Sorry I shouldn't have used the somewhat obscure Catholic name given to St. Thomas Aquinas (The Angelic Doctor). The passage is from his Summa Theologica . In which he discusses the Divine Law, the Natural Law and Human law and their relationship to each other.
. A political theory favoring unlimited authority by a single individual” could be restrained by any individual or group of individuals over who he has complete authority.
Your definition here is flawed since the power of the monarch was not unlimited, but rather strictly limited by all the factors in my first post (tradition, the aristocracy and the Church chiefly).
History is full of all kind of plots and schemes sparked by sibling rivalries with their mothers cheering them on. This leads to a very unstable environment around the throne .
The charge of instability is a curious one to make, since stability is one of the chief benefits of the monarchial government. With one exception, the Swiss cantons, democracies are inherently far more unstable. The oldest existing mass democracy (the aforemnetioned Swiss system could not be called "mass" democracy, each canton is virtually independent and consists of thousands not 100s of millions) is the US which has stood for 240 years give or take. The governments of Europe only a fraction of that. Democracies always contain the element of the the legistlative authority resulting in the constant production of positive law to justify it's existance. This in turn leads to legal uncertainity
We have too hope that most historical writers cared enough about the future of their kinsmen and the survival of the human race to leave us a record of not only our triumphs but of our failures in order that we may benefit from their experiences.
Pardon me but that's an incredibly naive assumption. Every writer of history has an idealogy, consciously and unconscious he is immersed in the events and current of the day. It is easy enough to say John Smith did such and such on this date, that is empirical. But an analysis of history asks why he did such and such and absent direct testimony from the individual that interpetation tells us more about the writer than the actor.
All that assumes the writer was trying for objectivity, it is more common that history is written explicitly for propoganda purposes. "Control the past and you control the future".
I hoped not to go here into too great of detail since this history of the Church and Papal rule is fairly well known, some good and some not so good.
Actually I would argue it is not well known since it is so often misrepresented, which is why I referred to those particular authors.
Went to your link. I do not see a sound reason for basing your support on this writing by this man.
I cannot for the simple reason that after some sort of divine revelation he left off writing or finishing and when question as to why give this reason the year before his death.
"I cannot go on...All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me."
Now if a man after a revelation, and later reflection sees his writings as basically useless why should I you or anyone else give them more consideration than he.
Your definition here is flawed since the power of the monarch was not unlimited,
The definition was not my own which were the reason for the quotation marks. It was from a dictionary program for which I can't seem to find the source. However here is one from Webster's 1828 edition.
Monarch: The prince or ruler of a nation, who exercises all the powers of government without control, or who is vested with absolute sovereign power; an emperor, king or prince invested with an unlimited power.
Democracies always contain the element of the the legislative authority resulting in the constant production of positive law to justify it's existence. This in turn leads to legal uncertainty
The same can be said to be true of monarchs by the fact that they issue decrees some permanent and some time-limited.This was [is] done at times on a daily basis.
The same occurs in a Church monarchy when changes in, or new doctrines or polices are issued on various subjects ie: birth control, abortion, way if salvation etc.
Pardon me but that's an incredibly naive assumption. Every writer of history has an ideology, consciously and unconscious he is immersed in the events and current of the day.
...it is more common that history is written explicitly for propaganda purposes. "Control the past and you control the future".
No offense taken, or any intended... But this is where I find the greatest difficulty with your reasoning and logic.
You find fault with me for relying on historical writers for my source of information and condemn them as unreliable at best as in both of your previous post for the reasons you mention.
Then you proceed straightway to these same unreliable sources ie: history writers, and use them to support your point of view.
This seems to me to defy all the rules of logic and common sense reasoning.
Actually I would argue it is not well known since it is so often misrepresented,
If it was not for wrongs in the history of the Catholic Church, then what was the public apology made by the Pope on March 3, 2000 for?