Tradition vs. Grace

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april_hosen

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Hi!
I’ve heard over and over again that when it comes to Catholics it comes down to Tradition vs. Grace. Would you say thats true?
 
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april_hosen:
Hi!
I’ve heard over and over again that when it comes to Catholics it comes down to Tradition vs. Grace. Would you say thats true?
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Your proposition suffers from the fallacy of False Dichotomy. We are saved by Grace through Faith Working in Love. Tradition is how the teachings of Christ and the Apostles were handed down through the ages until the Catholic Church defined the New Testament Content and declared it to be the inerrant Word of God at the Catholic Church Councils of Hippo and Carthage. To research this for yourself you can research the New Testament Canon.

May the Grace of Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you always.

Your brother in Christ.
 
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april_hosen:
Hi!
I’ve heard over and over again that when it comes to Catholics it comes down to Tradition vs. Grace. Would you say thats true?
Click to expand...
I don’t know how Grace and Tradition can be put in opposition like that. Grace is in regards to salvation. Tradition is about the teaching of the Church.
 
Hmm,

Okay let me rephrase that. Would you say that the Catholic faith is mainly about Tradition with a side of Grace? Thats not much better but I tried.
 
Hi April;

You said…
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april_hosen:
Hi!
I’ve heard over and over again that when it comes to Catholics it comes down to Tradition vs. Grace. Would you say thats true?
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Who says this? It makes no sense. I agree with Ignatius that it’s a false dichotomy. And please be honest, is it you that came up with this assertion that you’ve “heard over and over again” or could you possibly be misunderstanding someone else’s argument? I am not usually suspicious, but I suspect the former rather than the latter. It seems from your later quote …
Hmm,
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Okay let me rephrase that. Would you say that the Catholic faith is mainly about Tradition with a side of Grace? Thats not much better but I tried.
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…that you initially tried to create support for your opening contention by indirectly proclaiming that - e.g. “everyone says so” - when in fact that’s not the case. Then, when “called on the carpet” about the questionableness of your opening contention, you completely restated the very same argument that you have allegedly “heard over and over again.” As a result, neither of these statements hold much weight in my opinion.

In response to the latest restatement of your contention, my response is: “No” Catholicism is not about “Tradition with a side of Grace” (Whatever that means?) Catholicism is about receiving the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, proclaimed with authority by the Church He founded on Peter and the Apostles. I would add that the Catholic Church administers the sacraments instituted by Christ, which in turn gives humanity the gift of God’s grace, that leads to salvation. There is no dichotomy between Tradition and grace, nor is Grace relegated to a “side-dish.” Grace is the “main course” - so to speak - and Tradition is the “plate” on which that grace is served, to follow your analogy. 🙂

Peace.
 
Wow,
Compelling argument! But its incorrect. I have been considering converting to Catholicsm for the past month or so. So I have been getting opinions from my closest of friends, family members, and respected religious leaders. From quite a lot of them I have been getting the same answer. There’s more tradition than grace involved in Catholicsm. In my first and second statement I was just rephrasing. Sorry to raid on your parade Bob.
 
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april_hosen:
Wow,
Compelling argument! But its incorrect. I have been considering converting to Catholicsm for the past month or so. So I have been getting opinions from my closest of friends, family members, and respected religious leaders. From quite a lot of them I have been getting the same answer. There’s more tradition than grace involved in Catholicsm. In my first and second statement I was just rephrasing. Sorry to raid on your parade Bob.
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I don’t know how you can put them into the same idea though. To say that having Tradition somehow pushes Grace out is a false understanding. Tradition has to do with the Faith which has been handed down to us by the apostles. We are saved by the Grace of God.

The Sacraments are the center of Catholic life. We have the Mass, which is the greatest form of worship this side of heaven. Through the sacrament of The Eucharist, and the others as well, we recieve the Grace of God.

It is not like the increase of one causes the decrease of the other. I would have to say that your friends do not know Catholicism very well at all.

By the way, I like your rhyme in that last post.😃
 
I don’t know where I’d be without God’s grace. If I were left to my own devices, I’d surely fall into hedonism. The church’s tradition teaches that we are saved by God’s grace working in us and through us, but we must cooperate with our free will. It is not a simple “Say the Sinner’s Prayer and then you are ‘in’” (and I’m not saying you believe that).

I also don’t know where I’d be without the church’s tradition. Without that, where would we know what books were apostolic? How would the faith have survived until the 4th century when the bible was finally codified? How could the entire faith be transmitted if the beliefs weren’t spelled out in the Bible (which was not put together to be a primer of basic christian doctrine)?

I think the problem a lot of non-Catholics have is that they adhere to “sola scriptura” as defined by themselves. Think about it. What real authority does a pastor have over others? None. His “followers” can disagree on every single point of faith the pastor holds dear, and yet they all call themselves “Christian.”

