The Importance of Tradition for Catholic Interpretations of the Bible – Catholic Approach to the Bible Series – CHS 83

The Importance of Tradition for Catholic Interpretations of the Bible – Catholic Approach to the Bible Series – CHS 83

How important is tradition for Catholic interpretations of the Bible? In this episode, I provide my first response to a recent book written about the value of Reformation principles for the interpretation of the Bible. I note among other things that the principle of sola scriptura has had an enormously negative effect upon Christian unity since the sixteenth century. In this episode we briefly review some of the issues discussed by Martin Luther and Johannes Eck at their famous debate in the city of Leipzig (July 1519). We note that for Catholic Christians, tradition plays a vital role for how the Catholic Church understands the Bible and, more importantly, the teachings on faith and morals that the Church derives from it. We also note that Reformation principles of interpretation reject the binding authority of the Christian tradition. Although helpful, the Church’s tradition, according to Reformation principles of biblical interpretation, can never be binding on any Christian’s conscience. The sola (alone) of sola scriptura is intended to exclude the authority of tradition from being determinative in what any Christian thinks about faith and morals. Join us this week as we discuss some of the key differences in Protestant and Catholic ways of reading the Bible.