Orthodoxy and Tradition

Q. Why does the Catholic Church maintain that Christians must rely in part upon tradition to have assurance that their belief and practice is orthodox?

A. First, we must remember not to evaluate orthodoxy apart from our relationship to the Living Word, Christ. Of course, we have a great treasure in the Scriptures as an immensely useful and profitable gift from God. But surely we know that God did not intend for us to rely completely on our own understanding of that written Word. So maybe the question we ask ourselves is, “What else has God provided for us so that we might faithfully utilize the written Word to rightly believe in Him and rightly practice our faith?”

Christ instituted ordination, in part as the means by which gifted men would be set apart for the work of teaching and preaching the correct understanding of His Word. In said institution of ordination, Christ did not relinquish His role as Head of His Church; He remains in that role today and shall remain forever, but He chose to invest a measure of authority in those whom He calls and qualifies through His Church.

We know that man’s understanding is not yet perfect, and so Christ’s ordained representatives continue to minister to the people of God in this world, with one role being to assist them in attaining right belief and practice of the Word. And it is helpful to remember that this assistance toward right belief and practice can never trump the written Word itself. The word “tradition,” in Catholic use and by its basic etymology (see the latin: traditio), primarily refers to the “handing on” from generation to generation of a maturing orthodoxy – so that every generation need not start from the beginning as if no believer existed before them.

But who is it that possesses the privilege and responsibility of passing along faithful tradition? God Himself, through His ordained representatives. And of course, we know that the practice of ordaining ministers of the Gospel is not permitted to occur in a lawless, disorderly manner. Those who may lay hands on another for the purpose of ordination must themselves have been rightly ordained, and not under the formal discipline of the Church.

Legitimate authority cannot be independently generated; it is granted or bestowed. If someone approached you with the intention of granting some sort of authority, you would rightly want to know about the source of their authority. Authoritative lineage, or succession, is important for all Christians because we believe from the Scriptures that a “minister” represents the One on Whose behalf they minister. In other words, local pastor John Smith is not Christ, but he is Christ’s visible, local representation as an under-shepherd to the flock of Christ.

Because of this, we would rightly expect Pastor Smith to trace the lineage of his ordination right back to that chief-shepherd, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Is it difficult to imagine the importance of continuity from Christ Himself down through His living ordained ministers in the Church today? How can the people of God have assurance that their belief and practice is orthodox unless they are being taught by the Living Word or someone who sat at His feet? Christian pastors here in 2008 did not live with Christ in the early part of the first century, but we ask, were they taught and ordained by men who were taught and ordained by men who were taught and ordained by men who were taught and ordained…(you get the picture)…by Christ?

The Catholic Church claims to have such a succession of Christ’s ministers, and thereby an authoritative tradition which can be relied upon for assurance of orthodoxy.