Can Protestants Embrace the Classical Tradition? (Part I)
Must one be Roman Catholic to value classical education? Catholics have been building schools for centuries, while Protestants have Martin Luther:
Now, my advice would be that the books of Aristotle, the Physics, the Metaphysics, Of the Soul, Ethics, which have hitherto been considered the best, be altogether abolished, with all others that profess to treat of nature, though nothing can be learned from them, either of natural or of spiritual things. Besides, no one has been able to understand his meaning, and much time has been wasted and many noble souls vexed with much useless labour, study, and expense. I venture to say that any potter has more knowledge of natural things than is to be found in these books. My heart is grieved to see how many of the best Christians this accursed, proud, knavish heathen has fooled and led astray with his false words. God sent him as a plague for our sins. [1]
In his scholastic disputation, Luther repeatedly attacks Aristotle:
41. The whole Aristotelian ethic is grace’s worst enemy (against the scholastic theologians).
42. It is a wrong thing to hold that the teaching of Aristotle on the highest good (happiness, de felicitate) is not repugnant to catholic doctrine (against the moral philosophers).
43. It is a wrong thing to say that a man cannot become a theologian without Aristotle (against the generally accepted opinion).
50. In short, compared with the study of theology, the whole of Aristotle is as darkness is to light (against the scholastic theologians). [2]
Even C.S. Lewis expresses disdain for Aristotle, placing his collected works in hell. [3] With such a heritage, can Protestants educate classically, or will their project simply become a series of footnotes blaming Aristotle? At first glance, it seems that Protestants are doomed to bemoan and condemn the classics, asking with Tertullian, “What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” [4] The classical emphasis on tradition, moreover, seems to stand at odds with the Protestant commitment to sola Scriptura.
Blustery opponents often criticize the proliferation of denominations, radical individuality, nominalism, and anti-authoritarianism which are allegedly inherent to Protestantism. They promise that “coming home to Mother Church” will solve all our problems. Yet, for all its pontifications about the pontiff, Rome cannot adequately reckon with tradition. Rather, it is Protestants—building on the foundation of sola Scriptura and their peculiar distinction between nature and grace—who are best positioned to appropriate the riches of tradition. The apparent “bugs” of Protestantism are in fact the necessary outworking of a consistent approach to sin and salvation. It is the Protestant, not the Roman Catholic, whose theology best grounds a Christian vision for the classical tradition.
Sola Scriptura
Some argue that Protestants cannot value tradition given their (allegedly) broken relationship with the historic church and its tradition. The usual claims go something like this: Protestants are schismatics, denying the Nicene confession of “one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.” In promoting sola Scriptura, they make themselves the sole judges and interpreters of Scripture rather than God’s appointed magisterium. They are innovators, radicals, nominalists, and revolutionaries. Such charges are almost as numerous as the false popes.
Whether the critics are cradle [Roman] Catholics or converts who never learned the Protestant doctrine of the church, their charges often rely on distortions and straw-man arguments. Converts from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism often compare the most beautiful, ornate, and traditional expressions of Roman Catholicism to the weakest, fog-machine-Santa-flying-into-service evangellyfish coffee shops—I mean churches. These converts, however, are merely trading a performance on a stage with electric guitars, fog machines, and incomprehensible mutterings for a performance at the altar with pageantry, incense, and incomprehensible mutterings. Both are performative and oriented primarily to aesthetic pleasure.
Sola Scriptura is the linchpin of Protestantism. It is the formal cause of the Reformation, accompanying the material cause which is the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Sola Scriptura is the article that (apparently) stands at odds with the tradition of the church—but we should pause to note how absurd this notion is from the outset. If Scripture and tradition are at odds, which shall we trust? Objections about conflicting interpretations notwithstanding, sola Scriptura is a statement about authority, not hermeneutics. When Rome protests sola Scriptura, its actual claim is that the pope has the right to establish, determine, and adjudicate doctrine. In other words, his authority stands above that of Scripture.
Yet Scripture differs qualitatively from later church tradition. 2 Timothy 3:16 identifies Scripture as “God-breathed.” Even if, at the time of writing, Paul is thinking of the Old Testament, he is making a universal statement. All Scripture is God-breathed, and it is evident that all the New Testament is Scripture. The conclusion, therefore, is obvious. Non-Scriptural tradition cannot make the same qualitative claim. Rome has never produced a single precise statement of oral tradition with the same veracity or clarity as Scripture.
