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This article was downloaded by: [New York University] On: 19 November 2014, At: 10:01 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Religious Education: The official journal of the Religious Education Association Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urea20 THE CHANGING NATURE OF AUTHORITY Robert Worth Frank Published online: 28 Jul 2006. To cite this article: Robert Worth Frank (1928) THE CHANGING NATURE OF AUTHORITY, Religious Education: The official journal of the Religious Education Association, 23:8, 774-779, DOI: 10.1080/00344080280230812 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00344080280230812 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub- licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly

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This article was downloaded by: [New York University]On: 19 November 2014, At: 10:01Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Religious Education: The officialjournal of the Religious EducationAssociationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urea20

THE CHANGING NATURE OFAUTHORITYRobert Worth FrankPublished online: 28 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Robert Worth Frank (1928) THE CHANGING NATURE OF AUTHORITY,Religious Education: The official journal of the Religious Education Association, 23:8,774-779, DOI: 10.1080/00344080280230812

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00344080280230812

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information(the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor& Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warrantieswhatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of theContent. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions andviews of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. Theaccuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independentlyverified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liablefor any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly inconnection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly

Page 2: THE CHANGING NATURE OF AUTHORITY

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THE CHANGING NATURE OF AUTHORITY

ROBERT WORTH FRANK

W ALTER BAGEHOT once de-clared that the greatest pain of

the race is the pain of a new idea. Astrong argument might be made for theassertion that the greatest pain of therace is the passing of an old idea. Acase in point is the idea of authority inreligion. Although the Reformation issaid to signalize the break with theRoman Catholic conception of "authoritywhich marks the transition from a medi-eval to a modern mode of thinking inreligion, it has required four hundredyears for the implications of that breakto work themselves out into relativelyclear issues for the masses of men.

Movements of thought resemble thecreeping of the glacier rather than therush of the avalanche. This is particu-larly true of changes in religious thought.So slow and painful has been the evolu-tion of the modern notion of authoritythat the present day conflict betweenfundamentalists and modernists is noth-ing more than this problem come intoclear focus. "The fundamentalist move-ment can perhaps be best understood asthe persistence in Protestantism of thereligious presuppositions which wereshared by both Catholicism and Protest-antism four hundred years ago."1 Onepresupposition which is the bone of con-tention between fundamentalists andmodernists concerns the nature of au-thority in religion.

Science since the days of Galileo hasbecome accustomed to relatively rapidchanges in fundamental conceptions andsubject matter. A scientist who attended

the American Association for the Ad-vancement of Science in 1924 declaredthat there was scarcely one of the manysubjects discussed in the papers presentedat that meeting which men knew anythingat all about fifty years ago. ProfessorR. A. Millikan says, "The day has goneby when any physicist thinks that heunderstands the foundations of the phy-sical universe as we thought we under-stood them in the nineteenth century. . .The childish mechanical conceptions ofthe nineteenth century are now gro-tesquely inadequate."2 While it is char-acteristic of the human mind even in sci-ence to cling to old views in the face ofbroader knowledge, such prejudices arefar stronger and more tenacious amongreligionists than among scientists. Sci-ence has accommodated itself more suc-cessfully to the problems of a changingworld than has religion. It has acceptedthe universe as one of Heracleitan fluxrather than of Eleatic being.

The persistence of medieval modes ofthinking in contemporary religious life isseen best by tracing the history of theconception of authority. The RomanCatholic Church holds that it possessesan authoritative deposit of truth, divinelyrevealed, in its total accumulation of tra-dition. Moreover, not only the truth,but the sole and absolute right to inter-pret this truth, has been divinely com-mitted to the church. Ultimately, theauthority of the church goes back to God,but as the spokesman for God on earthit is the one organ through which hisauthority is declared.

1. G. B. Smith, Current Christian Thinking, p. 71. 2. Evolution in Science and Religion, pp. 27

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This view of the church as the authori-tative spokesman for God took form inthe second and third centuries of theChristian era and remains substantiallyunmodified today. Truth is divinely re-vealed and authority is divinely entrustedto an official group. Both truth and au-thority remain unchanged and unchange-able, external and infallible, throughoutall time. The role of the good Christianis one of unprotesting and unquestioningsubmission to the authority of thechurch. Security is logically guaranteedto the believer, because, "We may restassured that an all-wise Providence whocommands His Church to speak in Hisname will so guide her in the path oftruth that she shall never lead into errorthose that follow her teaching."3

The Reformation marked an actualbreak with the authority of the RomanCatholic Church, but involved no essen-tial change in the principle of authority.The divine authority of the church wasrejected, but in its place was soon sub-stituted the authority of the Bible as theoriginal and infallible revelation, of God.Believers seeking the way of salvationwould find unerring guidance in the HolyScriptures. They were infallible andself-interpreting. Protestant creeds for-mulated to guide and express basic beliefsfor Christians rest upon this somewhatmechanical and inelastic conception of theBible.

