THE ROLE OF SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION IN THE FORMULATION OF THEOLOGY 

I begin this essay by intimating as I did in the previous one, that Christian theology did not emerge in or was constructed in a vacuum. There were historical antecedents that gave way to the formulation of theology.  For those who insist that theology must be based on "what the Bible says," I will point out that the theology of the Early Church was not based on "what the Bible says."  Granted that the Early Church was primarily of Jewish background in the composition of its membership, and therefore, relied to a large extent on the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) as well as their own oral traditions in order to construct a theology. 

It must be noted that the notion of an "inerrant and infallible Scripture" was not even alluded to in the initial stages of the Early Church's theological construction.  This was a much later development.

Up until recently, almost the entire spectrum of theological opinion would have agreed that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, together with their doctrinal interpretations, occupy a unique and indispensable place of authority for Christian faith, practice, and reflection.  But this consensus now seems to be falling apart (Edward Farley and Peter C. Hodgson in "Scripture and Tradition."  Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks, Peter C. Hodgson and Robert H. King, eds. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994, p. 61)

For one thing, biblical scholarship, increasingly influenced by history-of-religions approaches, has questioned the uniqueness of biblical writings as compared with other ancient texts.  By insisting that the  meaning of texts can be properly construed only in their specific linguistic and historical contexts, biblical criticism complicates the use of such texts as authorities in preaching and theology.  In the second place, systematic theology has most freed itself from the impact of the neo-Reformation movement that dominated Protestant thinking for half a century and that subscribed to the principle of scriptural authority with great intensity. Catholic thought, meanwhile, has experienced a similar liberation from the authority of doctrinal tradition since Vatican II.  Thus we are able to acknowledge that scriptural authority, while it may be indispensable to Christian theology, also has a dark underside in it potentiality for obscurantism, resistance to science, authoritarianism, and "book religion"-veneration of "the book" as a holy object.  Finally, and perhaps most important, we seem to be passing through a new wave of critical consciousness in which all authorities are being questioned, especially those associated with the dominant Western cultural and religious tradition.  For example, the more radical wing of the liberation theologies has raised disturbing questions concerning the ideological abuse of Scripture and tradition by the Church, and some critics have wondered whether these authorities are not in fact patriarchal, sexist, indifferent, to the realities of oppression, and class-oriented to the point of being no longer usable.  If we are to recognize scripture and tradition as authoritative, it will apparently have to be in a much more relative sense then before (Ibid., pps. 61-62).

Just what does recognizing something as "scripture" entail?  An ambiguity emerges  that may account for some of the confusion surrounding questions concerning the "necessity" and "authority" of Scripture for Christian faith. In the history-of-religions, "scripture" refers to to the existence of a normative collection of writings, and their function in the origin and perpetuation of a religious faith.    In this sense, there are Hindu scriptures, Buddhist scriptures, and so on, with no particular theory of their inspiration, authority, or validity implied. On the other hand, a more determinate sense of "scripture" is associated  with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In  this view, the collection of writings called scripture contains a unique deposit of revelation-a deposit whose special qualities are due to the inspired origins, and which is to be handed down through the ages by an authoritative teaching tradition. This second sense can be referred to as the "scripture principle," in order to distinguish it from "scripture" in the first generic sense (Ibid., p. 62).

While primary attention is given to the theme of Scripture, we do not neglect tradition, since in both classic and modern formulations the way that Scripture has been construed as authoritative in the life of the Church has been applied to tradition as well.  This may be appear surprising in light of the commonly perceived rivalry among Christian confessions over the primacy of scripture in relation to traditions, but the issue as so stated is misplaced (Ibid., p. 63).