Authority in General

Meaning of Authority

Authority> as we employ the term here, is a moral power which determines the mind to give its firm and unwavering assent to a proposition, not evident in itself, upon the testimony of one who is truthful and knows whereof he speaks. Authority is a moral power, not a physical power, which, of course, could have no direct effect upon the mind. It consists in 2Zthe truthfulness and the knowledge of the one who gives testimony, and it rests upon the evidence which shows that this truthfulness and knowledge are actually present and not mere seeming. A moral power does not necessitate the mind as intrinsic evidence does. Before its influence can be exercised upon the mind, the will must consent to allow the mind to advert to, or to investigate, the bases of authority, that is, the evidence which manifests the truthfulness and knowledge of the witness. The will can refuse to do this. More: the will can refuse to allow the mind to contemplate the authoritative statement as the testimony of one who is here and now telling the truth, no matter how well established the witness’s general truthfulness and knowledge may be. Assent to authority is belief or faith. And the formula for belief is this: “I believe because I will to believe; I will to believe because I realize that it is reasonable and right to believe.” A truth that is manifested by authority may be a fact or a doctrine. Doctrine is sometimes called dogma. The authority of the historian manifests factual truths. The authority of a theoretical economist is dogmatic or doctrinal. A fact is public when its witnesses are many; otherwise it is private. A dogma or doctrine is natural, when it is a theory excogitated and, mayhap, proved by the unaided researches of man’s mind. It is supernatural, when it is drawn from Divine Revelation. A strictly supernatural doctrine or dogma is one that unaided human reason could not of itself achieve, nor completely understand and explain, even after revelation of its truth is made; such a doctrine is a mystery. A mystery is not something vague, something uncertain in outline, something indefinite in content; it is a clear and plain expression of a truth that we cannot fully understand and explain. We know what the mystery is; but how and why it is, we do not fully know.

Testimony

One who manifests his knowledge to another is a witness for what he reveals. The content of his revealings is his testimony. More strictly, a witness is one who gives testimony of facts. He who gives testimony of dogmas or doctrines is not usually called a witness, but a teacher. A witness is called an eyewitness if he reveals what he himself has seen. He is a witness by hearsay if he reveals what he has heard, that is, what he has come to know on the testimony of others. The eye-witness is sometimes called immediate witness; the witness by hearsay is called mediate.

Testimony is the sensible expression which manifests what the witness has to reveal; it is simply the content of his revelation made manifest. Testimony may be given in various ways, chief of which are oral tradition, history, monuments. i. Oral tradition is the testimony of a series of CERTITUDE OF FAITH 2ZZ witnesses, bearing on past events, or doctrines delivered in the past, and coming in an unbroken chain, through the witnesses, even to the present time. Oral tradition is tradition handed on by word of mouth. 2. History is the written narration of events. History, as we understand it in ordinary speech, involves more than a mere written narration; it implies some investigation into the causes and reasons of the events narrated. A simple written account of events is found in annals and chronicles. Here, however, we take history to mean a chronicle. The manifestation of causes and reasons which the historian-philosopher may weave into his narrative will have the value of the evidence that is back of it; opinions will have the value of the grounds shown for them; interpretations will be acceptable in the measure in which they are justified. We do not, or should not, take the philosophy of the historian on authority; what we accept on historical authority is the chronicle of events. Events may bear out the interpretation and the philosophy of the historian, but in that case the events themselves are evidence for the philosophy; it is not taken on authority. 3. Monuments are durable works of art (temples, statues, coins, pictures, inscriptions) which carry the memory of fact or doctrine to posterity.

Testimony (oral, historical, or monumental) is human or divine, according as it reports the doctrines and deeds of men or the revelations of God. 2Zc) CREDIBILITY AND FAITH Authority begets faith. That which is accepted by faith is believed. Notice here that belief may be true and certain knowledge. In ordinary speech, the words “belief” and “believe” indicate mere opinion. In our use of th? word we mean, not mere opinion, but that certain knowledge for which we have only the evidence of testimony, of authority. Now, before a thing can be believed or credited (Latin credo, “I believe”), it must be believable or credible; it must have credibility.

Credibility is the suitableness or fitness of a thing to be believed. For credibility, a thing must involve no contradiction in itself, and it must be attested by witnesses worthy of belief. If something is declared as a fact by persons who are known to be truthful and well informed about the subject in question, and if, moreover, that which is declared bears the likeness of truth (or verisimilitude), inasmuch as it involves no contradiction in itself, then the declaration is credible.

