The topic of the Roman Catholic tradition has been the topic of much recent theological debate, and it is a topic that more often than not eludes a concise and definitive definition or explanation. It is also a topic that is proving to be a source of tension between certain hierarchical circles and professional Catholic theologians and historians. The topic proves not less difficult to define among the largest body of the faithful: the day to day Catholic lay person. In the midst of all these discussions and the recent flurry of books, articles, and papers on what does constitute the Catholic Tradition, John E. Theil, a Renewal '97 participant and Professor of Religious Studies at Fairfield University, has offered perhaps one of the best books to date on this very subject.
Thiel organizes this work around the various means and ways one can understand and speak of Tradition, and offers an admirable overview of the way in which the Roman Catholic Church has formed its doctrines and traditions throughout the past 1500 or so years. While not strictly speaking a historical theologian -- Thiel is very much the systematician -- he is careful to note with admirable insight the various moods and circumstances that may have influenced the formation of doctrinal formulas in the centuries preceding our own. He is also careful to note that the more or less contemporary notion of "tradition" as a dimension of divine revelation identifiable in its own right and distinguishable from "scripture" is a fairly recent development in Catholic belief, dating from the later Middle Ages (11). The notion of "tradition" which took hold at this point in the Church's history occurred at a time of fierce polemics against the would-be reformers. The affirmation or denial of the Roman Catholic notion of the inherent value of "tradition" was the deciding factor in what marked true or false faith. From this point in the sixteenth century on -- when as Thiel notes the Council of Trent's Decretum de libris sacris et de traditionibus recipiendis (dated at 1546) raised a distinguishable "tradition" to the authority of a conciliar teaching -- theologians, and to some extent the magisterium as well, have struggled with the problem of defining tradition's relationship to scripture and as such the authority scripture and tradition hold as a medium of God's inspired Word.
Throughout the book, Thiel provides the reader with a well-informed analysis of the various decrees and writings from the time of the Reformation until the present that have proven important if not outright pivotal in the Roman Church's struggle to not only articulate but to actually decide what fell into the category of "tradition" and what did not. What did become "tradition" and what did not is a struggle that was not as easily or as universally accepted by the Catholic world as one may at times be misled to believe. Thiel does an admirable job in recounting such struggles in the Church at this time with historical sensitivity and theological insight. The issue, however, is not one that rests primarily within the Reformation polemics. Prior to the Reformation period, and even prior to the great medieval thinkers such as Bonaventure and Aquinas, the question of what constituted the Church's "body of tradition" had been an ongoing question from the earliest Christian period. Thiel takes note of the manner in which the early Christian thinkers made of use the Rule of Faith (Regula fidei) -- that body of beliefs which defined right Christian understanding passed down verbally in the first centuries of the Christian era -- in deciding what constituted a right understanding of the Christian narrative, or scripture. This Rule of Faith, was indeed the first extrabiblical criterion that expressed an apostolic oral tradition and was valued in the Church for its capacity to convey and clarify the truth of God's revelation (16). The Rule of Faith was also very simple, and referred only to the very basic Christian belief in our need to believe in the redemptive powers of Jesus Christ. It was this simple Rule of Faith that then developed into the Nicene Creed in 325, and finally took its most complex creedal form at the Council of Constantinople in 381.
Thiel structures his book around the various senses of scripture articulated first by Philo of Alexandria through Origen, and then brought to its fuller form during the medieval period -- forms which are commonly translated as the literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses -- and applies these various senses to tradition itself. This is one of the more intriguing suggestions of the book, as well as perhaps the one thing which will raise whiter "traditionalist" eyebrows. The heart of the matter will rest with the question as to how should one in fact view the Roman Catholic "tradition," and perhaps how one should read scripture itself! This inevitably brings one to the point of circling the flames of fundamentalism and authority, if easy black and white answers are what the seeker requires.
One of the books main strengths lies in the very fact that while Thiel speaks easily the language of contemporary professional theological discourse, he does so in a manner which does not alienate or intimidate the non-professional reader. Senses of Tradition is not an easy read, yet it is well worth the time and the effort. It is also a book which every professional theologian involved in any type of conversation concerning the Roman Catholic tradition should take note of. Senses of Tradition is a book which could easily prove to be one of the more important contributions to the current discussions of tradition, and Thiel is to be commended for a difficult work well done. -- Harriet A. Luckman
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