Article 4: Views of Tradition vs. Written Revelation in Church History
Article 4 turns to a core contention in Reformation-era polemics and one of the most enduring debates in Christian theology: the relative place of tradition alongside the written Word of God. The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF 1.2–1.3) explicitly repudiates the notion that any extra-biblical traditions share the status of canonical Scripture, thereby challenging longstanding practices in the medieval church that relied on unwritten customs, papal decrees, and conciliar definitions as parallel or supplementary authorities. This article explores how, from the early centuries to the Reformation and beyond, the church wrestled with the interplay between traditio—the handing down of teaching—and the inscripturated revelation culminating in the 66 canonical books of the Old and New Testaments.
1. Pre-Reformation Tensions: Apostolic Fathers and Emerging Traditions
1.1. Early Post-Apostolic Period
In the sub-apostolic age (late first and second centuries), the Christian community faced the pressing question of how to safeguard the apostolic teaching once the apostles themselves had died. Writings from individuals like Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp of Smyrna often refer to “the tradition” or “the rule of faith” (regula fidei)—a succinct summary of apostolic doctrine that believers transmitted orally. However, these earliest writers also consistently revered the Old Testament as the Word of God, and they cited the emerging apostolic writings as authoritative. Though not always labeling them “Scripture,” they treated them with parity to the Old Testament for practical exhortation.
1.2. Irenaeus and Tertullian
By the late second century, heretical movements such as Gnosticism prompted figures like Irenaeus (in Against Heresies) and Tertullian (in Prescription Against Heretics) to highlight a “rule of faith.” Yet, for Irenaeus, the rule of faith was a crystallization of biblical teaching. He vigorously stressed that Gnostic sects deviated from the authentic apostolic deposit—preserved not primarily by a secret oral tradition, but in the public Scriptures recognized by the churches. Tertullian, before drifting into Montanism, similarly treated tradition as an interpretive guide that was derivative of Scripture, not as an equal stream of revelation.
1.3. Emergent Canon Consciousness
During the same period, the embryonic recognition of the New Testament canon accelerated. Certain documents—e.g., the Four Gospels, the Pauline Epistles—gained almost universal acceptance as carrying apostolic authority. Thus, while the church employed creeds and ecclesiastical customs, the seeds were planted for an understanding that Scripture constituted the normative anchor. Over time, local synods (e.g., Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397) would enumerate the canonical books, reflecting broad consensus. This early stage foreshadows the tension: tradition could encapsulate biblical truths, but it was not itself an autonomous revelation.
2. Medieval Developments: Expansion of Ecclesiastical Traditions
2.1. Institutional Growth and Codification of Practices
After the Constantinian shift (fourth century), the imperial backing of Christianity accelerated ecclesial institutionalization. Councils like Nicaea (325) and Chalcedon (451) produced creedal statements on Christology and the Trinity. These were widely regarded as faithful expositions of Scripture rather than parallel streams of revelation. Over time, however, church practices—such as prayers for the departed, veneration of relics, and monastic traditions—gained currency, sometimes bolstered by local episcopal or papal endorsements without unambiguous biblical warrant.
2.2. Rise of Papal Decretals and Canon Law
In the Latin West, papal decretals and the expanding body of canon law increasingly served as a normative source for ecclesiastical governance. While they did not always claim equivalence to Scripture in principle, in practice, many medieval ecclesiastics accorded them near-equal authority. The Gregorian Reform movement (eleventh century) enhanced papal prerogatives, shaping a hierarchical order that frequently leveraged the concept of unwritten tradition to justify and extend Roman jurisdiction.
2.3. Scholastic Theologians: Scripture and Tradition in Harmonious Relationship
Medieval scholastics (e.g., Anselm, Thomas Aquinas) acknowledged the primacy of Scripture for doctrinal foundations. Yet, they also saw tradition—manifested in the liturgical practices, patristic consensus, and magisterial pronouncements—as necessary for interpreting Scripture correctly. Aquinas, for instance, references the “unwritten tradition” in certain theological questions, contending that the church’s living tradition helps clarify biblical ambiguities. However, for the most part, tradition functioned as handmaiden to Scripture’s final authority, at least in principle. Over time, though, the lines could blur when papal pronouncements carried significant weight apart from clear biblical proof.
