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The Moral Authority o f Scripture
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linally the attempt to capture the ethical significance of scripture by a
summary image or concept makes it difficult to be faithful to our growing
awareness that the ethics in the scripture are bound in an intimate way with the
life of Christ; nor can they be dissociated from the life of the community that
arose around his life.19 The more we try to mine scripture for a workable
ethic, the more we are drawn to separate such an ethic from the understanding
of salvation that makes such an ethic intelligible in the first place.20 Insisting
that the biblical ethic is first an indicative before being an imperative21 will
hardly suffice to provide an account of the complex nature of the moral life
manifest in the early Christian community, nor can that distinction inform us
how we are to live and think in a manner appropriate to Christian convictions
regarding God and his relation to our existence.
In an attempt to avoid separating the ethics of scripture from the
theological context that makes them intelligible, the suggestion has been made
that scripture is not so much a revealed morality as a revealed reality. Thus for
H. R.
Niebuhr the Bible is not morally important in that it gives us knowledge
of itself, “but because it gives us knowledge of God acting on men, and of
ourselves before God.”22 What the Bible makes known, then, “ is not a
morality, but a reality, a living presence to whom man responds. ”23The Bible
does not so much provide a morality as it is the source of images and analogies
that help us understand and interpret the nature of our existence.24
This suggestion that scripture is revealed reality has the virtue of being
more appropriate to the nature of scripture than does the idea of “ revealed
morality.” But it too lacks appreciation for the political nature of the very
concepts of authority and scripture associated with the idea of “ revealed
morality. ” As a result, scripture is mined for concepts and images, which are
claimed to be biblically warranted but have the effect of legitimating the loss of
any continuing engagement of a community with the biblical narratives. Em
phasis on the Bible as the revelation of God can give the impression that
scripture can be known and used apart from a community that has been
formed and sustained by the reality that gives substance both to the scripture
and to that community. No image of God, no matter how rich, can substitute
for the “ life-giving power” which Blenkinsopp suggests arises from a com
munity’s capacity to sustain the prophetic activity of remembering and rein
terpreting the traditions of Yahweh.
3. The Moral Authority of Scripture
Thus, the very definition of the problem of the relation of scripture and
ethics, as well as the suggestions designed to deal with that problem, often
suffer from a failure to appreciate how claims for the authority of scripture are