The Growth of our Understanding of Sacred Tradition

The phenomenon of tradition is something intrinsic to humanity.  To be a human being means to be the recipient of language, customs, regulations, and above all, a wealth of knowledge accumulated over the course of centuries.  Whereas animals receive truly remarkable instincts from nature, human beings rely on tradition.  Technology itself is a powerful example of tradition - it is a handing down of practical discoveries.  Human techne far surpasses that of the animals.  Even if one were to argue that animals pass down certain traditions or customs or knowledge, the degree and scope of humanity’s collective historical consciousness essentially demarcates human beings from the rest of the animals.

The etymology of “tradition” is revealing.  The word comes from the Latin tradere, which means “to hand down.”  Traditions are handed down generationally.  Every tradition has a source from which it emerged.  From the many sources of traditions come the traditions which shape the human world.

Vatican II | Source: scriptoriumdaily.com

Like secular traditions, Sacred Tradition is something which is handed down to successive generations.  Unlike secular traditions however, the origin of Sacred Tradition is God.  The primary “object” which he hands down is Jesus, the incarnate Word (cf. John 3:16).  Jesus hands down to his disciples the words of the Father (John 17:8) and the disciples, through the assistance of the Holy Spirit (John 14:26), hand down the words of Jesus to subsequent disciples.  Sacred Tradition is a handing down of the revelation God has given to the world in and through Jesus Christ.

The great Dominican theologian Yves Congar describes Sacred Tradition as "an offering by which . . . a multitude of people, physically separated . . . by space and time, are incorporated in the same unique, identical reality, which is the Father's gift . . . the saving truth, the divine Revelation made in Jesus Christ."  In other words, Sacred Tradition is a divine unifying force which transcends the normal human limitations imposed by space and time. Congar continues, "Tradition is the sharing of a treasure, which itself remains unchanging; it represents a victory over time and its transience, over space and the separation caused by distance."¹  Sacred Tradition contains eternal truth, i.e. the revelation of God the Father.  The object of this truth, Jesus Christ, who is himself the Truth, remains unchanging.

Although "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever" (Heb 13:8, RSV), the theological understanding of the content of the revelation given through Jesus Christ is subject to change.  The changes which the understanding of Sacred Tradition is subject to are not based on a relativistic understanding of truth or on pluralism – instead, the changes of the theological understanding of Sacred Tradition are predicated upon the collision between the Tradition as it was understood in the past with present experiences.  In other words, it is a fusing of what has been handed down with present experiential knowledge.  Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) expresses this idea in the following passage from Principles of Catholic Theology:

Together, memory and speech offer a model of the relationship of tradition and time.  For memory works to give meaning by establishing unity, by communicating the past to the present and by providing a mode of access to the future.  It reveals itself as true memory, on the one hand, by faithfully preserving the past and, on the other hand, by understanding this past in a new way in the light of present experiences and thus facilitating man’s advance into the future.  As for speech, it is essentially as something bestowed, something received, that it fulfills its function of conferring unity.  The condition of its effectiveness is its permanence.  Yet, at the same time, it fulfills its function of preserving history only if it is open to the ever new experiences of new generations and so maintains its ability to give expression to the tradition that is continually in the process of formation, to the purification of tradition and hence to the history that is still to be made. ²

Tradition, theology, doctrines and faith are living entities.  They grow, they develop, they contain an inner dynamism which enables them to adapt so as to respond to the various philosophical, societal and human problems which arise in every age.  If they did not develop, they would be dead. 

The growth of the entities mentioned above is not open to development in any and every direction; these entities develop organically, as John Henry Cardinal Newman explains at length in An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.  There is a necessary principle of continuity in theological growth and in the development of Sacred Tradition, just as there is a principle of continuity in the growth of a human being.  Although one undergoes many material changes throughout one’s lifetime, one’s identity remains the same; likewise, the identity of Sacred Tradition must be kept intact.

Furthermore, the material changes of organic growth occur under specific norms – if they do not follow these norms, an aberration of nature results.  Similarly, theological monstrosities are produced when there are deviations from the norms of theological development.  It is far easier, however, to recognize that there are norms for theological development than to actually enumerate and describe these norms.  I will save the discussion of these norms for another day.

Sacred Tradition is God’s gift to humanity, but it needs to be interpreted in light of present experiences without losing its identity.  Only then can theology grow and engage in dialogue with the modern world rather than retreating to an ivory tower, becoming more and more obsolete rather than remaining relevant.  Theological fusions of horizons, fusions characterized by the interpretation of what has been handed down to us from God the Father in light of our present situation, are imperative for the future of the Church.

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1. Yves Congar, O.P., The Meaning of Tradition, trans. A.N. Woodrow (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2004), 12.^↩

2. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, trans. Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1987), 88.^↩