3. Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium

Introduction

The Catholic Church emphasizes Bible readings in its worship, hearing readings from the Old and New Testaments at Mass and usually hearing a homily about one of those readings. However, tradition and Church authority are also important. The pertinent words from the Nicene Creed are these:

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

Tradition is a puzzling word needing some explanation. All Christian denominations value tradition, often in the form of their understanding of Bible passages. The simple fact that those understandings vary widely is evidence that Sola Scriptura can be problematic.

 

For example, John 6:22-71 is a passage that is understood differently by Catholics and Baptists. The Baptist tradition is that it is metaphorical or symbolic while the Catholic tradition, based on traditional practices of the early church, is that it is literally true. It is the foundation of Catholic belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, The Lord’s Supper.

 

There are fundamentalist churches that treat the Genesis creation stories as literally true while the Catholic understanding is that they are metaphorical or symbolic while loaded with theological truth.

 

The Catholic view of Matthew 16:18-19 is that it is literally true and is the basis of the Catholic Magisterium while Protestants see it as metaphorical or symbolic, an entirely different tradition.

 

My plan for posts in this series is to identify an important Catholic belief and then to share Bible passages consistent with the belief followed by pertinent sections from the 688-page Catechism of the Catholic Church. Having found AI very useful in finding and organizing pertinent information, I will use Magisterium.com and Grok.com and maybe others as search tools.

 

In the first section below are Bible verses that are understood by the Catholic Church to support those three Catholic fundamentals in the Post Title, Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and The Magisterium.

(1) Sacred Scripture is the Bible, which supplies plenty of evidence that there is more to be known than what is in the Bible.

(2) Tradition merges early pre-Bible Church practices and Church Fathers writings with Sacred Scripture.

(3) The Magisterium is the current Pope and Bishops, successors of Peter and the Apostles, bearing permanent Church responsibility for defining and teaching and protecting the Truth.

 

Sacred Scripture on Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium

Matthew 16:18-19 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Catholics see this as the establishment of the “one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.”)

Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (For Catholics, this promises a permanent unique link between Jesus and the Church, led by the Apostles and their successors, the Pope and Bishops.)

Mark 3:14-15 And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles,[a] to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, 15 and to have authority to cast out demons. (Catholics consider the Pope and Bishops to be successors of the Apostles with the same powers and responsibilities.)

Luke 10:16 “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.“

John 16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

John 21:25 But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

Acts 15:6-7 The apostles and the elders met together to consider this matter. 7 After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers. –

1 Corinthians 11:2 I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I handed them on to you. –

2 Thessalonians 2:15 So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.

1 Timothy 3:14-15 I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so that, 15 if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth. –

1 Timothy 4:6 If you put these instructions before the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound teaching that you have followed. –

2 Timothy 1:13-14 Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 14 Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us. –

2 Timothy 2:1-2 You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; 2 and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well. –

2 Peter 1:20-21 First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. –

 2 Peter 3:15-16 Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. –

 

Catechism of the Catholic Church on Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium

Article 2 of the 688-page Catechism is titled The Transmission of Divine Revelation and includes these three topics. Recommended only for the curious, it is copied below and is accessible at the hot links. For a quick summary of the key points, scroll down to IN BRIEF.