3. The Reformation Break: Sola Scriptura vs. Parity of Tradition
3.1. Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin
The Reformation was partly a revolt against late-medieval expansions of tradition. Martin Luther’s famous stance—“A simple layman armed with Scripture is to be believed above a pope or council without it”—marked a radical reassertion of Scripture’s supremacy. At Leipzig (1519), Luther debated Johann Eck on whether councils and popes could err. Luther maintained that Scripture was the only inerrant rule for faith, effectively undermining centuries of ecclesiastical tradition that had accrued.
Huldrych Zwingli in Zurich similarly dismantled traditions that lacked biblical foundation, removing images, altars, and elaborate liturgies from churches. John Calvin, more systematized in approach, recognized certain traditions—like the ecumenical creeds—as valuable if grounded in Scripture, but insisted that no church father or council could bind consciences beyond what the biblical text itself taught. Their principle, Sola Scriptura, did not discard church history or patristic testimony but submitted all tradition to Scripture’s bar of judgment.
3.2. Romish Rebuttals
Tridentine Catholicism’s response was clear: the Council of Trent (1545–1563) declared that unwritten apostolic traditions were to be “received with equal piety and veneration as the written Word.” Trent’s decree (Session IV, 1546) codified the symmetrical authority of Scripture and tradition, effectively anathematizing anyone who held to Scripture alone. Furthermore, Trent affirmed the canonicity of certain Apocryphal or “deuterocanonical” books (e.g., Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus), thus underscoring that the biblical canon itself could not be severed from the church’s tradition.
For the Reformers, this was anathema. It implied that the church’s interpretive and legislative powers could produce dogmatic “additions” (e.g., purgatory, indulgences, papal supremacy) that carried the force of Scripture, a claim they saw as a grave encroachment on the purity of the apostolic deposit.
4. Tridentine Reaction and the Westminster Confession’s Position
4.1. The Tridentine Decrees
As the Roman church’s official rejoinder to Protestant appeals, Trent hammered home the argument that Scripture itself emerges from the church’s tradition and therefore cannot function apart from ecclesial authority. The Council stressed that the Bible is a product of the church’s discernment, and that apostolic tradition—both written and unwritten—formed a single deposit of faith. In so doing, it institutionalized a position that had been brewing implicitly for centuries, granting equal normative status to tradition and Scripture.
4.2. The Westminster Confession’s Counter
When the Westminster divines drafted WCF 1.2–1.3 in the mid-seventeenth century, they were fully cognizant of the Tridentine stance. They rejected it decisively: the Confession enumerates the 66 canonical books, intentionally excluding the Apocrypha, and clarifies, “The books commonly called Apocrypha … are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings” (WCF 1.3). This demotion of the Apocrypha signified a direct break with Roman tradition, simultaneously reinforcing the principle that no ecclesiastical tradition can enlarge the canon or supplement Scripture’s doctrinal content.
Beyond the canon, WCF 1.6 addresses the alleged necessity of extra-biblical traditions, proclaiming that “the whole counsel of God … is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced therefrom.” The Confession thereby rejects the notion that the church must rely on supplementary revelations or unwritten apostolic instructions. Although the Confession concedes a role for the “light of nature” and “Christian prudence” in the church’s practical arrangements, it draws a firm line against conferring any scriptural equivalence to church traditions.
5. Patristic vs. Later Roman “Tradition”: A Critical Distinction
5.1. Patristic Tradition as Exegesis
Reformed thinkers like William Whitaker (in A Disputation on Holy Scripture) and John Jewel (in his Apology of the Church of England) argued that what the fathers called tradition was typically a consensus of Scriptural interpretation rather than an independently revealed deposit. For example, the Nicene Creed’s statements on the Trinity arose from a rigorous biblical exegesis (of texts like John 1, Philippians 2, Hebrews 1), not from a separate, unwritten revelation.
The canonical lists recognized by Athanasius or by the Council of Hippo were understood as historically verifying which books had proven themselves apostolic, not as conferring apostolic status that did not already exist. Thus, patristic tradition was seen as the church’s historical reception of Scripture, distinct from Roman tradition in the later sense of the medieval era, in which additional dogmas and devotions (e.g., transubstantiation, Marian co-mediatrix roles) gained widespread currency largely through ecclesiastical fiat.
