Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 67:268 (Oct 1910)
Article: Authority
Author: A. v. C. P. Huizinga

BSac 67:268 (Oct 1910) p. 565

Authority

A. v. C. P. Huizinga

“Without authority — the objective norm of truth and value — and faith — repose in it as our immediate standard — life could not well be lived. Is it not strange, therefore, that those who are willing slaves to the idols of our day should clamor for freedom from all restraint, and raise an outcry against all legitimate authority?”

It was quite characteristic of our age, and certainly of the gathering assembled, when Dr. George A. Gordon raised a storm of approving applause at the International Congress of Religious Liberals held in Boston, September 22-27, 1907, with the remark “The loss sustained by the Christian world through the reign of authority is incalculable.” It is said on every hand that for a true development of the inner life, one may not be subject to any outward restraint. We must strike out along our own lines, — not walk by chalk-marks, but according to our own nature. We are to be true to our own selves. Inasmuch as we ourselves are the acting party in all things, we are not to be determined by arbitrary directions. The very idea of personality, of responsibility, of private initiative, of individual significance, the entire personal equation, opposes itself to any pressure of external restraints.

In ethical theories this individualism is represented in

BSac 67:268 (Oct 1910) p. 566

the pleas for self-realization. The vague notion of self-realization, however, can hardly become the basis of social relations and morals, if conceived according to the phrase which proclaims “society versus the individual,” and always insists that corporate society is to a large extent incommensurable with personal individuality. There is no allowance made for inter-determination, that the individual may be determined as well extrinsically as intrinsically; and again that these determinations sustain the closest relation each to the other is left out of account. The atomistic conception of the individual is insisted upon. It has been said that this “mere individual “is an abstraction of logic, with which philosophy has burdened the world. It is, however, more correct to maintain that the notion of the isolated, separate individual has become persistently prominent in popular views.

In modern literature the individual claims are prominently brought forward, and their indulgence advocated at the expense of traditional social restraints. “Self-realization “figures large as a motto in modern realism. Love overrides law. Even the passions should know no restraint. Insistently is dwelt on things as they are. As the Christian understands that in weakness is strength, so it should be observed that in realism its strength is its weakness, in...