An Apology for Authority
Greg Melia gets his whip out on biblical inspirtation, dispels some myths, and explores his interests in SS doctrine.
Firstly, congratulations to Sophie Cartwright on her excellent article, Scriptural Authority (issue 99). Authority will always be a difficult issue, and Sophie’s article had many interesting points to present. One of those, of course, was where she observed, ‘Most woolly liberals…do not ultimately receive a reasoned explanation of why verifiable forms of spiritual authority are more likely to be true’. Sadly, this is often the case, and I do not know how woolly she considers herself to be, but as an evangelical I would like to right this wrong, and attempt to make a case for biblical authority.
Actually, my last sentence probably needs unpacking. Some evangelicals will undoubtedly dispute my use of “their” word, since I gave up on statements such as ‘the Bible…is the inspired and infallible word of God’ a long time ago (A bar of Fairtrade chocolate goes to the first person to satisfy me that Mark 1 and Luke 5 don’t contradict each other over how Jesus called his first disciples. Contact me through Christis), and I consider stating the Bible as ‘the supreme authority in all matters of belief and be haviour’ to be idolatry — as Sophie rightly points out, God should be our supreme authority. It is interesting to note that although people can have a craving for a concrete source of authority, the Bible will never give one. Even those who see it as infallible cannot declare themselves infallible (it is really not a good idea — God may not be too pleased!) Since they will always read the Bible through their own, fallible interpretation, they will never gain an easy, unbiased, reliable insight into God’s will.
Evangelicals are not the only ones looking for easy answers though. Authority is often talked of as a three-legged stool — scripture, tradition and reason — with evangelicals placing excess authority on scripture, and Catholics on tradition. I would argue that liberals are the ones who stake too much on the third leg — reason. I have met far too many who seem able to dismiss scriptual arguments with a wave of their hand and an ‘Oh, that was at another time, in another place. Of Course it doesn’t apply to us now’, or even the very ‘proof-texting’ they accuse others of. To them, their own reason is the ultimate authority. If something does not seem right, it cannot be right, though both scripture and tradition roundly condemn it. Our reason is only ever as good as we are, and we are all fallen, imperfect human beings, who all have ulterior motives and all view things through the distorting lens of our time and culture. The Bible does not change with culture, and so though seemingly counterintuitive, it may be necessary to trust the Bible over and above our reasoning, to determine God’s will. That is all very well in theory of course, but I admit that it is much, much more difficult to apply this in real life. For example, I still sometimes get the feeling that I am reading the Bible how my conscience would like to read it, rather than obeying God, on the issue of female ordination.
For this reason, I actually quite like the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. In SS, the Bible alone is the only authority, not anyone’s (imperfect) interpretation of it. Crucially, this includes our own, which is where Sophie’s youth leader’s advice falls down. It is not ideal — having no easy, perfect authority to rely on — but then, who said the world was ideal? It is a broken, sinful place, and we have to get used to that. In addition, pray for wisdom.
All this raises the question, “What is scripture?” Sophie raises the age-old question of the Gospel of Thomas and other noncanonical books. Before we discuss this any further, it is important to remember that the canon of the New Testament, at least, was not foisted upon an unwilling populace by powerful church leaders with vested interests. It was formed instead by a disparate, scattered group of believers, clinging onto life and their faith, trying to live out Jesus’ teaching in the face of state persecution. The canon was finally closed by the Council of Carthage in AD397, but most of it had already been circulating as a fairly undisputed unit for two hundred years. Although it does have some uncertain fringes, like the Gospel of Thomas she noted, these come nowhere near in status or importance to the core of the canon: the four gospels. These were all completed by around the start of the second century, and sometime during that century they started circulating together. A ‘core’ of Paul’s letters were also bonded together from early on, and were counted as “undisputed”. Since these form the centre of our belief in Christ, I think we can fairly safely say that the fundamentals of our faith rest on solid ground! If anyone is really interested in the Gospel of Thomas, it is available at www.earlychristianwritings.com, a useful websi te if ever I found one. ‘Thomas’ is not actually a ‘gospel’ as such; it is not a history of Christ’s saving work on earth, but a collection of his sayings. Half of them can be found in the other Gospels anyway, and I found a good number of the other half to be fairly indecipherable — I was left wondering what Jesus had been smoking, more than anything else. In short, I do not see quite what the fuss is about, unless of course she meant the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a different kettle of fish entirely, in which Jesus appears as a less likeable version of Harry Potter, to create sparrows out of mud and kill his playmates.
I have said enough, so I will end here, save only to say that I sympathise with Sophie’s not being able to “feel” that the Bible is inspired. I’m the same, and it’s not nice, but I’ve found that my faith works best when it rests on facts rather than feelings, and looking at the origins of some of scripture has helped convince me that it really is an accurate preservation God’s word, whatever feelings we may have. Let us ask Him to help us approach it objectively and honestly, and see what He is trying to say through it.