open source theology

Matt, I think you’re right on. We’d like to think that scripture mediates god’s authority to the church, but in practice it mediates the church’s authority (and presumably, the church mediates god’s authority). This is easy to see in several regards.

The Bible contains some 30000 verses. None of them were highlighted in red as “really important” in the manuscripts. In practical usage, churches employ some of these verses and ignore others. The subset of all these 30000 verses that the church integrates into its discourse is determined by the church’s own selection process.

Out of that subset that are a part of the church’s discourse, an even smaller number get pride of place and control the interpretation of the others (Jn 3:16 or Rom 3:23, for example). When passages are in tension, it is the church that decides which is normative. So for evangelical churches, the decision to prioritize Gal 3:28 or Eph 5:22 is not based on an “objective” interpretation of scripture, it is based on the value system of the church that is reading the scripture. This goes back to some philosophy of language issues, but I am convinced that texts, words and sentences are underdetermined, that is, a given text can generate a number of interpretations without providing sufficient criteria to fix the “correct” one. So, as Hauerwas has argued, the character of the interpreter, and of the interpretive community, is as important of an aspect of the interpretive process as the text itself. (None of this is to imply that a text can generate just *any* meaning. I’m just saying that, for example, prov 16:33 (“The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD”) is capable of supporting a variety of drastically different understandings of god’s providential activity, some more “calvinist” some less, but the text itself can’t be pressed to provide the “correct” interpretation).

Further, considered historically, the church is responsible for the nature and shape of the canon itself. Paul *did not* start his letters with, “all that follows here is the inspired word of god and can be taken as holy scripture for all believers at all times and places.” Scripture does not identify itself as scripture. The church identifies scripture as scripture. That doesn’t mean it’s not inspired, it just means that is a quality that the church ascribes to the text, not one the text ascribes to itself. Related to this is the oft-ignored observation that scripture is never referred to as “word of god” in scripture, which makes our tendency to equate the two concepts problematic.

So… that’s why it seems to me that the most plausible relation to authority that scripture can have is to say that these are the documents that the church has accepted as the definitive depiction of the identity of Jesus Christ. Once identified, it is Christ who exercises authority in the congregation, not scripture.

Sorry to write so much.

As someone once said (roughly paraphrased) - it is not the bits of scripture that we don’t understand that cause us problems, but the bits we do understand and fail / don’t want to act on. are we getting caught up in trying to decide how to interpret scripture, when the real issue is obeying it? Is the point that we don’t interpret scripture it interprets us (if we let it and the Spirit do so). Admittedly there is no such thing as presuppositionless exegesis, but the point is whether we allow scripture and the Spirit to challenge our presuppositions.

Speaking as a scientist, one can regard scripture as our “data” (a given, not something we can arbitrarily change), and our interpretation as a “model.” Models are only useful in so far as they accurately represent the data and are to be discarded if they don’t fit the data. Furthermore, all models are provisional, in the sense that they may capture our best understanding of the data (or some aspect of it) at the present time, but are subject to revision as our understanding grows (I guess that this is the so-called hermeneutical spiral?!). Additionally, multiple models are possible, each capturing some aspect of the “truth” (e.g. in physics the wave / particle models for light; in theology the Anselmian / Abelardian models for the atonement).

I can’t remember who said it (Brueggemann, perhaps?) but there are so-called “angular texts” that don’t “fit” our presuppositions and constantly present a challenge (I certainly find this when I read scripture).

Is the problem not with the authority of scripture per se, but our problem in accepting that anything / anyone should have authority over us (a particularly Western disease)? How willing are we to submit to any authority (including scripture)? Jesus seemed to be able to do this (e.g. Phil. 2:5-8; John 8:28-29), why do we have such a problem?!

Perhaps this is tangential to the main discussion …

Meric

Meric, I think you’re right that the contemporary western mindset doesn’t handle authority well. I think there are good reasons and bad reasons, benefits and drawbacks, to this attitude. But I don’t think re-emphasizing the authority of scripture, or calling for obedience to scripture, is the answer. Whenever this occurs, the authority of Jesus gets marginalized, or Jesus and scripture get conflated. To put forth the scripture as something to be obeyed requires the presupposition that human nature is constant. Many people do in fact believe that, and for them, I suppose it makes sense to obey scripture.

But anthropological and cultural studies have led many of us to doubt that there is such a thing as “human nature,” and so the symbolic universes that humans live in from era to era and place to place differ radically. In the biblical worldview, such distinctions as shame/honor, authority/subordination, male/female were symbolically infused into the material world the ancients inhabited in ways that are no longer possible in our modern era. The ethical prohibitions and commendations that scripture pronounces speak to that symbolic universe, and not our own.

