FUNDAMENTALISM ? OR CATHOLICISM ?

TRADITION, BIBLE, OR BOTH?

Fundamentalists and Evangelicals say that the Bible is the sole rule of faith. Everything one needs to believe to be saved is in the Bible, and nothing needs to be added to the Bible. The whole of Christian truth is found within its pages. Anything extraneous to the Bible is simply wrong or hinders rather than helps one toward salvation.

Catholics, on the other hand, say the Bible is not the sole rule of faith and that nothing in the Bible suggest it was meant to be. In fact, the Bible indicates it is not to be taken by itself. The true rule of faith is Scripture plus Tradition, as manifested in the living teaching authority of the Catholic Church, to which were entrusted the oral teachings of Jesus and the apostles plus the authority to interpret Scripture rightly.

In Dei Verbum, Vatican II explained the relationship between Tradition and Scripture this way: "Hence there exist a close connection and communication between sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the Divine Spirit. To the successors of the apostles, Sacred Tradition hands on in its full purity God's word, which was entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit.

"Thus, by the light of the Spirit of truth, these successors can in their preaching preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same devotion and reverence."

The "Bible Christian" side usually begins its argument by citing two verses. The first is this: "so much as been written down, that you may learn to believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and so believing find life through his name" (John 20:31). The other is this: "Everything in the scripture has been divinely inspired, and it has its uses; to instruct us, to expose our errors, to correct our faults, to educate in holy living" (2 Tim. 3:15). These verses demonstrate the reality of sola scriptura(only scripture), say "Bible Christians."

Not so, reply Catholics. The verse from John's Gospel tells us only that the Bible was composed so we can be helped to believe Jesus is the Messiah. It does not say the Bible is all we need for salvation, nor does it even say the Bible is actually needed to believe in Christ.

After all, the earliest Christians had no New Testament to appeal to; they learned from oral, not written, instruction. Until relatively recent times, the Bible was inaccessible to most people, either because they could not read or because printing had not yet been invented. All these people learned from moral instruction, passed down, generation to generation, by the Church.

Much the same can be said about 2 Timothy 3:15. To say that all inspired writing "has its uses" is one thing; to say that such a remark means that only inspired writing need be followed is something else. Besides, there is a telling argument against claims of "Bible Christians." It is the contradiction that arises out of their own interpretation of this verse. John Henry Newman explained it in an essay, written in 1884, titled Inspiration in its Relation to Revelation.

Newman's argument

He said:

"It is quite evident that this passage furnishes no argument whatever that the Sacred Scripture, without Tradition, is the sole rule of faith; for, although Sacred Scripture is profitable for these four ends, still it is not said to be sufficient. The Apostle requires the aid of Tradition (2 Thess. 2:15). Moreover, the apostle here refers to the Scriptures which Timothy was taught in his infancy.

"Now, a good part of the New Testament was not written in his boyhood: some of the Catholic Epistles were not written even when Paul wrote this, and none of the Books of the new Testament were then placed on the canon of the Scripture books. He refers, then, to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and if the argument from this passage proved anything, it would prove too much, viz., that the Scriptures of the New Testament were not necessary for a rule of faith."

The Bible actually denies that it is the complete rule of faith. John tells us that not everything concerning Christ's work is in Scripture (John 21:25), and Paul says that much Christian teaching is to be found in the tradition which is handed down by word of mouth (2 Tim. 2:2). He instructs us to "stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle" (2 Thess. 2:15).

We are told that the first Christians "were persevering in the doctrine of the apostle" (Acts 2: 42), which was the oral teaching that was given long before the New Testament was written-and centuries before the canon of the New Testament was settled.

This oral teaching was accepted by Christians as they accepted the written teaching that at length came to them. "He who listens to you, listens to me; he who despises you, despises me" (Luke 10:16). The Church, in the persons of the apostles, was given the authority to teach by Christ; the Church would be his stand-in. "Go, therefore, making disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19).

And how was this to be done? By preaching, by oral instruction: "See how faith comes from hearing, and hearing through Christ's word" (Rom. 10:17). The Church would always be available as the living teacher. It is a mistake to limit "Christ's word" to the written word only or to suggest that all his teachings were reduced to writing. The Bible nowhere supports either notion.

The Promise

The oral teaching would last until the end of time. "But the word of the Lord lasts forever. And this word is nothing other than the Gospel which has been preached to you" (1 Pet. 1:25). Note that the word has been "preached"-that is, it was oral. This would endure. It would not be supplanted by a written record like the Bible(supplemented, yes, but not supplanted), but would continue to have its own authority.

In this discussion it is important to keep in mind what the Catholic Church means by Tradition. The term does not mean legends or mythological accounts, nor does it mean transitory customs or practices which may come and go, as circumstances warrant, such as styles of priestly dress, particular forms of devotion to saints, or even liturgical rubrics. Tradition means the teachings and teaching authority of Jesus and, derivatively, the apostles.

These have been handed down and entrusted to the Church(which means to its official teachers, the bishops in union with the pope). It is necessary that Christians believe in and follow this Tradition as well as the Bible (Luke 10:16).

The truth of the faith has been given primarily to the leaders of the Church (Eph. 3:5), who, with Christ, form the foundation of the Church (Eph. 2:20). The Church has been guided by the Holy Spirit, who protects this teaching from corruption (John 14:16).

Handing on the Faith

Paul illustrated what Tradition is: "The chief message I handed on to you, as it was handed on to me, was that Christ, as the scriptures foretold, died for our sins...That is our preaching, mine or theirs as you will; that is the faith that has come to you" (1 Cor. 15: 3,11). He said also, to Timothy, who was a bishop, "You have learned, from many who can witness to it, the doctrine which I hand down; give it into the keeping of men you can trust, men who will know how to teach it to others besides themselves" (2 Tim. 2:2).

