theophiliacs

NOTE: This post is part of a larger series discussing Ecclesial Authority

Part I: Introduction

Part II: Scripture

Part III: Tradition

Part IV: History/Reason

Part V: Personal and Communal Experience

Part VI: Authority Revisited (UNFINISHED)

There’s a reason these thoughts find their way to you as a blog post and not as an essay. As I see it, essays are for telling people what you think, how you thought it, and perhaps why they should consider thinking it too. Blog posts, however, take you right to the middle of the struggle—to that place in the formation of the essay when a person still doesn’t know what to believe, is still unaware of their own presuppositions, and doesn’t know where they’ll end up. I see this dilemma as a fundamental problem confronting my faith. I hope that this discussion will help me in reaching a resolution. (A quick survey of the internets revealed that blogs are often also used for feminine lament, celebrity gossip, and angry rants against Sarah Palin. Though I might have much to add to these discussions, I’ll try to avoid them here.)

This post is about Authority in the church. Authority is necessary for creating unity, finding identity, and resolving disputes. It’s my hope that at the end of this journey I will be able to decipher a solution to this dilemma.

Fully admitting I have a lot to learn about Ecclesiology, I’ve none-the-less broken down what I see as the four Alternatives vying for the place of chief Authority in the church. If they sound familiar it’s because I based this off of the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral.”

While most Christians would admit that each of these must be present in the Church, they vary as to which will hold the trump card when two or more of the Alternatives disagree with each other. Below I have listed these four, attempted to distinguish (broadly) the faith traditions that hold to them as Chief Authority, outlined their basic argument and listed what I see as pros and cons of their position. At the end I will explain what I hope to see come from this discussion.

Finally, I will admit that I carry a number of presuppositions into this post. Most obviously are those that God exists, I connect with him through the Church, and that the life and death of Jesus has some sort of spiritual significance for my life. These play out probably most obviously below in what I call Pros and Cons. For many, what I might consider a negative for one Alternative, they might actually believe to be a positive, and vice versa. While I’d like to concentrate more on what I’ve posted here, if someone wants to question me on these presuppositions I’m not opposed to discussing them.