ABSTRACT

Catholics today are claiming sola Scriptura as their own. In what appears to be an almost total reversal of the traditional view of the Catholic Church, most theologians since the Second Vatican Council are adopting the view that Scripture alone contains all of the truths necessary for salvation. Although for centuries it was held that the Church’s official position on revelation was that it was distributed over two separate sources and included elements from tradition that were not contained in Scripture, this is not the case today. Renowned theologians such as Karl Rahner, Joseph Ratzinger, Yves Congar, and George Tavard also concur that sola Scriptura accurately portrays the Catholic understanding of Tradition’s relationship with Scripture.
From the late Middle Ages and several centuries thereafter, theologians, both Catholic and Protestant, took it for granted that the Catholic view was Scripture and Tradition functioned as two separate sources of revelation, contrary to the Protestant sola Scriptura. Those following the Council of Trent believed that the Council had cemented the two-sources view once and for all, since the primary objective of the Council was to react against the Reformers’ views, one of which being their claim that the dogmas handed down by the Church independent of Scriptural backing were unreliable and contradictory. The text of the decree designed to oppose this notion reads, “The sacred synod knows that this truth and order is contained in written books and unwritten traditions.”

Through a re-assessment of the documents of the Council of Trent, contemporary Catholic theologians have essentially reversed the entire Christian community’s interpretation of the Tridentine decree. With the emergence of nineteenth-century scholarship at Tübingen and the twentieth-century theologian J. R. Geiselmann, the fact that the wording of the initial draft of the decree was changed from “partly in written books and partly in unwritten traditions,” indicated that the Council Fathers had a change of mind and wanted to leave the decree open to a one-source interpretation. Thus, according to Geiselmann’s suggestion, the text could legitimately be read as, “totally in written books and totally in unwritten traditions.”

CHAPTER 1 5
CHURCH, TRADITION, AND SCRIPTURE 5
Church, Tradition, and Scripture 12
Church 12
Tradition 19
Scripture 25
CHAPTER II 41
HISTORICAL PROGRESSION OF THE SCRIPTURE/TRADITION RELATIONSHIP 41
The Early Church 42
The Apostolic Fathers 43
The Apologists – Irenaeus and Tertullian 44
Late Classical 48
Basil 48
Augustine 50
The Middle Ages 55
The Protestant Reformation 58
CHAPTER III 61
THE FOURTH SESSION OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 61
The Positions 61
The Proposal 65
The Decree 70
CHAPTER 4 72
POST-TRIDENTINE INTERPRETATIONS 72
Catholic 73
Protestant 84
Whitaker 84
Chemnitz 86
Conclusion 90
CHAPTER 5 91
POST-VATICAN II INTERPRETATIONS OF TRENT 91
J.R. Geiselmann 91
George Tavard 93
Ives Congar 98
Joseph Ratzinger 102
Karl Rahner 104
Heiko Oberman 110
Anthony Lane 116
Edward Schillebeeckx 119
Heinrich Lennerz 121
Conclusion 122
IMPLICATIONS 129
Vincent Reconsidered 133
BIBLIOGRAPHY 138

CHAPTER 1
CHURCH, TRADITION, AND SCRIPTURE

When Christ left this earth, He left a community of believers sharing a common spirit united by a rich deposit of faith which He expected to be spread to all persons in all lands and in all times to come. He did not specify the mode of this transmission, only that it was to be done. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Accordingly, the apostolic community that had the earthly Christ as its head now looked to the apostles for leadership and guidance. These men, motivated by passion for their now risen Savior, and increased boldness from the Holy Spirit who now indwelt them, spent their remaining lives spreading the good news of Christ not to the Jews alone, but to all people regardless of national descent. Their converts, who were dispersed throughout the Roman empire, assembled together forming smaller, local versions of the greater Church worldwide. They met together in private homes for worship, communion, instruction, fellowship, and encouragement. Out of this developed a life and spirit, or kerygma, that belonged exclusively to the Christian community. The apostles, who founded these communities and sought to ensure their proper development, appointed able men to lead the budding congregations. They also wrote letters to dispersed congregations that they were not able to visit. As the churches grew larger and more numerous, beyond the apostles’ immediate oversight, the letters they had written increased in value. They were copied and passed along from church to church and read publicly in the services. These letters contained instructions regarding all sorts of matters ranging from church discipline to individual moral conduct, as well as theological insights on the nature of God, the person and work of Christ, and the message of salvation for all who believe.
Soon, Christian worship services began to take on more structure as a liturgy and various customs developed and the authority of these apostolic writings continued to increase. As the church’s numbers grew, newer members were incorporated into the congregation adopting its spirit, life, and apostolic message or “deposit of faith”. However, after the death of the apostles, heresies began to challenge the overall message found in the universal church. This prompted men like Irenaeus (d. 202) to appeal to the succession of bishops in well-established and highly reputable churches such as the one at Rome, whose founders were believed to be the apostles Peter and Paul. Since the faith of the Roman church, supposedly founded by Peter only a few generations earlier was not in agreement with Irenaeus’ Gnostic opponents, it followed in his mind that the apostles themselves would have also opposed such mythologies. Irenaeus writes:
It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about.

Irenaeus is trusting here in the church’s faithful dissemination of the apostolic message that continued to thrive in the kerygma of the community. Simply speaking, this transference of the kerygma or the spirit and beliefs of the early Christian congregation is what we know as Tradition. The community and vehicle in which this Tradition flows is the Church; and the apostolic writings (also known as written tradition) is Scripture.
This “three-legged stool” of closely related, interdependent realities forms the basis of authority binding upon every Christian adherent. The degree and nature of authority of each leg is a major point of contention between Catholics and Protestants. It forms the essential divisions between them. One’s position on this theological front can readily be determined through one’s answer to the question of which came first, the Church or the Bible. While both Catholics and Protestants acknowledge a logical priority of Scripture to the Church, the former envisions a temporal priority of the Church out of which the Scriptures were produced, recognized, and disseminated. The Church is the source of warrant for Scripture and without it there would be no canon. As Catholic theologian Michael Schmaus attests:
The New Testament originated when the congregation of Jesus’ disciples, the Church, already existed. . .This assumption makes the birth of the Scriptures out of the womb of the apostolic community of faith particularly comprehensible. Thus the Church is not the product of Scripture. It is rather the other way around: Scripture is the product of the Church.

Protestants see quite the reverse as the case. In their estimation, the Scriptures formed the Church. R.C. Sproul explains:
The positive tradition of which Scripture speaks may be referred to as the Apostolic Tradition, which tradition played heavily on the formation of the canon. The church did not create a new tradition by the establishing of the Canon. Indeed it is not really proper to speak of the establishing of the Canon by the church. It is not the church that established the Canon; it is the Canon that established the church. The church did not establish the Canon but recognized it and submitted to its rule.

These distinctives are not purely exclusive, however, but matters of emphasis. Both Protestants and Catholics affirm that there is more of a symbiotic relationship between Scripture and the Church which acknowledges the apostles as not only the founders of but also participants in the nascent Church, and whose message formed the basis of faith for these communities.
Since Catholics have traditionally revered the Tradition of the Church as highly as Scripture to the point of regarding it as prior to it, they are unmoved in their inability to provide strictly biblical evidence in defense of their doctrines. Largely on the ancient nature of any particular belief Catholics have typically regarded it as apostolic and normative. Whether or not a particular tenet can be explicitly supported within the pages of Scripture, its well-established position in Tradition is warrant enough. This apparent insufficiency of Scripture also has biblical warrant as Catholic apologists frequently appeal to. This entails the view that Tradition is not just an operation, but actually provides another source of revelation not only alongside Scripture, but also containing material not found in it.
This “two-source view” of revelation, as it is commonly called, has a fairly significant history. Since the vast majority of post-Tridentine interpreters believed the Council Fathers had settled the issue once and for all, they all believed the “Scripture + Tradition = Revelation” formula had finally been canonized with Trent. The writings of Catholic commentators and their Protestant critics assume as much. To this day, the two-source view remains widely held among Catholic laity and has become, through a misperception of a deficiency in Protestant theology, very attractive to Protestants struggling with the notion of sola Scriptura. A recent book written by a graduate of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School who converted to Roman Catholicism provides evidence of this. He calls this apparent deficiency the “watershed issue” that would have otherwise caused him to remain an Evangelical. He recounts his revelation of the superior Catholic notion of “Scripture plus Tradition” in his book aimed at a popular audience called Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic:
The Evangelical starts with the assumption that Scripture existed first and that tradition was slowly and incrementally added to it as time progressed. What I had reluctantly come to recognize was that the original deposit was given to the disciples years before Scripture was ever penned. The Church was founded on this truth from Christ. Some of this deposit was then written in Scripture, some was scrupulously passed from bishop to bishop as oral tradition, and some was later clarified as dogma by the agreement of the bishops in the councils of the Church.
These sources, of course, should be expected not to contradict each other. If the Church teaches something as true, it is justifiable to check that it is not contradicted by Scripture. But if the Church teaches something and the Bible is silent or ambiguous, that does not mean the teaching is any less truly a part of the original deposit of faith given the apostles. The focus of my thinking changed from what is biblical to what is true. The first is always contained in the second, but all of the second is not necessarily contained in the first.
When an Evangelical asks, ‘Where is that doctrine in the Bible?’, my response is usually ‘First show me from Scripture why you believe all Christian doctrines must be in the Bible.’ It can be frustrating for Evangelicals to confront this issue, but it is important for them to understand the lack of biblical basis for their question. Truth is at issue here.

In light of more recent Catholic scholarship, however, one wonders how much exposure this former Evangelical has had to current movements in which highly influential Catholic scholars would have ardently argued otherwise. The overwhelming evidence indicates that there is a turning tide of opinion in the opposite direction. Within the past century, renowned Catholic theologians such as Cardinal John Henry Newman, Karl Rahner, and Joseph Ratzinger are denying that Trent exclusively endorsed a two-source theory of revelation, but rather promoted a single source interpretation instead. However, those of this recent trend suggest that the post-Tridentine commentators without exception up through the nineteenth-century erroneously interpreted the Council’s decree on Scripture and Tradition. Regardless of the Council’s actual intent, the testimony of post-Tridentine history suggests that the reception of Trent was an entirely different matter. Nevertheless, recent Catholic scholarship is emphatic that Trent did not close the door to a singular source of authority. Rahner along with Congar and Tavard have also gone so far as to adopt the Protestant slogan of sola scriptura as their own.
If this misinterpretation of Trent was the unanimous view of sixteenth century theologians, various problems arise. Namely, how does this square with the Vincentian canon which upholds the normative value of any universally held, ancient belief? Considering Trent’s first generation of witnesses, was there not a time when the two-source theory was the overriding opinion? Also, can the position be traced back at least as far as the Fathers? If these can be answered affirmatively, then the Vincentian canon itself, as a standard measure of Tradition, has been deposed seemingly in favor of preserving another more important agenda. The second problem that arises is related to Rome’s claim that an infallible interpreter is necessary for proper interpretation of revelation. A common apologetic against the Protestant tenet of the perspicuity of Scripture is the fact of many differing interpretations existing among myriads of Protestant denominations. Thus, the Catholic question to the Protestant is that without an infallible interpreter to discern, how is one to know which interpretation is valid or not? The Catholic Church’s answer is that the magisterium is the infallible interpreter including its papal decrees, encyclicals, and councils. Yet, if the unanimous consensus of theologians following Trent is mistaken, then Rome’s claim to provide lucidity through its council decisions and in matters of faith is without substance. It would appear that the Roman Church is in need of an infallible interpreter to interpret the infallible interpreter.
The task of the following work is to trace briefly the history of the Scripture/Tradition debate from the early Church period through the Reformation and the Council of Trent. It will then proceed to examine the various interpretations of Trent’s decree on Scripture and Tradition in order to determine if the extent of this new movement within the Church is significant enough to mandate some consideration of these problems. Finally, we will evaluate the ramifications the movement has on recent Evangelical/Catholic dialogue.

Church, Tradition, and Scripture

Before proceeding to a lengthy discussion of the relationships between Church, Tradition, and Scripture, it might be helpful to first unpack these extremely loaded terms and to discuss their meanings in their different theological contexts. In Catholic theology, these three entities comprise the basis of authority Catholic Christians. Ultimately, this authority rests in God Himself, but the tangible, earthly means of revelation is communicated to humanity through these three legs of the stool. Each leg is dependent upon the others in some manner in order for the stool to remain standing. The first leg is Scripture, which comprises the content of the Apostle’s teachings. The second leg, Tradition, in its most basic form, is the transmission of the apostolic teachings contained in Scripture. And lastly, the Church is the vehicle of this transmission. This stool forms the fundamental structure of Roman Catholic authority which cannot stand without the existence of each leg. Without the Scripture, there would be no content for the Church to transmit. Without the process of Tradition, the Scriptures would be lost in stasis, and the Church could make no organic claims to apostolicity. Finally, without the Church, the kerygma of the apostolic community would have faded into oblivion, as there would have been no medium for its transmission. Therefore, as far as historical theology is concerned a proper and balanced respect for each leg is vital for a healthy Christian faith.

Church

The English word for “church” is derived from the Germanic “Kirche” which itself is a derivative of a Greek word kyriake meaning “house of God” and kiyriakon meaning “house of the master”. Ekklesia, the more commonly known Greek equivalent, is a translation in the Septuagint of the Hebrew expression, qahal Jahweh, which referred to “the total community of the People of God.” The assembly of God’s people did not specify merely a ruling class of decision makers, but the entire community, including women and children.
When this assembly rejected their own Messiah, God opened the doors of His community to include everyone. The demarcations defining the Church no longer entailed any physical national boundaries. The “new” or “true” Israel is now open to anyone, anywhere. “Although during his earthly ministry Jesus knew himself sent by the Father’s commission only to Israel, the commission with which the apostles are now entrusted applies to all of mankind…The final salvation achieved by his death and resurrection and the news of this are intended for all men.” Catholic scholarship is eager to point out that the body growing out of the New Testament church was always spoken of in a universal sense.
Since Catholic ecclesiology is varied and complex, a brief explanation of the most essential elements and a focus on the points of intersection with the Scripture/Tradition debate will only concern us here. Essentially, for the Catholic, the Church is identified as the community of God initiated by Christ and founded by the apostles. This community was given a precise task by Christ, namely to “go into all the world and make disciples” and to “feed My sheep.” As Schmaus is quick to point out, any group with such clear objectives requires organization and leadership. The Roman Catholic identification of the Church is seen as natively linked to the apostles, Peter and Paul in particular. The Catholic Church claims to be able to trace back this lineage of popes back to Peter and Paul as Rome’s first bishops and often relies upon this fact as apologetic proof of its authority.
For the majority of the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic dominance over western civilization had instilled within it a sense of superiority, whether justified or not. At the height of its glory, even temporal powers were subservient to the Pope. In its assertion that salvation could only be found in her alone – the receptacle and disseminator of all grace, the Church displayed no greater modesty in the spiritual realm. The sacraments administered exclusively from, through, and by this Body were the means by which one’s soul could be cleansed and grace procured.
However, the Church is more than just an organization through which salvation is to be found. More than just a vending machine dispensing various measures of grace at various costs, Catholics also identify the Church as the community of God’s people. “The Church can be considered either as the community of those believing in Christ (Heilsgemeinschaft) or as the societal institution through which salvation is bestowed (Heilsanstalt). It is both in one, but either aspect can be separately emphasized.” Nevertheless, it is the societal institution that the term “Catholic Church” most commonly describes. The complex hierarchy of priests, bishops, and cardinals and the continual administration of sacraments along with the entire corpus of canons, decrees, papal encyclicals, etc. is what most people conceive of when referring to the Church. This is the distinctly visible organization instituted by Christ Himself.
Catholic theologians claim that this is not a “top-down” structure in which the papal chair rests at the top. Rather, it is an inverse pyramid, with the Pope serving the entire community. Eternal truths do not disseminate from him downward. Instead, the Pope and the council fathers are students of history and listeners to the global community of God’s faithful simply making official pronouncements on that which the community already believes. Such an understanding, however, seems difficult to maintain in practice. During the medieval period most lay people were illiterate and unable to read the more erudite Latin version, the Vulgate. Any “vulgar” translations were largely inaccessible. Motivated by his enlightened awareness of Scripture’s true meaning of grace, Martin Luther became determined to reveal it and to expose the Roman Church’s deception. One of Luther’s most significant contributions to the world was his translation of God’s word into German, the language of the common man in his country, to the chagrin of his “papist” contemporaries.
Once the pope excommunicated Luther (1521), it became necessary for him to redefine the nature of the true Church. From Luther’s perspective, the once highly visible, centralized, and powerful institution was obviously no longer under the leadership of Jesus Christ or enlivened and driven by the Holy Spirit. Rather, true church membership was defined by the position of an individual’s heart before God. For the Catholic, the ecclesiastical goal is primarily to dispense grace through the administration of the sacraments. For Luther and other Proestants, the Church consists of those who have been justified by grace through faith. The Christian associates with a local church primarily for fellowship with his brothers and sisters and to find assistance in the process of sanctification. Because the invisible company of believers through the centuries is what defines the Church, only God possesses the final membership list.
However, Catholic ecclesiology has evolved over recent centuries. It has moved from a very strict view to a much more inclusive one regarding the scope of those who are candidates for salvation. From the Council of Florence (1442) and Pius IX’s (1846 – 1878) statements that no one can be saved outside of the Catholic Church, to Vatican II’s concession that salvation is available for all who sincerely seek the truth (which would be anyone who would become Catholic if he knew better) this development is plain to see. According to Schmaus, the reason for this more liberal outlook is due to a widening awareness of people groups extended throughout the world besides just the Mediterranean basin. According to Catholic theology, today it is even likely that many Protestants are saved. Of course, the salvation of any non-Catholic is only through a vicarious relationship with the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to see the exclusivist, Pius IX’s reaction to the much more inclusivist Vatican II, as it is very difficult to synthesize the mere wording of these two contrasting texts.
Protestant ecclesiology is similar to the Catholic view in some respects. Like the Roman understanding, Protestants believe that the people of God are no longer restricted by blood or location, but share in the kerygma handed down from their forefathers. Those participating in the blessings and grace of God worldwide make up His body. They form a unity or bond that distinguishes them from the rest of the world. Indeed, they are strangers or aliens in a world that is predominately Satan’s domain. The Protestant view of the “catholic” Church is much flatter, however. There is no earthly, universal head, hierarchy, or man-made structure. In contrast to the Roman Church’s view, the organization necessary to fulfill Jesus’ “Great Commission” is an internal one, managed by the Holy Spirit who calls, gifts, instructs, and mobilizes each individual according to His divine plan. From a human point of view, the scattering of Protestant churches, missionary organizations, and individuals without unified oversight and accountability might bear all the markings of disarray. However, Christ in heaven, our Master Strategist, can see exactly where along the battle lines a particular need might exist and so equips and sends someone to meet the need. The Protestant view of the Church centers more around the Holy Spirit moving in the life of an individual rather than a visible institution.
Protestants also differ in their more restrictive definition of what the Church is. This definition makes actual membership unverifiable on a human level. God alone knows all who belongs to the Church, the Bride of Christ. Generally speaking, participation in the sacraments (including baptism and communion), local church membership, and mere profession of faith, are no guarantee that an individual is a rightful citizen of this “City of God.” The genuine “member” of the worldwide Church is someone who has accepted and experienced God’s saving grace. As a member of Christ’s body, he himself has become a temple of the Holy Spirit who is sanctifying him as he draws nearer in his relationship with God.
Therefore, for the Catholic, the Church as the people of God is the vehicle of Tradition and the producer, receiver, and compiler of Scripture. It is the organism providing the means of salvation for those seeking it, not who have already attained it. It is also a Listener and Receiver of the past and present community of faith as well as the Transmitter of its Tradition. For the Protestant, the Church as the Bride of Christ, is made up of those who are forgiven and reconciled to Him. The securing of one’s justification is a pre-requisite for inclusion. There is no need for a visible hierarchy as every believer is a priest and saint with full access to the throne of grace independent of any mediating authority. Hence, the Protestant notion of “church” cannot be confused with a Catholic understanding. For the Protestant, Scripture produces the Church, not the reverse; and Tradition’s place is to serve the Church.