In other words, Timothy, one of the successors to the apostles, was to teach what he had learned from his predecessor, Paul. The apostle praised those who followed Tradition: "I must praise you for your constant memory of me, for upholding your traditions just as I handed them on to you" (1 Cor. 11:2).

The first Christians "occupied themselves continually with the apostles' teaching" (Acts 2:42) long before there was a New Testament. The fullness of Christian teaching was found, right from the first, in the Church as the living embodiment of Christ, not in a book. The teaching Church, with its oral traditions, was authoritative. Paul himself gives a quotation from Jesus that was handed down orally to him: "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35).

This saying is not found in the Gospels and must have been passed on to Paul. Indeed, even the Gospels themselves are oral Tradition which has been written down (Luke 1:1-4). What's more, Paul does not quote Jesus only. He also quotes from early Christian hymns, as in Eph. 5:14. These and other things have been given to Christians "by the command of the Lord Jesus" (1 Thess. 4:2).

Fundamentalist say Jesus condemned tradition. They note that Jesus said, "Why is it that you yourselves violate the commandment of God with your traditions?" (Matt. 15:3). Paul warned, "Take care not to let anyone cheat you with his philosophizings, with empty fantasies drawn from human tradition, from worldly principles; they were never Christ's teaching" (Col. 2:8).

But these verses merely condemn erroneous human traditions, not truths which were handed down orally and entrusted to the Church. These truths are part of what is known as Tradition (with an upper-case T, to distinguish it from lower-case human traditions or customs).

"Commandments of men"

Consider Matthew 15: 6-9, which fundamentalists and Evangelicals often bring up: "So by these traditions of yours you have made God's laws ineffectual. You hypocrites, it was a true prophecy that Isaiah made of you, when he said, This people does me honor with its lips, but its heart is far from me. Their worship is in vain, for the doctrines they teach are the commandments of men." At first glance, this seems to undercut the Catholic position, but look at the context.

Jesus was not here condemning all traditions. He condemned only those that made God's word void. In this case, it was a matter of the pharisees making a pretended dedication of their goods to the Temple so they could avoid using them to support their aged parents.

By doing this, they dodged the commandment to "Honor your father and your mother" (Ex. 20:12).

Elsewhere, Jesus instructed his followers to abide by traditions that are not contrary to God's commandments. "The scribes and the Pharisees, he said, have established themselves in the place from which Moses used to teach; do what they tell you, then, continue to observe what they tell you, but do not imitate their actions, for they tell you one thing and do another" (Matt. 23: 2-3).

The indefectible Church

The big problem, no doubt, is determining what constitutes authentic Tradition. How do we know what has been handed down

by the Catholic Church is correct doctrine and practice? We know it is correct because Christ promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church (Matt. 16:18). The Church would be indefectible; its official teaching would be infallible. To it, through Peter, Christ gave his own teaching authority (Matt. 16:19, matt. 28: 18-20).

"But the Bible itself says it is the sole rule of faith!" insist many. They quote John 5:39, in which it is said, "search the Scriptures," but they don't take the phrase in context. They imagine it to be a command to the reader. "Get your Bible and verify that all Christian truths can be discovered in the plain sense of the text."

But that isn't what Jesus was saying. He was rebuking disbelieving Jews, not claiming that the Bible is the sole rule of faith. Jesus was pointing out to the Pharisees that the messianic prophecies were fulfilled in him. "If you read Scripture, you can verify this for yourselves!" He was referring to a single theme. This verse can't be stretched to mean that all religious truth can be found on the surface of the Bible.

Fundamentalists also refer to Acts 17:11, which refers to the Bereans, who "welcomed the word with all eagerness, and examined the scriptures, day after day, to find out whether all this was true." Again, here is verse taken out of context. What really happened is that these people had first been taught Christianity orally and now check to see if its claims matched the Old Testament prophecies.

The verse does not at all mean one uses the Bible as a check-list for all Christian doctrines. (If it meant that, there would be, again, the problem Newman brought up, that the Old Testament alone would be sufficient as a rule of faith, the New Testament unnecessary.)

What fundamentalists and Evangelicals often do, unfortunately, is see the word "tradition" in Matthew 15: 3 or Colossians 2:8 or elsewhere and conclude that anything termed a "tradition" is to be rejected. They forget that the term is used in a different sense, as in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, to describe what should be believed. Jesus did not condemn all traditions; he condemned only erroneous traditions, whether doctrines or practices, that undercut Christian truths. The rest, as the apostles taught, were to be adhered to.

(The above Theological writing comes from Catholic Answers Post Office Box 17490, San Diego, California 92177)

COMMENTARY:

Matthew 16:15-19 : "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

In this scripture Jesus is establishing Peter as the first Pope of the Catholic Church. Since Peter there has been a continuous succession of Popes throughout the centuries, Pope John Paul II being the current Pope in 1998. The Catholic Church has been in existence since the time of Peter. It was not until the 15th Century that any of the Protestant Denominations came into existence. Obviously Jesus delegated power to the Popes to be the head of His Church on this Earth.

The Bible says that Jesus did and said many things that are not recorded in the Scriptures: "There were many other things that Jesus did; if all were written down, the world itself, I suppose, would not hold all the books that would have to be written." (John 21: 25) This verse tells us that there are truths and knowledge revealed by Christ that are not present in the Scripture, so to say the Bible is the only source of truth from God to men is an error.

IN DEFENSE OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH: see The Bigot Box at: http://members.tripod.com/~frjoe/

Biblical Evidence For Catholicism-If you have questions concerning Mary, the Papacy, Purgatory and other aspects of Catholicism, this is a good site to visit. Thorough documentation on the Catholic Faith:

http://ic.net/~erasmus/erasmus.htm