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In the first part of this series, I endeavored to explain some issues of prolegomena regarding Christian discussions of the topic of “authority.”  In this post I will now sketch some practical applications in history by examining four positions on “authority” that were held in the patristic era.

One clarifying note before I begin: throughout this post, I will use compound terms such as “theological politics” and “political theology” and “spiritual-political” in order to highlight the fact, expounded in my first post, that man has two distinct, though intertwined ends. If we are to reflect on matters of “authority” properly, we must not surrender to the dichotomizing trend of Modern thought and speak of “theology” as a discipline that is unconnected to, and unaffected by, other areas of human life. Christian theology takes its only infallible norms from Holy Scripture, but theological reasoning is not thereby confined to the explicit words of Scripture. Scripture is not solely a divine book, and Christians are not solely spiritual beings. Thus, proper reasoning about “authority” cannot restrict itself to biblical exegesis alone.

VI. Four Basic Positions on “Authority” In the Patristic EraThe four positions on “authority” held in the patristic age have been succinctly summarized by George Hunston Williams in his “Christology and Church-State Relations in the Fourth Century,” in Church History, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Sept. 1951). These were (1) “What has the Emperor to do with the Church?,” (2) “The Church is in the Empire,” (3) “The Empire is in the Church,” and (4) “The Church and Empire are separate, but cooperative.”

Note that all four positions contain the words “Church” and “Empire,” a fact which underscores my point in the first post (on prolegomena issues) that spiritual and temporal cannot be separated if we are to properly formulate a full-bodied Christian doctrine of “authority.” Spiritual and temporal can and should be distinguished, but if they are separated we will succeed in formulating a doctrine of “authority” that embraces only half of human life under God – and which, we will find upon reflection, seriously distorts that half.

These four positions were debated extensively by patristic writers, and the debates continued just as vigorously in the Middle Ages. Despite the rhetoric of adherents of each position – who, of course, all believed that their position was the obvious truth, and all others obvious falsehood – no consensus was ever reached by Christians either in the patristic or Medieval periods. The conflicts of the 16th century only exacerbated the lack of consensus, and even today, we have no consensus – that is, no consensus short of a particular position merely defining all the others out of the realm of rational consideration.
In this post, I will briefly rationally consider the four options in order to sketch the parameters that I think should govern contemporary Christian discussions about the issue of “authority.”

VII. “What Has The Emperor To Do With The Church?”The first position, “What has the Emperor to do with the Church?,” dichotomizes the two spheres entirely. On this view, “the Church” is fundamentally a spiritual entity, and all else is merely temporal, to be downgraded in various ways.

Some versions of this view, for instance, deny that the temporal and spiritual have any real connection. Both are to go their own ways, the temporal to progressive destruction because of sin, the spiritual to progressive salvation because of grace. The value of the temporal is, essentially, only an instrumental one – that is, temporal things have no meaning of their own, but only have meaning insofar as they can be made to serve the spiritual end. A contemporary example of this perspective is the generic Baptist paradigm of American Protestant thought.

Other versions allow for a limited interaction between the two views in the sense that Christians may participate in temporal affairs, but not as Christians. You may be an auto mechanic or a painter or an insurance salesman or a police officer, but your Christianity has nothing distinct to say to how you carry out these purely secular tasks. A contemporary example of this perspective is the “two kingdoms” view of Church and State promoted by Westminster Theological Seminary, which touted by its adherents as the original Reformation vision but by its opponents as “R2K” (Radical Two Kingdoms Theology”).

VIII. “The Church Is In The Empire”The second position, “The Church is in the Empire,” subordinates the spiritual to the temporal. On this view, the most important reality is the temporal-political one, and so the bridge between God and man is the human political ruler. The human political ruler is seen as the vicar of (substitute for) Christ on earth, such that whatever the king commands is seen as ipso facto the command of Christ.

This view was the one that many early Christian writers gravitated toward, for while Christianity was a persecuted minority sect, it only made practical sense not to thumb one’s nose at the whole society in which one lived – unless, that is, the society demanded that one compromise Christ. This view dominated the Orthodox Church throughout the long centuries of its dominance in the East, being called by Western theologians “Caesaropapism.” It also, ironically, dominated the theological politics of many Western emperors and kings during the Middle Ages, and animated their centuries-long conflict with the popes.

IX. “The Empire Is In The Church?”The third position, “The Empire is in the Church,” is the mirror image of the second, and so it subordinates the temporal to the spiritual. On this view, the most important reality is the spiritual-political one, and so the bridge between God and man is the ecclesiastical ruler. The ecclesiastical ruler is seen as the vicar of (substitute for) Christ on earth, such that whatever “the Church” commands is seen as ipso facto the command of Christ.

