The Question of Authority Pt 1

If there is anything that most non-Catholic Christians accuse Catholicism of wrongly being, it's excessively papal. The Magisterium is, for many Protestants and Orthodox, a stumbling block and a scandal. The fact that most Catholics believe that "infallibility" means the pope is never wrong and that everything that comes out of the Vatican is the word of God only helps make this problem worse. This raises, for non-Catholics, the question of authority. Many Catholics, myself included, even question the authority of a body of old, celibate, European clerics when it comes to life in the regular world.
It is my goal to look briefly at examples of authority and attempt to make sense of what really goes into them. This post will examine both the nature of authority and discuss intellectual authority. The next post will discuss political and ecclesial authority.
There are many factors that contribute to what exactly authority is. Different disciplines would even give different definitions and different explanations for it. The political scientist would provide an explanation of power dynamics. The social Darwinist could explain strength and how different attributes, such as brute force, intelligence and charisma affect authority. We will begin our discussion, however, with a look to political philosophers.
John Locke and Thomas Hobbes place the authority of governing structures in the human necessity for protection. For Locke, the authority of a political structure only lies in its ability to successfully benefit the populace. For Hobbes, the political structure necessarily requires authoritative figures to protect us from ourselves. For Friedrich Nietzsche, authority is much more complex and is attributable to several competing factors. One such factor is brute strength and violence, an attribute he gives to the now infamous "blond beast" of ancient Europe. Another such factor is cunning and intellectual manipulation, which he attributes to the "weaker" faiths of Judaism and Christianity.
It seems to me that Nietzsche is partially right, at least when it comes to the intellectual portion. People see some agency or person as an authority because they see that person as well-versed and competent in whatever it is he or she is doing. This attribution may be due to intimidation, psychological manipulation, rational evaluation, or simply complacency.
Intimidation, or fear-based authority, is respect for a person or organization due to what one is afraid that person or agency might do. For example, I might consider the king's authority to be legitimate because he killed the previous king, and if I refuse to cooperate, he could kill me as well. Similarly, a child might be afraid of her parents' anger. This is often the authority that binds more vicious people to the law, but can also be seen in examples of harsh teachers, whom students might not respect intellectually but might fear poor marks, or some preachers, who might preach Hell and damnation for disobedience.
Psychological manipulation, it seems to me, is the most common form of authoritative respect. Buzz words to look out for in this style of authority are "brainwashing," "propaganda," "peer-pressure" and "coercion." While intimidation relies on threats and fear, psychological manipulation does better and relies on people actually believing the authority of a subject based mostly on words. The proper way to garner this trust in authority is rhetoric. Generally, a person we trust, one whose authority we already have established, shares with us her trust in another person or institution. Because we respect the judgment and the authority of the person who tells us this, we, in turn, begin to trust the authority of whatever it is she is promoting. Commonly, one hears, "Becky swears by it," or "Joe says she's a great professor," however it is not strictly limited to choosing an authority. Once we have placed our trust in an authority, the rhetoric of that authority, as long as we have no reason to doubt it, will only strengthen its authoritative power over us. This, then, is the arena that people often find patriotism, ecclesiastic loyalty, partisanship, and brand loyalty. Often the authority is not a person, but a group, thus, it holds more sway by sheer numbers.
