Holy Writ and Holy Church

For several years now one of the most frequently discussed topics in the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches has been the problem of Tradition. The kernel of this problem consists in the relations between Scripture and Tradition and between Scripture and the Church. Several important studies have been published on this theme, and it is undeniable that continental Protestantism has become sympathetic to some notion of tradition. At the same time it must be admitted that Protestant theologians today are no more able than was even so conciliating a figure as Melanchthon at the period of the Reformation to get over the notion of a separation between Scripture and Church, a separation which inevitably leads to the subordination of a purely human Church to a tradition regarded as divine, external and superior to this Church.However, there have been some excellent studies in this field from the Catholic side which have helped to clear the ground of certain false problems and inadequate notions. Professor J. R. Geiselmann and E. Ortigues have put us all in their debt by their efforts to lay bare the precise meaning of the Tridentine decrees. The Acta of the Council of Trent remain indeed a useful and fascinating quarry for the theologian of today. It is, for example, of the greatest importance for the advance both of Catholic theology itself and of the ecumenical dialogue to learn that the Fathers of the Council deliberately omitted a proposed text according to which Revelation was to be found partly in Scripture and partly in unwritten apostolic traditions

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• Epochs of Modeirnity

  Catherine Pickstock•Distinktion Journal of Social…•2005

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