I’m working on an adult curriculum titled “The Beauty of the Christian Faith.” It explores the basic elements of Christian faith as expressed in the Nicene Creed. I’ll be posting excerpts as they’re done. Here’s the third part of the introduction. Prior posts can be accessed through the Beauty of the Christian Faith Page.
Introduction
The sources of Christian theology are scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Every variety of Christian theology draws on each of these sources. One of the first decisions we must make when thinking theologically is how to understand the nature of, and relationship between, these sources.
Tradition
Tradition is the historical teaching, reflection, and worship of the Christian Church.
For Catholic, Orthodox, and some protestant Christians, some documents produced by Church leaders throughout history are given special status. At various times, Church leaders met in “councils” to deal with controversial questions. When these councils included Bishops from both the Eastern and Western parts of the Church and were convened by a sovereign political authority (an Emperor), they were called “ecumenical” councils (“ecumenical” means “worldwide”).
During its first few hundred years, the Church faced vital and difficult questions about the nature of God and Christ. How do the Father, Son and Holy Spirit comprise one God? Was Christ fully God? Was he also fully human? These questions went to the heart of the Christian story. In a series of ecumenical councils, the Church hammered out statements and definitions relating to these questions. These included the First Council of Nicea in A.D. 325, which led to the creation of the Nicene Creed – the basic text for our study in this class.
After this period, differences between the Eastern and Western branches of the Church became more pronounced and difficult. There were numerous reasons for these differences, which included genuine theological debate as well as geography, culture, politics, and even war.[1] By 1054 A.D., the Eastern and Western branches of the Church had definitively split, with the Western branch adhering to the central authority of the Bishop of Rome – the Pope. There were numerous other councils held after this split both in the East and in the West, which the Catholic and Orthodox Churches respectively continue to take as authoritative. However, there were no further ecumenical councils that produced any statement, such as the Nicene Creed, that would win broad acceptance in all branches of the Church.
As mentioned in the section on “Scripture,” the Reformation of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries represents another significant break in the broad stream of Church history. The Eastern churches had split with the West over the primacy of the Pope and other matters, but the Eastern Churches continued to understand themselves as existing under the authority of the line of Bishops (including the Bishop of Rome) extending directly from the Apostles. The Reformation became something far more radical: for many (but not all) of the heirs of the Reformation, it led to the complete rejection of the kind of authority historically given to the Bishops by both the Western (Catholic) and Eastern churches. The rejection or redefinition of “apostolic succession” perhaps is the most significant legacy (for good or ill, depending on your perspective) of the Reformation.
Scholars of the Reformation today debate whether the Reformation’s key early figures – people such as Martin Luther and John Calvin – really intended the massive schism their movement produced. Luther, for example, at first hoped for more subtle changes within the Roman church, and some scholars today suggest that he hoped for reconciliation with Rome well into his later life. In any event, these “Magesterial” Reformers did not reject “tradition” out of hand. To the contrary, they accorded high status particularly to the early history of the Church, including the ecumenical councils. They believed that their movement was entirely consistent with the teachings of those early ecumenical councils.
In addition to documents from official Church councils, “tradition” includes the Church’s historical reflection and worship. Christianity produced many of the most brilliant minds in the history of Western civilization. Writers such as Irenaeus of Lyon, Maximus the Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Karl Barth, and many others, have left us with a rich legacy of theological literature. Christianity also produced beautiful art, architecture, liturgies, music, poetry, and mystical writings. All of these resources are part of our “tradition.”
[1] The city of Constantinople, the historic seat of the Eastern churches, was sacked and pillaged by Crusaders under the authority of the Pope in 1203 A.D. The attack on Constantinople was not part of the Crusaders’ original mission and may not have been intended by the Pope, but it nevertheless sealed the split between East and West.