RCC Series: 2. Tradition

Hello and welcome back to the Roman Catholic Tradition, Claims and Contradictions series.

By William Webster. All credit goes to Bill Webster with regards to this book, Roman Catholic Tradition, Claims and Contradictions. I highly recommend it to you. This entire presentation is based on his book with his permission.

Tradition as a Second Channel of Revelation

So now let's move on to Chapter 2, which is Tradition, which is a very important distinction between Roman Catholic theology and Protestant theology. The Roman Church claims that oral tradition is a second channel of divine revelation inspired by God and is equally as authoritative as scripture.

It also claims that this was the view held by the fathers of the early church. It is helpful to repeat the statements of Roman Catholic theologian John Hardin who affirms this view as being the official position of the church.

We find these truths revealed by God in sacred scripture and sacred tradition. Both sacred scripture and sacred tradition are the inspired word of God and both are forms of divine revelation. Sacred scripture is divinely inspired writing, whereas sacred tradition is the unwritten word of inspired persons.

The Bible and sacred tradition are of equal authority because they are equally the word.

Of God.

Both derive from the inspired vision of the ancient prophets and especially from the infinite wisdom of God incarnate who gave to the apostles what he came down on earth to teach through them to all of mankind.

So here, Roman Catholic theologian John Hardin equates tradition with scripture as both having equal authority. This is false. Such a view contradicts scripture and history. Scripture never teaches that tradition is inspired.

Furthermore, it gives numerous warnings against tradition. When the fathers speak of a tradition handed down from the apostles, independent of scripture, they are referring to ecclesiastical customs and practices, never to doctrine.

The truth is, the fathers rejected the teaching of an apostolic oral tradition independent of scripture as a Gnostic heresy. In the citation we see, See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

Thus you have invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.

It was the Gnostics who first claimed that an oral tradition, independent of scripture, had been passed down from the apostles. As we have seen, as far as the early fathers were concerned, the apostolic tradition was embodied and preserved in scripture alone.

The 2nd century fathers Irenaeus and Tertullian give us the actual doctrinal content of what they called the rule of faith or apostolic tradition. And every doctrine is derived from scripture. There is no appeal in their writings to a tradition that is oral in nature as a validation of what they considered the tradition or teaching handed down from the apostles.

Apostolic tradition is simply the teaching of scripture and can be validated by the scripture. The teaching of the fathers is that what the apostles initially proclaimed orally they later committed to writing in the scriptures.

As Irenaeus puts it, We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, that from those whom the gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public and at a later period by the will of God, handed down to us in the scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.

So how is one to know what the apostles taught orally? It has been handed down to us in the scriptures. And according to Irenaeus, these scriptures are to be the ground and pillar of our faith. The historical situation which prompted Irenaeus' words is important.

He was writing against Gnostics who claimed to have access to an oral tradition handed down from the apostles which was independent of the written scriptures. Irenaeus and Tertullian as well explicitly repudiate this concept.

They taught that the bishops of the church were in the direct line of succession from the apostles and were faithful to the apostolic teaching which they proclaimed orally but that their teaching could be validated scripturally.

Ellen Flesman Van Leer affirms this. For Irenaeus, the church doctrine is never purely traditional. On the contrary, the thought that there could be some truth transmitted exclusively viva voce orally is a Gnostic line of thought.

The church up to as late as the 14th century never viewed tradition as a channel of revelation. As we have seen from the comments of Thomas Aquinas in footnote 7, the medieval church of the 13th century believed the rule of faith to be derived from scripture alone.

That the church of the patristic age held to the principle of sola scriptura, that is, that the bible was the ultimate authority, materially sufficient, and the final arbiter all means of doctrinal truth, is confirmed by the following church historians.

J .N .D.

Kelly.

He says, The clearest token of the prestige enjoyed by scripture is the fact that almost the entire theological effort of the Fathers, whether their aims were polemical or constructive, was expended upon what amounted to the exposition of the Bible.

Further, it was everywhere taken for granted that, for any doctrine to win acceptance, it first had to be established in the scriptures. Heiko Obermann says this, Scripture and tradition were for the early church in no sense mutually exclusive.

Kergama, the message of the gospel, scripture, and tradition coincided entirely. The church preached the Kergama which is found in Toto in written form in the canonical books. The tradition was not understood as an addition to the Kergama contained in the scripture, but as handing down that same Kergama in living form.

