Human Authority

Authority

Varieties of Human Authority

The testimony of man to the truth of anything may take the following forms:

1. Universal agreement or universal consent. This is the consensus of all men, or of practically all, regarding some fact or truth.
2. Oral testimony. This is testimony that is given by word of mouth. It may be testimony for contemporary events or for events of the past. Oral testimony for events of the past is called oral tradition when the attested events are of the remote past, and the testimony has come in an unbroken chain through the generations of men intervening between the event and its present expression in testimony.
3. Written testimony. This is the testimony of authors and writers.
4. Monumental testimony. This is the testimony of ancient temples, coins, statues, inscriptions. It is the testimony usually made available by the archaeologist.
5. Historical testimony. This (whether written or oral) is testimony of past facts and events, not of doctrines.
6. Dogmatic or doctrinal testimony. This reports doctrines and the historical warrant for doctrines; it does not report mere facts or events.

Value of Human Authority

I. Universal consent.—Men may agree on the nature or cause of a physical fact, and they may agree on a truth that belongs strictly to the rational order. Universal consent on the nature or cause of a physical fact may be fallacious. This is because men may judge such things precipitately and without due investigation; men are prone to judge by mere appearances. Thus it was once universally agreed that the earth is flat; it was agreed that the succession of night and day is caused by the movement of the sun around the earth. These universal agreements were wrong, because men judged a physical fact, and assigned a cause to physical fact, by reason of mere external appearances. In such matters as these, the universal consent of mankind, unsupported by scienCERTITUDE OF FAITH 247 tific investigation, is not a reliable source of certitude.

A too popular ballad declares that “Fifty thousand Frenchmen can’t be wrong.” In such matters as we here consider (that is, physical facts, their nature and cause, judged on appearances), fifty thousand may be wrong, and fifty million or fifty billion may be wrong.

Mere numbers of those agreeing gives no weight of argument to their agreement.—But universal consent is a true source of certitude in matters of the rational order. In matters that pertain to reason or depend upon reason, the universal consent or agreement of mankind cannot be erroneous. Such universal consent is the very “voice” of rational nature, and if that can be false, there is no longer any certitude in human reasoning at all. Thus men may be wrong in judging that the earth is flat; but men cannot be wrong in judging that the finite earth had a beginning. Men may be wrong in saying that the sun moves round the earth; men cannot be wrong in agreeing that motion requires a mover. Men may be wrong in judging on appearances that a certain triangle is equilateral; men cannot be wrong in concluding that the angles of a triangle are equal to 180°. Thus we may set down the principle: that which is declared by the universal consent of mankind as a judgment of rational nature, must be true.

Such universal consent is, therefore, a valid source of certitude. 2. Oral testimony.—Oral testimony on contemporary facts or events may usually be “checked” by investigation, and so the testimony is at least a contributory factor to the certitude attainable in the case.

Oral testimony of past facts or events (tradition) is a valid source of certitude when it meets the requirements of certain precise conditions. These conditions are: (a) The fact or event attested must have been public and of great importance. The immediate witnesses, therefore, must have been many, and the importance of the event assures us that their attention was not casual or careless, and that their immediate testimony was “checked” by their contemporaries, (b) The chain of testimony called tradition must be unbroken; there must be a continuous, uninterrupted series of witnesses leading from the present back to the event attested, (c) The tradition must be uniform in substance and in essential circumstances. When these conditions are fulfilled, we can have certitude of the knowledge and the truthfulness of the witnesses, immediate and mediate. But to have certitude of the knowledge aiid truthfulness of the witnesses is to have a sound and valid basis for authority, and for the moral certitude of that which authority attests. Hence, under due conditions, oral testimony, even of events long past, is a valid source of certitude. 3. Written testimony.—The testimony of books and documents is a valid source of certitude when due conditions are fulfilled. These conditions are: (a)

The document must be authentic, that is, it must be known to be the writing of the man, or at least of the time, to whom or to which it is ascribed. Otherwise the document is apocryphal. To know the authenticity of a document we must appeal to internal criteria (style, formation of letters, character of paper or parchment on which it is written, etc.), and to external criteria (tradition or writings ascribing the document to a certain man or age; casual reference to the document by contemporaries, etc.). (&) The document must be intact, that is, it must be substantially as the writer left it, not changed by additions, excisions, corruptions. A document that is not intact is said to be interpolated. To know the intactness or integrity of a document we look to the internal criteria of uniformity of style, harmony of development, unity of achievement ; we look also to the external criteria of accuracy in quotation reported in other documents; substantial uniformity of various copies of the document, etc. (c) The document must have authority, that is, the writer must be truthful and must know whereof he speaks. To judge the truthfulness of the writer we look to the nature of the narrative; the importance of the data narrated; the possibility or impossibility of deceiving contemporaries who could know such data from other sources or from their own experience; circumstances of the time and of the writing which would make deception useless or harmful to the writer; the character of the writer as known from other 2AO CERTITUDE sources than his own writings; the love of truth (or lack of it) that marks his efforts, etc. To judge the knowledge of the writer, we look again to the nature of the narrative to discover whether it contains any contradictions or impossibilities; we look to the perspicacity of the writer as evidenced in the work; we discern his prudence or lack of it; we note the adequacy of his account of matters that can be known with certainty from other sources. If these conditions are met, if a writing be authentic, intact, and authoritative, it is a valid source of moral certitude. 4. Monumental testimony,—Monuments (temples; statues; coins; pictures; cuneiform writings; writings in hieroglyphic, hieratic, or demotic; inscriptions) are a valid source of moral certitude within the limits imposed by due conditions for authenticity and authority. These conditions have been described in our account of written testimony. Archaeology teaches us the importance and utility of monumental testimony. 5. Historical testimony.— Historical testimony is contained in oral tradition, written documents, and monuments. We have seen the conditions required for validity in such testimony. The facts of history are public facts, and, in ordinary circumstances, are easily known. Man has a natural tendency to tell the truth as he knows it, and this tendency receives support from the fact that deception in reporting public and important events could easily be discovered. Hence, CERTITUDE OF FAITH 2ZI generally speaking, the knowledge and truthfulness of the historian may be accepted as adequate unless the contrary is certainly known. Now, if the knowledge and truthfulness of a witness is known, his testimony is a valid source of moral certitude. If, however, the knowledge and truthfulness of the historian is only probable, then his testimony may be regarded as a valid source of opinion, but not of certitude. 6. Dogmatic or doctrinal testimony.—The authority of philosophers, and theologians, and others who propound doctrines, is not, as such•, the source of certitude, but only of probability. If the doctrine is propounded with compelling reasons, we give the assent of certitude, but the evidence is in the reasons given for the doctrine, not in the authority of the teachers. The certitude in such a case is that of science>9 not of faith. In the case of theological doctrine, evidenced by Revelation, the certitude is, as we have seen, certitude of faith, but not moral certitude; it is absolute or metaphysical certitude. In the case of theological reasoning, in which reason deduces truths from Revelation, the certitude is that of faith, inasmuch as the deduction is made from Revelation, and also certitude of science, inasmuch as the reasoning process is scientifically correct and true.

Summary Of The Article

In this article we have listed the forms in which human authority may present its testimony. We have explained each, and have given detailed notice to the value of each sort of testimony as a reliable and valid source or certitude.