This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

My Account of Scripture and Tradition

[As is no doubt obvious from the previous week's posts, this reflection has come out of the exchange I've had on the relationship between Scripture and Tradition. I'm thankful to Kevin who has pushed me to more concretely express my thoughts on the matter.]

The Tradition is that way of Life whose content and shape is Christ and was given by Christ to the Apostles and from the Apostles to the Christians to whom they gave it, and so on in unbroken succession down to the present age. This Life was and is no mere doctrinal concept but was and is Life, which is to say, it is all that makes a human being truly and fully human. So this Life given by Christ is His own, and is a way of living as much as it is the Life that makes living possible. As a way of Life it entails certain beliefs, concepts and wills. But it is not merely or purely psychic, or mental/volitional, but is, indeed, everything about what it means to be really and truly and fully human: speech and acts and all that we do with our bodies, as well as all our thoughts, emotions, words, and willing.

That Tradition was always present in full—nothing needed ever to be added to it, nor could anything ever be taken from it—from the very moment Christ ascended into Heaven and gave the gift of the Spirit to His Church. Because that Tradition was, and is, a way of Life, whose entire essence and content is Christ, it is a dynamic thing, always the same, yet ever concretely lived in specific ways of life. It does not change or adapt in its essence, since Christ Himself, Who is the Life of the Church, is the same yesterday, today and forever. But just as the exact same Gospel can be communicated in a thousand different languages without change or alteration, so this way of Life was and is expressed concretely in every place and people and language on earth. Because this Tradition is filled with the Life of Christ himself, it carries His authority, and is thus infallible. But this Tradition is not, nor ever could be, separable from the Church, for the Church Herself is the Body of Christ, and is filled with Christ in whom is the fullness of the Godhead. The Church's Life, the Tradition, is thus not Her own but is always and only that which Christ gives her. Thus the Scriptures are not separate or separable from the Life of the Church, from Her Tradition, for the Scriptures are the Word of God, out-breathed by God in the Church, to the Church, for the Church. The Church wrote the Scriptures by the hand of God, and this Word given in and to and for Her is Her Life, for it is the Word of God. But Life is not opposed to Life, for it is all the same Life, which is to say, Christ. Christ is the shape and content of the Old Testament and the New Testament, and He is the shape and content of the Liturgy, the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, the teachings of the Church Fathers, the lives of His Saints, and so forth. The Church knows what is Life and what is not Life in all these things, for She knows the Lord Who calls Her by name and recognizes His voice. Thus, that which She takes up to Herself as Her Life is, indeed, Life.

It is true that the Scriptures have a unique place in the Life of the Church and are given special prominence, and this is due to their unique quality of being out-breathed by God. But while their authority may have a different shape than the authority of the Liturgy, or of the Creeds, or of the Councils, on account of their uniqueness, the quality of that authority remains the same, which is the Life of Christ, for all authority in heaven and on earth is His, and all things have been given Him by the Father. And it is because this authority the Scriptures have is of the Life of Christ that the Scriptures do not stand as an opposing authority to the rest of Tradition. For if it is true that the Scriptures are unique in their being out-breathed by God, it is still the Church that recognizes in them Her Master's Voice, and claims them for Herself as what they really are: the Word of God. The Church does not make them Scripture so much as she recognizes them as such. Yet we must always speak of both realities as, in fact, true. The Scriptures were so out-breathed and the Church did discern them as such. Both historical realities must always be held together in the Truth as true. For even if the Scriptures were so out-breathed of God as they are, and yet the Church did not discern them as such, we would still be reliant on the Church to transmit to us the content of the Scriptures. The Church is ever the one who tells us what is this Scripture which is the out-breathed of God, given in the Church, to the Church, and for the Church.

According to Tradition, the Scriptures have a unique place in the Life of the Church, given their unique out-breathed status. Apart from the Tradition, this is something we would not know of ourselves. Indeed, we know this precisely because of how the Scriptures function, as a manifestation of what they really are, in the Life of the Church. The Scriptures are given prominence in the Life of the Church, in her Doctrine and her piety. In fact, certain of those Scriptures themselves are given additional prominence. Each Sunday we read from the New Testament Acts and Epistles, and we read from the Gospels. And to the Gospels are given a special prominence over the rest of the Scriptures, for they, unique above all the Scriptures, are a verbal icon of Christ. Now in a certain sense all the Scriptures are a verbal icon of Christ, for He is their content and the key to understanding them. But the Gospels focus uniquely on the Life of our Lord and are recognized as worthy of special attention. Still and all, we do not read from St. John Chrysostom's Commentary on Matthew in the place of the Gospel of Matthew. Not because St. John is in opposition to the Gospel, or not worthy of contemplation, or has no authority, but because the Gospel of Matthew is unique, both in its authorship/Authorship and in its place in the Tradition.

In other words, in the classical conception of Tradition, there is no opposition, nor need there be, between Scripture and Tradition, and precisely because there is no opposition, each way of Life that is the Tradition (Liturgy, Scripture, Creed, etc.) can be given its due place and honor. We do not honor Scripture but disparage the Creed. Rather we honor Scripture as the Scripture and the Creed as the Creed, and both as the way of Life given the Church by and in and through Christ.

Posted by Clifton at February 23, 2005 05:47 AM | TrackBack