Rationalization and Natural Law: Max Weber's and Ernst Troeltsch's Interpretation of the Medieval Doctrine of Natural Law
1995; Philosophy Education Society Inc.; Volume: 49; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2154-1302
Autores Tópico(s)Critical Theory and Philosophy
ResumoIn Max Weber's And Ernst Troeltsch's interpretation of religious and social development of Western civilization, concept of natural law has a pivotal role. Weber's thesis runs as follows: In reception and transformation of Stoics's concept of natural law Christian faith finds key that makes it possible to mediate between originally world-denying claims of gospel and norms of world.(1) Since natural law must be regarded as having the purest type of normative rational validity,(2) its prevalence is of central importance for rationalization that is linked to Christian faith. The backdrop for this thesis is provided by Troeltsch's far more detailed and extensive studies of social doctrines of various Christian churches and groups.(3) According to Troeltsch's interpretation, reception of Stoic concept of natural law is as crucial to Christian ethics as reception of concept of logos is to Christian dogmatics.(4) Just as concept of logos mediates between truth of revelation and truth of reason, so concept of natural law mediates between moral demands of gospel and principles of a worldly ethos. Since there is a distinction between an absolute natural law, which is identical with radical ideal of Sermon on Mount, and a relative natural law, substantially corresponding to Ten Commandments and to political and social reality,(5) such a mediation--which must be oriented on relative natural law--must qualify original radical Christian claim.(6) Whereas old church allowed both forms of natural law to stand alongside each other without mediation and was therefore unable to overcame their estrangement within surrounding social reality,(7) Christian Middle Ages succeeded in uniting both forms by replacing distinction between gospel (or church) and world with a distinction between natural and supernatural,(8) interpreting each as a level of a metaphysical whole.(9) When this idea of a metaphysical hierarchy of reality, attached to concept of natural law, became linked to notion of society as a structured organism, as taught by Aristotle and Paul,(10) concept of natural law assumed a virtually fundamental status: it grounded both moral(11) and social(12) philosophy and enabled rise of unified culture(13) characteristic of Christian Middle Ages, from which Reformation later departed in order to regain radicalism of gospel.(14) By linking concept of natural law to organic interpretation of social, Christian Middle Ages could also assign a central role to church: just as divine law is bracket that binds together levels of moral laws, so church is bracket that holds together members of social organism.(15) Its interpretation as boundless, comprehensive, and guiding institution of salvation,(16) together with strong attachment of natural law to eternal and immutable principles, must, in last consequence, lead to a conservative, organically patriarchal natural law.(17) Consequently, those elements that were already contained in medieval form of natural law but not in Platonic interpretation of social order, and which in its later secular form gave it its progressive, even revolutionary, power, remain repressed: idea of dignity of person, associated' freedom and autonomy of individual reason, resulting responsibility of personal conscience, and significance of one's vocation, which stems from place of individual within whole.(18) With thesis that doctrine of natural law represents an essential contribution of Christian Middle Ages to course of Western development, and that this contribution is particularly effective in doctrine of natural law found in Thomas Aquinas,(19) Troeltsch and Weber formulated an insight that stands test of contemporary research, regardless of their highly questionable presentation of this doctrine in detail. …
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