Friday, November 06, 2009

Sola Scriptura Debate: My first cross-examination question

DavidW, in your 2nd rebuttal you made the following statement:

--Rhology misunderstands Christ’s word in Mark7, confusing the issue here as being one of oral versus written, while it is a conflict between the “commandments of God” and the “traditions of men;” Rhology has yet to prove that all “commandments of God” are written and has already admitted that not all traditions are “traditions of men.”--


In Mark 7:1-13, Christ identifies the Pharisees' question about eating with unwashed hands as wrongheaded, quoting Isaiah's statement, "TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN". He goes on to add, “Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men." The fact that I said not all traditions are traditions of men is exactly what I'm getting at. Christ was informing us how we can differentiate between valid and invalid traditions. So how do you know what traditions nullify the commandment of God and which do not? If any "tradition" is potentially a "commandment of God" or potentially a "tradition of men", what standard of comparison do you use to identify good big-A big-T Apostolic Tradition over and against bad little-t tradition?

1 comment:

Lucian said...

Usually, traditions that start with men start in one place, and at one time, since men are neither eternal, nor ubiquitous. As a result, they'll end up lacking either antiquity or universality or both, and are rather easily identifiable as a theological novum or oddity (being peculiar to one man in particular).