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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The promised non-polemical tradition / Tradition thread
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I'm fulfilling my promise to create a new thread about tradition / Tradition arising from the thread about 'Our Lady's Marriage'.
I'm afraid I can't comply with Mousethief's request to provide some of the juicier quotes, there are too many and I don't have a great deal of time to sift through the thread to filter them out and fetch them hither ...
However, my aim is for us to explore the following issues:
- How tradition differs from Tradition. When does small t become Big T and how that process works?
- Is Tradition 'cut from whole cloth' as Caissa suggests or did it develop organically both in response to, and indeed informing, the written record ie. the Christian scriptures.
There will be other aspects, no doubt.
What I want to avoid though are side-swipes at any small t or Big T Tradition along the lines of:
'Those nasty evangelicals, they have abandoned Tradition but don't realise that they are themselves a Tradition ...'
Or
'Those nasty, wicked Catholics, they've invented all this stuff in order to bamboozle everyone ...'
Those caveats marked, shall we proceed?
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
If anyone who wasn't involved in the "Our Lady's marriage" thread wants to see the context of how we got to be discussing Tradition vs tradition, it sort-of started here and the continued via a discussion with Mousethief and others.
I do feel that we've been talking at cross-purposes to an extent, and I'm not entirely happy with the "Tradition vs tradition" dichotomy that I've introduced. I'm not sure that is the best term or way to describe what I was trying to describe, but I lack the language to talk about it in any other way.
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arse
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
- How tradition differs from Tradition. When does small t become Big T and how that process works?
Once again acknowledging my lack of vocabulary, with reference to Evangelicalism in contrast to the RCC/Orthodox, my position is that whilst Evangelicalism is a developing tradition it can't ever be a Tradition.
My reasoning is this: prior to the Reformation, Christianity was understood to be a thing which had developed over thousands of years as the "one true Catholic and Apostolic church"* and that one could simply be understood to be within or outwith of the faith by reference to ones status in relation to the central instituions of the faith.
Protestantism stood that understand on its head. By advocating for the primacy of the individual and one's relation to the deity, the Reformation was snubbing a nose at the Tradition and was saying that God dealt directly with the individual.
As Protestantism developed and a distinct understanding of Evangelicalism emerged, this went several steps further. Not only does God deal with humans directly, it was asserted, humans could come to know God for themselves by reading the biblical texts in the vernacular outwith of the dogmas and Traditional interpretations of the church (or The Church or Holy Apostolic Church) and those who held that they were the rightful owners of those terms.
Clearly in one sense the Evangelicals had created a form of tradition, but it was a free-flowing tradition with no central authority, where the emphasis was on the biblical text and having it speak to the individual in the present rather than understanding it within a structure of historical contexts and beliefs.
Of course, as Mousethief has pointed out, this is (at least partly) a nonsense. Evangelicals believe in the Trinity because it is a doctrine has been handed down via long established Tradition to them. But the difference, I'm arguing, is that the Evangelical could pick-and-choose between the available doctrines and was not in any sense bound to believe in anything simply because of who believed it before.
I'm going to stop there, that's my first sortie on this subject.
*though obviously this is an over-simplification given the early divisions between Roman Catholic and Orthodox and the various early splits thereof
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arse
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hatless
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# 3365
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Posted
I think that the big danger with tradition is not realising you have one. So non-conformists and evangelicals may appear to think that all they have is the Bible, and genuinely fail to notice not only that they have a whole world view's worth of tradition alongside it, but that they read the Bible (when they actually do) through the very tiny spectacles of their tradition.
Recently, in all the stuff around sexuality, the Baptist Union of Great Britain issued a document saying that we Baptists affirm and believe in the biblical understanding of marriage. That has to mean, absolutely must mean, the traditional Baptist understanding of marriage, because ten seconds thought is more than enough to realise that there is no biblical view of marriage. Those who wrote and read that document, though, had no difficulty in understanding what it meant. I understand it. But we understand it because of the traditional views we have so deeply imbibed without realising. It makes no sense except that using the word biblical is how we refer to our tradition.