Tradition

The word “tradition” is derived from the Latin noun, traditio, the verb of which is tradere which literally translates as “to transmit, to deliver.” It carries the meaning of handing an object from one person to another. In the case of physical objects, the item is transferred and lost by the person delivering it, and then gained by the person receiving it. Tradition is like a relay race, a baton is handed on from one person to another. The Greek word, paradidomai, is the equivalent to tradere. The Bible writers adopted this same concept in order to convey the idea of transferring the Christian faith to others. The apostle John writes:

Our message concerns that Word, who is life; what he was from the first, what we have heard about him, what our own eyes have seen of him; what it was that met our gaze, and the touch of our hands. Yes, life dawned; and it is as eye-witnesses that we give you news of that life, that eternal life, which every abode with the Father and has dawned, now, on us. This message about what we have seen and heard we pass on to you, so that you too may share in our fellowship. What is it, this fellowship of ours? Fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

Tradere, when applied to spiritual realities, is not lost from the one who delivers it, unlike the case with the transmission of material objects. In the case of Christianity, the object being transferred is the content of the divine revelation of Christ that He delivered to His disciples who in turn delivered it to the fledgling church. This truth was disseminated throughout the known world and continues to be handed down through the generations and across geographical bounds.
As we shall see later, the demolition of Tradition was not the Reformers’ intent. The Roman Catholic Church, in its apparent two millennia of existence, has not provided an explicit functional definition of “Tradition” which makes the process of explicating it a rather speculative one. As Anthony Lane comments, “The word ‘tradition’ is notoriously ambiguous. It often denotes the sum total of the Christian heritage passed down from previous ages.” The subject has often come up in council debates, but never with a precise definition. Catholicism has a high regard for Tradition since not only does it observe Christ’s message as being handed on to us, but Christ Himself has been ‘traditioned’ to us from God who sent Him. The “Gospel” is the person and message of Christ given to the Church as a Bridegroom, passed on to God’s people through the centuries. On a functional level, perhaps an analogy of Tradition might bring some clarity.
In order to better understand precisely what Tradition is, we could envision a telescope through which we can peer into the minds of Christians who have gone before us, to discern what their beliefs were and how the Scriptures fit into their theology. The telescope observer here in the present is ultimately attempting to train her focus on the faithful adherents of Christianity in the apostolic age. However, with the passage of time and evolving cultures, the image received is vague and dim. Fortunately for her, however, there have been a series of other telescope observers who have gone before her with the same goal in mind. The images received by those further away are less clear than those closer up. Likewise, each one of these previous observers is able to view more clearly those closer to the source than our present observer is able to do. And while the observers cannot look through the lenses of their ancestors, their predecessors have recorded their findings which are visible to the later observers. So, what we have then is a chain of observers peering through history looking at the results of the observations of those prior to them.
The Catholic looking through her telescope, recognizing the dimness of her ultimate source, focuses not only on the apostolic age, but at the findings of other observers who have preceded her. Her intent is a noble one; to discern the depths of the Christian beliefs, practices, and mindset as much as possible – in an effort to keep alive the kerygma created by the earliest of Christian communities. Since these generations have long since passed, she can only rely on the transmission received through her predecessors. This history of appreciation of preceding ancestors is the process of Tradition. The discoveries of each successive observer with their telescopes form the full content of the Church’s beliefs and practice. It is these findings which form the basis of consideration for papal decrees and council definitions. The canon of Scripture is simply one of these discoveries. However, the object upon which the observer is attempting ultimately to focus upon is the contents of Holy Scripture. While this object may contain additional elements along with Scripture, the latter contains all the material that is sufficient for salvation. A distinction is made here between the contents of Scripture and the canon of Scripture because the message of the Scripture can be placed within the realm of the ultimate focus, whereas the canon is a handed-down result of a previous observation. However, were it not for the establishment of the canon, the Scriptures would not be known. The observer herself is the Church who receives, interprets, and proclaims her findings as well as those of preceding generations.
In addition, the Catholic Church today emphasizes that the progression of Tradition entails a development not of further revelation but of the faith growing from within itself, as a child maturing into adulthood. In this sense, there is a dynamism in the firm foundation of the faith. On the one hand, dogmatic judgments laid down in the past form the solid pillars of the faith today, while yet the kerygmatic energy that stems from the infant Church, continues to grow. Henri de Lubac writes, “Tradition, according to the fathers of the church, is in fact just the opposite of a burden of the past; it is a vital energy, a propulsive force, acting within an entire community as at the heart of each of the faithful because it is none other than the very Word of God both perpetuating and renewing itself under the action of the Holy Spirit.”
There is another sense of the term ‘tradition’ which developed in common usage after the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century. Prior to this, it did not carry the dual meaning that it has since acquired. This new dichotomy in what constitutes normative versus non-normative traditions is represented by the title of Ives Congar’s most influential book, Tradition and Traditions (1966). The elements of “Tradition” include matters of faith and morals which are eternal and absolute truths that one could be excommunicated for not adhering to. For Catholics, this type of Tradition, also called apostolic Tradition, originated in the apostle’s teaching and was faithfully delivered down through to the Church today. The non-normative variety of “traditions,” on the other hand, are not considered necessary for salvation, yet still appear to contribute to the ethos of the community of God. These traditions are not immutable or absolute. They are largely ecclesiastical customs and practices that have no direct bearing on a person’s eternal destiny. Since the Tridentine Fathers did not make a distinction between Tradition and traditions, they did not see fit to enumerate a list of apostolic Traditions. The Council’s reluctance to compile such a list eliminated the temptation to view it as exhaustive. However, we can determine some of the traditions they had in mind through examination of the discussions that ensued during the debates. One of the Fathers, Bishop Nachianti, for instance, brought up the matter of facing east during prayer. He refused to believe that this practice was on the same authoritative par as the Gospel of John.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in his commentary on the Vatican II articles related to Tradition and Scripture called Dei Verbum notes that Vatican II continued to speak more of Scripture in terms of what it is, whereas Tradition was spoken of more functionally, in terms of what it does. According to Ratzinger, Tradition hands on the Word of God, but it is not to be identified with the Word of God. The Second Vatican Council, then can be seen to consistently uphold the ancient understanding of traditio whose task is to, “’preserve [Scripture], explain it, and make it more widely known’, that it is not productive, but ‘conservative’, ordained to serve as part of something already given.”

Distinction Between Church and Tradition

The function of the Church prior to the Reformation was seen largely as the receptacle of grace and the vehicle of tradition. All Tradition, including the written Tradition was dependent upon the ecclesiastical body in some way; therefore, to speak of Scripture as separate from the Church was absurd to the Catholic. George Tavard’s prevailing thesis demonstrates that up until the thirteenth century, Scripture could only be properly received and understood within the context of the Church.
Catholic theologians claim that Protestants have frequently confused the Church with Tradition. In these discussions, there emerges an ambiguity that is readily apparent as seen when the two terms are used interchangeably. Ever since the Reformation and the popularizing of the Protestant slogan of sola scriptura, Catholics and Protestants alike have typically attributed Tradition to the realm of the Catholic Church alone. Because of a faulty conception that sola scriptura implies a bare reliance upon the Bible apart from any other authoritative influences (nuda scriptura), and in an attempt to remain as far removed from the Roman religion as possible, many Protestants have stripped Tradition of nearly all of its authority to the point at which it is regarded as a solely Catholic term; hence the tendency to identify Tradition with the Catholic Church.
In the literature an actual distinction between the Church and Tradition is often obscured. Anthony Lane criticizes Heiko Oberman for failing to recognize this in the latter’s critique of Tavard. Oberman disagrees with Tavard in saying that the distinction within Catholic theology did not occur as late as the twelfth century, but in the fifth with St. Basil. Lane observes that Oberman’s critique is unwarranted because he and Tavard are tracking two separate relations. Tavard is considering the relationship of Scripture and the Church whereas Oberman is tracing the relationship between Scripture and Tradition. However, this identification appears to be fairly common. Indeed, both Tavard and Oberman can be found functionally equating the Church and Tradition through an interchangeable usage of the terms.
Moreover, given the nature of doctrinal development via the progression of Tradition, this unintentional equivocation is not altogether incorrect. Since Tradition includes the canons and decrees of the Church’s history, a clear distinction is difficult to pinpoint, as there emerges a reciprocal relationship between Tradition and the Church. The magisterium’s appraisal of Tradition (that which has been always believed by everyone everywhere) once it is received becomes incorporated into the flow of normative Tradition and cannot be subject to change. The teaching arm of the Church is later constrained within these pillars of the faith, forced to abide within their limits when considering further doctrinal developments. We must emphasize it is the quod semper that is canonized and received by the Church for later councils then to adhere to. Thus, for Catholics whatever is the universal Church’s reception necessarily becomes Tradition.

Scripture

There are many facets to the doctrine of Scripture including canonicity, inspiration, the Word of God, inerrancy, and sufficiency. Catholics and Protestants differ in various degrees on the meaning and function of most of these. Initially, some distinctions must be made between the terms “canon” and “Scripture”. Contrary to popular usage, their meanings are much more precise then simply being synonyms for one another. Scripture is God’s inspired written message to humanity. The Holy Spirit, moving the hearts of men revealed to mankind the good news of God’s intent to save humanity from eternal spiritual death. These words were legitimately the Scripture writers’ own, conveying their intentions in response to the Holy Spirit’s leading. Scripture is not simply the result of blind instruments being used by God. However, whether the writers were conscious that their written words were inspired is not germane to the fact that God the Holy Spirit intended to communicate the same divine truth through the authors to the entire world. Frequently, these writers were only aware of their immediate concern and occasion of writing. They were composing literature from which normative universal truths would later be derived. The budding church believed these writings which were written during the time of the apostles carried a unique authority since they were either written directly by the apostles or their associates. This belief resulted in the copying and circulation of these letters among the established churches to be read during worship services. Gradually, a corpus of these letters began to assemble, though not without some dispute, eventually resulting in the New Testament.

Canon

In order to avoid equating Scripture and canon, an explanation of what is meant by the latter would is necessary. Catholic theologian, George Tavard defines the term “canon” as meaning, “nothing other than the ruling accepted in a Church as authoritative for its order of worship.” In contemporary usage, it is the delimiter of all that is considered “Scripture.” The idea of a fixed, New Testament canon gained greater impetus in the early church when the Gnostics began selectively editing the loosely organized corpus of documents, picking and choosing those that fit their theology while rejecting those that did not. The Gnostic heretic Marcion in the mid-second century is perhaps the most notorious for this, as he defined a list of canonical books that excluded the entire Old Testament and included only a few of the apostle Paul’s writings. This editing was not satisfactory to the Christian community, as they fully believed the corpus of Holy Scripture was much more extensive. Consequently, various lists of what was believed to be sacred Scripture began circulating in opposition to Marcion’s canon. The Church’s recognition and fixing of a canon was largely an apologetic tool to be used against the heretics. Nevertheless, Marcion must be acknowledged as the first to initiate a New Testament canon.
The original purpose of the canon was liturgical and was not meant to establish a source of faith. The issue at the time was which writings should be read during the church service as a means of continuing the process of handing down the faith; not which books necessarily define Christian faith. Consequently, those writings containing liturgical value had to meet the same criteria as those which did delimit the faith. Secondly, there was not the conception this early in church history of a “closed” canon in the sense that a limited corpus of inspired writings existed. A few non-New Testament writings were then considered “Scripture” and held positions of prominence, but not to the same degree and were not deemed “inspired.”
Michael Schmaus has spelled out fairly clearly the Catholic position on Scripture. For the Catholic, the Bible is a book belonging to the Church, for it was produced through the Church and for the Church. Many Catholics also believe that the Scriptures were also produced by the Catholic Church. They contend that the Scriptures did not produce the Church, as the Reformers would later declare. The fact that the Church did not receive the finalized canon until late in the fourth century demonstrates some degree of its dependency on ecclesiastical authority. Prior to this, some books that were in circulation were never included in the canon and some of those that were in dispute finally were incorporated. The greatest criteria for canonicity was the recognition that a certain work possessed apostolic endorsement. If a particular book or letter was written by an apostle or a close associate of an apostle, and if it was used for their apostolic mission or contained instrumental teachings useful for moral or ecclesiastical instruction, it was a good candidate for the canon.
However, according to Schmaus, this could not have been the only criteria since books like Clement’s first letter were not included even though it did meet the above conditions. The final determining factor, therefore, was the discretion of the Church. This means, while we need not elevate the status of the Church and Tradition to the level of Scripture itself, we cannot totally abandon them either. Therefore, the Catholic Church views the Bible as belonging exclusively to it and believes Protestants are inconsistently holding onto this canon while rejecting the body that compiled it.
Protestants, such as Oscar Cullman identify a different motive for the establishment of the canon. For Cullman, the very fact that the Church recognized the need for a canon, is evidence of the fallibility of both the Church and Tradition. The Reformers emphasized the fact that it does not take someone of equal or greater authority to recognize someone else of the same or greater authority. The early church did not bestow upon the Scriptures their authority. It only recognized and officially acknowledged it. Yet, Schmaus also concedes along with Protestant theology that “the Scriptures declared canonical were declared such only because they were inspired by the Holy Spirit” which leads us to the next point.
Schmaus next deals with the matter of inspiration. The Catholic view is similar to the Protestant here. He notes that it was not until the fourth century that the Early Church Fathers emphasized the Holy Spirit’s authorship of the Scriptures. This attribution of the Spirit’s level of involvement in the production was done primarily out of reaction to the Manichean heresy which credited the authorship of the Old Testament to demonic influence. The intent of an inspired canon was to provide a medium for the Church’s proclamation of the Christian faith. Scripture was the objectification of the faith or the “Christ-message.”
However, Schmaus is careful to clarify that while the Sacred Scriptures are the work of God, it is a cooperative effort between God and man. For God did not merely dictate to man in a mechanistic fashion the message He wanted humanity to hear. “We must note that the human author brings to the work his own initiative, his personality, his linguistic talents and limitations, his social background, his entire cultural horizon to such an extent that what he writes is really his own work and shows all the peculiarities of his individuality.” This distinction between the human and divine effort involved in the canon’s formation is an interesting dynamic that does not fail to reveal the entirety of God’s intended message nor does it reduce the human element to a mere recording machine. Schmaus explains this distinction of the individual subjects of this dynamic as two separate types of causes, a principal cause and an instrumental cause. The men who wrote the Bible, (the instrumental cause), used their own words to express the very thoughts laid upon them by God the Holy Spirit, (the principle cause).
If Scripture is inspired, then it follows that no error would be incorporated into it, at least not by the original writers. Again, with the exception of some modern-day Protestants who deny the inerrancy of Scripture, we do not see too much variation here between Catholic and Protestant theologies. Scripture is true on all that it purports as truth. Schmaus reports, “[the Second Vatican Council] stressed that the Sacred Scriptures indeed teach truth with certainty, faithfully and without error, but this truth is characterized in a subsequent relative clause as that which God wished to be included in Sacred Scripture for the sake of our salvation.”
Overall, the Catholic theology of Scripture is not at much variance with Protestant theology. Along with Protestants today, Rome holds to a very high view of Scripture believing that 1) the Holy Spirit authored it; 2) it reveals the Word of God; and 3) it is inerrant. The biggest disagreements between Protestants and Catholics today are whether Scripture requires an infallible interpreter and whether the Apocryphal books should be included within the canon.
Scripture was at the crux of the Reformation. As a monk and priest, Martin Luther fully believed in the Church’s rightful claim to ownership of the Scriptures and in its claim to be the only infallible interpreter. His dismay at its misinterpretation of justification by faith alone, however, forced him to reevaluate this belief. If it was possible for Scripture to stand at odds with the Church, then does this negate the authority of both components? Clearly, since Luther did not agree that the Bible was the product of the Church but that it was the other way around, and since popes and councils have contradicted one another, only the written Word of God, Scripture, could rightfully demand our ultimate submission and obedience. Luther was adamant on this point.
We must remember that, initially, Luther’s primary concern was pastoral rather than theological. His conviction of the final authority of Scripture was fueled by his passion for his flock. Beginning with his own internal struggles of trying to purge his own soul of the seemingly infinite wellspring of sin and then witnessing the manipulative scare tactics of Tetzel’s hawking of indulgences, Luther came to view the Roman curia as abusing and misguiding God’s people by unnecessarily raining down condemnation and setting up barriers to the operation of God’s grace in their lives. His reference to the pope as Anti-Christ was not merely a slanderous idiom, but well typified his belief that the leader of the Church was steering people away from true and pure worship of God. This is what enraged him and motivated him to speak so violently against Rome.
In contrast, Luther’s high estimation of Scripture was unparalleled. To him, Scripture was the pinnacle of authority, the measure of all claims of truth. Anything that did not square with the Bible, was unholy. “Whenever you hear anyone boast that he has something by inspiration of the Holy Spirit and it has no basis in God’s Word, (the Scriptures), no matter what it may be, tell him that this is the work of the devil.” In addition, the papacy, councils and even the fathers were fallible and therefore, below the testimony of Scripture. If anything has the authority of the fathers, but not the agreement of Scripture, it cannot be binding. He spells out this rule in On the Councils and the Churches:
No councils have done it nor can do it, for articles of faith must not grow on earth, by means of the councils, as from some new, private inspiration, but they must be given and revealed from heaven by the Holy Ghost; otherwise they are not articles of faith . . . It was done by the Holy Ghost, who came from heaven upon the apostles publicity, on the day of Pentecost, and through the Scriptures . . . If the Holy Scriptures of the apostles and prophets had not done it, the mere words of the council would do nothing and its decisions accomplish nothing.

Luther’s view of inspiration is somewhat stronger than the Catholic’s. He makes it very clear that it was God who had written the Scriptures. “… one must always keep in view what I emphasize so often, namely, that the Holy Spirit is the Author of this book;” “these are the very words, works, judgments, and deeds of the majesty, power, and wisdom of the most high God;” “The Holy Spirit and God, the Creator of all things, is the Author of this book.” We can see that this language is somewhat more emphatic than the manner in which the Catholic theologian would convey.
Thus, as the Scriptures are the product of the Holy Spirit and not man, in a real way they can be equated with the Word of God. Unlike the Second Vatican Council, Luther did not merely suggest that the Word of God could be found in Scriptures. He, “confidently heralded the viewpoint that it contained not only the Word of God, the Gospel, but that it, indeed, also was the Word of God, per se.” Practically speaking, since no other revelation other than Scripture was needed, and that nowhere else could God’s word be found, it only followed that Scripture stood alone as the complete source of God’s word.
This identification of Scripture with the Word of God does not mean, however, that the “Word” could have other meanings or come in other forms. The “Word” is a manifestation of God to humanity. The written Word of God has come to us in the limited, but inerrant Scriptures. Jesus Christ is also the Word revealed to mankind in limited, but sinless human flesh. “This Word is God, . . . the omnipotent Word, . . . the divine essence.” Luther drew a parallel with the incarnate Word of God as well as the written Word of God.
The Holy Scripture is the Word of God, written and (as I might say) lettered and formed in letters, just as Christ is the eternal Word of God cloaked in human flesh. And just as Christ was embraced and handled by the world (in der Welt gehalted und gehandelt), so is the written Word of God too.

While Scripture and Christ are indeed the very Word of God, they are veiled from human perception. We would not be able to see the pure glory of the naked Word of God as it would be more than we could handle. So, just as Christ had to be “covered” with human flesh, so too, the message of God’s Word was veiled in human language. Yet, what greater revelation of God Himself could we have than in the man, Jesus Christ, and what greater revelation of God’s message could we have than in the Scriptures? Hence, for Luther, the Bible and the Bible only is the complete, sufficient, and perfect instrument of God’s communication of His grace to mankind.
As could the Catholic, Luther did not regard the Holy Spirit’s authorship of Scripture as precluding the human element. Indeed, he has been known to criticize various portions of it. The so-called, antilegomena, for instance, (those books which were much disputed in the early church) he admits, were not the strongest of evangelical New Testament writings. And, although sharply critical of the book of James for apparently contradicting the clear doctrine of justification by faith alone outlined by Paul in Romans and Galatians, he did write in the preface of his commentary on James, “I praise it and hold it a good book, because it sets up no doctrine of men and lays great stress upon God’s law.” In addition, Luther never excluded it from any of his translations even though he did question its place in the canon. Ultimately, “in his typical style as a believing and trusting Bible critic, he felt they were the Holy Spirit’s problems, not his.” Luther’s criticism of James and the antilegomena would probably not find much concurrence among most Evangelicals or Catholics today. However, there is no doubt that he regarded Scripture in its entirety as the authoritative, inspired, and inerrant Word of God.
The last remaining issue that Luther and Protestants are in disagreement with the Catholic Church on is the perspicuity of Scripture. For Luther, this simply means that the Gospel message of Scripture is easy enough for anyone to comprehend and does not need another medium of interpretation. Scripture interprets Scripture. This stood in stark contrast to what he called a ‘fabrication’ in his Babylonian Captivity of the Church, namely, that the right to interpret Scripture rested solely on the Pope. Since the Church was not necessary in order to discern the true intent of Scripture, it was her role only to proclaim and teach it.
Luther was especially emphatic that Scripture was absolutely clear and that anyone reading it could understand its plain message. Luther argued that if people could not interpret it on their own, it “is not the fault of the Bible, which is very clear, so that even boys understand it!” In a letter to Erasmus, Luther was so frustrated and even enraged that his correspondent had a very skeptical opinion of Scripture’s clarity. Erasmus held that Scripture was cloudy, obscure and that the real message could not truly be known independent of an objective, trustworthy interpreter. He believed that the human subject alone could not be trusted to provide the pure meaning of the text. The individual can do nothing but add his own perceptions preventing there from being a uniform, objective interpretation. For Luther, this view was not only nonsense, but dangerous. He responded in his De servo arbitrio:
What are the apostles doing when they prove what they preach by the Scriptures? Is it that they want to hide their own darkness under greater darkness?…Does not all this prove that the apostles, like Christ Himself, appealed to Scripture as the clearest witness to the truth of what they were saying? With what conscience, then, do we make them to be obscure?…If Scripture is obscure or equivocal, why need it have been brought down to us by act of God? Surely we have enough obscurity and uncertainty within ourselves, without our obscurity and uncertainty and darkness being augmented from heaven!…Those who deny the perfect clarity and plainness of the Scriptures leave us nothing but darkness…I would say of the whole of the Scriptures that I do not allow any part of it to be called obscure.

