What is the cause of obedience?

[fakename]

It is based on an organizational structure. A business. The military. A PTA. The Boy Scouts. Most such organizations are optional - we choose to associate ourselves and thus impose the organization’s authority upon ourselves. But there is usually the State (government), whose authority is imposed upon us.

But superiors are often inferior. Consider the “pointy-haired” boss in Dilbert (by Scott Adams). He is a complete idiot, inferior to ALL of his direct-reports in every way except his ability to deceive his own (similarly incompetent) management regarding his department’s shoddy performance. Adams uses him as a stereotype of incompetent managers. The stereotype would not be humorous if it did not have some basis in reality.

In many organizations (including academia, the military, civil service jobs, and most union shops), authority is based (MUCH) more on tenure than demonstrated ability. As long as you can meet the MINIMUM requirements to keep from being fired/discharged, you are automatically promoted based on your length of service, until you are promoted to a position beyond your ability, where you tend to (ineffectively) linger, instead of being demoted (this is the “Peter principle”).

(1) So authority is just based either on organizational convenience or chance? If that’s true though, then in a way authority has no per se cause but doesn’t everything have a cause except God? And if authority is based either on convenience or chance in such a way that people have authority “just because” then any person’s authority is justified on circular reasoning (“I have authority because it just so happens that I have authority”)and so no human could rightfully obey since they would be obeying a person or group for no reason besides faith which is reserved just for the Church.
Suppose though that authority is based on something similar to organizational structure but more concrete -the good of the organization. In this case one can still (1) argue that at least sometimes this is consistent with the virtue of a person (some organizations require virtuous people to thrive) and (2) that institutional good is not the essence of authority since institutions can thrive by unjust means and yet authority is forfeit by injustice.
So what alternative justifications or elaborations of previous justifications can be offered to counter these objections?

(2) I suppose that the reason why the worst people get on top is either (1) the system is corrupt or (2) the people are incorrect and rather the worst people are better in some way. Also one must not discount the importance of uncertainty: since it is very difficult to definitively prove that the best are the best, it may happen that cumulatively the worst become powerful.(3) Additionally I should mention that seniority is often considered a measure of better-ness (seniority=experience=greater knowledge). (4) If authority was not based on skill or virtue then why are certain things like nepotism or affirmative action considered wrong and the persons thereby empowered considered fit to be relieved of command? Of course I’m not married to this POV but I’m not totally swayed by the view of authority expressed in the quote and these explanations seem likely enough.

 

[fakename]

*This is a great post! Thank you.

My Parish Priest said something recently which has been ringing in my ears eversince. He said the problem with us Catholics is that we are too obedient!! I would have written to him about it (he spoke in front of a room full of people) but I always have something to say and last year wrote to the bishop about him. So I kept quiet! I thank you again.

Cinette*

Again, what is the essence of authority? Is it based on love? Sacrifice? Is it based on these essentially? If so, then it is based on virtue, right?

If not then what is it based on? For I’ve already brought up the popular disapprobation of nepotism and the arbitrary use of authority as proofs that authority must be based on some sort of qualifications.

 

[steve_b]

From another thread but it applies here too:

Why should we obey is the question. Because it’s good for us seems to be a rather question begging answer. Nor does it seem to be an essential explanation in that there many things which we do which are good for us, which are not strictly obedience so how does the explanation differentiate obedience from any other generic good?

Re: Obedience, I would say the “cause” of obedience is God, just as I would say the “cause” of disobedience is Satan.

For example, Jesus says this about Himself

Jn 5:19
the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

Jn 12:49
For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.

Jn 12:50
whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say."

Jn 14:10
The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

Jn 14:31
I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

That’s perfect obedience…right? Aren’t we asked to imitate Jesus?

As for a practical everyday application. Which person showing the following characteristics, would you want to be around?

Characteristics of obedience & it’s opposite

1. 
   *]Synonyms: compliance, conformity, submission, subordination
   *]Antonyms: balkiness, contrariness, contumacy, defiance, disobedience, frowardness, insubordination, intractability, noncompliance, obstreperousness, rebelling, rebellion, rebelliousness, recalcitrance, refractoriness, self-will, unruliness, waywardness, willfulness
   
   Obedience is a Cardinal virtue. The antonym/opposite to obedience would be like having satan as your friend.
   
   It’s obvious which person you’ll find in heaven
   f:
   

   So obedience is given just in the case that honor exists in the superior. But honor is always given for some objective superiority or “betterness” that someone else has. Therefore it seems that obedience exists just in the case that someone better than you asks you to do something from an authority derived from his merits.
   
   So when we ask about papal authority, or any kind of authoritativeness, I think we should
   ask what honor that person has, by ways of justifying our obedience.
   
   I’m sure that honor comes from God and the sacrament of holy orders, but does this extend to anything a bishop says about how to practice Catholicism?

