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D i s p a t c h e s
EXPLAINING TRADITION
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Sometimes the faith needs to be defended publicly, sometimes privately. Here is an example of the latter. I wrote this letter to someone who inquired about Tradition. To protect her privacy, I have changed the recipient’s name.
Dear Jenny:
The Catholic Christian faith isn’t a quilt made up of patches of answers to this or that individual question, though that is very much the way I personally came to it and have grown in my understanding of it. I can attest that this is the hard way to acquire an understanding of what the faith is all about. The Catholic faith is a coherent collection of beliefs, an integral whole that fits smoothly together, much like the seamless robe of Christ that was mentioned at the crucifixion. Sacred Tradition—the oral teaching given by Christ and passed on to the apostles and their successors, the bishops—provides the context for belief.
Typically, Protestants have an accentuated sensitivity to Catholic traditions (here I lower-case the word and use it in the sense of customs rather than doctrines), and they have been taught to take a jaundiced view of them as evil additions to the Christian faith. Meanwhile, Protestants have a diminished sensitivity to many Protestant traditions. Distinctions are blurred, minimized, and glossed over as though they didn’t exist. Yet the different traditions of the Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Mennonites are as distinct from one another as they are from Catholicism, for anyone who cares to look. We really can’t escape this fact, but too many Protestants have been trained to ignore or deny its existence.
In a broader sense, context molds and shapes the meaning that we see in what we read. One remarkable example is the Protestant tradition of adding a beautiful Catholic liturgical response at the end of the Lord’s prayer: "For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen." This response, taken from an ancient liturgy, was erroneously added to some Protestant translations of the Bible at Matthew 6:13.
I’ll share another example of how a statement’s meaning can be totally changed by the context that we bring to our reading it. A Mormon had presented this example as a scriptural "proof" that the Church Jesus founded must apostatize before his Second Coming. He quoted the verse below, which is from the Douay-Rheims Catholic translation. In his prepared context, the passage does seem to teach the idea that the Church must apostatize: "Let no one deceive you in any way, for the day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy comes first. . . ." (2 Thess. 2:3).
Since I have the context of the Catholic faith, I was certain that there was something wrong about that meaning in that passage. As a Catholic, I believe and trust in the assurance of Jesus that: "Full authority has been given to me both in heaven and on earth; go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you. And know that I am with you always until the end of the world!" (Matt. 28:18–20).
The key to understanding the passage lies in the externally supplied context that is expressed by the unvoiced phrase "of the Church." Once I realized that, it was easy to see that merely changing the one external word "of" to "from" will yield a new context of opposite significance: " . . . the day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy" [of the Church]/[ from the Church] "comes first. . . ."
Actually, this scriptural passage makes no explicit reference to the Church at all. We, the readers, bring that context to the passage. The beliefs of Mormons and Protestants supply a tradition (a customary prejudice) that the Catholic Church has apostatized, whereas the beliefs of Catholics supply the tradition that Christ will be with the Church until the end of the world. Our real task is to identify which of all the contradictory explanations being offered is really God’s explanation! Each of those contradictory explanations really is plausible, within its own context. The issue really isn’t whether or not we’ll accept a tradition; the real issue is which tradition comes from God—which tradition is really Tradition?
What then is the true role of Tradition in God’s plan of salvation? The most elementary historical fact of Christianity is that the first generation of Christians only had oral Tradition as their source of the Christian faith; there simply were no New Testament writings for them. History also shows us that the Church used oral Tradition as its primary tool for two generations. The Gospels and the rest of the New Testament were written, but not yet distributed throughout the Church. It wasn’t until the tenth generation of Christians that the Catholic Church definitively identified the full canon of Scripture.
Logically, therefore, the canon of Scripture remains undefined for anyone professing the "Bible alone" principle, since Scripture does not identify its own canon. Books called "Bibles" simply express a publisher’s choice, either of the canon identified by the Catholic Church or of one of the many private lists proposed by different men or groups.
Even this brief review of history demonstrates why Catholics absolutely reject the Protestant tradition of sola scriptura. But an even stronger reason for that rejection is that this flawed human tradition is not explicitly taught in Scripture! Now Scripture does teach on the issue of oral Tradition. And what Scripture explicitly teaches is in flat contradiction to the "Bible alone" thesis. Scripture commands: "Hold fast to the traditions you received from us, either by our word or by letter" (2 Thess. 2:15). In this passage Paul refers to his doctrinal teachings.
Many people respond with a rebellious answer that essentially goes: "I would gladly hold to Paul’s words, except that it is no longer possible to hear his voice. We have only the written word left." They need to accept what Scripture also states: "The things which you have heard from me through many witnesses you must hand on to trustworthy men who will be able to teach others" (2 Tim. 2:2).
Those persisting in the Protestant way simply dismiss this explicit command of Scripture with their non-scriptural opinion: "Despite the best efforts of the early Christians, the verbal teaching soon became polluted with error. Today, we can rely only on Scripture." Here we have the absurd situation that the spiritual heirs of those who left the Catholic Church, claiming that the Church had changed the faith and that only the Bible should be accepted, now unblushingly defend this change from and rejection of the explicit command of Scripture! But the substitution of this human tradition in place of the command of God is simply another example of the conduct that Jesus rebuked in Matthew 15:3–9. The truth is that Scripture expresses God’s command with an assurance: "Take as a model of sound teaching what you have heard me say, in faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the rich deposit of faith with the help of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us" (2 Tim. 1:12–14; see also 2 Thess. 3:6).
I believe the options are clear. We can believe God and accept his way, including his divinely-guided oral Tradition, as Scripture commands us, or we can reject that sacred Tradition in favor of a spurious human tradition: that we must use the Bible alone as the sole rule of faith.
James J. Harris
NO ROUSING SUCCESS
One might think that anyone engaged in apologetics as a profession would have no trouble discussing the faith with non-Catholics. Not so.
I recall a flight overseas. Our then-young son went to the back of the plane to play with the boy seated across the aisle. The intervening seats now being vacant, I struck up a conversation with the boy’s mother. Her husband was seated just beyond her, and he wore a Roman collar, but the cut of his clericals told me he wasn’t Catholic, but Protestant. They were missionaries, on their way to give the faith to Filipinos.
The woman asked what I did for a living, and I gave her my business card. "Catholic Answers?" she asked, passing the card to her husband. He stared at it.
"I’d be pleased to show you some of our publications," I offered.
"Don’t bother," said the man. "We have nothing to gain from the unsaved." End of conversation.
On a summer afternoon two Jehovah’s Witnesses came to the door, just as supper was being put on the table. "Go ahead and eat," I told my wife. "I have business to attend to." I walked onto the porch and closed the door behind me.
One of the JWs had been a Methodist, the other a Catholic. I told the two young women that I was familiar with JW publications and even subscribed to their magazines. "Let’s look at Scripture," I suggested. I opened to John 6 and read through it with them, retelling the story in my own words as we went along, emphasizing the teaching on the Real Presence.
When done, I said, "You need to ask Jehovah to enlighten you about the real meaning of this chapter. You need to make sure you aren’t relying on the traditions of men. You need to think this through for yourselves. If you do, you’ll understand what Jesus was saying."
The women looked puzzled but said nothing against the Catholic interpretation. They packed away their materials and headed down the street.
Karl Keating
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