The appeal to the authority of theScriptures as infallible in matters ethicaland religious is identical in principle witnthe appeal of the Roman Catholic to aninfallible church. Both are medievalmodes of thinking. The locus of author-ity is in both instances external to thebeliever; both are regarded, theoreticallyat least, as infallible, final, and unchang-ing ; and the appropriate attitudes for thebeliever are in both cases those of accept-ance, submission, and obedience. The onepoint of gain was the fact that the con-

trol of the Catholic Church was brokenand the way was opened for diverseinterpretations of the Bible. Out of theresulting conflict of interpretations therehas slowly emerged a new conception ofauthority.

"The first real break with the medievalprinciple of religious authority," declaresA. C. McGiffert, "came with rational-ism."4 The rationalists insisted that allauthority must be rationally tested. Itsipse dixit alone was not sufficient. Thedeists carried the break a step furtherwhen they rejected all supernatural truthand held that the human race, alone andunaided by revelation, could discover thetruth necessary for religious living. Bothrationalists and deists, however, believedthat the principles of religion and moral-ity are absolute and infallible principlesbeyond which there is no appeal. Whilerejecting the church, Bible, and super-natural revelation as sources of authority,they adhered to the notion of a final andinfallible system of truth, testable or dis-coverable by the reason, to which menmust conform. The appeal was stilllargely to an external authority which,however, was guaranteed by reasonrather than by the church or the Bible.

Schleiermacher, more than any otherone man, may be regarded as the sourceof our modern conception of authority.He has been described by Wobberminas the Copernicus of theology. He shiftedthe ground of religious authority fromwithout to within and made its seat thereligious experience. In so doing, hedefinitely broke with the practice of ap-pealing to external authority and held thatreligion is self-evidencing and self-justi-fying ; it does not need anchorage or sup-port from without. The experience ofChristians supplies the data from whichtheologies are to be formulated and bywhich the historic creeds are to be tested.The essence of religion is "the feeling ofabsolute dependence," a feeling which can

3. J. Gibbons, The Faith of Our Fathers, p. i. The Rise of Modern Religious Ideas, p. 284.

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be understood only in and through experi-ence. Thus for Schleiermacher theologybecomes a descriptive and not merely aspeculative science.

While current thinking in theology hasgenerally rejected his conception of re-ligion as stressing too exclusively its emo-tional and individualistic phases, hismethod has been increasingly adopted.This method is essentially empirical. Thereligious experience of Christian peoplesupplies the grist for the theologian's milland is the source from which we secureour norms in Christian living. What theChristian should think and do have notbeen settled once for all by the traditionsof the church, the creeds, or the Bible;these are simply the records of religiousexperience enjoyed in other days; theyare illuminative but not authoritative. Theheart of religion is the experience of de-pendence on God and, therefore, presentChristian experience is the court of lastappeal. The divineness of the traditionalelements in Christianity is to be tested bytheir immediate appeal to the religiousconsciousness of Christians. Schleier-macher inaugurated the appeal to Chris-tian experience as the source of authorityin religion.

His interpretation of the nature of re-Ugious authority is the germ from whichhave grown the several conceptions thatobtain today. The idea of an infallibleauthority, external, legal, and absolute,has been slowly abandoned by rigorousand critical thinkers. Not only has nosuch authority appeared in the stream ofhistory, but in the nature of the case nosuch authority is possible. "Authority,"writes A. C. McGifFert, "has everywhereceased to be, as it once was, absolute, in-fallible, despotic and legal, and has be-come relative, provisional and infallible."5

Christian experience is subject to fluxand change, to deterioration and develop-ment. The viewpoint of relativity hasbeen extended to religion and has provedas transforming there as in other realms.

5. Ibid, p. 297.

Other factors than the thinking ofSchleiermacher have assisted in bringingabout this change. The transfer of au-thority from persons and dogmas to theexperimental method in science, a trans-fer which was initiated by Galileo, was arevolutionary event in human thinkingand more than any other one event marksthe beginning of the modern world. Theappeal to observation and experiment has,in science, superseded the appeal to thedicta of infallible, external authority. Therise and spread of democracy, with itsemphasis upon individual worth and ini-tiative and upon government by the con-sent and under the control of the gov-erned, has accustomed men to relianceupon their own deliberations and de-cisions rather than upon the dictationsof unquestioned authority.

