Williams '' Tradition By William. Williams Tradition'

974 Words2 Pages

Within his article on “Tradition,” Williams attempts to define tradition and appraise whether or not tradition is normative, sustainable (through the Holy Spirit) or if it is corruptible. Williams starts by trying to define tradition, where he identified that there are several problems with defining tradition. In this article he determines that it is difficult to define what tradition is because the church has relied both on the oral and written traditions when constructing scripture. However, Williams identifies the possible definition of tradition lies in the church’s scriptural reformulation and interpretation through the lens of the church’s teaching. Williams continues to explore the problems with tradition because the early church did …show more content…

Williams states that because tradition relies on scripture is subject to corruption. Williams argues that this is possible because once scripture becomes a part of the churches canon it is no longer corruptible. Williams attributes this privilege to scripture because of the scrutiny used when appraising scripture. Tradition is responsible for passing the truths of scripture to the masses. Corruption occurs because of the various interpretations of scripture, although scripture cannot be corrupted the traditions that stem from its interpretation can be brought about from an erroneous interpretation or refuted by a different more accurate …show more content…

It was deemed that the books of the New Testament that are authentically apostolic in nature were included in the Bible. This strict appraisal process used by the church fathers to determine the legitimacy of certain books in the bible is the reason why scripture, once it becomes part of church canon it is incorruptible. Furthermore, because tradition stems from scriptural interpretation that it can be corruptible as it relies on the judgment of human beings, whose interpretations may be driven by internal

Open Document