to do. They socialize us into a tradition of values, beliefs and behaviour, and having accepted that tradition we may never question its validity. We have our authorities handed to us. It is precisely because we have received them in this way, without engaging in a serious process of rational justification, that we feel greatly threatened when we are confronted with alternatives. Do we entrench or do we explore? Shall we give consideration to the criticisms or shall we dismiss them without further ado?2 Max Weber33 recognizes another form of authority which he calls charismatic authority. An exceptional leader, endowed with outstanding persuasive qualities, gets a following. Such qualities as he manifests are seen as if supernatural, or superhuman. They set the leader apart from ordinary mortals, and make belief, loyalty, devotion and obedience easy and natural.
3 But we do not need to be impressed by such outstanding personalities to accept our beliefs on authority. Most of what we believe comes from other people’s testimony. We have not ourselves been in a position to test all the claims we accept. Nor ever shall. We are usually not inclined to test them. We simply accept them. Such acceptance works and we live together constructively. It was Bishop Butler who said that ‘probability is the guide to life’. We must act on the evidence we have. We can’t prove everything. In fact, we cannot prove much. We have to take things on trust. Our trust is shown to be reasonable in that when we act on probabilities that things go right and not wrong. Many things we simply accept. We couldn’t get along if we didn’t.
4 But human beings, even the most exceptional of human beings, and even human beings under the influence of the divine, are fallible, limited and. suggestible. Suppose there were a human being who was infallible and at the same time was limited. Such a logical possibility is very relevant to the subject under discussion. We can think of an infallibility which extends to some matters and not to others, just as we think of an authority in some areas and not in others. I mean, It is conceivable that someone be infallible about some things but not about others. We can distinguish between total and partial infallibility. ‘He’s never wrong when he’s talking about such-and-such’ could be inferred from ‘He’s never been known to be wrong when he has talked about such-and-such.’ If we keep within the limits we could accept his authority.But if we began asking him questions beyond the limits within which he is infallible, that person would be of little help, indeed might even be misleading, if not irrelevant. That would certainly be the case if he were not infallible and we took him to be so, and it was important for us that he be right.
5 Authorities sometimes conflict. Which, if any of them, are you going to accept? When authorities conflict you have to decide between them. You can start with a high-sounding claim, ‘The Bible says so and so.’ And so it does. But one authority says that the Bible means this, and another says the Bible means that, and yet another says the Bible means something else when the Bible says so and so. When the authority, in this case the Bible, gives rise to such divergence in interpretation the individual will have to choose between the secondary authorities. I’ll choose my secondary authority, and repose my confidence there. But that only slides the issue along the corridor where I’ll meet it again. For why should I repose such confidence in that secondary authority rather than in another one? I have not settled, only shelved, the question of authority. This problem is acute when there is a conflict between interpretations, when for example contradictory doctrinal conclusions are constructed and presented as the biblical teaching.. Of course, a passage may be set in different contexts and speak to different situations without providing the problem of conflict.
6 Religious believers sometimes combine authoritarianism with scepticism.34 They will sometimes say, ‘The authority is so sacred that we must not question it.’ Neither must we try to establish it, give reasons for it. It does not permit, nor require, proof nor even support.’ Such authoritarianism has its particular psychological appeal and that is the main reason why it persists. The intellectually timid or indolent are sometimes quite happy to let others do their thinking for them and believe what they are told to believe. They ask ‘What do we believe?’ and then demand, ‘Please tell me.’ rather than seeking the truth for themselves. They enjoy conforming and the freedom from responsibility such conformity brings. Such a person ‘may be more comfortable, for the search after wisdom often brings sorrow and disillusionment. . . . Better to raise one’s eyes to the sky and seek humbly for the truth, even though the search result in failure and unhappiness, than to give our beliefs into the keeping of another.’35
The sinister counterpart to such conformity is a belief in the virtue of conformity. That may lead to the opposition and persecution of those who quest for truth by those who are certain that they have found it. The will to dominate requires the will to conform. One psychological type supplements the other.
The appeal to the sacredness of the text of Scripture is one example of this type of conformity, of this type of submission. One must not question a sacred text. But questions arise. Once admit the sacredness of the text and one is then free from the responsibility of answering questions that inevitably arise in relation to that text. It may then happen that the purported sacredness of the text gets projected on to the interpreter so that the interpretation is itself put beyond question.
It is the initial step which must be questioned, the initial acceptance of the authority, in this case the text of Scripture, as untouchable, as beyond question. What if any is the rational ground for taking this decisive step in the first place? Or is it irrational? At what point does one refuse to give reasons for one’s belief ?
5 THE EFFECTS OF THE BIBLE
It is as the Bible is effective within the church that the church is in a position to acknowledge its authority. It is when God has made his presence known within the church that the church is in a position to confess his present reality. As God’s presence becomes known through the instrumentality of the Bible, the church confesses the authority of the Bible. This means that the ‘question’ of the Bible’s ‘authority’ is a question about an answer which has already been found.
It is when the individual acknowledges the Bible as the means of God’s word, the avenue through which he ‘speaks’ to the individual and to the church as a community, as something which
has become real to one in one’s experience, that one can recognize the authority of the Bible. It is then a real and living thing. If the question of its authority comes up one then knows what the appropriate answer is. The Bible has exerted influence, has produced certain effects. You acknowledge that it has done so and agree that it has authority. This authority cannot be imposed upon you. You assent to it, agree that it is this way. In your acknowledgment you recognize something which comes to you. You do not constitute the Bible authoritative because and when you recognize it to have authority.
The authority of the Bible is ‘acceptable in the sense that, while independent of the person upon whom it imposes itself, it secures the assent of that person.’36 The person does not assent because some authority insists that the Bible must be believed. The believer should not be irrational. The believer acknowledges the Bible because it has become the instrument through which God has made himself known, whatever other instruments or agents may have been involved in the process. The Bible is a constant factor in the complex process which results in the Christian confession of faith. The term ‘assent’ therefore is rather misleading.
6 ACCEPTANCE, RECOGNITION
The believer responds, makes a judgment. He is aware of and responsible for what he hears and experiences of the word of God. In saying this we avoid one-sidedness. The Bible is not an external authority imposed on the believer by another external authority. If it can be and sometimes is, the believer himself being a willing accessory in the process, that is to misunderstand. It is to avoid this, while not reducing the word of God, or the testimony of the Spirit, to the believer’s or the church’s experience, we must hold firmly to two complementary assertions when we speak of the authority of the Bible:
1 Its authority
