Recovering the Rightful Role of Tradition: Oliver Crisp and the Hierarchy of Authority

J. Neil Daniels

The Misuse of Sola Scriptura

The phrase sola Scriptura has carried a lot of baggage it was never meant to bear. The Reformers weren’t tossing tradition overboard, as if the centuries of faithful reflection counted for nothing. What they were doing—if we actually read them carefully—was staking a claim that Scripture stands as the supreme, final authority. Not the only voice in the room, but the voice that settles the matter when disputes arise.

But here’s where things get messy. Certain sects and fringe groups—Socinians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others—took the principle and twisted it into something more like solo Scriptura (to borrow Keith Mathison’s phrase). That is, Scripture isolated from the historic church, torn away from the corporate memory of the saints. In that scheme, my own reading of the text, however eccentric, becomes just as binding as the testimony of generations. It’s like trying to build a house by reinventing carpentry. Frankly, it’s arrogant, and worse, it’s perilous.

Oliver Crisp on the Hierarchy of Doctrinal Authority

Enter Oliver Crisp, who gives us a refreshing way of mapping the terrain. In God Incarnate: Explorations in Christology, he sketches a kind of ladder, or maybe a pyramid, of theological authority. It’s simple enough to follow but subtle enough to resist being flattened into slogans.

Scripture as norma normans. This is the “norming norm,” the bedrock. The principium theologiae. Everything else must bow here. Whatever authority tradition carries, it is always derivative.
Ecumenical creeds as first-order norma normata. Think Nicene, think Chalcedon. These are not infallible in themselves, but they are trusted summaries, hammered out in the furnace of controversy. And their universal reception across East and West gives them a unique weight.
Confessions and councils of particular churches. Here we find the Westminster Standards, the Augsburg Confession, the Canons of Dort, and the like. Rich, often beautiful documents. They speak with the voice of a family rather than the whole household of God. Still deeply important, but bounded.
Theologoumena—the theological opinions of individuals. Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Barth, pick your favorite. These are voices worth hearing, sometimes even indispensable, but they must be held loosely. They edify best when offered humbly, not as oracles.

The hierarchy isn’t a cage; rather, it’s a way of keeping things in proportion. It helps us resist the temptation to inflate our pet theories or, on the flip side, to dismiss centuries of wisdom as if we’ve finally cracked the code on our own.

How History Proves the Point

If this all sounds a bit abstract, just look at how the church has actually functioned. Take the Arian controversy of the fourth century. Scripture was, of course, the ground of the debate, but the fight centered on how to rightly interpret it. The Arians had verses, the orthodox had verses—both were quoting the Bible. It was the Nicene Creed (325), hammered out by bishops from across the empire, that distilled the scriptural witness into that decisive word homoousios (“of one substance with the Father”). The creed didn’t replace Scripture; it gave the church a shorthand way of guarding the truth already revealed there. That’s level two in Crisp’s hierarchy working as intended.

Fast forward twelve centuries. The Reformers leaned heavily on the ecumenical creeds—Luther, Calvin, and Cranmer all affirmed Nicene and Chalcedonian Christology without hesitation. Yet they recognized that later medieval accretions had distorted the faith. This is where confessional documents (Crisp’s third level) came into play. The Augsburg Confession (1530) didn’t try to be a new Nicene Creed; it simply articulated what Lutheran churches, in their own context, believed Scripture taught. Same with Westminster a century later. They are denominational anchors, not catholic creeds.

And what about theologoumena, those individual insights? Think of Jonathan Edwards’s brilliant but eccentric speculations about the Trinity being an “infinite fountain of love,” or Karl Barth’s thunderous re-centering of theology around Christ. Both men contributed something profound—yet neither voice binds the conscience in the way Scripture does, nor even in the way the Nicene Creed does. Their words may illuminate, but they cannot legislate.

The Wisdom of Retrieval

One of the gifts of Crisp’s framework is that it allows us to retrieve the past without freezing it in amber. We don’t read the fathers, or the Reformers, or even the ecumenical councils simply to parrot them. We read them because they sharpen our own hearing of Scripture. And that matters, because theological fashion is fickle. A movement rises, publishes a few bestsellers, dominates Twitter for a decade, and then quietly fades. Meanwhile, Athanasius is still here, Augustine is still here, the Nicene Creed is still here.

Now, that doesn’t mean new theology is worthless—far from it. Sometimes a contemporary thinker presses us back into the text in ways we’d never considered. But novelty has to be weighed, sifted, judged. The test isn’t whether it feels fresh but whether it lines up with the canon and resonates with the consensus fidelium, the long chorus of voices who confessed Christ before us.

Tradition as Servant, Not Rival

At the end of the day, the real point is balance. Scripture is king, yes, but a king who rules through counselors. Tradition, rightly understood, is not a rival claimant to authority. It is a servant, a guide, a record of how the church has tried—sometimes clumsily, sometimes brilliantly—to understand what God has said. To pretend we can escape tradition altogether is a fantasy; the only real question is whether we will acknowledge it honestly and evaluate it wisely.

Crisp’s hierarchy offers us a sane, biblically faithful way forward. It rescues us from the extremes: on one hand, the radical individualism that exalts private interpretation, and on the other, the heavy-handed authoritarianism that treats tradition as Scripture’s equal. In that space between, the church can breathe, listen, and confess the faith once delivered to the saints with both humility and joy.

Applying Crisp’s Hierarchy Today

Crisp’s framework isn’t just a historical or academic curiosity; it has real teeth for the church navigating contemporary controversies. Consider debates over gendered language for God. Some voices argue that Scripture itself supports referring to God as feminine, while others insist masculine pronouns must be preserved. Without a hierarchy, both camps can claim biblical authority, and ecclesial discussion descends into shouting matches. By applying Crisp’s ladder, Scripture remains the ultimate norm, ecumenical creeds guide interpretation, and confessions contextualize debates within historical fidelity. Individual theologians may offer insights, but their opinions cannot override the collective judgment grounded in the canon.

The same applies to disputes over social issues. Take the growing discussion of justice, wealth, and environmental stewardship. Scripture speaks clearly about caring for the widow, orphan, and alien; creeds affirm God’s justice and righteousness; confessional statements of historic churches interpret these principles for specific contexts. Modern theologians may develop frameworks for ethical engagement, but Crisp’s hierarchy reminds us that these frameworks must never replace the biblical witness. Instead, they are tools, not masters.

Even in ecumenical and interdenominational discussions, the hierarchy proves invaluable. The temptation is to elevate novel interpretations or denominational priorities above Scripture and the historic consensus. Crisp’s structure helps the church to listen carefully: Scripture at the top, tradition as guide, opinions as supplemental. It discourages both capricious innovation and rigid dogmatism, offering instead a measured, humble, and biblically faithful posture.

In short, Crisp’s hierarchy provides the church with a kind of intellectual and spiritual compass. It safeguards against both the tyranny of novelty and the stifling weight of unexamined tradition. It reminds us that Scripture is supreme but never solitary, that tradition is indispensable yet derivative, and that individual voices, though often illuminating, are always accountable to the broader faith. For a church navigating twenty-first-century theological currents, these principles are not just helpful... they are essential.