The development of the conception ofevolution in the nineteenth century hada disintegrating effect upon traditionalnotions of authority. The application ofthis conception to theological thought hasserved to undermine the old dogmatismonce shared by all sects and to convincemany persons of the tentative characterof our religious thinking. Applied sci-ence has brought the ends of the earthtogether through devices of rapid transitand communication. The consequent in-crease in the number, range, and rapidityof human contacts has resulted in a com-parison and criticism of all traditional ele-ments in our own culture, and has devel-oped a disposition to test all elementsin our culture and other cultures bytheir power to make for controlled andenriched living. Historical and biblicalcriticism have revealed the historical andscientific errors of the Bible and shownthe progressive character of the religiousexperience which it records. Holy Scrip-ture has, as a result, ceased to be a finaland infallible guide to faith and conductin our modern world.

The present situation is one of muchconflict of opinion and confusion of

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thought about the nature of authority inmatters ethical and religious. What au-thority is accepted by most persons de-pends upon their basic group loyalty inreligious matters. Roman Catholics stillaccept the authority of their church asfinal, infallible, and binding upon them.Fundamentalists hold to the older ortho-dox view and look to an inerrant andinfallible Bible as the source, guarantee,and support of their faith. Ritschliansinsist upon a rigorous application of thescientific method to nature and of biblicalcriticism to the Scriptures. But they ap-peal to the inner life of Jesus and its"self-evidencing divinity" as the groundand source of religious authority. Finalauthority is to be sought in the religiousexperience which Jesus begets in thosewho have come to know his inner lifeand been transformed by it. Authorityis no longer Bibliocentric but has becomeChristocentric.

There are those, unsettled by the dis-integration of the traditional conceptionof a permanent, final, and infallible au-thority to which they could appeal, whoseem to have arrived at a private eclecti-cism in religion. The only course open,so they think, after the surrender of theold authority, is for the individual seekerafter religious satisfaction to pick andchoose, here and there, from the religionsavailable, those elements which meet mostfully his religious needs. The numerousreligious cults of today reflect and em-body this eclectic trend. A contemporaryPaul reading the announcements of Sun-day services in a metropolitan daily wouldpronounce us, like the ancient Athenians,"very religious," if not "very supersti-tious." Dissatisfaction with the old andthe quest after something better may beexpected to yield numerous strange andbizarre experiments in religious cults.

This strain and confusion in contem-porary religion have proved unsettling tomany and robbed them of that sense ofsecurity which religion has been accus-

tomed to afford. If beliefs and doctrines,once well founded and accepted by all,give place to new, is there anything cer-tain and credible? And so the presentdiversity of view and conflict of authori-ties is regarded pessimistically by someand leads them to abandon religion alto-gether, while it drives others to hugtightly the older views and dogmas as theonly hope of safety arid deliverance insuch troubled waters.

What is to be the way out of our pres-ent uncertainty, strain, and confusion?For one thing we must accept the factof change in the field of religion as anopportunity for growth and improvementrather than resist it in toto as a symptomof degeneration. A superficial glance atthe history of religion provides ample evi-dence that the most sacred finalities andvenerated ultimates are subject to modi-fication. Old beliefs and cosmic philoso-phies wane that more redemptive beliefsand more ample philosophies may taketheir place. Sacred institutions decaywhen they refuse to adjust themselvesto a changing milieu. Religions live, inpart at least, more by their capacity toadjust themselves to change than by theirfixity and rigidity. They are alive in pro-portion as they possess that primary fea-ture of all life, adaptability.

It follows that we must seek to directchange fruitfully. This can be done witha maximum of gain and a minimum ofloss by the use of the scientific method inreligion. Science was at one time underthe domination of authoritative dogmasas unyielding and final as any that everobtained in religion. Aristotle was onceregarded as infallible in science as thepope speaking ex cathedra is believed tobe by the Roman Church today. The netresult was the inhibition of all progressin science.

The transfer of authority from adogma or a person to a method was theevent which ushered in modern science.That method is best described as experi-

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mental. It seeks to test all knowledgeand all opinion by careful experiments.What is true is not what is ancient, orwhat is accepted, or what has prestige,but what is verifiable. It examines factsand doctrines critically and when neces-sary revises these so that they are in ac-cord with verifiable experience. Testedknowledge has taken the place of hear-say knowledge and conventional belief.The application of the scientific methodto the materials of religion will deliverus from the fatal fixity of moribund doc-trines and from the costly results of un-directed, blundering change. It shouldincreasingly enable us to direct changetoward the growth of Christian person-ality and the enrichment of the worldcommunity.

The transfer of authority from dog-mas to a method has already begun inreligion and in large part accounts forthe present conflicts and disputes. Ourhankering after some absolute security,some stable anchorage, some changelessnorms of life is a habit and attitude ofmind begotten by our centuries of faithin an external authority. To commit ourlives and spiritual destinies to a methodwhich seeks to "prove all things" andpromises only to "hold fast that whichis good" involves a wrench in our re-ligious attitudes and our personal organ-ization that is painful and disorganizing.It is easier and more natural for somepersons to hold fast that which they havereceived and been taught is true. Thecrutch of an authoritative dogma or beliefrelieves them of the trouble of thinking.Others, perceiving the futility of clingingto the officially sanctioned doctrines ofthe past, adopt more adequate beliefs butoften tend to hold these as a new ortho-doxy and cherish them as intolerantly asreactionaries do the old orthodoxies.The temptation of liberalism is to set upa new orthodoxy.

