Your posts are always thoughtful and appreciated. You say you have yet to meet a Christian ‘today’ to claim authority over you. Would you have given that right to Peter or Paul or Timothy or Titus? How about Ignatius of Antioch or Clement of Alexandria or Clement of Rome?
It's hard to say exactly, especially since I've already designated that Epistemology comes first rather than religious Ontology. So, being that this is the epistemic framework in which I apply my rational praxis and arrive at Christian theology, and being that I therefore think that Historical and Critical evaluations come before assent, and because I don't have a time-machine by which to go back and engage any of the persons you've mentioned above in real time, I can only reorient your question as it might be made applicable to me today, as one living in the 21st century and who has some additional, cumulative knowledge that the men above didn't have.
From my angle, the question you've asked would be rearticulated as follows: In what ways and to what extent do I think that Peter, Paul, Timothy or Titus, Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, or Clement of Rome held ideas, primarily theological ones, that undermine or revise all that I've come to understand in the present world in which I live.
To cut to the chase and without going into all of the intermediate steps of thought by which I arrive at my current answer to this question, I would simply say that Peter and Paul have a moderate amount of derivative authority (i.e. long range, historical influence) in my thinking and life. Timothy and Titus have influence on me conditionally, and Ignatius and the two Clements essentially have no authority over me whatsoever, even if they are of interest in the ongoing account of Church and Doctrinal historical development.
Yes, what one calls ‘left’ or ‘right’ can function almost the same. To me it is way more what is Biblical and Traditional that matters.
For me, ultimately, it's what is historically Christological that matters most, and this in terms of the sheer possible recognition that one like myself mayy have of Jesus' full Reality. I don't expect anyone else, though, to frame it is just that way. I know that each person has their own emotional and ideological priorities.
That would be the modern day situation, where we set ourselves up as the pillar and foundation of truth. Of course with our Bibles. But the Bible says the pillar and foundation is … the Church. Maybe, for obvious reasons, not the PCUSA.
Without getting into an intellectual slug-fest about it all, I'll just say that neither the Left's core existential proposition, laced as it is with sentiments of Marx and Levinas, nor the over simplified pronouncements of denominational assertions are what guide my applications of Critical Thinking and Discernment, and I know that I don't have to let the limiting structures of either of those positions curtail my own search for Truth in Christ. I will say, at minimum, I clearly recognize that 'the church' came before the writing of the New Testament. What that 'means' has to be carefully and critically vetted out.
So how can the Church be the pillar and foundation AND there be room for critical thinking?
Simple. We realize that Christ delivered the Kerygma into a cultural and paradigmatic envelop by which it was expressed. We have to, TODAY, decode (not demythologize) that older paradigm in order to see the same Kerygma. It's a challenging task, to be sure, but with God's help and the human willingness to be honest and rational, I think the task can be met. It just might not be met exactly in the way that some Christians would think it should be met.
I like it. How would you have done that with Peter and Paul?
How would I have done that? It's hard to say since I'm a product of the 21st century not the 1st century. However, historically speaking, if Peter and Paul had not only the right to speak ex cathedra, but also empowerment from on high to affect signs, miracles and actual words of knowledge, I'm sure that their authority would dawn upon me in fairly short order. That is, I think it would dawn on me if, even by a modicum, they reflected the authority, power, grandeur and dignity of the Lord, Jesus Christ Himself-----------and did so without the obscured and invasive connection of the use of modern technology, in a way reflective of the following dramatization (a scene I really like....................)
Now,
THAT is the authority I could recognize. I'm estimating historically that Peter and Paul had something of that authority, a kind that some evangelical preachers only pretend to dream about and give lip-service to today.
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