Theological Authority in the Church: Reconsidering Traditionalism and Hierarchy - Paperback

by Steven Nemes (Author), Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen (Foreword by)

Who in the church has the right to tell others what is to be done or believed for the sake of friendship with God? How are theological disputes and differences of opinion to be resolved? Against the recent trend toward more "traditionalist" and "hierarchical" conceptions of the church's role in theology, this book argues from the New Testament itself for a "low" conception of ecclesial theological authority. Drawing especially from Jesus's polemics against the Pharisees, it makes the case that no one in the church has any further authority than that of derivatively, fallibly, and in principle reversibly relating and bearing witness to the teachings of Jesus and the works of God in him. The book concludes with an extended consideration of the radical anti-dogmatic and anti-metaphysical consequences of this thesis for the future of Protestant Christian theology vis-a-vis the catholic tradition.

Author Biography

Steven Nemes is an instructor of Latin and Greek at North Phoenix Preparatory Academy in Phoenix, Arizona. He is the author of the volumes Orthodoxy and Heresy and Theology of the Manifest: Christianity without Metaphysics, and has published a number of articles on diverse subjects in Christian theology, phenomenological philosophy, and the overlap of the two.