In other words, everything was to be found in scripture, and, at the same time, everything was in living tradition. The scriptures do refer to the oral teaching of Paul to the believers of Thessalonica which they were to obey, in 2 Thessalonians 2 .15, but the word tradition here does not mean the same thing as tradition of Roman Catholicism, either in concept or in content.

The word simply means teaching. Paul has given them oral instructions which they are to obey, and it does not necessarily have to do with the major doctrines of the faith. This is clear from the same epistle where Paul exhorts these believers to stand firm in the tradition which they had received from him, to keep aloof from every brother who leads an unruly life, 2 Thessalonians 3 .6.

Paul's use of the word tradition here does not have the same meaning as that of the Roman Church. The doctrinal content it has given to its tradition, in fact, contradicts the teachings given by Paul and recorded in the scriptures, and which were never taught in the early church.

The Roman concept of tradition as a separate source of revelation independent of scripture contradicts as well the teaching of the magisterium of the early centuries. For example, the Roman Church declares that the ascension and immaculate conception of Mary and papal infallibility and its interpretation of Matthew 16 verses 18 and 19 are truths necessary to be believed for salvation, but these were never taught in the early church.

This would be catamount to adding to the gospel. It is true that the early church held to the concept of tradition in referring to ecclesiastical customs and practices. They often believed that such practices were handed down from the apostles even though they could not necessarily be validated from the scriptures.

Such was the teaching, for example, of Basil the Great and John Chrysostom in the mid to late 4th century. Basil says,. The apostles and fathers who laid down laws for the church from the beginning thus guarded the awful dignity of the mysteries in secrecy and silence.

For what it brooded abroad at random among the common folk is no mystery. This is the reason for our tradition of unwritten precepts and practices. John Chrysostom on 2 Thessalonians 2 .15 makes these comments,.

Hence it is manifest that they did not deliver all things by epistle, but many things also unwritten, and in like manner both the one and the other are worthy of credit. Therefore let us think the tradition of the church also worthy of credit.

It is a tradition. Seek no further. But these practices did not involve the doctrines of the faith and were often contradictory among different segments of the church. An example of this is found early in the 2nd century in the controversy over when to celebrate.

The Quartodeciman Controversy Over Easter

Easter.

Certain eastern churches celebrated it on a certain date while the west celebrated it.

On another.

But both claimed their practice was handed down to them directly from the apostles. It eventually led to conflict with the Bishop of Rome who demanded that the eastern fathers submit to the western practice.

This they refused to do firmly believing they were adhering to apostolic tradition. So who was correct? There is no way to tell which if either was truly of apostolic origin. It is interesting however to note that one of the proponents for the eastern view was Polycarp who was a disciple of the Apostle John.

There are other examples of this in church history. Just because a particular church father claims a particular practice is of apostolic origin does not make it so. All it means is that he believes that it was.

There is no way to verify a particular practice as a tradition from the apostles. There are numerous practices the early church engaged in which they believed were of apostolic origin listed for us by Basil the Great, none of which are practiced in the Roman Catholic Church today.

So, such appeals to oral apostolic tradition are meaningless. They are merely claims with no possible means of verification. Based on Paul's statements in 2 Thessalonians 2 .15, the Roman Catholic Church, since the Council of Trent, claims that it possesses an oral apostolic tradition which is independent of scripture and is binding upon men.

Rome asserts that, based on Paul's teaching in this passage, the teaching of sola scriptura is false, since he handed on teachings to the Thessalonians in both oral and written.

Form.

What is interesting in this appeal is that Roman apologists never document the specific doctrines to which Paul is referring. In all the writings of Roman apologists from the Reformation to present day, no one has been able to list the doctrines that make up this supposed apostolic oral tradition.

From Francis de Sales to the writings of Carl Keaton and Robert St. Genes, there is this conspicuous absence. The arguments have not changed since de Sales wrote his work in the 16th century. Robert St. Genes is the editor of a work recently released on a defense of the Roman Catholic teaching of tradition entitled Not by Scripture Alone.

It is touted as a definitive refutation of the Protestant teaching of sola scriptura. But not once in the entirety of the book does any author define the doctrinal content of this apostolic oral tradition.

