Booknotes

From The Creedal Imperative, by Carl Trueman, in the context of discussing the importance of a tradition of faith being passed from generation to generation:

The content of the gospel is thus to be handed on from generation to generation.  In today's society, that is in some sense a strange notion.  Traditions, say, of computer programming are not passed on.  If they were, I would not be typing on my notebook but would be sitting in a room full of machines with spinning spools of tape.  There are continuities in technology but they are often less substantial than the dramatic discontinuities that scientific and technological breakthroughs bring in their wake.  Not so withPaul's gospel.  This is truly traditional:  it has a stable content and it is passed on from generation to generation.  Indeed, for Paul, the fact that something was not taught in the past and not passed on as a tradition would presumablyhave dramatically increased the chances that it was false.