Modern day Catholic apologists argue that Luther’s contentions are erroneous. Even in his own day, there were sharp divisions among Protestants regarding such matters as the real presence of Christ in the elements of communion and infant baptism. Granted, Luther would hardly grant any legitimacy to those views that differed with his. Nonetheless, without a central, infallible magisterium to interpret the pure meaning of Scripture, it is destined and open to a multitude of interpretations. Indeed, the mere fact of thousands of Protestant denominations and sects proves to the Catholic that Scripture alone can hardly suffice to convey adequately the Gospel of Christ.

Material Sufficiency vs. Formal Sufficiency

The matter of the sufficiency of Scripture in Catholic theology is a more recent issue receiving much more attention than it did in the sixteenth century. However, as shall be discussed later, a number of significant and prominent Catholic scholars have been reevaluating the Council of Trent’s opinion on Scripture. They want to acknowledge that while Scripture is “materially sufficient,” it is not “formally sufficient.” The idea of Scripture’s material sufficiency suggests that all of the raw content (i.e. material) necessary for salvation is present within the pages of Scripture. This necessarily precludes any supposed normative revelation existing anywhere outside of the Bible. However, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the meaning of this content is unclear unless put together by the instrument of the Holy Spirit, who, through the Church, gives it its structure. This structure or form and is called the “formal sufficiency” of Scripture. Catholics maintain, as Erasmus did above, that Scripture can only be made clear when deciphered by an infallible interpreter, one who was founded on Christ, energized by the Holy Spirit, and promised victory over the forces of deception.
This is where Luther’s view of Scripture’s perspicuity fits in. At the heart of the sola Scriptura principle, is the conviction that Scripture is sufficient to interpret itself. Not only does Scripture contain the entire content of the Christian faith, it also provides the means necessary for understanding it. The Reformers, convinced that the Roman Catholic Church was guilty of numerous errors and contradictions, could no longer uphold this institution as the object of the Holy Spirit’s preservation of the Christian faith. They concluded that since the Catholic Church could not be trusted, Scripture alone must be the sufficient source of revelation, both materially and formally.
Catholic and Protestant perspectives on the nature and purpose of the Church, Tradition, and Scripture vary on multiple fronts. The Catholic conception of the Church’s authority and Tradition’s influence is certainly not weighed as heavily in Protestant denominations. “Superficial consideration of the term ‘Tradition’ has caused, and still causes, it to be regarded as non-Protestant.” Catholicism has a rich understanding and deep appreciation for the flow of Tradition that has shaped the look and message of the entire Church. While the various Protestant “traditions” may play important roles in the lives of these churches, they are not equivalent to the vital force driving the Catholic Church.
This Church is the Body of Christ first and the teaching magisterium second. The latter’s authority is based on the former’s consensus. For the Protestant, the Church is primarily the community of God’s chosen – those destined and secured to spend eternity with Him. But the lack of a central ecclesiastical authority provides Protestants with an unusual freedom that ultimately lets individuals decide which particular church or denomination has the correct interpretation of Scripture. For the individual Catholic, finding the true meaning of Scripture is the Church’s responsibility.
The entire contents of Scripture are God’s inspired Word both for the Catholic and the Protestant. And while minor differences exist as to whether Scripture can be equated with the Word of God or that it merely contains the Word of God, Protestants and Catholics equally revere it as the primary work of the Holy Spirit. However, the Catholic Church also believes that the Holy Spirit’s preserving power moving in the Church guarantees the faithful transmission of the apostle’s teachings through the decisions of its councils and decrees. Hence, it is the Church that has exclusive rights of interpretation of Scripture’s message. Martin Luther came to the conclusion that this was impossible due to contradictions he saw in Church doctrine and realized that Scripture was clear enough that even a child could understand it, making a centralized authority, or infallible interpreter unnecessary. The ultimate source of authority for the Protestant is the Bible. In addition, those passages which are most clear are the ones that Protestants consider binding. Those which are uncommon and vague, while inspired, are not necessary for salvation. This has often been the object of criticism from Catholics who caricaturize the Reformers as imposing an artificial “canon” upon the “canon.” However, this is not an entirely fair maneuver since this is only isolating the central message of the Scripture, not deregulating the indirect aspects of it. For the Catholic, Scripture is not clear enough on its own and therefore requires a truly objective interpreter, that is, the Church. Tradition, in this regard, is the interpretation of Scripture.

CHAPTER II

HISTORICAL PROGRESSION OF THE SCRIPTURE/TRADITION RELATIONSHIP

A brief history of the theological development of the complex relationship between the written Word and its unwritten counterpart will demonstrate the factors behind the various attitudes which have evolved. This progression has not been one of smooth and consistent transition, but generalized trends are recognizable. The initial view of the very early Church saw an extremely tight symbiotic relationship between Scripture, Church, and Tradition. Plus, under a much more rudimentary understanding of Tradition, one which did not distinguish between customs and beliefs, the Church began to acknowledge the existence of extra-Scriptural truths. As the temporal authority of the Church increased, abuse naturally was prevalent facilitating the question of a cleavage between Scripture and the Church. This cleavage eventually culminated into a chasm, resulting in the Reformation. On one side of this chasm, were the Protestants reacting sharply against the Church and its unscriptural traditions, whereas on the other side were Catholic canon lawyers attacking against the isolationist sola Scriptura of the Reformers. In their opinion, divine revelation could not be contained solely in Scripture, but needed to be completed with the apostolic Tradition. This has been the traditional understanding of the relationship of Scripture and Tradition until recently.

The Early Church

The early Church with its much simpler theology of the roles of Tradition and Scripture could not have predicted the degree of difficulty and complexity that would exist two thousand years later. The term ‘Tradition’ did not carry the amount of baggage it does today. Tradition in the early Church functioned as both a source and as a process. It was both the content and the act of handing down the kerygma of the apostolic age. Within it contained the preserved memories of the apostles and their sacred teachings. As there was yet no established canon, even the use of what was to be classified as the “New Testament”, was considered an act of tradition. While we do not observe any of the early patriarchs denying the authoritative or revelatory value of the apostolic literature, by and large they do not suggest the need for a canon and implicitly held to a high view of Tradition. Tradition, moreover, was virtually equivalent to the kerygma or koinonia shared among the apostles and the community of Christian believers that formed around them and which expanded into other regions. It was much more than simply a set of beliefs or propositions that had never been written down; it was the immortal ethos that was initiated by the Christ-event and was kept alive in the hearts of men and women and transmitted by the Church. There was also virtually no distinction between the writings of the apostles and the Tradition that was borne out of them. As Outler so aptly put it, “Tradition was the dynamic medium of the kerygma, the kerygma was the veritable essence of the tradition; and it seems to have occurred to no one except the heretics to conceive of a radical discrepancy between the two. Indeed, one may define a heretic as one who failed to recognize the consilience between the written and the oral tradition of the Church.” It was out of the Tradition of the Church, then, that the canonical Scriptures came to be identified as the written Word of God.

The Apostolic Fathers

The earliest Church Fathers merely assumed the reliability and authority of both the apostolic writings and some of the unwritten traditions. In fact, to speak of a relation between Scripture and Tradition this early on is somewhat anachronistic. The Fathers at this point did not distinguish between written and oral tradition as it was all believed to be the same apostolic message. The “traditioning” process was necessary for proper distribution of the kerygma and the content of the Gospel. It was the responsibility of each generation to hand it down to the next. And such was the purpose of the Church. The earliest of writers is Papias (70 – 155), whose contemporaries and associations (including Polycarp) had living memories of the apostles. Papias was said to be the bishop of the Church in Hierapolis in Phrygia and having had the luxury of second-hand access to the apostles themselves, actually preferred oral traditions to the written words. He writes, “If, then, any one who had attended on the elders came, I asked minutely after their sayings, – what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord’s disciples: which things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice.” Very soon, however, the unreliability of a purely oral tradition demonstrated the need for a written tradition. Thus, the apostles’ letters and the four Gospels which were read more regularly during the gathering of the assembly, increased in authoritative stature in the minds of those who received them.
As part of the legacy of the apostles, tradition initially served a pastoral role. Ignatius was purportedly thrilled to see the same essence of his own faith preserved as he traveled from church to church. His counsel to these churches reads very much like Paul’s suggesting that they continue to hold fast to what they had been taught and to behave in accordance with this. Outler mentions that, “For Ignatius, the Christian tradition is Jesus Christ. The traditionary process in the Church functions validly only insofar as it is faithful to this Tradition in its various acts of traditioning.” Ignatius writes:
“I trust [as to you] in the grace of Jesus Christ, who shall free you from every bond. And I exhort you to do nothing out of strife, but according to the doctrine of Christ. When I heard some saying, If I do not find it in the ancient Scriptures, I will not believe the Gospel; on my saying to them, It is written, they answered me, That remains to be proved. But to me Jesus Christ is in the place of all that is ancient: His cross, and death, and resurrection, and the faith which is by Him, are undefiled monuments of antiquity; by which I desire, through your prayers, to be justified.”

The Apologists – Irenaeus and Tertullian

With Irenaeus and Tertullian, a new function develops for tradition. For them it serves an apologetic purpose as a means of refuting heresy. As opposed to the Gnostics who were teaching that they possessed a “secret” tradition of the apostles that went beyond the current teachings of the Church, Irenaeus and Tertullian insisted through historical proofs that such secret beliefs of the apostles were sheer myth. Due to their ability to trace the succession of the Roman Church’s bishops all the way to Peter and Paul, Irenaeus believed this demonstrated that the current church’s views were in alignment with the apostles.
Irenaeus had great confidence in the Church’s ability to preserve the “continuity of the koinonia.” He believed it was the Church’s responsibility to ensure the “traditioning” of the revelation. Irenaeus appeals to tradition in refuting of the Gnostic heresy as a demonstration that the beliefs currently held by those churches that were founded by the apostles (such as the church at Rome), carried a special authority due to the legacy that had been handed down. For him, Tradition was equivalent to the Christian message that the Church had received. In his defense of the supreme example of the Roman church, Irenaeus appeals to the list of bishops extending back to Peter and Paul without citing a single source for this information. His apologetic appeal reveals a great degree of confidence in the process. Nevertheless, Irenaeus refused to acknowledge the existence of non-written apostolic traditions. “To appeal to revelatory truth apart from Scripture is [for Irenaeus] heretical gnosticism.” Except for Philemon and III John, Irenaeus treats most of what was to become the New Testament as having the same authority as the Old Testament.
Tertullian is the first to distinguish between traditio and traditiones, the former representing the kerygma and the latter referring to the customs that have been handed down. When Tertullian spoke of the verb form, tradere, it was in this same sense of traditioning something from one generation to another. For example, when Christ delivered His message to the apostles, He “traditioned” it to them. In addition, the Church plays an integral part in the sustaining power of Tradition since the original churches “are apostolic foundations and continue as the trustees and bearers of the apostolic tradition.”
For both Irenaeus and Tertullian, then, Tradition was an important means of preserving and proving the faith handed down from the apostles. Apostolic Tradition, while not adding anything to Scripture, demonstrates its proper interpretation. The Church, as Lane designates it, is the “custodian of Scripture and tradition” and there was never any thought of opposing one to the other, as would occur in the late medieval Church.
At the outset of the post-apostolic church, the Christian community believed that the loosely defined corpus of apostolic writings fully contained the apostles’ teachings. Through the act of Tradition, the teachings of the Church were not believed to provide additional inspired material, but only mirrored that which the Scriptures contained and provided a valuable interpretative element. This view of the early Church’s understanding of Tradition’s role is virtually unanimous among Protestants and modern day, one-source theory Catholics.
This conception that Scripture, Tradition and the Church simply parallel one another with Tradition supplying no extra content is often spoken of as the coincidence or coinherence view. That is, the substance of communication that any of these three authorities could provide would coincide with the other two. Their distinctions lay not in their messages, but in their operations.
Irenaeus, the first Christian theologian to appeal to written Tradition, along with Tertullian, particularly exemplify the coinherence view. Irenaeus and Tertullian, in their apologetic zeal against the Gnostic heretics, they made very strong connections between Scripture, Tradition, and Church, emphatically denying the existence of any secret apostolic oral traditions. Heiko Oberman also recognizes Irenaeus’ and Tertullian’s period in the same theological light but refers to it as “Tradition I.” “There is in our time a convergence of scholarly opinion that Scripture and tradition are for the early Church fathers in no sense mutually exclusive: kerygma, Scripture and tradition coincide entirely.” This entails the belief that Scripture and Tradition are not separate sources of the Word of God, but both issue forth from the same source.

Late Classical

At some point during the Middle Ages, this coincidental view of Scripture and Tradition began to break down. The idea of Scripture containing the full content of the faith became less and less of a demonstrable reality. We find clear evidence of this in St. Basil in the East and St. Augustine in the West. Both of these churchmen make mention of revelation contained outside of the Bible, yet inherited from the apostles, nonetheless. There is some dispute regarding the nature and impact of these figures, however, which will deserve some explanation. Whether the rise of the supplementary view began with Basil in the fourth century or Henry of Ghent in the thirteenth century, the perception that Tradition was more than just the interpretation of Scripture and the source of extra-canonical liturgical practices became the dominant view over the coinherence view of the Fathers. Tradition was no longer seen as merely a process, but also a source. It also grew to include not only non-normative customary practices, but also doctrinal material.

Basil

One of the well-known Cappadocian Fathers St. Basil, was to play a huge role in the Church’s understanding of Tradition. In a treatise entitled De Spiritu Sancto, Basil is faced with the situation of how to defend his view of the nature and place of the Holy Spirit. His objective is to demonstrate that the Holy Spirit shares the same nature as the Father and Son and therefore deserves the same glory and honor. In refuting different opponents, Basil at first attempts to defend the deity of the Spirit with Scripture. He succeeds in demonstrating the Spirit’s uniqueness, but fails to persuade his opponents who argue, “How is it that Scripture nowhere describes the Spirit to be glorified together with the Father and the Son?” The key here for Basil’s opponents is the preposition “with.” They concur that Scripture contains numerous prepositional phrases of “in the Spirit” but not “with the Spirit. Finally, in chapter twenty-seven of his work he admits that the latter phrase is novel but still reflects the view of the universal Church. With this awareness of Scripture’s deficiency, Basil makes the astounding confession that would be repeated in later councils, including Trent:
Among the ‘doctrines’ and the ‘definitions’ preserved in the Church, we hold some on the basis of written teaching and others we have received, transmitted secretly, from apostolic tradition. All are of equal value for piety; no one will dispute this: no one, at least with the least experience of ecclesiastical customs; for if we were to attempt to reject these unwritten customs as not carrying much weight, we should unwittingly be casting aspersions on the Gospel itself, in its essentials.

It appears from this text that Basil is endorsing matters of eternal truth which cannot be found in Scripture. While it is true that following this statement, Basil lists a number of examples of traditions not derived from Scripture, his intent to demonstrate the divinity of the Holy Spirit without the exclusive testimony of Scripture concerns us here.
This passage of St. Basil has become a key piece of evidence in the Scripture/Tradition debate. It was discovered during the Council of Trent for consideration during the fourth session. One-source theory Catholics today are loathe to concede that Basil even had such a conception in his mind. Ives Congar, for instance, insists that Basil has in mind here only the non-normative, little ‘t’ traditions. And George Tavard conspicuously fails to mention him at all.
Augustine

Augustine more or less represents the transition between the classical one-source view and Basil’s more explicitly promoted two-sources theory mentioned above. At times he very clearly and consistently upheld the superiority of Scripture over the Church, whereas other occasions displayed his belief of the Church’s necessity for faith. “The Church has a practical priority: her authority as expressed in the direction-giving meaning of commovere is an instrumental authority, the door that leads to the fullness of the Word itself.” His sentiments toward Scripture are revealed in the following statements:
Let those things be removed from our midst which we quote against each other not from divine canonical books but from elsewhere. Someone may perhaps ask: Why do you want to remove these things from the midst? Because I do not want the holy church proved by human documents but by divine oracles.

If anyone preaches either concerning Christ or concerning His church or concerning any other matter which pertains to our faith and life; I will not say, if we, but what Paul adds, if an angel from heaven should preach to you anything besides what you have received in the Scriptures of the Law and of the Gospels, let him be anathema.

One might think these were the words of a Protestant reformer written many centuries after Augustine. Clearly he not only has a high regard for Scripture, but also views it as the pinnacle of authority over all others. On the other hand, his writings sometimes reflect a very distinct “Basilean” leaning at times acknowledging the legitimacy of unwritten apostolic truths:
From whatever source it was handed down to the Church—although the authority of the canonical Scriptures cannot be brought forward as speaking in its support…

’The apostles,’ indeed, ‘gave no injunctions on the point;’ but the custom, which is opposed to Cyprian, may be supposed to have had its origin in apostolic tradition, just as there are many things which are observed by the whole Church, and therefore are fairly held to have been enjoined by the apostles, which yet are not mentioned in their writings.

Some of these unwritten apostolic traditions would include the practice of not baptizing heretics again who have left and then made amends with the Church, various liturgical customs, singing Alleluia at Paschaltide, as well as various celebrations and feasts in honor of the Passion, Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost. Akin to St. Vincent’s standards, Augustine’s “criterion for determining an apostolic tradition is, at least after the Donatist controversy, the evidence of the spread and universal acceptance of matters not found or expressed in Scripture or determined by plenary councils.” Additionally, Congar mentions two more exceptions in Augustine’s theology where the Latin father acknowledged the universality of the belief that Christ delivered Adam from hell following His descent there as well as prayers said on behalf of the dead. Yet again, the point should be made that Augustine never recognized these as apostolic truths.
Regarding Augustine then, his theology on the nature of Scripture and Tradition is far from refined. But it appears to bear the marks of a developing theology transitioning from a single source to a dual source view of revelation. While not quite promoting Tradition as having an equal footing with Scripture, we can at minimum see motions being made in that direction. According to Congar, other early theologians in addition to Augustine including John Chyrsostom, Vincent of Lerins, and John Damascene all make indications that Scripture needed “to be completed by tradition, not merely as a text needing to be supplemented by its interpretation, but as the principal part of a deposit needed to be completed by another part-no doubt less important in its content, but just as venerable-of the same deposit.” Nevertheless, according to Congar, the vast majority of early Christian writers believed that Tradition was merely the interpretation of Scripture and that traditions were nothing more than liturgical customs and practices, certainly nothing adding to the content of Scripture.

Vincent of Lerins

Another strong figure of the coincidence view is St. Vincent of Lerins. For Vincent, Scripture possessed all the material necessary for salvation. Nothing other than what had been recorded in Scripture was of normative value. However, in order to prevent the potential errors of the schismatics, Novatian and Nestorius, Vincent realized that the witness of Tradition was required for a guarantee of orthodoxy. His triple test for determining normative revelation by its universality, antiquity, and consensus (quod ubique, quod semper, quod ad omnibus), was never intended to provide a means for the adoption of extra-scriptural revelation. On the contrary, it was designed to do quite the opposite.
Not much is known of the life of St. Vincent who is also identified as the monk Peregrinus. However, his influence on the development of Catholic theology can scarcely be matched. Concurrent with Augustine and reeling from the aftermath of the Arian, Nestorian, and Novatian controversies, Vincent found himself in the same defensive position as his contemporaries. In agreement with his fellow theologians that the Scriptures alone provide the complete witness to the Gospel, Vincent recognized the need for an interpretive authority to guarantee a proper comprehension of the faith. He explains,
“Since the canon of the Scriptures is complete, and is abundantly sufficient for every purpose, what need is there to add to it the authority of the church’s interpretation? The reason is, of course, that by its very depth the Holy Scripture is not received by all in one and the same sense, but its declarations are subject to interpretation, now in one way, now in another, so that, it would appear, we can fine almost as many interpretations as there are men. Novatian expounds it in one way, Sabellius in another, Donatus in another; Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, in another; Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, in another; Jovinian, Pelagius, Caelestius, in another; finally, Nestorius, in still another. For this reason it is very necessary that, on account of so great intricacies of such varied error, the line used in the exposition of the prophets and apostles be made straight in accordance with the standard of ecclesiastical and catholic interpretation.”

