Are Customs and Traditions or Authority Figures Reliable Ways to Find Spiritual Truths?

Customs and Traditions

Customs are distinct behaviors that unite members within a group or culture and set them apart from other groups or cultures. When customs dictate behavior to the point that they become normative as unwritten “laws” passed down to succeeding generations, they become traditions. As an avenue of truth, it is assumed that because so many people adhere to a custom or a tradition for a long period of time, that custom or tradition represents right thinking and right behavior (truth). Millions of people can’t all be wrong.

To some degree, customs and traditions play an important role in all religions. Most liturgical practices are part of religious traditions. Likewise worship services in most churches follow traditional patterns. In Roman Catholicism tradition is literally an integral part of church authority.

The problem inherent to this view, however, is that customs and traditions, religious or otherwise, may not lead to right thinking or right behavior in spite of their acceptance. There have been many religious practices that were acceptable to “primitive” peoples which we find abominable today. No one in the civilized world, for example, believes that human sacrifices or self-mutilation or temple prostitution, as once practiced in some ancient pagan religions, are worthy of preservation or that such behavior reflects religious truth.

Generally speaking, however, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with religious customs or traditions if they serve the purpose of uniting or identifying practitioners—so long as they are in harmony with divine revelation. In other words, customs and traditions must flow from truth, not determine truth; customs and traditions are never a source of truth.

Authority

Closely related to customs and traditions is authority. However, unlike customs and traditions, which we normally take for granted because that is the way things have always been, authority is a conscious surrendering of one’s freedom to another individual or to a governmental or religious institution.

The problem with authority is that there is no guarantee that the person or structure in authority is presenting truth. A characteristic of all cults, for example, is the willingness of their followers to vest complete and autonomous authority on individuals whom they believe are the source of final and complete truth and whom they believe derive their wisdom from God. This is done independent (and often in spite) of any criteria by which to demonstrate that this person warrants such devotion. The result is always the exultation of the authoritarian figure and the degradation of the follower.

Cult leaders invariably seek whatever means necessary to preserve their authority, and independent thinking or disagreement is always suppressed. As a result, many bizarre beliefs and religious practices are common among today’s cults—and many tragic happenings. Nearly a thousand followers of Jim Jones committed suicide because his authority became synonymous with religious truth. Millions of T.V. viewers witnessed the tragic end of the Branch Davidians barricaded in Waco, Texas, because followers submitted to the sociopathic impulses of David Koresh.

To protect ourselves against authoritarianism, we must ask the same questions James Sire asks:

Is there any reason to think that some religious figures have an insight into who God is and what He wants? Or any reason to trust what a Zen master says about the way to peace? Here each teacher must be examined individually. Some may have far more likelihood of knowing what they are talking about then others. The fact that a teacher has followers points first to popularity, not to reliability. Is there any reason to think that any one or more of them really do have special knowledge?…Truth is the issue, not the source of truth. (Why Should Anyone Believe Anything at All? p. 65-66)

Humans (and human institutions) are fallible. Something beyond and outside human authority must be the criterion by which human authority is measured. Without such a standard, authority rests on the strongest, the smartest, the meanest, or the most politically powerful. Truth becomes relegated to personal opinion, not to an absolute that transcends human feelings and capriciousness.
What about feelings, intuition, commonsense or even “instinct?” Can any of these lead to religious truth? This will be the topic of next week’s blog article. ©