But if the function of scripture is to manifest the identity of Jesus, and Jesus is present in the life of each particular congregation, whatever symbolic universe it inhabits, then the real issue is to discern and interpret who Jesus is and what his project was/is, and how best to participate in that project in our own time and place, as different as that is from 1st c. palestine. I think Wright’s 5th act analogy is consistent with this understanding of cultural variability, although Wright is still speaking of scripture’s authority, not specifically Jesus’. Throw some Hans Frei into the mix (The Identity of Jesus Christ), and I think there’s some real potential for a reenvisioning of God’s authority over the church that really lets God be God, over against our whims and desires, which is your rightful concern.

I find George Lindbeck’s claim provactive and insightful: “It would be artificial but not impossible to write a history of ecclesiology in which increasing departures from the Bible were correlated with increasing closeness to Christ. In this area, whatever might be true of others, neither conservatives nor progressives mean by the church what scripture meant, and the re-recognition of the original narrative patter does not by itself mandate a return. The Bible may for our times be no more adequate concerning the church than concerning slavery.”

Let us hold fast to the principle that the right response to ABUSE is not NON-USE, but insistence upon RIGHT USE.

The idea that Scripture has authority is not an invention of evangelical Christianity, even if they have mediated a subscription to the principle that now appears unhelpful. It is an idea deeply rooted in Hebrew thought. The ‘Torah’ - the commands and teaching of God - are considered eternal and practically co-existent with Adonai (cf. John 1) and are authoritative because they are believed to have issued forth from him. They have authority in themselves.

If we use an analogy of our modern police force, they mediate the law which is given authority by the political and judicial processes. Both have authority. Only the police have POWER to exercise the authority. I think these two aspects can be confused in considering the outworking of authority in a congregational or regional or national “church.” The power to exercise authority derives from the authority. If scripture doesn’t have authority in itself, then no one has the authority to mediate it’s message in an authoratative way - or everyone does! (I think this is where some of the arguments pursued by post-modern thought inevitably lead - I think ultimately inaccurately and unhelpfully) Therefore, the issue is indeed down to interpretation. Who interprets and thus mediates authority…

Who decides what is authorative?

Scholars Bivin and Blizzard (The Difficult Words of Jesus) suggest that Jesus in instructing Peter, Matthew 18, concerning “binding and loosing” was not referring to spiritual warfare principles (though a valid ‘midrash’ or allegory might be made) but to the principle of apostolic ‘halakah’: making binding declarations of apostolic interpretation. There are indications in 1 Corinthians 7, for example, that this was a principle that Paul understood and made deliberate distinction between what was his personal counsel as a leader and what were binding apostolic declarations, as from the Lord. Another example of this principle at work is the apostolic council in Acts 15.

Who, then decides who is an apostle? Of course, ultimately we must accept such a reality must issue from the Lord alone, from Jesus Christ. How do we recognise such authority? Paul gives clues, most of which are grounded in his long-suffering, weakness and faithfulness to Jesus Christ.

Are there apostles today? Who will recognise them? I would suggest yes, recognition of which authority can be made by congregations and supra-congregational churches. The Corinthians were grappling with this issue when Paul wrote the second letter to them, contrasting his apostleship, as the one who planted them, but more importantly, demonstated his apostolic authority by his weakness, made perfect by God’s power, in contrast to the super-apostles who made their claim to apostolic power by virtue of their much more overt “success.”

Will a change in understanding and recognition of apostolic authority produce a more perfect church experience? Highly unlikely, it is probably our understanding of church which needs to change first. Moreover, looking backwards with a different coloured tinted spectacles, we might in fact, be able to discern that such “weak” apostles have been operating the power of God, under the authority of God throughout all manner of church history, which we would be tempted to ignore. That might even include the present evangelical church in all it’s weakness and imperfect application of truth. Just a thought…

In conclusion, I would agree Jesus is our authority, but that he has, by his own life and teaching, given a very clear mandate to our accepting that Scripture - as interpreted in the light of the Messiah - is authorative AND that the responsibility for it’s correct use is with the leaders of his “messianic community” (even if we don’t actually regard them as “apostolic”).

My suggestion therefore is that before we tie ourselves up in knots by rejecting Scripture as authoratative, because we find explanations of what that means inadequate, that we take a long and deep look at the various traditions, particularly Hebrew, Jewish, as well as Christian Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic, to understand how they grappled with these issues, long before the evangelicals and penetecostals (of which constituency I personally remain happy to be a member, in spite of all the inherent faults of the ‘system’) wrapped the issue up into such a neat parcel that we now feel they “dumbed the whole thing down,” too far.

I think that to answer the final question raised by Matt above, “how do I know what submission to Jesus means in practise” is therefore not neccessarily so much an epistemological problem, as a one of a more simple form of ignorance: Jesus said if we do not know both the Scripture and the power of God, we are in error. Matt 22.9, and similarly, “Unless you become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 18 again). That sounds authoritative to me!