This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Tradition and Scripture Continued: My Response to Kevin

Kevin continues our dialogue on Scripture. And I am duty-bound to respond--besides, he's very polite, a good arguer, and we apparently both find this an interesting exchange. Now, let's hope I can continue to do justice to the honorable parameters of our discussion.

(Justification from Properly Exegeted Scriptures--was "Sufficiency of Oral Transmission")

You are right to note my failure to take account of your backing off of your thesis. And in fact, you make such distancing even more explicit when you write, "I am willing to extend this necessity for oral transmission of the Tradition for as long as the entire canon had not been made available." But then you go on to claim that this does not entail an argument that Tradition is not limited specifically to the content of Scripture (which you clarify is both OT and NT, though we may quibble over OT canonical matters).

But I'm afraid that here you leave yourself open to the great weakness of your claim: what exactly is the "content" of the Scripture? I'll stipulate, for the sake of our argument here, that the canon of the Scriptures is the Protestant 66. Is the content nothing more and nothing less than the verifiable propositions of (that which can be explicitly enjoined from) the Scriptures? Or is it also that which can be reasonably inferred from them? You have indicated in previous comments that you accept "examples of tradition justified from Scripture properly exegeted (and where they are not, such as Nicea II, we are required to ignore them)." But this simply leaves you wide open to the simple fact that if there is no contradiction between Tradition and Scripture--which is to say, Tradition is "justified from Scripture properly exegeted"--then you have no case. You must accept all those things you now think to be extra or additional.

I know, I know, you will stress the phrase "properly exegeted"--and I note that you dismiss Nicea II quite handily, but I suspect you have not read St. John of Damascus' three treatises on the icons, nor the work of St. Theodore the Studite on the same matter, because both of these illumined gentleman do a great deal of "proper Scripture exegeting."

But this really is the final rub, isn't it? Difference in interpretation. I believe it entirely possible--though I am far from wholly competent to do it--to go through the Tradition and show its complete consonance in its entirety with properly exegeted Scripture. I know that there are some big issues in which this has already most ably been done: the nature of the Lord's Supper, the necessity of an episcopal polity itself grounded in and on the reality that is the Lord's Supper, the role of Mary, the nature of proper Christian worship, the communion of all the saints, and so forth.

But I suspect, which you indicate by graciously passing over the issues of asking the intercessions of the sainst in your response, that such justifications would not satisfy you because you would claim that "proper exegesis" has not been done. I am not without standing to ask: How do you know? Because that's not the way you, or your denomination, or your denomination historically, or any other evangelical interprets Scripture? But how do these know? And why should not the fact that the entire Church historically understood the Scriptures this way count in light of your (presumably) contrary interpretations?

What if I want to use an allegorical interpretation as my primary exegetical tool? What if I decide the historical-grammatical is best? Or, what if I just want to go with what the Bible "says to me"? On the basis of your argument, how can you gainsay me? There's nothing in Scripture that enjoins a particular interpretative method. And if we "justify from properly exegeted Scripture" a particular interpretive method we have only begged the question.

No, your argument has to be narrowed to the fact that Tradition is limited to the explicit (propositional?) content of Scripture. But then you have only checkmated yourself.

(Cessationism and Not Adding/Deleting--was "Sufficiency of Scripture for faith and practice")

Since the extent of the OT canon is not necessary for the main argumentative points I wish to make, for the sake of this specific discussion, I'll simply stipulate, as I did above, the Protestant 66. So I'll not here take the time to substantiate my claims, and concede the limit.

Your cessationist intepretation of 1 Corinthians 13 is, and I mean no offense, fanciful in the extreme. "To teleion" does not mean the completed canon. The gender of the noun does not match the typical feminine of "e graphe," and nothing in the context could be construed to actually refer to the Scriptures. More to the point, when St. Paul speaks of the Scriptures, he means the Old Testament, not the completed canon. There is nothing in the context to justify such a cessationist interpretation, and indeed, your uncertainty in your exegesis--"it appears," "is a bit more illusive," "it might be," "whatever it is," "the general idea"--does not lead to the dogmatic affirmation that "Scripture teaches its own sufficiency." Besides all that, the fact that you affirm that this is the "cessationist" intepretation only begs the question: Why should I, or any other Christian, accept it? If I interpret "to teleion" as the Parousia, the coming age, who would you be to argue against it? Indeed, wouldn't a better reading of v. 12 be that of the coming age? But I've dealt with exegesis above, so I'll move on.

