No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Political Authority and European Community: The Challenge of the Christian Political Tradition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
Extract
Today the whole of Europe, East and West, is caught up in the search for new political and economic structures, sadly, along violent and atavistic as well as peaceful and constructive paths. In the West the fulcrum of change is the halting movement of countries toward economic and political ‘integration’ within the European Community. The issue of what form, or forms, the Community should take (whether federal, confederal, or more loosely associative) is understandably divisive, for its resolution will determine the political shape, not only of the member states, but also of those western European countries (should there be any eventually) that remain either outside the Community or only partially integrated in it. Moreover, it will decisively influence the political and economic aspirations and possibilities of the Community's eastern European neighbours, and even of their Soviet or ex-Soviet neighbours. Thus are we justified in viewing the fate of the European Community as the fate of Europe. Consequendy, it is a task of theoretical and practical moment to attempt to grasp the civilisational meaning of the projected European union with the help of some points of reference from western Europe's past and present.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1994
References
1 This evidence is contained in the treaties, acts, protocols, and secondary legislation establishing the European Community as an economic and political entity, and from European declarations of political and social rights. See Rudden, B and Wyatt, D., eds., Basic Community Laws, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1981)Google Scholar; Treaty on European Union (Gloucestershire, 1992)Google Scholar.
2 Augustine, , City of God, ed. Knowles, K., trans. Bettenson, H (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1972), bk 19, ch. 15, p. 874.Google Scholar
3 Suárez, , On Laws and God the Lawgiver in Suárez: Selections From Three Works, trans. Williams, G. L., Brown, A., and Waldron, J., ed. Scott, James Brown (London, 1944), bk 3, p. 379.Google Scholar
4 Of late patristic origin, the term ‘Vicar of God’ first flowered among Carolingian theologians of the ninth century, such as Sedulius Scotus, Jonas of Orleans, and Hincmar of Rheims. Medieval theologian applied it, together with its companion appellation ‘Vicar of Christ’ to the representative rule of both secular and ecclesiastical authoritites.John of Salisbury makes luminously clear the delegated character of the ruler's authority: ‘For all power is from the Lord God, and is with him always, and is his forever. Whatever the prince can do, therefore, is from God, so that power does not depart from God, but it is used as a substitute for his hand, making all things learn his justice and mercy.’ Policraticus, trans, and ed. Nederman, C. J. (Cambridge, 1990), bk 4, ch. l, p. 28.Google Scholar
5 The feudal image of the secular ruler as vassal was given fresh impetus by the late medieval papalists (e.g., Hostiensis and Giles of Rome) who, arguing that the pope as Vicar of Christ possessed a plenitude of earthly authority, demoted the secular ruler to the pope's ‘vassal’ or ‘vicar’. It wasjohn Wyclif's achievement to reverse the political intention of the papalist doctrine of ‘dominion by grace’ by reinstating God as the immediate Liege-lord of the secular ruler, and investing the latter with a plenitude of temporal power. See Wyclif, John, On Civil Dominion, vol. 1, ed. Loserth, J. for the Wyclif Society (London, 1885), bk 1, chaps. 4, 30.Google Scholar
6 See, e.g., Giles, of Rome, , On Ecclesiastical Power, ed. Scholz, R. (Aalen reprint, 1961), bk 2, chaps. 7, 10Google Scholar; James, of Viterbo, , On Christian Government, ed. Arquillière, H. X. (Paris, 1926), pt. 2, ch. 3Google Scholar; Wyclif, John, On Civil Dominion, bk 1, ch. 30.Google Scholar
7 Although it appears in the fourteenth century, this theory is most elaborately developed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by conciliarist theologians such as Jean Gerson, Jacques Almain, John Mair, and Nicholas of Cusa. Subsequently, it is taken up by both English Protestant and Catholic constitutional thinkers.
8 ‘And Jehoiada [the priest] made a covenant between the Lord and the king and people, that they should be the Lord's people; and also between the king and people.’ The most detailed theological exposition of these covenants is found in the celebrated political writing, Defence of Liberty against Tyrants (1579), ed. Laski, H. J. (London, 1924), pp. 71–75, 175–178Google Scholar.
9 Ibid., pp. 50–54.
10 ‘Ostendimus antea, Deum reges institutere, regna regibus dare, reges eligere. Dicimus jam, populum reges constituere, regna tradere, electionem suo suffragio comprobare.’ Defence of Liberty (Edinburgh, 1579)Google Scholar.
11 See Cicero, De Republica, 1.25.39, quoted in City of God, bk 2, ch. 21, p. 73.
12 Letter 137, chaps 5–17, trans Cunningham, J. G., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Schaff, Philip (Ann Arbor, MI, 1974), p. 480.Google Scholar
13 The seventeenth century German political philosopher Johannes Althusius provided a most influential systematisation of the common good as the harmonious totality of the natural ‘symbioses’ or ‘associations’ of human social life. See The Politics of Johannes Althusius, trans. Carney, F. S. (Boston, 1964).Google Scholar
14 ‘Sed aliud est causis terminum imponere: aliud sacras scriptures diligenter exponere. In negotiisdefiniendis non solo est necessaria scientia, sedetiam potestatis …’ (Paris, 1585) 20.2.
15 The Althusian tradition of Christian federalist pluralism still persists in the Netherlands (e.g. the philosophical school of Herman Dooyeweerd) and in Switzerland, where it has taken a Lutheran direction (e.g. the writings of Emil Brunner). The Catholic natural law tradition, so powerfully articulated in the encyclicals of Leo XIII and Pius XI, has been influentially updated to accommodate democratic pluralism by the distinguished French philosophers Etienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain, among others, and has shaped the platforms of Christian Democratic parties in this century.
16 See The European Convention of Human Rights (1950) and its five protocols, the European Social Charter (1961), and Final Act of the Helsinki Conference (1975). It should be noted that the signatories to these agreements included European countries outside the Community.
17 See The European Convention of Human Rights, sect. 1, art. 9, in Brownlie, Ian, ed., Basic Documents on Human Rights, p. 246.Google Scholar