Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Authority, Political
Politics of Knowledge
Catholicism
INTRODUCTION
prayer book, the Breviary and Missal. The discussion naturally drew
attention to the sour problem of the calendar that had led, in the
have nothing to do with faith (North. 1983 101). But for Catholics, the
1582 Pope Gregory XIIl (1502 1585) published a papal bull, promulgat-
ing the reform of the calendar named after him, the Gre
congregation nominated by the pope. whose work lasted for ten years
prelates a specialist of the Arabic language and culture from Martha named Leonardo Abel,
experts on canon law and church history, and
the man who was responsible more than anyone else for instituting a
teaching in Europa.
tion. Despite the tensions that pervaded Christianity around this issue
edge that was especially associated with the work of the Dominican
knowledge and faith has been seen as emancipating and leading to the
Hooykaas, 1922) Last. the emergence of early modern absolutist status has mainly remained
irrelevant for interpreting the complex relation
1989: Schilling, 1983: 261-327: Prodi, 1982; Prodi and Reinhard, 1996:
about the notion of faith and its relation to knowledge are constructed
AGES
the term authority, which she deemed to be one of the most illusive
power, strength, force, and violence and compare them with the te
of coercion, where force is used. aut hority itself has failed" (Arendt.
1961: 92.93)
ience with mass societies and mass-media, but also on the distin
tion, made in Roman law between the Roman Senate's auctoritas andthe potestas, or "power"
or "imperium" of the Roman magistrates or
I can lay out the classical, medieval, and early modern understandings
discourse. With Arendt and Agamben, and against historians who prefer
mere opinions
e norms for true and real knowledge. Furthermore, for both Plato
The first had for its objects "that which is of necessity and cannot be
otherwise" whereas the object of belief was that whose very nature
the Middle Ages, shared the Platonic and Aristotellan view that argu
One is able to tell a long story about how the status of opinion
Scripture says that a bishop should embrace that faithful word which is
of science, he thought that like all sciences, sacred doctrine does not
prove further things from them: "As the other sciences do not argue
in proof ot their principles, bur argue from their prineples to demonios strate other truths in
these sciences: so this doctrine does not argue in
proof of its principles, which are the aricles of faith, but from them it
Unlike the other sciences, however, this doctrine is based on the most
to whom the revelation has been made. Nor does this take
away from the dignity of this doctrine, for although the argu
ment from authority based on human reason is the weakest, yet the
the fact that their object is something endowed with inherent necessity
(lla-llae. q. 1, art. 5). Yet faith differs from science "because the object of
science is something seen whereas the object of faith is the unseen" (lla
in the here and now, for "by faith, we do not apprehend the First Truth
s it is in itself (lla-lae, q. 1.a. 2). Our knowledge of God in the here and now can never be
perfect and complete. In this respect, faith differs from
knowledge and opinion that had not existed in antiquity. He thus broke
of the church and the pope. Thus Thomas pointed to -although he did
exclaimed, "since she is governed by the Holy Ghost, who is the Spirit
ought to be jeato