If canon imposes limits on texts, authority imposes limits on readers.
Scripture speaks polyphonically. Communities hear multiple voices simultaneously: prophets, priests, scribes, disciples, and the laity. Yet interpretive stability demands a single locus of authorised construal — someone, or some institution, whose word settles meaning for the rest.
Distributed Voice as a Threat
When reading is widely dispersed:
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every individual becomes a potential interpreter,
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plural construals multiply uncontrollably,
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community cohesion falters,
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authority is challenged.
Unconstrained distribution of voice is a threat to the very structures that enable collective reading.
Intolerance as a Structural Necessity
The intolerance of distributed voice is not accidental, nor moralistic. It arises because polyphony overwhelms the field of constrained meaning:
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hierarchy is imposed,
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access is regulated,
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teaching and preaching channel interpretation,
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dissenting readings are delegitimised.
These are not failures of faith or education. They are the mechanisms that maintain the interpretive cut.
The Cut of Authority
Authority produces a crucial cut:
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who may speak,
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whose reading counts,
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which interpretations circulate publicly.
This cut stabilises plural meaning and mediates excess. It ensures that canon, perspective, and mediation do not dissolve into chaos.
But, like all cuts, it suppresses residual potential:
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voices are silenced,
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alternative construals are bracketed,
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polyphonic richness is reduced to authorised channels.
The Remainder That Persists
Suppressed voices never vanish entirely. They return as:
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marginal interpretations,
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debate over contested passages,
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historical revisionism,
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popular reinterpretations,
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local or subcultural reading practices.
Authority cannot eliminate relational surplus; it can only manage it. Its intolerance marks the boundary of containment, not the end of plurality.
Authority as Relational Device
Authority functions relationally:
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it distributes interpretive labour,
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it channels community attention,
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it manages risk,
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it maintains cohesion,
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it enforces the boundaries of canonical, ethical, and doctrinal cuts.
Without authority, the interpretive field fragments. But with authority, relational tension is merely contained, not destroyed.
Reading Authority Relationally
A relational approach does not reject authority. It recognises that:
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authority is essential to manage distributed construal,
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authority inevitably produces intolerance,
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the field of constrained meaning is maintained by both cuts and policing.
Interpretive power is inseparable from interpretive responsibility.
Looking Ahead
In the next post, we will examine Hermeneutics — The Intolerance of Reflexivity, where the cut turns back on the interpreter. Here, relational pressure moves from the management of texts and readers to the management of awareness itself. The field of meaning now presses against those who navigate it.
For now, it is enough to recognise this:
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