Herein we see the seeds of Congar’s disctinction of Scripture’s “material sufficiency” but “formal insufficiency.” In an effort to combat heresy and schism, Vincent found a deficiency in Scripture’s ability to do this by itself and used the list of mentioned heretics as proof of the need for a rule to exclude their innovations. The solution that follows his premises is the so-called ‘Vincentian canon.’ “In the catholic church itself especial care must be taken that we hold to that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all men.” This formulation set the groundwork for all future dogmatic pronouncements. And while Vincent’s rule is not itself revelation, it won a wide appeal within the Church as a test of orthodoxy that spanned centuries.
Evidence of Vincent’s popularity even since the Reformation is briefly offered by George McCracken, “Barionius calls The Commonitory a ‘a little work clearly of gold’; Cardinal Bellarmine, ‘Small in size but very large in virtue’; the Benedictine Mabillion, ‘A little book not large but golden, and to be committed to memory.’ Pope Benedict XIV remarked in 1748 that if in Vincent and Hilary anything [i.e. unorthodox] appeared, they were to be excused, since in their time catholic doctrine had not yet been defined. A catechism printed in the diocese of Würzburg during the pontificate of Leo XII (1823 – 1829) contained a question to which Vincent’s formula was given as the answer.” With such a reputation, Vincent’s rule has become a de facto standard for identifying doctrine, a functional definition of Tradition.

The Middle Ages

After Augustine and Vincent, the coincidence view was increasingly replaced with a broader understanding of revelation that included elements from Tradition. It is impossible to generalize the whole period into a single uniform category, however, since we find discrepancies not only between writers, but also within the same author. These inconsistencies were not necessarily consciously promoted since the developing Church would not have imagined the possibility that Scripture and Tradition could be opposed to one another. This would explain the conflicting statements in Augustine as well as others who followed him.
However, one-source theory Catholics contend that the medieval Church, despite the presence of what are admitted to be extreme statements of ecclesiastical power, was committed to a single source of revelation expressed in two modes. Evidence of this disparity is apparent in the analyses of George Tavard and Ives Congar who believe that through most of the Middle Ages, the Church’s position agreed with the ancient Church affirming that Scripture contained the full revelation and that the normative content of Tradition was coincidental to it. It was more toward the end of the Middle Ages that a disparity crept in, creating a misguided division in revelation. Heiko Oberman and Anthony Lane, on the other hand, contend that the influence of Basil and Augustine at the beginning of the medieval Church represent the onset of the two-sources view which developed throughout the Middle Ages and found much fuller expression during the times of the pre-Reformation figures of Wycliffe and Hus. Conversely, Tavard, whose entire thesis is that the Church has always upheld the coincidence view, makes no mention of Basil, much less attempts to explain his De Spiritu Sancto.
Congar gives explicit treatment to Basil, but he dismisses the importance of Basil’s statements since he restricts the scope of extra-scriptural content to non-normative, ecclesiastical customs. Congar also maintains that the translation of Basil employed during the time of the Reformation and the Council of Trent falsely rendered the text in such a way to suggest that Scripture was in need of material supplementation in order to complete the full revelation of God. It was this mistranslation of Basil then, that led to the false notion that doctrine was delivered through two sources instead of two modes. Congar concludes, “For the men of the Middle Ages, all knowledge comes from Scripture…All theology flowed from sacred Scripture.” According to Congar, despite the fact that the Church did not discount the guidance of the Holy Spirit in certain unwritten traditions, they still believed that some allusion of such traditions could at least be traced back to Scripture.
Evidence of this belief that Scripture contains all the necessary elements of the Christian faith at least in seminal form can be found in various medieval writers. Rupert of Deutz, writing in the eleventh century says:
Let us search for wisdom, let us consult sacred Scripture itself, apart from which nothing can be found, nothing said which is solid or certain…All that God has said or promised in sacred Scripture can be found reaffirmed in the creed…as for anything that is outside the rule of holy Scripture, belief in it may not be demanded of a Catholic.

Of Thomas Aquinas, Congar writes, “Scripture is the rule of faith, to which nothing can be added, from which nothing can be deleted…from the fact that extreme unction and confirmation are not explicitly attested by Scripture, St. Thomas concluded that they were not necessary for salvation…Scripture contains all the truths necessary for salvation.”
Likewise, Kaspar Schatzgeyer (1463 – 1527) also held that Scripture contained all the necessary elements for salvation. However, he qualified this belief by suggesting that only within the context of the Church could these elements be understood. In addition, Congar cites John Driedo (1480 – 1535) who, during the Reformation, had channeled much of his efforts toward refuting Luther’s sola Scriptura at the same time held that all apostolic dogma sufficient for salvation was contained within Scripture.
Additional medieval theologians that Congar cites as upholding the superiority and sufficiency of Scripture include: Anselm, Hugh of Saint-Victor, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Petrus Olivi, Robert Holcot, Gregory of Rimini, and Jean Gerson. The current stream of Catholic scholarship would also agree with Congar that the middle ages were essentially simply an extension of the early church’s view that Scripture was the sole source of revelation for the Church. Congar summarizes the period with a quote from French Catholic theologian, Peter de Vooght, “It is not just one Scholastic in isolation; all the Scholastics from Anselm right up to well beyond the first half of the fourteenth century, based their whole approach to theology on the fundamental principle that Scripture is the source whence we draw our knowledge of what has been revealed.”

The Protestant Reformation

The Protestant solution to the Scripture/Tradition dilemma was simply to excise the Church’s authority and relegate the role of Tradition to an auxiliary status. Only where Tradition was useful for the instruction and explanation of Scripture was it of any value. However, for the Reformers, it no longer carried the normative authority it once had. This understanding of Tradition as a tool is what Lane calls, the “ancillary view.” Just like the coincidence view, the Protestants held that Scripture was materially sufficient. Unlike the early Church, however, the Reformers realized that since the Catholic curia could no longer be trusted to infallibly interpret Scripture, it followed that no authority outside of it was necessary. This is what Congar means by “formally sufficient.”
Contrary to popular belief, the Reformation was not a return to the classical, coincidence view of the Fathers because, “[t]he essence of the coincidence view is the assumption not just that Scripture and tradition have the same content but also that this content is found in the teaching of the church.” While the Reformers did permit an interpretive tradition, it was in no way infallible. The ancient Church was more concerned with the apostolicity of the faith, whereas the Reformers were primarily concerned that it was Scriptural. Since Scripture was the final authority, it immediately trumped all other contenders. “Unlike the coincidence view the sola scriptura did not involve the unqualified acceptance of any tradition or of the teaching of any church and Scripture remained, formally as well as materially, the ultimate criterion and norm.”
A variety of Catholic scholarship acknowledges the progression from the coincidence view to the supplementary view. However, they contend that this was a mistaken understanding, and claim that the Council of Trent, which had been thought to validate the two-source view, had instead refused to make a judgment one way or the other, thereby leaving the door open to a one-source reading. These Catholic one-source theorists are now emphatic that the official view of the Church remains the sole sufficiency of Scripture. The highly polemical atmosphere surrounding the Reformation gave rise to sharp reactions from Catholic apologists. Catholics today are directing the blame for the rise of supplementary revelation on this necessity felt by many post-Tridentine theologians to oppose the sola scriptura principle of the Reformers. Protestant observers, on the other hand, do not see this current trend as a return to the one-source or coincidence view, but as a whole new development, one in which the authority of the Church’s teaching arm is heavily involved.
While the early Church did not make such demarcations between Scripture, Tradition, and Church as the present Catholic Church does, it is debatable whether the authority wielded today was equal in scope and kind as then. Suffice it to say, the early churches held great esteem for the church at Rome. However, the first few centuries did not witness the degree of uniformity and hierarchy as existed in the medieval Church. Rome’s claim to possess the final interpretation of Scripture changed the essential relationship of Scripture and Tradition into something foreign to that of the early Church’s understanding.

CHAPTER III

THE FOURTH SESSION OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT

In 1545 the Council of Trent was convened for the express purpose of addressing the Protestant heresy and reforming the Church. The fourth session, which was begun on February 8, 1546, focused particularly on the formal principle of the faith, as it was thought to be logically prior even to the suggested topic of original sin proposed only four days before. The first part of the discussion centered on the compilation of the individual constituents of the canon. While there had been some discussion as to whether all of the books up for consideration should be understood “pari auctoritate,” the final vote favored the incorporation of the books that Jerome labeled as “apocryphal” into the canon. The second part of the decree was motivated by an internal compulsion to defend the Church’s Tradition as a valid source of revelation against the Protestant slogan of sola Scriptura.

The Positions

George Tavard identifies three distinct theological perspectives at the Council. The first group was represented by Cardinal del Monte, Alonso de Castro, Jacob Jacobelli, Seripando, and Thomas Campeggio. They were all determined to emphasize the importance of Tradition, over and against the Reformers’ rejection of it. Seripando contributed an essay entitled, De traditionibus in which he provided his definition of traditions as, “holy and salutary constitutions of the Apostles or of the holy Fathers.” He contended that some of these were written in Scripture and others were not. Some concerned matters of faith and some did not. Those that were outside of Scripture and did not concern matters of faith were excised from universal status, leaving only three types of traditions worthy of consideration: sacred Scripture, apostolic traditions, and ecclesiastical decisions. Tavard observes a weakness in Seripando’s categorizations. The inclusion of non-written, ecclesiastical traditions among the apostolic traditions (both written and non) comes too close to post-apostolic revelation. One Council Father and Jesuit professor of theology, Claude Lejay (1505-52) made a provocative statement that exhibits this attitude: “In the general Councils the Holy Spirit revealed according to the needs of the times many truths which are not openly contained in the Canonical Books.”
Such a broad definition caused apprehension in many of the Council Fathers as it seemed to encompass too much. According to Tavard, they were afraid of canonizing some obviously obsolete tradition, “under the pretext of apostolicity.” Requests were then made for more clear definitions of “true apostolic traditions.” One proposal which proved impractical promoted the validation of a belief if it had an ancient historical reference. Based on this some of the Fathers had in mind certain components of Tradition which they feared had been unjustly vanquished from true Catholic faith through neglect. However, there was a more prevailing fear of long-forgotten, obsolete, and potentially embarrassing traditions being uncovered and therefore, canonized. Thus, the impracticality of enumerating a long list of forgotten traditions provided the impetus needed to supply the added qualification that a belief must also exhibit not only historical value, but also constancy. Hence, in a somewhat integrative fashion, we see that Vincent’s test of universality plus antiquity was in operation here.
The next group Tavard mentions represented the opposite extreme. This was a much smaller coalition, but a very vocal one headed up by the General of the Servites, Angelo Bonuti. Perhaps the most expressive of this group was the Bishop of Chioggia, Gianbattista Nacchianti. Nacchianti was strongly opposed to the majority opinion condemning not exclusively ecclesiastical traditions, but apostolic traditions as well. “It is useless for us to seek now for traditions that have come to us by hand, orally and in the use of the Church in general, since we have the Gospel, in which all that is necessary to salvation and to the Christian life is written.” Others included in this camp were Pietra Bertano, the Bishop of Fano, and Richard Pates, the Bishop of Worcester.
Tavard recognizes a third group which held a mediating position between the other two. This position did not liken apostolic traditions to canonical Scripture, but contributed to the minority position an important qualification. During the months of February and March, a consultation entitled, De scripturarum germano usu was distributed at the Council and was authored by Vincent Lunello. In it, he addressed the matter of Scripture’s interpretation. “We must use Scripture according to the feelings of the Holy Spirit. These feelings are interpreted only through Scripture itself, through the public custom of the Church, through an apostolic tradition, through a plenary Council, through some orthodox approved interpreter.” In this view, Scripture is materially complete, but often requires external interpretation. Thus, in agreement with Nacchianti, Scripture is the sole arbiter of faith, but it cannot be separated from the Tradition that interprets it.
Lejay contributed his own views in De traditionibus ecclesiae. His view can also be described as in the middle of the two extremes, but leans closer to the first position. His view allows for the possibility of an extra source of Revelation in that he maintains a distinction between the Gospel and the Sacred Books. The former is the spirit and the latter is the letter, which is a foreshadowing of the distinction Vatican II would much later allude to, that is, between the Word being contained in the Scripture versus equated with it. Accordingly, the Law is written on the hearts of the members of the Church before it is recorded in the canonical books. Out of this naturally flows the authority of the ecclesiastical body. Lejay wrote, “The Church is guided by the magisterium of the same Holy Spirit by whose inspiration the Sacred Scriptures were written, and there is no discrepancy between Scripture rightly understood and the Church.” Here we see the authority of the Church upheld yet it does not imply new, post-apostolic revelations binding on the hearts of the faithful. This mediating view acknowledges that divine Revelation is anterior to both Scripture and Tradition, and, as Tavard reports, would become the perspective most influential on the final decree.

The Proposal

With these general factions marked out, the debate proceeded and the first proposed draft of a decree was delivered on March 22. It contained the following statement regarding the essence of the Gospel, this “truth is contained partly in written books, partly in unwritten traditions.” The Council further acknowledged that “equal adhesion of faith is due to both” (“Pari pietatis affectu”) Scripture and Tradition. Both of these are to be considered canonical and useful for establishing doctrine. Yet, the Traditions referred to here were restricted only to enduring traditions set forth by Christ and the apostles. Strictly ecclesiastical traditions, universal or local, were not included. In addition, the draft limited itself to traditions in general. No specific lists of normative, apostolic traditions were drawn up, to the chagrin of several Bishops.
Nevertheless, despite these concessions to the minority view, both the “partim…partim” and “pari pietatis affectu“ expressions proved too difficult for them to swallow. Bonuccio in particular, had great difficulty with the word, “partly . . . partly.” In his mind, the apostolic message is not distributed among Scripture and Tradition as all the other speakers, save Nacchianti, maintained. He held that, “Scripture is complete as to its content and contains all truths necessary for salvation. For him ‘tradition’ is essentially an authoritative intepretation of Holy Writ, not its complement.” Hubert Jedin maintains, however, that Bonuccio was not drawing upon Lutheran influences, but was hearkening back to Vincent of Lerins as well as scholastic theology.
Conversely, the partim . . . partim expression itself was not novel, but finds explicit reference in a number of writers. Most recently, Eck used the very words in his work on the Mass (1526) which was based off of a translation of pseudo-Dionysius. In addition, the Council also thought it found support against the “Bible alone” principle in the Bible itself for the apostle John himself confesses, “There are also many other things which Jesus did, which, if they were written, the world itself would not be able to contain the books that should be written.” Lastly, crucial support was provided by Cardinal Cervini who threw in the trump card. Thanks to his learned associate, Sirleto had earlier exposed him to the famous text of St. Basil, which “played a considerable part in the drawing up of the decree” and “provided the expression [pari] pietatis affectu.”
While Bonuccio argued against partim . . . partim, Bertano, Pates and Nacchianti protested the loudest against the second phrase, “with equal affection”. Bertano’s reaction is recorded by Hercules Severoli;
He bitterly assailed the decree: in the first place it seemed to him iniquitous to say that we receive the Sacred Scriptures and the ecclesiastical traditions with an equal adhesion of faith…There are many differences between them. Sacred Scripture is totally indelible. Most apostolic traditions are mutable and can be abolished and changed as the Church wishes. They derive from the Holy Spirit, yet they have no equal value. For every truth is from the Holy Spirit, yet not every writing containing truth is of equal weight.

Bertano’s point is essentially that even though apostolic traditions may posses the authority of the Holy Spirit, there is no efficient criterion for distinguishing these from the mutable traditions. History is unable to determine this distinction, as is the case with numerous traditions which are believed to have come down from the apostles but no longer observed. Bertano believed it was insufficient to allow only those traditions which have successfully stood the test of time and are still held, because he feared weakness in being able to defend these traditions in the face of their critics. There must be some qualitative test of apostolicity.
Likewise, Pates objected to the equal adhesion statement saying, “Who says that Sacred Books and traditions wield like authority? For traditions are maintained, changed, or altogether suppressed, as seems good to the Church for one reason or another, at one time or another. But the Sacred Books, who has ever changed or abolished them?” For both of these men, then, the issue is an epistemological one, not an ontological one. The issue for them is not so much whether apostolic traditions exist, but how one can know which are apostolic or not.
On March 29 the Council Fathers voted on the decree on three separate counts. First, should the decree merely mention apostolic traditions or state that they must be accepted? Forty-four voted for the latter, and seven for the former. Secondly, should the decree state an “equal adhesion of faith” for both Scripture and traditions? The majority in this case rested on the affirmation of the expression. Those in the minority such as Bertano, Nacchianti, and Seripando, preferred to use “similar” instead of the word “equal” (“pari”). The third vote was on the question, Should the expression be broadened to include morals in addition to matters of faith? Thirty-three voted against this proposal.
An important matter to note at this point is the striking fact that while the “pari pietatis affectu“ expression was challenged in this vote, “partim . . . partim” was not. Despite Bonuti’s question that it be reconsidered as well, the Fathers had evidently took it as pre-established. From all appearances, it seemed clear that the “partly…partly” expression was cleared for inclusion in the final decree.
However, more debate continued on April fifth as bishop after bishop offered his assessment of the current proposed decree. Bertano was generally pleased, but still not satisfied with the “equal adhesion” term. He would have much preferred a “watered-down” version, but did not see fit to contest it any longer. Nacchianti, by comparison, was much more distressed. For him, the proposal was unacceptable to the point of being in opposition to the true faith. It was at this point that he made probably the most famous comment as recounted by histories of the Council: “As I have often said, I cannot suffer that this Synod should receive traditions and the Sacred Scriptures with an equal adhesion of faith. For this, to speak my mind, is impious.”
Nacchianti’s choice of the word “impious” was explosive. The Council erupted into an uproar as Nacchianti continued to insist, “I have said and I repeat that this decree seems impious to me, that I should receive with the same veneration the apostolic tradition of turning to the East for prayer and the Gospel of John.” Nacchianti went further to explain that by “impious” he did not mean “heretical.” He only meant that it would prevent the bishops from being able to guide their flocks due to the nebulous meaning of “apostolic traditions.” Nevertheless, despite his explanation, the Council Fathers continued to vigorously oppose him in the ensuing pandemonium. Nacchianti, while not backing down, apologized if he had indeed offended anyone. He stood firm, “unless convincing arguments to the contrary are brought forward; this is my right as long as the decree has not been published in the Session and given force of law. If this is done I shall submit.” This is precisely what he did on April 7 when the expression “equal adhesion of faith” was again voted on and adopted into the decree.

The Decree

The bishops at the Council of Trent finally adopted the final decree, in opposition to the Reformers’ notion of sola Scriptura. The portion of the decree at issue reads:
The sacred, ecumenical and general Council of Trent…has as its intention the preservation of the purity of the gospel in the Church, and the removal of error. This gospel, promised beforehand by the prophets in Holy Scripture, was first promulgated by our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, himself, who then commanded his apostles to preach it to every creature, as the source of all salvific truth and moral order.
The sacred synod knows that this truth and order is contained in written books and unwritten traditions (contineri in libris scriptis et sine scripto traditionibus), which the apostles received from Christ, or which the apostles, inspired by the Holy Spirit, handed on, and which in this manner have come down to us, as it were from hand to hand.
Following the example of the orthodox Fathers, it receives and venerates with a like piety and reverence (pari pietatis affectu ac reverentia) all the books of the Old and New Testaments, since the one God is the author of both, together with the traditions themselves pertaining to faith and to morals, as having themselves been received either verbally from Christ, or dictated by the Holy Spirit and preserved in unbroken continuity in the Catholic Church.

