One of the tragic, if unintended, consequences of the Reformation is the proliferation within Protestantism of go-it-alone, voluntary Christianity. Whether manifested in sufficiency-of-personal-quiet-time individualism, or in denominations that think of themselves as the sole recepticals of truth and light, or in the wilfull ignorance of a living Church before 1517, the results are just as deadly. True spirituality is less frequently defined in terms of participation in the Church's ministry of Word and Sacrament; more often, it is in terms of the mental accumulation of Bible-like aphorisms along with the occassional charitable social deed. Nor is the church entirely free of blame. In a tradition that rightly emphasized the return to robust, soundly exegeted preaching, we are often given therapeutic drool.
It becomes increasingly difficult to maintain faith in the sacramental aspect of the preached Word when it is possible to get so much more out of it on our own (not that everyone does). This should not be possible. Not that the individual should cease and desist from all serious Bible-study. Scripture commends the Bereans, who were "examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so." What things? The things that they were being taught by the Apostle Paul. The Bereans were never able to find that Word preached to them hadn't been so. Too often, the same does not hold true today. And it's not the fault of the person who did the double checking. If things do not improve, this person can do one of three things: 1) maintain the status quo; 2) go it alone, which involves separation from life of the Church along with the corresponding view of Scripture as a set of universal and rational propositions upon which to agree; 3) retreat to the safety of Mother Church as she existed before the Reformation.
The temptation in this third step is to absolutize the authority of the Church above that of Scripture. All these squabbling children can't agree on proper hermeneutics and exegesis? Well, we'll just stop that right now. Scripture and the Tradition of which it is a part are a product of the Church; consequently, it means whatever we say it means. End of discussion. But churches disagree among themselves. So, which church is the true Church? At which point we go back to the Great Schism of 1054 ("I'm in charge-you're excommunicated!" "How dare you put that clause in there- you're excommunicated!") and find that these psuedo-Mothers have nothing over the Protestants.
The idea is that the Church, in order to be One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, must have existed and continue to exist in a particular, unbroken, and visible instantiation. [I ran across a similar thing growing up in the doctrine of the "Baptist Bride".] This alone is the true Church and she derives her authority from this identity. I can see how such an idea would be comforting, how it would avoid the baser excesses of Protestantism. But for those tempted to go this route, it represents, on at least one level, a colossal shirking of personal responsibility. If a church's rendition of Tradition, including Scripture, is deemed correct based on nothing more than its claimed exclusive identity as "Christ's Church," then there is no place for a Berean. Either such study will result in some heavy-duty reevaluation of this church's claims (since no particular church is without error), or constant demurring to the will of this church will result in eventual surrender. The anti-intellectual tendencies are just as thick here as they are in Protestant evangelicalism.
Neither extreme is necessary. I started out by assigning blame to the Reformation. Please don't get the wrong idea, for this is not entirely so. While it is true that the Reformers were a product of their time and somewhat blinded to it (as happens to all people concerning their particular era), it is not the case that, but for the Reformation, the Enlightenment and secular degeneration of the West would never have occurred. The backlash against an increasingly apostate church/state had been building for years. The Reformation was necessary to the well-being, even to the life, of the Church. For those whom it touched, it brought an unprecedented depth and balance to the faith and practice of the Church. Not least of the reasons for this was the Reformer's insistence on sola scriptura accompanied by the study and adoption of the consensus of Church teaching, from the Fathers on, about that Scripture. In my estimation, the faith of the Reformation stands as the best articulated synthesis between Church Tradition and authority, and individual piety and responsibility. But, for those who would prefer to trust their own individual judgment or for those who would prefer to surrender their judgment to an ultimate authority figure, this is a scary proposition. Where's the certainty? To which I must respond-where's the faith?
Just recently, I responded to a post that claimed that we do not have the right to depart from Tradition. I stated in seed form much of what I've already said here. I don't know how succesfully I communicated the idea that I do not deny Tradition. For one thing, the response made me feel as though I were standing in the middle of a room, the Orthodox Traditional types on one side, the Protestant Lone Ranger types on the other side, and the respondant talking past me to the other guy. Meanwhile, I was very tempted to cheer and say, "Yeah, you tell him!" A lot of what was said to me is what I would have said to someone else. Which is good. This is possible common ground. We should want as much common ground as possible with those who confess Christ.
There is much good to be said about Orthodoxy. I do appreciate the emphasis on the Church. I appreciate Orthodoxy for being a repository for the teaching of many of the Fathers, for the connection that this gives the Church entire to its own history. I am particularly attracted to certain doctrines within Orthodoxy. The emphasis on the importance of the incarnation for redemption and even some form of theosis (if not taken as the crass idea that we turn into God) both play into my developing understanding of eschatology. On the other hand, I cannot agree to some of the practical results of its traditions. I find it horrifying, for instance, that Orthodoxy adovates praying to dead people and venerating their body parts. Despite objections to the contrary, such traditions do exist in opposition to Scripture and thereofore, as I will argue below, to Apostolic Tradition itself.
