^{page 216 note 1} The Christian acknowledges all the deeds surrounding Jesus as potential sources of revelation. Only some of these deeds are language acts.

^{page 216 note 2} I John I. I. Scriptural references in this paper will follow the King James version.

^{page 217 note 1} The notion of boundary control is derived from modern quantum mechanics. The usage here follows the development and extension of this term by Polanyi, Michael in ‘Life's Irreducible Structure’, Science, vol. 160 (June 1968), 1308–1312CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. A briefer formulation of boundary control appears in Polanyi's, MichaelTacit Dimension (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967), pp. 35–45Google Scholar. In this latter work, ‘marginal control’ is used instead of ‘boundary control’.

^{page 218 note 1} The irreducibility asserted here is challenged by contemporary forms of reductionism. Some proponents of reductionism suggest that all higher-order processes may be accounted for in terms of physical-chemical processes. Michael Polanyi opposes such reductionist theories while acknowledging, at the same time, that higher-order processes do depend upon the proper functioning of physical-chemical processes. Thus, he admits that disruptions in any organism can be accounted for in terms of physics and chemistry; yet, he firmly denies that physics and chemistry can be expected to account for such higher-order processes as helio-trophisms in plants and problem-solving activity in the higher animals. Hence, malfunctioning can sometimes be specified in terms of chemical imbalance; proper functioning however cannot be so specified. Bio-chemistry can stipulate the necessary conditions for organismic health without being able, by itself, to stipulate what macroscopic organismic functioning is to be regarded as ‘healthy’ or ‘sickly’. Only animal physiology can accomplish that. Thus higher-order processes depend upon the proper functioning of lower-order processes without being thereby reducible to these lower-order operations.

^{page 219 note 1} How an athlete's training operates so as to assimilate corporate standards of excellence and thereby fit him to serve higher-order ideals cannot be taken up here. Nor will it be shown how free initiative and service are mutually supportive of the individual athletic performance. These areas of inquiry will be addressed in the second section of this paper dealing with the process of apprenticeship.

^{page 219 note 2} Luke 1.1.

^{page 219 note 3} John 20.30–31.

^{page 220 note 1} Rev. 1.10–II.

^{page 220 note 2} The various charismatic gifts (including ecstatic revelations) were readily acknowledged in the primitive Christian communities; efforts were directed toward discerning authentic gifts and regulating their exercise. Cf., for example, 1 Cor. 14 and the Didache.

^{page 220 note 3} The Fathers of the church expressed divided judgments relative to the Apocalypse. Many early listings of authorised books exclude it. On the other hand, the Book of Enoch, which also claims heavenly visions, received little support from the Fathers and was excluded from the canon.

^{page 220 note 4} Gal. 1.8.

^{page 221 note 1} Vatican 11, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, sec. 11. The English translation being from Abbott, Walter M., S.J., , The Documents of Vatican II (N.Y.: Guild Press, 1966).Google Scholar

^{page 221 note 2} Vincent of LÉins, The Commonitory, sec. 2.

^{page 222 note 1} von Harnack, Adolph, What is Christianity? (N.Y.: G. P. Putman's Sons, 1902), P. 295.Google Scholar

^{page 222 note 2} Newman, John Henry, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1974), p. 162Google Scholar. The work was originally published in 1845, and has since become a classical argument for the necessity of a teaching authority.

^{page 223 note 1} Vatican 11, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, sec. 10.

^{page 223 note 2} ibid.

^{page 223 note 3} ibid., sec. 8.

^{page 223 note 4} ibid., sec. 12 and 23.

^{page 223 note 5} ibid., sec. 8.

^{page 223 note 6} ibid., sec. 12.

^{page 224 note 1} Anglican Convocation of 1562, ‘The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion’, art. 6 and 20. Cf. also Ramsey, A. M., ‘The Authority of the Bible’, Peake's Commentary on the Bible (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1962), p. 7, where it is affirmed that ‘the reader of the Bible has the Church to guide him’.Google Scholar

^{page 224 note 2} Dodd, Charles Harold, The Authority of the Bible (London: Nisbet and Co. Ltd., 1938), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

^{page 225 note 1} The notion of apprenticeship which follows has been largely suggested by the author's study of Michael Polanyi. Appropriate references will be supplied where they are deemed helpful. A brief statement of Polanyi's notion of apprenticeship can be found in Tacit Dimension, pp. 29–31 and 60–61.

^{page 225 note 2} Dodd, op. cit., p. 7: ‘If a person has but a slender stock of religious experience of his own, and if he is in no vital touch with the tradition of the Christian people, he is not likely to find much profit in reading the Bible thus.’