Some influential Christian thinkers after Constantine’s victory in A.D. 313 held this view, as may be seen in the celebrated conflict of Ambrose of Milan with Emperor Theodosius, in which a lowly bishop forbade the supreme temporal lord to enter the Church for communion until he repented of his sins. This view was the one that dominated the theological politics of the popes during the Middle Ages, and animated their centuries-long conflict with emperors and kings.

X. “The Church And The Empire Are Separate, But Coordinate”Lastly, the fourth position, “The Church and Empire are separate, but cooperative,” corresponds to the position announced by Gelasius, Bishop of Rome, in A.D. 494, to the effect that in the one unified Christian society there were two “orders,” the authority of the priests and the power of the royalty. These two orders were to remain distinct at all times, neither able to trespass on the lawful domain of the other. Kings could not make doctrine for the Church or oversee the sacraments, and priests could not sit on temporal thrones and conduct distracting secular business. Yet, at the same time, these two orders were to cooperate in cases where their concerns overlapped. This principle is today called “Gelasian dualism.”

It was this fourth position that dominated Medieval theological politics in the realm of theory. It is because of Gelasian dualism that we now have to modify the original central term of this discussion, “authority.” When looking at Christian history, especially as a guide to understanding past theology with an eye toward formulating good theology today, we cannot simplistically use terms like “authority” and “rebellion” as if they have only one meaning. We are forbidden, if we wish to be not only historically accurate but constructive thinkers in our own situations, to simply define other positions out of the realm of rationality by an uncritical use of terms.

It must be observed that Gelasian dualism does not speak generically of “authority,” but of “orders,” and only one of these “orders,” the spiritual sphere, is given the name “authority” (Gelasius’ term was auctoritas sacrata pontificum.) The other “order,” the temporal sphere, is given the name “power” ( regalis potestas). Although this at first seems to underwrite the idea that spiritual-politics is the supreme “authoritative” reality, we must recognize that in the framework of Gelasius’ language, both orders have specific areas over which they are, by God’s ordination, independently in charge – areas in which the other sphere may not interfere. In other words, both orders have what we Moderns, who are too often careless with terminology, would want to call “authority.”

As noted earlier, nearly everyone who wrote on the subject of “authority” between roughly A.D. 500 and A.D. 1500 paid lip service to the principle of Gelasian dualism. However, nearly everyone proceeded from the universally-agreed upon definition to manifold practical violations of it. I cannot digress here to examine specific examples of these violations, for such an aside, though highly relevant, would be inordinately lengthy.

XI. ConclusionHaving outlined the four basic positions on “authority” held in the patristic era, I would like to  return to the biblical data that occupied me in the first segment.

Admittedly, in that first post I only sketched the contours of the picture of “authority” that Scripture paints. Here too, much substantive discussion is needed. Nevertheless, I take it as almost axiomatic from the shape of the biblical data considered as a whole that whatever may eventually arise from it, that thing will be neither a systematically spelled out nor a universal Christian political theory. We will not be able to force the Bible, even if we try to take it literally “on its own,” to underwrite a single theological-political viewpoint to which all who name the name of Christ must submit on pain of disobedience to Christ.

Why do I say this? Although many Christians argue that, since God is King over all the earth, monarchical government is the divine pattern for all human beings, this is too simplistic a way to read the Scriptures and apply them to real human conditions (as opposed to ideally imagined human conditions which exist nowhere in space and time). God providentially controls all of life on earth, and in His providence He has allowed numerous modes of culture to flourish among men. No attempt at sustaining a universal empire, a universal culture, a universal system of “authority” among men, has ever lasted, and there is no reason outside of utopian idealism to believe that any such attempt ever will last.

Indeed, although the division of languages (and so the multiplication of cultures) came about because of God’s judgment on man’s sin at Babel, the advent of the Gospel into the world does not seem to have had as one of its goals the reversal of Babel so that man could once again live under one universal society. Rather, the reason that tongues were given on the Day of Pentecost was so that each one could hear God’s truth proclaimed in his own language. God has nowhere made it plain to us that He intends all people everywhere to live in one homogenous cultural situation, and so there is no reason outside of utopian idealism to believe that any attempt to create such a thing – inclusive of a scheme of “authority” – will ever succeed.

