What is Tradition

[AmateurPianist]

I have been on these forums a while and still don’t quite have it in my head as to what this is. So I might as well ask. Would appreciate (name removed by moderator)ut from a number of perspectives.

As for me, my personal understanding is:
(1) Sort of another way of viewing the Wesley quadrangle point of “history”. So that would be making sure your understanding of Scripture has a historical context and is not a nice new creation of the past 50 years or so (see gay marriage and name-it claim-it).

(2) Stuff that we believe and/or do that are neither provable or disprovable through the Bible but through some means or another have been passed down either through all of Christianity or our own little branch of Christianity. Examples: Hebrews is in the Bible but 1st Clement is not - we celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December not in the middle of March.

 

[Belloc_Fan]

That’s a very good understanding. It’s actually even a bit broader than that, although here, context matters. When the Bible speaks of Tradition (paradosis), the term, both in Greek and English, means something – anything – “handed on.”

So when Moses passes the Ten Commandments he hears from God onto the people, it’s a tradition. Your example of the canon is a great one, because the canon of the Bible is itself a tradition. And some Christians, as you’re probably aware, disagree with this Tradition.

The Bible makes it clear that “traditions of men” - that is, those traditions which originated from men (like “name it, claim it”) - are inferior to Tradition from God, and what we refer to as “Apostolic Tradition.” We call it that because Paul tells us to hold fast to those traditions taught by epistle (that is, the books which would become the Bible) or by word of mouth (that is, extra-Biblical Apostolic Tradition).

Sometimes, when people (even Catholics) say “Tradition” they really mean “extra-Biblical Traditions taught by the Apostles,” but the Church is clear that Tradition and Scripture are intertwined. It’s through Scripture we can gauge which traditions are Apostolic, and which aren’t, and it’s through Tradition that we can gauge which scriptures are Holy Scriptures, and which are heretical, or fakes/forgeries, or even edifying but non-inspired.

 

[WatchingMedia]

Per the Glossary in the CCC 2nd Ed - in the Catholic Church “tradition” is defined as:

TRADITION: The living transmission of the message of the Gospel in the Church. The oral preaching of the Apostles, and the written message of salvation under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Bible), are conserved and handed on as the deposit of faith through the apostolic succession in the Church.
Both the living Tradition and the written Scriptures have their common source in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ (75-82). The theological, liturgical, disciplinary, and devotional traditions of the local churches both contain and can be distinguished from this apostolic Tradition (83).

 

[wmscott]

I have been on these forums a while and still don’t quite have it in my head as to what this is. So I might as well ask. Would appreciate (name removed by moderator)ut from a number of perspectives.

As for me, my personal understanding is:
(1) Sort of another way of viewing the Wesley quadrangle point of “history”. So that would be making sure your understanding of Scripture has a historical context and is not a nice new creation of the past 50 years or so (see gay marriage and name-it claim-it).

(2) Stuff that we believe and/or do that are neither provable or disprovable through the Bible but through some means or another have been passed down either through all of Christianity or our own little branch of Christianity. Examples: Hebrews is in the Bible but 1st Clement is not - we celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December not in the middle of March.

Taken from the CAF library - The true “rule of faith”—as expressed in the Bible itself—is Scripture plus apostolic tradition, as manifested in the living teaching authority of the Catholic Church, to which were entrusted the oral teachings of Jesus and the apostles, along with the authority to interpret Scripture correctly.

There is a relationship between Tradition and Scripture; hence there exists a close connection and communication between Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end.

Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit. To the successors of the apostles, Sacred Tradition hands on in its full purity God’s word, which was entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit.

 

[AmateurPianist]

That’s a very good understanding. It’s actually even a bit broader than that, although here, context matters. When the Bible speaks of Tradition (paradosis), the term, both in Greek and English, means something – anything – “handed on.”

