Nicholas Lash on media of theological authority

1. scripture

A “high” doctrine of scripture as the Word of God does not, cannot, make it easier to understand the biblical texts — and hence, to enable them effectively to be authoritative — than would be the case if they were “merely” the words of men. [64]

[cf. Robert W. Jenson here and here. It goes without saying that one’s doctrine of scripture will inform one’s approach to scriptural interpretation, but does it follow that talk of, say, inerrancy, adequately reflects the multi-dimensional character of our life with scripture? The actual authority we acknowledge scripture to exercise, I’d submit, is revealed less in what we have to say about scripture and more in the scope of our lives to which we hear scripture speaking.]

2. creeds

Any discussion of the “irreformability” of dogmatic statements should begin from a discussion of the “irreformability” of scripture. This elementary principle is, in practice, too often ignored. And yet it is unthinkable that a “higher” view of “irreformability” can be taken in respect of church doctrine than of the scriptures themselves. If, therefore, we feel that faithfulness to the New Testament does not demand a slavish, literal repetition of New Testament propositions (and that such faithfulness may, indeed, often demand that we say quite different things today in order to capture, in our very different historical and cultural context, the basic intention of the biblical teaching) then this must be equally true of creedal affirmations and dogmatic definitions. [66]

3. providence

just as a ‘high’ theology of scripture as the Word of God cannot make it easier to understand the biblical texts than would be the case if they were ‘merely’ the words of men, so also a ‘high’ theology of the providential governance of the church in history by the Spirit of truth cannot make it easier to know how contemporary beliefs and practices are faithful to the original message than would be the case if we had to do with a ‘merely human’ history. [65]

from Voices of Authority, (Sheed &Ward, 1976).