Obviously there are a myriad of avenues that I could go down relating to the sufficiency of Scripture. There’s the catholic vs. protestant issue of sola scriptura; the debate in Christian counseling over Scripture’s sufficiency to help someone in the problems of life and sin; the question of Scripture’s sufficiency to teach us reliable history (a different question than if it is inerrant in historical matters), etc. Instead I want to focus on the question of whether or not Scripture is sufficient to reveal God. The pay off here is that it will preserve continuity with previous posts on inspiration, authority and inerrancy.
In the interest of taking requests for concision seriously, I’ll focus mainly on the claims of Stanley Grenz and John Franke (which I take to be one variety of neo-Barthianism) with a bit of Barth sprinkled here and there. Both Grenz and Franke have announced the death of foundationalism, but instead of mourning it they merrily dance on its grave. In its place they suggest a coherentism made up of the interplay of Scripture, tradition and culture. In their own words, “…the authority of 
both Scripture and tradition is ultimately an authority derivitive from the work of the Spirit….The authority of each – tradition as well as Scripture – is contingent on the work of the Spirit, and both Scripture and tradition are fundamental components within an interrelated web of beliefs that constitute the Christian faith. A nonfoundational understanding of Scripture and tradition locates ultimate authority only in the action of the triune God. If we speak of a “foundation” of the Christian faith at all, then we must speak of neither Scripture nor tradition in and of themselves, but only of the triune God who is disclosed in polyphonic fashion through Scripture, the church and even the world, albeit always in accordance with the normative divine self disclosure through Scripture” (“Theological Heritage as Hermeneutical Trajectory” 227).
The major difference between what Grenz and Franke claim and what John and I have claimed elsewhere is that they locate authority in both Scripture and tradition whereas we locate it in Scripture alone. This of course does not mean, in our view, that tradition is worthy of negligence. It can prevent us from reinventing the wheel, hand down to us proper interpretations of truth, help us understand the way culture influenced the church, all of which contribute to our understanding of Scripture. But none of this functions in any kind of an authoritative way for the believer, and as I’ll show, they fail to demonstrate that it does. Grenz and Franke (as is all too common in their writings) paint evangelicalism with the broad brush of spurning tradition because it has historically located authority only in the text. While they admit that Scripture is the norming norm and that Spirit always works in accord with the divine disclosure through Scripture, there is nevertheless a work of the Spirit in tradition and culture. Accordingly, we can’t just interpret the text in a static fashion, we must see the Spirit at work in the community of the church always teaching us something new from the text. The goal is not to uncover authorial intent but to allow the Spirit to speak to us in an ongoing illumination that fits our situatedness in culture and language.
The conclusion is that we cannot see the Scriptures as the ultimate authority or as the absolute foundation. The Spirit is the final authority and he works through the medium of the Scriptures, but it is improper to see the Scriptures as the ultimate authority. Perhaps you already see where engineers Grenz and Franke are taking this train, unfortunately, the bridge is out just ahead.
Grenz and Franke’s concerns relate quite a bit to those of a few of our blogger friends: do those who hold Scripture as their ultimate authority – whether intentionally or unintentionally – divinize Scripture? All of this ultimately originates in Barth’s concern. To claim Scripture as an ultimate authority is to compete with Christ’s ultimate authority. Only Christ is the Word of God, and Scripture is but a witness to the Word of God in Christ, and not the Word of God itself. Scripture becomes the word of God only through the present speaking of the Spirit who reveals Christ in it. (Not everyone may agree with our reading of Barth here, but this is the common understanding of Barth by far. Barth’s theology is by his own admission “dialectical” and thus there are places where he seems to contradict himself).
All of the affore mentioned may be collected into two claims: God is only revealed in Christ; and those who see revelation apart from the person of Christ will inevitably divinize that revelation.
I’ll hold these claims up to three criteria: do Grenz and Franke accurately portray those who hold Scripture as ultimate authority? Is their view of revelation (and similarly Barth’s) consistent? And is it faithful to Scripture?