Despite the claims of Rome and some half-Protestants, Scripture creates the church; it is not the other way around. The church exists because God speaks, calling believers to unite as a particular people. Initially, it is his spoken announcement of the coming seed in Genesis 3:15 that brings life to the church. It is his voice, delivered by Moses, that brings his people out of Egypt. Jesus calls his sheep from the fold. God speaks into the heart of those he regenerates, shining light into darkness. The church would not exist if God had not first brought it into existence by his Word, and his Word remains with the church today in the writings of the apostles and prophets.
Those who claim that the church creates Scripture confuse efficient causes and instrumental causes. It is God who speaks; his apostles and prophets are the means. God is the primary cause while Scripture’s authors are secondary. This is vastly different from the idea that the apostles and prophets create the church. Such claims are not dissimilar to dishonest news outlets who report that a car has driven into a parade. Who drove the car? The car was the means, but the driver was the cause.
Having established that God breathes out the Scriptures and thereby creates the church, we should ask, “How do we know what makes up Scripture?” Instead of the efficient cause, we are now concerned with the material cause (the content itself). Romanists do not claim that the church makes something Scripture which previously was not Scripture. Rather, they claim that the Roman Catholic church is the only infallible means of recognizing what Scripture is. They believe the church was in a state of relative ignorance concerning the exact content of Scripture until roughly 1546 AD, when the canon was formally recognized. Against Protestants, they maintain that Luther sought to remove books from the Bible. They point especially to Luther’s doubts about the authenticity of James, and Protestantism’s general rejection of the “deuterocanonical” books. [5] If the Roman church creates Scripture, then the church did not have Scripture until Trent, 1,500 years after Christ. For Roman Catholics, however, this poses no problem since Scripture is a lesser authority than the church.
Catholicism’s proposed solutions, however, fail to solve the problem of authority. Who is to say that the Orthodox church is not the true source of the canon and Scriptural interpretation? The two traditions disagree on what Scripture is, yet both claim apostolic authority to determine the canon. Both point to Scriptural proof texts concerning the church’s power and their supposedly unbroken apostolic succession. It is impossible to reconcile the differences of Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy without an a priori commitment to one or the other. You must place your faith in your chosen tradition as the one true church. For both groups, the mantra is sola ecclesia.
Notice, then, that opponents of sola Scriptura must put their faith in a particular church tradition without substantial evidence to ground such faith. Some will point to qualities such as length of tradition, famous converts, and pious sounding language, but in the end, they have simply moved the locus of trust one step backwards. “Where is your inspired table of contents?” they demand. We should ask in return, “Where is your inspired constitution?” “But we have Matthew 16,” the Romanist will rejoin. He, too, cannot escape the need for a starting point. Protestants believe that the only infallible rule (and thus, the only sure starting point) is Scripture itself. As it turns out, the Roman Catholic objections and claims against sola Scriptura are largely a shell game. They must claim that Scripture is a cryptic black box, impossible to understand. Scripture resembles a secret code more than clear revelation, and as such, the church requires a magisterial interpretation. It is darkness rather than light; it is a labyrinth rather than a lamp.
We do not need an infallible authority to recognize or interpret another infallible authority. Such an approach leads to an infinite regression. How can we interpret the infallible declarations of the church? How do we know which infallible declarations are truly infallible? Scripture, in its basic message, is clear. It is written with words that people may easily understand with “a due use of the ordinary means.” [6] It is true that not all people are good interpreters of Scripture; training is necessary. The claim, however, that correctly interpreting the Scriptures requires the guidance of an infallible human authority induces an insidious skepticism.
Rome maintains that Scripture is unclear, and thus, an unwritten oral tradition preserved through apostolic succession is necessary to properly interpret Scripture. They claim that the church Fathers bear witness to this oral tradition passed down from the apostles, and therefore, only Rome can interpret Scripture. Unfortunately for them, Irenaeus attributes this kind of argument to the heretics. “When, however, they are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but viva voce.” [7]
Protestants and Tradition
Sola Scriptura is necessary to properly interact with tradition. Protestants recognize the difference between ministerial and magisterial authority. Ministerial authorities are witnesses to and servants of a higher truth. Magisterial authorities have binding and authoritative power. Protestants do, in fact, revere tradition–not as magisterial, but as a ministerial witness to the truth. The churches’ historic consensus on the canon of Scripture, together with church practices and doctrine are valuable witnesses to the catholic faith. Protestants, however, also recognize that tradition is often contradictory and capable of error. Nicea II, for instance, contradicts Nicea I. Iconodulia cannot be found in the first 600 years of church history, and the church Fathers attest to this. [8] The only way Rome can reconcile such discrepancies is through a hypothesis of doctrinal development. The Roman Catholic tradition must reckon with a host of contradictions which should be obvious to anyone.
