Spirituality as Common Sense by Bro. David Steindl-Rast O.S.B.

The original meaning of authority is “a firm basis for knowing and acting."

[Continued from page 3] All morality that was ever developed in any tradition in the world can be reduced to the principle of acting as one acts towards those with whom one belongs together. And the differences between the different codes of morality are only the limits that we draw for belonging: “These are the ones towards whom you have to act morally, and the others are ‘the others,’ outside.” And when you really live with common sense, that has no limitations; you live out of a morality that includes everybody, and therefore you behave towards everybody as one behaves when one belongs. That is what Jesus meant when he said “the kingdom of God” – and any other term of that sort that you get from any religious tradition will fit in here.

Common sense rightly understood is authoritative. The question of authority is extremely important in this context of religion and spirituality, but the term authority has to be rightly understood, and it’s usually misunderstood in our time. Even when you go to the dictionary, and open it up to the word, you will normally find as the first meaning of authority something like “power to command.” That’s not the original meaning of authority; the original meaning of authority is “a firm basis for knowing and acting.” We use it in that way, too; if we want to know something about our health, we go to a doctor who is an authority. If we want to do some research, we go to an authoritative book. We look for a firm basis for knowing and acting.

And now you can understand how we get the power to command, particularly if you reduce it to a smaller sociological scale in a small community – a family or a tribe or a village. There may be a person who proves over and over again to be a firm basis for knowing and acting. You go to this old woman if you want to know how to heal your wounds – or if you want to know whether we should wage war against this other village or not – and she always gives you the right answer. So now, because she is a firm basis for knowing and acting, you put her in an authority position and give her power to command. That’s how it came about, and that’s how all our authorities can be traced back to having come about.

But the moment a person is put in authority, they normally do not like to let go of that power, even though they may no longer be a basis for knowing and acting. And that is how we get authoritarian authorities. The real genuine authority is so firm that he or she can afford to build you up; actually that is the only appropriate use for authority, to build up those under authority. The authoritarian authorities do not have this basis, and therefore have to keep everybody down in order to keep themselves up, and that is how you can distinguish. It’s the litmus test for distinguishing between authoritarian authority and genuine authority: If they build you up, they are genuine; if they put you down, they are authoritarian. It’s very simple.

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