I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Scripture and how we regard it, especially in relation to tradition. I’m beginning to think I been have following the wrong trail, that our understanding of spirtual things cannot be so divided. I have begun to think that Scripture is tradition — that is, Scripture is best understood as the written traditon of the Apostles. Any thoughts on this? Am I on to something? Or am I a heretic?
Scripture as Tradition
Submitted by 1beggar on 9 May, 2005 - 02:07.
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Tradition starts with "T", and that stands for...
I agree that Scripture is tradition. Who decides which texts are "Scripture"? The church (or churches, which is why there are today more than one different canons). Historically, this was done in response to unorothodox canons being circulated. It was not a top-down process, but more a recognition of what Christians thought of the texts available to them.
This is not incompatible with the working of God’s Spirit. This does not mean that the Spirit did not (or did) control the whole process behind the scenes. But if he did, he did it in a way that is not open to objective scrutiny or verification.
Who says how Scripture was inspired and preserved? Christians. Who preserved the text of Scripture, corrupting and correcting it? Christians.
Unsupported claims that the Protestant Bible as we have it today was inspired by God in manner X and mean Y are not usually convincing to me, and I suspect they are not convincing to the general unchurched population. I am more sympathetic to N. T. Wright’s assessment—that the story I find in the Bible fits the story of the world I have in my head, so I accept it. I have found the Bible to be trustworthy at those times when I’ve tested it. I like what it says. A lot of other people understand it in ways compatible with mine, and have throughout many years. Start adding up a lot of factors like this, and you can see why I consider the Bible to be authoritative.
I constantly appeal to Scripture in my dialogue with others, especially those I consider to be Christians or who claim to be Christians. If they don’t accept the Bible as a credible authority, then our disagreement is much broader than a simple doctrine of inspiration.
The nature of tradition
On the last question, I make no claims. (And I deal with heretics on a routine basis, as if that gave me any authority on the subject.)
As to what I think of the rest, I’m inclined to ask about what’s meant by “tradition.”
A tradition involves perceived continuity (my definition, but Urbanfear posted it after I bounced it off him), but what’s being continued, and what are the media through which they’re continued? (In this sense I’m inclined to disagree on Scripture as a tradition - not in that it isn’t, but in that it’s more than that: a traditional set of practices, the words, through which we try to maintain a traditional praxis as expressed through the meaning.)
Of course this could just be me overintellectualizing.