To close, then, the lack of a precisely spelled out and universal political theory in Scripture seems to entail that God has left this matter open for reasonable debate among Christians. We have to “tease out” what position is both most compatible with the biblical data and most workable in a given human cultural situation in which the Gospel of Christ has been embraced. Far from meaning, as some wags would have it, that there is no “Truth” to be found by this method but only relativistic compromise, in reality, this method is the only one that takes seriously the fact that we are not just spiritual beings, but embodied spiritual beings. It is not that “Truth” cannot be found, but that “Truth,” once it is found, turns out to be quite a bit more full-bodied, not to mention quite a bit more interesting, than the caricature of itself which is sought so ardently by simplistic, idealistic thinkers who want to live in a “flat” world of “objective” notions “purely” practiced only by their own sect.

We have two ends, not just one, and although Scripture enjoins us not to trade spiritual things for earthly messes of pottage, the biblical way to avoid doing this is not to call all earthly things messes of pottage and exclusively seek the spiritual. To do so is to embrace only half of the Christian faith, half of the Christian Gospel, and half of our humanity made in God’s image.

The main purpose of Reformed Catholicism.com is to address issues of catholicity within the multi-faceted world of theology and practice emanating from the 16th century Protestant Reformation.  Another purpose is to demonstrate how the traditions of the Reformation are not, as is assumed by Roman Catholics – and by many Protestants, as well – instances of rebellion against the ancient authority of catholic Christianity.  Frequently, in fact, Roman Catholics accuse Protestants of refusing to submit to God-ordained authority, and of substituting their own for it.  In order to effectively combat this characterization, it is necessary to discuss at some length the concept of “authority.”  Given the complexity of these issues, I have found it necessary to respond in two parts, and I beg the reader’s indulgence as I first labor to spell out certain important issues of prolegomena.

I. What is “Authority”?Although Scripture is the sole infallible standard for our faith, Scripture is neither an encyclopedia nor a systematic theology. Its declarations about many subjects are spread throughout its text, and were written by various writers in various contexts. To assemble these declarations into a coherent picture that we may call “the biblical view” takes work. Part of that work may be consulting sources outside of Scripture, not because those sources norm Scripture, but because they may be able to shed light on principles for interpreting Scripture.

Everyone understands that Scripture has to be applied in the world by those who confess its authority as God’s Word.  We must respond to what Scripture says with deeds, and those deeds are necessarily done in this world.  There is no doctrine of “authority” that is relevant only to the Church, and which answers only to “spiritual” concerns, because human beings are not only spiritual beings. We are embodied beings, too, and all doctrines that we profess to believe have not only spiritual effects but bodily ones as well – especially the doctrine of salvation, which terminates not in disembodied souls floating around in heaven for eternity, but in resurrected bodies in a new physical heavens and earth.

We Christians thus have two ends, not just one – a spiritual and a secular end. We are eschatologically bound for the next world, but as long as we live in this world, we are still citizens of this-worldly polities. We should not treat spiritual things as if they are all that is relevant, and so treat this-worldly life as if it is irrelevant, for all of life, even the temporal parts, is lived coram Deo – “in the face of God.” Hence, we must all grapple with the relationship of spiritual to temporal in this world and eschew a pietistic disavowal of the goodness of the temporal and the inescapability of our engagement with it.

In this broad context of ourselves being people with two ends, a spiritual and a temporal, the word “authority” biblically speaking must not be understood to have one simple meaning.  Rather, its meaning depends on which end, or which sphere of operation, we are talking about.  Further, the word may have more than one meaning within a particular sphere, especially when we start considering what happens in each sphere when its area of competence starts to overlap with that of another sphere.

For instance, what does “authority” mean when a churchman breaks the secular lord’s law? What does “authority” mean when the State tries to tell parents that they are compelled to send their children to its schools, where it will openly teach them godlessness? What does “authority” mean when the Church tries to enforce upon a conscience, as a condition of salvation, a belief in a doctrine that has no clear biblical warrant? What does “authority” mean when the State tries to enforce a law that enjoins immoral or unjust behavior? And so on. A little reflection on these questions will show that the word “authority” cannot have a “one size fits all” meaning.

I have so far been talking about two spheres, the ecclesiastical and the temporal, which are, to use some Medieval terminology, both examples of in foro externis– external “forums” in which authority is exercised. I should add a third, the in foro interno, or the individual’s conscience. These three “forums” of authority are always coming into contact with each other, and their relations with each other have to be described and accounted for in a responsible manner. Scripture says something about all three fora, but it does not give an exhaustive, definitive, systematic account of their relations with each other. Not only is Scripture not an encyclopedia, it is not a systematic theology. The Lord has left it to us to do some spade work.

