Being Truly Deep In History

[TBC: Catholic “apologists” often quote Cardinal Newman who was alleged to have said, “To Be Deep in History Is to Cease to Be Protestant.” As another commentator notes, “Ironically enough, it's an unhistorical statement. It is one thing to be aware of history; it is another thing to let a selective history determine what is right and proper.”] 

Now for the Newman quote: typical Newman twaddle and self-justification. Remember this is a man, as part of the Oxford movement, who went from the Anglican church to the RCC. Much of what he did thereafter was self-justification. The sentiment that he expresses is common among RCC apologists. To assert something, however, is not to prove it. It is the case that a church, as is true for the RCC, that reads Scripture through the lens of tradition (Tradition II or III, per Oberman) is going to idolize "history" in a way that thinking Protestants never should.

We understand "history" as the field in which God's providential outworking has manifested itself, particularly God the Father bringing His people to salvation by his appointment, Christ achieving and the Spirit applying that appointed salvation. And the church has, by that same Spirit that gave the Word, in the main, rightly interpreted it (being brought back to it in times of reformation). We are a people for whom history matters immensely because the Incarnation occurred in time and space and our faith, unlike Eastern religions, understands how much history matters.

But history is description, not prescription, which resides solely in the Word. We don't ignore history in interpreting Scripture (this is why we do all the commentary work that we do, listening to the many who've gone before and grappled with the Word). At the end of the day, however, it is Scripture alone (not Scripture and Tradition) that we regard as authoritative and regulative. We are always concerned with how this has been understood and played itself out in the life of the church, but we are never bound to history (tradition) in the way that we are to Scripture.

Newman's assertion here, I would argue, is a departure from the position of the ancient church, which viewed tradition as the church's understanding of Scripture…not the lens through which Scripture is to be read. We read history through the lens of Scripture, not Scripture through the lens of history, Newman has got it all wrong, and this continues to be one of the main problems afflicting the RCC (and leading them to many others!).

—Dr. Alan Strange (Pastor, Professor of Church History, author)