Warner/Jackson Debate on Tradition as Religious Authority

 
 
 Proposition: 
 Both Scripture and Oral Tradition are equally authoritative for the Church in matters of doctrine.
 
 Affirm:  Matt Warner
 Deny: George A. Jackson
 
 First of all, thank you, George, for your responses and for pointing out that I missed the word 
 "equally" in my affirmation.  And in doing so, you brought out a very good issue that I will focus 
 on first.  That issue is how can we know that oral Tradition is reliable, and hasn't been changed 
 and corrupted after the Apostles?   This is a question that I asked myself when I began to look at 
 the Catholic Faith, and after looking at the facts, I came to the conclusion that oral Tradition is 
 indeed a reliable source of Apostolic teaching.
 
 Let me start by asking a question.  How do we know that the Scriptures that we have today are 
 reliable?  After all, we do not have any of the original manuscripts.  All we have are copies of 
 copies of copies that have been copied by fallible men who can make mistakes.  So how do we 
 know that they are reliable?
 
 Well, first of all, we know the Scriptures are reliable by faith.  We believe by faith that God has 
 protected His written Word from corruption down through the centuries.  Secondly, we know the 
 Scriptures are reliable because we have many early manuscripts of the Scriptures from different 
 locations and times which are in agreement with each other and with what we have today.  It is 
 because of this early evidence that we can know that the Scriptures have not been changed and 
 corrupted throughout the centuries.  (True, there are some very minor discrepancies between some 
 manuscripts, but nothing that would discredit their reliability.)  So, we can say with full 
 confidence that we believe the Scriptures to be reliable based upon FAITH and REASON.
 
 Now, let's apply these two things to oral Tradition.  First, I can say that Tradition is reliable 
 because I believe by faith that God is able to protect His message that has been handed down 
 orally from the Apostles, just like His has protected His message that was recorded in writing.  
 After all, if we can believe this about His written Word (Scripture), then why not His spoken 
 Word (Tradition)?   Isn't He powerful enough to do this?
 
 Secondly, we can also know the reliability of oral Tradition from reason.  We have many writings 
 written by the early Christians from different locations and times that share with us in great detail 
 what the early Christians believed.  And from these writings we can see that every church in every 
 place adhered to the exact same doctrine.  And not only that, but we can also see from these 
 writings that these teachings were consistently and faithfully passed on generation after 
 generation.  
 
 The fact is that if oral Tradition isn't reliable, then what we would see in the early Church is 
 differing and contradictory beliefs among the churches.  But when we look at the evidence, we do 
 not see this type of inconsistency.  As Tertullian writes in his writing titled, "The Prescription 
 Against Heretics" (written in the early third century),
 
 "Grant, then, that all have erred; that the apostle was mistaken in giving his testimony; that the 
 Holy Ghost had no such respect to any one church as to lead it into truth, although sent with this 
 view by Christ, and for this asked of the Father that He might be the teacher of truth; grant, also, 
 that He, the Steward of God, the Vicar of Christ, neglected His office, permitting the churches for 
 a time to understand differently, and to believe differently, what he himself was preached by the 
 apostles,--is it  likely that so many churches, and they so great, should have gone  astray into one 
 and the same faith? No casualty distributed among many men issues in one and the same result. 
 Error of doctrine in the churches must necessarily have produced various issues. When, however, 
 that which is deposited among many is found to be one and the same, it is not the result of error, 
 but of tradition. Can anyone, then, be reckless enough to say that they were in error who handed 
 on the tradition?" 
 
 George, you also wrote concerning my statement that the Scriptures themselves do not teach that 
 they are the only authority for the Church in matters of doctrine, 
 "This is a statement that could be made of many things the Scriptures do not teach. It is only a 
 `straw-man` with no real meaning."
 
 Well, personally, I think that my point is a very important point.  After all, the church that you are 
 affiliated (which is the Independent Churches of Church) has a slogan that says, "Where the 
 Scriptures speak, we speak.  Where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent."  Correct?  Well, if the 
 Scriptures are silent on the issue of the Scriptures being the only authority for the Church in 
 matters of doctrine, then why aren't you silent?  You see, my point is that you are stating as a truth 
 that the Scriptures alone are authoritative.  But yet, this truth cannot itself be found in the 
 Scriptures.  And if this truth is not found in the Scriptures (which alone are authoritative) then you 
 cannot be sure that it is true.  So in other words, the belief that the Scriptures are our only 
 authority fails its own test, and must be rejected by its own standard.  You may call this a "straw-
 man", but I call it a fatal blow to the idea that Scripture is the only authority. 
 
 And finally, George, you write, 
 "Matt from here starts quoting historical evidence from uninspired men and sources outside the 
 Scripture which I will not debate."
 
 My question is why not debate historical evidence?  What I posted in my first affirmation is 
 reliable historical evidence, which clearly shows what the early Christians believed about the 
 authority of Tradition.  You see, if the Scriptures show that the first Christians followed both 
 Scripture and Tradition as authoritative, and if historical evidence shows that the early Christians 
 after them continued to follow both Scripture and Tradition as authoritative, then from where did 
 the idea that Scripture alone was authoritative come?  It certainly wasn't from the Apostles. :-)
 
 With His Love, 
 Matt Warner