  • I. The Apostolic Tradition
  • CCC-75 “Christ the Lord, in whom the entire Revelation of the most high God is summed up, commanded the apostles to preach the Gospel, which had been promised beforehand by the prophets, and which he fulfilled in his own person and promulgated with his own lips. In preaching the Gospel, they were to communicate the gifts of God to all men. This Gospel was to be the source of all saving truth and moral discipline.”32
  • In the apostolic preaching. . .
  • CCC-76 In keeping with the Lord’s command, the Gospel was handed on in two ways:
    – orally “by the apostles who handed on, by the spoken word of their preaching, by the example they gave, by the institutions they established, what they themselves had received – whether from the lips of Christ, from his way of life and his works, or whether they had learned it at the prompting of the Holy Spirit”;33
    – in writing “by those apostles and other men associated with the apostles who, under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, committed the message of salvation to writing”.34
  • . . . continued in apostolic succession
  • CCC-77 “In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them their own position of teaching authority.”35Indeed, “the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time.”36
  • CCC-78 This living transmission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition, since it is distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely connected to it. Through Tradition, “the Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes.”37“The sayings of the holy Fathers are a witness to the life-giving presence of this Tradition, showing how its riches are poured out in the practice and life of the Church, in her belief and her prayer.”38
  • CCC-79 The Father’s self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church: “God, who spoke in the past, continues to converse with the Spouse of his beloved Son. and the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel rings out in the Church – and through her in the world – leads believers to the full truth, and makes the Word of Christ dwell in them in all its richness.”39
  • II. The Relationship Between Tradition and Sacred Scripture
  • One common source. . .
  • CCC-80 “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal.”40Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own “always, to the close of the age”.41
  • . . . two distinct modes of transmission
  • CCC-81 “Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit.”42
  • “and [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching.”43
  • CCC-82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, “does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.”44
  • Apostolic Tradition and ecclesial traditions
  • CCC-83 The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus’ teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. the first generation of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition.
  • Tradition is to be distinguished from the various theological, disciplinary, liturgical or devotional traditions, born in the local churches over time. These are the particular forms, adapted to different places and times, in which the great Tradition is expressed. In the light of Tradition, these traditions can be retained, modified or even abandoned under the guidance of the Church’s Magisterium.
  • III. The Interpretation of the Heritage of Faith
  • The heritage of faith entrusted to the whole of the Church
  • CCC-84 The apostles entrusted the “Sacred deposit” of the faith (the depositum fidei),45contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, to the whole of the Church. “By adhering to [this heritage] the entire holy people, united to its pastors, remains always faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. So, in maintaining, practising and professing the faith that has been handed on, there should be a remarkable harmony between the bishops and the faithful.”46
  • The Magisterium of the Church
  • CCC-85 “The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.”47This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.
  • CCC-86 “Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith.”48
  • CCC-87 Mindful of Christ’s words to his apostles: “He who hears you, hears me”,49The faithful receive with docility the teachings and directives that their pastors give them in different forms.
  • The dogmas of the faith
  • CCC-88 The Church’s Magisterium exercises the authority it holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas, that is, when it proposes truths contained in divine Revelation or also when it proposes in a definitive way truths having a necessary connection with them.
  • CCC-89 There is an organic connection between our spiritual life and the dogmas. Dogmas are lights along the path of faith; they illuminate it and make it secure. Conversely, if our life is upright, our intellect and heart will be open to welcome the light shed by the dogmas of faith.50
  • CCC-90 The mutual connections between dogmas, and their coherence, can be found in the whole of the Revelation of the mystery of Christ.51“In Catholic doctrine there exists an order or hierarchy 234 of truths, since they vary in their relation to the foundation of the Christian faith.”52
  • The supernatural sense of faith
  • CCC-91 All the faithful share in understanding and handing on revealed truth. They have received the anointing of the Holy Spirit, who instructs them53and guides them into all truth.54
  • CCC-92 “The whole body of the faithful. . . cannot err in matters of belief. This characteristic is shown in the supernatural appreciation of faith (sensus fidei) on the part of the whole people, when, from the bishops to the last of the faithful, they manifest a universal consent in matters of faith and morals.”55
  • CCC-93 “By this appreciation of the faith, aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth, the People of God, guided by the sacred teaching authority (Magisterium),. . . receives. . . the faith, once for all delivered to the saints. . . the People unfailingly adheres to this faith, penetrates it more deeply with right judgment, and applies it more fully in daily life.”56
  • Growth in understanding the faith
  • CCC-94 Thanks to the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the understanding of both the realities and the words of the heritage of faith is able to grow in the life of the Church:
    – “through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts”;57it is in particular “theological research [which] deepens knowledge of revealed truth”.58
    – “from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which [believers] experience”,59 The sacred Scriptures “grow with the one who reads them.”60
    – “from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth”.61
  • CCC-95 “It is clear therefore that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way, under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.”62
  • IN BRIEF
  • CCC-96 What Christ entrusted to the apostles, they in turn handed on by their preaching and writing, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to all generations, until Christ returns in glory.
  • CCC-97 “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God” (DV 10) in which, as in a mirror, the pilgrim Church contemplates God, the source of all her riches.
  • CCC-98 “The Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes” (DV 8 # 1).
  • CCC-99 Thanks to its supernatural sense of faith, the People of God as a whole never ceases to welcome, to penetrate more deeply and to live more fully from the gift of divine Revelation.
  • CCC-100 The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him.

Any who read all of that from the Catechism may be justified in believing that the Vatican has way too many priests and theologians working on such documents. There are condensed versions, but this one is the whole complicated story copied from the Vatican website. Considering the complexity of God and his creation, it should not be surprising that theology is also complex. (By the way, it is important to point out that Catholics worship not the Church, not the magisterium, not the Bible, not Angels, not Mary, not the Catechism but only the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.)