When something is proposed for belief, the mind must judge of the credibility of the proposition. This judgment on the credibility of a thing proposed to belief is the function of the intellect. When such judgment is rendered, that is, when the mind sees that there is no contradiction in the proposition, and that it is proposed by witnesses whose knowledge and truthfulness are ascertained, then conies the judgment of faith. The judgment of faith comes from the intellect under the orders of the will. The intellect first sees the matter to be credible; it enunciates the judgment of credibility. The will, instructed by the judgment of credibility, finds good to be attained in accepting what is credible (for it is ever good to choose what is right and reasonable), and so orders the intellect to assent in the certain judgment of faith. The intellect enunciates the judgment of credibility: “This is credible.” The will orders, “Believe it.” The intellect assents with, “I believe.” Again, we repeat, the formula of faith is this: “I believe because I will to believe; I will to believe because I realize that it is reasonable and right to believe.” Faith, then, comes by the will, not blindly choosing, but choosing in the light of the judgment of credibility. Faith is a “genuflection of the will.” A perverse will may refuse to believe even when the judgment of credibility invites the assent of faith.

Thus, perversity in the will is the cause of error. On the other hand, a whimsical or precipitate judgment of credibility may be rendered without due evidence, and the will may order the assent of the mind. Again, we have a cause of error. To achieve true certitude in matters of faith, the will must be a reasonable will, not stubbornly set against allowing the mind to assent to due motives of credibility, nor, on the other hand, too easily led by a precipitate and over-credulous mind to order assent where such motives are lacking.

When a thing is known on intrinsic evidence (whether this is immediately present or is discovered mediately by the reasoning process), the mind assents to it of necessity, not awaiting nor consulting the dictate of the will. Thus, I know, by intrinsic and immediate evidence, that the whole is greater than a part, and no orders of the will can change my knowledge. Thus, I know, by intrinsic and mediate evidence, that the hypothenuse of a right-triangle is equal to the square-root of the sum of the squares of the other two sides, and no orders of will can make me know it otherwise. The knowledge that comes of the necessitating force of intrinsic evidence is scientific knowledge or simply science. Knowledge that comes of the extrinsic evidence of authority is faith.

There can be no object of knowledge that is simultaneously, and in the same subject, the object of both science and faith. A thing may be known by one and believed by another, or it may be first believed and then known by the same subject. But it cannot be the object of both faith and science in the same subject at the same time.

Value of Authority

Authority is a true source of certitude. It gives, or may give, true and certain knowledge. Certitude is CERTITUDE OF FAITH 2Z9 the unwavering assent of the mind to that which is known to be true (whether by intrinsic or extrinsic evidence). Authority begets this assent of the mind.

It is, therefore, a true source of certitude. It is surely reasonable to accept as true the word of witnesses known to be truthful and informed. One may have a thorough grasp of the truthfulness and knowledge of witnesses; the circumstances of the testimony, the nature of the case, the multiplicity of witnesses, the “check-up” of related authorities, may confirm such knowledge and show that error is morally impossible.

Then the mind, under order of the will, may assent with true moral certitude. Nay, the witness may be such that error and deception are absolutely impossible (as is Truth Itself or God), and then the assent of faith, under order of the will, gives not moral certitude, but absolute certitude, that is, metaphysical certitude.

The necessity and utility of authority as a source of certitude appear from the following facts:

1. Man requires instruction, and a learner must believe, or progress in his instruction is impossible.

The spontaneous faith of youth may later become reflex and scientific certitude, but that does not alter its necessity and utility in the first place. Man may learn much by his own efforts and by his experience, but he learns much more by authoritative instruction. 2. Our human society (in all departments, civil, domestic, religious) rests upon facts that are known to most persons by faith, by the witness of authority.

History-books, codes of laws, chronicles, newspapers —what appeal have these to the mind but the appeal of authority? Man is a social being, and an important and necessary instrument of social life is speech.

How many social relations stand or fall with the “word” of man, that is, with human authority! Lies are possible, of course; deception may be practiced.

But the point is that truth is also possible; that a human word, judged rightly as to credibility, may be a true and reliable word. Upon this possibility, and upon the normal realization of this possibility, rests the structure of human social institutions. No wonder that perjury is the basest of crimes; it strikes at the foundations of social life. Unless there can be reliance of men on men, a reliance that amounts to trust in human speech, there can be no peace or prosperity here on earth, no justice, no security. z. Experimental science requires faith, else it cannot progress. The scientist of to-day must take on faith, on authority, a great many investigations, observations, and experiments of his predecessors. If he did not, he would merely go over ground that has been gone over before. Thus science would always be beginning anew, and no true progress could be achieved.

Summary Of The Article

In this article we have learned to define authority and to recognize the bases of sound and acceptable testimony. We have listed the means in which authority ordinarily gives its testimony, viz., tradition, history, monuments. We have distinguished authority as human and divine. We have discussed credibility and have seen that the judgment on the motives of credibility may lead, under the will, to the judgment of faith. We have contrasted faith and science.

We have shown that authority is a true and valid source of certitude.