5.2. The Post-Schism Roman “Magisterium”
As centuries progressed, the Roman church delineated a stronger concept of magisterial authority, particularly in the high and late medieval eras. Innocent III’s potent claims of papal supremacy, followed by Boniface VIII’s Unam Sanctam (1302), intensified the sense that the Roman pontiff could define doctrine with minimal reference to Scripture. Tridentine Catholicism then formalized the Church’s dual-source theory (Scripture and tradition) as complementary in revealing God’s truth.
Reformed Protestants perceived this as an unwarranted divergence from the earlier patristic approach, in which tradition was a faithful witness to Scripture, not an equal or separate fount of revelation. Garnet Howard Milne’s modern research, particularly in Has the Bible Been Kept Pure?, underscores that the seventeenth-century Puritans viewed the earliest Christian centuries as broadly consistent with a “Scripture-centered” approach. Only in the later medieval period did tradition come to overshadow the Word in practice.
6. Implications for Theological Method: Why Scripture Trumps Tradition
6.1. Scripture as Norma Normans
A fundamental distinction in Reformed theology is that Scripture is the norma normans (“the norming norm”), while tradition—even the best patristic expositions or ecumenical creeds—remains norma normata (“a normed norm”). In other words, the church’s confessions and traditions have a secondary authority, derivative from the biblical text they interpret. The Reformed confessions themselves—such as the Westminster Confession—subject their own doctrinal statements to Scripture’s oversight. WCF 31.4 states that all synods and councils can err and must be tested by Scripture, reflecting a rigorous subordination of tradition.
6.2. Whitaker’s Legacy in Confessional Bibliology
William Whitaker’s systematic refutation of Roman appeals to tradition underscores that tradition should not be despised wholesale—indeed, patristic testimonies frequently confirm biblical truth—but that it must never be viewed as equal to the Word. Confessional bibliology, championed by the Puritans and recognized in WCF 1.8, adds another layer: Because Scripture has been providentially preserved, there is no deficiency requiring supplementation from tradition. Garnet Howard Milne’s study exemplifies how the Westminster divines grounded the “kept pure” clause in an overriding trust in God’s providential care, leaving no conceptual space for “essential doctrines” to reside outside the canonical text.
6.3. Pastoral and Scholarly Consequences
For pastors, this model demands that preaching and teaching focus on Scripture as the supreme yardstick, drawing on historical commentary or creeds only insofar as they explain Scripture faithfully. For theologians, it offers a methodological blueprint: examine the patristic and medieval heritage with critical reverence, retaining what is consistent with Scripture and jettisoning what cannot stand its test. Moreover, in the contemporary ecumenical climate, the Reformed tradition’s stance calls for unity where the apostolic Word is genuinely upheld, but a conscientious objection when “tradition” is wielded as a parallel authority—be it in Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox contexts, or indeed in Protestant circles that might drift into unwarranted confessional rigidity devoid of biblical moorings.
Conclusion
Surveying the historical trajectory—from sub-apostolic fathers who summarized biblical truth in creeds, through medieval expansions of papal authority, to the Reformation’s robust Sola Scriptura principle and the subsequent codification at Trent—illustrates why WCF 1.2–1.3 stands so uncompromisingly in rejecting parallel sources of revelation. The Confession’s perspective is that while ecclesiastical tradition, especially in the early councils and patristic writings, can serve a vital interpretive role, it must never be elevated to the status of an independent or equal norm with the written Scriptures.
This stance emerges most starkly in the Confession’s explicit exclusion of the Apocrypha from the canon (WCF 1.3) and its insistence that the “whole counsel of God” is accessible solely in Scripture (1.6). The legacy of William Whitaker undergirds this approach, systematically demonstrating that the fathers themselves repeatedly bowed to Scripture as the supreme authority. In the modern era, Garnet Howard Milne’s scholarship has reasserted that the Confession not only defends Scripture’s unique authority but also affirms its providential preservation—thus making any supplemental tradition unnecessary for the church’s doctrinal or moral guidance.
Indeed, for the Westminster Assembly, the bedrock principle is that God has “committed [His truth] wholly unto writing,” guarding it from the vicissitudes of human distortion and institution-building. Traditions may serve as helps, but they are not normative in the same sense. In the final reckoning, the Reformed tradition’s resolute stand is that no council, pope, or unwritten custom can share the prerogative of shaping Christian faith and practice at the same foundational level as Holy Scripture. Hence, while the church benefits from the testimony of history, it does so only insofar as that testimony can be shown to conform to the revealed canon—“the only rule of faith and obedience” (WCF 1.2).
