Abstract
In his book, An Essay on Divine Authority, Mark Murphy argues that God does not have practical authority over created, rational agents. Although Murphy mentions the possibility of an argument for divine authority from justice, he does not consider any. In this paper, I develop such an argument from Aquinas’s treatment of the virtue of religion and other parts of justice. The divine excellence is due honor, and, as Aquinas argues, honoring a ruler requires service and obedience. Thus, a classical conception of God coupled with some of Aquinas’s theses concerning justice show that God has practical authority over all created, rational agents.
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Notes
Murphy, Mark C. God’s Own Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2017) and An Essay on Divine Authority (Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002). In-text citations for Murphy are all from An Essay on Divine Authority unless otherwise indicated.
It is worth noting that Murphy avoids claiming that any particular case is in fact a case of practical authority. Instead, he offers cases that would normally be considered practical authorities and examines them. So, the two types of non-divine practical authorities considered later in Aquinas, parents and positions of dignity, are the type of thing Murphy offers as an example, but nowhere does he grant that they are in fact practical authorities in the precise sense.
Unless otherwise noted, “authority” refers to “practical authority.”
This is actually the strongest authority thesis, which is the strongest of three modalities by which Murphy specifies a generic divine authority thesis. I only mention one here because this is what Murphy is most concerned with in the book, “The bulk of this work is devoted to a critical examination of the Strong, Stronger, and Strongest authority theses; and the majority of this critical attention is paid to the Strongest of these authority theses” (18). Murphy also just means the strongest authority thesis when he refers to the authority thesis without qualification. The other modalities are discussed later in the paper when I consider which thesis the argument from justice proves.
All translations are from the English Dominican Fathers edition. In text citations of Aquinas are all from the Secunda Secundae beginning with question number, unless roman numerals are provided to indicate a different part of the Summa Theologiae.
Aquinas sometimes calls these “quasi-integral” or “quasi-potential,” presumably because they are not parts most properly speaking but parts analogously.
The translation here is modified to be more naturally readable. I thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out the needed revision.
These are found in many places in the questions on the potential parts of justice, e.g., religion (81), observance (102–103), obedience (104) and gratitude (106).
See note 12.
Cf. ST II-II.80.
ST II-II.106.1. Aquinas’s argument here seems to indicate that religion, piety and gratitude are on a kind of continuum based on the cause of debt, but he later clarifies. Legal debt falls under justice, and moral debt falls under gratitude. It does seem that religion can have the character of gratitude—repaying for gifts received—but this is neither what is central to religion nor the strand of religion we are interested in examining. (ST II-II.6.5).
ST I.2.3. Also see I.22 on providence, I.103-4 on governance and I-II.93 on the eternal law.
See note 4.
Rational beings have an intellect. Aquinas argues that beings with intellect have a will, ST I.19.1. And justice is a virtue of the will, II-II.58.4. So, a rational being will be under an obligation to be just. Aquinas explains the necessity: “Now just as God is the first mover of all things that are moved naturally, so too is He the first mover of all wills… Therefore, just as all natural things are subject to the divine motion by a natural necessity so too all wills, by a kind of necessity of justice, are bound to obey the divine command.” (II-II.104.4).
Murphy considers the case of Abraham and Isaac as a potential problem for his argument from sincerity for the compliance thesis (40–45), but he does not consider it as independent evidence for thinking God has practical authority.
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Dahm, B. Divine authority and the virtue of religion: a Thomistic response to Murphy. Int J Philos Relig 86, 213–226 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-019-09710-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-019-09710-5