So when Moses passes the Ten Commandments he hears from God onto the people, it’s a tradition. Your example of the canon is a great one, because the canon of the Bible is itself a tradition. And some Christians, as you’re probably aware, disagree with this Tradition.

The Bible makes it clear that “traditions of men” - that is, those traditions which originated from men (like “name it, claim it”) - are inferior to Tradition from God, and what we refer to as “Apostolic Tradition.” We call it that because Paul tells us to hold fast to those traditions taught by epistle (that is, the books which would become the Bible) or by word of mouth (that is, extra-Biblical Apostolic Tradition).

Sometimes, when people (even Catholics) say “Tradition” they really mean “extra-Biblical Traditions taught by the Apostles,” but the Church is clear that Tradition and Scripture are intertwined. It’s through Scripture we can gauge which traditions are Apostolic, and which aren’t, and it’s through Tradition that we can gauge which scriptures are Holy Scriptures, and which are heretical, or fakes/forgeries, or even edifying but non-inspired.

Yes…I have seen the term here “Apostolic Tradition”. Some questions?

Does that mean in order for a tradition to be valid it has to come from the apostles?

Are there any traditions that are not in Scripture that come from the apostles? If so, how do you know they come from the apostles and are not somebody’s nice idea?

 

[AmateurPianist]

Taken from the CAF library - The true “rule of faith”—as expressed in the Bible itself—is Scripture plus apostolic tradition, as manifested in the living teaching authority of the Catholic Church, to which were entrusted the oral teachings of Jesus and the apostles, along with the authority to interpret Scripture correctly.

There is a relationship between Tradition and Scripture; hence there exists a close connection and communication between Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end.

Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit. To the successors of the apostles, Sacred Tradition hands on in its full purity God’s word, which was entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit.

So to the Catholic, there is a dependency between tradition and what the Catholic church teaches about itself, correct?

 

[Wesley7]

<.>]

 

[Wesley7]

Tradition is what the Church received from Jesus and the Apostles (St. Peter, St. Paul).

 

[wmscott]

So to the Catholic, there is a dependency between tradition and what the Catholic church teaches about itself, correct?

If I am not mistaken, in as much as the Catholic is dependent on Sacred Scripture. Sacred Tradition (big “T”), the spoken word of God, came before the Bible. It was Sacred Tradition, guided by the Holy Spirit, that discerned the canon of the Bible, the written word of God.

 

[AmateurPianist]

If I am not mistaken, in as much as the Catholic is dependent on Sacred Scripture. Sacred Tradition (big “T”), the spoken word of God, came before the Bible. It was Sacred Tradition, guided by the Holy Spirit, that discerned the canon of the Bible, the written word of God.

A couple of questions. How can you say Sacred Tradition comes before the Bible. The earliest epistles and/or gospels were penned a short time after the death of Christ. And of course the OT predates Christ.

But it is this statement that is very confusing.

It was Sacred Tradition, guided by the Holy Spirit, that discerned the canon of the Bible, the written word of God.

How can something inanimate even be capable of “discerning”? People discern. Stuff that is passed on is not animate and thus has no capability to “discern”.

 

[AmateurPianist]

Tradition is what the Church received from Jesus and the Apostles (St. Peter, St. Paul).

So here is the rub.

If I am alive during the apostles or say 2-3 generations after the apostles, tradition is something tangible to me. I could hear say St. Ignatius say I heard such-and-such from the apostle John who heard this from Jesus. And in as much that I trust St. Ignatius and by extension the apostle John I can take what he is saying as the words of Christ.

But here we are 2000 years after the fact. So I am left with a dilemma. I can either believe there is this body of stuff that God wants me today to know and believe that comes from the apostles but was never written down, instead was passed down by word of mouth for 2000 years. Moreover it is very clear what this stuff is as opposed to other stuff that some might claim comes from the apostles but really did not.

Or I can believe that the stuff that comes from the apostles and that God wants me to know and believe today was written down and is what is known as the Bible.

