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First of Four One-Minute Questions
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Gerry Matatics Starts
Matatics
Mr. White, I will not ask for a Scripture that says the
Scriptures are self-interpreting or self-authenticating.
According to what you yourself said, there could be such a
Scripture and it would be self-authenticating but there is no
statement to that effect. I agree that God is His own ultimate
witness but it begs the question to say that this witness can be
provided through the Church. We agree that the Word of God is
self-authenticating but we do not restrict the Word of God to
Scripture alone. What I would like to ask you for, as a
Scripture, is this. Would you please give us one Scripture that
clearly states that after a certain point in God's redemptive
plan that the written Word of God would retire the need for an
ongoing, orally transmitted Word of God? Where does the Bible
indicate that this would ever happen?
White
Well again, Gerry you speak a lot of misrepresenting but
you're evading the issue because you continue to just assume the
existence of this mythical oral tradition that contains all these
doctrines that were not even known in the early church and they
simply didn't exist. Now, we see in Scripture, for example, in
the Old Testament, the revelation ceases with Malachi. The Jews
themselves, for example Amishina, recognized the prophetic voice
left Israel after Malachi. So you have 400 years in between
periods when they disagree about that in regards to Deuterocanonicals.
But the point is when Jesus appears on the scene those
religious leaders, called the Scribes, the Pharisees, the
Sadducees, had religious traditions. They had traditions that
they claimed to be inspired. They claimed to be directly from
Moses and have the same authority as Torah. Never once do you
find Jesus citing these. Never once do you find Jesus submitting
to these things. Instead, what do we find in the Lord Jesus'
ministry? We find him specifically citing Scripture as the final
argument in any of the arguments he has with the Scribes and
Pharisees.
And so the question you ask me is a question that again begs
the issue. Because, as I have been saying all evening and in
probably both questions I'm going to ask you, you have to
demonstrate that an oral tradition that contains information
other than that found in the New Testament is what is being
spoken of when the New Testament speaks of tradition. And I have
already shown you from a number of passages in Thessalonians and
in Timothy that the deposit, the faith, that which was entrusted
to Timothy, which he is to pass on--which, as you know, is a
classical text used in Roman Catholicism to defend the concept of
the passing on of oral tradition--the Scriptures themselves
demonstrate that that is simply the Gospel. It is the standard of
sound doctrine. It is not something, as Tertullian said, that can
be used to substantiate doctrines that had never even entered
into the minds of the Apostles and prophets. Such concepts as
Immaculate Conception or Bodily Assumption or Papal
Infallibility, these aspects were not a part of the New Testament
belief.
So again, I will have to admit, Gerry, you have asked me a
question I can't answer because part of your question involves
the assumption that you have to make. You have to make the
assumption that there is this oral tradition, because without it
your whole system collapses. But you have yet to demonstrate that
this oral tradition existed and that it communicates something
other than what we have in the Scriptures. I find no early Father
who said that and I find nothing to substantiate that in the New
Testament as well.
Matatics
Well, thank you for admitting that you can't come up with a
Scripture verse that teaches what your thesis requires you to. I,
for my part, would be happy to come up with all kinds of
Scripture verses which indicate that there are things that are
authoritatively transmitted in non-written form. Jesus himself,
for example, contrary to the statement that Mr. White just made,
alludes to the concept of Moses' seat in Matthew 23:1ff, this
seat of authority that the Pharisees held so that their teaching
of Mosaic doctrine should be heeded while their practice, or
their example, should not be followed. The concept of Moses' seat
is not taught in Scripture, and yet Jesus considers it binding on
these consciences of his listeners. He says, "You must
listen to what they say for they sit in Moses' seat." Paul
believed in the tradition of the rock that followed the Jews in
the wilderness, a tradition not found in the Old Testament and
yet he accepts it as normative and true in I Corinthians 10:4.
Paul accepts the tradition concerning the sorcerers in Egypt's
Pharaoh's' Court, Jannes and Jambres, which he refers to in II
Timothy 3:5, although the Old Testament does not give him their
names. And the most important of all is in Jude 14 when Jude
says, "Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these
men," and he quotes a prophecy of Enoch that's been passed
on for millennia that was not included in the Old Testament. Oral
tradition is capable of transmitting something without inscripturation.
And I would point lastly to another example in II
Thessalonians 2 where Paul, referring to the restraining power
holding back the appearance of the man of sin says, "You
know what I'm talking about because when I was with you I told
you about these things." He does not explain it in I
Thessalonians, he does not explain it here, but he expects them
to understand and to take heed and to take warning based on oral
tradition. These are many examples of Jesus and the Apostles
practicing what Catholics practice, that oral tradition can
provide a normative transmission of truths that we should
incorporate into our system of belief even though they are not
contained in the canonical written group of Scriptures.
White
First of all, in regards to Matthew 23:2, R. T. Francis'
commentary on the passage says, "Moses' seat is a figurative
expression for the teaching authority for those officially
responsible for interpreting and applying the Law of Moses. Jesus
doesn't assess the legitimacy of the Scribes' functions but
questions the way they exercise them." Later on, he says,
after citing a number of attacks that Jesus makes on them, he
says, "It is probable, then, that verse 3 should be read as
a whole in which the emphasis is on the second half and the first
functions only as a foil to it, perhaps spoken with an ironical
tongue and cheek tone. One might paraphrase, 'Of course, you may
do what they say, if you like, but don't do what they do.'"
You then reference such things as the rock in the wilderness.
That's knowledge, not tradition. That is not some traditional
teaching, some theology or doctrine. Certainly, what does that
have to do with simply having knowledge? You mention Jude citing
the book of Enoch. That is not an oral thing. That is a written
document. The book of Enoch is in the pseudapigrapha. It's in the
two-volume set that you can pick up from Charles Worth. It was
written and Jude is citing that, not making it Scripture. You
don't believe it's Scripture and I don't believe it's Scripture,
but it was oral in nature.
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