Rational Inquiry is the most basic form of trust in authority and occurs mostly on the level of persons. As I get to know a person and his or her ideals, I begin to question whether or not he is worth my confidence. As happens sometimes, this could be prevented by my trust in other authorities, perhaps because I belong to a certain religious of philosophical school and he belongs to another, or because our political views are influenced by different political camps. This, then, is the tragedy of the psychological manipulation mentioned above. If our cultured biases interfere with our ability to rationally judge the veracity of a supposed authority, then we have failed to truly understand what authority is. Notable examples of this are Conservatives who dismiss the authority of Ecologists or atheists who dismiss Christian Ethicists. A truly rationally curious approach would examine the technique and the motivation of the authority. A talk-show host who utilizes irrational accusations, baseless claims and appeals to the Ethos is most often less trustworthy than the biologist who utilizes the scientific method and produces results open to scrutiny and replication. The problem, however, of rational inquiry is that it requires a discerning spirit as well as a hard work.
Then there are instances where people are not swayed by appeals to the Pathos, Ethos or Logos. Due to laziness, confusion or apathy, some people attribute authority to those whom they think "probably just know better." This is often the case with people like the lapsed Catholic or the discontent American. He might not agree with the Church on many issues, but because he feels a certain loyalty to it, he will follow regardless, and likely not attempt to reconcile the cognitive dissonance he feels. Similarly, he might regard the decisions and politics of the government as foolish and futile, but going to the ballot box he'll choose the candidate that he thinks will be less likely to make a mess of things. This is the trust of the pessimist. He thinks nothing good will arise, but he sees no preferable alternative.
These four sources, it seems to me, are the main ways in which we decide which authorities to listen to. They appeal, as previously mentioned, to the Pathos, the Ethos and the Logos and often struggle against other competing voices.
In the intellectual world, our trust in authority often depends on matters of psychological manipulation and rational inquiry. We trust a person or an institution as an intellectual authority usually because we have studied its tenets and found them reasonable. We distrust others because we have found them lacking, or because we have been convinced by other authorities that they are wrong.
In academia, this is most often found in the subjects of philosophy and theology. Theologians often have differing theologies, many of which are incompatible with others, but the average theologian will attempt to achieve "balance" by not decrying those of differing mindsets. However, due to the breadth of theological query, which covers two thousand years of thought and most cultures of the world, there are many times when theories compete. Philosophers, on the other hand, are less likely to gingerly talk about their opponents. Since philosophers are usually not operating under a pre-determined set of doctrines or rules, they experience much more freedom to outwardly deny other philosophies and to freely label other philosophers as fools.
Disciplines where one does not usually see competing schools of thought tend to be the hard sciences, though physicists often argue about string theory versus quantum mechanics versus special relativity. The arts and humanities, such as literature, psychology and linguistics often have differing and opposing views, but, at the end of the day their differences aren't of the same sort of soteriological (saving) or eschatological (end of the world) significance as philosophers and theologians tend to think of their differences.
Often times, when a person decides one school of intellectual thought is right for her, she normally decides so on the basis of what she is used to, what seems most rational or simple to her, or what seems to validate her experience. The mystic is less likely to embrace a purely rationalistic theology than he is an ascetically oriented one, and the existentially curious reader will be more likely to read Sartre than Jane Austen.
Of course, as mentioned before, there is also a great deal of psychological manipulation that influences our decision in intellectual matters as well. Someone raised in a staunch, conservative Baptist household is probably not going to give much credence to the radical Catholic theology of Michael Baxter. On the other hand, a student raised to value empiricism and scientific methodology is more likely to respect Thomas Watson and Albert Einstein as intellectual authorities than he is to respect Jerry Falwell or Billy Graham.

