Lutheran Church Missouri Synod

The Problem of Sacred Tradition and Papal Primacy

By Dr. Richard P. Bucher

In its most basic form, the Scriptural canon of Luther’s doctrinal hermeneutic, states that an article of faith must be based on Scripture alone, not on human writings or traditions. This canon was spoken against the tendency in late medieval theology to equate all ecclesial authorities as a consistent and harmonized whole. The word “tradition” was often used in the late Middle Ages to refer to all non-Biblical Catholic authorities, including, but not limited to, papal or conciliar decrees, teachings of the fathers, opinions of the scholastics, the prescriptions of canon law, or even custom. In a sense, then, even in the early sixteenth century, the papal church had two authoritative sources of doctrine.

This “two authorities” theory of church teaching was declared to be essential Catholic doctrine at the Council of Trent^[1] (1546-1563), and was reaffirmed in the Dogmatic Constitution on Revelation at the Second Vatican Council:

Hence there exist a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit. To the successors of the apostles, sacred tradition hands on in its full purity God’s word, which was entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. . . . Consequently, it is not from sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of devotion and reverence. Sacred tradition and sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, which is committed to the Church

. . . She [the Church] has always regarded the Scriptures together with sacred tradition as the supreme rule of faith, and will ever do so.^[2]

To this one deposit of truth of Scripture and tradition, Vatican II linked “the living teaching office of the Church” [The Latin term is magisterum]^[3] which alone has the authority to authentically interpret the one deposit. “It is clear therefore, that sacred tradition, sacred Scripture, and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others.”^[4]

By God’s grace, and to their credit, the Roman Catholic Church has managed to do what many Protestant and Lutheran churches were not able to do:  to use the tools of historical and literary criticism profitably without compromising belief in the inspired and authoritative Scriptures as the rule of faith. Having dodged one attack on the authority of Scripture, however, they have succumbed to another. By elevating sacred tradition to an authority equal with Scripture, saying it springs from the same source and that both Scripture and tradition is all God’s Word, is to categorically erode the authority of the Scriptures--not to mention the fact that there is nothing in the canonical Scriptures that encourages or commands such Christians to look to an ongoing authoritative sacred tradition.^[5] To justify such sacred tradition as necessary by making reference to Scripture’s alleged insufficiency or obscurity is to not only to denigrate the authority of Scripture, but to place sacred tradition above Scripture in terms of authority. According to this view, other churches that do not have the authority of sacred tradition cannot and do not have the entire “deposit of faith,” or all that is essential for the fullness of salvation or the fullness of unity. This, Luther’s scriptural canon will not allow. A completely different doctrinal hermeneutic is at work in the Catholic Church’s two authorities methodology. Right here is the heart of the disunity between Rome and the churches of the Reformation.

To pretend that sacred tradition, filled as it is with almost countless writings, laws, decrees, and custom over hundreds of years, only explicates and agrees with but never contradicts the Bible beggars the imagination! It is historically disingenuous to claim that the sacred tradition never contradicts itself, let alone the Scriptures. This is a call for honesty!

It is for good reason that John Paul II, when speaking of “areas in need of fuller study before a true consensus of faith can be achieved” in Ut Unum Sint,listed as the very first area: “(1) the relationship between Sacred Scripture, as the highest authority in matters of faith, and Sacred Tradition, as indispensable to the interpretation of the Word of God.”^[6] It is appropriate to list this first because so much that divides the churches from the Roman Catholic Church comes out of and depends on the sacred tradition. Again, it is not the Catholic Church’s sacred tradition itself that violates Luther’s scriptural canon. Tremendous good has come out of the fathers and the various ecumenical councils; useful teaching that has confessed the faith clearly, edified the faithful, and defended the faith. All of this is to be treasured and used wisely. What is problematic is to claim that a teaching based only or primarilyon sacred tradition is necessary for salvation or required for “necessary and sufficient” visible unity. This begs the question: In what sense is sacred Scripture “the highest authority in matters of faith” if there is so much necessary for the Church that is not contained in the sacred Scriptures? Or in what sense is sacred Scripture the highest authority, when its clear teachings can be effectively overruled by sacred tradition?

