Define Religious Authority

Authors Avatar by vishthanks (student)

Part A) Define Religious Authority (45)

Religious authority is an ultimate source of authority containing accurate and authoritative knowledge about God or a deity who can give guidance on how their believers should behave, for example, the Ten Commandments in the Bible which prohibits Christians from certain acts -“Thou shalt not kill”. There are numerous forms of authority in religion, with God being widely perceived as the ultimate origin of authority as his words are inspired and provides the foundation for the three main forms of authority which are through scriptures, profits and tradition.

Scriptures provide a main factor whilst defining religious authority as they are believed to be the word of God, often containing some sort of moral code which society as a whole should adhere to, such as the teaching of “Love thy neighbour as yourself” in the Bible. Scriptures also gain their authority due to the fact they are durable and permanent meaning that the messages are usually less likely to change from the original source. The fact they are written down makes them much more reliable than spreading teachings by oral tradition where they can be misheard or misunderstood.   There was a strong need for the teachings of Christianity to be written down in a scripture form because in early Christianity, when the church started to spread wider and wider, there was more threat of people changing the teachings both deliberately and by accident. The Bible was put together to form a religious equivalent of the Highway Code so that Christians could learn from it and stick to its overriding principles. The fact that scriptures are written down therefore also makes it easier for religious teachers to control and teach from. Furthermore, scriptures are seen as authoritative as they are used in Services of Prayer, for example, morning and evening prayers in the Church of England use readings from both the Old Testament and New Testament. Finally, scriptures also help provide answers to ultimate questions and can be used to solve disputes and conflicts due to the clarity of them.

Join now!

Another factor which is fundamental to defining religious authority is Tradition which is given authority because of its repetition and weight of history. Tradition implies religious teachings over a length of time which is passed down from one generation to the next and is usually the words from an initial profit, an example being that Jesus taught the disciples the Lord’s Prayer which is now frequently recited and has become a central prayer in Christianity. The longer tradition goes on for, the more authority it has which is shown in the Catholic Church where its authority stretches all the ...

This is a preview of the whole essay