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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
In 1974 the American Roman Catholic theologian Avery Dulles published an instructive and successful book called Models of the Church, the heart of which considers the church as institution, as mystical communion, as sacrament, as herald, and as servant. It includes a chapter on ‘The church and revelation’, later expanded as a further book called Models of Revelation; but at that point difficulties surely arise. The notion of models as Dulles applies it to the church enables him to take account of the fact that the church is a concrete objective reality, yet one whose nature is complex and difficult to encapsulate. Images which emerge from Bible and tradition, such as the ones Dulles studies, can be applied with a degree of analytical rigour to the church, with illuminating results. Some of these images may be better described as metaphors. They take actual entities such as a herald and use them to cast light on the nature of the church by analogy; they are less systematically developed than models and are more consistently capable of operating at other levels as well as the intellectual (though in theology, at least, models also commonly carry strong emotional associations and thus may profoundly influence attitudes as well as shape conceptual thinking). Some of the images are models in a stricter meaning of the word; they do not in themselves exist in the same sense as the church does, but as constructs they enable us to grasp aspects of the significance of the church conceptually.
1 New York/Dublin: Doubleday/Gill and Macmillan; 2nd ed., 1988.
2 New York/Dublin: Doubleday/Gill and Macmillan, 1983.
3 On the understanding of models presupposed here, see e.g. Black, M., Models and Metaphors (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1962)Google Scholar; Barbour, I. G., Myths, Models and Paradigms (New York/London: Harper/SCM, 1974)Google Scholar; McFague, S., Metaphorical Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982; London: SCM, 1983).Google Scholar
4 Social-Scientific Criticism of the New Testament and its Social World (ed. Elliott, J. H.; Semeia 35 [1986]) 3.Google Scholar
5 Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983; see p 109.
6 Cf. Barton, J., People of the Book? (London: SPCK, 1988) 70–75.Google Scholar
7 Has Christianity a Revelation? (London/Philadelphia: SCM/Westminster, 1964)Google Scholar. See also Downing's interesting review of Dulles' Models of Revelation in Theology87 (1984) 295–97.
8 E.g. The Bible in the Modem World (London/New York: SCM/Harper, 1973).Google Scholar
9 For the term ‘word of God,’ see 1 Sam. 9:27; 1 Kgs. 12:22 (also ‘word of our God’ in Isa. 40: 8), but ‘word of Yahweh’ is much more common.
10 Though it is perhaps worth noting that the answer to C. F. Evans' question ‘Is “Holy Scripture” Christian?’ (see his book of that title; London: SCM, 1971) seems to be ‘Yes’, insofar as New Testament faith, while not hinting that Christianity will have room for holy time, holy place, holy caste, or holy rites (apart from a kiss!), still allows for holy writings (see specifically Romans 1:2, also 7:12; 2 Timothy 3:15).
11 Cf. MacDonald, H. D., Ideas of Revelation (London/New York: Macmillan/St Martin's, 1959)Google Scholar; Downing, Has Christianity a Revelation?; Barr, , Old and New in Interpretation (London/New York: SCM/Harper, 1966).Google Scholar
12 The Bible in the Modem World, 28.
13 ‘Four preliminary considerations on the concept of authority,’ Ecumenical Review 21 (1969) 166;quoted by Barr, The Bible in the Modern World 28. See also Lindbeck, G. A., The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia/London: Westminster/SPCK, 1984), 102–103.Google Scholar
14 See e.g. the work of Warfield, B.B. (e.g. the collection The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, reprinted Philadelphia: PRPC, 1948/London: Marshall, 1959).Google Scholar
15 The notion stems from the work of Kuhn, Thomas, beginning with The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago/London: University of Chicago, 1962)Google Scholar; for its history and its application to theology, see the works by Harbour and McFague cited in note 3 above, as well as Dulles' work.
16 McFague, , Metaphorical Theology, 74.Google Scholar
17 The Bible in the Modem World, 23–34.
18 Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982.
19 A key model for Lindbeck in his ‘postliberal’ study of The Nature of Doctrine.
20 Oxford/New York: OUP, 1981.
21 Cf. Farrer's, A. M.The Glass of Vision (Westminster [London]: Dacre, 1948) for an earlier example of this move.Google Scholar
22 ‘Toward a hermeneutic of the idea of revelation’ (ET by D. Pellauer), Harvard Theological Review70 (1977) 15 = Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980/London: SPCK, 1981) 90–91.Google Scholar
23 I have noted above that this is also one of Bartlett's starting points; he changes the model from revelation to authority but does not question the appropriateness of working with a single category for all the biblical genres (see The Shape of Biblical Authority ix). In his contribution to the Lux Mundi centenary volume The Religion of the Incarnation (ed. Morgan, R.; Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1989)Google Scholar John Muddiman takes up Charles Gore's observation (in his essay on ‘The Holy Spirit and inspiration’) that inspiration, too, means different things with regard to different genres.