Grenz and Franke are critiquing a bit of a straw man. Those who hold to Scripture as ultimate authority do not bifurcate the authority of Scripture from the authority of God. Scripture is the ultimate authority precisely because God is the ultimate authority. Because Scripture is where God speaks, it is the ultimate expression of his authority. But Grenz and Franke are critiquing those who hold that the authority of Scripture is latent. However, they never produce examples of anyone actually saying this, and I’m not sure any even exist. Be assured that if they could’ve found any statement to this effect in Carl Henry, their favorite whipping boy, they would have cited it.
Grenz and Franke’s view of revelation (and similarly Barth’s) is inconsistent. Of course Christ is the revelation of the Father (Jn 1:18), and of course Christ is the ultimate authority, but they can only know this in the first place by standing on what is revealed in the Scriptures and recognizing the authority of its teaching. God cannot be known apart from Christ but neither can Christ be known apart from Scripture. Grenz and Franke can only assert Christ (or the Spirit) as the ultimate authority on the basis of the claims of Scripture. The problem of a competition between Christ’s authority and Scripture’s authority only arises when one assumes a distinction between them. But if one sees the authority of both Christ and Scripture as one and the same authority, then one cannot hold the authority of one without the other. To get around the inherent epistemological problem of revelation of God apart from the Scriptures, Barth also must in practice assume inerrancy and the revelation of God in Scripture, as Clark Pinnock so astutely pointed out in his better days. In short, Barth’s view is inconsistent because he must rely on the revelation of the Scriptures to deny the revelation of God in Scripture. Barth can claim that Christ alone reveals God apart from Scripture only by presupposing that God is revealed in the Scripture in the first place.
Grenz and Franke’s approach to revelation is contrary to Scripture. If the Spirit is what gives authority to Scripture and therefore Scripture’s authority is derivitive instead of latent, then we have to see Scripture itself as already coming with the authority of the Spirit and not just in becoming the word of God through illumination. To see the work of the Spirit alone as the ultimate authority is to deny what the Spirit has already done in the process of inspiration. Scripture did not come by human initiative it came by the initiative of the Spirit (2 Pet 1:19-21). Furthermore, Christ tells his disciples that the Spirit will bring to remembrance the things that Christ revealed to them (Jn 14:26). The fact that this statement of Christ’s is recorded in the gospel of John is an outworking of this very promise. Thus the writing of the New Testament is itself the work of the Spirit in bringing to mind all that Christ has spoken. Grenz and Franke continue to hold up Scripture as the norming norm and qualify the Spirit’s exercise of authority in the community and culture as never contradicting Scripture. But to argue this requires that there be an objective, propositional revelation in the text that cannot be violated. It requires that the Spirit cannot contradict what he has already revealed historically in inspiring the writers of Scripture. Grenz and Franke can’t have it both ways. The Spirit who is at work in the tradition of the church exercising his own authority apart from the ultimate authority of the Scriptures must be free to do as he pleases. He must not be confined by the Scriptures, otherwise he is bound by another authority. But of course, it is absurd to claim an authority of the Spirit apart from the Scriptures and then assert that he cannot violate the Scriptures as a norming norm. But this is just what some have done.
Is the only alternative to make Scripture a God?
Lastly, there’s this business about divinizing Scripture (still a current concern in theological literature). I think the matter can be settled rather easily. Holding Scripture to be the Word of God does not divinize it. It has, in fact, already been divinized by the Spirit, but believing this does not mean that one worships it, or should worship it. It is divine not by its own right (whatever that would mean) but divine because it is the voice of God. This does not threaten Christ’s status as the logos of God since Christ’s revelation of the Father is contained in Scripture. They are his words through the Spirit. Scripture is sufficient to reveal God because Christ reveals himself in it. Furthermore, it is both a fully human word as well as a fully divine word (see our “What is Scripture? Part 1) as is Christ by who’s Spirit Scripture is written. As a divine word Scripture, like God himself, can be said to be holy, faithful, true, righteous, pure or flawless, and yet as a human word it can be said to be written, handled, corrupted, spoken through the mouth of David and so on. As such, both Christ and Scripture can be said to be the logos of God. Only when they are understood to be revelations coming from different sources is there a problem. But if they are a mutual witness to one another then they each carry a mutual authority.
