History

It is therefore necessary to register a certain degree of hesitation concerning the image of "selecting" criteria for evaluating the authority of the past, in that this image suggests an active choice on the part of the agent. A more nuanced account of this process would suggest that a certain outlook on the authority of the past is (possibly unconsciously) presupposed within the group to which the theologian belongs, reflecting its social needs and aspirations, and that this is received and assumed as self-evidently correct. -Alister McGrath.The Genesis of Doctrine. (153)