   Is there a spicific in mind?

 

[St_Francis]

No, but I’m saying that if a bishop said it, then it would be consistent with a formulation of obedience and authority which is inconsistent with a more obvious truth.

Yes, but the thing is, a bishop *wouldn’t *say it. This is outside the Church’s purview. You can’t use as an example something which does not happen.

 

[fakename]

Re: Obedience, I would say the “cause” of obedience is God, just as I would say the “cause” of disobedience is Satan.

For example, Jesus says this about Himself

Jn 5:19
the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

Jn 12:49
For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.

Jn 12:50
whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say."

Jn 14:10
The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

Jn 14:31
I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

That’s perfect obedience…right? Aren’t we asked to imitate Jesus?

As for a practical everyday application. Which person showing the following characteristics, would you want to be around?

Characteristics of obedience & it’s opposite

1. 
   *]Synonyms: compliance, conformity, submission, subordination
   *]Antonyms: balkiness, contrariness, contumacy, defiance, disobedience, frowardness, insubordination, intractability, noncompliance, obstreperousness, rebelling, rebellion, rebelliousness, recalcitrance, refractoriness, self-will, unruliness, waywardness, willfulness
   
   Obedience is a Cardinal virtue. The antonym/opposite to obedience would be like having satan as your friend.
   
   It’s obvious which person you’ll find in heaven
   
   Is there a spicific in mind?

1. 
   Well you do want people who are defiant to some degree to be your friends. God is a friend and he defies us all the time (corporal punishments).
   
   Also, it is good to cause disorder among bad people as stated in the Summa, so since most people are bad to some degree, it is good that someone should be defied to some degree for their own good. And so to be an enemy in this way is fitting for a friend.

 

[fakename]

Yes, but the thing is, a bishop *wouldn’t *say it. This is outside the Church’s purview. You can’t use as an example something which does not happen.

Why wouldn’t it happen though? For (1) a bishop may do anything outside the Church’s purview like agreeing to a heresy and (2) the words themselves don’t seem contradictory so it is at least possible for it to be true that the a bishop can do as I said.

But secondly, one cannot agree that authority is both consistent with a thing and that thing never happens.

For if they’re consistent with each other you are saying that they could both be true and when you say that one of them could never happen you are saying that one is always false.

So you must think that it is inconsistent with the principle of authority that a bishop would ever say such a thing.

But why do you think so? Clearly, since you say a bishop would never say such a thing, then you must believe that there is some contradiction involved in it happening? So what is the contradiction?

 

[St_Francis]

When it comes to general human actions, we have boundaries. We have moral, physical, psychological, and legal boundaries. People generally follow their own physical and psychological boundaries, altho sometimes they exceed them and end up with broken legs or whatever.

And most people generally try to follow legal boundaries, but sometimes they exceed those, and end up with a traffic ticket or a prison term.

And then we have the moral boundaries… but that’s another subject.

Well, we also have various other boundaries, *and so do authorities. *It is those boundaries to which they must hold which keeep authorities from abusing their authority. It doesn’t mean it *never *happens, but it does mean that when it does, it shouldn’t. What you suggested is something a bishop *shoulddn’t *do.

Why wouldn’t it happen though? For (1) a bishop may do anything outside the Church’s purview like agreeing to a heresy and (2) the words themselves don’t seem contradictory so it is at least possible for it to be true that the a bishop can do as I said.

But secondly, one cannot agree that authority is both consistent with a thing and that thing never happens.

For if they’re consistent with each other you are saying that they could both be true and when you say that one of them could never happen you are saying that one is always false.

So you must think that it is inconsistent with the principle of authority that a bishop would ever say such a thing.

But why do you think so? Clearly, since you say a bishop would never say such a thing, then you must believe that there is some contradiction involved in it happening? So what is the contradiction?

 

[fakename]

When it comes to general human actions, we have boundaries. We have moral, physical, psychological, and legal boundaries. People generally follow their own physical and psychological boundaries, altho sometimes they exceed them and end up with broken legs or whatever.

And most people generally try to follow legal boundaries, but sometimes they exceed those, and end up with a traffic ticket or a prison term.

And then we have the moral boundaries… but that’s another subject.

Well, we also have various other boundaries, *and so do authorities. *It is those boundaries to which they must hold which keeep authorities from abusing their authority. It doesn’t mean it *never *happens, but it does mean that when it does, it shouldn’t. What you suggested is something a bishop *shoulddn’t *do.

But the way to determine the boundaries must be logical, must be sound (for then how would you know what the boundaries were?). But the theory of authority that I’ve been given here (and how I interpret it of course) is that a bishop can make a person do anything that is not sinful regarding the practice of Catholicism. But I’ve shown that this schema leads to an impossibility: nothing seemingly stops a bishop from saying what I’ve said he could.

