In chapter twelve of his work, Dawn of the Reformation, Heiko Oberman discusses the issue of the relation of Scripture and tradition. As Oberman observes, the 16th century was marked with “bitter polemics concerning the source and norm of the Church’s knowledge of God’s revelation. Traditionally this is described as the clash of the sola scriptura-principle with the Scripture and tradition-principle” (p. 270). Both Protestants and Catholics were eager to uphold the purity and authority of God’s word, yet each believed that the other’s view was detrimental to maintaining this purity and authority. The Reformers pointed to ways in which ecclesial traditions had come to distort the Gospel, while proponents of the Counter-Reformation decried the Reformers for breaking with tradition and promoting private interpretations. “In both cases reliance on human authority is said to interfere with the rule of obedience to Holy Scripture” (p. 270). Oberman then highlights what in my opinion is often glossed over or completely ignored in this discussion, viz., that the debate before us is not one of Scripture or tradition. Until this misconception is deconstructed, the conversation will continue to stagnate. Rather, what we have in these competing claims is “the clash between two concepts of tradition” (p. 270). In order to more fully explicate these two concepts, Oberman begins by examining the gradual reception of the canon in the early Church.
Upon examining the writings of the early Church Fathers, scholars have come to formulate a position called the “coinherence of Church and Scripture.” That is, for the early Fathers, kerygma, Scripture, and tradition fully coincide (p. 270). Oberman then enumerates the following as characteristics of the coinherence position. First, Scripture and tradition coinhere in the “living, visible Body of Christ, inspired and vivified by the operation of the Holy Spirit” (p. 271). Here one must understand that the coinherence is not merely on the level of source (Scripture) and interpretation (tradition), but that Scripture and tradition flow from the same source, viz., the Word of God. Second, both find their common basis in the work of the Holy Spirit through whom both the fides quae creditur (the content of faith; faith objectively considered) and the fides qua creditur (the faith of the believer; faith subjectively considered) are held together (p. 271). Third, “tradition is not understood as an addition to the kerygma contained in Scripture, but either as the handing down of that same kerygma in living form, or as Revelation itself. This implies for the Fathers the explicit denial of extra-scriptural tradition” (p. 271). Moreover, this proclamation can only be safely handed down within the Church. For Irenaeus, the handing down of the truth is identified with episcopal succession (…qui cum episcopatus successione charisma veritatis certum secundum placitum Patris accepereunt,” Adv. Haereses 4.26; p. 271). However, Irenaeus understands the episcopal witness as a derived witness whose “function is to preserve the integrity and totality of the original Apostolic witness. To this end the canon was formed” (p. 271). Oberman adds that the coinherence of Scripture and Church does not equate to an “amorphous organism.” In other words, the Church is distinguished by her instrumental role of receiving and preserving the Apostolic deposit—a deposit which was understood as containing the original kerygma in toto (pp. 271-272). Lastly, Oberman mentions briefly the relation of oral and written tradition with a view as to how modern Roman Catholic theology understands this relation. Form criticism has of course brought to our attention the fact that the scriptures which the Church received as canonical are “the product of a geographically differentiated and complex interplay of oral and later, written traditions.” Given these findings, Oberman highlights two observations made by modern Roman Catholic theologians: “(1) The canon constitutes a snapshot of a multidimensional living tradition. (2) This document from the early Church has the drawback of being only two-dimensional.” In other words, it represents an ossified part of the living tradition and therefore cannot communicate the fullness of the living Church. Current contemporary Roman Catholic theologians employ the distinction real and verbal in order to make this observation explicit (p. 272).
Next, Oberman focuses on two of the earliest Latin Fathers, who wrote near the end of the second century, Irenaeus and Tertullian. According to Irenaeus, the rule of faith (regula fidei or regula veritatis) “is faithfully preserved by the apostolic Church and has found multiform expression in the canonical books (Adv. Haeres. II.41.4). Here we have an unbroken stream in the movement from preached kerygma to the written Scriptures or what we might call the inscripturated apostolic proclamation. This written proclamation then serves as the foundation of the faith (Adv. Haeres. III.1.1). Though Irenaeus no doubt places great emphasis on episcopal succession, at this stage of church history one should not interpret Irenaeus as suggesting that episcopal succession “constitute[s] a channel of oral tradition which would stand alongside Scripture as a second source of revelation” (p. 273, emphasis added). The task of these successors to the Apostles was to faithfully preserve the kerygmic proclamation until canonization was complete. For Irenaeus, there is complete identity between the rule of faith received by the Apostles and the rule of faith received in his own day in the apostolic writings as handed down by the bishops. In addition, recent scholarly findings have made manifest that the regula fidei as employed by Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria is not to be interpreted as rule for faith. “The regula fidei is the rule constituted by faith or truth: the historical facts of God’s action in creation and redemption” (p. 273). Neither is the regula fidei to be understood as an authoritative interpretation of Holy Scripture, nor should it been seen as identical to the Creed. The regula fidei is revelation itself and forms the structure of Holy Scripture, whereas, “the Creed is a confession of the historical reality of the acts of God in creation and redemption” (p. 273).
According to Oberman, the distinction made by contemporary Roman Catholic theologians between real and verbal tradition cannot be maintained here since Irenaeus “identifies truth and reality. The reality which we perceive with our eyes is the same as the reality to which the kerygma pertains” (p. 273).
When we turn to Tertullian (and Cyprian) we find a strong distinction made between tradition as preserved in the canon and human traditions (consuetudines). Tertullian, of course, is often pictured as one with a strong anti-intellectual bent, who made it his mission to condemn philosophy. However, as Oberman points out, Tertullian’s vitriolic remarks against e.g., Aristotle as a heretic, is not a wholesale rejection of reason or even philosophy, but of philosophy used as a second source of revelation. For Tertullian, nothing need be added to the apostolic deposit of faith. Oberman closes this section by stating that, “[f]or this period it is not relevant to insist on the usual distinction between active tradition, the act of handing down, and passive tradition, the content of what is handed down. Tradition corresponds at once with fides quae, the articles of faith and fides qua, the act of faith. Tradition is not only divine in content and origin but also in its providential path through history. This can be stressed to the degree that we are forced to translate tradition with ‘revelation’ and tradere with ‘to reveal’” (p. 275).