Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mangoe@cs.umd.edu (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Sola Scriptura Message-ID: Date: 29 May 90 07:41:19 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 43 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu >I think the great mistake of the Reformers was that they decided to play >Scripture against Tradition, as if there could be a contradiction. This >has caused terrible problems, not least the damage incurred in many's >understanding of both Scripture and Tradition. Well, on the via media as I am, I see errors in all directions. Radical protestants try to get rid of tradition altogether, and since they can't, they either are controlled by their traditions, or they write new ones on the fly and thus fall into all sorts of heresies. Roman catholic theology fails to distinguish between scripture and tradition sufficiently, and thus the purpose of canon ceases to be truth and turns to discipline. (Also, I think that the roman definition is more narrowly drawn, with the drawback from my point of view that there is considerable confusion as to what is canonical and what is not.) >Once they did this, the progression to agnosticism in matters of faith >and morals became inevitable. Certainty does indeed become both >impossible and irrelevant if one's ancestors made big mistakes in >theological matters. For we could be just as wrong as they were. This is the *wildest* of speculations, and, I think, quite wrong. In the first place, the most conservative protestant churches on the subject of morals and conduct are those which are most against Tradition in the sense that the rmoan church uses it. Conversely, anglicans, while frequently even lovers of the archaic in terms of church practice, go in every direction on matters of morals. There has always been a strong streak of "Back to primitive christianity!" in protestantism-- and the 4th century is hardly far enough back for many of its proponents. I don't think time is the issue here. The question, really, is the functions of scripture and tradition. Scripture is supposed to be canonical. The big problem in liberal protestantism now is rather plainly that this is very much under attack-- just listen to John Spong. Tradition hardly plays a role in this fight at all; since the traditions all appeal directly to scripture, the attack on scriptural authority obviates any attack on tradition itself. -- C. Wingate + "The peace of God, it is no peace, + but strife closed in the sod. mangoe@cs.umd.edu + Yet let us pray for but one thing-- mimsy!mangoe + the marv'lous peace of God."