Why Does The Catholic Church Accept Traditions? [Ecumenical]

Black Cordelias ^ | August 10, 2008 | bfhu

[NYer]

Q. Tradition is condemned in the Bible so why does the Cathlic Church base some of its doctrines on it?

A. Some people think the verses below condemn tradition and therefore, the Catholic Church.

Matthew 15:3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?

Mark 7: 9 And he said to them: “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe[a] your own traditions!

Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

However, in scripture there are two types of tradition–human and apostolic. Some human traditions are bad because they oppose the true faith. Jesus condemns human tradition that negates the commandments of God and St. Paul warns the Colossians about deceptive philosophy based upon human tradition.

But, then in the verses below we see St. Paul commending and exhorting his readers to hold firmly to the traditions that he had taught them.

1 Corinthians 11:2 I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you.

2 Thessalonians 2:15 So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.

2 Thessalonians 3:6 Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us.

The Catholic Church follows St. Paul and continues to hold to and teach the Tradition received from the apostles.

To clarify: In the Catholic Church what is meant by Tradition with a capital “T” or when we speak about the authority of scripture and Tradition it is nothing less than the Teaching of the Apostles. This is the Faith as taught and handed down from the apostles of Jesus Christ. It does not refer to anything less. Scared Scripture itself is Apostolic Tradition. The New Testament contains the Teaching of the Apostles or Tradition .

The Canon of Scripture is also a Tradition since none of the sacred authors were inspired to write a Table of Contents for the Bible.

[Radix]

I did not condemn the Catholic Church at all. Nor would I.

I simply posted a Biblical verse that demonstrated (in my view) that an assertion was foolishly posted.

[magisterium]

Well, I don't claim to know Hebrew, but I do know that Fr. Pacwa, Fr. Most, and at least a few others conversant with Biblical Hebrew that I've run across over the years all say that Hebrew was rather restricted (compared with ancient Greek, at least) in terms of expressing much range in description, quantification, abstraction and the like. To some extent, this could be made-up for in many cases by the use of hyperbole or other forms of exaggeration.

[Truth Defender]

I hope the overly long answer gave you what you were looking for.

Not really. I've read the book you recommended a long time ago. At that time all it did was raise questions in my mind that it didn't answer.

One example of a Big "T" only belief is the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. We know from Scripture, that it could happen (see Enoch and Elijah for examples), therefore, it is not offensive to Scripture. But we know from Tradition that it did happen. (If you think about it, it couldn't, in fact, be contained in Scripture, as the historical accounts of the apostles closed out prior to the death of the Blessed Virgin. In fact, historical accounts of the apostles, at large, really closed out just after the Council of Jerusalem, when Mary would have been only in her mid forties to early fifties, hardly in her ancient of days. The remainder of the Acts of the Apostles was really just a narrative of +Paul's evangelistic journeys)

Hmm...the problem with the above example is that there are no records mentioning that dogma in the early writings of Christianity. What is found is hundreds of years later, which were based on mere speculation. I, for one, could not accept that dogma of the assumption of Mary into heaven because of its late arrival in the history of the churches of Christianity.

How about any recorded words passed down by the Apostles before they died that are not recorded in the scriptures? Do you know of any? I can't find any mention of a single one.

[Flo Nightengale]

Thanks. I have a soft spot for Methodist ministers myself, since both my Granddad and Grt. Granddad were among the finest ones I ever knew.

[markomalley]

How about any recorded words passed down by the Apostles before they died that are not recorded in the scriptures? Do you know of any? I can't find any mention of a single one.

From Post #33:

Thanks be to God, the majority of the apostles' teaching is captured in Sacred Scripture. Thanks be to God, the majority of that which is not explicitly captured is supported by Scripture. Thanks be to God, the minority that is not caputured or supported in at least in harmony with the Scriptures. So that 2,000 years after it happened, I can go back and look for myself and see.

I could refer you to the Didache, the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, the epistles of Ignatius, and so on. The Didache is, in fact, subtitled, The Lord's Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations. With its early date (the first or, at latest early second century), I can believe that it was literally oral teaching handed down from the apostles and captured into writing. But do I have a source that said "Peter said this, but it didn't make it into the Bible," "John said this, but it wasn't contained in the canon," or whatever? No, I know of no such list. Frankly, if somebody did identify such a list, I would be very suspicious of it.