Jesus was one of a long line of people who submitted to God. So did Adam, so did Abraham, so did Moses, so did David. They each demonstrated submission to God in their own context.

What follows is an excerpt from an online correspondence I had with a friend–who is a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church–about some deep issues such as authority, hierarchy, tradition, Orthodoxy, knowledge and faith. It was a great discourse. I learned a lot about the Orthodox Church (which I like very much) and we agreed on a lot. Our biggest disagreement was on the topic of authority. I use the phrase “non-contingent authority” quite a bit, by which I mean ‘an authority that is transcendent or without context, and that does not change and is not allowed to be negotiated with.’ In this excerpt I respond to a few questions posed by my friend.

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So…like I said earlier–and I want to be clear here–I’m not against authority/submission. I believe they both exist and that we can’t escape them. But–and I think you would agree here–something only has authority if we give it authority. The Bible, for instance, is only meaningful (and authoritative) to those individuals or communities of people who assign meaning to it. There are plenty of people walking around today who have no use for the Bible, and would definitely NOT consider it authoritative.

Before I go any further, here is what I’m not saying: I am not saying there is no value or purpose in the Universe. I’m not nihilistic, but, as post-modernism has shown us, we have to admit that value relativism is true to some degree. That does not mean that we don’t put stakes in the ground along the way.

To your questions (I’ll save your toughest one for last).

Q:
If there are no non-contingent authorities, and it is really just about whatever the collective contingent rules of the day are, why not accept whatever society says is ok?

A:
This is, actually, exactly how it works. S. McIntosh defines values as “shared societal agreements that generally arise out of the struggle to find solutions to the problematic life conditions faced by those who participate in a given worldview. Each stage of culture thus develops a discrete set of values that are tailored to its location along the time-line of human history. This is one reason why values are ‘location specific’ — as life conditions change with the progress of cultural evolution, that which is most valuable for producing further evolution likewise changes.”

As humans evolved, so did our purposes, and so did our values. McIntosh designates three particular values which could be considered primary values: beauty, truth and goodness. That is to say, in every culture, something is considered good, something is considered beautiful and something is considered true. McIntosh again:

“these are the fundamental values that have been recognized since antiquity as the intrinsic qualities from which all values are essentially derived. Just as a million shades of color can be mixed from three primaries, so too can a million shades of quality be traced back to these primary values.”

So, we have our values, and we understand that they are, somewhat, location specific, i.e. different cultures, depending on where they are “developmentally,” may have different blends of the three primary values. The question of where the three primary values originally come from, however, can be answered in different ways depending on your worldview I suppose. You could–and many people do–split the world into “purposeless nature” and “purposeful humanity” (ignoring the significance of animals). But I, along with Plato, Whitehead and McIntosh, find it impossible to ignore the Divine Eros, pulling us toward greater levels of beauty, truth and goodness. This God, however, is not super-natural. In fact, this God is the exact opposite.

Here is how I understand the difference between values and morals: morals do not determine values, values form morals (which is why I explained value first). Morality is more or less a system of belief that is taught in order to determine right from wrong (think, the Ten Commandments).

Q:
If there are no non-contingent authorities, especially scripture, and Church teaching/doctrine, what keeps Christianity, Christianity?

A:
Why couldn’t Church communities decide amongst themselves? This gets back to my hang-up with one tradition claiming primacy over the Christian story and artifacts (I guess it’s a bigger hang-up for me than I thought). We all know there was a multiplicity of Christian communities in the early centuries; some empathized different teachings, some had different beliefs. Some wanted unification, some didn’t. I do think that there is a way to have a faithful Jesus following life which allows one to know God as we are intended to by Christ without having to submit to a non-contingent authority. The football game metaphor is a good one. The rules of the game are only relevant in the context of the game. Likewise, Christian Communities come together in a particular moment and location in time, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, they decide amongst themselves what is authoritative (of course referencing the Wisdom and tradition handed down over time), and they live out that Jesus shaped life in communion with each other and with God.

Q:
“Does Jesus, Paul, anywhere in the New Testament, any early Christian writers (again prior to 290AD) teach that there are such things as non-contingent (non-changing) authorities?”

A:
I honestly don’t know if or where Paul, or any early Christian writers, address the subject of contingent/non-contingent authority–I’d have to research that I guess. I will say that I actually like how Catholics talk about Cannon functioning as a sort of “democracy of the dead,” and I agree that decisions should not be only made by those who are walking around today. There is indeed great wisdom that has been collected and handed down to us over the history of the Church. But again, I tend to consider Paul and the early Church fathers/Church tradition to be “authoritative” in the sense that they are profitable for teaching, correction, and training in righteousness. I still feel that all the pieces of the authority structure should play by the same rules. Paul, unfortunately, can’t be negotiated with. And I wasn’t at the council of Nicea. If I was, there may have been a different outcome. In the end, my voice matters and so does yours.

Q:
“Is Jesus a non-contingent authority?”

A:
This was the toughest question for me. I would say that, yes, Jesus effectively demonstrates how to live a life of constant submission to God. But, Jesus is not the only one who does this. For instance, Jesus came from a deep tradition of people who submitted to God. So did Adam, so did Abraham, so did Moses, so did David. They each demonstrated submission to God in their own context. If one considers Jesus to be God (as I do), then his example is all the more powerful–God submitted to us on the cross.

The Church Fathers are helpful here, in fact. Perichoresis is a fine example of what I’ve been talking about. The Trinity could be thought of as a harmonious set of relationships in which there is mutual, and constant, giving and receiving. The Son submits to the Father, the Father to Sophia Wisdom (Holy Spirit), and so on and so forth. This relationship is dynamic, interactive, and most of all, loving.

 

Tags:authorityEastern OrthodoxyfaithhierarchyJesusknowledgeontologypowerSteve McIntoshtraditionvalue