I often have an overzealous detachment from tangible objects. Whether they are books, children’s toys, décor, or clothes, I find myself almost instinctively letting go of any item that seems to have run its useful course.
It should be no surprise, then, that when my husband discovered an old, rusty, hog-killing butcher knife that had belonged to his grandparents and attempted to display it in our kitchen, I stopped him in his tracks, saying, “Nope. Don’t even think about it.”
While my husband’s grandparents may have lived in a farmhouse in rural Alabama and apparently killed a hog or two, my husband and I live in the suburbs and kill nothing more than the pesky fire ants that attack our lawn each summer. So for me, an outsider to the hog-killing world, it represented nothing more than a Tetanus shot waiting to happen.
Rarely one to back down too quickly my husband immediately dialed his father, put him on speaker, and asked him to relay to us the knife’s history. I listened squeamishly as my father-in-law slipped into a series of first-hand accounts about his family’s hog-killing traditions in the winter months of Alexander City, Alabama, and described some of fascinating characters who worked at his family’s farm.
Much to my surprise, my father-in-law’s ability to relay these stories provided the credibility and context I needed to no longer view the knife with a rusty handle and dull blade as useless but rather view it as a valuable family heirloom. And in doing so, the knife was preserved from a premature expulsion from our home.
There’s a dynamic between tradition, the process by which information is orally handed down through generations, and the preservation of what is considered good within a family. Whether it is a family’s cherished heirloom or a family’s fundamental values, it is often through tradition that subsequent generations come to appreciate what is truly worthwhile and consequently choose to keep them intact.
There’s a similar dynamic at work in the family of believers within the Catholic faith. In general, the Catholic Church teaches that the Gospel, the full deposit of faith, is handed down through the church’s magisterium in two ways: in writing through Sacred Scripture and orally through Sacred Tradition.
Specifically, the church teaches that Sacred Tradition has been transmitted “by the apostles who handed on, by the spoken word of their preaching, by the example they gave, by the institutions they established, what they themselves had received – whether from the lips of Christ, from his way of life and his works, or whether they had learned it at the prompting of the Holy Spirit” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 76).
Given the role tradition plays in the preservation of one’s family history, it seems logical that Sacred Tradition would likewise be an essential tool in preserving the fundamental doctrines and teachings of Jesus Christ.
Not all Christian believers would agree. Many Protestants dispute the usefulness of Sacred Tradition, relying instead upon sola scriptura, or Sacred Scripture alone, for understanding the teachings that pertain to salvation. In reality and application sola scriptura falls short.
Perhaps one of the best explanations and defenses of Sacred Tradition is set out in a 1996 article, “Sola Scriptura: A Blueprint for Anarchy,” by Catholic author and apologist Patrick Madrid. In his article, Madrid provides a series of arguments to explain how notions of sola scriptura are “unhistorical, unbiblical, and unworkable.” He proffers direct quotes from the early Church fathers like Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine, and Basil of Caesarea, recognizing the importance of Sacred Tradition in church teaching. He even turns the doctrine of sola scripture on its head, recognizing that if it were true, it would presumably be supported by the scripture upon which it relies. Yet it is not.
On the other hand, Madrid points out that use of Sacred Tradition is actually referenced in scriptural passages such as 2 John 12 and 3 John 13. He further notes that the actual canonization of the 27 books of the New Testament—canonized by the Catholic Church in 393 AD at the Council of Hippo—was only made possible by enlisting the Sacred Tradition and decision-making authority of the Catholic Church.
Most notable in Madrid’s argument, however, is the problem that we as a church family are left with when Sacred Scripture’s teaching on core doctrine, including issues such as the nature of the Trinity or infant baptism, are read without reference to Sacred Tradition. As Madrid concludes:
Scripture alone—Scripture forced to stand apart from the infallible teaching magisterium that has been given Christ’s own authority to accurately interpret Scripture, and Sacred Tradition, which is the Church’s living interpretation of those written words –is unstable and leads to the myriad of conflicting, erroneous, and sometimes spiritually fatal “human traditions” (c.f. Matt. 15:3-9; Mark 7:6-7) that lead people away from Christ.
In other words, the failure to consider Sacred Tradition in understanding and clarifying Sacred Scripture, in application, opens Sacred Scripture to potential reinterpretation or even attack. Relying upon Sacred Tradition, on the other hand, allows our church family to best illuminate and share the fullness of our faith. And because we live in a culture all too willing to dismiss or degrade the Truths found of biblical texts, it might be our best remedy for preserving the faith, and all that is good, for future generations.
Copyright © 2013, Krissie Allen
Krissie Allen
Krissie Kubiszyn Allen is an attorney, teacher, and Catholic mother of four living in Birmingham, Alabama, where she enjoys writing poetry, short stories and essays. Visit her also at her website, Choosing God.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.