24 For the Bible as the sedimentation of language or experience, see Farley, , Ecclesial Reflection 267–281, 363–65Google Scholar; as theological reflection, Barr, , The Bible in the Modem World 89–149Google Scholar; as preaching, Marxsen, W., The New Testament as the Church's Book (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972Google Scholar; ET by Mignard, J. E. of Das Neue Testamentals such dar Kirche [Gütersloh: Mohn, 1966]).Google Scholar
25 See e.g. Kermode, F., The Genesis of Secrecy (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard UP, 1979)Google Scholar; with the recent discussion between W. H. Kelber, D. O. Via, A. Yarbro Collins, and Kermode, in Germ, Narrativity, and Theology (ed. M. Cerhart and J. G. Williams; Semeia 43, 1988), and R. F. Thiemann's critique in ‘Radiance and obscurity in biblical narrative,’ Scriptural Authority and Narrative Interpretation (Festschrift, Hans Frei, ed. G. Green; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 21–41.Google Scholar
26 See recently Scriptural Authority and Narrative Interpretation. In The Biblein the Modem World 23–30, Barr offers some criticism of the attempt to retain the term ‘authority’ by redefining it in a ‘soft’ sense (applicable to narrative, for instance).
27 I owe this point to Dr R. P. Gordon.
28 Die kirchliche Dogmatik 1 2, § 19 (Zurich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1938; ET by G. T. Thomson and H. Knight, Church Dogmatus 1 2; § Edinburgh/New York: Clark/Scribner's, 1956). Ricoeur discusses ‘The hermeneutics of testimony’ in Anglican Theological Review 61 (1979) 435–61 = Essays 119–54 (ET by D. Stewart and C E. Reagan from ‘L'herméneutique du témoignage,’ Archivio di Filosofia 42 [1972] 35–61); see also ‘Revelation’ 31–37 = Essays 110–17.
29 See The Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order: Montreal 1963 (Faith and Order Paper 42, ed. Rodger, P. C. and Vischer, L., London: SCM, 1964) 50–54.Google Scholar
30 I do not exclude the possibility that the Bible includes some wholly (or almost wholly) fictional narratives, to which the model of the witnessing tradition might not be as directly applicable.
31 Models and Mystery (London/New York: OUP, 1964) 60; as quoted by McFague, Metaphorical Theology 106.Google Scholar
32 Cf. e.g. Lindbeck's description of its ‘overarching story’ as ‘the literary genre of the Bible as a whole’ and as that which holds its diverse materials together (The Natwre of Doctrine 120–21). But see M. Wiles’ critique of such views in ‘Scriptural authority and theological construction,’ Scriptural Authority and Narrative Interpretation, 42–58.
33 I have discussed this further in the article on ‘Inspiration’ in; London: SCM/Philadelphia: TPI, 1990 A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (ed. Coggins, R.J. and Houlden, J. L.).Google Scholar
34 See Austin, J.L., How to Do Things with Words (Oxford/New York: Clarendon/OUP, 1962Google Scholar, Evans, D.D., The Logic of Self-Involvement (London/NewYork:SCM/Herder, 1963).Google Scholar
35 Cf. the comments of Wood, C. M., The Formation of Christian Understanding (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981) 39.Google Scholar
36 See again Dogmatik 1. 2.
37 The Classic (London/New York: Faber/Viking, 1975).Google Scholar
38 The Analogical Imagination (New York/London: Crossroad/SCM, 1981).Google Scholar
39 See classically Warfield, ‘God-inspired Scripture,’ The Pnsbytaian and Reformed Review 11 (1900) 89–130 (reprintedin Warfield, Inspiration and Authority 245–96), against Cremer, H. (see his Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek [ET by Urwick, W., 4th ed.Edinburgh: Clark, 1895] 730–732).Google Scholar
40 See Institutes of the Christian Religion 19; IV 8.
41 Inspiration and Authority 420; my emphasis. ‘Infallibility’ in the context of nineteenth century debate was the equivalent of ‘inerrancy’ in current discussion; the latter term came into use when ‘infallibility’ began to be used in a softer sense during the present century.
42 Ricoeur, ‘Revelation’ 4–5, 17 = Essays 77, 92.
43 Wood, Formation 71.
44 A paper read to the Cambridge Theological Society in February 1989, and revised in the light of comments by members and colleagues.