When the decree was declared, it included a surprise which, while inconsequential at the time, would produce much controversy later on. Not much is known about the few days leading up to the final decree and what the deliberations were. However, something must have moved the Council Fathers to select a different wording. The “partly . . . partly” was replaced with a single “and” (“et”) rendering the text, “…is contained in written books and unwritten traditions.” The significance of this alteration was not immediately noticeable. Opinions are mixed as to whether the Fathers were even conscious of the shift in meaning they were making. It is possible that the sudden shift represents, if not a complete backing off of the two-sources theory, at least a more reserved stance. But we are not made privy to the reasons for it. However, while this change was made, concession was still not made to Bonuti, Bertano, and Nacchianti as the pari pietatis affectu expression was not disturbed. Whatever the Council Fathers’ motivation, all of those in the minority were compliant. Nevertheless, Jedin concludes, “There can be no doubt that though the majority of the theologians of Trent may not have approved the formula partim . . . partim, they approved the thing itself, that is, the statement that dogmatic tradition was a channel of revelation which supplemented the Scriptures.”

CHAPTER 4

POST-TRIDENTINE INTERPRETATIONS

As Tavard himself concedes, the thirty years prior to the Council of Trent the Catholic consensus on the authority of Tradition was in full support of the supplementary view. According to modern Catholic historiographies, such as Tavard and Congar, the traditionally held coincidence view of the Church was, by the time of the Reformation, so clouded that it polarized the various factions generally into one of two groups. The false notion, introduced by Henry of Ghent, that a distinction could be drawn between the Tradition of the Church and the Scripture began as a crack that grew into the tragic Great Divide of the sixteenth century. According to Tavard, the polemical spirit of the Reformation drove defenders of the Church to seek such an opposing view of the Protestants that they also mistakenly propagated the Scripture versus Tradition myth. Hence, instead of correctly redirecting their opponents to the historic, classical position of “Scripture equals Tradition,” they naturally gravitated to the opposite horn of the false dichotomy, claiming that the sola Scriptura principle was strictly a Protestant notion that could only be properly refuted by placing Tradition in an unnatural role. For these sixteenth-century controversialists, the content of Revelation was not complete without the unwritten apostolic traditions. For them, only parts of the true Gospel were contained in Scripture and the rest could be found in the Church’s traditions.
After the close of the Council, Catholic controversialists commenting on the outcome of the Council’s decree of the relations between Scripture and Tradition seemed neither dismayed nor surprised. There was no apparent awareness of a need for retraction. In their undivided understanding, whether the decree read “partly in written books and partly in unwritten traditions” or “in written books and unwritten traditions,” the viewpoint of the Church had been finally canonized. The Reformers’ sola scriptura was condemned and the traditionally held two-sources view was secured in the Council’s fourth session. Congar concurs, “If the efforts of the Catholic doctors were concerned in the first place with the defence of traditions, that of the post-Tridentine theologians can be characterized as a moving away from a conception of tradition as content and deposit received from the apostles, to one of tradition considered from the point of view of the transmitting organism, seen as residing above all in the magisterium of the Church.” Evidence of this accepted interpretation of Trent can be brought forth from Catholic controversialists and the reactions of their Protestant opponents.

Catholic

The most ardent defenders of the Catholic counter attack in the latter half of the sixteenth-century were perhaps, Robert Bellarmine and Thomas Stapleton. As champions of the Tridentine decree against the Reformer’s sola Scriptura, they and other Catholic post-Tridentine theologians each defended the two-sources view even using the Council’s decree as firm support of their positions.

Robert Bellarmine

The Jesuit Robert Francis Cardinal Bellarmine (1542 – 1621) wielded no small influence in sixteenth-century Catholic theology. He is perhaps best known as the ecclesiastical representative who opposed Galileo’s “heretical” and novel theory of a heliocentric universe, ultimately resulting in the latter’s recantation (1634). He was also instrumental in defending the Tridentine decrees against Protestant polemicists, which included the two-sources view of revelation that he believed the Council formalized. In his famous Controversies, Bellarmine argued for the explicit existence of normative elements of revelation that bear no Scriptural support. Bellarmine’s most vocal Protestant opponent, William Whitaker, dealt at length with Bellarmine’s arguments, including his “rules” for determining genuine versus spurious traditions. The first two rules focus on the witness of the Church universal as apostolic validation for any element of faith.
“Whatsoever the universal church holds as an article of faith, and which is not found in the bible, is without any doubt apostolical. The reason of this rule is, because the church cannot err . . . When the universal church observes any thing which is of such a nature as that it could not be instituted by any one but God, and yet is nowhere found mentioned in scripture, we must needs believe it to have been instituted by Christ himself, and delivered down by his apostles. The reason is, because the church can no more err in act than in belief”

Bellarmine’s appeal to the infallibility of the worldwide Church is a driving theme in his theology as demonstrated in the Controversies. The Church’s mere adoption of any doctrine is proper warrant for its belief. Bellarmine relied heavily on Augustine’s and Vincent’s appeal to the universal acceptance of a belief as a suitable rationale for incorporating non-Scriptural traditions into the faith. As examples of such unwritten revealed truths, Bellarmine notes the universally held beliefs of the immaculate conception of Mary as well as infant baptism, neither of which, he contends, have sufficient warrant in the Scriptures alone.
Whitaker then considers Bellarmine’s next argument. “Whatever the universal church hath observed through all former times and ages, is apostolic, although it be of such a nature as that it might have been instituted by the church.” Once again, Bellarmine’s justification alludes to Vincent’s “canon”, but in this instance, to the criterion of antiquity. He rests on the trace ability of any belief back to the ancient Church as evidence of its divine revelation. To validate this claim, he refers to examples such as the observance of Lent and Ecclesiastical orders as necessarily stemming back to the apostles.
Bellarmine’s remaining arguments rely strictly on the authority of the magisterial arm of the Church. The fourth rule proceeds, in Whitaker’s words, “When the doctors of the church, whether assembled in council, or writing it in their books, affirm something to have descended from apostolical authority, it is to be held apostolical.” For example, Bellarmine takes for granted as a universal truth of this sort the worship of images as ratified at the Second Council of Nicea (787). The fifth rule is similar to the previous, but further justifies the ecclesiastical authority based on its succession of bishops. “That is to be held and deemed undoubtedly apostolical, which is esteemed as such in those churches wherein there is an unbroken succession of bishops from the apostles.” Hence, the priority of the Roman magisterium is rooted in the Church’s claim of an organic relationship to its apostolic founders and an implicit assumption that this succession has somehow guaranteed purity in this particular church’s faith.
Whitaker cites other arguments by Bellarmine in which the latter attempts to prove that a second source in addition to Scripture was necessary. Bellarmine uses arguments against sola scriptura that run akin to arguments of many modern Catholic apologists. On the notion that Christ did not command the apostles to record the Gospel explicitly in written form, only to pass it on, the sola Scriptura principle is faulty. “If Christ or his apostles had intended to restrain the word of God to the compendious form of scripture, then Christ would have commanded the evangelists and apostles to write, and they would somewhere have indicated that they wrote in pursuance of the Lord’s injunction. But we nowhere read of this: therefore they never designed to do this.” For Bellarmine, this opens the door for the existence of revelation not contained in Scripture. Additionally, at an earlier point in his treatise he argues, “If the scripture be sufficient, then it is either the whole canon which is sufficient, or the several books contained in that canon: but neither is the case; and therefore the scripture is not sufficient.”
This insufficiency of which Bellarmine speaks is not merely the formal insufficiency indicated by modern one-source theory Catholics. Bellarmine makes his intentions clear that he means to demonstrate the material insufficiency of Scripture, in matters of truth both necessary to salvation and those considered secondary or non-apostolic. As Whitaker reports, “The Jesuit’s third argument, whereby he proves that the scriptures are not sufficient without tradition, is to this effect: There are many things which we cannot be ignorant of, that are nowhere found in the scriptures; therefore all things necessary are not contained in the scriptures.” Using a rather obvious witness to this fact, Bellarmine cites the example of canonicity. He reasons that nowhere has it been revealed to us what the contents of Scripture itself should comprise, and yet, Catholics and Protestants both stand firm that God provided twenty-seven separate articles in the New Testament that are used in forming the Christian faith. In Bellarmine’s reasoning, it follows that since the canon list must be infallibly revealed and yet is not done so in Scripture itself, that a source outside Scripture is needed.
In other places, Bellarmine is more explicit in his estimation that Scripture by itself cannot supply the full content of revelation. In reference to specific non-Scriptural yet normative elements of Tradition, Bellarmine writes, “We must believe that the essential parts of all the sacraments were instituted by Christ: but no such thing is found in scripture, except with respect to two, or three at the most.” “We must believe under the new Testament that Easter is to be celebrated on the Lord’s day, because the Quartadecimians were esteemed heretics by the ancient church. But this is by no means evident from scripture.” Whitaker also reports Bellarmine’s objection to the baptism of infants as practiced by Lutherans and Calvinists despite the fact that such a practice has no scriptural warrant. Finally, on the perpetual virginity of Mary, Bellarmine could not be more clear when he declares, “It is necessary to believe that Mary continued a virgin always. But this is not certain from Scriptures: therefore, some necessary things are known from some other source besides the scripture.”
As these excerpts reveal, Bellarmine could not accept the Reformers’ firm conviction that only the content of Scripture was binding upon the Christian, but that the faith also includes elements found exclusively in Tradition. This assessment of Bellarmine is not simply the result of Protestant polemics. Many modern Catholic theologians also acknowledge that this post-Tridentine Cardinal adhered to a two-sources view, but speculate that other motivating factors were involved besides the message of the Tridentine decree, which they contend is not averse to a one-source rendering. Congar, for instance, blames the spirit of controversy so entrenched in the times of the sixteenth century for polarizing his theology. “Although Bellarmine came very close to accepting the sufficiency of Scripture for what is necessary for all men, I am inclined to think that both he and Franzelin treated in too negative a fashion both the idea itself of the sufficiency of Scripture and the ancient texts which present it, because of an atmosphere too charged with polemic.” The controversial environment in which Bellarmine wrote, Congar suggests, pushed him too far to the opposite extreme, such that not only was Tradition seen as vital for interpretation, but was also a complementary source of revelation itself.

Thomas Stapleton

Thomas Stapleton (1535 – 1598) was a professor of theology at Douai and Louvain. He used more extreme language than Bellarmine. Like Bellarmine, Stapleton also interpreted Trent in a two-source fashion believing that some apostolic truths were carried through Tradition without a scriptural referent. Stapleton even went further than most two-source theorists, however, in wanting to include ecclesiastical traditions among the normative revelation, the type of which Nacchianti so adamantly opposed at the Council. “All the points of faith we believe, ‘because God revealed them indeed through the Church, though either in a written word, once it is well and soundly understood, or in a non-written word, transmitted orally and by the Apostles themselves and handed to us by hand.’” Stapleton’s reasoning is clear and is intimately related to his ecclesiology on this point. If the sacred Councils and the papal decrees are the infallible products of the Holy Spirit’s activity, then how can they be any less normative than Scripture itself? He writes, “Every Scripture was written through men inspired by the Holy Spirit in the Church.”
This notion is what Stapleton refers to as a “second presidency” of revelation. “Always attributing the first rank and place to the most Sacred Scriptures, we nevertheless adhere also to the non-written tradition as to a second presidency of the orthodox faith which is most certain and necessary.” He defines it as “that sole doctrine and tradition which the Catholic Church either has received from the Apostles and by common consent has kept and approved it as such, or has defined as Catholic truth through her Fathers, Bishops, Councils, by a certain and legitimate judgement supported by the perpetual and infallible assistance of the Holy Spirit or has publicly and universally assumed in the practice of religion.” Stapleton’s theology on revelation is not as complex as most theologians who were much more reluctant to acknowledge the Church’s authority to the same level. Without hesitation, Stapleton declared:
…men in the Church, inspired by the same Spirit, have preached orally, without writing, both what they or others had written, or what nobody had committed to writing. There is no reason to reject the latter after we have accepted the former as the word of God.

Certainly the Tridentine Fathers did not have this in mind. For Stapleton to reason in light of Trent’s decree that the Church is capable of writing the Word of God, goes beyond the supplemental idea of apostolic Traditions contributing to revelation. Additionally, Stapleton’s extreme view of the Church’s authority rose to levels almost unparalleled in Church history believing that the Church is “greater than that of Scripture.”
The Church is not bound, either in doctrine or in discipline, to Scripture itself . . . But she is bound to the word of God which the Holy Spirit perpetually dictates to her, whether he presents this word in writing or outside of Scripture.

This elevated position with which Stapleton places the Church making Scripture subservient to it, leads him to conclude, “Concerning the judgment, determination and approval of the canonical Scriptures, the same power lies with the present Church as with formerly with the Apostles.” In other words, it remains to this day the sole prerogative of the Church to pronounce normative value upon the canonical books or to deny them. She can add to the list or even, “make dubious books authentic.” Since this was the Church’s role during the canon’s formation, there is no reason to suppose that this authority has been taken away. In light of Stapleton’s radical views, it is not surprising that contemporary Protestant apologists of the time such as William Whitaker reacted against him and against Trent believing it to be a basis for his theology. Tavard concludes, “In English Recusant theology, Stapleton embodies the spirit of the Counter Reformation at its purest.”
The comments from other Catholic theologians immediately following Trent are also relevant here. Nicholas Sanders (1530 – 1581), papal nuncio of Gregory XIII and attendee at the Council of Trent, for instance, used the exact language that the Council changed when he declared, “The laws and the institutes of Christ have reached us partly by written, partly by non-written law.” Likewise, the Jesuit theologian and professor, Peter Canisius (1521 – 1597), who, despite his role as papal theologian at Trent in 1562, made explicit usage of the rejected “partim . . . partim” expression and is responsible for “mistakenly” translating Basil’s statement in De Spiritu Sancto as “partim . . . partim.” Thomas Pound in his Six Reasons (1580) is less explicit, “You seem to give men liberty to deny all unwritten verities which we have received of the church, either by express definition in general Councils or by tradition” Finally, Robert Parsons (1546 – 1610) also divided the Gospel by saying, “…both parts of God’s word, that is, both written and unwritten, be necessary unto God’s Church . . . No more can we say that God’s word left us by mouth in tradition is a mime, or detraction to that which he has left us in writing, or that in writing be a disannulling of that which we had by tradition: for that both are parts of God’s word, and of equal authority.”
Tavard’s conclusion of this period is representative of most modern day commentators of sixteenth-century Catholic theology.
In spite of the Council of Trent, the classical conception all but disappeared from Catholic theology during the Counter-Reformation. A study of this new period would show that the main post-Tridentine theologians misinterpreted the formula of the Council . . . most controversialists of the Counter-Reformation, like Cardinal Bellarmine, Peter Canisius or Thomas Stapleton, misread the ‘new synthesis’, the concept of two sources of faith, into the Tridentine decree of the 8th of April 1546 . . . most theologians of the Counter-Reformation made Scripture a partial source of faith, complemented by tradition. At times, tradition was seen as a partial source, a supplementary appendix to Scripture, though an appendix that took more importance than Scripture itself.

Protestant
Whitaker

William Whitaker (1547 – 1595), was an English Protestant trained at Cambridge and had a noble career. He was appointed the Queen’s Professor of Divinity in 1579 yet did not achieve his Doctorate of Divinity until later in his life. Nevertheless, Whitaker, on the basis of his academic acumen alone, had earned even the respect of his arch-rival, Robert Bellarmine, who had hung a portrait of him in his study. When asked by his Jesuit friends why he would display such a heretic in his presence, Bellarmine responded, “although he was an heretic, and his adversary, yet he was a learned adversary”
Bellarmine was Whitaker’s rival who occasioned the writing of his most famous work, A Disputation on Holy Scripture Against the Papists. Bellarmine, an early commentator on the freshly dismissed Council of Trent, held that the Council endorsed the two-sources theory. Whitaker wrote his Disputation against Bellarmine and Stapleton and by association, the Fathers of Trent. He expends a great deal of effort explaining the bankruptcy of the Roman position on a few fronts. After attacking Bellarmine’s defense of the canonicity of the apocryphal books, Whitaker refutes his promotion of the authoritative value of unwritten traditions. Never once does Whitaker presume that Bellarmine misinterpreted Trent. Whitaker argued that Trent had endorsed “partim…partim” despite the change to “et”. Moreoever, as the following quotes indicate, he proceeds to argue for the sufficiency of Scripture, along the same lines that twentieth century Catholic scholars Ives, Congar and George Tavard do.
From this place, I draw the following syllogism: If those who wish to know any thing necessary to salvation are referred to the scriptures, then the scriptures contain the whole of saving doctrine.

Hence we gather the following argument: If Paul used no other evidence than that of scripture in teaching and delivering the gospel, and refuting the Jews; then all testimonies which are requisite either to confirm the true doctrine of the gospel or to refute heresies may be taken out of scripture.

Therefore Paul in preaching the gospel uttered not a word extraneous to the scriptures of the law and the prophets. From this passage we reason thus: If Paul, when he preached the gospel, uttered not a word beside the Mosaic and prophetical scriptures, then all things necessary to the preaching of the gospel are contained in the scriptures.

Therefore all things necessary may be derived from the scriptures.

Hence, therefore, I gather a fresh argument: If the church rest only upon the written teaching of the prophets, then it rests also wholly upon the written teaching of the apostles. Now the former is true; for they can produce no unwritten teaching of the prophets: therefore also the latter.

Chemnitz

Martin Chemnitz (1522 – 1586) was a German Reformer who did not begin to study theology until after Luther’s death in 1546, the same year Chemnitz arrived in Wittenberg. He wrote his massive Examination of the Council of Trent, for which he is best known, against Jacob Payva de Andrada, a Portguese Catholic who was attempting to discredit Chemnitz by defending the Council of Trent.” The Examination, written in four books, masterfully analyzes Trent’s canons and decrees in light of Scripture, reason, and Church history. In his refutation of the Council, it is apparent that Chemnitz is reacting out of an interpretation of it that upholds the two-source theory.
If there is anything that Chemnitz makes clear, it is that he is not opposed to tradition. He spends a good percentage of the Examination detailing eight degrees of tradition, seven of which he concurs with. He admits, “we do not simply reject all traditions which are observed under this name and title among the ancients. For what is either contained in Scripture or is in agreement with it we do not disapprove.” The only type of traditions that Chemnitz disapproved of were those raised to the level of divine revelation with no foundation in Scripture. This last type, he specifically attributed to the view held by his chief opponent, Andrada.
Chemnitz’ argument proceeds from a working definition of the Council’s phrase “unwritten traditions” as that which is not found in the written pages of Scripture. This is evidenced by his frequent contrasting of Scripture to unwritten traditions as if the two were, by definition, mutually exclusive. A few representative excerpts from his analysis of the last type of traditions which he rejects can easily demonstrate this.
It is altogether an extraordinary piece of audacity to place anything on a par with the majesty and authority of the canonical Scripture. Yet the Council of Trent demands this for the unwritten traditions, pertaining both to faith and to morals, that they are to be received with the same devotion and reverence as the Holy Scriptures themselves.

Does the council perhaps, like the ancients, mean such traditions as are contained in the Scripture and can be proved with its clear testimony? Far from it! Rather, Andrada says that also those traditions must necessarily be believed which cannot be proved with any testimony of Scripture.

But behold, the papalists profess with a loud voice that they cannot prove many things which they believe, hold, and observe with any testimony of Scripture. Do they then want to have those things corrected which do not agree with the rule of the Sacred Scripture? By no means! But they set up this ‘demand,’ or postulate, as the geometricians call it, which they do not want to be obligated to prove: Whatever the present Roman Church believes, holds, and observes, which cannot be proved with any testimony of Scripture, must certainly be set down as having been handed down by the apostles. And at once the Council of Trent adds its decisive voice: ‘The unwritten traditions must be received and venerated with the same devotion and reverence as the Holy Scripture itself.

What do you think, reader, will happen in these last and most sad times of our aging church, if this decree of the Tridentine Synod is adopted, that the unwritten traditions must be accepted with the same reverence and devotion as the Holy Scripture itself?