To make tradition a thing, Tradition, perhaps teach it to student clergy, have people write books about it, talk theologically about its status and say that it has authority and that it is to be believed - this runs the risk of making people credulous, and being seen to be credulous, which is not helpful, but it's a lesser fault than thinking you have no tradition when in fact you do.
You know that idea about how fish swim in water without being aware that they do? My lot have no word for water, but still we swim.
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My crazy theology in novel form
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I think that the big danger with tradition is not realising you have one. So non-conformists and evangelicals may appear to think that all they have is the Bible, and genuinely fail to notice not only that they have a whole world view's worth of tradition alongside it, but that they read the Bible (when they actually do) through the very tiny spectacles of their tradition.
This is certainly true. It doesn't take very long for a mindset to develop which means that those who spend time within those groups develop thought processes in certain directions.
But I'd argue that those are not specifically Evangelical mindsets and one can easily find quite different fixed mindsets and traditions even within otherwise similar Evangelical groups. Although having said that.. see below
quote:
Recently, in all the stuff around sexuality, the Baptist Union of Great Britain issued a document saying that we Baptists affirm and believe in the biblical understanding of marriage. That has to mean, absolutely must mean, the traditional Baptist understanding of marriage, because ten seconds thought is more than enough to realise that there is no biblical view of marriage. Those who wrote and read that document, though, had no difficulty in understanding what it meant. I understand it. But we understand it because of the traditional views we have so deeply imbibed without realising. It makes no sense except that using the word biblical is how we refer to our tradition.
Well, I suppose that this can be said to be an "Evangelical tradition" - namely that we think our cultural norms and ideas are overlapping with what is biblical. And that what we think is right (because it is our norm) must therefore be biblical.. even when it fairly obviously isn't.
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arse
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Good start, fellas ...
I lack the vocabulary too, mr cheesy, which is partly why I can be long-winded at times.
I'll wait for a few more contributions and reflect on what you've both written so far before responding further.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
The Bible cannot speak for itself. It is not a coherent work, it is not a contemporary work.
Therefore, if one wishes to have a coherent religion, one must interpret or infer. Or ignore. Every Christian sect does some combination of this, IME.
Some traditions prefer to pretend they do not have "traditions", and this is a part of the problem.
Another part is tribalism.
Unless you are willing to address this, you are merely shouting imprecations at each other.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The Bible cannot speak for itself. It is not a coherent work, it is not a contemporary work.
Well, that's your opinion. Some believe that it does speak for itself because God the Holy Spirit speaks directly from it.
quote:
Unless you are willing to address this, you are merely shouting imprecations at each other.
It is hard for some to address the topic in the way that you insist it must be discussed simply because they don't share your worldview and don't understand the faith in the way that you understand it.
And to be quite honest, it is quite rude to insist that the only way others should discuss things is the way that you insist it must be discussed.
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arse
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hatless
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# 3365
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Posted
How about this?
The Bible belongs to all Christians. We don't have a private relationship with it, it speaks to us through others and within our relationships with each other.
This means we can talk about having a relationship with the Bible, or more poetically, say that it is a book that reads us.
Tradition is, arguably, what we call all the other stuff that speaks to us of God and which no one owns privately but must receive from the community.
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My crazy theology in novel form
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
The scriptures 'belong' to the community too. They were written in the context of community and are interpreted in community.