Consider the following examples, which unfortunately can only be briefly sketched here. 

(1) The Immaculate Conception^[7] and assumption^[8] of Mary are, for the Catholic Church, essential truth. They insist that believing such teachings in common with them is necessary in order to achieve a full consensus. Yet the Scriptures are entirely silent concerning both of these teachings. These Marian doctrines are entirely based on and articulated by the sacred tradition and papal decrees. Of course, it is well known that an essential doctrine can be implied by the Scriptures, even though such a doctrine is not explicitly spelled out there. Infant baptism is an example of such a doctrine. The two Marian doctrines under consideration, however, can in no way be considered true by Biblical implication. The few references to Mary in the Scriptures never even hint at such teachings. To base unity on anything other than what is essential doctrine is to lay unnecessary burdens on one’s brethren in Christ. And only that which is founded on the Spirit-inspired and authoritative Scriptures can be an essential doctrine.

(2) Of equal significance is the primacy of the pope. This was declared to be dogma at the First Vatican Council, and therefore it is a teaching that must be accepted before full communion with Rome can occur. Pope John Paul II hints at this in Ut Unum Sint: “The Catholic Church, both in her praxis and in her solemn documents, holds that the communion of the particular Churches with the Church of Rome, and of their Bishops with the Bishop of Rome, is--in God’s plan--and essential requisite of full and visible communion.”^[9]

The pope’s primacy has been nuanced in various ways. It has been described in terms of power and jurisdiction, as in the words the Vatican I Constitution Pastor Aeternus where it was decreed that the Roman Pontiff had “full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church,” concerning faith and morals but also discipline and government in the Church, over “each and every Church” and “each and every shepherd and faithful.”^[10] Or as John Paul II has more recently done, it can be described as loving service of mercy established by Christ on behalf of the churches in order to preserve unity, while not denying that it is a primacy of power and jurisdiction.^[11]

Yet despite the winsome rhetoric of servanthood, framed within the theme of unity, there is no question that the Pope’s primacy includes power and jurisdiction over all the churches. In the words of Ut Unum Sint: “With the power and the authority without which such an office would illusory, the Bishop of Rome must ensure the communion of all the Churches.”^[12] There is no question that, according to the Catholic Church, the Bishop of Rome, because of his primacy by divine law, has jurisdiction over all other churches and bishops, and therefore would require obedience in some sense from churches that entered full communion with him.^[13]

Numerous dialogues have wrestled with the Pope’s primacy, because it has been seen as one of the great obstacles to unity. The best possible construction has been placed on the extreme statements made about papal primacy at Vatican I and elsewhere.^[14] Yet, a lingering question remains: Why should the churches consider the Pope’s primacy as an essential doctrine necessary for unity--when it is not on based on Scripture? Where can we find the Pope’s primacy taught in Scripture? Matthew 16:18-19^[15] has long been claimed as the Scriptural proof (and elsewhere where Peter takes a leading role). Yet, as is well known, this passage says nothing but about papal primacy, though it possibly might be saying something about Peter’s primacy--but this is disputed. The tortured argument is well known: Christ gave primacy to Peter. Peter went to Rome and was the first bishop of Rome. Every bishop of Rome since then has been the successor of Peter, exercising the same primacy that he exercised, by the will of Christ.^[16] If the office of the Pope was presented merely as something that developed historically by human law, and as such, might be helpful for the Church today, such a lack of Biblical support would not be so troublesome. But because it is presented as a divine office that is an essential doctrine that all Christians must believe and agree with for unity, a much stronger foundation is needed. An essential teaching must be based on Scripture that is clear--if Scripture truly is the highest authority in the Church. Martin Luther’s words still ring true.