All we are told is that it exists, that the Roman Catholic Church possesses it, and that we are bound therefore to submit to this church which alone possesses the fullness of God's revelation from the apostles.

But they cannot tell us what it is. And there is a reason for this. It does not exist. And, if they are such of importance, why did Cyril of Jerusalem not mention them in his catechetical lectures where he states that he is giving the complete faith to the catechumens?

He says, I challenge anyone to list the doctrines Paul is referring to in 2 Thessalonians 2 .15, which he says he committed orally to the Thessalonians unless one wants to make a case for the fact that oral instruction was actually the gospel message that was later codified in writing.

The very concept of Roman Catholic tradition as being a separate channel of divine revelation independent of scripture, which makes scripture materially insufficient, contradicts both the teaching of scripture and the teaching of the historic church for centuries.

It is the Roman Catholic Church that has departed from the teaching and practice of the early church and of the authority and sufficiency of the scripture. The early church believed in the principle of sola scriptura.

But the Roman Catholic Church has repudiated this in order to elevate its tradition to a position of authority equal to the scripture's, claiming that it is a separate channel of revelation. In doing so, it has embraced a major tenet, the heresy of Gnosticism condemned by the early church.

In addition to the concept, there is also the issue of the content of tradition. These teachings not only contradict scripture, but are contrary to the teachings of the early.

Church.

Scripture, Tradition, and the Rule of Faith

And now William Webster has given us a summary of the authority of scripture versus tradition. 1. Rome and Protestants both agree that scripture is inspired.

2.

Rome and Protestants both agree with the close of the apostolic age that there is no further revelation from God. 3. Protestants assert that scripture is the only special revelation from God that we possess today, and that scripture is materially sufficient.

Rome says no, that not all of the revelation imparted to the apostles was committed to scripture, but was also partially preserved in oral form and handed down to the church by way of tradition. Scripture, therefore, is not materially sufficient and is not formally sufficient either because it needs an infallible interpreter that also being part of tradition.

Therefore, tradition is a necessary part of revelation. In addition to the concept, there is also the issue of the content of tradition. These teachings not only contradict scripture, but are also contrary to the teachings of the early church.

4. The scriptures teach that the scripture is inspired. Nowhere does it teach that tradition is inspired. The scripture's description of itself indicates that it is sufficient for issues related to faith and morals.

It makes no such claim for tradition. 6. Since scripture alone is inspired, it is inherently authoritative. 7. Scripture gives repeated warnings against tradition.

8.

Jesus' example is highly instructive. He appealed to the written word of God alone as the final arbiter of truth. He never appealed to tradition in any form. The written word of God was sufficient for Jesus.

There was further revelation to be given after he ascended to heaven through the apostles, but that is not the issue here. The scriptures given up to that point in time were sufficient for Jesus in matters related to faith and morals.

9. Jesus states that all tradition is to be judged by scripture. Since scripture alone is inspired and is the final judge of tradition, then scripture is the ultimate authority. 10. Rome's claim for oral apostolic tradition is invalid because these oral teachings have never been defined.

11.

That part of Roman Catholicism's tradition, which is drawn from scripture, has proven itself contradictory to scripture. Therefore, it is not inspired and is invalid. It is not apostolic. It is the teaching of men.

12. The oral proclamation of an apostle is inspired. For example, when Paul proclaimed the gospel to the Thessalonians, he stated that they received his word for what it was, the word of God. What he taught to them, he taught orally.

But he was an apostle. How do we know today exactly what he taught them of the gospel? It is found in the written scriptures. We do not possess any oral teaching of an apostle today. Therefore, scripture alone records for us the apostolic teaching and the final revelation.

Of God.

13. The claim to possess an oral apostolic tradition independent of scripture is a Gnostic heresy repudiated by the early church fathers. Well, friends, thanks again for joining us. We look forward to seeing you in the next session where we continue in William Webster's.

Book, The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism.

Questions 59, 60, 84, 87, 89, and 91. This view, however, is contradictory. Thomas Aquinas, in the 13th century, makes the following comment. The canonical scriptures alone are the rule or measure of faith.

Sola canonica scriptura est regula fide. Well, friends, thanks again for joining us for this session of Roman Catholic Claims and Contradictions. We look forward to seeing you in the next session. Please also subscribe to the channel and check out more great videos on Reformed Theology.

Thanks again for listening and remember Semper Reformanda.