Fr Charles:

Thanks for your clarification on Tradition.  However, I'm not sure you understood the gist of my post.

I do not  "diss" Tradition.  Indeed, I read the Church Fathers regularly.  They have many good things to say.  Many of them paid in blood for that which I now enjoy in ease.  BUT THEY ARE NOT SCRIPTURE.  My main point is that however good they are, their works can never be put on par w/Scripture.  Taking your example of the Mosaic authorship of the whole Pentateuch, I don't care a whit (in some sense) what "conservative Christains" claim.  If Scripture asserts that Moses wrote the whole of the first five books, then he must have.  If it asserts he did not, then he could not have.  OTOH, if it does not assert it one way or the other, it may be true, or it may not be, but it cannot be infallible dogma even if Tradition says so.  No one is allowed to bind our conscience one way or the other on anything about which Scripture is silent.

While I agree that the church gathered the books of Scripture, I do not agree that they made them so.  They were discovered by the church, not created.  God thru human agents (and not necessarily dictating to them) wrote Scripture and the church identified which were His genuine articles.  But the church, by giving it's assent, does not "make" them the genuine article.  Indeed, the whole process of how the genuine were sieved from the pretenders is a testimony of what the Fathers thought of Holy Writ, and the distance they placed between it and all Tradition.

And yes, you are technically correct to say that what the apostles conveyed orally was Tradition.  But what the church thru the ages is bound to is not their oral tradition which supposedly was written down after the fact, but the actual apostolic tradition enscripturated by them or approved by them.  Nothing "after the fact" is allowed.

I realize this is covered ground, and neither you nor I will say anything that the other has not already heard.  In fact, maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe you're right.  But unless one of us changes our minds, we cannot both be right.  We can both be wrong, but not both right.

If I am right (and again, I grant my ability to completely misunderstand and screw up), then my concern is that it appears to me that your perspective and mine cannot be synthesized.  They are oil and water.  From my perspective, someone who equates the authority of Holy Tradition w/Scripture is adding to God's word and putting himself in position to receive the curses of Rev 22.  I know this is not how you see it, but it is how I and many Evangelicals see it.  That being the case, how can an Evangelical agree to the complete merger of our two communions?   We would be accepting those God has specifically cursed.  And how could an Anglo-Catholic agree to the merger?  Evangelicals reject that which must not be rejected.  Certainly you have many strenghts that we do not have.  We can learn much from you.  But, if we are right about Scripture vs Tradition, then you are not simply mistaken on a minor point about which we must all live in charity, but are wrong on a fundamental point.  EG, we have a dispensational clergyman in our parish.  I disagree w/him, but I must make room for his understanding.  However, I could never make room for a non-Trinitarian.  Likewise, I do not see how Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical  viewpoints on Scripture can exist in the same communion.  That's the whole reason that Luther was excommunicated.  The pope knew that these two viewpoints could not live together.  That's the reason that Newman finally left.  He admitted in print that these two cannot live in the same body, nor the same communion.  

Thanks for your considerate reply,
Mark Woolsey


> Mark & Mary Woolsey <mark.mary@...> wrote:
> Just so it doesn’t go completely unanswered, no, Holy
> Tradition is not our ultimate authority, and no, the
> NT did NOT come from it.  Holy Tradition (thank God
> for it) is subservient to the Scriptures.  Scripture,
> written by men, is God-breathed (II Tim 3:16); Holy
> Tradition, as wonderful as it is, is not.Just so it
> doesn’t go completely unanswered, no, Holy Tradition
> is not our ultimate authority, and no, the NT did NOT
> come from it.--- <SNIP>
> -------------------------------------
> Mark 
> 
> Tradition is not a bad word.  St. Paul used it. He
> wrote, "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the
> traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word,
> or our epistle." 2Th 2:15
> 
> Here is a chicken and egg question for you.  Which
> came first, the oral word or the written?  And I am
> not referring to “the word made flesh,” I’m referring
> to Scripture.  Who wrote the first 11 chapters of
> Genesis?
> 
> The Pentateuch, by very ancient Jewish tradition was
> ascribed to Moses.  Does that mean Moses wrote every
> word?  Some ancients thought so, and it became
> traditional teaching.
> 
> Jesus said, “And as touching the dead, that they rise:
> have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush
> God spake unto him, saying, I [am] the God of Abraham,
> and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?” Mar 12:26
>    Was Jesus, by this reference endorsing the idea
> that Moses was an amanuensis for the Holy Spirit and
> that Moses wrote down every word from Genesis 1:1 to
> Deuteronomy 34:11?  Jesus did not go so far as to say
> that; it became a traditional teaching.
> 
> I find it interesting that some who identify
> themselves as conservatives Christians will affirm
> they believe Moses wrote every word of “the Book of
> Moses” even the prehistory of Genesis chapters 1-11,
> the history from Abraham to Moses birth in Genesis and
> Exodus, and his own epitaph in Deuteronomy 34:10
> “There has never yet risen in Israel a prophet like
> Moses. . . .”  Yet, it is by a Jewish tradition that
> the idea came to these Christians that Moses wrote
> every word of the Pentateuch.  That concept is not
> affirmed in Scripture.
> 
> One can accept your statement “ Scripture, written by
> men, is God-breathed (II Tim 3:16),” and still have a
> high regard for tradition. In fact II Tim 3:16 is
> apostolic tradition. You see, it is by tradition that
> we even have a canon of Scripture.  
> 
> Why don’t we include the Gospel of Thomas alongside
> the Gospel of John?  Without the tradition of the
> Early Church, we wouldn’t know what was accepted as
> Scripture, the authentic words of the Apostles.
> 
> Tradition is not a bad word.  We must of course
> distinguish between things that differ.  Jesus
> inveighed against “traditions of men” that made void
> God’s commands.  
> 
> It is by tradition that I accept that the Scriptures
> contains everything necessary to salvation and that
> the Bible, as we have it has been providentially
> preserved (II Thess 2:15).  The Scriptures are our
> highest authority and at the same time our most sacred
> tradition.
> 
> Charles+
> 
> 
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