Does Jesus condemn tradition in Mark 7:13? White v. Matatics (1997), part 8.

Note: This is a con­tin­u­a­tion of a series on Dr.* James White’s 1997 debate with Ger­ry Matat­ics on sola scrip­tura. You can find part 1 here and fol­low the links for­ward. (The debate itself is on YouTube, and I direct you there since I would no more embed the labor of anoth­er man’s vast brain than I would take a bone from a harm­less Ger­man Shep­herd dog­gy.)

 

ou nul­li­fy the word of God by your tra­di­tion!” Christ tells the Phar­isees in Mark 7:13. Mark 7:13 is a com­mon Protes­tant proof text for sola scrip­tura and, specif­i­cal­ly, against the author­i­ty of tradition—so much so that Dr.* White ends his open­ing state­ment with it. See? he cries. Jesus con­demned tra­di­tion! We’ll get there. But first let’s join Dr.* White around 35:45.

THE NOBLE BEREANS AND PERSEVERING EPHESIANS

Here he turns to an oft-stat­ed and, truth be told, bizarre claim: The deci­sion to con­vert to Catholi­cism is a fal­li­ble deci­sion. No doubt it is, but who denies it? It’s hard to tell what Dr.* White thinks he proves by point­ing this out. The deci­sion to con­vert to Calvin­ism, or any­thing for that mat­ter, is also fal­li­ble. But he’s going some­where with this:

[S]uch a deci­sion of embrac­ing an author­i­ty out­side of Scrip­ture is not to be found with­in Scrip­ture itself. [Not at all true.] Matthew 18 is often mis­used to make the Church the final source of truth. But instead, I point out to you, we find the apos­tle John com­mend­ing the church of Eph­esus in the Book of Rev­e­la­tion for test­ing those who claim to be apostles—just as the Bere­ans had done in Acts chap­ter 17. When the apos­tles come preach­ing God’s truth, they search the Scrip­tures dai­ly to see whether those things are actu­al­ly so.

Dr.* White final­ly gets around to telling us where he thinks he finds sola scrip­tura in the Bible. It took him long enough; I had begun to think the Church Fathers were his sole rule of faith and prac­tice — sola patres eccle­sia. But now he cites two texts — Rev. 2:2 and Acts 17:11 — and denies that Scrip­ture men­tions any extra-bib­li­cal author­i­ty. Except that’s not true.

• In 2 Thess. 2:15, St. Paul writes: “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the tra­di­tions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by let­ter.”

“By let­ter” is almost cer­tain­ly a ref­er­ence to the Pauline epis­tles — specif­i­cal­ly, 1 and 2 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans. But Paul says that apos­tolic tra­di­tions passed on oral­ly — “by word of mouth” — also have author­i­ty.

• Acts 7:52–53 “Which of the prophets did not your fathers per­se­cute? And they killed those who announced before­hand the com­ing of the Right­eous One, whom you have now betrayed and mur­dered, you who received the law as deliv­ered by angels and did not keep it.”
• Gal. 3:19: “Why then the law? It was added because of trans­gres­sions, till the off­spring should come to whom the promise had been made; and it was ordained by angels through an inter­me­di­ary.”
• Heb. 2:2–3a: “For if the mes­sage declared by angels was valid and every trans­gres­sion or dis­obe­di­ence received a just ret­ri­bu­tion, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great sal­va­tion?

All three of these vers­es allude to the Jew­ish tra­di­tion that the Torah was “spo­ken by angels.” That tra­di­tion is nowhere to be found in the Old Tes­ta­ment, which means that the apos­tles under­stood Jew­ish tra­di­tion to be an author­i­ta­tive source of divine teach­ing.

But let’s look at the two texts Dr.* White cites as sup­port for sola scrip­tura. In Rev. 2:2, St. John does indeed praise the Eph­esians for test­ing those who claim to be apos­tles, but he does not tell us what author­i­ty the Eph­esians used. Dr.* White sim­ply assumes the author­i­ty must have been the Scrip­tures, but John does not say that. Dr.* White reads it into the text.

