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.
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Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen is Professor of Systematic Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary and Docent of Ecumenics at University of Helsinki, Finland. A native of Finland, he has taught and lived with his family in Thailand and participates widely in international ecumenical, theological, and interreligious projects. Among about thirty books and monographs authored and edited, his main work is the five-volume A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World.