^{page 226 note 1} Polanyi follows Augustine here: ‘All those things to begin with we simply believed, following authority only, we came to understand…’ (De vera religione, sec. 14). His initial exemplars, however, are taken from the scientific enterprise and then generalised to cover every domain of culture in which a heritage must be acquired by each succeeding generation. Cf. Polanyi, Michael, Personal Knowledge (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964), pp. 160–174 and 264–98.Google Scholar

^{page 227 note 1} Polanyi, , Personal Knowledge, pp. 92 and 169–71Google Scholar. Polanyi opposes the Vienna School of Logical Positivism which assumes that knowledge is open to unambiguous, explicit formulation.

^{page 227 note 2} ibid., pp. 53–65 and 203–211.

^{page 228 note 1} In recent times, nearly every chess master has selected his most distinguished matches and published them with his own running commentary.

^{page 228 note 2} Polanyi, , Personal Knowledge, pp. 120–31, 142–5, 300–3Google Scholar. Polanyi shows that all learning has the character of solving a problem: confident anticipation, emotional strain, intuitive groping, submission to authority all come together in the burst of satisfaction which accompanies the solution.

^{page 230 note 1} The apprenticeship depicted here properly applies to adults. In the case of children, their parents become their natural teachers. And since their parents quietly brought them up recognising particular religious teachers (as generally found in a church), their judgment and sensibilities are largely shaped before they reach the age of reason as to whom they will later continue to affirm as their teachers.

^{page 230 note 2} This follows the Augustinian-Franciscan appreciation of faith as leading to experience and not merely cognition (as the later Thomistic-Scholastic theologies suggest). Cf. Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology (Digswell Place: James Nisbet and Co., Ltd., 1964), vol. 1, p. 46.Google Scholar

^{page 230 note 3} Creeds, dogmas, and other verbal formulations of belief imply a suitable apprenticeship for their being rightly understood. In addition, Jesus and his disciples are always in the position of knowing more than they can say. Refer back to this limitation as it was applied to the chess masters for more detail.

^{page 230 note 4} 1 Cor. 2.16.

^{page 230 note 5} John 1.18; 4.34ff; 5.36ff; etc. This persuasion was so strong among the Fathers of the Church that St. Irenaeus (d. 202) uses it to understand even the Old Testament revelations: ‘All visions of this kind signify the Son of God… for it is not the Father of all, who is not seen by the world… but the Word of God, who was always with mankind… and acquainted man with God’ (Proof of the Apostolic Teaching, sec. 45).

^{page 231 note 1} John 5.17; 8.26; 5.26 and 30. This functional identity noted in John and the ontological identity formulated by the councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon are of the same fabric.

^{page 231 note 2} 2 Cor. 5. 17–20. When reconciliation (i.e. reconformation) is read entirely in juridical terms, man's role in God's project is sorely reduced to acknowledging the pardon of his Judge. When reconciliation is read entirely in moral terms, God's role in Jesus Christ is sorely reduced to providing an ethical model or standard for His final judgment. Both positions lack balance.

The notion of apprenticeship suggests some grounds for regaining a better balance here. Conformity to Christ is not a juridical conformity (by God's grace alone) or a moral conformity (by man's activity alone) without also being a causally efficacious conformity based upon an apprenticeship to Jesus Christ. Thus the apprentice's act of faith causes his progressive transformation into ‘a new creature’. And Jesus not only illustrates God's new creature: but, in virtue of his effacious role as Master, he enables his disciples actually to attain his own dynamism which is reconformed to God. Interested readers will want to examine the strong exegetical collaboration on this point as found in Kittel, Gerhard, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. II (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1964), pp. 302–315.Google Scholar

^{page 232 note 1} The scope of this paper does not allow an examination of the degree to which the powers of Jesus can be reliably transmitted through the media of an imperfect series of discipleships. Those who embrace Christianity as adults do so under the conviction that their particular teachers in their self-chosen church do reliably understand and exemplify the dynamism of Jesus so as to merit their confidence.

^{page 232 note 2} Matt. 11.40.

^{page 232 note 3} I Cor. 11.1.

^{page 232 note 4} Discipleship is thus prior to and responsible for the discernment of texts.

^{page 232 note 5} The canon of Scriptures represents the normative first word without also being the definitive last word which inscripturalised the Christian heritage.

^{page 233 note 1} Just as the deeds surrounding Jesus disclose the Father, so too, the preached and written word of men pointing to Jesus can evoke the same disclosure.

^{page 233 note 2} John 16.12.

^{page 234 note 1} The judgment here is competent and reliable without any pretension of being infallible and exhaustive. It includes an adult (and not a childish) relationship to former teachers, pastors, bishops, etc. Martin Kähler explores this same position relative to modern exegesis in his classic essay, The So-called Historical Jesus and the Historic, Biblical Christ (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964), p. 121ff, orig. pub. in 1892.Google Scholar