The ideas of “tradition” and “creativity” seem at first glance to be opposed and incompatible. Tradition says continuity; creativity says innovation and hence discontinuity. With t
In English writing we seldom speak of tradition, though we occasionally apply its name in deploring its absence. We cannot refer to “the tradition” or to “a tradition”; at most, we
Is tradition a concept used to defend backward ideas and ancient traditions, or is it a quiet reminder of values we should hold precious? Philosophers Mark Kingwell and John Haldan
‘Natural law theory’ is a label that has been applied to theories of ethics, theories of politics, theories of civil law, and theories of religious morality. We will be concerned o
Tradition is that body of practice and belief which is socially transmitted from the past. It is regarded as having authority in the present simply because it comes from the past,
Alasdair Maclntyre's new book deals in depth with one issue raised in After Virtue: the difficulty of achieving consensus about justice in the modern world. Maclntyre claims that w
In these Catecheses we wish to understand a little more what the Church is. The last time we meditated on the theme of Apostolic Tradition. We saw that it is not a collection of th
Christ the Lord, in whom the entire Revelation of the most high God is summed up, commanded the apostles to preach the Gospel, which had been promised beforehand by the prophets, a
‘Tradition’ derives from the Latin tradere to deliver or hand over, itself a compound of trans (across or over) and dare (to give). A tradition, then, is what is handed down, or given over from one generation to the next. This process may be explicit or implicit. Teaching children and young people ideas and ways of acting which were themselves handed down is an intentional way of preserving tradition, but it is also communicated by example. It is impossible to understand or even participate in many areas of human life without having some grasp of the traditions that shaped and continue to govern them: art, architecture, philosophy, religion, and science, as well as cuisine, custom, dress, and language itself are all formed and sustained by and as traditions. Even radical developments in these fields are only intelligible as such because of their relations to the existing traditions. Thus, Andy Warhol’s silk-screen prints of Campbell’s soup cans, and of Marylin Monroe only make sense against the background of traditions of still-life and portrait painting. Tradition has a special meaning in relation to Christian belief and practice, and in one important respect serves to distinguish broadly Catholic (and Eastern orthodox) Christianity from Reformation and more recent churches. According to Catholic/Orthodox beliefs God’s revelation to humanity ended with the death of the last apostle. Much of it is given in New Testament Scripture but some of it was received and handed on by the apostles through their teaching and practice though it is not explicitly recorded in the Gospels, Epistles, Acts or Book of Revelation. For Catholic/Orthodox this is part of the content of Christian dogma as defined in Church Councils and is taught authoritatively by Apostolic Churches i.e. ones founded by Apostles. The Protestant Reformers, by contrast, insisted on the principle ‘sola scriptura’, that scripture is the sole and sufficient word of God. There are two main consequences of this. First, a distinction between Churches (i.e. Apostolic foundations) and ecclesial communities. For Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy only they and those in communion with them are Churches strictly speaking. Second, Catholic/Orthodox hold as part of Apostolic tradition ideas such as the Assumption of Mary (the ‘dormition’ in the East) and both hold to the Primacy of Rome among Churches it alone having been founded by two ‘apostles’, Peter and Paul. ‘Traditionalism’ refers to an attachment to older liturgical and devotional practices and formulations of Christian teaching. Tradition in the broader sense emphasis its vitality and forward movement, looking back in order to move ahead.