Verbosity as a tragedy

If there's one thing I cannot stand about theologians, it's how removed they often are from ordinary life. On one level, it's easy to see that the priest, who is taken care of financially by the diocese, who is not married, who spends all day studying theology and whose every move is checked and instructed by the Church, cannot truly relate to most of his parish on many levels. But this is a topic for another day and, perhaps another rant (as a theology student, it can be extremely frustrating knowing that there's no money to be made in theology, so while I put myself in debt there's no financial pay-off while people in religious orders often get tuition and living expenses covered).
What I mean to say is that often the things we talk about in theology classrooms are so far removed from both comprehensibility and practicality that it seems like we're talking for our own benefits. I've had plenty of professors who seem to just enjoy the sound of their voices. So the problem is, I think, twofold. First, I think there's a problem of actually seeing how what we're studying has any real application. Luckily, since I study at the School of Theology and MINISTRY, there are a lot of ministers in my classes who make the professors aware of this problem. Additionally, in moral theology classes, at least, the very subject matter is of such a nature that it is supposed to be directly applicable. While there is a lot of talk of theory and formulae, moral theology is really where the aetherial musings of theologians materialize. Abortion, gay marriage, suicide, euthanasia, politics, work and wages, the plight of the poor--essentially the actual happenings in the lives of the faithful--are the real topics of moral debate.
The second problem, however, is much harder to address and fix. Theologians often like to use and incorporate language that is often confusing and usually unnecessary. Then, they often use the terms as if they're obvious when, in fact, they often mean different things depending on the person.
Take, for example, objectivity and subjectivity, two terms which, I believe, were started by the ever-so-confusing German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Objectivity, in one usage, means what is actually the case. Subjectivity, on the other hand, is "just your opinion." However, another usage of objectivity is looking towards the object, in other words "your perspective" and another usage of subjectivity is looking towards oneself, in other words "introspection." However, rather than using terms that are much easier to remember and follow, theologians often opt to interchange objectivity and subjectivity in such a way that one finds himself reading the same passage multiple times to tease out the meaning only to realize at the end that the solution was simple and just confusingly worded.
One of my roommates, in her zeal to show her enthusiasm for Systematic Theology purchased a fridge magnet with one of those quotes on it, the kind that normally are supposed to either inspire, comfort or amuse. On the magnet was a quote from Bernard Lonnergan, a Jesuit theologian, and the quote said, "Objectivity is the genuine fruit of subjectivity." While I would first rather have something like a quote about teamwork posted on my fridge rather than some out of context quote that means nothing to the average person, I decided to actually ponder the meaning. It seems to me that what is meant by this quote is that objectivity, according to my first definition, is the result of subjectivity, according to the second definition. In other words, seeing the way something is happens when we practice introspection. I don't know about the other readers out there, but I would rather read something like that as an inspirational quote over "Objectivity is the genuine fruit of subjectivity" any day.
but those borrowed philosophical terms aren't even the extent of it. Within theology, especially "systematics" (already NOT a self-apparent term) there are several smaller branches whose meanings are just as cryptic or non-apparent. There's ecclesiology, or the way the Church runs, soteriology, or how we're saved, christology, or Jesus and the Trinity, apologetics, or defending the faith, eschatology, or the end times, exegesis, or interpreting Scripture, and others. Most of the terms are fanciful but unnecessary. It's almost as if theologians feel the need to come up with specific terms for anything that they might find interesting just in order to give it more credibility as a discipline. The problem, of course, comes when one tries to actually relate it to anybody who hasn't studied theology for years.
Then, of course, the terms get put into buzz-word formulas. In business meetings one might hear, "We need to actuate more synergy by cooperative endeavors" but in theology it's even more confusing. One of my professors this week made a joke about St Paul and stated, "His christology is his soteriology." Would it not be much easier to simply say, "He believed our salvation was only through Christ?" Another professor of mine gave a homily today in which he stated we need to make the subjunctive into the indicative. Not only was that a reference that only a theologian would understand, but he would also have to be grammatically familiar with a language that has both subjunctive and indicative like Latin. It occurred to me that the priest, God bless him, was trying more to impress with his knowledge of grammar and the liturgy than he was trying to give an actual lesson.
Alasdair MacIntyre, no small name in his own right, once said in a class that one should not pretend to have mastered a concept until he can explain it to his grandmother who only has a third grade education. This seems quite applicable, as I can't even understand some of what these elite professors are talking about, even with a grad student's level of understanding.
The cultured despisers of the world often criticize theists for being ignorant and uneducated. Truth be told, most of the theologians I have met have been legions more intelligent than the likes of Christopher Hitchens, Charles Dawkins, Samuel Dennet et al. How, though, is anybody in the world supposed to know this when we theologians use overinflated language and tend to confuse rather than explain. I'm not saying the content needs to be watered down or lightened, heaven forbid, but rather that rather than using bombastic terms like "objectivity" or "soteriology," why is it that we cannot actually say what we mean?

The Published Article!!

After waiting the better part of a year, my article is finally out! In December's edition of Interreligious Insights, under the title "The Mormon Godhead and the Christian Trinity" my research article was finally published.
Link to the article