Summary
Grenz and Franke as well as Barth have rejected Scripture as an ultimate authority in favor of Christ. But as we have seen they can only do so by standing on Scripture as an objective and propositional revelation of God in Christ. They have set up a conflict between the authority of Christ and the authority of Scripture, a conflict set up by neither evangelicals nor Scripture. As long as the authority of Scripture is understood as an expression of the authority of Christ, seeing conflict between them is only a chimera.
I’ve got a post on the way addressing speech-act theory and “language games” that are said to make it problematic to do objective, truth-corresponding theology. Look next for John Meade’s post on the Canon of Scripture.
John,
Thanks for your post. It is not an easy thing to explain Grenz & Franke. The terms and ideas are so muddy.
I think your points of critique are excellent. How can one claim Christ as authority but dismiss the only source of information about him? How can one claim that scripture is the work of the Spirit and yet pit the two against one another?
The concern about “divinizing scripture” is one that only exists for those who claim that God cannot in any sense speak–that he can only “reveal” himself in Christ. That claim is strange and certainly has no foundation in scripture or reason. But I don’t quite understand. How can G&F claim that the Spirit works to speak to us through tradition, culture, and scripture, but still claim that any revelation from God must be in competition with Christ?
You metion that they critique an idea of “latent” authority of scripture. I don’t quite follow. What are they trying to say with that?
It seems that one of the things that G&F think of as a strength of their position is that they feel little or no compulsion to make sense. Actually, it is true that most people don’t pay any attention to how you get to your conclusions if your conclusions fit with what they want. G&F’s theology seems like a perfect recipe for providing a somewhat theological argument for absolutely anything you want.
KWR
I thought you were going to be more concise, John…
Actually, I thought this was a great post, for a number of reasons: First, you recognize that the sufficiency of scripture is not a self-explaning doctrine, but that it demands qualification. It needs to be linked to a purpose: scripture is sufficient for _something_. Also, it was good to see you address the “divinization” problem by appealing to the essentially divine AND human nature of the text. If liberals are infatuated with the human “problems” in scripture, evangelicals need to be respond better than swinging too far in the opposite direction. And lastly, it was helpful to hear some thoughtful, educated discussion about Grenz and Franke as they stand in relation to Barth.
Aside from these comments, I have a couple questions. You state that tradition should never function as any sort of authority in the lives of believers in any way. My question is whether or not this is actually possible. All sorts of things function as authorities in our lives (our senses, the laws of our country, etc.) without requiring us to question them, let alone shun their authority. In the same way, does not tradition inevitably function as a sort of authority, and do we really need to see a problem with that as long as scripture is our _ultimate_ authority, one that can change our traditions?
Also, must not the divine, and therefore ultimate, authority of scripture in some sense be traced back to the divine personal agent who inspired it? In other words, I’m not sure I see a problem with G&F’s hesitance to locate _ultimate_ authority in scripture alone. I do think they go astray when they locate such authority solely in the Holy Spirit as He reveals God in BOTH scripture AND tradition. But others have answered the question differently without going in this direction. For example, N.T. Wright’s recent (althought short) work on the authority of scripture attempts to do just this, although Carson (somewhat predictably) has criticized its argument, as well. In short, I wonder if a better trajectory would be to locate ultimate authority in the Word of God, who is first and foremost Jesus Christ, but also scripture (in which the gospel of Christ is revealed by way of a special and divinely inspired revelation), as well as the entire created order (which also testifies to God in a general way). Divine authority functions in different ways in each of these contexts, as one is a person, another is a text, and another is a creation. So in short, I guess I sympathize with G&F’s desire to transplant the authority of scripture to another location, although I would definitely do so in a different manner.
