Law, Liberty and Church

Authority and Justice in the Major Churches in England

Gordon Arthur

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317107460
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Law, Liberty and Church examines the presuppositions that underlie authority in the five largest Churches in England - the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church and the Baptist Union. Examining what has influenced their development, and how the patterns of authority that exist today have evolved, Gordon Arthur explores the contributions of Scripture, Roman Legal Theory, and Greek Philosophy. This book shows how the influence of Roman legal theory has caused inflexibility, and at times authoritarianism in the Roman Catholic Church; it explores how the influence of reason and moderation has led the Church of England to focus on inclusiveness, often at the cost of clarity; it expounds the attempts of the Free Churches to establish liberty of conscience, leading them at times to a more democratic and individualistic approach. Finally Arthur offers an alternative view of authority, and sets out some of the challenges this view presents to the Churches.

Chapter 1

Authority in the New Testament

Introduction

At the outset of this enquiry, it will help to set out the distinction between authority and power. Dictionaries are not always helpful in this context: The Collins English Dictionary includes in its definitions of power: ‘control or dominion or a position of dominion, or authority’. Its definition of authority begins: ‘the power or right to control, judge or prohibit the actions of others’.1 This illustrates the connection between power and authority well, but does nothing to clarify the distinction. Paul M. Harrison (1959) defines power as ‘the ability to carry out one’s will despite the inertia or resistance of others; it is the ability to influence or control the actions of others even though there is no institutional sanction for this control’.2 Authority, by contrast, is ‘formalized or institutionally recognized power’.3 T.A. Lacey (1928) argues that authority is personal and moral, not official and legal, while power is the reverse.4 Authority, then, is power combined with authorisation: those with authority have the right to exercise power, and are accountable to those who authorise them to act.

Richard T. de George (1985) explores the nature and limits of authority. He distinguishes between several types of executive and non-executive authority. My main concern in this study is with executive authority. While it is clear that Church leaders often have great moral authority, and other authors I cite later will refer to some types of non-executive authority, such as epistemic, competence or exemplary authority5 (Church leaders often have such authority as a result of their personality or training), my main concern here is with the way the Churches make decisions and exercise discipline. Legitimate executive authority in the Church is, in my view, operative authority, and it is generally performatory, rather than imperative. While in some situations it may be necessary for the Church to issue directives and those who do so may carry imperative authority, they cannot legitimately use coercion to implement these directives.

The nature of authority in the Church is central to how the Church understands herself. Most branches of the Church believe they take their concept of authority largely from Scripture. They believe that all authority comes ultimately from God, the creator, redeemer and sustainer of the Universe. Christ, as founder, has authority over the Church, but He passed on some of that authority to the disciples during His earthly ministry. He gave them authority to bind and loose sins (both on earth and in heaven), and He told them that they would sit on thrones in His Kingdom, judging the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The Church claims that she is the inheritor of this authority. Some Churches believe that the apostles handed down this authority to their successors and they to theirs: that the Apostolic Succession is at the root of Ecclesiastical Authority. Others, which do not recognise this version of the Apostolic Succession, believe their authority comes directly from Scripture. We shall explore these views in more detail later, but first we must set out what the New Testament has to say on the subject. Since the focus of this study is authority in the Church, I shall limit the discussion to places where the New Testament talks of the exercise of power and authority by humans within the Christian community. I shall omit passages that instruct Christians to obey secular rulers or talk of powers in the heavenly realms. While there are a number of terms used to denote authority in the New Testament, the most important of these for our purposes are dunamis and exousia, which can refer to both human and spiritual powers. We shall examine how the New Testament writers use these words. While recognising that both have a much wider range of meanings, we shall concentrate on their application to the organisation of the Church.

Authority and Power

The primary meaning of dunamis is the ability or capacity to do something. It signifies power and competence.6 In the New Testament, the focus of this power is Jesus, who bears the power of God through the Holy Spirit.7 Luke in particular sees the Messiah in terms of His prophetic power, rather than as the traditional Kingly Messiah of the Old Testament. He therefore emphasises that God’s essence is power, and so endowment with power is linked with the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is able to exercise that power, thereby revealing His exousia. Luke also follows the general Synoptic usage, which sees the miracles as acts of power, through which God’s dominion invades the world through the person of Jesus Christ. John’s Gospel, while in accord with this, places more emphasis on the uniqueness of Christ and also emphasises that the power expressed in the Christ-event is the active power of God, initiating the new aeon and supporting Christ in His whole existence. This power is particularly demonstrated in His death, resurrection and exaltation. It will be fully demonstrated at His return.