Acts 17:11 tells us that the Bere­ans “searched the scrip­tures dai­ly, whether those things [that Paul preached] were so.” Specif­i­cal­ly, Paul had been preach­ing that Christ ful­filled Old Tes­ta­ment prophe­cy (Acts 17:2–3). What oth­er text should the Bere­ans have searched? If Paul had said, “Christ is the ful­fill­ment of Pla­to’s Repub­lic, a wise Bere­an would have searched the Repub­lic. Could we derive a prin­ci­ple of sola Repub­li­ca from that? What we dis­cov­er here is that the Old Tes­ta­ment was suf­fi­cient to prove the claim that Paul was mak­ing, not that the Bible alone is suf­fi­cient for every ques­tion of faith and prac­tice. Acts 17:11 describes a par­tic­u­lar occa­sion of bib­li­cal exe­ge­sis and Dr.* White reads into it a uni­ver­sal prin­ci­ple of bib­li­cal suf­fi­cien­cy.

As for Matthew 18, if Dr.* White thinks that Catholics have mis­used this text in an effort to defend the author­i­ty of the papa­cy, he’ll need to tell us how they have done so.

PILLAR AND FOUNDATION

Dr.* White next tries to cast doubt upon a Catholic proof-text for the author­i­ty of the Church: 1 Tim. 3:15.

Now, some­one may well say, “But Mr. White! [He did not yet have his unac­cred­it­ed Th.D. in 1997.] The Church is the pil­lar and the foun­da­tion of the truth.” And I can only say, Amen, it most cer­tain­ly is! I love the church of Jesus Christ! But what does a pil­lar and foun­da­tion do? A pil­lar and a foun­da­tion holds some­thing else up, and what does the Church do? The Church holds up the truth of God for all men to see and pro­claims that truth to all men. But she nev­er con­fus­es her­self with the truth itself. The Church is the Body of Christ, and she hears Christ speak­ing to her through his word; she nev­er sub­sti­tutes her­self for the voice of her Mas­ter.

Dr.* White might have a point here, if only 1 Tim­o­thy 3:15 said that the Church was the pil­lar and foun­da­tion of the word and he could explain how he knows God’s word is lim­it­ed to the Bible. But Dr.* White man­ages to con­flate “the word” with “the truth” — as though the truth resides only in the word (by which he means the Bible) and nowhere else: a claim Paul him­self does not make. The verse says that the Church holds up the truth; Dr.* White imports into the text a pri­or idea of his that the truth is lim­it­ed to the Scrip­tures.

Nor does the Church “sub­sti­tute her­self” for Christ, or truth. The Church safe­guards the deposit of faith; she is not her­self the source of it:

The task of authen­ti­cal­ly inter­pret­ing the word of God, whether writ­ten or hand­ed on, has been entrust­ed exclu­sive­ly to the liv­ing teach­ing office of the Church, whose author­i­ty is exer­cised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teach­ing office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teach­ing only what has been hand­ed on. (Dei Ver­bum 10)

Dr.* White does not need to tell us that the Church “nev­er sub­sti­tutes her­self for the voice of her Mas­ter.” We already know that. If he thinks any sub­sti­tut­ing has tak­en place, he’ll need to tell us where this has hap­pened.

THEOPNEUSTOS

“Only the Scrip­tures,” Dr.* White con­tin­ues, “are theop­neustos. The Church is nev­er described as being ‘God-breathed.’ But God’s Word is.”

He’s refer­ring here to 2 Tim­o­thy 3:16: “All scrip­ture is giv­en by inspi­ra­tion of God [Gr., theop­neustos], and is prof­itable for doc­trine, for reproof, for cor­rec­tion, for instruc­tion in right­eous­ness.” Now, the text nev­er says that only Scrip­ture is “God breathed.” It says “all” Scrip­ture is, but that’s dif­fer­ent. Protes­tants love to import into the Bible words like “only” or “alone” where they don’t exist. It’s a tic of theirs; Mar­tin Luther was the first to do that, with Rom. 3:28, and Protes­tants have not stopped since.

“But Alt! The Bible nev­er says that any­thing else is God-breathed!”

