Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

44 BRIAN V. JOHNSTONE
offer here may be taken as an endeavour to provide an account
of that notion. According to Alasdair McIntyre, a tradition may
be defined as “… an historically extended, socially embodied
argument, and an argument precisely in part about the goods
which constitute that tradition.” 20 For the purposes of this
inquiry, I will adapt this definition somewhat so as to bring out
more clearly that the “goods” are not merely ideas about goods,
but lived realities, and that the form of discourse is wider than
formal “argument.” Thus, in this article, tradition means an
extended process of communication, by testimony and argument
over time, of what has proved itself to be a good way of
life. That which is communicated is not merely information,
beliefs and doctrines about that life, but the substance of that
good life, that is its actual embodiment in the way of life of a
community. Commitment to a tradition entails the acceptance of
a defining experience, which may take the form of accepting a
charismatic person or a group, who are seen as having inaugurated
the tradition to which its present inhabitants now adhere.
The latter see the tradition, entailing a continuity from the present
to the past, as bringing them into contact with the original
experience of the good life in which they now participate.
Accepting the tradition in this manner, and verifying it through
their own experience and critical reflection, opens the possibility
of continuing that good life in the future.
Coherence with the tradition will therefore entail coherence
with the particular experiences and insights of the founding figure
or group, insofar as they have been accepted by those committed
to the tradition, as defining what is a good life.
Commitment to the Christian tradition entails a commitment in
this sense to the person of Jesus, and to the experience and
insights of the apostolic church. These are expressed normatively
in the continuing tradition, embodied in the Scriptures.
Commitment to the tradition includes acceptance of the teachings
of authority which interpret these sources, namely what we
now call the “teachings of the Magisterium.” Living that tradi-
20 ALASDAIR MACINTYRE, After Virtue, 2 nd ed. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1984) 222.