Well, the problem is this: Christ isn’t just some loveable fuzzball that came from Heaven. He’s a real man that taught real things. To reshape Christ’s message based solely on your own interpretation is basically making a different Christ. I really have a problem with 21st century pastors claiming to know more than a 2000 year-old church that can trace itself back to the very apostles. All the apostolic churches (Coptic, Orthodox, Catholic) basically have the same beliefs (priests, sacraments, etc…) because they all came from , duh, the APOSTLES.

Christ never commanded his disiples to write books. If that was the sole means of transmitting the faith, Jesus should have written the whole deal himself. He’d put all doubts to rest. But he didn’t. He said to preach it and teach it. And the Apostles and their followers did this for 300 YEARS without seeing one iota of recognized inspired scripture.

I would ask your friends if they have ever read any books written by Catholics about Catholicism. If they haven’t, find a reputable source.
 
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april_hosen:
Hmm,

Okay let me rephrase that. Would you say that the Catholic faith is mainly about Tradition with a side of Grace? Thats not much better but I tried.
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Catholicism is mainly about following Christ in his whole teaching. It is about becoming more like Christ.

To go with your analogy, we do not have any side dishes. It is all wraped up into one dish.
 
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april_hosen:
Wow,
Compelling argument! But its incorrect. I have been considering converting to Catholicsm for the past month or so. So I have been getting opinions from my closest of friends, family members, and respected religious leaders. From quite a lot of them I have been getting the same answer. There’s more tradition than grace involved in Catholicsm. In my first and second statement I was just rephrasing. Sorry to raid on your parade Bob.
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April,

If I may try to read your friends’ minds (a dangerous thing under the best of circumstances), perhaps they mean that the Catholic Church defines for you what you are to believe and what you are not to believe, while other churches leave a lot more to your individual conscience and walk with God. If this is indeed what they mean, then I will say yes, they are absolutely right. The Catholic Church has answers to questions that the other churches haven’t even asked yet.

The difference is a lot like having a teacher who will sit down with you and go over the multiplication table in detail versus one who will tell you to go figure it out for yourself. The Catholic Church in its teachings (Council documents, Papal encyclicals, and so on) sets forth in considerable detail “This is true, that is false, and here’s why.” Most Protestant churches will point you towards the Bible and tell you to go figure it out for yourself. If I may opine, the Catholic way will save a lot of work in figuring out what others have already figured out, time and again, down through the centuries.

The explicit and detailed teachings of the Catholic Church will also save you from the sort of thing that happened to me when I was nineteen years old. At the time I was loosely Episcopalian, but I was in college and spent a LOT of time at the Baptist Student Union, so I had a fairly strong Fundamentalist streak in my theology. There was also a bit of a charismatic revival going on at the time, and I was involved in that some as well. During the summer I caught pneumonia and my left lung collapsed. In accordance with the charismatic teachings about faith, signs, and miracles, I waited for the Lord to heal me of it. After all, the Bible was full of stories about people being healed miraculously. I had all sorts of faith, more faith than you could shake a stick at. And heal me He did, to the tune of three days in the hospital with a tube sticking out of my chest. I was so mad at God! I demanded of Him, “Why didn’t you keep your promises?” He replied, “Where did I promise to heal you miraculously?” It was most of a decade before I finally forgave Him over it. A knowledge of sound Catholic doctrine would have saved me considerable grief.

So … more tradition and less “grace”? Certainly, if my interpretation of what they are saying is correct. Is this a bad thing? Not according to me.
  • Liberian
 
tradition is something we practice…grace is something we’re blessed with through Christ’s death on the cross and our own personal journey and workings through Him…perhaps grace is achieved with the foundation of tradition to guide our journey to Him…but I would say the two go hand in hand. Tradition helps solidify and substantiate grace, and grace makes tradition live on…I guess…really, I’m not sure how to say it…but neither is greater or lesser than the other in the Catholic faith, they instead constitute each other and help the other be as full as possible.In Him,
Britty
 
and maybe to help us all see better where you’re coming from, what exactly do you mean by tradition? and grace? how do you see the two in relation to each other? why would you say that one is more observed than the other? love you:)

Britty
 
Grace is a gift of God. The reason we know about grace is Tradition. Tradition also tells us how God has chosen to confer that grace (ie the sacraments). So, they go together!
 
If it weren’t for Grace I would not have the strength necessary to turn away from sin in the way I did after my first few confessions and after I got back into receiving the eucharist on a regular basis.

I am still amazed on that I am able to resist some of the temptations I encounter in my life. I know in my heart that without grace I would have easily succumbed. I also know that even with God’s grace I am still very weak. But at least I have a fighting chance now 🙂
 
The way I understand it, it is rather difficult to experience grace apart from tradition. Only within the Catholic faith can one participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation (confession, penance, etc.), and only here can we receive Christ’s physical presence in the Eucharist.

