Navigating Tradition

Last updated on: December 30, 2014 at 7:08 pm by Mark Shea

Navigating Tradition 2014-12-30T19:08:20-07:00 Mark Shea

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A reader asks:

Wondering if you had any recommendations for books on Tradition- particularly on how it is to be used and interpreted. I understand that Tradition is like the Democracy of the Dead, in that our ancestors in the faith offer us guidance, and can occasionally vouchsafe a proposed dogma. This makes total sense to me- I’ve never had a problem with it.

But every now and then I come across arguments, mostly on Trad or Trad leaning blogs, wherein the subject will be something like, say, the interpretation of the Old Testament in relation to the stories of massacre and violence. Whereas person A will say something like- “B16 says it would be better to interpret these passages non-literally”- the Trad guy will whip out a few quotes from the Church Fathers who interpreted it as literal truth, with a comment to the effect of “Are you smarter than the Church Fathers?”. This is also used, frustratingly, when person A wishes to make the point that certain books were not intended to be read literally, and again early authorities are pressed into service by the Trad in order to shout down his opponent, scholarship be damned.
Of course the same authority can be given to statements of anti-semitism, or misogyny, both of which can be found in even the greatest of historic Catholic personalities. So how do we sort out the good from the bad?
How does the authority of our forefathers work? is basically the question I’m asking.

Three resources I would recommend are:

Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine by Bl. John Henry Newman

Tradition and Traditions by Yves Congar

The Catechism

The first two discuss how our understanding of Tradition develops over time. The latter, of course, lays out what the actual Magisterium (as distinct from self-appointed combox bishops with some personal obsession over geocentrism, or a favorite war, or their pelvic needs, or whatnot) has to say about that tradition and how to apply it to our lives.

The simplicities of combox arguments are an extremely bad place to learn to navigate the Tradition. For example, it is simplistic in the extreme to say either that Benedict would simply reject the literal sense of the OT and allegorize the whole thing away. Likewise, it is simplistic in the extreme to suppose the Fathers would read the whole thing literalistically. If anybody was inclined to allegorical reading of the OT, it was the Fathers. But in fact, the Church has always used all four sense of Scripture when reading the Bible (see my Making Senses out of Scripture, for more info).

Typically, the “Who are you to question the Fathers or medieval theologians?” response is deployed in Trad circles, not to defend the teaching of the Magisterium, but to attack it. (This is distinct from the orthodox Catholic approach, which approaches the Magisterium, not with a hermeneutic of suspicion and contempt, but with the faith of the Church that the Holy Spirit will guide her into all truth as Jesus promised.) Reactionary dissent posits a two Church theory and tends to assume that the Church which allegedly came into existence at Vatican II is a thing alien and opposed to the “real Church” (meaning the fictional “true church” which the reactionary is defending from the Church in union with Benedict and the rest of the Magisterium). But in fact there is only one Church and there always has been. That’s Paul talking, not me. So the magisterial teaching of the Church remains the magisterial teaching of the Church.

Now it’s true that not all (or even most) of the magisterial teaching of the Church is infallible. But then it’s also true that docility to the Church’s teaching requires an infallible doctrine in order to be heeded. We do not live by the motto “That which is not forbidden is compulsory”. So when the Church in her ordinary guidance speaks, our first impulse should be to listen, not to denounce it.

FWIW, I deal at some length with the development of doctrine in Mary, Mother of the Son, taking a look at the very first reactionaries in the history of the Church: the Judaizers (who likewise said, “Are the bishops smarter than our Fathers? Everybody needs to be circumcised!” Precisely the function of the Magisterium is to sort the wheat from the chaff, to tease apart what is essential to the tradition from what is mere convention, or even old sin. Many a traditionalist clings to anti-semitic rubbish or scientific quackery like geocentrism under the mistaken conviction that because something is old, it is therefore part of the Tradition. Exactly what the the Magisterium does (among other things) is help us tell the difference between authentic Tradition and merely human things such as “old sin”.

Learning to navigate the tradition is, like most things Catholic, easier caught then taught, rather like learning to play jazz. The thing to do is immerse yourself in the thought of people who are reliable interpreters of the Tradition. So given a choice between Some Guy with a Keyboard who has decided Benedict is an antichrist for not expounding the sacred doctrine of X in a fundamentalist way and the nuanced, intelligent work of Benedict, I’d opt to read Benedict (who is a luminous thinker and writer). By all means read the Fathers too. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that where the developed Magisterium corrects or contradicts a particular Father or theologian (as, for instance, the developed Magisterium corrects and contradicts St. Thomas on the Immaculate Conception) you are faced with a crisis of faith. All it means is that even Michael Jordan missed layups sometimes.

Hope that helps!

Uncategorized

Previous Post

February 22, 2012

Liars for Anthropogenic Climate Change

Next Post

February 23, 2012 A reader on his way into the Church writes...

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 September 2006 June 2006 July 2005 April 2005 May 2002 April 2002 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz