We find two opposite approaches to obedience in Church history, one, that puts such value on obedience as to marginalize nearly every other consideration, another, that would measure every obedience by how well an authority corresponds to the truth or to authentic christian tradition \u2013 as judged by the one who was expected to obey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The practice and teaching on obedience in the Catholic tradition has likely tended rather to excess in the way of blind obedience than to excess in the way of personal judgment. A tendency thereto is at any rate not surprising, given that the christian tradition, going back to Christ, e.g., \u201cHe who hears you, hears me\u201d (Lk 10,16) and to St. Paul, has seen in the obedience owed to man, an obedience \u201cto the Lord\u201d, to God himself. (Eph 5: 21; Col 3:22-24)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blind\/unconditional obedience in the spiritual tradition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c8. Once a man who wanted to become a monk came to see Sisois of the Thebaid. The hermit asked him, \u2018Have you any ties in the world?\u2019 He said, \u2018I have a son.\u2019 He said to him, \u2018Go and throw him in the river, and then you can be a monk.\u2019 He went to throw his boy into the river, but the hermit sent a monk to stop him. He was already holding his son ready to throw him in, when the brother said, \u2018Stop! What are you doing?\u2019 He said, \u2018The abba told me to throw him in.\u2019 The brother said, \u2018Now the abba says, do not throw him in.\u2019 So he left his son, and came back to the hermit; and tested by such obedience he became a strong monk.\u201d Sayings of the desert Fathers<\/em> — https:\/\/erenow.net\/common\/the-desert-fathers\/15.php<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat it might be more thoroughly tested whether he would make affection and love for his own flesh and blood of more account than obedience and Christian mortification (which all who renounce the world ought out of love to Christ to prefer), the child was on purpose neglected and dressed in rags instead of proper clothes\u2026 And further, he was exposed to blows and slaps from different people, which the father often saw inflicted without the slightest reason on his innocent child under his very eyes\u2026 And when the Superior of the C\u0153nobium saw his steadfastness of mind and immovable inflexibility, in order thoroughly to prove the constancy of his purpose, one day when he had seen the child crying, he pretended that he was annoyed with him and told the father to throw him into the river. Then he, as if this had been commanded him by the Lord, at once snatched up the child as quickly as possible, and carried him in his arms to the river’s bank to throw him in. And straightway in the fervour of his faith and obedience this would have been carried out in act, had not some of the brethren been purposely set to watch the banks of the river very carefully, and when the child was thrown in, had somehow snatched him from the bed of the stream, and prevented the command, which was really fulfilled by the obedience and devotion of the father, from being consummated in act and result.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n And this man’s faith and devotion was so acceptable to God that it was immediately approved by a divine testimony. For it was immediately revealed to the Superior that by this obedience of his he had copied the deed of the patriarch Abraham. (John Cassian, Institutes, Book IV, Ch. 27,28) https:\/\/www.newadvent.org\/fathers\/350704.htm<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Blind\/unconditional obedience in theology<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n First Rule. The first: All judgment laid aside<\/em>, we ought to have our mind ready and prompt to obey, in all, the true Spouse of Christ our Lord, which is our holy Mother the Church Hierarchical.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Ninth Rule. Finally, to praise all precepts of the Church<\/em>, keeping the mind prompt to find reasons in their defence<\/em> and in no manner against them<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Tenth Rule. We ought to be more prompt to find good and praise as well the Constitutions and recommendations as the ways of our Superiors. Because, although some are not or have not been such<\/em>, to speak against them<\/em>, whether preaching in public or discoursing before the common people, would rather give rise to fault-finding and scandal than profit<\/em>;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Thirteenth Rule. To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black<\/em>, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n St. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises<\/em> (emphasis added), https:\/\/www.ccel.org\/ccel\/ignatius\/exercises.xix.v.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ignatius here calls for more than external obedience to precepts of the Church and of superiors, but considers \u201cthinking with the Church\u201d to require one from abstaining from critical words or even thoughts against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that, even when they are imprudent, as long as they do not command \u201cmanifest sin\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3\u2026 The superior is not to be obeyed because he is highly prudent, very good, or qualified by any other gift of God our Lord, but rather because he holds his place and authority\u2014as eternal Truth has said, \u201cHe who hears you hears me, and he who despises you despises me.\u201d Nor, on the other hand, should he be any less obeyed in his capacity as superior if he is less prudent, for he represents the person of him who is infallible wisdom and who will make up for any shortcomings in his minister<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u2026 7 \u2026 Whoever aims at making a complete and perfect oblation of himself must, in addition to his will, offer his understanding. \u2026 He must not only have the same will as the superior bur also be of the same mind as he, submitting his own judgment to the superior\u2019s to the extent that a devoted will is able to influence the understanding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n 8. For while the understanding does not enjoy the same freedom as the will and by nature gives its assent to whatever is presented to it as true, nevertheless, in many matters where the evidence of the known truth is not compelling, it can, by the will\u2019s intervention, incline to one side rather than the other; and in such matters every truly obedient person should incline himself to think the same as his superior.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u2026 11. For if we look to the purpose of obedience, it is just as possible for our understanding to be mistaken about what is good as it is for our will. Hence, if we think it right to conform our will to the superior\u2019s to prevent it from going wrong, we should also conform our understanding to his to keep it from going wrong. \u201cDo not rely upon your own prudence,\u201d says Scripture.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cLetter on Obedience\u201d https:\/\/jesuitportal.bc.edu\/research\/documents\/1553_ignatiusonobedience\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The only restriction on this absolute obedience in action, will and intellect is where \u201cmanifest sin is evident.\u201d (Ibid, 24.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n While St. Ignatius, reacting to the protestant rejection of church authority, is particularly extreme, similarly citations from the christian tradition could be multiplied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Personal judgment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The christian tradition knows also the maxim \u201can unjust law is no law.\u201d (St. Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio<\/em> i, 5 \u201cA law which is not just does not seem to me to be a law.\u201d \u201cLex mihi esse non videtur, quae iusta non fuerit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This principle, made famous in the 20th<\/sup> century by Martin Luther King, citing St. Augustine and Aquinas (https:\/\/www.csuchico.edu\/iege\/_assets\/documents\/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf<\/a>) provides a corrective to blind obedience. While a superior\u2019s authority may be derived from God and from Christ, and so in obeying him one may be obeying Christ, the superior does not always truly represent God, and therefore need not always be obeyed, indeed in some case must not be obeyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But who may judge a law to be unjust or unreasonable? Some groups connected with the Franciscans, such as the Beghards, seem to have been convinced that the rule of Francis and poverty were so in accordance with the gospel, that any decree from the pope modifying or diminishing them would be unjust and therefore not binding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n