The spiritual source and nature of the authority

The primary formula of authority is derived from the relationship between creator and creation. In the religious sphere, it connects man to God; in the family sphere, the child to the father; in the political sphere, the individual – inhabitant of a village, city, or country – to the ancestor, king, or ruler. These formulas of creation have also been reproduced in other social institutions: the priest is the religious father of the parish, the teacher-professor holds authority in the eyes of the disciple, the healer-shaman dominates the relationship with the patient. This article explores theoretical arguments from the fields of linguistics, sociology, and anthropology to demonstrate the spiritual nature of the idea of authority and its application up to modernity. As a representation of divinity in human society, as a reconstruction of the founding scenario of the world174 or as a guarantee of the connection between the living, predecessors and successors, between the human and the divine, of the possible continuity of existence, authority recalls the idea of absolute, indubitable superiority. Only modern economy, accompanied by liberal individualism, rejects spiritual authority – along with the idea of an unmatchable superiority – and replaces it with rational authority. The crisis of authority in the postmodern society, triggered by modernity, bureaucracy, and economic rationalism, can be resolved by restoring the spiritual connections between certain types of (non-economic) authority and the sources of divine legitimacy.