What Is the Great Tradition? Is it Too Great to Be True?

The Great Tradition refers to a set of doctrines, theologians, and creeds that have held common consent across the ages.

While the phrase “the Great Tradition” is new, those who use it believe they participate in a tradition that extends back to the apostles. The term is thus a boundary marker for a body of teaching that Christians should retrieve today for the sake of renewing the church. 

In this article, I explain the origins of the phrase, its present use, and its value for Christians today. 

Where did the concept of the Great Tradition come from?

The expression “the Great Tradition” first gained traction in the early twentieth century, but its intellectual starting point probably began with F. R. Leavis, who in 1948 published a book entitled The Great Tradition (Chatto & Windus). This was not a work of theology or religion, but of literary criticism. Leavis, along with other English department professors and intellectuals, desired English departments to teach a canon of great English works that might be called the Great Tradition. The notion was thus conceived in connection with a canon of literature.¹

This movement existed alongside the Great Books movement associated with John Erskine at Columbia University in the 1920s, with Leavis focusing on English Great Books, in particular. Each of these movements arose in the twentieth century during a crisis of modernity, where many looked back to the past to understand their roots, roots almost all but forgotten.² Deconstruction and positivism enervated our connection with and memory of the past, which meant that counter-movements arose. 

Such movements did not restrict themselves to literature and classical studies. During the twentieth century, phrases like “the scientific revolution” and “Judeo-Christian” came into existence to name traditions that included canonical texts, persons, and ideas. Roger Scruton even called conservatism part of the Great Tradition, a phrase he included in the subtitle of his book, Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition (All Points, 2017). Perhaps the most familiar member in this family of phrases is C. S. Lewis’s “mere Christianity,” which is essentially a placeholder for “Great Tradition.”

What is “the Great Tradition” in theology?

In theology, the phrase the Great Tradition can refer generically to a shared Christian past.³ Hans Boersma, for example, defines the Great Tradition as “the Christian consensus of the fathers and the Middle Ages.”⁴

Applying the concept more narrowly, Tony Clark speaks of “the ‘Great Tradition’ of Anglicanism.”⁵ For him, being in the Great Tradition primarily means participating in “those practices that constitute the tradition,” such as corporate worship, prayer, and public reading of Scripture.⁶ In his view, participation is how one knows the Great Tradition that one inhabits, instead of primarily being one of ideas. 

Others will, by contrast, emphasize the ideas of the Great Tradition without ignoring its practice. For instance, David Moss speaks about the Great Tradition as a shared metaphysical view of reality.⁷

In his Reading Scripture with the Great Tradition (Baker Academic, 2018), Craig Carter similarly writes:

The Great Tradition of Christian orthodoxy begins with the Old and New Testaments, crystalizes in the fourth-century trinitarian debates, and then continues through Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, the leading Protestant Reformers, post-Reformation scholasticism, and contemporary conservative Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant confessional theology.⁸

Carter further includes the “exegesis, metaphysics, and dogma hang together in Nicene Christianity.”⁹ Hence, the pattern of reading Scripture along with its metaphysical commitments and dogma constitutes an important part of the Great Tradition. 

Matthew Barrett tends to identify the Great Tradition with theological and metaphysical commitments, associated closely with the via antiqua (“the old way”).¹⁰ Importantly, the Great Tradition then, for Barrett, excludes the via moderna of authors such as William of Ockham. It also includes Plato’s realism.¹¹ And like Carter, Barrett includes certain theologians as part of this larger tradition: “the Cappadocians to John of Damascus, from Augustine to Boethius, from Anselm to Thomas.”¹²

Even with these narrower definitions, we need to realize that the Great Tradition exists as a popular phrase to describe a canon and body of theological literature and practices. For example, Craig Carter in a footnote points to Thomas Oden’s work The Rebirth of Orthodoxy (HarperSanFrancisco, 2003) to understand the Great Tradition.¹³ What is important here is that Oden does not use the phrase “Great Tradition,” but rather speaks of orthodoxy or classical Christianity. In the seventh chapter, which Carter particularly points to, Oden surveys classical Christian theology, but does not provide a crisp definition of the Great Tradition. 

The Great Tradition exists as a popular phrase to describe a canon and body of theological literature and practices.

In other words, the Great Tradition as a phrase parallels Oden’s classical Christianity. So we should see the Great Tradition as a contemporary term to describe what earlier Christians may have just called orthodoxy, catholic Christianity, classical Christianity, or other like terms. 

