“Authoritarianism, especially of the ideological kind, springs not from excess of authority, but from a perversion of it, which fails to receive it from its source in the true word of judgment, from outside and prior to all existing society, and attempts to construct it instead upon the self-projection of society. The critique of authoritarianism ought to extend not into a critique of authority, but into a critique of social self-projection. It is, in fact, precisely as governments conceive themselves as an image, expressing a soul, or personality, or ideals of a people, that they overreach themselves and depart from the terms of their mandate for justice.” (英文版,p.57)這段對於authority的思考﹛也成為教會群體——作為聖靈溝通的群體——警惕將自身的ideology(領袖、教派意見)成為絕對,卻又不否定authority的重要性。下一道問題可問,甚麼是authority? 這就是歐氏神學一直所關注,並不斷進展的神學論點。這是他的獨特貢獻,也是學界非常爭議的一點,可見侯活士的著作。
6.最後值得一提的是為何作者要談論愛,為何要用愛來補足theoretical reason and practical reason——倫理學關注的兩大理性,這是值得讀者細味的。
以上只是我的意見,希望這重述幫助你明白這書可貴之處。