Traditionism: Are Scripture and Tradition Enough?

Many Christians believe in the necessity of “Scripture and Tradition,” as a twin source of God’s Revelation.

Some Christians take the stronger view of “Traditionism.” This view insists on the sufficiency of “Scripture and Tradition.” It claims that all that Christians need is “Scripture and Tradition alone.”

The existence of two different views of Scripture and Tradition raises a question: which view is preferable?

1. Scripture and Tradition

The joint importance of Scripture and Tradition is shown by the Bible. St. Paul writes about the importance of Scripture AND an oral Tradition (2 Thessalonians 2:15).

Perhaps as pertinently, Scripture alone cannot contain all Revelation, as it does not contain the Revelation telling Christians which books should be in the Bible (see “Scripturism: Is the Bible Enough?”). So, Tradition is necessary to supplement Scripture and provide the missing information.

This means that Scripture provides reasons for thinking that Scripture and Tradition are necessary.

2. The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day

Church history also shows that early Christians assumed the necessity of Scripture and Tradition. We can see this in the way that Sunday worship developed.

Jesus worshipped and rested from labor on the last day of the week. This was the Sabbath (Saturday), which God commanded the Jews to observe (Exodus 20:10).

Despite this, the earliest Christians met on the “first day of the week” (Acts 20:7). This was because Sunday was the Lord’s Day, commemorating Jesus’ resurrection.

There is no Revelation in Scripture telling Christians to change a (Saturday) Sabbath into a (Sunday) Lord’s Day. If God told Christians to do so, then it can only be a Revelation contained in Tradition, not in Scripture.

This “gap” in Scriptural Revelation worries some modern Christians. So some have revived worship on a Seventh Day, Saturday Sabbath.

Other Christians continue worshipping on a Sunday. They point to the practice as evidence of the necessity of Scripture and Tradition, if Christians are to have access to the fullness of God’s Revelation about Sunday worship.

3. Human Customs and Divine Tradition

Tradition can be Revelation when Scripture is silent (see Section 2). Can a practice count as a Tradition of Revelation when it contradicts Scripture?

Jesus dealt with this question when he commented on the law of Korban (Mark 7:11). According to Korban people could give their property as a gift to the Temple, and then avoid their moral responsibilities to support their elderly parents.

Korban was a practice which looked like a Tradition of Revelation, but Jesus rejected that idea. He insisted that it was just a human custom, implying that it should be stopped because it was contradicting Scripture.

Scripture has a primacy. An authentic Tradition of Revelation cannot contradict Scripture’s Revelation. When there is a contradiction, it shows that the practice in question must be just a human custom, not a Divine Tradition.

This suggests that even if Scripture and Tradition are necessary, they can still present a problem of interpretation. People must work out what counts as Tradition, and what is merely human custom.

4. The Septuagint

We can see the complexity of distinguishing human customs and Divine Tradition when we look at the issue of the Greek Septuagint Bible (the Greek translation of the Old Testament).

We know that many of the earliest Christians used the Septuagint Bible because they quote the Old Testament (in the New Testament) from the Greek Septuagint.

As a result, St. Augustine (d. 430) preferred the Greek Septuagint Bible. St. Jerome (d. 420) preferred the Hebrew Bible, insisting that it was the real Revelation. Settling the question in a practical way, the Latin Vulgate of Pope Damasus I (d. 384) preferred the Greek Septuagint for Western (Latin speaking) Christians.

After the Reformation, Protestant Bibles preferred the Hebrew text. Catholic Bibles stayed with the Latin Vulgate until Pope Pius XII encouraged translations from the Hebrew (Divino Afflante Spiritu,1943).

This history of the Septuagint can be viewed as a story of human customs or as a Divine Tradition of Revelation.

The Catholic Church’s approach is nuanced. It views the structure of the Septuagint as a Divine Tradition conveying a Revelation. So Catholic Bibles have the 73 books of the Septuagint. But it views the content of the Septuagint as just a human custom of translation. So Catholics are free to translate from the Hebrew, even when it differs significantly from the Greek.

This shows that ancient elements of Church practice can include Divine Tradition alongside human customs. It also shows that determining what counts as an authentic “Tradition” is complicated, so people cannot simplistically cite “Scripture and Tradition” as if they were alone sufficient to convey clarity about the content of Revelation.

5. Anti-Semitism

It isn’t just Church practices that can include both Divine Tradition and human custom. We can also see this mixing within Scripture itself, as the issue of anti-Semitism shows.

Scripture (New Testament) and Tradition (Christian Fathers) expressed views which are negative of Jews and Judaism. As a result Christian history is ambiguous towards Jews. The Papacy illustrates this, showing occasions of support and protection, as well as instances of the opposite.

The ambiguity of Christian views towards Jews led to Nazis citing Christians as a justification for their own anti-Semitism.

If Scripture and Tradition can be used to justify anti-Semitism, this raises a question about whether those sources are conveying human customs, or a Divine Tradition of Revelation which is teaching that the Jews are cursed.

The murder of six million Jews, during the World War II Holocaust (1941–45), made it clear that this question needed urgent clarification. The Second Vatican Council resolved the matter by declaring that modern Jews cannot be blamed or considered cursed (Nostrae Aetate, 4 [1965]).

This is an unambiguous rejection of anti-Semitism.