What is the difference between the Great Tradition & theological retrieval?

Theological retrieval retrieves the Great Tradition for the life of the church today. Retrieval is the historical and spiritual act of looking back to a Christian consensus on theology, practice, and metaphysics for the sake of renewing the church today. 

For example, during the twentieth century, many Roman Catholic theologians sought to uncover the historical past of the church in an act of ressourcement. They found neo-scholasticism too rigid, and hence Henri de Lubac, Jean Daniélou, Yves Congar, and others went deeper into the past. Their movement became known as nouvelle théologie (“new theology”), a pejorative term originally, but one that seems to have managed to stick. 

Hans Boersma credits the nouvelle théologie for recovering the Great Tradition.¹⁴ Given how influential nouvelle théologie ideas became at Vatican II (1962–1965), one can see how retrieval or ressourcement has expansive religious significance and application. 

Assuming the Great Tradition represents a Christian consensus on doctrine and practice, retrieving it would be the equivalent of retrieving what Christianity is. This is exactly how Thomas Oden sees it. Oden contends that classical Christianity or orthodoxy begins in the New Testament:

Classic Christianity is most reliably defined textually by the New Testament itself. It is most concisely summed up in a primitive baptismal confession that was entirely derived from scripture as salvation history in a nutshell.¹⁵

In other words, the consensus of Christianity in the earliest centuries finds its source in the New Testament itself. And further:

This doctrinal core is recalled in the three prototype summaries of faith: the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the so-called Athanasian Creed (and their subsequent consensual confessions and interpretations). The faithful in Christ are baptized, according to Scripture, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.¹⁶

Hence, the act of retrieval of the Great Tradition is not a neutral activity. It does not exist in a value-free vacuum of scholarship. Its aim is not less than retrieving a more ancient form of Christianity, just as John Calvin argued the Reformation did to Cardinal Sadoleto: “all we have attempted has been to renew the ancient form of the Church”¹⁷

How does the Great Tradition interact with Scripture & tradition in theology?

According to its proponents, the Great Tradition finds its origin in the New Testament itself. That said, the realist metaphysics of the Great Tradition represents only one intellectual context of the Bible, but not an extended teaching of the Bible itself. 

However, Hans Boersma makes the commonsense observation that everyone has metaphysical commitments, whether they know it or not. And it happens that Platonism or realism corresponds to the way the Bible presents God in Christ. For this reason, we can accept some major premises of Platonic realism (while rejecting others).

To illustrate the point, Boersma points out how the logic of the incarnation requires some explanation, and the only one that really does justice to Christian teaching, he avers, is Christian Platonism: 

The early church believed that the Second Person of the Trinity took on our human nature, such that his (divine) person assumed a universal human nature. Had the person of the Son assumed an individual human nature, it would have been impossible for other human beings to be united to the humanity of Christ. Salvation, therefore, was the result of the many (human beings) participating in the one (the human nature of Christ). Christian soteriology depends on the conviction that behind the observable reality of numerous individual human beings there is an ideal form of a shared humanity.”¹⁸

While readers may not fully agree on his point, Christians must admit that the Bible teaches that God is Father, Son, and Spirit. So we need metaphysical language to explain how, since God is an eternal, immortal, and invisible Being (e.g., John 4:24; Rom 1:19–20, 23; 1 Tim 1:17; 6:15–16). Christians found terms like person, nature, being, and other like terms incredibly useful in describing the biblical God. This metaphysical language, like history and grammar, makes up the real world that we live in, and the real world that the Bible points to.¹⁹

Hence, the Great Tradition, with its trinitarian theology, metaphysics, and patterns of exegesis, not only overlaps with the content of Scripture itself (as Oden claims), but also includes the realist context in which Scripture was written. 

How does “the Great Tradition” relate to historical theology?

In general, historical theology applies the historical method to uncover the past. By contrast, retrieving the Great Tradition may use historical methodology, but its aim is the spiritual movement of God within Christ’s church for the sake of renewal. 

Obviously, these two disciplines overlap greatly, especially today. But their origins differ and so, at times, do their methodology. Historical theology may equally cover Ockham and Aquinas. But many within the Great Tradition movement today would exclude the former. 

What are the doctrines or practices associated with the Great Tradition?