NC
Kevin,
By “latent authority” Grenz and Franke have in mind a view that Scripture is not a derivitive authority or that it does not get its authority from an outside source such as God or the Holy Spirit. Sometimes they seem to talk like some evangelicals actually believe this; other times they talk as though evangelicals act like this without actually acknowledging it. There is a major problem in their writing of not identifying their opponents.
As I pointed out, I don’t know of anyone who actually believes what they are arguing against. If there are people who hold a latent authority view then Grenz and Franke have garnered more publicity for the group than the group has for itself.
I do find that it may be the case occasionally that some evangelicals unwittingly make statements that can be construed to mean that Scripture is its own authority apart from God. For example, yesterday I received a piece of mail from The Trinity Foundation, an Orthodox Presby group founded, I believe, by Gordon Clark and presently run by John W. Robbins. On the outside of the envelope and at the top of the letterhead appeared a statement “The Bible alone is the Word of God.” I find this to be a highly misleading statement given the first eighteen verses of John’s gospel. But I can’t speak for Grenz and Franke as to whether this is the kind of group they have in mind. If so, then it isn’t exactly being fair to The Trinity Foundation. The group clearly believes that Scripture has its source in the Spirit of God who inspired it, and that Scripture has authority because God does.
So as you mention, Grenz and Franke ideas are very muddy. Until they can better identify their opponents (of course, it’s left to Franke now since Grenz has passed), their exact concerns will remain quite unclear. Still, some of *their* claims are clear enough for us to raise concern over them.
NC,
Thank you for your gracious comments. It helps us to know what you find positive as well as negative in our posts. Your questions are the right questions and exactly the kind we want to receive on these posts.
Emily hassled me about the length of this post as well. But I'll have you know that it is a whopping 1,100 words shorter than the inerrancy post.
Still, as she pointed out, just being short-er does not necessarily make it short.
I like your point that there are not just ultimate authorities but many fallible authorities in life as well. And I think perhaps John and I have pressed the matter of ultimate authority so much that we've not touched on fallible authorities. In the kind of authorities you mention (sense experience, government) we can question them but that doesn't change their authority. Take sense experience for example. If I dip a stick in water and it appears to bend, I can only question this experience on the basis of other experiences which in turn upholds the authority of sense experience. Similarly, we can question the governing authority of the state but we are still expected to follow it whether I think they are wrong or not (barring of course the issue of when the state expects us to disobey God). But I don't see tradition functioning like this. If I think tradition is wrong on the basis of Scripture I can reject it, but in doing so this doesn't mean I'm just following another tradition. I see tradition functioning very well as a guide, but I can't see any place where it can claim a right over me. Perhaps the closest we come to tradition holding authority is when we hold a doctrine or an interpretation of the text that no one in church history has ever held. This should produce in us extreme caution and cause us to ponder deeply why no one else has ever believed this.
I think Luther and Calvin are an appropriate model here. Sometimes I've gotten the impression from people teaching on Luther that he simply said damn tradition it all comes from the infernal Catholic church, I'm standing on the Scriptures! In reality though, when Luther was accused of reading the Bible in a way no one ever had before, he was deeply troubled by this questioned. Was it possible that he alone was right and all others wrong? This forced Luther to look again at the history of the church. He found much support, and interestingly enough, some of it came from the Orthodox church, but he found enough who were condemned throughout the ages of the Catholic church that he realized he was not the first to believe in justification by faith (though he acknowledged that it was the clearest in his own thought). But in this case he found continuity not with the tradition but with the heretics (Huss, Wycliffe, Orthodox church, etc), which was enough to resolve the plaguing question of whether he was the first to hold his view but not enough to function as an authority. Luther felt he only needed to answer the question of whether he was the first to see his interpretation and not whether he was in line with the tradition. Luther's conclusion was that a single uneducated layman with the Scriptures was to be believed above a thousand popes. Calvin's response to Sadoleto is similar. When Sadoleto accuses him of being out of line with the tradition Calvin responds by showing him all the places that he corresponds with the tradition but states that he only needs to agree with the Scriptures and not with the tradition.