First, since everything that is done in the church is proclaimed in clear and plain passages of Scripture, it is surely amazing that nothing is openly said in the whole Bible about the papacy. This is especially strange since my opponents consider the papacy the most important, most necessary, and most unique feature in the church. It is a suspicious situation and makes a bad impression that so many matters of lesser importance are based upon a multitude of reliable and clear passages of Scripture, while for this one doctrine no one has been able to produce a single clear reason.^[17]

^[1] “The most holy Synod of Trent, perceiving that this truth and instruction is contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions, which, after they had been received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ Himself or from the apostles themselves, the Holy Spirit dictating, have come down to us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand; and following the example of the orthodox fathers, it receives and venerates with equal devotion and reverence all the books of the Old and the New Testament (since God is the author of both) and also said traditions, both those pertaining to faith, and those pertaining to morals, as dictated either orally by Christ or by the Holy Spirit and preserved by a continuous succession in the Catholic Church” (The First Decree of the Fourth Session of the Council of Trent). About this decree, Martin Chemnitz remarked, “It is truly a Pandora’s box, under whose cover every kind of corruption, abuse, and superstition has been brought into the church. For what fiction will not be allowed, if once this postulate is granted, that proof and confirmation of the Scripture are not necessary?” In Martin Chemnitz,Examination of the Council of Trent, Part I, trans. Fred Kramer (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971), 219.

^[2] “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation” (Dei Verbum), Documents of Vatican II, par.9, 10, 21, p. 117, 125.

^[3] The magisterium is the Pope and the bishops collectively.

^[4] “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation” (Dei Verbum), Documents of Vatican II, par. 10, p. 118.

^[5] When a question of truth was at stake, the apostles always pointed their congregations backwards to the apostolic doctrine already given - not to a new unfolding oftradition. The reference point was always the past. Cf. Romans 16:17; Galatians 1:8-9; 1 Co. 11:1, 23-25; Col. 2:6-7; Heb 13:8-9; Jude 1:3.

^[6] John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, par. 78, p. 90.

^[7] Declared church dogma by Pope Pius IX in the bull Ineffabilis on Dec. 8 1854.

^[8] Declared church dogma by Pope Pius XIII in the apostolic constitution Munificentisimus on Nov. 1, 1950.

^[9] John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, par. 97, 107-108.

^[10] “If anyone says that the Roman Pontiff has only the office of inspection and direction, but not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, not only in matters that pertain to faith and morals, but also in matters that pertain to the discipline and government of the Church throughout the whole world; or if anyone say that he has only a more important part and not the complete fullness of the supreme power; or if anyone says that this power is not ordinary and immediate either over each and every Church or over each and every shepherd and faithful, anathema sit.” Quoted in Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, Church Unity and the Papal Office (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001), 65.

^[11] In Ut Unum Sint, par. 88-97, pp. 98-108.

^[12] Ibid., par. 94, p. 105.

^[13] “But the college of bishops has no authority unless it is simultaneously conceived of in terms of its head, the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, and without any lessening of his power or primacy over all, pastors as well as general faithful. For in virtue of his office, that is, as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme, and universal power over the Church. And he can always exercise this power freely.” In “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,” Documents of Vatican II, par. 22, p. 43.

^[14] See the essays in Braaten and Jenson, Church Unity & Papal Office as an example of the “hands off” approach that often passes for scholarship in the ecumenical movement. Stressing the positive is one thing--but not at the expense of accuracy and honesty.

^[15] “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

^[16] For a historical survey on how the Petrine Ministry of the Bishop of Rome was understood in the first centuries of the Church, see Brian Daley, “A Ministry of Primacy and the Communion of Churches,” in Braaten and Jenson, Church Unity & Papal Office, 27-58.

^[17] “Defense and Explanation,” LW 32:67-68; WA 7:409. Luther was commenting on article 25.