The most important doctrine associated with the Great Tradition is the Holy Trinity. Since the Nicene Creed stands as the paramount example of the doctrinal consensus of the Great Tradition, the Christian doctrine of God plays a central role in most Great Tradition work. Matthew Barrett provides an example of someone pursuing this end. 

Hans Boersma represents a second important practice of the Great Tradition. Boersma has worked not only to retrieve the metaphysical sensibilities of the Great Tradition, but also the spiritual practices. 

How can the Great Tradition help Christians find unity across denominational lines?

Hans Boersma believes retrieving the “sacramental ontology” of the Great Tradition will lead to greater ecumenism, even between evangelicals and Roman Catholics.²⁰

However, Protestants and Catholics in the sixteenth century held to the Great Tradition, but found within that tradition keen differences that revolved not so much on ontology, but on the authority of Scripture and its meaning. More likely, retrieving the Great Tradition will help us see how classical Protestants and Roman Catholics understood each other in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

They had a shared view of God and Christ, but disagreed on matters of soteriology, the Eucharist, and authority. Maybe that gets the two groups closer to the real issues that divide them, but I do not see the Great Tradition as uniting the two. Nor do I see it uniting the two together with Eastern Orthodox communions. 

That said, I do think it shows inter-Protestant or denominational unity at a clearer level. Given how close Protestants are to one another, they can sometimes over-focus on their differences. A return to the Great Tradition may help Protestants see each other as part of a common project.

What are the limitations or criticisms of appealing to the Great Tradition?

The Great Tradition is a twentieth-century construct that aims to describe a body of teaching common to Christianity. As such, the primary limitation of appealing to the Great Tradition has to do with its definition. Does such a thing as the Great Tradition exist? And who decides on what the tradition is? 

One answer is that the Great Tradition can be discerned in history as the general consensus about reality, the Trinity, and liturgical practice. This is generally how authors like Hans Boersma, Craig Carter, and Matthew Barrett describe it. However, such appeals may sound like a no-true-Scotsman fallacy. 

Further, most Protestants do not affirm Nicaea II (AD 787), which means that that council cannot be part of the Great Tradition. However, Roman Catholic and Orthodox thinkers would see this council as representing the church’s teaching. Such historical contingencies call into question the stability of the body of teachings and practices that make up the Great Tradition. It leads to the questions: Whose tradition is it? What does it include? These are not easy questions to answer. 

Is there actually a singular “Great Tradition”?

Probably not, if by this we mean a consensus on all matters of faith and practice. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant communions can all appeal to a common body of tradition. But they each, in their own way, use that claim to reject aspects of the other’s faith and practice. Hence, the Great Tradition realistically acts as a selective appropriation of the past.

For example, Craig Carter sees the Great Tradition project as mostly one of retrieving classical philosophy, the rejection of the Enlightenment, and the recovery of Reformed confessionalism and its doctrine of God.²¹

But even here, the contingent facts of history importantly restrain our ability to speak of the Great Tradition since close readings of William of Ockham and Duns Scotus tend to show their unity on the main matters of Christian faith and practice. And so we might have an anomaly or an outlier case of theological and metaphysical practice, but it remains part of recognizable Christianity. 

With all that said, as long as someone defines what they mean by the Great Tradition, it seems a serviceable term to use as a shorthand for a set of metaphysical, theological, and liturgical beliefs and practices.

At a simpler level, all Christian communions can agree on the metaphysics, theological, and Scripture exegesis that led to the Nicene Creed.²² Hence, the classical Christian tradition of the first five centuries provide something of a singular Great Tradition, at least when that tradition is tied to the Nicene Creed.

How can theologians avoid misusing or oversimplifying the Great Tradition?

The Great Tradition functions as a canon of theology and philosophy to mine for life and practice. As such, it acts more as a guide to the kinds of sources that have historically served the church in her worship and can continue to do so today. Treated in this way, Christians can protect themselves from misuse of it. 

However, without a keen historical sense and knowledge of the contours of classical Christian thought, Christians can use the Great Tradition as a club to batter down their opponents; or worse, a norming norm, a position that Scripture alone must possess. This misuse would make the Great Tradition a club to harm others rather than an arm around the shoulder, a guide in our pursuit of knowing God in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit. 

