Tradition & Traditions

T. Vick, who is himself a blogger with a fine page (found here: http://www.shadowsofdivinethings.blogspot.com/), has recently begun what will be a series of reflections on the greatly important issue of Christian Tradition. I simply wanted to post a few thoughts with reference to his thoughts in his post. However, before I get into the body of my interaction with his comments, I should note the accute difficulty I find in avoiding two extremes in these types of engagements. On the one hand, it is easy to come across as condescending when you are disagreeing with someone and challenging their views. On the other hand, it seems easy to become pedantic - teacherly. Either way it seems to make for a bad option. I hope to neither sound patronizing nor like I have so much to teach because the bulk of anything I would have to share I either got from someone else originally or later came to find my "insights" have been expressed throughout the centuries by men and women much more able than I. Now onto the meat of the discussion.

While it is certainly true, as Vick notes, that the Sacred Scriptures do occupy a special place in the overall deposit of faith given to the Church, it needs to be made clear just what are the places of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition in the eyes of Catholicism. As Fr. Francis Sullivan, S.J. in his book Magisterium notes, the Scriptures (and especially the NT) are a "privileged witness to apostolic tradition." No other witness to that original apostolic tradition is privileged in the same way. However, the Catholic Church holds that, according to Dei Verbum of Vatican II, "Sacred tradition and sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, which is committed to the Church," (DV, 10). That being said, Sullivan, S.J. makes the point that although the Scriptures do have this privileged place, they could not possibly by themselves exhaust all the vast riches of either the life of Our Lord or of the early Church. Many other Catholics, including the prominent John Henry Cardinal Newman, have also noted this. So given this admission, it stands to reason that God would leave with his Church either (1) a magistra or (2) something very much like Sacred Tradition--or both.

But, as this relates to the comments of T. Vick, it would be readily granted that many things believed by the Church up to the time of the Protestant Reformation had no clear and overwhelming evidence from the Scriptures. But then the question for the Reformers, and all those who follow in their wake, is this: what makes anyone think that something must be (or is allowed to be) believed iff it is clearly laid out in the Scriptures? It would seem that to even bring up 2 Thess. 2:15, as Vick does, would preclude such an understanding of our relation to the Scriptures because it would seem somewhat evident from that verse that it is not the case that we may only believe that which is explicitly and manifestly advocated in the Scriptures. Without having first dealt with this crucial question, why should a Protestant, therefore, feel perfectly within his rights to protest anything like what he lists (Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, Infallibility of the Pope, etc.) other than by simple recourse to the Protestant tradition in which he finds himself?

Moreover, what is found in several Councils of the Church prior to the Protestant Reformation is not always accepted (or condemned) with uniformity by Protestants. Does God operate through the Councils of the Church or doesn't he? If he does operate through them, which ones? And how would we know the answer to that question anyway. If we follow the rules of St. Vincent of Lerins as Vick gives them, I submit that we would all condemn Iconoclasm along with the 7th Ecumenical Council (Nicaea II), and we would thereby venerate icons, statuary, and crucifixes, as has been done since time immemorial. Or speaking of time immemorial, what of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist? The 4th Lateran Council (1215) prior to the time of St. Thomas Aquinas who gave the doctrine so much elaboration (and much prior to Martin Luther's 95 Theses in 1517) phrased what happens in the Holy Eucharist as this: "transsubstantiatis pane in corpus, et vino in sanguinem." "The bread is transubstantiated into the body, and the wine into blood." Many Protestants will say "Yes" to the Councils, but only the first four (or first six perhaps) and I think the candid world should know why these only.

One other quick comment: it is interesting that Vick comments that perhaps one of the ways in which Tradition has fleshed itself out has been in the Creeds and some Councils. I have long found it fascinating that the Nicene Creed, which even some Protestants (e.g., Presbyterians) finds themselves reciting at important times of the year, has the following lines:

We believe in one, holy, catholic [i.e., universal], and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins...

Protestants are often quick to point out that they accept the teachings contained within the decrees of the first four Holy and Ecumenical Councils, the first one of which was that of Nicaea, out of which comes the Nicene Creed with the above lines. Notice the marks of the Church. It is said to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic. How many churches I wonder are vying for that job? I've never known of a single Protestant communion to seriously do so (Anglicans not to be included in this comment). Also, what of the second line? Do any Protestants really acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins?

Well, as I said, here one finds just a few simple reflections on T. Vick's reflections. As a wonderful professor of mine once said, "you can take this with however many grains of salt you like." But I do very much look forward the the rest of T. Vick's comments. I'm sure they will be well thought-out and of interest to everyone curious about the issue of Christian Tradition. I intend to reflect on them as they are published.