The acceptance of a method ratherthan dogma as the court of ultimate ap-

peal will mean certain gains. Morals andreligion will be justified by their fruitsprimarily, rather than by their roots, andwill therefore carry less superfluouscargo out of the past. We shall measurethe worth of religious institutions andpersons, doctrines and practices, not somuch by the credentials which they bringwith them as by their consequences forpresent and future living. Tested valueswill occupy the same place in religion andmorals that tested knowledge does in sci-ence. Moreover, religionists will be con-cerned to discover new values and moreadequate ideals as well as to conserve oldones. Professor R. A. Millikan, writingof the many new finds in physics, de-clares that "the stream of discovery asjet shows no signs of abatement."6

Surely man has not exhausted hismoral and religious experience. Thespiritual discoveries of the future may bemore significant than those of the past.A dynamic universe demands an experi-mental attitude and procedure in religion;it bids us search for new values and ac-quire more nourishing convictions. "Theworship of God is not a rule of safety—it is an adventure of the spirit, a flightafter the unattainable. The death of re-ligion comes with the repression of thehigh hope of adventure."7

Furthermore, changes in views and be-liefs can be made with a minimum offriction and conflict with the adoption ofthe experimental method. Our viewsabout persons, books, institutions, anddogmas that have become sacred to uswill still be held tentatively. Our out-look upon ultimate reality will be a pro-visional one. We shall recognize thatthere is no one set of beliefs or of ab-stractions which is adequate for the com-prehension of life, and instead of resist-ing a change of views we shall welcomewhatever extends our vision or increasesour appreciation of life. We shall be

6. Evolution in Science and Religion, p. 28.7. A. N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern

World, p. 876.

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ETERNAL LIFE OR PRESENT LIVING? 779

willing to reexamine and revalue our re-ligion through social experiment and crit-ical discussion.

Losses as well as gains may accompanythis transfer of authority to a method.The shift in viewpoint is so radical thatmany will adhere unyieldingly to sometraditional authority. We may expect apersistence of the reliance upon tradi-tional authority in the future. More seri-ous than this, perhaps, will be the tend-ency of some to ignore or underestimatethe traditional values in religion. Con-tinuity with the past cannot be abruptlybroken without decided loss. The thor-ough going application of the scientificmethod will lead to a valid testing andappreciation of the values that the pastaffords. The passing or absence of an ul-

timate belief will prove disorganizing tosome persons, with the result that theymay entirely abandon a religion which nolonger gives them a sense of absolutesecurity.

Not the least danger is that the scien-tific method will be narrowly conceivedand applied. Its technique in the socialand religious realm will be different fromthat employed in the natural sciences. Thematerials to be investigated are morecomplex and incalculable; they involvethe deep inwardness of life and are moreelusive. The techniques necessary herewill require a development and refine-ment which they ha,ve not yet attained.Concentration upon their improvement isnow the central task of those who havethe interest of vital religion at heart.

ETERNAL LIFE OR PRESENT LIVING?

ORLO J. PRICE

MANY O F US can remember whenthe usual appeal of religion was

for preparation for the world to come.The salvation offered was security forthe soul, especially after death. Thegood life received emphasis as a life ofwell doing, lived in grateful appreciationfor a salvation that was freely given.Any defection from the path of right,while serious enough, was completelyerased by the atonement. The importantend for man was to be sure that full ap-propriation of the divine resources bemade looking to eternal (meaning fu-ture) life. "Don't you want to go toheaven when you die?" was the appealof a professional evangelist whom thewriter had as helper in the early 1900's.

Of such vast moment was this task ofgetting ready to die, that life here wasspoken of as a probation. This briefspace of earthly life was as nothing incomparison with an eternity of existence

to follow. What, then, could any suf-fering, and inconvenience due to social oreconomic hardship, amount to in com-parison with a blessedness that wouldnever end? The martyr, slave, invalid,pauper, outcast, might well endure theworst here provided, only he be sure ofa blessed hereafter. Why expend greatpains to improve earthly life which atbest is but for a fleeting moment?

The change that has come is too ob-vious to be missed by even the casualobserver. Through the shifting of theemphasis, not the future but the presentnow occupies the mind of the Christian.Salvation is not getting ready to die,but learning to live. Salvation is aprocess beginning in time to go on ineternity, a vital process so radical andcomplete that it involves the transforma-tion of the entire person, and is to beachieved by the use of forces, truths, andmethods not heretofore to be considered

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