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
 
 
 Matt writes: 
 Both Scripture and oral Tradition are EQUALLY (Hee! Hee!) authoritative
 for the Church in matters of doctrine. 
 Affirmed: Matt Warner
 Denied: 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.
 
 George: 
 Thank you Matt for pointing our why we `know: that we have the word of God. With thousands of 
 `written` witnesses to the original writings of the inspired writers of the Bible, we can have full 
 confidence that the Bible is the word of God, not based upon "FAITH and REASON, but on the 
 `facts` and the thousands of written `evidence. ` Matt says that "we know the Scriptures are 
 reliable by faith." I have never heard this one before. Is faith (and whose faith is this?) the criterion 
 for the reliability of Scripture? And then to add `reason` (and whose reasoning is it?) as another 
 criterion for the reliability of Scripture. This is a new one on me, I have never known or heard that 
 the reliability of God's word was based on man's faith and reason!   
 
 Matt:
 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? 
 
 George:
 Please notice what Matt is really saying here! Based on his faith and reason, and not on thousands 
 of written witnesses, he believe oral tradition is just as reliable and authoritative as the written 
 word of God. Why? Because he believes God is able to protest His oral massage as He did the 
 written passages. No one should ever question the power of God. But may I ask, `where` is the 
 proof? He cannot go to the written word because the written word is not oral tradition. So he must 
 depend upon some one orally speaking a massage from God. that the Holy Spirit has not written 
 down. And the person must be inspired to speak or it would not be equal in authority as the Bible, 
 which is inspired.
 
 Matt;
 Secondly, we can also know the reliability of oral Tradition from reason. We have many writings 
 written by the early Christians
 
 George:
 Again, Matt goes to `written` material to prove `oral tradition` Maybe Matt does not know that the 
 writings of the church fathers are not `oral tradition` but writings of uninspired men. And to reason 
 that reasoning is proof of the reliability of oral tradition must be an oxymoron.
 
 Matt:
 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.
 
 George:
 Matt, have you forgot that you are in the Affirmative? You keep speaking of `writings` not oral 
 tradition! Maybe you can explain how `writings` are `oral. `My dictionary shows that "oral" 
 means; " word of mouth." To prove your proposition you need to show how, from generation to 
 generation, the church of the Lord received commands, teachings etc. by word of mouth only, and 
 these teaching were inspired by the Holy Spirit, and carried all the authority of the word written by 
 men inspired of the Holy Spirit, and is binding upon the church today.     
  
 Matt.
 And not only that, but we can also see from these writings that these teachings were consistently 
 and faithfully passed on generation after generation.
 
 George:
 Again Matt, you are very consistent in referring to `writings` and now you call them `teachings` 
 that were "consistently and faithfully passed on generation after generation." Or you changing the 
 proposition to `Written Tradition`?
  
 Matt;
 The fact is that if oral Tradition isn't reliable,
 
 George:
 God in the first century inspired men to write His word. Of course, before they could be written, 
 they were spoken by the same inspired men, and others who were also inspired by the Holy Spirit, 
 this is what the inspired apostle called "tradition" or teaching in the New Testament. (2 Thess3:6)  
 Why do you think that God has forbidden anyone to add to His inspired word? (Rev.22:18) If 
 verbal communication was so reliable from uninspired men, why would God take 1600 years and 
 40 different inspired writers to bring His will to mankind? and then forbid it be added to by 
 uninspired men?   
 
 Matt: 
 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.
 
 George:
 Matt, have you read Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth? Have you read Jesus`s letters to the 
 seven church of Asia in Revelation chapters 1-3? And you can tell us even when under the 
 direction and guidance of Holy Spirit dwelled men there were no inconsistencies?  
  
 Matt:
 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?
 
 George: 
 Because it is also silent on that they are not the only authority for the Church in matters of 
 doctrine. Oh, by the way, I am not "affiliated with the Independent Churches of Church."
 
 Matt:
 You see, my point is that you are stating as a truth that the Scriptures alone are authoritative.
 
 George:
 Matt: I am not in the affirmative. I have to prove nothing until I am in the affirmative. You must 
 prove that "Oral Tradition" has all the authority as the written word, and is binding upon the 
 church today. But how are you trying to prove it? By resorting to `written` words of men, not oral! 
 You have a proposition which is impossible to confirmed without having recourse to `Oral 
 Tradition.  `Once something is written, it ceases to be "Oral Tradition" it becomes "written 
 Tradition" So unless you can comes up with a tradition that has only been spoken from mouth to 
 mouth, from generation to generation, starting with an inspired apostle, you cannot prove your 
 proposition. Good luck!   
 
 Matt:
 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.
 
 George:
 Again, I will prove the proposition I have sighed when I am in the affirmative using only the 
 Scriptures.
 
 Matt:
 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.
 
 George: 
 Matt, how do you know the above? Not by `Oral Tradition` But by reading written words from 
 men. You did not hear it orally, so why bring it into our debate, I could probably search the Web 
 and come up with those who teach and believe different from the men you listed, what would that 
 prove? You are obligated to prove your proposition, not some else.
 
 Matt
 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. :-)
 
 George:
 And how do you know this? It may have came by "Oral Tradition"!   We shall see where the word 
 of God "as written" is the word of God, and not what some uninspired man, not authorized by God 
 to speak for Him, is the authoritative word of God.
 
 By His Grace
 George A Jackson