Civilizing Authority: Society, State, and ChurchPatrick M. Brennan Lexington Books, 2007 - 230 páginas Voices of Enlightenment have long counseled modern men and women to flee authority, including authority claimed by the church. Aspiring to substitute rock-ribbed law for human, or even divine, authority, today's legal minds pursue a "rule of law, not of men." Any possibility of authority is almost everywhere assimilated to the threat of authoritarian abuse. Civilizing Authority counters the flight from authority with the claim that it is precisely authority itself that offers a barrier against authoritarianism. The book's authors share the insight that humans cannot increase, or even long survive, without authority, and they observe, from along a broad spectrum of perspectives, that all phases of our human living depend on authority. Families, churches, clubs, monasteries, unions, cities, and states -- human living would be unrecognizable without them, and they all depend upon authority and authorities. Still, what is "the authority experience?" What are we obeying when when we give willing assent to authority? The ten authors of Civilizing Authority, Chrisitians of diverse belief and professional discipline, unite here to explore the ways in which authority, though elusive, remains possible -- indeed, exigent -- in a post-Christian world. Refusing to conflate genuine authority with positions of power or prestige, they probe the deep, and perhaps transendental, sources of authority. Friendship, solidarity, liberty, and perhaps even belief -- these, the authors suggest, may be the true springs of the authority that is the principle of increase in human living. |
Contenido
Authority and Reality | 1 |
The Disappearance of Natural Authority and the Elusiveness of Nonnatural Authority | 19 |
Authority in the Church | 33 |
Authority and Liberty | 57 |
Does Authority Invite or Command? | 73 |
A Rock on Which One Can Build Friendship Solidarity and the Notion of Authority | 97 |
Society Subsidiarity and Authority in Catholic Social Thought | 117 |
How a Constitution May Undermine Constitutionalism | 143 |
Locating Authority in Law | 159 |
Hollow Men? Law and the Declension of Belief | 195 |
217 | |
225 | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Términos y frases comunes
action Antonin Scalia Aquinas authentic authoritarian authoritative Avery Cardinal Dulles believe Bernard Lonergan bishops Brennan Brutus called Christian civil society command concept consent Constitution courts culture decisions distinction doctrine Eastern Catholic Churches exercise exist fact faith freedom friendship gnostic group-persons Hobbes human Ibid individual inner law insight invitation John Finnis John Paul Joseph Vining judges judgments judicial Justice Justice Scalia lawyers least legal positivism liberty living meaning meeting the questions mind modern moral natural authority nonnatural norms notion obedience obligation pastors person philosophy political authority pope positive law possible practice principle rational reality reason response Scalia Second Vatican Council secular seek sense social sort sovereignty speak spirit subsidiarity teaching texts theory things Thomas Thomas Hobbes thority tion truth understanding unity University Press Vatican Vatican II words York Yves Simon