POPE BENEDICT XVIlow critically the development of the individual sciences and to probe critically any rash
conclusions and false certainties about what man is, where he comes from, and why he
exists. Put differently, it is philosophy’s responsibility to separate the nonscientific ele-
ment from scientific results with which it is so often intermingled, and in this way to
remain attentive to the whole, to the further dimensions of the reality of human existence,
only some aspects of which can reveal themselves in science.
Power and Law
Concretely, it is the task of politics to bring power within the norm of law and in this
way to order its sensible application. Not the law of the strong, but the strength of the
law must prevail. Power in ordering and serving law is the opposite of violence, by which
we understand lawless and illegal power. That is why it is important for every society to
overcome suspicion of law and its ordinances. Only in this way can arbitrariness be
averted and freedom lived as communally shared freedom. Lawless freedom is anarchy,
and hence the destruction of freedom. Suspicion of the law, revolts against the law, will
always break out when the law itself no longer appears to be the expression of a justice in
the service of all, but rather the product of arbitrariness, the presumption of right on the
part of those who have the power to do so.
For this reason, the task of bringing power within the norm of law points to further
questions: How does law come into being, and how must law be constituted so that it is
a vehicle for justice and not a privilege of those who have the power to establish the law?
This is, on the one hand, a question of the coming into being of the law, but, on the other
hand, it is also the question of the law’s own inner norms. That the law must not be an
instrument of power for the few, but rather needs to be the expression of the common
interest of all, seems, at least at first, to be solved by means of the democratic formation
of a common will. Because the process of democratic will-formation allows everyone to
take part in the making of the law, the resulting law is the law of all and as such can and
must be respected. Indeed, the guarantee of a collaborative participation in the construc-
tion of the law and in the just administration of power is the main reason for arguing for
democracy as the most appropriate form of a political order.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that there remains yet another question. Since unanimity
among people is rarely achieved, democratic will-formation must rely on one of two
essential tools, either delegation or majority decision, in which, according to the impor-
tance of a question, different ratios for a majority might be required. But majorities too
can be blind or unjust. History makes this quite clear. When a majority, however large it
may be, represses a minority—for example, a religious or a racial one—by means of
oppressive laws, can one still speak of justice, of law? It is in this way that the principle of
majority rule still leaves the question of the ethical bases of the law unanswered, still
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