Tag: Tradition

Progress is gradual and always builds off of a foundation

The dichotomy between tradition and insight breaks down under the weight of history itself. A “leap of progress” is not a standing broad jump, which begins at the line of where we are now; it is a running broad jump through where we have been to where we go next.

…The growth of insight — in science, in the arts, in philosophy, in theology— has not come through progressively sloughing off more and more of tradition, as though insight would be purest and deepest when it has finally freed itself of the dead past. It simply has not worked that way in the history of tradition and it does not work that way now.

Jaroslav Pelikan
The Vindication of Tradition

The nature of the Christian to the Church is that of a child to a parent

We do well to recognize as infantile an attitude toward our parents that regards them as all wise or all powerful and that is blind to their human foibles. But we must recognize no less that it is adolescent, once we have discovered those foibles, to deny our parents the respect and reverence that is their due for having been, under God, the means through which has come the only life we have.

Jaroslav Pelikan
The Vindication of Tradition

Luther viewed himself as not bound by any form of Church authority

“I answer”, replied Luther, “that God once spoke through the mouth of an ass. I will tell you what I think. I am a Christian theologian and I am bound not only to assert but to defend the truth with my blood and death. I want to believe freely and to be a slave to no one, whether a council, university, or pope. I will confidently confess what appears to me to be true, whether it has been asserted by a Catholic or a heretic, whether it has been approved or reproved by counsel.”

Martin Luther
The Leipzig Debate, 1519

Luther on stripping ceremonials from the Mass

In the first place, in order that we might safely and happily attain to a true and free knowledge of this sacrament, we must be particularly careful to put aside whatever has been added to its original simple institution by the zeal and devotion of men: such as vestments, ornaments, chants, prayers, organs, candles, and the whole pageantry of outward things… All the rest is the work of man, added to the word of Christ and the mass can be held and remain a mass just as well without them.

Martin Luther
The Babylonian Captivity of the Church

Not everything is found in Holy Scripture

If, for these and other such rules, you insist upon having positive Scripture injunction, you will find none. Tradition will be held forth to you as the originator of them, custom as their strengthener, and faith as their observer. That reason will support tradition, and custom, and faith, you will either yourself perceive, or learn from some one who has.

…This instances, therefore, will make it sufficiently plain that you can vindicate the keeping of even unwritten tradition established by custom; the proper witness for tradition when demonstrated by long-continued observance.

Tertullian
The Chaplet
Chapter IV

Christ’s enrollment in the census was kept in the archives at Rome

And yet how could He have been admitted into the synagogue—one so abruptly appearing, so unknown; one, of whom no one had as yet been apprised of His tribe, His nation, His family, and lastly, His enrollment in the census of Augustus—that most faithful witness of the Lord’s nativity, kept in the archives of Rome?

Tertullian
The Five Books Against Marcion, Book IV
Chapter VII

The doctrine of God came from the Apostles

Some disputed about eating idol sacrifices, others about the veiled dress of women, others again about marriage and divorce, and some even about the hope of the resurrection; but about God no one disputed. Now, if this question also had entered into dispute, surely it would be found in the apostle, and that too as a great and vital point. No doubt, after the time of the apostles, the truth respecting the belief of God suffered corruption, but it is equally certain that during the life of the apostles their teaching on this great article did not suffer at all; so that no other teaching will have the right of being received as apostolic than that which is at the present day proclaimed in the churches of apostolic foundation.

…Show us, then, one of your churches, tracing its descent from an apostle, and you will have gained the day.

Tertullian
The Five Books Against Marcion, Book I
Chapter XXI

Heretics don’t follow the same practices and can be refuted therefore without the scriptures

These evidences, then, of a stricter discipline existing among us, are an additional proof of truth, from which no man can safely turn aside, who bears in mind that future judgment, when “we must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ,” to render an account of our faith itself before all things.

On the present occasion, indeed, our treatise has rather taken up a general position against heresies, (showing that they must) all be refuted on definite, equitable, and necessary rules, without any comparison with the Scriptures.

Tertullian
Against Marcion
The Prescription Against Heretics
Chapter XLIV