This problem multiplies upon consideration of popes and antipopes. Catholics must recognize every incumbent pope as authoritative when he speaks ex cathedra and obey the dogmas and declarations of the magisterium, until a later magisterium makes corrections or modifications to church teachings. The claim is that popes might be speaking as an infallible authority unless contradicted by later authorities, such as councils or additional ex cathedra statements. This is not a strong basis for surety.
Rome claims its tradition is uniform and authoritative, yet Catholic doctrine often strays into anachronism. Contemporary church theologians find terms used by the Fathers and read later developments back into these early sources. For instance, Irenaeus mentions “sacrifice” in connection with the Eucharist. It is argued, therefore, that he must have been teaching the mass. Irenaus also discusses apostolic succession, which surely aligns precisely with the modern church’s conception of the same. Needless to say, this is a faulty approach to historical theology.
One cannot demonstrate that apostolic tradition, when treated by the church Fathers, refers to anything beyond the apostolic doctrine and practice found in Scripture. Rome, however, excludes those who disagree with its understanding of tradition, selectively quoting and interpreting previous authors to bolster their current positions. According to Rome, following “apostolic tradition” means believing the current pope and magisterium. Nothing in the past truly matters; rather, what Rome says now is final. Rome does not need Scripture or Christ; they have the vicar of Christ who speaks viva voce. According to the Catholic view, a church cannot truly exist apart from the apostolic succession of bishops and the mass. It does not ultimately matter whether the gospel of the apostles is preached.
Irenaeus testifies that the gospel preached by the apostles—oral tradition—was the same gospel that was written down in the Scriptures. [9] As witness to this fact, Irenaeus points to the succession of bishops in the churches, not as an ecclesiological claim, but as a historical argument. These three things align: the preaching of the apostles, the written Scriptures, and the tradition preserved by the churches. There is no additional, binding tradition outside of these.
In order to harmonize and properly interpret these competing voices, we must have a final source of truth. Rome looks to the papacy. Protestants look to Scripture. Every church is selective in how it accepts and interprets past voices. So, the question is, what is the standard and rule of faith for Christian doctrine? The claim of the Reformation is that Protestants are “more catholic than Rome will permit, by being more patristic than Rome will permit, by being more biblical than Rome will permit.” [10] Rightly understood, the Protestant commitment to sola Scriptura aligns most closely with the teachings of the church Fathers. By recognizing the proper authority of tradition, Protestants are free to read and benefit from the historic Christian tradition, yet without being bound by its teaching absolutely. Protestants look to the Fathers as guides and teachers while idolizing none of them. Does Augustine contradict Thomas Aquinas? Not a problem. Do Tertullian and Origen teach some wacky ideas? What does the Scripture say? Protestants enjoy a built-in corrective and source of truth that cannot come from men, no matter how spiritual.
Conclusion
Sola Scriptura provides the best framework for relating to church tradition and authority. This Protestant principle is a statement about authority; it does not establish a comprehensive hermeneutic in and of itself. Christians must still exercise reason and sound judgement. We should also read the Scriptures with an awareness of grammatical, historical, and cultural context. Such awareness requires a culture that values learning and disciplined study. While the church Fathers serve as valuable guides to understanding God’s Word, they are not our final authority (and they did not view themselves as such). The Scripture is apt and sufficient as a rule of faith and practice. Protestants should nevertheless strive to read the Holy Scriptures in the context of the church universal. In the next installment of this series, I will examine the Reformed distinction between nature and grace, and how it provides a strong foundation for reading the pagan classics.
Endnotes
[1] Martin Luther, Works of Martin Luther, trans. C.M. Jacobs, vol. II (Philadelphia, PA: A.J. Holman Company, 1915), 146.
[2] Martin Luther, Luther: Early Theological Works, ed. James Atkinson, vol. XVI, of The Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1962), 269-270.
[3] C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 1.
[4] Tertullian, Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian., ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, of The Ante-Nicene Fathers (New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1918), 246.
[5] The very name implies their secondary status, as the church fathers recognized. Among those affirming that the apocryphal books were not received by all are Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Melito of Sardis, Origen, Rufinus, John of Damascus and Jerome.
[6] Westminster Confession of Faith, I, para. 7.
[7] Irenaeus, The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus., ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, of The Ante-Nicene Fathers (New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1918), 415.
[8] John Carpenter, “Don’t Convert: Icons and Images in the Early Church,” Theopolis Institute, February 25, 2025, https://theopolisinstitute.com/dont-convert-icons-and-images-in-the-early-church/.
[9] Irenaeus, 414.
[10] Fred Sanders, “Why the Reformation Should Make You More catholic,” The Gospel Coalition, May 10, 2018, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-the-reformation-should-make-you-more-catholic/.
