By Mark Bailey
What is obedience? In this day and age of language both tortured and power abused, I am told that I need to obey, yet often my conscience tells me that to follow the whims of those who are in power would be a fast track to hell. Let’s start with definitions.
Google reports that Oxford defines obedience as “compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another’s authority” and Wikipedia has it under human behavior as “a form of ‘social influence in which a person yields to explicit instructions or orders from an authority figure.’ “
I am inclined to reject out of hand the definition from Wiki on the grounds that it smacks of an evolutionistic, materialistic human behaviorism which asserts that there is no soul, no will, certainly no free will, man is but an animal that wears pants and therefore he must be trained like a base animal.
I am not satisfied with Oxford’s definition either, but for the sake of discussion let’s accept it. Now, it would seem to me that the definition of “obedience” is contingent upon the definition of “authority” as orders, and laws necessarily come from one with authority, (if not necessarily requests) and general submission to one’s authority, not one’s whim or fancy, is what, given this definition, constitutes obedience.
I believe the letter of St. Paul to the Romans contains an excellent guide to understanding obedience and authority. However, there seems to me to be a cultural understanding that the governing authorities are corrupt and are only looking after their own interests, constituents be damned.
In light of this, Romans 13 is difficult to swallow,
“1Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”
With an improper, abused understanding of authority, we may be tempted to scoff at this verse. Or at least put up some modernist response saying those in authority today are different from St. Paul’s, from Our Lord’s era. Yet, faith in the word of God does not disappoint and a clear understanding of the following verses, I think, clarifies everything.
“3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; 4 for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.”
Here we have a clear definition of what it means to have authority and why St. Paul can say ALL authority is from God, for here St. Paul reminds us that to have authority is to be God’s servant for your good.
Therefore, those who wield power for private gain and not for the good of the people for (or rather, against) whom they wield it are abusing their authority, not using it. Insofar as our rulers wield authority properly, we owe obedience to them. Insofar as those in power abuse us we owe them resistance. Likewise, it is clear that you should never fear to do that which is good, but instead fear doing that which is bad, on account of the authorities. Therefore, if you are afraid to do that which is good either your perception of the authority is twisted, or those in power are not, in fact, in authority.
As Aquinas writes in the Summa Theologica (II-II:104:6),
“Man is bound to obey secular princes in so far as this is required by order of justice. Wherefore, if the prince’s authority is not just but usurped, or if he commands what is unjust, his subjects are not bound to obey him, except perhaps accidentally, in order to avoid scandal or danger.”
So, to recap, to obey is to follow the will of him who is in authority, and to be in authority is to be a servant of God for the good of him who obeys. All authority, ultimately, finds its origin, as do all things, in God. As this is the case, being obedient is one of the most pleasing things to God, as when we follow lawful obedience it is as if we follow the direct command of God Himself. This becomes difficult in two ways:
Firstly, we are fallen and are inclined to follow our own will against that of authority out of arrogance, wrongfully justifying ourselves by saying he whom we ought to obey does not have authority. Perhaps we are quick to find ways how he fails to be perfect and use them as illicit reasons to disobey licit commands. Perhaps we say to ourselves, for selfish reasons, that we know better and that even though it would not be wrong to follow his commands our way is the best way and causes no harm to anyone.
Secondly, those in authority are also fallen and liable to wield what power they have unjustly. When this is the case we need to exercise the virtue of prudence to find the best way to respond. For in this, the danger is twofold, either we will be complicit in their evil, saying to ourselves, “the best thing really is to obey, for he is in authority and so really all the blame lies with he who commands, not he who follows,” or we rebel unthinkingly and in so doing promote the agenda of the evil one who loves to see man at war with himself. For the one our Lord warns, “They are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” (Mt 15:14) So we cannot follow the commands of those in power unthinkingly, else we risk being the blind who follow the blind guides into a pit. For the other, our Lord says, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5:9).
As with all virtuous acts, the virtuous thing lies between two vicious extremes. On one side of Obedience lies the vice of Complicity, on the other that of Anarchy. We must pray to God for the prudence to steer clear of both and always act in virtuous obedience.
Some practical examples:
St. Faustina writes in her Diary (28) that one day our Lord told her to go to her superior and ask permission to wear a hair shirt for 7 days in mortification. Her superior denied her permission and when she went to tell Jesus that she was unable to do as He instructed, He told her that her obedience to her superior was what He truly wanted from her saying, “By obedience, you give great glory to Me and gain merit for yourself.”
In the case of the COVID vaccine, we are told that to taking the vaccine is a good to protect ourselves and those around us and therefore we are instructed to do so, even though we know that it has been developed through the use of aborted babies and for the great financial gain of those who have a share in its development and distribution. Many have been tempted to simply take the vaccine and not stop and consider if there is any real need, if it is moral to do so, or if by doing so they allow a system of rule to be imposed upon the many in a way previously unprecedented in the west. I am sure there are many different life circumstances that may make the complicity in this evil justified (let us not deceive ourselves by saying it is for our good that this experimental gene therapy has been produced).
A less controversial example is that of taxation. In this country, taxes are taken up indiscriminately and then expended on goods and services that Congress (allegedly) deems necessary. To say nothing of the morality of indirect taxation, some of the things to which our taxes are applied are intrinsically evil: infanticide, assisted suicide, genital mutilation, support for unending wars in countries most people can’t find on a map, the list is very long indeed. Yet, to not pay taxes (en masse) would essentially be anarchy, so the prudent thing to do is to continue paying taxes while also advocating for a change in how they are spent.
One of the most difficult things about the virtue of obedience is that, like with all virtues, in the natural order you have to practice it to grow it. In the supernatural order, we pray to be infused with it; this is indeed the most sure path for all virtue and sanctification. A problem in the natural order is so rarely, it seems, do we have the opportunity to actually practice it. More and more those who are in authority simply abdicate the responsibility of wielding it, thus leaving their subjects to do what they think best.
Fortunately, God does not abandon His children and has given us instruction in all things, so we can learn how to be obedient through the study of His law. Sadly, those who have been given the law to instruct us in it have failed in great measure and left many as orphans, exposed to the machinations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.