Perhaps extreme caution in the face of a new interpretation or doctrine is what you mean when you speak of tradition functioning as an authority of some sort. If so, then I concur. If not, perhaps you can explain further how tradition would function as an authority under the authority of Scripture.
-John Fraiser
Hi, John….
Excellent post. I think strawman misrepresentations are used continually by more liberal theologians to bolster their own views. I’m very concerned about our British friend, Steven Harris, who left the charismatic movement. It seems to me that he’s jumped out of the anti-intellectual frying pan and into the fire of post modernist theology. May God grant him the grace to see this.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with tradition as long as we recognize that traditions are to be tested by Holy Scripture. If the tradition happens to be one that is “adiaphora” then we may permit it but if the tradition happens to be “repugnant” by the standard of Holy Scripture, then it is to be rejected. The problem with post modernists is that they wish to make post modernism the source of authority and post modernism is so relativistic and subjective that trying to figure anything at all out is like trying to pin jello to the wall.
I can’t help but thank God that Southern Baptist Seminary is turning out guys like yourself. Your writing is insightful and helpful to those of us looking for intellectual comrades in the battle against misrepresentation of Evangelicalism and the battle for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I was frustrated in both my college and my seminary experience because I could see that Pentecostal and Wesleyan Arminianism was not consistent with the holistic reading of Scripture. God surely has a sense of humor. Converting me to the Calvinist view while I was a student at a staunchly Arminian and Wesleyan seminary? Hah.
God bless,
Charlie
Sincerely in Christ,
Charlie
I forgot to mention that I read all of Carl F.H. Henry’s God, Revelation, and Authority a year or two ago. It was the most edifying systematic theology I’ve ever read. I wonder why more Evangelical seminaries don’t have it on their required reading list? What I love about Henry is he is able to critique the liberal, neo-orthodox, and postmodernist theologians and hit the point exactly. Unfortunately, during my seminary experience, these types of theologians were accepted at face value with little or not critical evaluation of their positions. I think Asbury is headed down the road of liberalism, though I wouldn’t say it has arrived at that point yet.
Sincerely in Christ,
Charlie
John F.,
Great discussion… I still find myself wondering, however, how one can somehow escape the mediating authority of tradition by appealing to the ultimate authority of scripture to correct our traditions. Simply rejecting a prior tradition because it doesn’t line up with our understanding of scripture doesn’t free us from the inevitability that we find ourselves in another tradition in its place. Indeed, the very act itself of interpreting scripture that would lead one to reject his tradition is embedded within another, possibly even entirely new, tradition. I guess what I might be trying to say is that I think there is much overlap between “tradition” and “context.” And insofar as we are unavoidably embedded within a context (or tradition), it will inevitably exercise an authority over us (another way of saying that it will influence us) that will preclude complete objectivity, thus preventing us from being able to appeal directly to the authority of scripture without any reference to our tradition. Obviously I don’t think this means that we can know nothing at all with certainty. But as Paul says in 1 Cor. 13:12, we see in a mirror dimly… clearly enough to know that the Christian tradition is the best one, but dimly enough to demand that we be constantly about the business of revising our Christian traditions as the corporate knowledge of the Church develops throughout history.
Also, you may have meant this, but I just wanted to clarify… Luther may not have found continuity with _mainstream_ tradition as it was represented in the early 16th century, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t find continuity with _any_ tradition. It seems as though what Luther actually found was a theological tradition of wrongly-condemned heresy which he ended up redeeming by adopting it as his own personal tradition and propelling it into the growing tradition of the Reformation.
I’m not sure where this takes our discussion… it seems to have wandered a bit off the topic of the sufficiency of scripture to reveal God, although perhaps it does demonstrate both how the sufficiency and the authority of scripture are closely linked, and how doctrines such as these need to be refined by ongoing dialogue with hermeneutical theory.