Clearly, Chemnitz saw the Council of Trent’s decree to be opposed to a one-source understanding of revelation. But as he indicates, this is not simply his novel interpretation. He ascribes it to his Catholic adversary who also reads the decree in the same manner. Alluding back to Stapleton’s extensive claims for Tradition, Chemnitz likewise reasons that in essence, the Roman Church is raising itself on a pedestal by incorporating the corpus of all its canons, decrees, and formulations into divine revelation.
Also included in this corpus of material would be the writings of the early Church Fathers. However, Chemnitz makes it plain that even the Fathers are subject to scrutiny and correction. In consideration of Papias, for example, Chemnitz argues that his theology entailed ideas that the contemporary “papalists” themselves would distance themselves from. Regarding Papias’ adherence to extra-scriptural sources, Whitaker wrote, “because he set greater store by the unwritten traditions than by the Holy Scriptures, brought ‘strange doctrines and things which appear rather fabulous’ into the church. So the too great admiration of the unwritten traditions deceived the good apostolic man Papias because he set greater store by them than by the Scriptures.” Papias’ contemporary, Polycarp, on the other hand, maintained his orthodoxy by acknowledging only traditions which squared with Scripture. “But the ‘harmony’ of traditions with the Scriptures kept Polycarp on the royal road.”
Like Papias, Clement falls into the same predicament. Chemnitz enumerates a number of Clement’s beliefs that are neither Scriptural nor held by the current Church. However, on the basis of their position within unwritten traditions, he accepted them.
I could quote very many similar things from the books of Clement about original sin, about free will, about freedom from passion, about perfection, about faith, about salvation, etc., which depart far from the rule of the Scripture; but I wanted to name these few points which I think not even the papalists will approve of in order to show how the name, pretense, and reputation of the unwritten traditions, whose origin is referred to those who professed that they had heard the apostles, deceived also good and great men in the church in such a way that they often turned aside to clearly strange doctrines, a thing which cannot be denied concerning Clement.

The last Church Father that Chemnitz looks at is Basil and his controverted text itself. Relying upon a copy of De Spiritu Sancto that Erasmus considered spurious, Chemnitz reasons that it too, contains, “exaggerations which go entirely too far, which, if they are pressed too much without any moderation, are in no way in agreement with or tolerable to faith.” Those traditions Basil cites which have Scriptural warrant, Chemnitz has no problem accepting. However, when it comes to attributing unwritten traditions with “the same power for piety as those which are contained in the Scripture, so that if these customs are not observed, the very preaching of the Gospel is shrunk to a mere name,” Chemnitz insists, “manifestly conflicts with the faith itself; for this not even the papalists dare to affirm concerning most of these traditions.”
In order to avoid this error of the Fathers and of the Church, Chemnitz advises his reader to adopt the simple principle of Irenaeus and Polycarp as a guarantee of preserving the Gospel from perversion. “The best and safest counsel is therefore, as Irenaeus says, that what Polycarp had related from tradition was all in agreement with the Holy Scriptures. And as Socrates says: ‘When different traditions of the apostles were bandied about, because no proof could be shown from the Scripture, it was judged that the apostles had not decreed anything concerning such matters.’”

Conclusion

The post-Tridentine commentators all but ignored the Council Fathers’ decision to alter the text from “partim…partim” to “et” as if it were inconsequential. Robert Bellarmine did retire the partim . . . partim, even though the Council failed to sanctify it. Thomas Stapleton went furthest in his comments, elevating the authority of the ecclesiastical arm and consequentially the traditions of the Church, whether apostolic or not. Consequently, Stapleton was not shy about admitting the possible existence of post-apostolic Revelation and rebuked his fellow Catholic theologians for not doing likewise. Peter Canisius was also among these controversialists. He perpetuated the “faulty” notion that Revelation transmits not in two modes but from two sources. Protestant apologists, such as Whitaker and Chemnitz, while perpetuating the view of Trent’s two-source endorsement, were doing so only out of reaction to the Catholic controversialists who were convinced of this interpretation.

CHAPTER 5

POST-VATICAN II INTERPRETATIONS OF TRENT

While the consensus of Post-Tridentine Catholic scholarship did not acknowledge that Trent’s laying aside of “partim . . . partim,” but continued to write as if the two-sources theory was established as official Church doctrine, the virtually unanimous opinion of Post-Vatican II theologians exhibits quite a different analysis. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, and finding overwhelming support since Vatican II, the dominant interpretation of Trent’s fourth session is undergoing a significant metamorphosis. With Father Josef Rupert Geiselmann’s revolutionary re-examination of Trent, most Catholic theologians have followed suit. Today the situation has progressed that distinguished Catholic theologians are calling sola Scriptura a necessary Catholic doctrine.

J.R. Geiselmann

The trailblazer of this new trend in Catholic theology is Father J. R. Geiselmann, a theologian from Tübingen. In an article entitled, “Das Konzil von Trient über das Verältnis der Heiligen Schrift und der nicht geschriebenen Traditionen” (1957) Geiselmann was the first to ascribe significance to the Tridentine Fathers’ rejection of the wording of the first proposed decree in favor of a more moderate one. Instead of the traditional two-sources interpretation, Geiselmann argued that the drafters of the decree were not comfortable with the “partim . . . partim,” language and instead conceded to the fierce protests of the minority, by rewording the decree at the last minute, thereby accommodating both positions by not taking a position at all. They did not want to make any statements about the nature of the relation between Scripture and Tradition leaving open the notion of sola scriptura in the material sufficiency sense. According to Jedin, Geiselmann’s interpretation, “was but an offshoot of a doctrinal tradition which begins with Vincent of Lerins and is also found in scholastic theology ‘which was far from regarding truths handed down by mere oral tradition as a quantity existing in its own right and wholly independent of the revelation set down in the Bible’” Ratzinger comments, “Geiselmann’s views were greeted immediately with both enthusiastic acceptance and violent rejection; the literary polemic reached its height during the Council (Vatican II), with theologians of both schools seeking to influence the course of the Council in their own direction by publications that were often hastily launched against the other side.”
Since Vatican II, Geiselmann’s re-interpretation of Trent has won wide acceptance among Catholic scholars. The overwhelming belief among Catholic theologians today is that the whole content of revelation is contained within the pages of Scripture. Geiselmann has pioneered the currently strong move within the Church today to recast the one-source theory as ancient and universal, suggesting that the post-Tridentine interpreters, both Catholic and Protestant were all misguided.

George Tavard

We have already dealt extensively with Father George Tavard and his pivotal and highly influential work, Holy Writ or Holy Church? (1959). In it, he provides an extensive historiography of the relationship between Scripture and the Church. Tavard argues that from its inception, the tradition of the Church was that the latter was virtually equivalent to the former. The patristic writers saw no essential distinction.
In this sense, what was later to be called tradition and contradistinguished from Scripture, was at first identified with Holy Writ. It was the inspired writings themselves as they were handed down, ‘traditioned’, from age to age, from bishop to bishop, and as they communicated the power of the Word in the continued Pentecost of liturgical worship . . . Tradition, then, was the overflow of the Word outside Sacred Scripture. It was neither separate from nor identified with Holy Writ. Its contents were the ‘other scriptures’ through which the Word made himself known.”

In addition, there was no visible seam with the onset of the Middle Ages. The mutual relations between Scripture, Church, and Tradition remained intact. Adherence to Scripture meant adherence to the Church and vice versa. Tavard provides a few representative citations of medieval theologians who held onto Scripture as a final source of authority. John Scotus Eriugena writes, “In everything the authority of Sacred Scripture is to be followed.” Likewise, Rupert of Deutz affirms the exclusive role that Scripture plays in the life of the follower of the Church, “Whatever may be arrived at, or concluded from arguments, outside of that Holy Scripture . . . does in no way belong to the praise and confession of almighty God . . . Whatever may be arrived, or concluded from arguments, outside of the rule of the Holy Scriptures, nobody can lawfully demand from a Catholic . . . With this help let us strive not to fall under the condemnation incurred by the devil. For Almighty God would not free us: he can or will do nothing contrary to the truth of the Scriptures.”
As the medieval Church grew in prominence and power, its belief in its authority also increased. The pope, as the head of the Church, became more confident in his role as the Vicar of Christ on earth. Medieval history was filled with popes who arrogantly exercised their authority in both the Church and the temporal realm. This power prevailed not only over laymen, but over kings and queens whose eternal hopes were at the whim of the pope who had even the power to authorize the execution of heretics and mobilize military troops. Such boldness was epitomized in Pope Boniface VIII’s papal bull, Unam Sanctam (1302).
Such statements along with ecclesiastical abuses began arousing serious doubts about the extent of the pope’s power in particular and the Church’s in general. With the advent of the fourteenth century, theologians began theorizing a distinction between Scripture and Tradition that had once before been unimagined. Tavard contends that if a split is postulated in theory, it is almost inevitable to occur in reality. It is Henry of Ghent, a secular priest who died in 1293, who Tavard sees as responsible for introducing the possibility of a cleavage. In Henry’s Commentary on the Sentences, he asks a hypothetical question that had never been broached before. “Must we rather believe the authorities of this doctrine (i.e. Sacred Scripture) than those of the Church, or the other way round?” To Henry’s credit, he answers the question in support of the classical, coinherence view affirming that the authority of Church and Scripture are one and the same. However, by merely introducing the possibility of a separation, the damage had been done and the provision that made way for the tragedy of the sixteenth-century was made. This tiny crack struck by Henry’s pen was destined to expand until finally erupting in a rift known as the Reformation.
Others such as Gerald of Bologna, Nicholas of Lyra, and Marsilius of Padua followed Henry with statements that merely alluded to a distinction between Scripture and Tradition. Gradually, the coinherence view fell into disfavor as other theologians, such as Wycliffe and Hus rejected the absolute claims of the Church. It became common to speak of Scripture as opposed to Tradition and to view them as separate sources comprising the whole of revelation. The error of Wycliffe and Hus, according to Tavard, was to relegate the authority of the Church’s Tradition to a status below that of the Scriptures. The Church’s forceful reaction against this began polarizing canon lawyers and the curialists toward the opposite extreme of upholding the ultimate authority of the Church.
When Martin Luther lost all confidence in the Church’s authority and its Traditions, the only remaining trustworthy and therefore valid source was Scripture. He believed that popes and councils had contradicted one another through history and were not reliable. Thus, the Reformer’s cry of “sola Scriptura” came to be seen as more a rejection of the sacred Church rather than an elevation of Scripture. Here is where Tavard believes the final consequence of the two-source theory took place. It took the fortunate correction of the Council of Trent to set matters straight and to reinstitute the coinherence view of the early Church.
While Tavard’s well-researched and well-supported work cannot be ignored by any serious student of this debate, two important factors regarding his work stand out that deserve attention. First, one glaring deficiency in Tavard’s treatment of the Middle Ages is the total absence of any mention of Basil and the comment already dealt with in his De Spiritu Sancto in which he explicitly stated that only some of the Church’s doctrines were contained within the writings. This is particularly surprising since Basil’s text was alluded to quite frequently during the Council of Trent and is even responsible for the inclusion of the much disputed phrase “pari pietatis affectu.” Without attempting to provide an explanation, he merely presents his case as if Basil had never made this statement. Yet, as we will see, it is on this basis that Oberman pushes the beginning stages of the two-sources theory back toward the beginning of the medieval Church instead of near its end.
A further difficulty with Tavard’s viewpoint is that it raises questions about the precise meaning of his “coinherence” doctrine. While his language appears strongly slanted toward a “one-source” view, Tavard would never agree that the entire Christian faith is contained within the pages of the Biblical canon. It is his contention that scriptura Sacra, was never restricted to just the Old and New Testaments. Such a shortsighted definition is what he calls a “narrow view” of Scripture. “Whereas the Canon proper is considered as closed, its limits are still fluid, and some writings, outside of the Canon as such, share in the inspirational power of Holy Scripture. Hugh of St. Victor, whom Tavard calls the “greatest theologian of the twelfth-century”, calls the whole, ‘divine Scripture’. . . the New Testament, for the twelfth century, was not confined within the canonical writings.”
Tavard takes this rather seriously, generalizing the term “Scripture” to encompass the patristic writings as well, which included references to apostolic traditions not contained in the canon. While he falls short of ascribing additional content to the Fathers’ contribution to “Scripture,” he does not make any attempt to qualify it with a strictly interpretive value. In this way, he is attempting to go through the horns of the dilemma trying to affirm sola Scriptura on the one hand while at the same time wanting to justify the Church’s adoption of decrees not found explicitly in the canon on the other. Therefore, for Tavard, divine revelation is fully contained within Scripture. But the full extent of “Scripture,” when used in a generic sense is the compilation of both the Biblical canon and apostolic Tradition. Strictly ecclesiastical traditions with no enduring power would not be included, however.
Thus, when Tavard makes a conclusion about the twelfth and thirteenth centuries declaring, “The greatest centuries of the Middle Ages—twelfth and thirteenth—were thus faithful to the patristic conception of ‘Scripture alone’” we have to seriously wonder what the essential difference is between Tavard’s coinherence and the more commonly accepted conception of the two-source theory of revelation. For if coinherence signifies “canonical Scripture plus apostolic tradition,” and the two-sources view refuses to restrict itself to the Bible and yet not to extend so far into ecclesiastical traditions, how distinct is this ultimately from Trent’s initial draft?

Ives Congar

Another important contributor to the Scripture/Tradition discussion is the prolific French Dominican theologian, Cardinal Ives Congar (1904 – 1995) who was appointed as a peritus (a chief theological advisor) at Vatican II. Congar’s major contribution to this field is his Tradition and Traditions (1966). In this work, he takes a somewhat different approach than Tavard. While agreeing in general with Tavard that the historical stance of the Church and confirmed at the Council of Trent, is that Scripture contains the full content of the Gospel, Congar is careful to trace the evolution of Tradition’s function as well as its extent. As mentioned above, the fundamental task of Tradition is to transmit and preserve the original content of revelation as received by the apostles. Congar is clear that it is not to provide new revelation beyond what has been recorded therein, however. This is the position of the Fathers, which extended into the Middle Ages as Tavard concurs. However, Congar does not ignore St. Basil nor does he place as much weight on the medieval Church’s expanded view of Scripture as Tavard does. Congar also goes to great length to provide counter-examples of his thesis, providing extensive citations of other medieval theologians who appear to promote Tradition as a secondary source of revelation.
Regarding his treatment of Basil, Congar explains that his assertion that not everything is contained in Scripture refers to non-binding exclusively ecclesiastical traditions. He also makes mention of the broader medieval definition of Scripture that is crucial to Tavard’s thesis, but puts much less weight on it. Due to the fact that Hugh of St. Victor qualifies his placement of the Fathers’ writings among the New Testament Scriptures by indicating that they do not belong in the canon but serve an interpretative role, Congar sees fit to refer to Scripture in Tavard’s “narrow” sense. The apostolic traditions, universal though they may be, which clarify the Scriptures and are found in the early Church, are naturally subsumed under the authority of Scripture. Congar summarizes the ancient Church’s perspective:
From all the above we can draw the following conclusion: when early Christian writers speak of tradition they mean primarily a christological explanation of the Old Testament, and the ecclesial understanding of the central mystery of Christ and the Church as witnessed to by the Scriptures. When they speak of apostolic traditions transmitted orally they have in mind liturgical and disciplinary practices held universally and with an origin which, even if it is not attested by Scripture, seems to be bound up with that of the Church’s life.

Moreover, the patristic authors, particularly the apologists were strongly opposed to what Congar calls “esoteric tradition.” There were no teachings being handed down secretly “whispered in the ear.” This was the heresy of the Gnostics. On the contrary, all that the Christian was to believe was publicly known and available in the Scriptures.
Congar contends that both the early Church and the medieval Church held to a one-source view of revelation, specifically, the material sufficiency of Scripture. Anything outside of Scripture was not binding upon the believer. As for any unwritten traditions that had found their way into the universal Church, an anchor in Scripture was always sought. “Everything was found in Scripture . . . It was generally held that Scripture contained all the truths of faith necessary for salvation. If a question was put concerning a non-scriptural doctrinal formulation, attempts were made to provide some scriptural reference which as at least equivalent or indirect.”
Despite the exclusive nature of Scripture, the medieval Church never imagined that Scripture alone was “formally” sufficient. That is, not until the onset of the Reformation did theologians envision Scripture as being able to explain itself. Supposedly, this was the novelty and the error of reformers such as Martin Luther. Prior to this, Scripture and Tradition were seen as one and the same. In agreement with Tavard, Congar points toward Henry of Ghent’s hypothetical suggestion that Scripture and the Church could be opposed to another as the culprit that steered Catholic theology toward a faulty two-sources view and that ultimately resulted in the Protestants’ false notion that they could have the Scriptures without the Catholic Church. The misguided Catholic notion that Scripture did not contain the whole of Christian faith eventually became the dominant view, contrary to the Church’s Tradition. Congar writes,
Thus a gradual moving away from the traditional position began: from holding that all the truths of faith are connected in some way with Scripture, to a position the newness of which is characterized by the facility with which it admits the existence of truths of faith not found in Scripture . . . Consequently, when the time came for the outbreak of the Reformation, the question was often posed in terms of this false alternative, which ought to have been rejected, but which was seized upon by the Reformers: Is the Church above Scripture, or Scripture above the Church?

Congar has great respect for Geiselmann’s research and, by and large, accepts his conclusions on the Council of Trent. He believes that the Council formally and properly redirected Catholic theology back once again to the one-source view of the early Church. However, Congar throws a twist into the discussion. In assessing the history of the heated debates at the Council and the sudden and mysterious alteration of “partim . . . partim” to “et”, it seems entirely possible to Congar that the Council Fathers had no intent of wording the decree in such a way as to accommodate the one-source theology. In light of the evidence that post-Tridentine scholarship continued to read “partim . . . partim” into the decree even though it explicitly declared “et” as well as the Council’s stated purpose to oppose the errors of the Reformation, Congar concedes that no real shift in intention may have occurred, despite the subtle shift in wording. His following comment of his is indicative.
It is possible that partim . . . partim . . . really expressed the thought of the Council Fathers, for they were concerned to reaffirm that truths existed which had not been formulated in Scripture. At this time when an exclusively biblicist tendency was threatening the integrity of the principles according to which the Church had always lived, quite a few Catholic apologists presented Scripture and tradition as two complementary principles. It is, moreover, certain that the controversialists who wrote on the subject after the council, generally did so along the lines of the partim . . . partim . . . distinction.

Congar continues along this fascinating line of reasoning to suggest that even though, “in the conscious intentions of the Fathers, the replacement of partim . . . partim . . . by a simple et had no particular significance” the fact remains that something must have moved them to change the text. Congar suggests is that it could very well have been a prophetic influence, “going beyond what the Fathers themselves could have had in mind. The completely human historicity of councils does not prevent a transcendent Moderator from realizing his intentions in them; rather does he use it as his unconscious instrument. It may well be that the Fathers at Trent did not, after all, formulate exactly what they personally had in mind . . . It is undoubtedly true that a text of the magisterium ought to be interpreted according to the intentions of its author or authors, but it is also true that we are bound by the divine intention of the Holy Spirit, and not the human intention of men.”

Joseph Ratzinger

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (b. 1927) is one of the most widely known and respected Catholic theologians of the twentieth-century. He was professor of theology at the University of Tubingen (1966) and vice president at the University of Regensburg (1969). He also served as theological advisor to the German Bishops and at all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965). In 1981 he was named by Pope John Paul II as the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. For the commentary on Vatican II, Ratzinger contributed his analysis of Articles 7 – 10. It was specifically Articles 8 and 9 that dealt with the relationship between Scripture and Tradition. Ratzinger notes in response to Protestant criticism, particularly the isolationist comments of Cullman who said that it was Scripture that placed itself in the canon, that “if there is a fundamental rejection of tradition – tradition as the dynamic realization of faith, not as a prepositional statement by the Apostles – the canon also would cease to exist as such, and there would no longer be any reason why this particular selection of writings is to be regarded as ‘Scripture.’” This is why Vatican II was careful to place Scripture “within the framework of tradition.”
In addressing the matter of the current controversy regarding the identification of the sources of revelation, Ratzinger mentions that the Vatican II text, “shows clear signs of the firm position taken during the discussion against the idea of ‘two-sources’ of revelation.” On this point two objections were raised at the Second Vatican Council. The first objection was that there were two senses of the word “source,” a theological and an historical sense. The original theological usage of the word “source” used only in the singular at the Council of Trent referred only to the “Gospel” and had been confused with a faulty historical notion of the plural “sources.” The second objection was that the two source theory contained in the expression of partim . . . partim was completely inadequate. According to Ratzinger, the objectors at Vatican II could not accept this “idea of the two sources, [distributing] revelation in a mechanical way between two vessels of revelation that are independent of each other and thus again fails to recognize its true nature, which is not a collection of propositions that can be divided up at will and sheered out between two different compilations, but a living organic unity which can only be present as a whole.”
It appears that Vatican II also took into serious consideration the concerns of the nineteenth-century Tübingen theologians as well as J.R. Geiselmann’s formula of “totum in sacra scriptura – totum in traditione” as a model in direct opposition to partim . . . partim. They also asked that “the relation between Scripture and tradition should not be understood in terms of a mechanical juxtaposition, but as an organic interpenetration.” According to Ratzinger, both of these objections were incorporated into the text. He further reveals his own view of Trent when he concludes that “the comprehensive theological view of Trent is restored, as compared with the superficial approach of neo-scholastic theology…” Therefore, not only is Ratzinger convinced that Trent endorsed a one-source view of revelation, but that Vatican II followed suit.