We cannot isolate or disagregate the scriptures from the community.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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stonespring
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# 15530
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Posted
What I find interesting is that both Judaism and Islam also have their own equivalents of "big-T" Tradition. In Orthodox Judaism it is the Oral Torah, which was given to Moses on Sinai, passed down orally for generations, and finally codified in the Talmud (which itself has been the subject of centuries of legal rulings, not all in agreement with each other, which themselves constitute part of Orthodox Jewish "Tradition"). In Islam there are the hadith and sunnah, or sayings of the Prophet and his companions. Different groupings of Muslims disagree in what they include in the hadith and sunnah, as well as what authority to assign to different parts of them. Although the concept of legal precedent is not as weighty in mainstream Sunni Islam as it is in Orthodox Judaism (partly because there is even less agreement in mainstream Sunni Islam, absent a caliphate, as to what constitutes a central legal authority), within the different schools of Islamic jurisprudence there is scholarly debate informed by centuries of rulings.
Karaite (Torah-only) Judaism, which interestingly enough may have been influenced by the rise of Islam, the more anti-Tradition forms of Protestantism, and some modernizing Muslims who prefer to focus only on the Qur'an (although other progressive Muslims make use of the Hadith and Sunnah in their theology), are unusual within the three major Abrahamic religions (also called revealed or scriptural religions) for their insistence on the exegesis of one revealed text rather than also viewing a more nebulous body of writings (some or all of which was originally passed down orally after the revelation of the Scriptural text) as authoritative in itself, although in differing degrees.
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hatless
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# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The scriptures 'belong' to the community too. They were written in the context of community and are interpreted in community.
We cannot isolate or disagregate the scriptures from the community.
Isn't that what I just said?
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My crazy theology in novel form
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The Bible cannot speak for itself. It is not a coherent work, it is not a contemporary work.
Well, that's your opinion. Some believe that it does speak for itself because God the Holy Spirit speaks directly from it.
I know what some believe, but the evidence against it is nearly overwhelming. If the bible spoke for itself, there wouldna be so many different interpretations. Believing it is generally inspired by God, I've no truck with. But it is not internally consistent, especially not with the God Christians claim to worship.
quote:
quote:
Unless you are willing to address this, you are merely shouting imprecations at each other.
It is hard for some to address the topic in the way that you insist it must be discussed simply because they don't share your worldview and don't understand the faith in the way that you understand it.
It is hard for some, this I'll grant. But this does not make my statement untrue. It might be blunt, but I do not see how the statement is unreasonable.
quote:
And to be quite honest, it is quite rude to insist that the only way others should discuss things is the way that you insist it must be discussed.
All I am asking is that the blinders be set aside. You can all each insist your interpretations are the better ones, but pretending they meet a greater, or consistent, standard isn't accurate.
I put the statement simple, because because I wanted the point as plain as possible. It was not intended to be rude.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The scriptures 'belong' to the community too. They were written in the context of community and are interpreted in community.
We cannot isolate or disagregate the scriptures from the community.
Isn't that what I just said?
Yes, you did. For a moment I thought you were making more of a distinction between scripture and tradition than you had done ... Your point was that both are received band and apprehended in a communal sense and not 'privately owned'.
Agreed.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
obviously this is an over-simplification given the early divisions between Roman Catholic and Orthodox and the various early splits thereof
Well, yes.
Long before the Reformation there existed not only the competing big-T RC and Orthodox Traditions, but also the competing Dyophysite (Chaldean/Assyrian) and Miaphysite (Coptic, Armenian etc) big-T Traditions.
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The scriptures 'belong' to the community too. They were written in the context of community and are interpreted in community.
We cannot isolate or disagregate the scriptures from the community.
Isn't that what I just said?
Yes, you did. For a moment I thought you were making more of a distinction between scripture and tradition than you had done ... Your point was that both are received band and apprehended in a communal sense and not 'privately owned'.
Agreed.
Good.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
What I'm also hoping is that this picks up on lillbuddha's point about scripture not having one voice. It has many authors, and has been read and shaped by different contexts and communities and it always comes to us with the accents and fingerprints of other Christians. To hear scripture is to step into the conversation of multiple communities over many years. This is why we feel that scripture is responsive and alive, that we encounter it rather than just read it.
You can say the same about tradition, and indeed anything that is of God. We encounter God because we are encountering the faith of people. God dwells in allusion, association and vocal polyphony, when we step receptively in, bringing our own depths. Tradition, scripture, worship is the medium for the One who dwells in the people.
