Moved here from notes/reasoning/scripture-and-tradition.md in the tier migration. The per-question reasoning now lives on each doctrine’s reasoning page: S07.1 · S07.2 · S07.3.

Scripture and tradition: canon and authority: reasoning steps

Verdicts: categories/scripture-and-tradition.md. Method: conventions and proximity tiers. Scripture is the primary measure; fathers are weighed by tier (T1 to c. 150 = 1.0, T2 = 0.8, T3 = 0.6, T4 = 0.4).

Post-750 development by tradition

Catholic

Trent IV (1546) and Vatican I (1870) define tradition and the Magisterium.

• C1 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 2/4): Trent IV: Scripture and traditions received ‘with an equal affection of piety’; Basil supports honouring tradition, but co-equality goes beyond the evidence.
• C2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 2/4): Trent IV: wider canon defined.
• C3 (fathers 2/4; Scripture 2/4): Vatican I: papal definitions infallible ‘of themselves’; beyond the rule-of-faith model.

Orthodox

Dositheus 2 (1672): the Church’s witness not inferior to Scripture.

• C1 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 2/4): Dositheus 2: the Church’s witness ’not of inferior authority’ to Scripture; matches Basil’s ‘same force’ but lacks biblical warrant.
• C2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 2/4): Wider canon (Jerusalem 1672); anagignoskomena distinction survives in practice.
• C3 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 3/4): Councils received by the church as the voice of the fathers.

Oriental Orthodox

Scripture read within the three councils and Cyrilline tradition (thin sources).

• C1 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 2/4): Scripture within the tradition of the three councils (Nerses Shnorhali, I Confess with Faith: ‘Instructed by the holy Doctors’); co-equality inferred, to verify.
• C2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 2/4): Widest canon in the Ethiopian church (1 Enoch, Jubilees); to verify.
• C3 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 3/4): Three councils as the norm of interpretation; to verify.

Lutheran

Formula of Concord, Epitome: Scripture the only rule and norm.

• C1 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): Scripture the norming norm; confessions normed by it; little room for the rule-of-faith role Irenaeus gives the churches.
• C2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 3/4): Apocrypha printed and read, not held equal (Luther’s Bible prefaces; to verify).
• C3 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): Confessions as a norm normed by Scripture.

Anglican

Articles VI, VIII, XX, XXI (1571).

• C1 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 4/4): Art. VI: ‘whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required’; Art. VIII receives the creeds; Art. XX: the Church ‘a witness and a keeper of holy Writ’.
• C2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): Art. VI: the other books ’the Church doth read for example of life … but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine’, Athanasius’s two tiers exactly.
• C3 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 4/4): Art. XX: the Church ‘hath authority in Controversies of Faith’ but may not ’expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another’; Art. XXI councils ‘may err’.

Presbyterian

WCF I (1646).

• C1 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): WCF I.6: ’nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men’.
• C2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): WCF I.3: Apocrypha ’no otherwise to be approved, or made use of, than other human writings’.
• C3 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): WCF XXXI.4: synods ‘may err; and many have erred’.

Reformed Baptist

1689 ch. 1.

• C1 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): 1689 1.1: ’the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule’.
• C2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): 1689 1.3: same as WCF.
• C3 (fathers 2/4; Scripture 3/4): 1689 26: congregational; associations advise but have no jurisdiction, which fits Acts 15 less well.

General Baptist

Standard Confession 23; Orthodox Creed 37–39.

• C1 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 4/4): Orthodox Creed 37 (OCR-verified): Scripture’s authority ‘dependeth not upon the Authority of any Man’; art. 38 receives the three creeds.
• C2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): Orthodox Creed 37 lists the canonical books (to verify list).
• C3 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): Orthodox Creed 39 (General Councils and Assemblies; to verify wording).

Anabaptist

Schleitheim and Dordrecht V.

• C1 (fathers 2/4; Scripture 3/4): Dordrecht V: nothing may be added to Christ’s New Testament; no creeds or rule of faith received; New Testament priority strains the OT’s place.
• C2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 3/4): Dordrecht II cites 4 Esdras 3:7 alongside Scripture.
• C3 (fathers 2/4; Scripture 3/4): Congregational discernment only; no councils.