Real­ly? Are you sure about that? Let’s look at John 20:21–23:

Then said Jesus to them again [Jesus is God, right?], Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed [ene­physèsen] on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost [pneu­ma]. Whose soev­er sins ye remit, they are remit­ted unto them; and whose soev­er sins ye retain, they are retained.”

Sure sounds to me like the apos­tles are God-breathed too. The word theop­neustos is a com­bi­na­tion of two words: theos, which means “God,” and pneustos, which means “breath.” The word for Spir­it (pneu­ma) comes from the same root word, pneo, which means “to blow.” For this rea­son, the Bible fre­quent­ly refers to the Holy Spir­it as wind (cf. John 3:8, Acts 2:2). Thus when Christ breathes on the apos­tles in John 20, they become infused with the Spir­it (or breath) of God just as sure­ly as the Scrip­tures are. And the breath of God — the Spir­it — is passed on through apos­tolic suc­ces­sion, as the Church Fathers under­stood. Here, to cite just one exam­ple, is St. Ire­naeus in Against Here­sies:

Where­fore it is incum­bent to obey the pres­byters who are in the Church — those who, as I have shown, pos­sess the suc­ces­sion from the apos­tles; those who, togeth­er with the suc­ces­sion of the epis­co­pate, have received the cer­tain gift of truth, accord­ing to the good plea­sure of the Father. But [it is also incum­bent] to hold in sus­pi­cion oth­ers who depart from the prim­i­tive suc­ces­sion, and assem­ble them­selves togeth­er in any place what­so­ev­er, [look­ing upon them] either as heretics of per­verse minds, or as schis­mat­ics puffed up and self-pleas­ing. (IV.26)

If the Bible has author­i­ty because it is God-breathed, then so do the suc­ces­sors of the apos­tles, who “have received the cer­tain gift of truth.” Christ said that the Holy Spir­it — the very breath of God — “will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13).

GOD-BREATHED TRADITION

Dr.* White next brings up Mr. Matat­ics’ view that tra­di­tion is “inspired.” It sounds sen­si­ble to me; in spir­i­tos lit­er­al­ly means “breath of the spir­it.” Since Catholic tra­di­tion is apos­tolic tra­di­tion, and the apos­tles receive the breath of the spir­it from Christ him­self, then tra­di­tion is nec­es­sar­i­ly inspired.

“In tak­ing that par­tic­u­lar view­point,” Dr.* White says, Mr. Matat­ics

stands in the same tra­di­tion that you find, for exam­ple, in the Coun­cil of Trent. The Coun­cil of Trent — the orig­i­nal draft of the doc­u­ment on tra­di­tion and scrip­ture — said that God’s rev­e­la­tion and God’s truth come to us in two forms. It comes part­ly … in the writ­ten Scrip­tures and part­ly in the oral tra­di­tions. Hence if you only have the writ­ten Scrip­tures, you don’t have every­thing that God intends us to have. You have to have the oral tra­di­tions along with. Now, there are many Roman Catholic apol­o­gists today who don’t hold that view­point.”

No, I side with Mr. Matat­ics and the Coun­cil of Trent on this one. Here is Tren­t’s Decree on the Canon­i­cal Scrip­tures:

The sacred and holy, ecu­meni­cal, and gen­er­al Syn­od of Trent … keep[s] this always in view, that … the puri­ty itself of the Gospel [is] pre­served in the Church; which … our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, first pro­mul­gat­ed with His own mouth, and then com­mand­ed to be preached by His Apos­tles to every crea­ture, as the foun­tain of all, both sav­ing truth, and moral dis­ci­pline; and see[s] clear­ly that this truth and dis­ci­pline are con­tained in the writ­ten books, and the unwrit­ten tra­di­tions which [were] received by the Apos­tles from the mouth of Christ him­self, or from the Apos­tles them­selves.

Vat­i­can II, in Dei Ver­bum, teach­es the same:

Sacred tra­di­tion, Sacred Scrip­ture and the teach­ing author­i­ty of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined togeth­er that one can­not stand with­out the oth­ers.