Of the two, the second seems the simplest.

 

[KathleenGee]

Tradition must come from Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the One Who confirmed the apostles in strength, enabled them to communicate the Good News to the multitudes…and the grace to go out and preach into the different countries, establishing churches and their successors…

It is the Holy Spirit that is at the center of one’s faith in Christ, and was and is the unifying factor in Christians identifying common faith with one another inspite of cultural and regional differences.

The other aspect to tradition that is also in the catechism, is that the universe was not created completed, but in a state of journeying.

Of course what was 10 years ago is not what we experience today in life.

I think the Protestants have been overloaded both in their congregational leadership and the secular media to have such a bad opinion of the Catholic Church in general.
CC305. 'Jesus asks for childlike abandonment to the providence of our heavenly father who takes care of his children’s smallest needs.

A devout Catholic can pick up when a cleric is not operating in the Holy Spirit; or we can determine the perspective of the small, regional ecclesiastical traditions. For every one of us is responsible for his or her own walk in holiness.

The Church simply reveals to us the fullness of God through Jesus Christ. Our Vatican Library can attest to it. We have the sacraments to help purge us of sin and its effects, the Eucharist to build us up to the person God wants through Jesus Christ, and other sacraments that consecrate us in our daily lives and needs. But no pope or bishop or cardinal is superior to any individual Catholic in holiness in regards to God’s will. So we all ‘know’ each other in the Lord, we understand each others’ trials in our walk towards Christ.

The Church then consists of the papacy, the ecclesiastics and us…just as there were present at Pentecost the apostles, Mary, and over a hundred other people. When the church was primitive and developing, and communcations so slow, it was the Holy Spirit working in the laity as well to draw close to the teachings of Jesus as the Apostles taught.

 

[wmscott]

A couple of questions. How can you say Sacred Tradition comes before the Bible. The earliest epistles and/or gospels were penned a short time after the death of Christ. And of course the OT predates Christ.

But it is this statement that is very confusing.

How can something inanimate even be capable of “discerning”? People discern. Stuff that is passed on is not animate and thus has no capability to “discern”.

Good questions, do you know when the first of the Gospels were written? The Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written between AD 65 and 110. Here is a time-line for you LINK

So tell me what did the early Church use other than Sacred Tradition to keep Christ’s message alive. Sacred Tradition. Until the invention of the printing press in the 1500s, there were relatively few Bibles in existence.

To the second question, you are seeing Sacred Tradition as a thing. It is not, it is the living word of God that was passed on to the Apostles and the Church. it is the Church or the living Teaching Authority, who preserves and protects It.

 

[Abbax8]

Examples of Sacred Tradition are helpful in explaining what it is. Mary’s perpetual virginity is Sacred Tradition, the Immaculate Conception is Sacred Tradition

The Bible says that Christ said and did many things that are too numerous to list in the Bible. The early church fathers, the Bishops, passed on the faith orally and in writing when they decided on what books to include in the canon. Books that had material that contradicted Sacred Tradition at the time were rejected.

The faith was first preached to the people, by Christ and then the Apostles. Oral teaching was, and still is, the primary way people learn the faith. The Bishops worked to make sure only true doctrine was taught. The letters of the Apostolic Fathers have many examples where they are fighting against heterodox teachings.

Dennis

 

[wmscott]

Examples of Sacred Tradition are helpful in explaining what it is. Mary’s perpetual virginity is Sacred Tradition, the Immaculate Conception is Sacred Tradition

The Bible says that Christ said and did many things that are too numerous to list in the Bible. The early church fathers, the Bishops, passed on the faith orally and in writing when they decided on what books to include in the canon. Books that had material that contradicted Sacred Tradition at the time were rejected.

The faith was first preached to the people, by Christ and then the Apostles. Oral teaching was, and still is, the primary way people learn the faith. The Bishops worked to make sure only true doctrine was taught. The letters of the Apostolic Fathers have many examples where they are fighting against heterodox teachings.