-Nate
Nate,
Your explanation of how you see tradition functioning authoritatively is very helpful. I agree that’s nearly impossible for someone to not alighn themselves with a tradition in some way. This is often the grounds of an accusation that sola scriptura undermines its own claim since the doctrine is itself a tradition (Though I’m not saying that’s the claim that you’re making). However, I find it necessary to distinguish between those who by holding to what they believe the Scriptures teach find themselves in line with a tradition and those who submit to what they hold to be an authoritative tradition (even if a fallible one). I also find it necessary to distinguish between the authority of tradition and being “unavoidably embedded within a context” of tradition’s influence. Without distinguishing them there’s nothing special about being embedded within the context of church tradition versus being embedded within the context of any other aspect of culture, say the context of science or the context of Louisville, etc. But most who want to claim an authority for tradition don’t do so by putting it on par with other cultural influences. I wouldn’t prefer myself to use the term “authority” to refer to church tradition’s influence on me. It’s certainly a different use than how most people use the term. But if all you mean by it is that church tradition has an influence then I agree. But this use of the term does not require that there is no part of tradition that I am required to obey whether I find it fallible or not (as in the case of government or sense experience). This is the use of the term I find at work in Grenz and Franke, although there’s some contradiction at work in their writings (a problem I attribute to their denial of foundationalism).
I’ll make one last point. Grenz and Franke claim that we need to listen to the spirit at work in tradition to help us interpret Scripture, but there’s a tacit assumption lurking nearby that tradition does not require interpeting itself. Or at least they do not discuss the method of interpreting tradition. They speak as though tradition is clear and Scripture is vague, thus we need tradition to help us interpet Scripture. I agree that tradition can help here, but we must also acknowledge the fact that tradition can sometimes be as difficult to interpret as Scripture. I recently read F.F. Bruce’s Canon of Scripture and was amazed at how many scholars differ in their in interpretations of the church fathers and the Reformers. Thanks for this helpful discussion.
-John Fraiser
Charlie –
Thanks for your comments. We are glad that you are writing intelligently on these issues as well.
Your word on Scripture “testing” traditions is also helpful. I think this is an aspect of Scripture’s authority and one other point which shows its ultimacy and place of the foundation of the Christian worldview. Thanks for the comment.
-John M
Well, John, I’m back… and I’ll be short in case you’d rather not pursue this much farther.
The reason I want to draw such a strong parallel between “tradition” and “context” is because I think there is an organic relationship between the concepts. As I said earlier, there is much overlap between the terms, and to the extent that there is overlap, what can be said about one can potentially be said about the other. It may be necessary to highlight the distinctions as you do, but I have to wonder why. I’m not suggesting that they’re synonymous. Moreover, the reason I draw the parallel in the first place is because it helps us rethink the way we conceive of our traditions. After all, isn’t being “unavoidably embedded within a context” just another way of saying that our contexts exercise a type of authority over us? If this is the case, then I have no problem taking the next step and saying that the tradition I am a part of exercises an authority over me. The reason this is important is because it explains how we can sometimes blindly follow our traditions when we’re not careful. Left on our own, we will surely follow the path of least resistance. It is imperative that we be aware of our traditions so that we can critique them and revolt from their authority when led to do so by a greater authority.
Also, I don’t think that this explanation logically entails me to put church tradition on par with other cultural influences. Other influences may exercise a similar authority, but they do this because they are other components of the context in which I live. The nature of the authority itself defines the significance of the particular influence. In this case, I would argue that the nature of my church tradition is such that it becomes more important than other cultural influences.
Let me know if this helps. I, for one, have appreciated the opportunity to formulate these thoughts, if no other benefit comes from this comment…
-Nate
Nate,
Do you see a difference between a cultural influence and an authority? You state that while tradition is a cultural influence, it is more important than other cultural influences. But why? Is this because of the work of the Spirit? Or because you spend more time under this influence than others? Or because you like this influence more than others? Or because this influence communicates the Scriptures more than others? Etc?
