Apostolic Apologetics: What is Sacred Tradition Catholics believe in the Bible as the word of God. We believe that the Bible is a gift granted by God to the Church to be treasured and used. The answers to the most basic questions in life may be found in the Bible. But many other questions are not answered in the Bible. Catholics believe that answers to these questions may be found in the sacred Tradition of the Church, for we know that God reveals truth through sacred Tradition as well as through scripture. Here we may be challenged by those who contend that Christians must believe only what is in the Bible. However, this contention contradicts the Bible itself, for scripture offers a great deal of evidence for the existence of sacred Tradition. John's Gospel closes with the statement: "But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written" (Jn 21:25). Clearly, the Bible does not contain all of God's revealed truth. Scripture acknowledges the existence of traditions handed down by oral teaching as well as by the Bible. Saint Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: "...stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter" (2 Thess 2:15). Jesus promised to continue speaking through his disciples, "Whoever listens to you listens to me" (Lk 10:16). After the Resurrection, the apostles preached God's word and appointed others to teach after them. The New Testament reports this mandate of Paul to Timothy: "And what you heard from me through many witnesses entrust to the faithful people who will be able to teach others as well" (2 Tim 2:2). Sacred Tradition is Christ teaching the world through the Church's leaders he guides and directs. Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to lead the Church to the truth: "When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth" (Jn 16:13). Such guidance is necessary if we are to apply biblical principals to modern problems. If asked, "What is the pillar and bulwark of the truth?" people who deny sacred Tradition would reply, "The Bible of course." But that is not what the Bible says! The Bible declares that the Church is the "pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15) The Church of course, came before the Bible, and this proves that there is divine revelation not found in the Bible. The first Christians had no New Testament. If all teaching had to be drawn from scripture, the early Church would have had little to teach to say the least. Further, Church councils made the decisions about which books should be accepted into the Bible. Without sacred tradition there would have been no way to determine which books belonged in the Bible and which did not. Without sacred tradition, there would be no Bible. History has provided another proof of the need for sacred tradition. One of the principals taught by those who broke away from the Church in the sixteenth century was "Scripture alone." This is the notion that God reveals the truth to each individual without the need for sacred Tradition or a Church to interpret and clarify what the Bible says. But history has shown that this cannot be the way God acts, for it has resulted in the formation of thousands of denominations, each with it's own version of the truth. If God guided each individual to the truth, everyone would believe the same thing. Jesus did not promise that each person could find the truth without recourse to the Church. Instead, Jesus established a Church and promised that the gates of Hell (Hades) would not prevail against it (Mt 16). Catholics today believe what the first Christians believed about the Eucharist and other essential doctrines. This is because they are guided by God's revelation in sacred Tradition, by Christ's Church, rather than by the whims of some individual or by the changing currents of a passing world. Finally, there is no passage in the Bible which says the Bible is the only source for divine revelation. Therefore, anyone who claims we must believe what we find in the Bible is asking us to believe something that is not in the Bible! Sacred tradition and the Bible are not in opposition. Most dogmas of our faith can be found explicitly in the Bible. All our Catholic beliefs are in harmony with the Bible. (See "We Believe..." A Survey of the Catholic Faith by Oscar Lukefahr, C.M., Ligouri Publications 1990, 1995) Some, like the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary, are taught implicitly in the Bible and are revealed more clearly by God to the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We Catholics, then, depend both on the Bible, and on sacred tradition. We do this on the authority of the Bible itself. (Credit: Lukefahr: A Catholic guide to the Bible) |
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What is Sacred Tradition? |