The Many Witnesses to Christian Revelation

we have the three-legged anglican stool of scripture, tradition & reason, the wesleyan quadrilateral, which adds experience and the roman catholic inclusion of the magisterium christianity writ large really incorporates all of these elements, each denomination realizing these values in different ways and to varying extents below is a vague heuristic that provides placeholder categories for denominational comparisons and contrasts christian dogma, doctrine & discipline address paterology, christology, pneumatology, anthropology, soteriology, sophiology, eschatology & an ecclesiology, which includes the offices of priest, prophet (laity, theologians & governance, each providing a distinct witness) & king and also a polity, which can be congregational, presbyterial or episcopal ... all ordered to orient, empower, sanctify, save & heal humanity, all providing a witness to revelation through scripture, tradition & the offices, all deliberated, memorialized and communicated in and through councils, synods, conventions, conferences, catechisms and such, which provide visible foci of unity the church's prophetic office exercises its charism whenever its three distinct witnesses together demonstrate legitimate authority, which we recognize as that quality of leadership which elicits and justifies the willingness of others to be led by it Amongst the laity, we can further distinguish between the sensus fidei fidelium (the sensus fidei of the whole body of the faithful) and the sensus fidei fidelis (the sensus fidei belonging to the individual believer within the community of the faithful). The believer brings an openness to all of the witnesses to revelation, a receptivity that honors a hermeneutical spiral of 1) personal experience of love 2) imaginative interpretation of reality as be-loved 3) intuitive grasping of love through symbol, metaphor and story 4) practical and moral experience of love's promise & promises 5) personal experience of being nurtured, helped & saved by love 6) integration of all of these modes of loving and being loved 7) critical perspective and 8) self-critical perspective (in dialogue with the laity, the governance, the theologians & the world). Because of these Spirit-filled dynamisms, we can rest confident that the Holy Spirit will effectually enable the Church to fulfill its mission so that it will neither lose its essential character nor fail to reach its goals.

Regarding essential dogma, the church's prophetic office has largely exercised its charism as its three distinct witnesses have indeed together demonstrated legitimate authority, eliciting and justifying the willingness of most Christians to be led by its creeds. Regarding church doctrines and disciplines, there is further value that could be realized from a more visible focus, rather than foci, of unity, ie a primacy, even though Christians continue to grapple with its precise nature and jurisdiction. Any such claim to primacy will remain, at best, aspirational and nominal, providing an ostensible but not de facto focus of unity, until such a leadership emerges with the quality of real authority in concert with the other witnesses to revelation.