I can’t see how tradition is special once identified as a cultural influence. Perhaps you addresse this concern already. If so, I missed it. Maybe you could make it a little more plain for someone with occasionally poor reading comprehension. -John Fraiser
John,
I’ll try and explain myself in two ways.
Maybe my attempts to be brief are making my comments too ambiguous to be understood easily…
First, I think that our church traditions are a form of cultural influence for the simple reason that religion is a part of culture. They all form components of our context. As I also said, however, the nature of my church tradition demonstrates that it is ultimately supreme over other, less “Spirited” (a phrase from Vanhoozer) cultural components. Here’s a quote from Vanhoozer that might help: “Tradition, inasmuch as it is a work of the Spirit preserving and prolonging the word, is indee authoritative. Yet its authority is derivative — ministerial, not magisterial. While tradition may be inevitable, it is also corrigible; we cannot presume that there is always a coincidence between the work of the Spirit and what a particular church does” (208). Also: “Church tradition enjoys the authority that attaches to the testimony of many witnesses. In this light, we may view the church fathers and church councils as expert witnesses as to the sense of Scripture in the courtroom drama of doctrine. Neither the Fathers nor the councils sit on the bench; the triune God has the final say. The task of theology is to cross-examine the witnesses in order to offer procimate judgments under the aultimate authority of the presiding judge; the Spirit speaking in the Scriptures” (234).
Secondly, and conversely, I want to maintain that church tradition is a form of cultural influence precisely because we are called to be salt and light within our greater cultural context. My guess is that as long as we are on this planet, we are unavoidably embedded within a culture. Identifying church tradition as a type of cultural influence (albeit, a “Spirited” influence) then gives us a framework for engaging our greater cultural context with the particular “gospel culture” that we identify ourselves with.
Nate,
Thanks for the helpful clarifications. I take you to be saying that while tradition is part of culture and has an influence on us it has a special status as an influence because of the work of the Spirit in the church. I am in complete argeement, but where I still don’t see a connection is between the Spirit’s work in the church as an influence and the Spirit’s work in the church as an authority. How in your estimation does this authority function? Is it an influence alone or is there a normative standard to this authority whereby I must submit my thought and behavior. I realize you do not think that church tradition is always an authority beneath the authority of Scripture, but do you also think that anywhere tradition does not conflict with Scripture that it must be obeyed? It would seem that this is how tradition would have to function if it is to be more than a cultural influence. If not, then I find using the term “authority” as a reference to tradition’s cultural influence to be rather idiosyncratic.
John-
I think we’re on the same page. I think I still want to associate “authority” with church tradition for technical reasons (all influences are in some sense or another authoritative), but I think I can still do this and subsume church tradition under the authority of scripture, and even under the authority of individual or corporate reason. This kind of thing happens all the time. Whenever we support a belief we might hold with an historical argument from the history of the church, we are in effect appealing to the authority of tradition. At the same time, because our perception of the Spirit’s guiding presense in church history is fallible, I don’t think that we are bound to follow church tradition wherever it doesn’t conflict with scripture. But this need not reduce church tradition to a mere cultural influence, because, unlike other cultural influences, church tradition is the history of the Spirit’s saving activity in the Church.
Nate,
I think you’re right that we’re on the same page. I think that the difference is mostly semantic. I’m happy with that. Now if I followed modern linguistic theory that words have inherent meaning, then “them’d be fightin’ words.” But since we assign meaning to words then I’m ok with us having a different vocabularly. I’m glad to know that you don’t view tradition as a normative standard where Scripture is silent.
Well, actually I was going to propose during our next church member’s meeting that we reinstate the alter-call because all good Southern Baptist churches have one…
But seriously, I think discussions like this one are beneficial because they can often teach us to appreciate another person’s perspective… especially when you find out in the end that you really do agree with each other.