AUTHORITY AND FREEDOM CHAPTER I AUTHORITY AND FREEDOM THE problem of the mutual relations between Authority and Freedom, and of the vital necessity for a synthesis between the two principles, is from some points of view the most urgent of all the problems which confront the Christian theologian of to-day. The recently appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford has justly pointed out in an Inaugural Lecture delivered last June that 'for the vast majority, everywhere and always, religious belief, whether true or false, rests upon authority.' Those who live in a university may easily forget this, but directly they go outside' and perhaps the journey may prove unnecessary -they find that the most extreme traditionalism and the most extreme modernism are accepted on authority in exactly the same way. That is why a teaching Church is so necessary.'1 This, of course, 1 The Methods of Theology: An Inaugural Lecture delivered in the Chapter House of Christ Church, Oxford, Friday, June 8, 1923. By the Rev. H. L. Goudge, D.D. (A. R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd.) is primarily merely the assertion of a fact about human nature. The plain man, who is not competent to investigate a given subject-matter at first hand, or who lacks the needed leisure for such investigation, necessarily accepts at second hand such views as he may hold about it on the authority of any teacher whose competence he may respect, and in whose right to speak and in whose general honesty he may have confidence. The difficulty of the modern situation in regard to religion arises from the misuse of religious authority in the past, which has brought it about that in the eyes of many plain men the authority of orthodox teachers of religion is discredited. Rightly or wrongly, the plain man believes that in the name of orthodoxy much error has been taught, with the result that traditional Christianity is widely discarded. Not infrequently there is combined with this negative attitude towards the religious teaching which claims the authority of the past an astonishing readiness to accept with the most naïve credulity the doctrines of new teachers, however poorly accredited, provided only that they stand definitely apart from such tradition as has hitherto prevailed. Quite clearly, if the Christian Church is to proclaim the Gospel with power in the modern world, not merely to the docile children of orthodoxy but to the multitudes, she needs to recover both the capacity and also the moral right to speak with authority in the name of the living God the authentic message of spiritual truth. There are really involved here two associated but distinguishable problems which may be sepa rately discussed. There is the problem of the presentation of Christianity to the world. In what sense has the Church the right to claim authority for her Gospel? What are the grounds and what is the nature of such authority? And there is, in the second place, the problem of the proper place and function of authoritative teaching within the Christian Society itself. What is the true function of authority with regard to the handing on of the Christian tradition from generation to generation within the Church? What is the proper attitude of the Ecclesia docens in relation to the Ecclesia discens ? Of these two problems I propose to discuss the second first. It is obvious that in every sphere of human interest, and in every relationship of human life, the individual is largely moulded by the social tradition which he inherits, and by the spiritual environment into which he is born; and that Authority is the inevitable form under which education and social training invariably begin. The individual must begin by sitting at the feet of the tradition, if he is to enter into any spiritual inheritance which is of value; and this holds good in the sphere of religion, as truly as in the spheres of morality or of human culture generally. It needs to be emphasised, as against some modern hesitations, that Christianity is a definite, historical, and positive religion, which therefore requires to be taught, both in theory and practice. It is not to be expected that the ordinary man should discover or invent Christianity for himself, or should pick it up, without guidance, from the Bible. The |