Karl Rahner

Karl Rahner (1904 – 1984), also served as a peritus at Vatican II as well as professor of theology at Pullach, Innsbruck, Muenster, and Munich. Rahner’s influence on modern Catholic theology cannot be minimized. His essays preceding Vatican II helped prompt some of the discussions that were to be held at the Council. Rahner has also been on the forefront of Catholic/Protestant ecumenical discussions reaching out the farthest on the side of Catholicism to seek a reunion between Christian churches. Accordingly, he has made some of the most explicit concessions in an attempt to narrow the gap between Protestants and the Catholic Church. His method has been to adopt some of the same language that has been typically seen as exclusively belonging to Protestant churches. His book, Foundations of Christian Faith appears to have his fellow Catholics as his intended audience as he appeals for ecumenical discussion through recognition of the common ground shared between Catholics and Protestants (Evangelicals in particular). Rahner’s intended goal is to extinguish the main torches of dissent ignited by the Reformation but not through violent opposition. His approach is much more disarming as he attempts to argue that the fundamental lines of division between Catholic and Protestant are not as mutually exclusive as both sides might think. In particular, the historically volatile and divisive expressions of sola gratia, sola fide, and sola Scriptura are the points he wishes to defuse.
In Rahner’s estimation, the three major solas of the Reformation are not inherently Protestant. Rahner claims that within the proper framework of the universal church, sola gratia, sola fide, and sola Scriptura are slogans Catholicism can legitimately affirm as well. “For a Catholic understanding of the faith there is no reason why the basic concern of Evangelical Christianity as it comes to expression in the three ‘onlys’ should have no place in the Catholic Church. Accepted as basic and ultimate formulas of Christianity, they do not have to lead a person out of the Catholic church.” In other words, one’s adoption of these expressions does not automatically or necessarily distinguish him as a Protestant. However, Rahner makes it clear in his explanation that he sees fit to adopt only the labels of these theologically distinctive Protestant concepts. Through importing them into a Catholic construct, he must alter the essential meanings of what the Reformers intended. The key element for Rahner is in the most fundamental usage of the terms. This means, he must change the essential defining characteristics of these terms into different concepts not intended by the Reformers. It is in subtly redefining them that he is able to affirm them. In Rahner’s treatment of the expressions, he has little trouble demonstrating the Catholicity of sola gratia or even sola Scriptura. Precisely how sola fide fits within a heavily sacerdotal system is a bit more challenging.
Rahner dispels the notion that sola gratia is not an essential of Catholic theology. The transcendent God ultimately stands alone in the decisions He makes. His choosing to save humanity from the consequences of its abandonment of Him entailed no deliberation with us. It was, purely and simply, an act of His grace.

But if we say that by ‘grace alone’ means that a person really finds his salvation through the free and absolutely sovereign grace of God, and hence that in this sense there can be no synergistic cooperation between God and man in the sense that a person could himself contribute something to his salvation which is not given to him by God’s free grace, then this is not only a doctrine which can be presented and taught as undisputed within Catholic doctrine, but it is also a doctrine which belongs absolutely to the Catholic doctrine of the relationship between God and man.

Therefore, properly understood within the context in which God created the means through which salvation is to be attained, Rahner can conclude, “We can and must, therefore, hold the doctrine ‘by grace alone’ with an ardour which is both Christian and Catholic.”
When it comes to sola fide Rahner speaks in much more cautious and ambiguous terms, yet is still willing to embrace it as a Catholic belief nonetheless. In order for faith to have a salvific effect, it must have its source in love.

The Catholic doctrine is that this faith is not merely a dogmatic theory, that this faith must be interiorly illuminated and fulfilled by what Holy Scripture calls love, calls justifying and sanctifying love . . . The fact that the somewhat schematic distinction in the Middle Ages between faith, hope and love can in certain circumstances obscure the totality of the single and basic act of justification which God’s grace bestows upon man freely and as freedom, and the fact that that [sic] this whole scheme needs to be interpreted cautiously, do not change anything in a correct Catholic and Pauline understanding of the sola fide.

How this “love” is manifested or displayed, Rahner does not elaborate on, leaving room for an interpretation of it that can only be expressed through actions. That is, a justifying faith could be said to be one that is only exercised by a love that produces good works. Rahner does not explicitly suggest this, but it is evident from his language that any association of “justification” becoming realized through a process terminating only upon entrance in heaven is carefully avoided.
Regarding scripture alone, Rahner is even more emphatic that this is entirely a legitimate Catholic belief even asserting that it must be held. In this spirit of ecumenicity, Rahner finds it easier to find common ground with Protestants on this point. In his appeal to Catholics to foster a more sympathetic stance toward Evangelicals who are themselves making attempts at yielding toward Catholicism, Rahner reminds them that Evangelicals today are acknowledging that Scripture is a product of the Church. He then proceeds to highlight the Catholic Church’s own historical assessment of the supremacy of Scripture and the functional role of Tradition. “Looked at from a historical point of view, scripture is the writing down of the history of the faith of the original community . . . Tradition is at once a transmitted succession both of witnesses and of what is being witnessed to Scripture.”
Recognizing the Catholic objection to the Reformers’ contention that Scripture can be separated from the authoritative and judicial function of the Church Rahner appeals to the immediate activity of God in producing the Scriptures, of which the Church was merely the chosen instrument. He writes, “For only when scripture is understood as the one and only product which comes immediately from God independently of any historical and very differentiated process of becoming can I ascribe to scripture an authority which makes it completely independent of the living testimony of the church.”
In addition, Rahner sees Scripture as embodying the living Tradition of the early church. He calls it the “literary concretization of the living testimony of the church.” As such, the Scripture represents the complete material elements of the original apostolic kerygma. “[T]here is no tradition alongside it or beyond it. In this sense, then, we can readily hold the principle of ‘scripture alone.’” While it is the responsibility of the teaching office of the Church to spell out which concrete elements of tradition are the product of divine revelation, the Church itself must always be subject to the norm of Scripture since clearly, no new revelations are possible.
With this proper understanding of the place of Scripture, set properly within the context of the Church, Rahner boldly embraces sola Scriptura as the only orthodox teaching of the Church. “In order to be Catholic, then, the sola scriptura does not have to be denied; this is, rather, a principle which not only can but also must be recognized by Catholic dogmatic theology.” If sola Scriptura indicates no more than that no revelation exists outside the Bible, the Church can affirm it. If, on the other hand, it entails a separation of the Scripture from Church, it must be denied.
Rahner’s adoption of the very slogans that the Reformers believed distinguished them from the papists is no indication of his belief that the form of the Church is properly Protestant. In Protestant theology, he recognizes that the usage of the word, “sola” was meant precisely to relegate the function of the Church below that of grace, faith, and scripture. However, Rahner would not yield this far and this is what continues to distinguish his views as Catholic. He admits, “…there still remains the question how and to what extent and in what way this interior and pneumatic power of scripture can seriously be formative of church, and can also divide the church. And at this point the principle of scripture alone breaks down. Ultimately the axiom of scripture alone is self-contradictory, at least when it is understood indiscriminately.” In other words, while Scripture alone contains the normative material, it alone does not prescribe formative dogma.

Heiko Oberman

Up to this point, we have only examined the literature of Catholic interpretations of Trent and the Scripture/Tradition debate. Such theologians, while not necessarily in error, are undoubtedly motivated to avoid evaluating the outcome of a conciliar decree as false and in need of correction. While Congar nearly approaches such a conclusion, as we saw, he only limits the error in the minds of the Council Fathers, not in the decree they formulated. Since Catholics today are moving further and further away from what has been thought for centuries to be the proper interpretation of Trent, their only recourse is to place the error on the interpretation, not on the decree itself. Protestant historians, in contrast, are not so averse to recognizing current trends and movements within the Church as contrary to previous Council definitions.
Accordingly, protestant theologian, Heiko Oberman (1930 – 2001) comes to a different conclusion on the Council of Trent than the Catholic theologians we have examined so far. Essentially Oberman believes that the post-Tridentine scholars did not misinterpret Trent, but that their beliefs were entirely in concert with the Council Fathers as well as the final decree and that modern Catholics are therefore adopting a view in contradiction to it.
Along with Tavard, Congar, and others, Oberman believes that at some point in the Church’s history, a change occurred from a one-source to a two-source view. He concurs that the early Church had a decidedly one-source, or coinherence view at least throughout its infancy. “As regards the pre-Augustinian Church, there is in our time a striking convergence of scholarly opinion that Scripture and Tradition are for the early Church in no sense mutually exclusive: kerygma, Scripture and Tradition coincide entirely. The Church preaches the kerygma which is to be found in toto in written form in the canonical books.” Soon after this, however, a change begins to take place in which canon law is not seen as two parallel streams emerging from the same source, but as the opposite: two streams converging into one divine truth.
Oberman attributes this reversal in thinking to Basil and Augustine, much earlier than Tavard and Congar. “A new concept of tradition was formulated in the East by Basil the Great and was propagated half a century later in the West by Augustine . . . We find here for the first time explicitly the idea that the Christian owes equal respect and obedience to written and to unwritten ecclesiastical traditions, whether contained in canonical writings or in a secret oral tradition handed down by the Apostles through their successors.” However, this change was not at all sudden. As we have seen within the writings of Augustine alone, there appear to be contradictory views held at once which is the case for the majority of medieval theologians. While Tavard cites medieval writers who stress the solitary authority of Scripture, Oberman makes mention of some of these same writers expressing the opposite view.
Oberman uses the labels “Tradition I” and “Tradition II” to designate these separate strains of theology. While the coinherence view of the early Church can be called Tradition I, the growing development of a dual source of revelation beginning during the onset of the Middle Ages is Tradition II. The manner in which Tradition II took over the theological landscape was due to a subtle and increasing dependence upon the canon lawyer to settle disputes between the papal curia and heads of state as well as diverging opinions between curialists and conciliarists. The judgments of canon law were virtually becoming laws themselves. Since the increasing importance of these decretals entailed looking beyond the written documents of Scripture, Tradition II, as supported by Basil, became a theological principle.
Oberman observes a reaction against the increasing acceptance of Basil’s two-sources theory demonstrated in the writings of Bradwardine, Wyclif and Ambrosius of Speier in the fourteenth century and Hus and Wessel Gansfort later on. Each one of these theologians makes an appeal to the superiority of Scripture above all, thus attempting to usher in a return to the Tradition I view of the early Church. The protests of these writers falls short of the Reformers’ sola Scriptura in that they were not denying Tradition’s claim to ongoing interpretation nor the Church’s right to judge. They were simply critical of the practice of appealing to non-Scriptural authorities as additional source material.
Oberman strongly contends that by the sixteenth century, the two-sources view was functionally established. He also contends that as far as the Reformation was a rejection of Tradition II, it also had to be careful not to abandon Tradition I as well. Luther stood strongly opposed to the Church’s extreme claims to authority as illustrated through the burning of the books of canon law in Wittenberg in 1520 as well as his statement soon after, “. . . Christ’s teaching and the pope’s teaching will not and cannot rule jointly; for Christ wants to be sole Master, as he says in Matthew 23:8.” Yet on the other side of the coin, and a few years later, the Radical Reformers posed a new threat that forced Luther to qualify the sola Scriptura principle so as to prevent it from being given a strictly individualist interpretation and to steer it once again back toward Tradition I. Oberman commenting on Luther states, “In 1528 in a treatise on rebaptism, Luther makes very clear that his interpretation of the sola-scriptura principle does not exclude, but includes a high regard for Tradition I: ‘We do not act as fanatically as the sectarian spirits. We do not reject everything that is under the dominion of the Pope. For in that event we should also reject the Christian Church . . . Much Christian good, nay, all Christian good, is to be found in the papacy and from there it descended to us.’”
In opposition to the Reformation, the Council of Trent set out to condemn the Reformers’ doctrines. In this vain, Oberman rejects the pervading new thesis initially proposed by Geiselmann and accepted widely today by Catholic historians and theologians. Oberman contends that despite the Council’s rejection of the partim . . . partim view in favor of the more palatable et, the Council’s position remained steadfast and true to it, and consequently, set Tradition II in stone. He provides four lines of evidence which he believes defeats Geiselmann’s proposal.
First, Oberman rejects Geiselmann’s contention that the partim . . . partim view of the Council’s initial draft was the result of nominalist philosophers such as Occam and Biel. While nominalism played a part in preparing the two-sources theory for its “official reception at Trent”, the phrase itself was very rarely used and has yet to be found among nominalist writers. In addition, the change to et itself is also in keeping with nominalist thinking. Therefore, not much should be made of the Council’s change to the conjunction et as it still captures the meaning of Basil’s, ta men, ta de.
The second reason Oberman rejects Geiselmann’s theory is because the cardinal legate at the Council, Cervini, made the announcement on April 6, 1546 that after spending a night on revising the initial draft, the final version that won acceptance is, “‘in substance’ the same.” This leaves little room for speculation that the Council Fathers had a change of conviction that would have reversed the meaning of the first draft. On this point, however, Oberman does not consider Congar’s suggestion that the intention of the Council Fathers is ultimately irrelevant to the decree’s actual meaning.
Thirdly, Oberman discounts the seriousness with which the decree’s drafters considered the protests voiced by Bonuccio and Nacchianti, since the orthodoxy of both were at times doubted. According to Oberman, the former was suspected of heresy and the latter “was once called ‘avid for novelties.’” Hence, it is more likely that these two were rogue trouble-makers more eager for argument rather than seeking a legitimate resolution. Given the overly inflammatory language used by Nacchianti, this is not difficult to imagine.
Finally, Oberman appeals to the fact that the Church itself understood Trent’s outcome in the context of a two-sources point of view. According to Oberman, the Roman Catechism in 1566 very clearly interpreted the Council’s et as partim . . . partim, since it declares that “the Word of God is distributed over scripture and tradition.” The term, “distributed” denotes a sort of doling out of the Gospel between the two pillars of Scripture and Tradition such that some is given to one while the rest is given to the other.
Therefore, Oberman concludes, “In short, the Council of Trent clearly admits that not all doctrinal truths are to be found in Holy Scripture. Tradition is seen as a second doctrinal source which does not ‘simply’ unfold the contents of Scripture, as in Tradition I but adding its own substance complements Holy Scripture contentwise. The gradually eroded connexion between explicit and implicit truths has been snapped; the exegetical tradition has been transformed into Tradition II.”

Anthony Lane

Anthony Lane comes from another Protestant perspective yet adopts the same points of view as the Catholic writers we have examined above. While once again acknowledging the familiar evolution from a one-source to two-source theory, Lane promotes a more middle of the road, yet more complex position between Tavard and Oberman, essentially acknowledging two shifts away from the authority of Scripture; one between Scripture and Tradition and another between Scripture and the Church. He also criticizes Oberman’s research for largely neglecting the influence of the Church in his discussion, identifying only one theological crisis in the Church’s history. Lane maintains that in any discussion of the Scripture and Tradition, the operation of the Church must not be neglected, hence his title, Scripture, Tradition and Church.
In agreement with the universal consensus on this matter, Lane argues that the early Church enjoyed a oneness between Scripture, Church, and Tradition. That is, there was a coinherence between all three, not just two of them. During the fourth century, however, Basil introduced the first dichotomy which started the ball rolling that led theologians further and further into a two-source or “supplementary” view which gradually gained momentum until it became the dominant view in the latter middle ages with “an increasing number of doctrines [becoming] justified by appealing to it.”
The next shift or “crisis” as Lane puts it, is between Scripture and Church, rather than Scripture and Tradition. Here he upholds the view of Tavard that Henry of Ghent is initially responsible for introducing the split between the Church and Scripture. This distinction is important because it does not identify the teaching arm of the Church with Tradition (or “traditions”). The error in this, according to Lane is the failure to identify the different causes of the views that would oppose one another in the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. The Reformation was the outcome of the Scripture/Church crisis, whereas the Council of Trent grew out of the Scripture/Tradition dichotomy. The Protestant slogan of sola Scriptura, was a reaction not against Tradition, but was the final consequence of this later crisis. The authority of the Church in contradistinction to the Bible was at issue here.
In further disagreement with Oberman, Lane argues that the sola Scriptura principle was not a return to the coincidence view of the Fathers (what Oberman calls “Tradition I”) since it explicitly rejected the authority of the Church. “The essence of the coincidence view is the assumption not just that Scripture and tradition have the same content but also that this content is found in the teaching of the church. The error in attributing the coincidence view to the Reformers lies in the neglect of their ecclesiology. They did allow for an interpretative tradition not adding to Scripture but did not see either this tradition or ecclesiastical teaching as infallible.” This conception of Tradition Lane refers to as the “ancillary view”. For Protestants, the interpretative function of Tradition was neither normative nor did it contribute extra material to the corpus of revelation. Without being able to abandon Tradition altogether, as this would entail the pernicious position of severing ties to the early Church, another purpose for Tradition had to be sought. It became, more or less, a tool or guide for understanding Scripture, neither infallible nor supplying novel doctrines.
Lane agrees with current Catholic scholarship and Geiselmann’s thesis that the Council of Trent did not canonize the supplementary view, but that it actually remained neutral on the material sufficiency of Scripture. This is in spite of the fact that post-Tridentine scholarship up until the nineteenth century believed that Trent did teach the supplementary view. Lane seems to base his entire opinion on the mere fact of the Council Father’s alteration of the wording from the proposed draft to the finalized version. He rejects out of hand discussions that demonstrate the intentions of the Fathers was surely in support of the two-sources view as they do not prove that the decree itself is contrary to it. This is again the way out of the dilemma provided by the Catholic theologian, Ives Congar.

Edward Schillebeeckx

Beligian born Edward Schillebeeckx, became a Dominican monk at an early age and studied in France under D. Chenu and Yves Congar. He later moved to the Netherlands to teach and wrote mostly on philosophical and theological issues. During Vatican II, Schillebeeckx traveled to Rome to represent the Dutch bishops and was instrumental in pushing for a “theology of renewal.” Writing more as a theologian than as a historian, Schillebeeckx embraces Geiselmann’s thesis and writes as if no competing interpretations were ever available. The following quotations from Schillebeeckx speak for themselves indicating that his theology includes the beliefs that: 1) Revelation proceeds from one source alone; 2) Scripture is the judge of the Church; and 3) Scripture is the final source of revelation out of which the Church seeks to make explicit, but never adding to it.
Schillbeeckx consistently writes as if revelation proceeds solely from one source and that is Scripture and is the whole of the apostolic tradition. “Revelation-in-reality, revelation-in-word, and holy scripture thus form one single whole. Scripture provides us with an infallible and precise expression of the revelation as this was revealed in God’s saving activity in Christ…” He also considers Scripture to be the final source of faith, comparing it to the Magna Carta. “Since Scripture belongs to the phase in the history of salvation in which the apostolic tradition was constituted, it is, as the written tradition of the college of apostles, the Magna Carta against which the life and the confession of the Church must always be verified.”
For Schillebeeckx, Scripture along with the Church is the final judge, or the standard that is subject to no other standard. “The apostolic Church together with its scripture is therefore the norma non normanda-the norm in its own right-of the whole of the post-apostolic Church.”
Hence, for Schillebeeckx, the entirety of the faith rests in Scripture alone, but not without qualification. “On the other hand, however, it is not possible to give an independent value to this ‘covering letter’, as if salvation were to be found exclusively in Scripture.” “This means that Scripture has, so to speak, a double context: its context within the apostolic Church, and its present-day context. For Scripture is the record and the fundamental, divinely guaranteed expression of our present-day faith as well. Thus through the centuries the Church, constantly deriving its life and faith from the Bible, has always been in process of reclaiming the more implicit meaning of Scripture, on a basis of the grace of faith which empowers us to be ‘sympathetic’ to the divine meaning of the Bible’s human words. This development has never, and will never result, in the discovery of any new dogmas or revelations…” This reference to the “implicit meaning of Scripture” has become the failsafe raison d’être protecting sola scriptura Catholics from severance from Rome, as was the consequence of the Reformers’ theology. The formal insufficiency of Scripture mandates another body to provide its clarity and significance, and thereby justifying troublesome dogmas whose evidence is scantily founded on the texts alone. Nevertheless, Schillebeeckx’ downplay of Tradition and appeal to the sole revelatory value of Scripture puts him squarely at odds with post-Tridentine theologians.

