At stake here are very important issues concerning the New Testament. What are the right questions to ask? What is the church (and what goes with it) for, or what is it from? Is the question about the Bible’s authority a functional question or an historical question? We can put the problem somewhat differently. Is the New Testament authorized by its connection with apostles, people who held an office recognized to be authoritative? If so, what sort of thing is it that needs such authorization? If the writings are the sort of thing that they must be authorized then they are secondary. What authorizes is primary. Is it not an historical fantasy to invest the apostles with such original, primary, underived authority? After all, their immediate connection was with Jesus himself. This gives them historical primacy over every other source. Indeed apostolicity in this sense constitutes the church, and all secondary sources of authority must demonstrate their roots in the apostolic age.
The third stage in the process was the drawing up or a list of the books considered to have authority. A list separates those that are included from the rest which are not. Those included are recognized books and they continue to be recognized. Now the word ‘canonical’ means ‘on the approved list,’ and ‘having authority for the reason that it is on the list.’ A canonical book on this view derives its unique status and authority by reason of its inclusion on the list.
The alternative to this is that those who draw up the list recognize the authority the book already has. The drawing up of the list is evidence of their recognizing the authority which the book has, for whatever reason it has that authority. It displays that recognition and makes it formal. In this case two things follow. First, the canon can only be provisional. Second, that reasons must be given why each individual book was included on the list. On such an explanation, inclusion on a list does not confer authority on the book. It recognizes an authority which the book already has. But how it has come to be that it already has such authority needs to be further explained. How has it come to have that authority which the list formally recognizes and states?
2 INTRINSIC, EXTRINSIC, INSTRUMENTAL
Let us distinguish between intrinsic authority and extrinsic authority. If someone whose authority I accept tells me to accept the authority of a book (assuming this all makes sense), then I shall accept it. I accept the book’s authority because I accept that person’s authority. So, some authority says to me, ‘These are the books whose authority you are to accept.’ And I duly follow. In such case, the book gets invested with an authority extrinsic to it. I may know very little about the book itself. I then have implicit, but not explicit, faith in the proposition that the Bible has authority. My acceptance is not based on what I know about the book or about the belief, because I have carefully and critically assessed it, found reasons for my attitude to it. My acceptance is second-hand. I accept it as such because I acknowledge the right of a third party to direct me to accept it. I accept that the Bible has authority because I accept the right of the church to direct me in this matter. But then I would need to have been already convinced of the right of the church so to direct me. That the Bible has authority has in such a case become a dogma.
Extrinsic authority means authority bestowed from another, given from outside. Intrinsic authority means an authority which comes either through or from the book itself. Think of the Bible as instrumental. If these books are the instruments, by means of which a certain purpose is fulfilled, if the Bible is the only means necessary for a certain event to happen, to produce a particular condition, and that event and condition comes about, then it has an authority no other books have. If I am involved in the event the Bible produces, included in the purpose it fulfils, then I can speak directly, rather than on someone else’s recommendation, of the function the Bible has performed. If I am a member of the community which the Bible has been instrumental in producing, and my participation in that community is an intelligent and involved participation, and I am aware of the function of the Bible in that continuing process, then I can speak of the role (and thence of the authority) of the Bible. I can do so out of my own knowledge and experience, and not at second-hand. I can testify that this book has an ‘authority’ no other book has, since it has produced an effect which no other book has. I can say this, whoever the authors of the particular books in the Bible were, and whether the books are on a list or not. If they are on the list, then I can understand why they have been put there. Since the uniqueness of the Bible is in what it does, we must, in accounting for this, give primacy of place to the function of the Bible. Questions about authorship and official lists are secondary.
What we are saying about these writings is that they have been the instrument for their own recognition. They were not ‘authorized’. They were recognized. The Christian community recognized that as Scripture was expounded, faith was nurtured, and the community was built up in the faith. They saw that that was enough to set these writings apart from all others. They continue to do so. So there is both an historical and a contemporary argument for setting these writings apart from all others. What they did in the past, they go on doing now. ‘These are writings which have accompanied the Christian movement; they are the best we have and they have proved themselves.’30
The term ‘self-authenticating’ is not the happiest one. It means not requiring support from something or someone external to itself. To be self-authenticating means that it authenticates itself to someone, the individual and the community for whom it has been effective. The kind of authority the book will have will depend on whether that effect is considered primarily in relation to the community’s life and piety, or primarily in relation to the community’s doctrine. What the church values will show itself in its doctrine of Scripture. The term ‘authenticate’ means (1) to show that an item is genuine i.e. has its origin in the person it claims to be its author or producer. To establish this connection is an historical task. A play is authentic Shakespeare if Shakespeare wrote it. A painting is authentic Vermeer if Vermeer painted it.
To show that a writing is authentic, in the historical sense i.e. coming from its purported source, one appeals to the available and relevant historical evidence. We have a similar case with a work of art. Whether this painting is genuine Vermeer or not is settled by examining the evidence. But an examination of the evidence may lead to a false conclusion. However whether the historical judgment is true of false, it makes no difference to the aesthetic value of the work.
Pursue the analogy for a moment. If a work of art is beautiful and evokes a positive aesthetic response, comparable to that of an original and authentic production then, aesthetically, it does not matter who painted it. It is beautiful and it evokes response. That it is not ‘original’ in the sense of ‘attributable to the author/artist’ does not matter. Originality value is often relic value. Such value has nothing to do with aesthetic judgment.
The term ‘authenticate’ also means (2) ‘shows itself by the response it evokes to be a worthy work of art, a worthy artefact.’ Such a work authenticates itself by evoking an aesthetic response. Such evocation does not depend upon the historical authenticity of the work. Such aesthetic value, and so such authenticity, is independent of historical knowledge. Authenticity in sense (1), with its opposite, forgery, fake, is historical. Authenticity, in sense (2), as (in the case of art) aesthetic value is not historical.
Now we turn to Scripture. The concept of authenticity as referring to the authorship of a book is an historical concept. The concept of authenticity as referring to the religious authority of the Bible is not historical. The authority, as for example, applied to the Bible, is independent of the historical evidence relating to the author of the book. That is authenticated by historical research. The other (so to speak) authenticates itself by what it does, i.e. in its functioning in the life of the community and in evoking appropriate responses. That this is so is the justification for using the notion of ‘self-authentication.’ It has reference to the influence the book has in the community in which it is recognised. Whoever produced the book, the book has influence of the appropriate kind in the community of faith.
The community of Christians, and the individual Christian, appeal to experience, and see the Bible as the instrument of the experience to which they appeal. They testify and then reason on the basis of this book, these words and this experience.