What Anglicans Believe
The Role of Scripture, Tradition & Reason
The Anglican Theological Method
A foundational signpost of Anglican identity is not just what Anglicans believe, but how we arrive at and articulate those beliefs.
The Anglican theological method is best understood as a dynamic, integrated process. Anglicans seek to discern the voice of the living God in the Holy Scriptures, mediated by tradition and reason. This hermeneutic anchors faith, providing a common grammar for theological discourse across the diverse global Anglican Communion.
While often simplified as a ‘three-legged stool’, this analogy can be misleading if it implies three equal or competing sources of authority. A more accurate model is an interpretive ecosystem with a clear hierarchy: Scripture is the foundational source, understood through the lens of Tradition and apprehended by God-given Reason.
Scripture: The Ultimate Standard of Faith
The Anglican Communion is anchored by a profound commitment to the authority of the Holy Scriptures. Anglicans affirm the Bible as the rule and ultimate standard of faith, containing all things necessary to salvation.
Anglicans approach the Bible as having a clear Christ-centred quality. Anglicans believe that God’s first and eternal Word is Jesus Christ, to whom all Scriptures testify. He is the hermeneutical key, the one through whom the meaning of the Scriptures is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.
This commitment is not merely a formal doctrine; it is woven into the fabric of Anglican common life. Scripture is central to worship, prayed and sung through liturgy and hymnody, and read communally through the Daily Office and lectionaries.
Tradition: The Living Context for Interpretation
Scripture is never read in a vacuum. It is mediated by tradition, which Anglicans understand not as a parallel authority, but as the ‘dynamic and continuous stream’ of the Church’s faith, worship, and order, flowing from the Apostles to the present day.
This living stream includes two interconnected currents:
- The Great Tradition: This is the consensual faith of the early, undivided Church, expressed in the ecumenical Creeds. The Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed function as the regula fidei, or ‘rule of faith’
- The Anglican Patrimony: This is Anglicanism’s own particular stream of tradition that gives Anglicans a distinct character. It includes historic formularies and polity, most notably the Book of Common Prayer, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, and our commitment to the Historic Episcopate.
Reason: The God-Given Gift for Discernment
Reason is the third component of Anglican hermeneutic, understood as a God-given critical faculty that operates in service of faith, not in opposition to it. Anglicans believe that faith and intellect are partners in the quest for truth.
Reason serves a dual function:
- Critical Engagement: It allows for a ‘grateful and critical sense of the past’, enabling Anglicans to analyse Scripture and Tradition in their original contexts.
- Constructive Engagement: It facilitates a vigorous engagement with the present, helping Anglicans apply the timeless truths of the Gospel to new situations and fresh expressions of a scripturally informed faith.
The Method in Practice: A Living Framework
This theological method is not an abstract theory; it is operationalised in the corporate life of the Communion through our Instruments of Communion:
1. The Lambeth Conference
2. The Anglican Consultative Council
3. The Primates’ Meeting
4. The Archbishop of Canterbury
The Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) is a clear example of this method in action. As the Communion’s primary body for theological reflection, IASCUFO applies disciplined, scholarly reason to scripture and tradition to address the Communion’s most complex challenges. Its work on the biblical concept of koinonia (communion), for instance, laid the necessary theological groundwork for The Nairobi-Cairo Proposals, applying this framework to the real-world challenge of navigating disagreement and renewing our structures for a post-colonial era.
To see how this theological method shapes our core beliefs, read more about What Anglicans Believe.