Heinrich Lennerz

One modern Catholic theologian who has not been convinced by Geiselmann’s thesis is Heinrich Lennerz. Lennerz argues quite convincingly that the intentions of the Fathers at Trent were not to reinstitute the coincidence view or to even take a neutral stance on it. His objections center around the intentions of the Council Fathers, not on the actual wording of the decree itself.
First, Lennerz challenges Geiselmann’s suggestion that Bonuti succeeded in swaying the council away from adopting a two-sources view expressed by partim . . . partim to language that only considered two-modes. We have no evidence today of anyone’s desire to change the meaning. Moreover, we do have contrary evidence that suggests that although partim . . . partim was not the final decree, it did express the true intent of the Fathers. Correspondence between the legates demonstrates their urgent desire to oppose the Reformers in support of the existence of unwritten traditions.
A second factor weighing against Geiselmann is the very clear fact that post-Tridentine theologians such as Canisius, Bellarmine, and Stapleton understood the Council as teaching the two-sources view, to the point of admitting the existence of doctrines supported solely on the basis of oral Tradition that are not contained in Scripture. In addition, this same council made appeals to unwritten traditions themselves in support of doctrinal matters.
While Lennerz is certainly not alone in his conviction, today he is most certainly in the minority. I am currently unaware of any additional writings of his which spell out his historiography of the Scripture/Tradition discussion. Therefore, it is unknown whether he would concur with the majority of his Catholic contemporaries that the coinherence of Scripture, Tradition, and Church was the view of the early Church and that it has been erroneously replaced by the two-sources view. In addition, it does not appear that Lennerz has addressed the possibility proposed by Congar and Lane that despite what the Fathers of the Council of Trent meant to define, the decree itself is not opposed to a one-source interpretation. He appears to assume that the authors’ original intent is the objective in our analysis.

Conclusion

With the exception of a few scholars like Heinrich Lennerz, Catholic theology is moving away from the traditional two-source interpretation of Trent. The belief that the Council categorically defined into canon law the two-sources theory of revelation is quickly losing ground today, if it is not completely discredited. This new revolution in Catholic historical thought, while attempting to maintain orthodoxy by claiming that the late medieval Church erroneously, yet gradually replaced the ancient coincidence view of the early Church with that of the two-sources view, must also explain the understanding of the post-Tridentine theologians who interpreted the Council’s statement in this same vain. As it would be theological suicide to attribute error to the decree itself, the culpability for misinterpreting the Council must be placed upon the initial receivers and commentators of it. As we have seen, these counter-Reformers have become the scapegoats for virtually all post-Vatican II theologians.
George Tavard and Heiko Oberman trace two separate relationships that Anthony Lane attempts to synthesize. Lane criticizes Oberman for his misguided criticism of Tavard. Tavard in tracing the relationship of the Church and Scripture, places the initial belief of their distinction to one another in the fourteenth century. Oberman, on the other hand, since he is tracing the relationship between Tradition and Scripture, observes the split between these two much earlier in the fourth century. While it is true that Tavard neglects to mention the impact of Basil’s statements on unwritten traditions, Oberman erroneously criticizes him for placing the shift much later in the Middle Ages. In actuality, Lane contends that Tavard and Oberman are not at odds on this point. The fact is, there are two distinct shifts in Catholic theological history that warrant attention. The three legs of authority have each been affected and we cannot simply subsume the Church under Tradition or vice versa.
The testing ground of Lane’s assertion that Scripture’s opposition to Tradition is not the equivalent of Scripture’s opposition to the Church lies in the theology of the Middle Ages. If it is apparent that Tradition is understood as a second source of revelation in addition to Scripture and that there was an implication that Scripture could stand opposed to the Church, Lane’s contention would be erroneous. However, the opposite is the case. All of the theologians mentioned above promote the notion that during the medieval period, the Church increasingly accepted the view that Tradition was an additional source of truth. Additionally, Church history is ripe with examples of the medieval Church’s rising authority of which it was never imagined could contradict the Scriptures.
The assessment that Trent deliberately sought to promote a variation of sola scriptura is not well founded in light of the evidence against it. It is unlikely that the Council Fathers intended to alter the meaning of the partim . . . partim view. For all anyone knows, the change could have been a purely stylistic one. In addition to the problems that Lennerz raises, a few others are apparent. First, since, arguably the two-source view characterized the general climate going into the Council, one would think the Fathers would have exerted extra care in the final wording of the decree so as to avoid the confusion it seemingly did cause. And, to even speak of a “confusion” at this point is anachronistic since it is clear that the post-Tridentine theologians spoke confidently of Trent’s promotion of the two-source view without even a hint of reservation. Secondly, if it is evident that the post-Tridentine theologians were mistaken in their assessment of Trent, the question arises as to why there is no evidence of any attempts at correction from anyone in attendance at the Council? One would surely expect to find some amendment of Bellarmine and Stapleton’s writings, for instance. However, such corrective clarification of the fourth session is totally nonexistent. The last problem with the contention that the Council changed its mind hinges on the stated purpose of the assembly as the representative body of the Counter-Reformation. Since the major tenets of the Reformation were abominations to the Church which Trent was held to expressly oppose, it is all the more implausible to imagine that the Fathers were simply interested in asserting the sola scriptura principle.
Given the case against Geiselmann’s thesis that it is highly unlikely that the change to et was of any significant consequence, both Congar and Lane continue to assert that Lennerz fails to deal with the actual text of the decree itself. Lane is generally in agreement with Congar suggesting that while it is possible that the Council Fathers made no intentional change in meaning from partim . . . partim, the fact of the change itself points toward some conceptual shift in their minds. Neither the intention of the Council nor its reception in post-conciliar theology nullify or contradict the decree’s actual meaning, which Congar suggests might possess a “prophetic” meaning that may have not been known to the decree’s drafters at the time. This would seemingly explain their lack of explanation for changing the text at the final moment as well as the lack of reaction to it among the other Council Fathers and the post-Tridentine theologians of the Counter-Reformation.
The suggestion that the Tridentine decree can be read in the light of sola scriptura seems to eliminate the problem of a potentially infinite number of dogmatic verdicts. However, Catholic one-source theorists today face a very difficult dilemma. Pre and post Tridentine scholarship lends no support to their position. They would have us believe that the actual meaning of the decree contradicts the manner in which it was received and, possibly according to Congar and Lane, the manner in which it was intended. This in itself raises a precarious situation.
First, simply because the language of Trent itself does not prohibit an alternative reading than what the Fathers themselves intended or what the Church immediately received, this does not mean the new interpretation is more likely. On the contrary, it should take an overwhelming amount of evidence to overturn the originally accepted belief in the decree’s meaning. One can only imagine the degree of force it would take to capsize the interpretation of Nicea, for instance. In times past, when the outcome of a particular council was no longer suitable, the pope or the Church found rationale to discredit it. The Council of Pisa (1409), for instance, was deemed void because the pope who called it was later considered illegitimate. Likewise, the conciliar movement was put to an end when, despite the general recognition of the validity of the Council of Constance (1414), one part of the Council, particularly the decree Sacrosancta was overturned by Pius II in 1460 with his Execrabilis. Instead of the generally accepted interpretations of these council decrees being called into question, they were rejected outright. With modern scholars re-evaluating Trent, a new process emerges whereby the meaning of a decree can be reinterpreted.
Secondly, along Congar’s line of reasoning, regarding the potentiality of the Tridentine Fathers’ intentions carrying two-source theory overtones, while it is true that we have examples in Scripture of inspired writers not having total awareness themselves of the full meaning and implications of their own words, there are no instances where the author’s intent is actually contrary to the Inspirer’s meaning. The operation of the Holy Spirit in inspiration is to guide the intentions of the writers, not merely their pens. This position of Congar’s imposes more of a mechanistic view upon the writers instead of a cooperative one. If the Tridentine Fathers actually intended to convey a two-source view while the Holy Spirit had the opposite idea in mind, this creates a new understanding of the nature of inspiration itself.
Thirdly, it is not the task of a council to further cloud an issue, but to shed light upon it. The drafters of a decree are not inspired authors writing further Scripture that itself needs to be interpreted. They, themselves, are interpreters attempting to finally clarify what has already been revealed. If their interpretation remains unclear, then they have not fulfilled their purpose. Moreover, if the phrase “written and unwritten traditions” merely restates the material sufficiency of Scripture, as the majority of Catholic scholars are wont to advance today and which none of the Reformers would have ever disputed, then the arises, “What was the substantial accomplishment of the Council in this maneuver?” Since the Council Fathers of Trent failed to convey the actual meaning of the text and to correct any errors of the Reformers, these modern critics have yet to explain what this decree achieved in the final analysis.
Fourthly, if it is the Church’s claim to be an infallible interpreter and yet the Council did not initially provide clarity on the Holy Spirit’s purpose for Scripture and Tradition, then the question remains, in what sense is the Church “infallible” in its interpretative ability? Also, if the infallible interpreter is needed to provide Scripture with formal sufficiency, it would seem necessary to identify another authority beyond the Church to explain the Church’s interpretations. If the accepted understanding today of a council is not necessarily accurate, then what authority has the legitimate power to call it into question?
Whether for the sake of ecumenicity, Catholic theologians have raised more questions than they have solved with their new thesis on Trent. In order to remain consistently Catholic and yet abandon the traditionally held two-source view the Catholic historian must provide a more plausible explanation for why the Council of Trent was misunderstood. Simply asserting that virtually everyone, possibly even the Council Fathers themselves, misconstrued Trent on the basis that the bare text of the decree is not opposed to an alternate interpretation is shortsighted. As we shall see next, the cost of this maneuver cuts deeper than simply leaving deficiencies in Catholic theology. It forces a change in the essential nature of the primary instrument used to define doctrine itself.

CHAPTER 6
IMPLICATIONS

If it is true that Trent upheld the two-sources theory, contrary to the early Church’s coincidence view and to their own currently held beliefs regarding the relationship between Scripture, Church, and Tradition, it leads one to wonder what possible motivation is behind the current trend to promote the opposite contention. The contemporary Catholic theologians’ eager adoption of the traditionally Protestant term sola scriptura, would seem to indicate that perhaps a sort of rapprochement may be sought on their part. The work of recent ecumenical dialogue might also suggest this. However, opinions are mixed as to the possibility of reparations between Catholics and Protestants. Many actually do speak of the possibility for reconciliation, while others are much more cautious if not pessimistic. These new movements within Catholicism are, for the most part, untested and speculations vary regarding the potential outcomes. Tavard, for instance, suggests, “The secret of re-integration, or of Christian unity, or of a theology of ecumenism (whatever name we choose to give this) may lie in opening a way back to an inclusive concept of Scripture and of the Church.” He further insists that in order for Scripture to be the legitimate Word of God, it cannot be severed from the Church.
Likewise, it is not too difficult to identify Rahner’s ultimate objective. For him to argue with such insistence that sola scriptura must be a Catholic principle and to integrate the especially divisive sola fide into Catholic theology is somewhat suspicious. If his intent is not to calm the turbulent waters, then why risk criticism and potential alienation from Catholic associates who have for centuries ridiculed and condemned these Protestant precepts?
Finally, after a lengthy discussion recasting sola scriptura within a Catholic framework, Congar devotes a section toward the end of Tradition and Traditions, entitled, “The Ecclesiological Problem. The Future and Hopes for a Renewd Dialogue” in which he states that his purpose is to determine the current state of ecumenical discussion with Protestant. He concedes that the Catholic Church needs to become more lax in its exclusive stance of Christ and the membership of His Body, and suggests that Protestant ecclesiology is too abstract. Nevertheless, the hope for reconciliation is not out of the realm of possibility.
Other scholars are not so optimistic, however. Theologians such as Lane and Ratzinger are doubtful that any ecumenical progress has been made. Lane sees little, if any promise through these developments. He explains that the current movement of Catholicism in which it appears to be embracing the Reformers’ view of sola scriptura is in reality not a return to the coincidence view of the early Church nor is it to be misconstrued as a tip of the hat toward Protestantism. Instead, it is the reaction of current Catholic theology recognizing the deficiency of Tradition as brought to light by the Reformers.
But much trouble was caused by the relation between tradition and the ecclesiastical teaching as it came to be seen that they contradicted one another. This was especially serious in the light of the belief that the teaching of the church was semper eadem. The Reformers had pointed to many contradictions between Catholic doctrine and that of Augustine and the fathers but the Protestants could easily be written off as heretics . . . It became clear that tradition had changed over the years and it seemed to have been plainly erroneous at times. As the weakness of tradition came to be seen there was a growing reliance on naked ecclesiastical teaching. A doctrine of development was evolved to meet the demands of this new situation.

Therefore, as Scripture was thought to be materially insufficient, so too was Tradition. However, this is not so in theory and Catholics today would balk at such a statement. Yet it is their insistence that the magisterium of the Church is required to give form to the material presented by Scripture and Tradition that exposes their belief that the Church is what completes the revelation that is presented in them. They argue that Scripture and tradition contain many teachings which are only implicitly supported and therefore require the illumination of the Church’s teaching office to make them explicit. An example of this would be the Assumption of Mary, something which finds no basis in Scripture without the aid of the Catholic Church. This current development is what Lane refers to as, the “unfolding view.”
The unfolding view is not a return from the supplementary to the coincidence view but rather an advance beyond the supplementary view in that tradition has now also been found wanting. It represents not a renewed confidence in Scripture but a loss of confidence in tradition. The requirement that Catholic dogma need only be implicit in Scripture and early tradition is both a frank recognition of the ancient de facto use of the teaching of the contemporary church as a source and a protection of this use from the ravages of historical criticism, while all the time maintaining the semblance of an apostolic source of Catholic doctrine.

Ratzinger is also skeptical believing that in an effort to take on a more conciliatory stance with Protestants through this move, the Church has, in effect, polarized them from the Catholic Church more so. Instead of a speaking of a deficiency in Tradition, Ratzinger refers back to the “development” of Tradition that Cardinal Newman brought to light over a hundred years ago. While not admitting that either Trent or Vatican II were mistaken, he considers, “whether this was really a gain and whether the Catholic idea of sola scritpura, which it intended to make possible in this way (an idea that must now, in this formulation, always be thought of as combined with that of totum in traditione), has not been bought at a rather high price.” The price of which Ratzinger speaks is the potential damage that has been done in the Catholic hope of reconciliation with their Protestant “separated brethren.” Ironically, a Catholic idea of sola scriptura, which on the surface appears to build a bridge between Catholic and Protestant, separates them even further. The Catholic sola scriptura is vastly different than the slogan the Reformers coined. The Catholic notion seals more firmly the idea of Scripture and Tradition, which were formerly seen as distinct bodies held together only through mechanistic means. Their intimate union entails a state of affairs unacceptable to any Protestant. Ratzinger explains:
Thus we have the paradoxical result that today it is precisely those formulations of our Decree which were the product of the attempt to take into account, to the widest possible extent, the points made by the Reformed Churches and were intended to keep the field open for a Catholic idea of sola scriptura that have met with the strongest opposition on the part of Protestant theologians and seem to have moved dangerously away from the meaning and intention of the Protestant idea of sola scriptura.

Another problem for ecumenical dialogue linked to the previous issue that Ratzinger identifies is Vatican II’s repetition of the phrase adopted at Trent, pari pietatis affectu ac reverentia. He believes the only reason it was accepted at Trent was due to the belief that it was the same words of Basil’s, and that the only reason it won acceptance at Vatican II was to express solidarity with Trent. Nevertheless, the phrase further complicates discussions with Protestants who would refuse to grant Tradition equal footing with Scripture.

Vincent Reconsidered

Ratzinger also makes another surprising observation that points towards a general reconsideration of the relevance of Vincent of Lerins as manifested in the documents of Vatican II itself. “It [Vatican II] formulated the idea of religious experience more cautiously, without abandoning it, but it refused to quote again the text of Vincent de Lerin, cited by past councils, in view of the dubious light in which this Church writer is now seen by historical research. He no longer appears as an authentic representative of the Catholic idea of tradition, but outlines a canon of tradition based on a semi-Pelagian idea.” Ratzinger is here referring to a very recently renewed speculation into Vincent’s real motivation behind The Commonitory. The traditional view has been that Vincent intended to lay down a set of criteria for determining truth. However, there is increasing acceptance among Catholic theologians today that Vincent was really setting up a covert counter-attack against Augustine’s polemics against Semi-Pelagianism. Evidence for this lies in the fact that The Commonitory sharply criticizes Augustine’s explicit views without explicitly mentioning him. In addition, it has been recently pointed out that where other excerpts of Vincent speak very highly of Augustine, the subject matter in these excerpts relates to the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation, of which they were in absolute agreement. Hence, these positive comments toward Augutsine do not nullify Vincent’s potential agenda against him in The Commonitory. With this shadow of doubt cast on Vincent, modern Catholic theologians are loosening their loyalty to his long-standing rule. The once de facto defining criterion of Sacred Tradition is now fading into obsolescence. After explaining that the council Fathers at Vatican II refused to include Vincent’s formula into the decree, Ratzinger alerts us to the fact that, “He no longer appears as an authentic representative of the Catholic idea of tradition, but outlines a canon of tradition based on a semi-Pelagian idea. He attacks Augustine’s teaching on grace as going beyond ‘what had always been believed’, but against this background this proves to be an inappropriate attempt to express the relationship between constancy and growth in the testimony of faith” Ratzinger insists that Vatican II is not reneging on the initial intended purpose behind prior councils’ usage of the Vincentian canon, it just recognizes that there is another principle at work preserving the “historical identity and continuity” of the faith. “Vincent de Lerin’s static semper no longer seems the right way of expressing this problem.” Thus, “what has always been believed by everyone everywhere” is too inflexible and requires a new formulation, one that allows for the “development of tradition.” Another way in which Ratzinger phrases this development is a “productive revision,” but he insists it is not a reversal of past councils. This productive revision, which is becoming more and more prevalent, appears to be more than mere additions to canon law as previous councils have been. It is actually a modification, not of the deposit, but of the interpretation of the deposit.
Congar has also lined up behind Ratzinger to stand against any improper notion that Vincent’s “canon” carries more weight than the authority of the magisterium itself. Again, without wanting to appear as totally abandoning Vincent, Congar considers it a “mistake” to “set it up . . . as the ultimate standard of ecclesiastical faith.” This has the result, Congar continues, of subjecting the faith “in the last analysis to the judgment of professors and not of the apostolic succession of the magisterium regarded as such.” He argues that if Vincent were the standard, then the formal teachings of the Church would be up to historians, not the magisterium since it is only their business to determine what has always been believed by everyone, everywhere. The fact is, however, it has always been the magisterium’s responsibility to declare, “what is the belief of the universal Church.” Congar concludes by saying, “Here we touch upon a decisive issue between he Protestant Reformation and the Church, for the very idea of reformation is involved. Is the nature of the apostolic Church such that, having fundamentally erred, she can be brought back to the truth and reformed by professors in the name of critical study? Protestantism only exists in virtue of an affirmative answer to this question, justified by the Vincentian ‘canon.’” In essence, then, a simple dependence on Vincent is insufficient to distinguish the Catholic from the Protestant. Reliance on the Church’s independent right to dictate is the ultimate line of demarcation.
With Tradition essentially undergoing a re-definition (whether functionally or explicitly), it is losing some of its force. With a weakened form of Tradition, specifically the criterion of antiquity excised, the Church is under less restriction to mandate. Therefore, while a previously defined doctrine can never be negated, nothing is to prevent the Church from either re-interpreting those definitions in a fashion totally contrary to their historic interpretations, or to decree less historically founded beliefs simply due to their universality. In addition, if Tradition itself is malleable, it is also entirely possible that the Church has much more latitude in defining elements of dogma at its discretion. In effect, Scripture, Tradition and the entire faith of all Catholics are subject to the whim of the Church and the traditional operation of Tradition has become obsolete. This, therefore, reverses the role of the magisterial arm of the Church from a listener to a proclaimer; from a receiver to a producer; from a transmitter to a source.
In conclusion, the enthusiastic touting of “sola scriptura!” by Catholics today is a veiled assertion of the Church’s authority. It will always be a qualified proclamation, for the sola scriptura for the Protestant implies something very different than for the Catholic. In the case of the Protestant, “Scripture without the authority of the Catholic Church!” is the cry. For the Catholic, “Scripture without additional material from Tradition that requires interpretation from the Church” is his banner. While the language might be the same, the two are still worlds apart. Regardless of the Church’s attempts to reach out, Catholicism firmly believes it is the only institution established by Christ Himself and therefore, Catholics fault Protestants for severing the Scripture from the Church. They are unwilling to recognize the legitimacy of Protestant ecclesiology and any attempts at wooing Protestants is ultimately for the sake of reconciling them back not to the church universal, but to the Catholic Church as exclusively defined by Rome and the pope. Lane provides a good summation:
Thus, when all is said and done, the issues between Catholic and Protestant today, as at the Reformation, are the authority of the church and the normative role of Scripture. Historical studies have forced both sides to accept the existence of development (or some similar concept) and to modify their views of Scripture and of tradition, but the basic point of controversy remains the same.

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