It is also a declaration about the interpretation of Scripture and Tradition. Where there are passages of Scripture which can be interpreted anti-Semitically, they are NOT instances of Divine Revelation. They are human perspectives and customs which are carried within Scripture and Tradition, without being taught by Scripture or Tradition.

6. Tradition and Disagreement

Consideration of issues like the Septuagint and anti-Semitism shows that Scripture and Tradition are both complex. They need interpreting to distinguish between the opinion of human custom, and the Revelation of Divine Tradition.

The complexity of distinguishing between human custom and Divine Tradition makes it one of the central questions of theology. It is often the key issue underlying the schisms and separations which divide Christians. We can see this in the last two Vatican Councils.

Following the First Vatican Council (1870) the “Old Catholics” insisted that the declaration of Papal Infallibility was not in accord with Scripture and Tradition, and so they refused to accept it.

Following the Second Vatican Council (1965) groups of Traditionalists insisted that the Council’s teachings on Religious Freedom were not in accord with Scripture and Tradition, so they refused to accept it.

After each Council groups split, citing their own interpretation of Scripture and Tradition to justify a conclusion different to the Vatican’s.

This shows in a practical way that “Scripture and Tradition” are never sufficient to communicate Revelation, otherwise why would groups be in dispute about what Scripture and Tradition’s truth of Revelation is?

7. Everywhere, Always, By All

The fifth-century Commonitory, attributed to Vincent of Lérins (d. 445), claimed that people can work out for themselves what the authentic Revelation of Scripture and Tradition is.

People need only look at which view has been held, “everywhere, always and by all (Christians).” Essentially, it is saying that the criterion of the true Revelation is the “ancient and universal” nature of faith’s interpretation of Scripture and Tradition. In modern parlance this is the criterion of “Catholicity” (universality) and “Apostolicity” (ancientness).

The disputes following the Vatican Councils show that this idea does not work. It just moves the problem back a step, to become a disagreement about which interpretation of Scripture and Tradition is the most universal and ancient.

The problems have been exacerbated further by the concept of a Development of Doctrine. According to that view, some theological views began as implicit “seeds” of ideas. When a current theological claim may have been an ancient implicit “seed” of an idea, it becomes even harder for people to agree upon what counts as being a genuinely ancient and universal idea.

8. The Problem of Traditionism

Traditionism is the claim that Scripture and Tradition are sufficient. It is the view that Christians can access Revelation by looking at Scripture and Tradition alone.

As Scripture and Tradition can contain human customs as well as divine teachings, Scripture and Tradition always present a problem of interpretation.

At one interpretative pole, extreme versions of Liberalism claim that all Christian beliefs and practices are instances of human customs (i.e., not Divine Tradition).

Advocates of extreme Liberalism claim that there are no dogmas or doctrines, and the Church should change its beliefs and practices in each age, as none of its views are a divine teaching of Revelation.

At the other interpretative pole are extreme versions of Traditionalism. This tends to claim that ALL ancient Christian beliefs and practices are instances of Divine Tradition (i.e., not human customs).

Advocates of this extreme tend to insist that nothing can ever be changed. They may even hold the anti-Semitic holocaust denial which bishop Richard Williamson was found guilty of.

Liberalism and Traditionalism can both agree that Scripture and Tradition are fonts of Revelation, and yet they still reach completely different conclusions about what the content of Revelation is.

This disagreement of interpretation potentially renders Revelation into a non-Revelation. This is because the disagreements propose rival interpretations of Revelation, but they leave people none the wiser about what the actual interpretation of Revelation is.

This suggests that appealing to “Scripture and Tradition (alone)” cannot be enough. If Christianity is supposed to convey a Revelation, then Christians always need something else to help them clarify what the content of that Revelation is.

9. Resolving Traditionism’s Problem

People can point at a field and say that there is a pearl buried there. But that doesn’t mean that they have access to the pearl. Unless they get lucky, people will need tools, like a map and a spade to find and retrieve the pearl.

Similarly, Scripture and Tradition might well contain Revelation, but Christians haven’t got access to that Revelation until they have a tool to distinguish between the human customs and Divine Teachings in that combined source.

The Second Vatican Council recognized this problem and clarified its solution. It insisted that there must be a third element: the teaching authority of the Church.

It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church . . . are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls. (Dei Verbum, 10)

Using this third element, Catholics have a “tool” which enables Scripture and Tradition to be interpreted, so that it can be read as containing a specific content of Revelation.

Conclusions

If Christianity is right to claim that there is a divine Revelation, then it raises the question of where that Revelation can be found.

It cannot be in just Scripture (Section 1) and so many Christians believe in the necessity of Scripture and Tradition (Sections 1 and 2).

But there is a problem of distinguishing human customs from Divine Tradition (Section 3). This problem exists in Tradition (Section 4) and in Scripture (Section 5). It leads to disagreements about what the content of Scripture and Tradition’s Revelation is (Section 6).

Without a criterion, or a “tool” (Section 7), it is impossible to find an authentic Revelation amidst the cacophony of divergent interpretations (Section 8).

So, Scripture and Tradition may be necessary, but they cannot be sufficient. Christians always need something more (Section 9), if they are to have a reliable ability to interpret Scripture and Tradition, and thus clarify a specific content of Revelation.