of that tradition was recorded in the Bible but not all of it. The writers tell us that they did not write it all down. They go further and tell us to respect tradition.

So what does this all come down to? Well, it is really simple. If you accept that the church is without spot or blemish in its teaching, than you accept that the traditions that it is passing down are the correct ones. Now, as the Bible tells us that the church is without spot or blemish and that it is the pillar and foundation of truth and that traditions are to be respected and followed…the arguement for scripture alone is destroyed. There is no arguement for it. The bottom line is that it was invented by some guys in the 1500’s. We call those me heratics…and we should, for as I have made clear, their teaching was contrary to what the Bible and the Church were teaching at the time and still teach today.

Cheers!