Dennis

Thanks Dennis, also the Trinity is defined in Sacred Tradition.

 

[KathleenGee]

Sacred Tradition is the work of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ, not man. It is the Holy Spirit through the witnesses of Christ that ensures that the message of Jesus Christ is transmitted through subsequent generations.

Jesus did not depend on the written word with the Apostles. They could not extend the written word to all the people because there were no bibles to pass out and there weren’t printeries until 1400 years later. There were scribes. And the majority of peoples could not read. But they were Christians nevertheless.

No matter the culture or peoples, the Holy Spirit is constantly at work to help us come to and maintain the universal message and faith of Jesus Christ through the ecclesial forms and history in which a peoples of given regions exist. Small ecclesial traditions may be maintained or changed given the extending circumstances of time. We are explained the changes and why. Sometimes they are returned…but the focus is always on Jesus Christ, His saving grace and sacraments, and on living out our faith.

 

[AmateurPianist]

Now I am quite confused again. The first couple of posts were helpful, but from the later posts it sounds like you all are personifying tradition. I don’t get that.

 

[wmscott]

Now I am quite confused again. The first couple of posts were helpful, but from the later posts it sounds like you all are personifying tradition. I don’t get that.

I apologize for confusing you, try this LINK, it is a short read that may help. I understand it but obviously I am doing a poor job of explaining it. Again I apologize for the confusion.

 

[AmateurPianist]

I apologize for confusing you, try this LINK, it is a short read that may help. I understand it but obviously I am doing a poor job of explaining it. Again I apologize for the confusion.

Some of this is helpful. Some of this was a diatribe against Sola Scriptura without really defining what it is. But anyway…

What I want to get in my head is a Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant understanding of Tradition. So here is my stab at this to get this in terms that I understand.

Apostolic Tradition: The oral teaching of Christ to the apostles and from the apostles to the apostolic church.

Agreed upon: By everybody (or should be everybody although they may not choose to use the word tradition here).

Now this really should not be controversial, because it is a historical fact that nothing was written down until a few years after the death of Christ.

The disagreement it seems to me is how this is preserved through the succeeding generations.

Catholic: preserved by (a) Sacred Scripture (b) the Magisterium of the Catholic church.

Orthodox: preserved by (a) Sacred Scripture (b) the Ecumenical Councils of the united early church (I think I recall having read that Orthodoxy believes the ecumenical councils have ceased once the East/West split occurred).

Protestant: preserved by (a) Sacred Scripture.

Append for Protestant. Possibly preserved in other sources (examples ECF writings and creeds of the early church) but these modes of preservation are subordinate to Scripture.

 

[wmscott]

Some of this is helpful. Some of this was a diatribe against Sola Scriptura without really defining what it is. But anyway…

What I want to get in my head is a Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant understanding of Tradition. So here is my stab at this to get this in terms that I understand.

Apostolic Tradition: The oral teaching of Christ to the apostles and from the apostles to the apostolic church.

Agreed upon: By everybody (or should be everybody although they may not choose to use the word tradition here).

Now this really should not be controversial, because it is a historical fact that nothing was written down until a few years after the death of Christ.

The disagreement it seems to me is how this is preserved through the succeeding generations.

Catholic: preserved by (a) Sacred Scripture (b) the Magisterium of the Catholic church.

Orthodox: preserved by (a) Sacred Scripture (b) the Ecumenical Councils of the united early church (I think I recall having read that Orthodoxy believes the ecumenical councils have ceased once the East/West split occurred).

Protestant: preserved by (a) Sacred Scripture.

Append for Protestant. Possibly preserved in other sources (examples ECF writings and creeds of the early church) but these modes of preservation are subordinate to Scripture.

I don’t think it is a diatribe, but more of an explanation of SS and how it fails in the light of Sacred Scripture, where as Sacred Tradition is scriptural in basis and is incompatible with SS.