ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the authority that the Christian tradition possesses. It assumes that the Christian tradition is a complex of propositional and non-propositional elements, with logical priority accorded to the propositional.
The chapter draws a distinction between a de facto tradition, where the same thing is believed or done over time, and a de jure tradition, where the same rule is followed over time. It is assumed that Christianity is a de jure tradition.
The chapter discusses two objections to the idea that in a de jure tradition the past may properly exercise authority over the present. The first objection is from scepticism about rule following, and holds that, for any rule of the Christian tradition, that rule has been followed only a finite number of times, so how do we know what following that rule requires now? It is argued that communitarian accounts of meaning and truth are not sufficient to meet this objection because of the empirical fact that Christendom is fragmented into many different traditions.
The second objection is the argument from testimony. Here Hume’s argument that the past must necessarily be interpreted by a particular ‘enlightened’ view of the present is rejected, in favour of the rival view that it is only so far as one has confidence in the testimony of others that one can gain knowledge of the past. It is argued that such credence is a primitive feature of the human cognitive situation.
