Challenges to the Authority of the Church in the last 250 years
Created | Updated May 12, 2004
For many years the church, in a variety of factions, has wielded immense authority. In recent years, however, this authority has received a great deal of attack, and the correctness of various doctrinal points has been challenged, leaving the church with a lot less influence and authority today then it had only 200 years ago, with more and more people forsaking Christian belief. In this essay, I shall examine four major areas where the authority of the Church has been challenged.
The Challenge of Science
The first of these challenges to examine is that presented by the development of science. While scientists can be Christians (like the physicist John Polkinghorne), greater scientific understanding has nevertheless raised some points which have been seen as incongruent with traditional church teaching. Progress in the areas of geological study, and of theoretical physics and cosmology, cast doubt on religious ideas about the universe having been created relatively recently (23 October 4004 BCE according to Archbishop Ussher in 1650). Fredrick Hoyle’s Steady State theory (which some consider to be deliberately atheistic) postulated that the universe had always existed, so denied the existence of a creator God. This theory has, however, been largely discredited and the big bang theory, which suggests an ex nihilo creation has been acclaimed as correct. Nevertheless, whilst allowing for a God, this theory still dates the big bang as being 15 billion years ago, conflicting with the church’s dating, as we have seen. The development of Darwinian thought on the concept of evolution not only challenged the biblical account of each species being created separately, but also denied the special status of humanity. This then made the church’s central doctrine of salvation untenable. Recent developments into the human genome have also caused problems for the church. Religious belief concerning morals, and in particular the problem of evil (which we shall examine later) depends heavily on the idea of free will, but science, and in particular the theory of reductionism, is now tending to expound the belief that we are predestined by our genetic nature to be artistic, or criminal, or have heart attacks etc. This would then seem to remove much of the idea of humans having a choice (although Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism theories of the mid-twentieth century could be cited as a strong argument against this idea of predestination).The Challenge of Language
The continual development of language philosophy has questioned the way religious language is used, and by extension the beliefs that the language tries to express. Prominent among the philosophies is the verificationist idea, espoused by Alfred Ayer1. The core of this theory is expressed in the verification principle, which states that a statement only has meaning if it can, in principle, be verified. Under this principle, factually significant propositions (e.g. this is a biscuit) have meaning, whilst putative propositions (e.g. I like biscuits) do not. Since religious statements are often very emotional, and beyond absolute proof, they are dismissed as being meaningless. It should, however, be mentioned that even Ayer later disregarded his book, and held that the theory was more relevant to scientific propositions than religious ones. Another school of thought is the language-games theory proposed by Ludwig Wittgenstein. He suggests that each specific area has its own way of using words to express its principles (its own language-game) and that what is intelligible to people in one area (e.g. religion) would not be so to those in another area who use another language game (e.g. science). This poses a challenge to religion, as it strives to express truths. Under Wittgenstein’s theory, however, these expressions would only be understood by those within the game; for religion this would be those who were adherents to that religion, and who thus already believed the expressions. If a truth cannot be comprehended by those who do not believe it, then it is questionable whether it is true. For the church, this poses a great problem, as not only does it suggest that, for example, the existence of God is purely a matter of belief but within the church itself language-games develop, so that different people understand different points by the same words (for example, the words “this is my body, which is given for you” at the Eucharist could convey symbolic meaning to a low Anglican, but a literal transubstantiation to a Catholic). This can then lead to factions, and splits in the church, as has been seen in history, and is still seen today between the literalists and symbolists. This theory has been criticised, however, as the usage of language may be shared or related between different games. This was recognised earlier by St. Thomas Aquinas, who used his doctrine of analogy to relate the use of language in a religious sense to its secular use (e.g. ‘brother’ literally describes a relation, but can be used in religion to mean one’s fellow man). The use of religious language has, however, created another challenge to the church, as the continual use of male references such as referring to God as ‘He’, and referring to fellow ‘Men’ and ‘Brothers’ is now seen as sexist. Whilst ‘men’ and ‘brothers’ could be said to clearly mean ‘people’, there has been debate over the gender used for God and the church has been attacked, even though Jesus was male, and the bible tends to use male analogies (king, father etc.). There are, however, good arguments for changing this tradition, as it would challenge male supremacy, and could tie in with the female wisdom literature of Isaiah. The church has thus faced a criticism, especially from feminist theologians, for not making the change, especially since doctrinally God transcends gender, so the change would, theoretically, not be too important.The Challenge of Biblical Criticism
The church ostensibly bases itself on the teachings of Jesus. These are represented in the gospels, but biblical criticism, which has become more prominent since 1863, when Heinrich Holtzmann proposed that Mark was the earliest gospel, and was copied by Matthew and Luke, has questioned how reliable the gospels are in their accounts. Scholars such as Bultmann have argued that the gospels show more of the early church than they do of the historical Jesus.“I do indeed think that we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus, since the early Christian sources show no interest in either, and are moreover fragmentary and legendary; and other sources about Jesus do not exist.”
BULTMANN, R. Jesus Christ and Mythology (1960)
This is a crucial point for the church, as the gospels have respect and authority as the record of Jesus’ teachings. If they were to lose this respect, than they would cease to become sacred authority, and scholarly criticism can be a tool for eroding this respect. Source criticism looks at the order in which the gospels were written; in particular that Mark was written first, and copied by Matthew and Luke. It also looks on the sources the evangelists used (for example, the various conflicting resurrection accounts suggest that various legends were used). Form criticism looks at the various small stories (pericopae) that were used, and why they were used, whilst redaction criticism examines how these stories were edited and arranged by the evangelists. Each criticism questions the view that the gospels are an honest account of exactly what Jesus taught, and so challenges their authority.
The Challenge of Evil
The last challenge which I shall examine is that of evil. The church maintains a belief in an omnipotent, omniscient God, who is wholly good. As the famous Epicurean paradox asks, how then can such a God allow evil? Various theodicies have been developed to try and solve the problem, but the official church line is based on the theodicy of St. Augustine of Hippo, that evil is the result of the misuse of free will by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and is God’s punishment for that sin. Only by turning to Jesus can we atone and escape the judgement at the end of time. The challenge still remains for the church, however, as this theodicy has been greatly attacked, as how can rebellion against God have occurred if he had created only good, and could the problem of evil conceivably be solved by eternal damnation? The challenge of science also challenges the church here, as not only does it claim that Adam and Eve did not physically exist, it also questions through the science of genetics whether we actually have free will, which is blamed for evil.We can see then that many challenges to the authority of the church have occurred, and continue to do so. In order to maintain credibility, the church must therefore successfully answer such challenges.
1AYER, A. Language, Truth and Logic (1936)
