This calls to mind the distinction created by Søren Kierkegaard
separating the genius from the apostle.
The apostle speaks with authority.
Like a king or a father, he must be obeyed because he has authority.
However, a genius is open to criticism at every point.
There is no automatic assumption that what a genius says
when he opens his mouth will be some sort of truth.
Each comment or paragraph will be judged by reason,
not by obedience to authority.

     As strange as it seems to people from other denominations,
Unitarian Universalism is a creed-free religious movement.
There is no UU Pope, no UU Bible, and no UU doctrine.
No statement of faith or opinion can be supported by a claim
that it comes from church authorities above the individual.

    (Unitarian Universalists who come from other denominations
sometimes attempt to make a new creed
out of the principles and traditions we embrace, but when they do,
they may be reverting to something like dogmatic thinking,
which is fundamentally at odds with the freedom of belief
characteristic of our creed-free religious movement.)

     The reference to Kierkegaard above was offered as an insight of genius
—not because it came from someone
who claimed some kind of official authorization.
Kierkegaard himself was very clear about this matter:
He wrote as an independent thinker,
not as someone authorized by the church
(or any other organization) to express any official position.
At the beginning of each of his collections of discourses,
he stated that he wrote without authority.
His short discourse called "The Difference between a Genius and an Apostle"
is now available in a collection called—appropriately enough—
Without Authority: Kierkegaard's Writings, XVIII
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1997) p. 91-108
And, of course, this reference itself is given without authority.
No claim is made that some ideas must be true
because Søren Kierkegaard wrote them.