Related to this, one regular pattern of mishandling the Great Tradition involves how people appeal to tradition. The Nicene Creed is the result of a long engagement with scriptural teaching, arguments, metaphysical clarifications, and ecclesial debates.²³ The structure of the creed matches the verbal structure of 1 Corinthians 8:4–6. The order of its words intentionally shows a sequence of biblical citation that demonstrates the key conclusions of the creed, and its hypothesis is as ancient as the New Testament itself. 

To cite the creed or any such teaching as if that citation alone amounts to argument therefore misses the mark. We must re-argue the truth of the Nicene Creed according to its patterns of thought and the starting hypothesis, as embedded the ancient canons of truth, baptismal creeds, and the Bible itself. Without doing so, we lose the plausibility of the truths these councils convey. But they are true because they are true, not because they appeared as some willful consensus of a mob. 

We must not miss this vital point. Re-argue doctrine. Show its plausibility. Ultimately, point out why the Nicene Creed is both true and accords with Scripture. That is key to avoiding a misunderstanding or oversimplification of the Great Tradition.   

How does the Great Tradition account for diversity & disagreement in church history?

It accounts for the diversity by judging the past on whether or not someone participates in the Great Tradition or not. As a consequence, the Great Tradition acts as a rule or canon of acceptable theology and philosophy. 

Great Tradition proponents often underplay how difficult defending their canon is. I do not think it is impossible to recognize a canon of commonly held beliefs shared by all Christians at all times. However, that means we must narrowly define the Great Tradition as a body of doctrines and practices that do not divide communions. Hence, we must judicially ignore, it seems, John of Damascus’s view of icons; Thomas Aquinas’s view of Mary; and certain late-medieval claims about the Eucharist. We may find ourselves justified in doing so, but we must be honest that we are doing so.

Does appeal to the Great Tradition undermine Scripture’s authority (e.g., sola scriptura)?

No. Protestants have held that Scripture alone serves as our infallible authority for life and practice. Other authorities do exist, which is why Scripture tells children to obey their parents (Eph 6:1). These authorities are proper but merely probable authorities, unlike Scripture, which is both proper and infallible as Thomas Aquinas argues (ST I.Q1.A8).

Augustine also affirms that “those books alone of the Scriptures, which are now called canonical, that I have learned to pay them such honor and respect as to believe most firmly that not one of their authors has erred in writing anything at all.”²⁴ By contrast, Augustine writes,

when I read other authors, however eminent they may be in sanctity and learning, I do not necessarily believe a thing is true because they think so, but because they have been able to convince me, either on the authority of the canonical writers or by a probable reason which is not inconsistent with truth.²⁵

Here, both Thomas and Augustine provide guidance on how to read Scripture as our infallible authority, without ignoring the importance of secondary authorities that are fallible, such as those found in the Great Tradition. (Notice that I have made this argument by appealing to both Thomas and Augustine.) 

Why does the Great Tradition matter for the church today?

The phrase Great Tradition, insofar as it represents remembering and retrieving our Christian past, feels necessary today. We have increasingly lost our grasp on the great gift of theology that God has given to the church. Jesus promised to build his church (Matt 16:18), and he has done so for two thousand years. We do well then to pay heed to the Spirit’s work to grow the church over the centuries. 

In particular, the trinitarian and Christological pattern of theology in the early church can help us to worship God today and understand the judgments of the biblical authors.²⁶ In other words, the Great Tradition can help us know God as he is revealed in Holy Scripture. 

That said, I do not think anyone needs to be tied to the phrase “Great Tradition.” The goal here is to understand the teaching of Christ and the apostles. Christ has grown his church by the Holy Spirit (Matt 16:18), and so we should expect Christ’s teachers to protect and promote a body of Christian teaching across the ages. 

Hence, Calvin spoke of the form of the church “which the apostles instituted” and claims that “in it we have the only model of a true Church, and whosoever deviates from it in the smallest degree is in error.”²⁷ Yet Calvin did not think this excluded tradition, since he speaks of the ancient councils as approving apostolic teaching.²⁸ This relation, then, of scriptural authority as the norming norm of other norms (tradition) provides a necessary balance for the church today. 

We cannot simply refer to a tradition in our appeals. We must rather appeal to a tradition that corresponds to the apostolic deposit as found in Holy Scripture.  

Conclusion

The Great Tradition lives within a family of similar terms, such as mere orthodoxy, classical Christianity, ancient form of the church, orthodoxy, and others. Its proponents describe it as a canon of theological works, practices, and metaphysical sensibilities. It represents the source that Christian retrieval aims to recover for the life of the church. While it is a tradition, the Great Tradition begins with the apostolic writings themselves.