If your family, friends, and others would have you believe that we somehow downplay grace, they are sorely mistaken and are dangerously misleading you. Grace is so important to us that we spend much of our time in the examination of conscience, in prayer, in confession, and in sacrifice, in order that we may maintain it. Unlike Protestants, we don’t take for granted a perpetual state of grace but go to great pains to see to it that we are in one lest we die.

Is grace important, YES! Do we take it seriously? You bet your life we do.
 
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april_hosen:
Hi!
I’ve heard over and over again that when it comes to Catholics it comes down to Tradition vs. Grace. Would you say thats true?
Click to expand...
Something is not right here! :hmmm:

Not that I am an expert but I have been studying the faith for several years now and I have had more than my share of discussions with Protestants and I have never hear of anyone Catholic or Protestant trying to place Tradition in opposition to grace! It seems very odd to me that you keep hearing this over and over again…exactly who is this coming from?

I am not going to refute it because it is not even a legitimate juxtaposition.
 
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april_hosen:
Wow,
Compelling argument! But its incorrect. I have been considering converting to Catholicsm for the past month or so. So I have been getting opinions from my closest of friends, family members, and respected religious leaders. From quite a lot of them I have been getting the same answer. There’s more tradition than grace involved in Catholicsm. In my first and second statement I was just rephrasing. Sorry to raid on your parade Bob.
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April,

You’ve gotten some good answers here, but let me add a little. Tradition (with a capital “T”) is litterally the way in which the Church lives out the call to be Holy. Grace is the gift of God that allows the Church and, thereby, each of us, to follow Jesus. From Tradtion we get Scripture (it was passed on orally until it was written down), we get the writings of the Church Fathers which help us to understand what the early Church faced and how difficult questions were asked and answered. All of that functioned through grace from God.

To set the two in opposition is simply wrong, no matter who told you that we Catholics do this.

Deacon Ed
 
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april_hosen:
Wow,
Compelling argument! But its incorrect. I have been considering converting to Catholicsm for the past month or so. So I have been getting opinions from my closest of friends, family members, and respected religious leaders. From quite a lot of them I have been getting the same answer. There’s more tradition than grace involved in Catholicsm. In my first and second statement I was just rephrasing. Sorry to raid on your parade Bob.
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OK. Glad to hear that I’m wrong on this one. 🙂

Let me add that I think you need to learn about Catholicism from Catholics and not from persons who - although well-intentioned - may not have all the facts on the subject. I’m glad you were able to find these forums. I’m not sure if I can add anything more to the conversation unless you need a specific response to a specific question. Other than that, I would just reiterate that tradition does not exclude grace. Maybe you should ask your friends for concrete examples of what they mean when they say Catholics are more about tradition then grace, then test it against what you learn from Catholics.

Best of luck in your search for the truth.
 
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april_hosen:
Wow,
Compelling argument! But its incorrect. I have been considering converting to Catholicsm for the past month or so. So I have been getting opinions from my closest of friends, family members, and respected religious leaders. From quite a lot of them I have been getting the same answer. There’s more tradition than grace involved in Catholicsm. In my first and second statement I was just rephrasing. Sorry to raid on your parade Bob.
Click to expand...
Incorrect according to whom? You should bear in mind that a huge number of Protestants (I’m a former Protestant, I was raised Southern Baptist) are unfortunately and woefully ignorant of the teachings of the Catholic Church. It’s better to ask a Catholic, better still to ask a Catholic apologist. There are quite a number on this site who are very able. We’re not a secret society, so we’ve no real interest in misleading you about our beliefs. But, from the tone of your above post, I strongly suspect you’re not interested in what the Church really teaches, you’re only interested in being insulting. You’ve been told that grace is the main dish, tradition is the plate on which it served (the best metaphor I heard in a good while. Kudos, Bob!). That is the truth about Catholicism. You can call it incorrect if you wish, but it would be much the same as you pointing at hippo and insisting that, in all reality, it’s a cheese sandwich. You have the right to do so, but it doesn’t make the hippo into a cheese sandwich. Your denial as to what the Church teaches doesn’t mean that the Church doesn’t actually teach what she purports to teach.
 
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martino:
Not that I am an expert but I have been studying the faith for several years now and I have had more than my share of discussions with Protestants and I have never hear of anyone Catholic or Protestant trying to place Tradition in opposition to grace!
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I’ll second that.

I’ve heard ‘Faith’ placed in opposition to ‘Works’ as far as salvation goes. I am wondering if ‘tradition’ is being used instead of ‘Works’? But that still doesn’t fit with the title of this thread because even those who argue about faith versus works agree that salvation is only by God’s Grace.

To me, this argument sounds as if “Grace” has been equated with “Faith” and “Works” equated with “tradition”. Those would be invalid associations.
 
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