BUT! It doesn't really cover the fact that Scripture, precious and irreplaceable though it is, is not in itself the source of salvation, nor even necessary for salvation, as is evident in the case of the book-less, the illiterate and those not mentally competent to read. Their salvation is provided, no doubt, by Christ, per the truths found in Scripture (and again, Christ says "I am the Truth") but not by a book or collection of books, or an approved canon or anything of that sort.
[Now at this point I am afraid of being misunderstood as devaluing Scripture, making it seem on a level with any-old-thing-you-want, and that's not what I'm saying. We need Christ, and "Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ," as Jerome says. But rather than saying Scripture is "complete," "sufficient," "all you need," et. let us say Christ is complete, sufficient, and all you need.]
Back to those three categories of people,the book-less, or illiterate, or mentally limited: taken together, they have always been the majority until very recently, and in many nations are still the majority. Mot earlyChristians had no Scripture, and that's a fac. They heard the Scriuptures read at Liturgy on Sunday (a good definition of Scripture is "what's read at Liturgy": these are, inherently. liturgical books) and hey heard the preaching and thy received the Sacraments and they imitated the vituous lives of pople like Paul Priscilla & Aquila, etc and thus the truths of the Faith were transmitted to them. The "all nations" which the Apostles were to teach and baptize, were and long remained without texts in 99% of their waiting hands.
But look at the individual Scripture-less person: he needs to be reached by those teachings of the Apostles which can be handed down or reached-across to him. And that handing-down, hat reaching-across, is, precisely, Tradition.
It is not, precisely, Scripture. It's the truths which can be found in or derived from or reasonable inferred from Scripture no doubt, but it's not Scripture per se. To use a term you yourself relied upon, it's that which is God-breathed. And God doesnt just breathe texts.
Nothing in Tradition can contradict, much less abrogate, Scripture, but it can deliver those same truths, with clarification, with varied styles of repetition, with amplification, with unfoldings which reveal more depth, more detail, more specific application --- and all of this from the Holy Spirit, who is the font of bothScripture and Tradition.
OK, here's how I want to say it: God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth". That of course includes those who are, and will always be, Scripture-less; it also includes those who, possessing Scriptures, still by God's will and the working of the Holy Spirit need the Church's doctrine, life and worship, all of which are handed down in speech, song, ways of prayer, ways of obedience, morals and manners, and practice, all under the "breath" of the same Spirit who breathed those God-breathed books.
Scripture is THAT PART of the Apostles' preaching and teaching which was committed to writing before the death of the last Apostle. It is a closed canon: public revelation, in that sense, is closed.
So in these ways --- Scripture and Tradition --- Christ must be proclaimed to all nations and individuals, so that this revelation may reach to the ends of the earth.
This living transmission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition, since it is distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely connected to it. All this is part of the Father's self-communication, since what He communicates to us is Christ, and the Church is --- we are --- the Body of Christ, and Christ teaches us through the Chuch.
Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For God has utterd, really, only one Word, and that Word is Our Lord Jesus Christ.
“nor even necessary for salvation, as is evident in the case of the book-less, the illiterate and those not mentally competent to read.”
I have a very dear friend who is a Rabbi. Probably the smartest man I know. I asked him once why the Torah was basically the first 5 books of the Bible. His response was *Most people can memorize that much, even if they can’t read.”
Or think of the Passion plays or the Nativity. Gets the story across in a memorable form to people who don’t have books or can’t read. Just another example of the Lord speaking in the most appropriate way to the listeners.
The contention of Sola Scriptura is not that Scripture is the source of salvation. The belief simply states that everything one needs to believe and practice to be acceptable to God is contained in Scripture.
That does not preclude reaching out to the illiterate with the Gospel in a wide variety of communication modes. But the Gospel so communicated must be grounded in Scripture, because that is what God has given us as the rule of faith and practice. Not that it is a substitute for Christ, but that it is the first and only essential point of reference for determining truth about Christ and the salvation He offers. Everything else is optional at best, and that which contradicts Scripture is to be rejected, on which point we theoretically agree.
But there is a problem with that theory. As a master of logical realty, you cannot have two supreme authorities. As Christ said, two masters doesn’t work. You end up skewing to the one or the other. As I understand your argument, you propose to solve this by making the bare assertion that your particular body of tradition is really the voice of the same God, therefore equally authoritative. I trust you realize that an equivalent assertion is made by Mormons, Islamicists, and every other group that didn’t manage to get their tradition into the Scriptural canon.
This creates a real dilemma for those who wish to know and believe only God’s truth. How do we evaluate these competing claims? What is the starting point? If I start with claims of historical continuity, to which you have alluded, then I have placed noncanonical history above Scripture. If I simply inquire of my own intuition, I have placed my noncanonical intuition above the written word of God. If I use tradition to validate tradition, I am wasting my effort, because circular reasoning doesn’t ever go anywhere but in that nasty old circle.
So you see the problem. There must be a resolution to the puzzle of where to start. Sola Scriptura resolves this by looking first to Scripture. Again, this does not preclude the value of teachers and evangelists. We all have a role in the body of Christ. But if some teacher comes along centuries later declaring we must believe in Aquinian transubstatiation via Aristotle, or we must believe in the annunciation of Mary, else we are anathematized, then we have a reference point we can go back to and say wait just a minute, that’s not required Christian belief, nor is it even correct, and then we can recite reasons for this from Scripture.
In other words, choosing Scripture as the primary means of determining divine truth puts us in the position to discern error. And we need not add additional authorities for that specific purpose. If I want to know chemistry or modern European history, I will look to authorities in that field, and to the extent they do not conflict with Scripture, they can be good and useful resources. If I want to preach the true Gospel to the illiterate, I had better be sure what I preach is soundly grounded in God’s written revelation of that Gospel. As the psalmist said (and I paraphrase) Lord, keep me from straying either to the right or to the left. My desire is to keep my feet on the path illumined by His word.
Lunch break is waning.
Peace,
SR
Argh! Droid autocorrect error. “master of logical reality” should be “matter of logical reality.” Yikes. It’s a pain being a fallible human. :)