The apostles, who were given power and authority (dunamin kai exousian) and sent out to preach the Gospel and to heal the sick,8 stood in the place of Jesus and continued His work. This power was the power of Christ, which He possessed during His earthly ministry, and as such, it was the power of God. Jesus expressly promised this power to the disciples through the presence of the Holy Spirit.9 The purpose of this power is to develop and build up the community, in which those in bondage to sin and guilt can be released, and faith can be nurtured. As Christ is present in these communities,10 they also share in His power, which protects and preserves the community, while transforming and strengthening it, bringing about a lasting and indissoluble relationship with Christ. This relationship in turn feeds into the conduct of the community, which develops a new way of life, that of Christian love. This power can also express itself through the gifts of the Spirit, including miraculous works and healing.11

Exousia, by contrast, denotes the ability to perform an action to the extent that there are no hindrances in the way, as distinct from dunamis, which as we have seen denotes intrinsic ability. It also indicates authorisation given by a higher power, but this authority may be illusory unless the agent so authorised or the authorising power has the intrinsic ability (dunamis) to enforce any such actions. It is therefore often impossible to separate exousia from dunamis entirely. The latter sense of exousia, as authorisation, either by God or by human authorities, predominates in the New Testament. It is also used in the plural to describe authorities such as the Sanhedrin and officials of the Roman government.

Specifically, in the New Testament, it represents the power that decides, and that is active within a legally ordered context. It can also denote the freedom given to the community. Taking these in turn, exousia signifies first the absolute possibility of action that belongs to God alone, and of which He is the source. This exousia is demonstrated supremely in the Creation, which bears witness both to the existence and the exousia of the Creator. Secondly, the exousia and power of God are demonstrated within the sphere of nature, which is seen as an ordered totality. However, authority of this sort is not limited to God. Revelation speaks of angels and scorpions having authority, and Acts talks of Satan having authority.12 Creaturely authority, however, is limited.

Jesus as God has unrestricted, divinely given power and authority to act. He freely chooses to exercise this authority in accordance with the will of the Father. This authority is universal, but it applies particularly to humanity. Jesus chose to exercise this authority through a life of service, and by laying down His life for humanity. This was a free choice, and He claimed authority from the Father to receive His life back again in the Resurrection.13 Thus, exousia does not just designate authority, it also carries the connotation of freedom, that the Son has authority to act on behalf of the Father and is free to choose how He exercises that authority.14 In the Great Commission, Jesus claims full authority in heaven and on earth, indicating His exaltation as Christ and Lord.15

As man, Jesus expressed His authority by forgiving sins, expelling demons and healing the sick, activities for which both exousia and dunamis were necessary. His teaching also carried exousia, in the sense that it was prophetic, which distinguished it sharply from the teaching of the scribes,16 who shared the common view at the time that there were no longer any prophets, and therefore saw their own teaching as exposition not prophecy. This prophetic preaching claimed divine authority, to which Jesus’ signs and miracles bore witness. It therefore presupposed a divine commission, and the power and authority that go with it, to preach that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. There is therefore an intimate link between the bearer of divine authority, the power of healing and forgiveness, and the presence of the Kingdom of God. When applied to the Church, the essential feature of authority is that the Church owes its existence and nature to Christ, Who enables the faithful to enter the Kingdom and to act on His behalf. This authority cannot be used in an arbitrary manner: it must be used responsibly, in accordance with His will. In particular, exousia refers to the freedom the community of the faithful receives to live under grace, and not according to the Law. While all things are permitted to believers, not all things are beneficial,17 and Paul urged the Corinthian Christians not to allow their liberty (exousia) to become a stumbling block for the weak,18 or to develop into authoritarianism. This liberty is not freedom to do as one likes: it is freedom from sin to serve and glorify God.

With this in mind, we first consider the passages in the New Testament that speak directly of the exercise of human authority within the Christian community and in the Kingdom, of which the Church can be seen as the herald. All but one of these passages are from the Gospels, because in general, the epistles, particularly those written before the Gospels, tend to be less specific about what authority in the Church entails. Paul, for example, urges leaders to lead diligently and to act as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries, and urges the people to respect their leaders,19 but does not develop the theme further. Hebrews exhorts the faithful to respect and obey their leaders, but offers no guidance on how they should lead.20 The writer to Timothy commends good leaders as worthy of a double stipend, and offers advice about how to deal with a number of specific pastoral situations, but beyond urging gentleness, does not appear to offer a theory of authority.21 We must therefore concentrate on the Gospel accounts, which offer more detailed principles for Church government, and which the Churches acknowledge as the foundations for their theologies of authority.

The New Testament

Matthew 16:17–19

Davies and Allison (1991) believe that, while the surrounding material comes from Q...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Authority in the New Testament
• 2 Authority in the Major English Churches
• 3 Justice in the Bible, Roman Law and Greek Philosophy
• 4 Roman Canon Law, Power and Justice
• 5 English Canon Law Since the Reformation
• 6 Liberty, Democracy and Individualism
• 7 Do the Free Churches Also Have Canon Law?
• 8 Where Now?
• Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index