So how do you interpret away my conclusion? I ask not because I don’t think that there is a way but rather that there are too many ways for me to safely assume it.

 

[St_Francis]

But the way to determine the boundaries must be logical, must be sound (for then how would you know what the boundaries were?). But the theory of authority that I’ve been given here (and how I interpret it of course) is that a bishop can make a person do anything that is not sinful regarding the practice of Catholicism. But I’ve shown that this schema leads to an impossibility: nothing seemingly stops a bishop from saying what I’ve said he could.

So how do you interpret away my conclusion? I ask not because I don’t think that there is a way but rather that there are too many ways for me to safely assume it.

Why are you operating on your interpretation of some unsourced theory of authority? The Church has spent 2000 years sorting through this sort of thing, and one of the things they have learned is that certain areas are under the Church’s purview and certain things are not.

 

[steve_b]

Well you do want people who are defiant to some degree to be your friends. God is a friend and he defies us all the time (corporal punishments).

Humans are the ones who defy God, not the other way around. And I have to say, my friends aren’t known for being overtly defiant people. So I think we’re talking degree here.
f:

Also, it is good to cause disorder among bad people as stated in the Summa, so since most people are bad to some degree, it is good that someone should be defied to some degree for their own good. And so to be an enemy in this way is fitting for a friend.

Bad people are already disordered. As I said previously, which person in the example I used is “friend” material?

 

[fakename]

Why are you operating on your interpretation of some unsourced theory of authority? The Church has spent 2000 years sorting through this sort of thing, and one of the things they have learned is that certain areas are under the Church’s purview and certain things are not.

(1) Based on a book by Cardinal Mercier, it seems that authority is based on the essence of a thing and that which constitutes it as a substance and actually existing. I take this from his defense of civil society which needs a state to be such. Assuming that this example is just an arbitrary instance, one can universally generalize to the conclusion that all authority is based on that which is necessary for a thing to subsist.

(2) So then Church authority must exist and consist in those principles which keep it subsistent. So what is the essence of the Church? It’s end is supernatural, and so since the essence is proportioned to the end, it may very well be that the Church is supernatural. So it’s authority must be supernatural and it deals with supernatural things. But what does this mean? Critiques and corrections are welcome.

 

[fakename]

Humans are the ones who defy God, not the other way around. And I have to say, my friends aren’t known for being overtly defiant people. So I think we’re talking degree here.

Bad people are already disordered. As I said previously, which person in the example I used is “friend” material?

(1) God doesn’t defy man in the sense that he goes against human nature but he does defy man in many particulars and this is obvious from the destruction of cities and people.

(2) "Just as a man’s will that adheres to God is a right rule, to disaccord with which is a sin, so too a man’s will that is opposed to God is a perverse rule, to disaccord with which is good…On this way Paul was to be commended for sowing discord among those who concorded together in evil, because Our Lord also said of Himself (Matthew 10:34): “I came not to send peace, but the sword.” "

newadvent.org/summa/3037.htm

So yeah, it’s good to do this but since every good is interconnected, then one can be called (perhaps not in the strict sense in this case) a friend of the people you disrupt.

 

[steve_b]

(1) God doesn’t defy man in the sense that he goes against human nature but he does defy man in many particulars and this is obvious from the destruction of cities and people.

(2) "Just as a man’s will that adheres to God is a right rule, to disaccord with which is a sin, so too a man’s will that is opposed to God is a perverse rule, to disaccord with which is good…On this way Paul was to be commended for sowing discord among those who concorded together in evil, because Our Lord also said of Himself (Matthew 10:34): “I came not to send peace, but the sword.” "

newadvent.org/summa/3037.htm

So yeah, it’s good to do this but since every good is interconnected, then one can be called (perhaps not in the strict sense in this case) a friend of the people you disrupt.

If we look at the “cause” of obedience, vs the cause of disobedience, and corresponding behaviors akin to each, then

From that same article

“On the contrary, “Dissensions,” that is, discords, are reckoned among the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:20), of which it is said afterwards (Galatians 5:21) that “they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God.” Now nothing, save mortal sin, excludes man from the kingdom of God. Therefore discord is a mortal sin.”

That’s why I said, persons who fall in this category aren’t “friend” material

 

[fakename]

If we look at the “cause” of obedience, vs the cause of disobedience, and corresponding behaviors akin to each, then

From that same article

“On the contrary, “Dissensions,” that is, discords, are reckoned among the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:20), of which it is said afterwards (Galatians 5:21) that “they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God.” Now nothing, save mortal sin, excludes man from the kingdom of God. Therefore discord is a mortal sin.”

That’s why I said, persons who fall in this category aren’t “friend” material

Yeah, no problems there but cleraly the word “dissensions” had different meanings. So it’s equivocal to say that word dissensions equally applies to St. Paul and “they who do such things”.