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My crazy theology in novel form
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Posted by Lil Buddha:
quote:
The Bible cannot speak for itself. It is not a coherent work...
I always held a hope that scripture could speak for itself and perhaps to some degree or another it still can. However, in reading other sacred texts from other traditions I've found them 'bitty', sometimes lacking coherence, sometimes contradicting themselves and not following any noted pattern. Some traditions have self contained sacred texts that seem to bear no relation to one another and yet form part of their sacred canon. Then I started to realise just how 'bitty' my own sacred text was. I know from tradition that there's the Pentateuch, there's the prophets, the wisdom stuff, the Psalms, the Gospels and the letters; but if I was coming to it without any of this traditional knowledge I'd be looking at an incoherent bunch of seemingly unrelated texts - a book of 'bits'. The thought has struck me before, but it has never hit me so forcefully as recently.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
Isn't the difference that Tradition has the implication of having been miraculously revealed or preserved by God, whereas tradition doesn't?
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Isn't the difference that Tradition has the implication of having been miraculously revealed or preserved by God, whereas tradition doesn't?
Yes, but what does that mean? If you inhabit it, if it comes to you through your community, then it is divinely inspired.
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My crazy theology in novel form
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Posted by Lil Buddha:
quote:
The Bible cannot speak for itself. It is not a coherent work...
I always held a hope that scripture could speak for itself and perhaps to some degree or another it still can. However, in reading other sacred texts from other traditions I've found them 'bitty', sometimes lacking coherence, sometimes contradicting themselves and not following any noted pattern. Some traditions have self contained sacred texts that seem to bear no relation to one another and yet form part of their sacred canon. Then I started to realise just how 'bitty' my own sacred text was. I know from tradition that there's the Pentateuch, there's the prophets, the wisdom stuff, the Psalms, the Gospels and the letters; but if I was coming to it without any of this traditional knowledge I'd be looking at an incoherent bunch of seemingly unrelated texts - a book of 'bits'. The thought has struck me before, but it has never hit me so forcefully as recently.
I work in a mental healthcare hospital. Patients often ask for bibles, and I hand them out, but increasingly worry that this is inappropriate. The chances of getting something of value out of the Bible is remote. You really need to hear it read through the year, listen to sermons and study it in group, or at the very least reflect on well-chosen passages with a guide.
Fortunately most patients just want to have one for its symbolic value, like they do with 'rosemaries'.
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My crazy theology in novel form
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Isn't the difference that Tradition has the implication of having been miraculously revealed or preserved by God, whereas tradition doesn't?
Yes, but what does that mean? If you inhabit it, if it comes to you through your community, then it is divinely inspired.
Ok, I get that ... but it does beg some further questions ...
If it's the community that determines whether something is divinely inspired - by the power of collective agreement - then would that apply to a group of Islamist jihadists - say - rather than Muslims who eschew violent jihadism - who decide, collectively, that the Quran teaches that they should murder the infidel and impose an expansionist Caliphate?
Or a group of Ultra-Orthodox Jews who decide that the Hebrew scriptures teach exclusivity and condones aggression towards Muslims, Christians and other Jews who don't share their viewpoint?
Or Westboro Baptist Church, say, who believe that the Bible justifies extreme homophobia and other confrontational and violent positions?
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
Well, yes. All these groups do read their scriptures and find these unpleasant things in them and believe they are from God.
The only safeguard I can see is that we should try to draw the circle of our community as widely as possible. Breadth of perspective can correct for zealotry.
I'm not offering a recipe for healthy religion, but reflecting on the experience of using scripture and tradition.
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My crazy theology in novel form
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I used to get clients (in therapy) who used the Bible in quite odd ways, for example, to prove that the EU is satanic.
I suppose this will be tend to be reduced in a community, although some communities can also become bizarre.
