Tradition of the Church
Where is it located?

Not everyone agrees on the “correct” tradition of the church. Protestants do not agree that Papal infallibility or Marian worship are valid traditions. But, Protestants have their own traditions. The solas of the faith are surely the tradition of Protestants. A rejection of the solas is treated as a denial of the Biblical faith in Lutheran and Reformed believers. Now, not all Protestants embrace the solas, but their concern is with the lack of holiness they claim ensues from an individual not appropriating the faith. But, the basis of salvation by faith and not works which is the perceived Roman Catholic position holds sway in Protestantism in general. That is a tradition rejected by the Roman church.

So where do we go to determine what tradition is correct? Protestants would say we go to Scripture…sola Scriptura. The pitfall of that approach is to appropriate the Bible as the believer’s Bible instead of the church’s Bible. It leads. As some Roman Catholic wags would say to “many popes”! Each Protestant is free to interpret the Bible as he/she sees fit for his/her particular circumstances. Each individual has the right to interpret the Bible and determine what practices are acceptable in the church without any faith community telling him/her otherwise. Here, the priesthood of all believers becomes the sacred tradition above all others.

Obviously, no individual can interpret the Scriptures in a vacuum. Faithful use of Scripture can only be accomplished in a believing community who practice the truths of Scripture in their daily living. This makes the apostolic and patristic community and their practices indispensable to the modern day post-modern Christian. The apostles and those whom they taught and trained were the closest to the time of the Christ Who is worshipped and served. Their theological principles and practices represent the tradition of the church that was ultimately codified and legitimized into the Holy Scriptures which represent the Holy Spirit’s normative transmission of the truth.

The apostles and the early church fathers gave birth to the Christian tradition that has been passed on and flourishes to this very day. Disagreements on tradition notwithstanding, there is still a formative tradition of the church. Author D.H. Williams says:

Protestants may insist that tradition is not revelation, yet they might agree that the early tradition was and is an element of the Spirit’s providential working to define and preserve the church. Even as the Spirit continues to incorporate mew expressions of the church’s faith, hope and love into the body of Christ, it does so always under the guidance of Scripture and in “conversation with the patristic tradition.

Creeds, catechisms, hymns, doctrine and practices came from the church fathers as those who were delivered the faith and who helped develop the faith that is confirmed by the Holy Scriptures. Indeed, tradition is not revelatory in the sense Scripture is the revelation of the Triune God. Yet is has developed and is part of the transmission of the faith to the faithful.

For instance, the Nicene Creed became a vehicle of stating the tradition of the early church. The great Councils of Nicea (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) were recognized by Luther and Calvin as important to the development of the church. And, this all happened within the framework of the community of believers. These church councils helped to define what would be a normative and universal understanding of orthodoxy as taught in Holy Scripture. It is in this early church period that we find tradition that can be looked to in the 21st century church. A tradition that leads to a basis of belief all can embrace.