II. The Authority of the SecularIn terms of the secular sphere, Paul says a few generic things about obeying one’s leaders and praying for kings and those in authority (1 Tim. 2:1-4). Peter seems to envision a sort of political “quietism” in which Christians just live as good citizens in obedience to the (presumably good) laws of the land (1 Pet. 2:18 – 3:17). He seems to be saying just “lay low” and mind your own business so that if persecution comes, it will not be because we have been political busybodies. He even at one point tells servants to submit even to harsh masters.

On the other hand, on several occasions Paul stood up for his rights as a Roman citizen when various temporal authorities tried to do things to him that the law did not allow (Acts 16, 22, 23, and 26) – and these things were directly related to his public proclamation of Christian truth. Spiritual and temporal ends seem intertwined in these instances. Further, it seems that for Paul temporal “authority” was both multiple in its location and limited in its operations. It did not have only one simplistic, let alone unchallengeable, meaning that applied in all conceivable situations. Prudence was necessary to determine when and to what extent resistance to a given temporal authority was appropriate.

Lastly on this point, Romans 13 presents the interesting principle that the temporal lord is the minister of God “for the punishing of wrongdoers” – a statement which, if logically reversed, would allow one to say that a temporal lord who does not punish wrongdoers is, by that very fact, betraying his divine commission. What should one do then? Christians have disagreed with each other for many centuries about this matter. One pole asserts, for instance, that it is always “rebellion” to resist a lawfully-ordained authority (a chief text cited here is 1 Samuel 15:23, “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.”) Another pole asserts, to the contrary, that lawfully-ordained authorities are constrained precisely by the law, and if they transgress the law, their claim to “authority” ceases to be binding.

Clearly, even just on the matter of temporal authority, matters are not as simple as they might first appear.

III. The Authority of ConscienceIn terms of conscience, Romans 2 speaks of the law written on our hearts, and assumes that it (1) can be known, (2) has abiding validity, and (3) is fully capable of judging matters external to itself as to whether they are legitimate. We know from 1 Corinthians 8 that the conscience can be weak – so weak that it can call things sins which are not sins, but lawfully debatable matters (1 Cor. 8). We are told in 1 Cor. 10 that it can in some cases be proper to follow our own conscience regardless of what others may think is right or wrong according to the dictates of their consciences. We also know that the conscience can be “defiled” (1 Cor. 8:7) or “pure” (2 Tim. 1:3), and that in extreme cases it can even be “seared” (1 Tim. 4:2).

Conscience, then, is an authority that is neither unitary (there are as many consciences as there are people) nor absolute (it can be wrong). Moreover, conscience (even if we later find out it was wrong) is an authority that we ought not to ignore in the here and now. Conscience (even if we later find out it was wrong) is a legitimate judge of other authorities, and part of our growth in grace is to “train” our consciences so that they will be (more or less) reliable guides to right and wrong. But in any case, we must surely agree with Luther that “to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.”

IV. The Authority of the ChurchBut what of the ecclesiastical forum, which is where the large question of “authority” that we are considering focuses? Protestants assert that ecclesiastical authority is not absolute, as Roman Catholics maintain, but is only one of several authorities which interlock in our lives. There are times when these interlocked authorities conflict, and when they do, we are required to “examine all things carefully and hold fast to the good” (2 Thess. 5:22).

Scripture amply demonstrates that ecclesiastical authority is limited. Indeed, the whole of the Old Testament may be called to witness in favor of this principle. Over and over again in the Old Testament, the people of God are called to reform their ecclesiastical structures in accord with the Scriptures, and over and over again we see that errors in ecclesiastical structures arise and accumulate from forgetting the testimonies of the Lord and following the “wisdom” of mere men instead.  But even if one dispenses with the Old Testament, the New Testament remains to challenge any view that says “authority,” particularly spiritual authority, is unchallengeable by anything outside of itself.

The most famous example of the limitations of the ecclesiastical power in the New Testament is, of course, the retort of the Apostles to the Sanhedrin when the latter told them to stop preaching in the name of Jesus: “We ought to obey God rather than men.” Paul had to contend for his authority as an Apostle alongside of James, Peter, and John, which shows that “authority” in the Apostolic band was not limited to just a few, let alone to one. We are also told in many places that the enemies of God can capture positions within the ecclesiastical structure, and use those positions to promote heresy.

