The Lord Is the Spirit. John A. Studebaker
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which is “the sheer appeal to authority, or the excessive claims of an authority” (Ramm, The Pattern of Authority, 19).
17. Ibid., 18 (emphasis mine).
18. Ibid., 21.
19. Ibid., 26.
20. Ibid., 21 (emphasis his).
21. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 16.
22. See Lewis, “Attributes of God,” 453–58. Divine transcendence has traditionally been a watershed attribute for “theism.” “The incomparable divine transcendence involves a radical dualism between God and the world. . . . A biblical theist not only believes that the one, living God is separate from the world, as against pantheism and panentheism, but also that God is continually active throughout the world providentially, in contrast to deism” (Lewis, “Attributes of God,” 458).
23. While Frame holds that both divine authority and divine control demonstrate transcendence (“divine transcendence in Scripture seems to center on the concepts of control and authority”), he also seems to distinguish the way they do so. Divine authority demonstrates transcendence in that “divine authority transcends all other loyalties (Exod 20:3; Deut 6:4f; Matt 8:19–22, 10:34–38; Phil 3:8)” (Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 15–16). Divine control, however, is made evident “by God’s sovereign power” (p, 15).
24. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 16.
25. Ibid., 16.
26. Ramm, The Pattern of Authority, 14. This is confirmed by the Latin word for authority, auctoritas, which refers to “personal influence” and is derived from the auctor, a person who “brings about the existence of any object” (Watt, Authority, 11).
27. This also implies that our principle of authority is free from subjectivism—it finds its locus not in the individual “under” authority but in the Father, Son, and Spirit who “possess” divine authority (see Ramm, The Pattern of Authority, 21).
28. Ramm, The Pattern of Authority, 19.
29. Ramm explains, “All authority must be personally recognized. This is not, to be very sure, the grounds of authority. An authority becomes authoritative to a person only as that person accepts the authority through personal decision. This would appear to taint all authority with the leaven of subjectivism, but this is so only if the grounds of authority are confused with the personal acceptance of authority” (Ramm, The Pattern of Authority, 14).
30. Ramm defines divine revelation as “the religious object determining the character and truth of religion to the subjects of religion” (ibid., 20). See also Oden, Life in the Spirit, 23.
31. Ramm adds, “It must be understood that there is not dilution of authority in its delegation” (Ramm, The Pattern of Authority, 27).
32. Ibid., 27.
33. Ramm proclaims, “The duality of the Word and the Spirit must always be maintained, for it is in this duality that the Protestant and Christian principle of authority exists” (ibid., 30). Ramm also provides helpful documentation of this thesis in Protestant theology. This includes: Calvin, who entitles one chapter in his Institutes, “The Testimony of the Spirit Necessary to Confirm the Scripture, in Order to the Complete Establishment of Its Authority” (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, chap. VII); Luther, who states, “I believe that I can not by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to him; but the Holy Ghost has called me through the Gospel . . .” (Luther, Small Catechism); and Arminius, who asserts, “the Holy Spirit, by whose inspiration holy men of God have spoken this word . . . is the author of that light by the aid of which we obtain a perception and an understanding of the divine meanings of the word, and is the Effector of that Certainty by which we believed those meanings to be truly divine” (Arminius, The Writings of Arminius, 1:140).
34. Ramm, The Pattern of Authority, 37.
35. Ibid., 36.
36. Ibid., 38.
37. Ibid., 62.
38. Ibid., 62.
39. The Westminster Confession of Faith, ch. 1, no. 10.
40. Thompson, Modern Trinitarian Perspectives, 25.
41. Forsyth, “The Divine Self-Emptying,” 42.
42. Veracious authority is defined by Ramm as “that authority possessed by men, books, or principles which either posses truth or aid in the determination of truth” (Ramm, The Pattern of Authority, 12).
43. Ramm thinks of “functional authority” as a “substitutional authority” (ibid., 12). For further explanations see chapters four and six in this work.
44. As we shall see, the emphasis of Scripture regarding the Spirit’s authority in the Church is that of a “ministerial authority” rather than a “magisterial authority.” A general parallel can be drawn between present debates regarding the Spirit’s authority and Reformation debates regarding Church authority. “Catholic” authority “understands the magisterium to be the living authority of the Church”; the Church “specifies the rules for interpreting the Bible, and even (at times) restricts the use of the Bible” (Shelley, By What Authority?, 140). Whereas Catholicism replaced the authority of the believer to interpret Scripture with the authority of the Church, postmodernists often replace the authority of the Bible as truth with the power of the Spirit, and the absolute authority of Christ with a “pluralistic” authority of the Spirit.
45. Governing authority might be seen as a fully delegated right to govern within a particular structure.