You mentioned the Revelation passage, itself an echo of that from Deuteronomy, and agreed that in context the prohibition against adding and deleting was primarily about Revelation but could be taken to refer to the whole of Scripture. And I would agree with that. But it's a stretch to say: Don't add to this book, or Don't add to this canonical list, and then to go on to say, Don't add any traditions either. First you would have to prove that was the original intent of the author, otherwise you're begging the question. Second, you would have to prove that the addition of traditions that are "justified from a proper exegesis of Scripture" are not adding to the Scripture.

As a bit of an aside here, I found the riposte of the following absolutely and cleverly hilarious:

In the absence of an argument that would necessitate the validity of such a an oral tradtion beyond what was needed to supplement incomplete scripture, my claim that extra-Biblical traditions are invalid is not circular. Rather, your own attempt to justify a post-canonical practice by a narrower pre-canonical necessity is a red herring.

Well said! But let me add that you still commit a logical fallacy: assuming the absence of a proof for the opposing position as proof of your position. Touche!

To continue:

(The Foundation of Tradition and Scripture in the Holy Spirit--was "Limiting the Tradition to the Body of Scripture")

When you write, "Tradition is not the foundation of Scripture nor is the reverse true," you miscontrue what I said. You quoted me accurately, but substantiating the Scripture from the Tradition they had received from St. Paul is not the same thing as founding Scripture on Tradition. Scripture is, as I've said all along, part of the Tradition, not different from it, nor parallel to it. It's all one cloth, with Scripture woven in over here, the Liturgy here, the Creeds here, and so forth. The whole of Tradition itself is founded in the Holy Spirit, and here I agree with you completely.

A brief reply to your comment, "The scriptural warrant for Sunday worship is found in Apostolic practice as recorded in Acts." There is only one verse in Acts 20 that could possibly be construed as sanctioning the normal practice of Sunday as the primary day of worship. And even that verse is not explicit that this was the purpose for the meeting. But let's grant that it is explicit about the day and it's primacy for worship. We still have only the evidence that it was true of this particular congregation and not that it was a widespread practice in the Church. In other words, we get the primacy of Sunday from the extra-biblical Tradition--but of course not in contradiction to Scripture!

(The Stable Content of Tradition--was, "Obsolescence of Tradition Based on Completed Canon")

You write of the attestation of Paul's apostleship and say, "Arguably, these may be categorized as holy Tradition, but their function at the time does nothing to demonstrate the fuller tradition that you wish to advocate for today." But there is no distinction between that which you agree "may be categorized as holy Tradition" and something else you call the "fuller tradition." Your construing it in this way implies that Tradition is little more than centuries of accretion upon accretion.

I suspect, though you haven't said so, that you think icons to have been something added to the Tradition sometime shortly before the end of the eighth entury A. D. But in point of fact, we have evidence of iconography dating back to the catacombs and first century practice. Or perhaps you think the whole doctrine about "Body and Blood of Jesus" in the Eucharist to have been a later addition, but once again, the New Testament makes these explicit claims (and these are attested to as early as the letters of St. Ignatios at the end of the first century/beginning of the second century A. D.). I could go on. In point of fact, the content of the Tradition has been pretty much stable from the time of the Apostles. Specific practices that exhibit that content do change and grow and subside dynamically through history, culture and languages, but the content remains the same. We may now have specific rules by which an icon is painted and displayed, but what it is and that it is venerated hasn't changed in 2000 years. We may now serve the Communion in a gold chalice with a spoon, but the fact that it's the Body and Blood of the Lord hasn't changed in 2000 years.

In any case, thank you again, for your continued dialogue.

I'll answer your other reply to my own account of Scripture and Tradition in another post. (We'll probably have to combine these posts somehow to avoid further confusion and repetition!)

[Note: I edited the post for spelling and grammar about 9:00 am, and added one or two clarifying phrases for what were otherwise periphrastic nouns/pronouns.]

Posted by Clifton at February 25, 2005 06:30 AM | TrackBack