A Triperspectival Approach to the Three-Legged Stool of Anglicanism

     The three-legged stool is a popular reference to the aspect in Anglicanism which refers to the supposed threefold sources of authority regarding doctrine and beliefs. These three sources are then said to be Scripture, Tradition & Reason. One supposed view of this comes from Richard Hooker in Book V (8.2) of his work entitled "Of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity": "What Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience are due; the next whereunto, is what any man can necessarily conclude by force of Reason; after this, the voice of the church succeedeth. That which the Church by her ecclesiastical authority shall probably think and define to be true or good, must in congruity of reason overrule all other inferior judgements whatsoever." So while the stool analogy isn't used, this at least helps us see how it can be utilized.

    Some might however think there is a problem with this view. In an article from the July 26, 1998 article of The Living Church, we read the following from : "A sick paradigm has made its way into everyday Episcopal thinking. It comes pretending to be an ancient truth, but it's only a modern idea. It threatens some pillars of our Anglican and Episcopal identity. Maybe it even means to do so. I am referring to the spurious analogy of the "three-legged stool."... When tradition and reason (and "experience," for that matter) are elevated to be "complementary" to scripture, they, in fact, become competing standards. It's obviously that a Bible story cannot be equally "reasonable" and "miraculous." The definition of "miracle" involves something outside the grasp of human reason. When "reason" is raised to become an equal authority, the old test for truth (Is it scriptural?) is replaced by the new test: Is it reasonable?... "Tradition," as important as it is to Episcopalians, is another undeserving candidate to stand on equal footing with scripture... With the Episcopal Church more fractured than ever, this is no time to hide behind unhelpful paradigms. The hope for healing the church is in rediscovering our biblical foundation... As we humbly acknowledge the authority of God's word and seek to bend our lives to fit its message, he will show us his plan and lead us to the Savior. There is no hope for the sick paradigm of the three-legged stool, and no use hanging on to it."

    My goal with this article is to put forth a form of Triperspectivalism into the three legged stool and with the image shown above, we will approach this from the observation of Scripture as the Normative Perspective, Tradition as the Situational & Reason as the Existential. I will expound on why each falls under the individual perspective and thus why there will be the necessity of each being dependent on each other in order to prove that this approach of the three-legged stool theology can be utilized while still affirming a Sola Scriptura approach in our theology. All I need to demonstrate is that scripture can be considered the only ultimate source of authority for doctrine and practice while yet being able to affirm the validity of the other three authorities. Let us begin.

    Scripture as a normative perspective, just to remind people, tells us that scripture essentially sets the standards or norms in a given topic. So when it comes to our doctrinal beliefs and practices, we start with the perspective that scripture what ultimately sets the standard at this point. While we might rely on the other two perspectives as well, Scripture is shown it's necessity and ultimate place in this topic by becoming what we must go to in order to know what God demands/requires out of us via the divinely inspired scriptures. Yet we also have to apply this authority to the other two. Hence, we shall now begin our focus on the situational and existential.

    Tradition, as the situational perspective, becomes the focus of the "facts" or "historical data" in the world. When we observe tradition, we shouldn't blindly accept all traditions. Especially if they do not match up with scripture. It should be tradition that is compatible and therefore in uniformity with the scriptures. This is necessary especially for doctrine because we shouldn't expect to follow something of novelty in tradition. For example, the subject of Open Theism becomes a talking point and several proponents or advocates of it will admit that it's a brand new doctrine to be introduced into the church because of purely scripture only authority. The problem with this is in the fact that asking how come no early church father or early church writer talked of even the doctrinal concepts in each. Same can be said for Molinism, which at least gets more bonuses here compared to Open Theism. While Molinism's views of predestination and free will can be found in the tradition, Middle Knowledge is something foreign to the early church data until it's founder, Luis De Molina, created it. Thus this brings up a point of tradition being utilized to observe the data and history of beliefs and practice.

    Reason, as the existential perspective, is a tough one to explain and justify. We do not want to be guilty of submitting to subjectivism and be opposed to objective truth with a Sola Scriptura mindset in this model. The easy way to explain this is to affirm that we at least utilizes our senses whenever we engage with both the natural and the supernatural to a degree. While we cannot see God, we can still feel and experience him in certain ways. Especially in terms of the outward signs we experience along with the inward graces of the Sacraments. However, we must at least submit to the scriptures in how we utilize them and how they furthermore validate our use of reasoning in light of what God says in scripture about our ability to use our senses and reason to glorify God.

    With this in mind, we start with the interaction between the perspectives. Scripture of course is considered an authority, especially the ultimate/normative one, in the support by the tradition of the early church as well as in our reasoning with the perspective. In other words, it helps self verify it's own claims via the data and our experience with it. Tradition is considered an authority by scripture (2 Thessalonians 2:15, 1 Corinthians 11:2) and it also stands that we experience and utilize reason to validate the traditions in which we are to judge yet follow (especially when it comes to discerning true tradition from heretical traditions). Furthermore, reason is validated by scripture (James 3:17, Isaiah 1:18, 1 Thessalonians 5:21) and has been verified as a means in which the tradition encourages us to utilize reason ever since the earliest days of the church.

    If we attempt to utilize this particular understanding of the three perspectives of Christian authority for doctrines and practices, we can be assured we are holding to the traditional Anglican view when it comes to this three-legged stool understanding and claim to follow the Protestant understanding of Sola Scriptura in the church. So, next time you hear the claim about the dangers of the three-legged stool approach to doctrinal beliefs and practices, just remember to let them view it in perspectives. A triperspectival set of perspectives.