Christians do not need to be tied to the term Great Tradition, and it may prove to be a wax nose that each proponent pulls in whatever direction he or she wishes. But at its best, the Great Tradition represents the consensus of Christian teaching on God, Christ, metaphysics, and spiritual practices. It is a way to see the church that Christ promised to build and has built (Matt 16:18). And it is a useful canon of theological and philosophical works that provides a lay of the land for Christian thinkers.

Books recommended by Wyatt Graham on the Great Tradition

• Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity.
• Lombard, Peter. The Sentences.
• Zanchi, Girolamo. Summary of the Christian Religion.

Related content

• If the Reformers Believed in Sola Scriptura, Why Quote the Church Fathers?
• Unity without Compromise: Councils & Creeds for Today’s Ecumenical Dialogue
• Classical Theism & the Ongoing Trinity Wars: An Overview
• The New Ecumenism: A Short History of Modern Ecumenical Movements
• The Definitive Guide to Christian Denominations

1. I am thankful for Derek Peterson, who helped me to crystallize this pre-history in an email he sent on September 9, 2025.
2. See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theology (Bloomsbury, 2013).
3. Steven D. Cone and Robert F. Rea, A Global Church History: The Great Tradition Through Cultures, Continents and Centuries (Bloomsbury, 2019).
4. Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry (Eerdmans, 2011), 18.
5. Tony Clark, “Authentic Participation in the Great Tradition,” in The Great Tradition—A Great Labour: Studies in Ancient-Future Faith, ed. Philip Harrold and D. H. Williams (Lutterworth, 2011), 25.
6. Clark, “Authentic Participation,” in Great Tradition, 35.
7. E.g., David Moss, “Friendship: St. Anselm, Theoria, and the Convolution of Sense,” in Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology, ed. John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, and Graham Ward (Taylor & Francis Group, 1998), 179–80, 188.
8. Craig Carter, Reading Scripture with the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis (Baker Academic, 2018), 11.
9. Carter, Reading Scripture with the Great Tradition, 16.
10. Matthew Barrett, The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church (HarperCollins, 2023), 36.
11. Barrett, Reformation as Renewal, 28.
12. Barrett, Reformation as Renewal, 343.
13. Carter, Reading Scripture with the Great Tradition, 11n3.
14. Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 10.
15. Thomas C. Oden, The Rebirth of Orthodoxy: Signs of New Life in Christianity (HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), 31.
16. Oden, Rebirth of Orthodoxy, 31.
17. John Calvin, Theological Treatises, trans. J. K. S. Reid (Westminster John Knox, 1954), 231.
18. Hans Boersma, “All One in Christ: Why Christian Platonism Is Key to the Great Tradition,” Fr. Hans Boersma (blog), January 18, 2020, https://hansboersma.org/p/all-one-in-christ-why-christian-platonism-is-key-to-the-great-tradition.
19. Wyatt Graham, “When Exegesis Forgets About Reality,” The Gospel Coalition, September 2, 2025, https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/columns/detrinitate/when-exegesis-forgets-about-reality/.
20. Boersma, Heavenly Participation, 19.
21. Craig Carter, “The Great Tradition Retrieval Project: Correcting a Few Misunderstandings,” Credo Magazine, August 11, 2022, https://credomag.com/2022/08/the-great-tradition-retrieval-project-correcting-a-few-misunderstandings/.
22. See Wyatt Graham, “4 Patterns of Biblical Argument in the Nicene Creed,” Wyatt Graham (blog), May 20, 2025, https://www.wyattgraham.com/p/4-patterns-of-biblical-argument-in.
23. See Graham, “4 Patterns of Biblical Argument.”
24. Augustine of Hippo, Letter 82: To St. Jerome, in Letters, vol. 1: 1–82, trans. Wilfrid Parsons, The Fathers of the Church (Catholic University of America Press, 1951), 392.
25. Augustine, Letter 82, 392.
26. See Wyatt Graham, “Scripture and Trinitarian Theology: David Yeago’s Argument,” Wyatt Graham (blog), April 4, 2025, https://www.wyattgraham.com/p/scripture-and-trinitarian-theology.
27. Calvin, Theological Treatises, 231.
28. Calvin, Theological Treatises, 232.