The following is the response that I was going to post over there (the preceding originally intended as a couple sentences of introduction when I decided to post it here).
"Scripture itself is part of Tradition." Agreed. Scripture is not written in an historical and theological vacuum. The revelation of God first comes by means of providential events and the spoken word of his prophets. This revelation is handed down to the Church as its Tradition. The Tradition is received by the Church, it is not created by the Church. This Tradition is sufficient for the life of the Church from the first time that it is handed down. The Tradition must be preserved. Oral transmission, from one generation to the next, has limited efficacy. It is likely that, intentionally or not, things will be added or taken away. The Tradition is best preserved through a process of inscripturation. This is true of all Tradition received from God by the Church. Scripture is a part of Tradition because Scripture is the written record of the whole of Tradtition. Scripture includes all that the Church, as the Church, may believe and practice. Any belief or practice to which the Church holds must either be explicitly taught in Scripture, or be capable of being justified from Scripture properly exegeted. Any belief or practice that does not meet these criteria is no part of Tradition but has been introduced without proper authority at some point in the Church's history.
"The problem is when Christians try to excise Scripture from Tradition and interpret it outside of the Tradition. It is inevitable that the meaning of Scripture will then be distorted beyond, if you will, authorial (and Authorial) intent." Again, agreed. The inscripturation of Tradition does not imply that the individual does not need the Church. The Tradition is passed down to the Church defined corporately. It is designed to be understood by the Church, taught by the Church, and used by the Church. The Church is not confined to any particular denomination, time, or place. The Church is composed of individuals. As these individuals are fallible, so are churches. The individual is to submit to the teaching of the Church. A particular church may fall into false teaching. The individual is to know both Scripture and the consensus of the historical Church's teaching on Scripture in order that he may detect false teaching. A particular church is to know both Scripture and the consensus of the historical Church's teaching on Scripture in order that it may avoid false teaching.
I do appreciate the use of Scripture to defend Tradition; however, the exegesis lacks. There is nothing in either text [II Thessalonians 2:15 and 3:6,7] that requires a reference to the whole body of the Tradition. In each case, Paul is referring to what he himself had taught them. Paul was an apostle and as such had the authority to initiate traditions in the Church, having received these himself from God by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He had done just this in the church of Thessalonica both by his spoken word while visiting them and by writing I Thessalonians. Both of these constituted tradition that they were to hold and pass down. Soon after this, the tradition was jeopardized by a letter pretending to be from Paul claiming that the Day of the Lord ( a subject of the first epistle) had already come. II Thessalonians is written to correct this. In it, he exhorts his readers to hold fast the traditions that they were taught "whether by word or by epistle of us." The traditions are, specifically, those things that Paul had already spoken and written to the church at Thessalonica.
In the second passage, Paul is instructing them to stay away from anyone who, claiming to be a Christian, refuses to work or "walks in idleness." [The translation "who walketh disorderly" cannot be justified within the context. The adverb in question comes from a verb meaning, "to refuse to be engaged in the efforts of work."] The refusal to work is contrary to the tradition that they had received from Paul on his first visit. As before, though, the text does not require that this be the whole of the Tradition. Paul immediatley describes how he had delivered this specific tradition: 1) by his own example in order that they might imitate him; 2) by a specific command- "For even when when we were with you, we would give this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat" (v. 10). The passage stands, not as an example of a Tradition that continues to exist beyond Scripture (although, the very nature of Scripture requires that, at one point, it had to), but as an example of the inscripturation of traditions.
I would argue that the "New Testament Scripture is fundamentally necessary for determining the parameters and content of Christian life and doctrine." But I would not intend the NT as an abstract collection of propositions, as, unfortunately, is the underlying assumption in much of Protestantism. Instead, the fundamental necessity of the NT is derived from the fact that it is the embodiment of the Tradition. Before this Tradition was inscripturated, the Church had the Apostles to deliver this Tradition. This does not imply a problem with numbers: 1) the Tradition delivered by the Apostles could be handed down orally by others people; 2) the inscripturation of this Tradition was relatively fast; 3) the Apostles were not the only ones authorized to establish Tradition. Ephesians 2:20 describes the Church as "built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets." Both of these are NT offices specifically designed to act as the foundation, i.e., source of Tradition, for the Church. Once the foundation is laid, the offices die out. It is necessary that this foundation be laid before its inscripturation is complete. It is not necessary, and, given the absence of the foundational offices, is even dangereous, that non-inscripturated Tradition continue to exist.
My objection is not to NT Christianity being truly Apostolic and truly Traditional. But I expect that a church that claims this of itself (as all churches should) will be able to justify the Apostolic foundations of its traditions and, therefore, its Tradition by grounding each instantiation of this Tradition in its Apostolic inscripturation. Whereever this cannot be done there is no unity between Scripture and that tradition. Such a tradition, no matter how ancient, no matter how much it may be attested to in the creeds and councils, must be thrown out. It is not of Apostolic origin.