Excerpts from Victor Lee Austin's Up With Authority: Why We Need Authority to Flourish as Human Beings (London: T & T Clark, 2010), chapter 5:
The examination of authority has been undertaken so far from a human point of view. To succeed at being a human, I have urged, is to be able to live together with others. Upon examination, it turns out that to live together with others in any sort of society requires that authority be there. And to live together with the skills of knowing and discerning the truth about the world, that also requires the existence of authority. Thus, to be human at all requires authority both social and epistemic. Furthermore, when we consider social authority as its most extensive--the authority that governs a society--we encounter political authority, a species that is social and epistemic but also has coercive force at its disposal.
But none of this discussion has been carried on with theological blinders. Early on, the biblical understanding of authority confirmed our sense that it is a complex, structured affair; that to be a person "in authority" or to "have authority" is not to be pushed up to the top of a pyramid, but rather to be one who is also under authority. Then the relationship of authority and truth, which Michael Polanyi helped us see as a necessarily dialectical one in which authority points beyond itself to truth and, at the same time, the truth as apprehended raises a question upon authority, was itself a dialectical relationship expressed by Jesus when he said, as one with authority, that his mission was to bring knowledge of the truth, which knoweldge in turn would be liberating. Likewise in our study of authority and power, theology was present when we turned back to the roots of political theology, as [94] exposed by Oliver O'Donovan, where we could see the nature of political authority.
This chapter does not form a simple progression with the three chapters that have preceded it, and that is because to move from social, epistemic, and political authority to ecclesial authority is not to move to yet another field or dimension of human existence. For the church is not rightly understood as another society, alongside, say, the symphony and the academy, existing in conjunction with them in a common political society. To make the church out to be another mini-society or voluntary association is to reject its claims of bearing revealed and transcendent truth. Nor is the church "over" society, as a super-City within which not only the symphony and the university but also every political society also exists. To make the church out to be the universal political society is to deny in some fundamental way both the autonomous and natural importance of human political societies and, also, the provisionality of the church itself as a witness to a kingdom that is in important ways still to come.
Neither an association nor an epistemic allegiance, nor yet an overarching "umbrella" society, the church is a strange thing that fails to fit into any given categorical scheme. Fortunately, we need not achieve the impossibility of mastering an unmasterable topic in order to learn from authority as we can see it in action in the church. Nor must the church as we experience it be healthy, faithful, and in general trouble-free. Even from an afflicted church we may learn something new about authority, and perhaps what we learn overall will be of some service to people in churches today who struggle with problems of authority. (pages 93-94)
The church is a congregation or a synagogue, words which speak etymologically of a "calling" or "bringing together." Those called together as a church have come in some way to recognize God's authority. They are a congregation dedicated to the Truth (and here the capital letter impresses itself upon us). The church is not a political society and will never be one, but its mission is to point to one peculiar and ultimate political society: a kingdom of citizens who freely obey and follow their King, who live in a city of which their Lord is the light. As a society gathered for the sake of knowing the Truth and witnessing to God's kingdom, what can the church teach us about the relationship of God and authority?" (page 95)
[The Aria is Bach's Saint Matthew Passion is discussed as an illustration of the relation between individual and community.]
What is happening when a soloist rises to sing an aria? The soloist is authorized by Bach to stand and sing; this is the plain truth of the text. In the performance, the soloist is authorized also by the conductor. But in that which the performance is about, the soloist speaks of her faith with authority. It is my view that Bach here gives us a model of the true functioning of authority in the church. The individual could not sing, as it were, authoritatively, were she not standing in the midst of the assembly of the faithful. The assembly of the faithful is the locus where we may find the exercise of authority. Yet the faithful, as a whole, only prepare the ground for the authority of the faithful individual who sings. The authority in the church as a whole is only potential and implicit; it is exercised--it comes alive--when the one stands to profess. Note too that what is said authoritatively is not the simple recitation of a scriptural text. Rather, it involves a leap that makes the sacred story contemporary to the singer. Often, what is said authoritatively entails an act of self-oblation. Again, the aria is sung with authority only because it is sung in the context of the sacred [99] words. Thus, as there is no authority apart from the assembly, so is there no authority apart from Scripture. But Scripture alone, even when it is spoken in the midst of the assembly, is not where authority is being actualized. Nonetheless, authority is responsive. The soloist responds neither to Bach nor to the conductor; she speaks in the midst of the assembly but not to the assembly; she speaks in the context of the church's recitation of the salvific narrative but her words are not in the narrative. her authority resides in the one in whom she is placing her faith.
