AUTHORITY

Since everything ultimately rises to the level of a question of authority. I thought I’d quickly state mine before I move on to more controversial statements of what I believe, that way you will know where I come from. I will state that I have not found any other viable epistemological system to account for our knowledge which answers all the questions that such systems inevitably raise. For me this comes the closest.

1. There exist in the world various ancient historical documents.

2. Some of these historical documents speak about a man called Jesus Christ.

3. Through the age of these historical documents relative to their composition and the shear volume of existing manuscripts spread across the then known world, we can be sure that these accounts of Christ are more accurate than any other works of ancient history. In other words they accurately depict what real eye witnesses said they saw and heard concerning the life and teaching of Jesus. Other ancient manuscripts depict the radical result that Jesus’ teaching and life had on His followers which subsequently transformed the society in which they lived. This moment of a dozen or so peasants from Palestine so dramatically changed history that the world was never the same again.

4. Due to this testimony of the events surrounding Christ’s life, death and resurrection, I have believed what Jesus has said about Himself.

5. One of the things which Jesus claimed to do while here on earth was to establish a Church. This Church is described as both the mystical Body and Bride of Christ who will be with Him in heaven (the invisible church) and a real earthly institution with real authority to determine doctrinal issues and solve real problems within the Church (the visible church).

6. In a perfect world these two aspects of the Church would overlap perfectly; however since this world is not perfect these two aspects of the Church sometimes vary dramatically.

7. This unified Church mysteriously hears the voice of the shepherd and knows the mind of God, and just because the two aspects of the Church do not line up completely does not in any means take away from this reality.

8. We look in history for the existence of this Church, and we find through other ancient documents that this Church did indeed come into existence, and did indeed speak on a myriad of topics and has subsequently been accepted by all true followers of Christ.

9. One of the many things this Church believed it received from God was the Canon of written Scripture, and over the course of a few centuries with relatively few and minor problems that Canon became settled and universally held. Through this whole process the Church believed that it had heard the voice of her Bridegroom, and that this was a mystery.

11. We also know through ancient documents that this Church met from time to time and established certain creeds and statements to which the Church eventually universally ascribed. And even though this process appeared outwardly to be politicized and unguided, God directs His church in mysterious ways, and through all of this the Church believed that it had heard the voice of the Bridegroom.

12. It is a universal belief of the Church that man is fallen. It is my belief that if left to himself, man will twist and misapply the Scripture to serve his own ends, as we have seen repeatedly in our own time. This is why we need one another and more importantly all those saints who have gone before to counter this tendency. It is the Church both past and present which is the pillar and ground of the truth; and therefore, it is mainly in and through the context of the Church (and through its creeds, catechisms and confessions) that the Scriptures are to be correctly interpreted. This Church is the universal Church which stretches across all cultural and historical boundaries. This is the Faith once for all entrusted to the saints.

13. It is incumbent to anyone interpreting Scripture outside of these well settled universal beliefs to provide extraordinary proof of their error. The burden rests squarely on the individual who raises novel doctrines and/or beliefs to show that they are indeed correct. This should be an extraordinarily high burden to carry.