Divine Authority: For God the Parent, Not Religious Authoritarians

I recently wrote a paper for my HIST 305 class on the Investiture Crisis: the buying and selling of the office of the pope beginning in the late 11th century. If you're looking for a strictly academic, historical analysis of the crisis, check out my paper. 

In case you're not inclined to read a 7.5-page paper (and why of course, would you not?) allow me to shine a spotlight on a key aspect of the crisis I touched upon: the issue of divine authority, and where it started.

Divine authority is the belief that the right to rule stems from a higher power. Divine authority first appears in the Exodus story. Before the Exodus story, central figures such as Noah and Abraham were strictly God's servants. They were tasked with fulfilling the Will of God, whether it be building an ark or offering sacrifices. With the dawn of Moses, however, the position of God's servant took on a new dimension. The fulfillment of God's Will now involved leading God's people, the Israelites, into Canaan and establishing a nation. In other words, Moses was put in the position of sole ruler of the Israelites. In just a short time, he was standing as judge, jury, and executioner over every dispute, big and small, the Israelites had with each other.

But Moses did not stay as sole ruler for long. His father-in-law, sensing the possibility of authoritarianism, plainly warned of its dangerous consequences, and offered a substantive solution:

"Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. You and the people with you will wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you; you are not able to perform it alone. Listen now to my voice; I will give you counsel, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God, and bring their cases to God; and you shall teach them the statutes and the decisions, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. Moreover choose able men from all the people, such as fear God, men who are trustworthy and who hate a bribe; and place such men over the people as rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And let them judge the people at all times; every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves; so it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. If you do this, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.” - Exodus 18:17-23

While the responsibility of God's central figure was for Moses alone, the responsibility of leadership needed to be shared amongst the people. Moses' father-in-law describes the type of person meant to share the responsibility of leadership. Such people must "hate bribes" and need to "fear God." It's people who are willing to strive and struggle toward goodness. 

Why fear God? When you don't fear God, His Wrath, or the natural principles of the universe, come crashing down upon you. No matter how one views God, the concept of God by definition contains an ideal, perfect state of existence. One way to then define God is the state of living in accord with the natural principles of the universe. On the physical plane, if someone does not live following the laws of gravity, soon enough the news will report a dead body and suspect a suicide.  On the spiritual, internal plane, which religions have been struggling with since the beginning of human history, human beings must live in accord with spiritual law, no matter what they are, or else everyone will continue to commit spiritual suicide in perpetuity. This may sound vague, but that's because religion has come up with so many explanations as to the nature of spiritual law, that it's difficult to come up with a common definition (perhaps the perfect topic for my next post).

The Exodus story gives an account of the distribution of divine authority to the levels of society, no matter whether the story "really happened" or not (I happen to think it did actually happen, but that's also for another post). Distribution and shared responsibility come with a.) responsibility (duh!) and b.) the understanding that God is Ruler. God, not any Israelite or even Moses, had the authority to rule over the people. God was to be King and sole owner of divine authority. 

On the responsibility front, even one chapter of  Israel's journey through the desert or subsequent entrance into Canaanite territory is enough to illustrate how many times the Israelites failed to fear God, hate bribes, and take responsibility for their tribes. As a result, many incidents of God's Wrath and punishment afflicted the Israelites.

Fast forward to the Book of Samuel and the Israelites, having had enough of God's servants (the Judges) being the sole vehicle for guiding the various tribes back to spiritual alignment, cry out for a king:

But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds which they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. Now then, hearken to their voice; only, you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them." - 1 Samuel 8:6-9

At this moment, the Israelites (not for the first time) forgot that God, the Lord, was their King. Not only were they forgetting God, but also the fact that Samuel was His servant (not ruler). Of course, the Israelites had gotten used to not taking responsibility for their own areas of distribution by this time. God therefore reluctantly grants the Israelites' wish, and has Samuel, as God's servant, give King Saul the anointment of the king of Israel, giving him divine authority. However, God warns them of the negative consequences of appointing a human king. 

What were these consequences God warned of? Divine authority was transferred to human beings who were not in accord with, nor even attempting to strive towards, the spiritual, internal laws of the universe. As the saying goes, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Just as in most other nations of the world during this time (centuries before the Athenian democracy or the Roman Republic), the monarch began to rule in a self-centered, self-serving manner.  The monarch of Israel became an authoritarian, requiring absolute loyalty to him, rather than God. Why? As one with divine authority, he conceptualized himself as a god, another idol for Israel to pay attention to (or rebel against).

Christians, after also once having been organized in a distributive manner, soon became ruled by the dictates of the Pope, whose divine authority stemmed from the Apostle Peter's position as the first leader of the Christian community (notice how I did not say church; early Christians never used that word!). What's more, kings, specifically of the Holy Roman Empire, believed they had a divine right to rule, forgetting entirely the lessons of the Exodus. 

Theologians such as Thomas Aquinas tried to theologically justify the Pope's divine authority, but it did not solve the buying, selling, and political manipulation of the office. Instead, religious language was used to, as in the case of Pope Gregory VII towards King Henry IV, excommunicate, rescind authority, and declare heretical anyone who did not align with him. 

In the modern day, religious institutions face the same recurring problem: to what extent does the leader of the institution get to rule? In the Bible, it's clear that God wishes to rule directly. The last book of the Bible, Revelation, says as much: 

"Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them." - Revelation 21:3

In the desert, to avoid tyranny, Moses distributed responsibility to the people. This is the beauty of the founding principles of the United States: all people are created equal by their Creator. Tyranny is quelled, and a free society reigns. However, as the Exodus story illustrates, for freedom to continue, responsibility and God are absolutely necessary. 

God cannot only be understood as a monarchial ruler. Rather, this needs to evolve towards God conceptualized as a Parent. This allows brothers and sisters, our fellow neighbors, to cooperate under a uniting ethos and identity (see my first blog post: Who Am I?). Without that, people will be more likely to shrug off individual responsibility and care little for aligning with the natural principles of the universe, just as the Israelites did with their golden calves and false idols that led to God's Wrath.

To what extent does one's religious faith need to be vested in an institution? Zero.

Institutions, while (hopefully) made up of and led by those aligned with God, are human beings like everyone. It's a far cry for anyone to be spiritually mature enough to be given God's direct divine authority. That's the beauty of religion: our life can be guided by something outside other human beings, by something that contains complete alignment with the principles of the universe. 

Should we do away with institutions? Of course not. Religious institutions bring the spiritual realm to everyday life. They, if used properly, guard against heresy and unaligned doctrines. But they can also force these things down people's throats.

Leave divine authority to God the Parent. Leave human beings to take up individual responsibility and attend their Parent. Put the infighting over who has divine authority aside.