Hebrews 13:7 enjoins us generally speaking to obey those that have the rule over us, for they are the ones who must give account for our souls. But at the same time, Ephesians 6:4 admonishes fathers not to provoke their children and masters to treat their slaves with goodwill. Colossians 3:20-22 tells children to obey their parents “in all things” and slaves to obey their masters “in all things.” That passage echoes Ephesians 6 by telling the fathers that they are not to provoke their children, lest the children be discouraged. This surely has significant application to spiritual “fathers” as well as to physical ones.
Most of these passages are general in scope, but when taken together they give us much data upon which to construct a biblical understanding of  “authority” and its limitations.

V. “PoliticsI must now clarify the term “politics” that has been used in the above remarks. I am using the classical definition of the word “political,” which refers to a community of free and equal people gathered to deliberate on matters of the just and the unjust as all seek together a common good – which, ideally, ought to be the Highest Good.  In this sense, “politics” is not limited to the temporal sphere, but has substantial connections with the spiritual sphere. Again, we Christians have two ends, not just one. Christians are eschatologically bound for the next world, but we still live in this world. And as long as we live in this world, we are still citizens of this-worldly polities. We must all grapple with the relationship of spiritual to temporal in this world, and we must at all costs not dichotomize them.

One may think here of the charge given to the Red Cross Knight by the Faerie Queene, that he aim for the City in the Other World – yet not forget that before he can get there, he must descend into the valley and dispatch the dragons, monsters, and other evildoers. He cannot simply dispense with the valley-work in the name of the alleged superiority of the spirit-work, nor can he, like Bunyan’s Christian, do the valley-work as if the only reason it matters is because it leads to the Celestial City. No, the valley-work is important and meaningful in its own right, for it is the God-ordained, God-superintended temporal end of man. It is not merely important and meaningful for the sake of the spiritual end.

So then, on the classical definition of “politics,” we must not act as if our spiritual lives have no connection to our temporal lives, or that the temporal is essentially meaningless in the light of the spiritual, or that the spiritual end can stand on its own, needing no input from the temporal end. Matters of the just and the unjust crop up constantly in our spiritual lives as well as in our temporal lives, so “politics” equally applies to the former as to the latter. Once more, we are not just spirits, but embodied spirits, and our hope as Christians is not merely the immortality of the (saved) soul, but the much more organic and holistic resurrection of the body (1 Cor. 15). Spiritual and temporal are distinct but they are not separated.

The classical definition of “politics,” which one may see is wrapped up with questions about “authority,” formed part of the backdrop to the New Testament writings, especially Paul’s epistles. The New Testament was not revealed in a cultural vacuum, and it is not a manifesto of truths that have no historical, cultural setting and no contemporary cultural ramifications because they are only “spiritual.”  Paul was not just a Roman citizen, but a highly educated Roman citizen, and his writings continually exhibit familiarity with the major currents of philosophy, literature, politics, and rhetoric of the Roman Empire. His general remarks in Scripture must surely be interpreted with an eye toward the things that shaped his mind – especially if we believe that, in B.B. Warfield’s memorable metaphor for inspiration, the Holy Spirit poured Divine Truth through that mind like light pouring through a stained-glass window. The light of Divine Truth was given a particular “hue” by the conditions of the human mind through which it came, and that “hue” had been preordained by God Himself to be exactly what it was. Truth, then, is not “objective,” but is quite “biased” – and “biased” in precisely the way that God intended it to be.

Especially from the standpoint of someone who claims to believe in sola Scriptura, it is important to take into account the fact that Christians in the first few centuries after the Apostles, the patristic age, were quite familiar with the text of Scripture, and sought to bring all things into conformity with it. Yet this did not entail the simplistic vision of biblical authority held by many Protestants today. There is a false idea of sola Scriptura widely held that says, “If we can’t find it explicitly spelled out in Scripture, if we can’t exegete it directly out of the grammar and syntax of the text, we can’t hold it as being true.” That is itself not true to the Reformation principle.

The patristic authors were not so foolish as to believe in Truth the perception of which was not formed by, articulated in terms of, and defended within the embodied context of culture. The question for them (as for everyone, ourselves included) was, of course, how to submit cultural standards to Scriptural ones, but there was nothing of the naïve trust in “objectivity” that some Protestants today exhibit when they claim they can simply dispense with cultural categories and “only” have the “plain meaning” of the Bible via feats of grammatical-syntactical legerdemain alone.

In the second part of this post, I will attempt to flesh out these general considerations by expositing four positions on “authority” that were held in the patristic era.  The purpose of this exercise will be to lay some groundwork for defending the classical Protestant idea of “authority” against its various detractors.