The Anatomy of Divine Right 1

While this topic may not seem to be relevant to today's political environment, it does definitely have historical significance, and if what is whispered in the archaic tomes of philosophy be true, we might be facing the monarchies of the world once again. What are the three arguments for the divine right of kings? and once more, how is it possible that these three arguments will be used again for a kind of neo-monrchy?

The first argument was that advocated by sir Robert Filmer in the 17th century: that the monarchy was an extended form of patriarchy, thereby bestowing a natural and divine right for the king to govern his subjects much like a father governs his children. Filmer's argument for monarchy can be found in his book Patriarcha, while a rebuttal can be found to this argument in the first of John Lockes Two Treatises on Government. 

The second argument, somewhat parallel, but distinct, is that Kings receive a mandate from heaven to rule over their subjects, thereby making the sovereign responsible only to the person from whom he derives his power, God. This was the idea set forth by Jean Bodin, a renaissance thinker. In 1576, Bodin compiled his views on government into his Les Six livres de la République (Six Books of the commonwealth). 

The third argument takes the logical next step that says that kings act in God's behalf. This argument is illuminated in the passage from On the Devine Right, by James VI & I: "The State of MONARCHIE is the supremest thing vpon earth: For Kings are not onely GODS Lieutenants vpon earth, and sit vpon GODS throne, but euen by GOD himselfe they are called Gods." (https://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/351/Jamesdrk.htm) 

There are the three arguments in their briefest entirety. They are all old, archaic, and outdated. They are supposed, through our social-evolutional models, obsolete. What therefore, is the utility in bring to light a corpse that has been so long in the ground that the words on the head stone are partially in old English and Latin? The answer is found in our assumptions and in our theory.

To Be Continued in The Anatomy of Divine Right 2