Is it a problem? No more than for any text, which is interpreted, according to our own concerns. I suppose it is a problem for anyone who believes they have the correct interpretation.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Isn't the difference that Tradition has the implication of having been miraculously revealed or preserved by God, whereas tradition doesn't?
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Yes, but what does that mean? If you inhabit it, if it comes to you through your community, then it is divinely inspired.
It's a question of degree. I don't believe that my community or my tradition is preserved from error. That has implications for how easy it is for me to challenge information I get through those channels. I do believe in an element of divine inspiration, but that it is there to be discerned rather than accepted.
It is a question of degree of course. Most inhabitants of communities with Tradition rather than tradition still make decisions, but generally value their Traditional guidance more highly than I do mine.
Sola Scriptura operates in the other direction. Both followers of tradition and Tradition believe that the Bible is inspired, and that believers are guided, but evangelicals have a greater level of faith in their own ability to interpret. Again this is rarely absolute - most evangelicals recognize areas where they have difficulty interpreting and recognize that they rest on the Church's understanding rather than what came to them when they read alone in their bedroom. But nevertheless the weight they place on their own understanding will be greater than the weight an RC or Orthodox Christian might place.
It may be hard to define these differences in a legalistic sense, but I'm convinced they exist and are both consequences of and drivers of a different approach to the religious community.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I think that the big danger with tradition is not realising you have one. So non-conformists and evangelicals may appear to think that all they have is the Bible, and genuinely fail to notice not only that they have a whole world view's worth of tradition alongside it, but that they read the Bible (when they actually do) through the very tiny spectacles of their tradition.
I don't know if this is true for all evangelicals, but it certainly isn't true for all non-conformists. Those that see themselves as part of the historical mainstream expect their clergy and theologians (if not necessarily the grassroots membership as a whole) to be aware of the inheritance of biblical scholarship that they share with other historical mainstream churches.
I'm thinking in particular of the Methodists, whose sense of identity doesn't arise from a highly distinctive, clearly enunciated reading of the Bible. I think this is also true of the URC. And I'm sure that both groups have a wider sense of 'tradition', and their place in it.
With regard to the 'danger' you mention, it's usually the case that newish groups want to stand apart from 'traditions', but sooner or later most of them choose to fit in. They self-consciously create a backstory, and also want their clergy to hold their own and be respected alongside mainstream church clergy. It's just a matter of time.
The groups that don't make the transition will remain marginal. But they might get lots of news coverage if they're wacky enough, and based in the USA.
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Isn't the difference that Tradition has the implication of having been miraculously revealed or preserved by God, whereas tradition doesn't?
Yes, but what does that mean? If you inhabit it, if it comes to you through your community, then it is divinely inspired.
But I don't think that's how many Christians have historically seen it. I don't think many Protestants would say that because Catholics inhabit the Immaculate Conception and it comes to them from their community, therefore it is divinely inspired. Or that many Orthodox would say that because Westerners inhabit the Filioque and it comes to them through their community, therefore it is divinely.
Your way of looking at things may be better, and the church might be a much better place if people did see things that way, but I thought lilBuddha's argument was about how the words are actually used, not how they perhaps should be used.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Hmmm ...
Interesting ...
Yes, in those instances then the opposite would be seen to be the case - that the Filioque, for instance, is a departure from Tradition not a divinely sanctioned development within it ...
Or the Immaculate Conception of Mary would be seen not as something that RCs can legitimately hold, but something that involves them going out on a limb ...
On the non-conformist thing, yes, I think SvitlanaV2 is right and the URC and Methodists are more conscious of being part of a tradition than some of the other Free Churches are - who might like to imagine themselves somehow free of all of that ...
I wouldn't lump Baptists into that category on the whole, at least not Baptist Union of GB and Ireland Baptists. It might be different among some of the independent Baptist churches, although they too would have some sense of being part of a wider tradition - the Calvinist tradition, say, or the Independent / Congregationalist tradition in its wider sense (ie. bigger than the Baptists).
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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