Final­ly, the Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church §95 cites Dei Ver­bum to state the same truth. I can’t see any way to get around it: It’s not so much that Ger­ry Matat­ics believes that tra­di­tion is inspired — the Church itself teach­es this.

Next Dr.* White tries to ques­tion the Catholic under­stand­ing of 2 Thess. 2:15: “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the tra­di­tions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by let­ter.”

“This is a great mis­use of the pas­sage!” Dr.* White insists:

First of all, there is only one body of truth in view here. It is one set of tra­di­tions deliv­ered two ways: by preach­ing when Paul was among the Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans, and by let­ter — that is, 1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans. The entire church at Thes­sa­loni­ka had already been taught these items. These are not, then, teach­ings that are lim­it­ed to the bish­ops but are gen­er­al­ly-known truths that every per­son in the church knew and believed.

Wait. I’m con­fused here. Since when do Catholics say that oral tra­di­tion is “lim­it­ed to the bish­ops”? Of course it’s “gen­er­al­ly-known.” I’m not aware of any Catholic who defines oral tra­di­tion as a body of beliefs the bish­ops hold secret­ly. That’s Gnos­ti­cism. Paul, after all, says that these tra­di­tions were taught. Dr.* White needs to explain this. I’d have asked him for clar­i­fi­ca­tion.

He con­tin­ues:

Any claim that the oral com­po­nent con­tains any­thing oth­er than what is found in the writ­ten com­po­nent requires the defend­er of such a posi­tion to prove from the writ­ings of the ear­ly Church that these things were known and believed by the peo­ple.

Dr.* White wants us to believe that the “oral com­po­nent” was oral only while the New Tes­ta­ment was being writ­ten; even­tu­al­ly the apos­tles com­mit­ted to the text of Scrip­ture. He does­n’t tell us on what author­i­ty he knows this. I’d have pressed him on that one too.

But he’s get­ting at some­thing else here too. He thinks that Mar­i­an dog­mas like the Assump­tion were unknown in the ear­ly Church, and he chal­lenges Mr. Matat­ics to trace the Assump­tion back to the ear­ly Church and show evi­dence that peo­ple knew of it then.

We’ll see whether Mr. Matat­ics takes him up on that chal­lenge. It’s not alto­geth­er dif­fi­cult; Tim Sta­ples does so.

IT IS CORBAN!

At the very close of his open­ing state­ment, Dr.* White turns to anoth­er bib­li­cal text where he claims to find sola scrip­tura: Mark 7:9–13.

In this pas­sage, Jesus con­fronts the Phar­isees on a par­tic­u­lar tra­di­tion of theirs:

Full well ye reject the com­mand­ment of God, that ye may keep your own tra­di­tion. For Moses said, Hon­our thy father and thy moth­er; and, Whoso curseth father or moth­er, let him die the death: But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or moth­er, It is Cor­ban, that is to say, a gift, by what­so­ev­er thou might­est be prof­it­ed by me; he shall be free. And ye suf­fer him no more to do ought for his father or his moth­er; mak­ing the word of God of none effect through your tra­di­tion, which ye have deliv­ered: and many such like things do ye.

But Jesus does not con­demn the Phar­isees for adding to the word of God. Instead, he accus­es them of trans­gress­ing the word of God — specif­i­cal­ly, the fourth com­mand­ment. The Cor­ban rule was a method by which peo­ple could for­go the duty to take care of par­ents in their old age. They would give that por­tion of their inher­i­tance to the Tem­ple. Because the mon­ey was then God’s, it no longer could be used to take care of one’s par­ents. This was a shift­less attempt to avoid the fourth com­mand­ment; and that is what pro­voked Christ’s wrath. The text says noth­ing at all about tra­di­tions out­side of Scrip­ture, but only with tra­di­tions that vio­late a spe­cif­ic com­mand of Scrip­ture.

The Catholic teach­ing about tra­di­tion does not say that tra­di­tion may be used to vio­late com­mand­ments. If Dr.* White knows of a tra­di­tion of ours that does that, then he should point out what it is. And Mr. Matat­ics real­ly needs to chal­lenge him on Mark 7:13.