href="#ulink_7878608a-3332-5b5c-9797-09c71d2c2d51">14 It leads us into complex problems of interpretation. See below, chapters X and XI.
15 The evidence for this is presented in Robert M. Grant, The Interpretation of the Bible. Chapters III and IV.
16 II Peter 3:15,16.
17 Ibid.
18 II Peter 1:17-18.
19 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, III. 3. 4-5.
20 Evidence for this is readily available. See J. Stevenson, A New Eusebius. pp. 144-146, 337-340.
21 Our list of twenty-seven books appears in the proceedings of the synod of Laodicea (AD. 363) and again in the proceedings of the synod of Carthage (AD. 397). A council held in Rome in AD 382 under Damasus agreed.
22 This is the language of Irenaeus. Cf. J. Stevenson, op. cit., pp. 97-98.
23 Christopher Evans, Is ‘Holy Scripture’ Christian? and Other Questions.
24 Ibid., p. 24.
25 D. H. Kelsey, The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology. pp. 105, The theological judgment that precisely these writings are canonical is an analytic rather than a contingent judgment. For historical judgments are contingent and uncertain. (Footnote 16).
SUMMARY OF CHAPTER III -
AUTHORITY
There is an important distinction between investing books with authority, and recognizing them as having authority. In the latter case, the book commends itself for what it does, for the function it has in the life of the Christian community. It thus has an intrinsic authority, whoever its author was. The Bible has historical priority in its connection with the Christ-event. The apostolicity of the New Testament books, for example, means their effectiveness in the church and their historical position as primary witness to the Christ-event. Authority and recognition of authority are correlative. Here it is not a matter of demonstration.
III. AUTHORITY: INFLUENCE AND ACCEPTANCE
1 STAGES IN THE FORMATION OF THE CANON
Christians call their Scriptures the ‘Holy Bible’. They also speak of God as holy, the ‘holy one’, and claim that holiness is a special attribute of God. They also claim that if creatures are holy, they are holy because they derive their holiness from God’s holiness. Whatever is holy has derived what holiness it has from its source in God. We are then to be warned at the outset, for good theological reasons, against the idea of a book which has an intrinsic holiness, that is a holiness in and of itself and independent of God. We shall be expounding the idea of a ‘dynamic’ authority. We shall relate Scripture to what goes on in the church and in the world. In this case the term ‘authority’ connotes something dynamic and not static. It connotes not a property but a relationship. It is, in brief, a relational term.
The point at issue here is whether the church is the primary authority which invests these books with authority, or whether the Scriptures have the capacity to evoke a recognition of their own uniqueness. These books came to be recognized as Scripture and others did not. To say that they came to be recognized is not the same as saying that they came to be invested with authority. To invest the books with authority would mean to impose on them something which they did not possess before being so invested. It would entail that there was some already accepted authority in the community that could impose authority on these writings. That is not the sort of authority appropriate in the case of the Bible. Authority is not a property to be conveyed. These writings do not need authentication from without.
The important issue can be brought out by contrasting the very different meanings of the following two sentences:
The Bible is now to be recognized because it has been invested with authority
The authority which the Bible has has now been recognized.
The Church did draw up a list of books. By so doing it included some and excluded many. What was happening? Was the Church giving to, i.e. bestowing on these books a status which they did not already have? Or, was it recognizing a status they in fact already had? Even if one were to answer that the Church at a point (say in the fourth century) invested books with an authority they did not previously have, we would still have to ask how this came about and why it was done. Who approved the books and for what reasons? For what purposes were such books approved? Was the move an authentic one? If so how can it be authenticated? That pushes the question one stage further back. Before the books were formally declared, by being included on a list, to be ‘Scripture,’ to have authority, someone had already recognized them and approved them. What was the basis of such recognition and approval? The answer that the books gain authority for the reason that they are included on a list will not do. To get on the list they have already been recognized and approved.
The idea of a canon and of canonical authority is quite different from the idea of the authentication of the writings on the basis of what they themselves contain. To call a book or a set of books canonical is to invest them with authority. A book is not invested with a spiritual or a religious authority because it appears on a list of approved books. ‘Why are they approved and what for?’ That is the question which leads us to examine the facts of the case.
We might distinguish three stages in the formation of a canon of Scripture. First, the writings establish themselves on the score of their contents. Second, they establish themselves as authoritative on the score of their authors. Third, they are authoritative because they belong to an authoritative list. ‘Authoritative’ now means ‘canonical,’ and ‘canonical’ means ‘belonging to the canon.’ First, that is to say, a book commends itself, and holds its place because it makes profound religious sense, as in the case of the writings of Paul. This Evans calls ‘self-authentication,’ and sees it as the primary and decisive criterion. What that particular term means and whether it is satisfactory we shall have to inquire. At all events, to consider this as a criterion we must focus on the book itself and find the reason for its having authority by considering its content and its influence. Its authority is in itself and not in something else asserted of it or imposed upon it. The writing speaks for itself. The community responds to these writings, finding satisfaction in them and getting guidance from them. The community recognises them for the help they had provided and were providing. ‘These are the writings that build us up and give us guidance we can understand and act upon.’ That is sufficient reason for saying they have a special status. This is the way the community speaks about the writings after they have spoken for themselves. They have a special status because they perform a special function.
The Bible does not become something that it was not. It gets recognised for what it is. There are analogies. A great scientist does not become a great scientist only when he is recognised as such. He is then simply acknowledged for what he already is. It is not like the conferring of an academic degree. You were not a Doctor of Philosophy. But now you are. But you would not have been if the university had not conferred the degree upon you. With
