www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Scripture, Tradition and Reason

Dear Memo,

Yes, indeed.

But many great doctrines of the Church began as someone's personal view.

Such as the Immaculate Conception - fully defined and explained by Blessed John Duns Scotus.

And when the Pope brought in the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary, he was borrowing from the inspiration of a Maltese priest whom he has beatified as well.

Who knows where our views will eventually wind up?

Alex

Interesting topic. As a former Anglican who returned "home to Rome" (I guess that makes me a re-vert rather than a con-vert!), this may help shed some light. A friend of mine who was a former Episcopal priest (now Orthodox) explained it to me thus:

The notion of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason as being pillars of the Church has its origins in the writings of the Elizabethan Anglican apologist, Richard Hooker. As a Protestant, Hooker held that Scripture was the highest authority, but that it had to be interpreted within the light of Tradition (what the Church had believed and taught through the centuries) and Reason. But Reason, for Hooker, was no Enlightenment concept. Rather, Reason was to be understood as the voice of the Holy Spirit leading the bishops of the Church to make wise decisions and right actions.

If this understanding of Hooker's ideas are correct (and since this was relayed to me by one who studied these things in seminary), then there is a similarity between the Anglican "three-legged stool" and the Catholic understanding of the relationship between Scripture, Tradition, and the Magesterium.

However, for most modern Episcopalians, Reason means something far different than what it meant to Hooker. Today, it is held to be something more related to "scientific understanding" or "personal experience". It is more of a subjective quality than something that is divinely inspired. And while Hooker held that Scripture not only had "pride of place" but greater authority than Tradition and Reason, modern Episcopalians tend to equalize them in theory, while in practice they advance "reason" (as they now understand it) above Scripture and Tradition. It is on this basis that they can disregard the clear teaching of Scripture and the unbroken witness of Tradition in the election of a practicing homosexual and the blessing of same sex liasons.

They would be far better were they to return to Hooker's original understanding. Of course, that would place Tradition above their (ill-informed) Reason, which they cannot allow.

Please hold the faithful Anglicans in your prayers.

Dave
"Mere Catholic"

Well, I have a friend - actually a very good and religiously conservative Catholic - who insists that DECAFFEINATED coffee is an immoral drink, by analogy with birth control. Don't know if he's succeeded in convincing anybody else of this thesis. Incognitus