By Kelly O'Connell ——Bio and Archives--October 5, 2014
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All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts, not only because of their historical development -- in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example, the omnipotent God became the omnipotent lawgiver -- but also because of their systematic structure, the recognition of which is necessary for a sociological consideration of these concepts. The exception in jurisprudence is analogous to the miracle in theology.It is simply astounding how spectacularly destructive the 20th-century political religions, derived from the writers detailed below, ended up becoming. According to R.J. Rummel, of the University of Hawaii, no less than 200 million people were murdered by leftist governments--either Marxist, liberal, socialist, progressive, or Fascist, last century. Here, then, are the thinkers who believe humans never have the right to resist unjust authority, under any circumstances. God help us to learn our lessons when right religion and common sense are tossed out, replaced by a sick humanism that worships some men as gods on earth, causing millions of others to be pointlessly sacrificed.
One of the most famous and influential theorists of absolutism was the Frenchman Jean Bodin (1529/1530-1596). He studied law, and became a successful lawyer, judge, and advisor to members of the royal family. Bodin believed religious civil war was terrible, and all French people should put country before religious ambition. Peace was more important than religious unity. It is possible that Bodin personally came to believe in a religion that contained Islamic and especially Jewish elements, as well as Christian ones, and that he wrote a book called the Colloquium of the Seven in which he develops his eclectic and syncretist ideas.Bodin had an enormous impact on his and subsequent generations through his famed Six Books of the Commonweal (or State) (Six livres de la république). In book République I, 8, Bodin explains that the Huguenots are wrong and that The People can never have more authority than the Sovereign, or Prince, and Bodin also defines the Sovereign:
Maiestie or Soveraigntie is the most high, absolute, and perpetuall power over the citisens and subiects in a Commonweale: which the Latins call Maiestatem, the Greeks akra exousia, kurion arche, and kurion politeuma; the Italians Segnoria, and the Hebrewes tomech shévet, that is to say, The greatest power to command.The Prince can declare war and make peace, hear last appeals, place and remove the highest officials, impose taxes, or abate them on individuals, grant pardons, utterly control currency, and require subjects to swear loyalty to the Prince.
Sir Robert Filmer (1588-1653) was a major proponent of the theory of the Divine Right of Kings, and also of the most famous patriarchalist theory in defense of absolute royal power. On many points, he closely followed Jean Bodin, by whom he was greatly influenced, stressing the duty of non-resistance to sovereigns, and the indivisibility of sovereignty.Filmer's entire argument comes from the Old Testament, and claims that in the same way a father is an unopposed godlike head of his family, the king is similarly a leader of his people who cannot be challenged, as seen here.
It may seem absurd to maintain, that Kings now are the Fathers of their People, since Experience shews the contrary. It is true, all Kings be not the Natural Parents of their Subjects, yet they all either are, or are to be reputed the next Heirs to those first Progenitors, who were at first the Natural Parents of the whole People, and in their Right succeed to the Exercise of Supreme Jurisdiction; and such Heirs are not only Lords of their own Children, but also of their Brethren, and all others that were subject to their Fathers:The idea of a Divine Right of Kings caused such a reaction in John Locke that he dedicated his Second Treatise to answering Filmer, which changed the history of the West.
Thomas Hobbes was born in London in 1588. Educated at Oxford, he studied classics. Hobbes believed humans were basically selfish creatures who would do anything to better their position. Left to themselves, he thought, people would act on their evil impulses. According to Hobbes, people, therefore, should not be trusted to make decisions on their own. In addition, Hobbes felt that nations, like people, were selfishly motivated. To Hobbes, each country was in a constant battle for power and wealth. To prove his point, Hobbes wrote, "If men are naturally in a state of war, why do they always carry arms and why do they have keys to lock their doors?"It would be impossible to note the ironic atheism of Hobbes, given his Christian society--nor measure the horrific impact of his embracing of tyranny in the name of offering mankind safety. Hobbes wrote in Leviathan (The Whale),
For the laws of nature (as justice, equity, modesty, mercy, and, in sum, doing to others as we would be done to) of themselves, without the terror of some power, to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our natural passions, that carry us to partiality, pride, revenge and the like. In the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. ... the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. The aim of Punishment is not a revenge, but terror.As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy writes,
Although Hobbes offered some mild pragmatic grounds for preferring monarchy to other forms of government, his main concern was to argue that effective government--whatever its form--must have absolute authority. Its powers must be neither divided nor limited.
Baruch Spinoza was born to Portuguese Jews living in exile in Holland. Despite an early rabbinical education, he was expelled from the synagogue at Amsterdam for defending heretical opinions in 1656. While engaging privately in serious study of medieval Jewish thought, Cartesian philosophy, and the new science, Spinoza supported himself by grinding optical lenses, an occupation that probably contributed to the consumption that killed him. Private circulation of his philosophical treatises soon earned him a significant reputation throughout Europe...Spinoza, concerned to remove religious influence from society, in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, proposes the Separation thesis and Single Authority theory, where faith is separated from the state, and all authority rests in the Sovereign. He writes, "it is also the duty of the sovereign authority alone to lay down how a person should behave with piety towards their neighbor, that is, to determine how one is obliged to obey God." But regarding the Right of Resistance? Spinoza taught that the State had a natural right to do anything within its power. Therefore, no true natural rights exist for Spinoza; ergo--only the State has any rights to act. To avoid anarchy, Spinoza hands over all human rights to the state, claims the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
We thus agree to hand over to a sovereign our natural right and power to do whatever we can to satisfy our interests. That sovereign...will be absolute and unrestrained in the scope of its powers. It will be charged with keeping all the members of society to the agreement, mostly by playing on their fear of the consequences of breaking the "social contract".
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel studied philosophy and classics at Tübingen. After graduation he became a tutor and an editor and explored theology. His first published success was Phänomenologie des Geistes (The Phenomenology of Spirit) in 1807. He died of cholera in 1831.Hegel wrote on politics in the Philosophy of Right. He believed only the state had rights, and could take any means against individuals to protect society as a whole. Hegel is a famously obtuse writer. But he believed that the universe was developing spiritually, and human history--even Christianity, was simply another phase in this circular, ever upward rise called the Dialectic of History. Within this rise, "God"--borrowed from Spinoza's mindless pantheism -- expresses himself on earth through the political process. Mankind sums up God on earth, directed by the Absolute Spirit. Therefore, the Sovereign cannot be contradicted under any circumstances. One writer sums Hegel's strange ideas:
HEGEL'S THEORY OF THE STATE The state, for Hegel, is the final projection of the Absolute and it embodies its own unique ethical life. The state is unique and supreme to the individuals within it. The state is the unification of the human beings. For him, the state is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth. We must, therefore, worship the state as the manifestation of the divine on earth. The state is the march of God through the world. The Hegelian State swallows up the theory of rational free citizenship as the central concept in any political settings. The citizens have no life or freedom of their own, except the one the state attests to.
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Kelly O’Connell is an author and attorney. He was born on the West Coast, raised in Las Vegas, and matriculated from the University of Oregon. After laboring for the Reformed Church in Galway, Ireland, he returned to America and attended law school in Virginia, where he earned a JD and a Master’s degree in Government. He spent a stint working as a researcher and writer of academic articles at a Miami law school, focusing on ancient law and society. He has also been employed as a university Speech & Debate professor. He then returned West and worked as an assistant district attorney. Kelly is now is a private practitioner with a small law practice in New Mexico.