Oliver O'Donovan: On 'Authority'

Cover via Amazon

The term, ‘authority’ warns us that when redemption is present to us it does not encounter a vacuum. It exercises an authority over an existing reality. It encounters an apparent structure of order which is presented within the world, criticizing it and transforming it. It brings true reality to bear upon the appearances of reality which our world (that segment of the whole which shares our moment in history with us) presents to us. The effect of this is twofold: our world is judged, and it is recreated. The unreality of its existing coherence and continuity is exposed; and there is introduced a new series of events which present a truer coherence and continuity.

--Oliver O'Donovan in Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics