Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 'Father Austin's style is energetic and engaging, histhought enriched by decades as priest, teacher, and theologian, and his thesiscompels attention: social beings require authority to flourish, and we aresocial beings from the beginning of this life to beyond its end. We neednot accept all of his premises to benefit from this wide-ranging essay,fortunately so, since the author at times plays the smiling contrarian whoinvites us all to revisit our assumptions. For readers who have takensocial order as rooted in either persuasion or compulsion, and so assumed thatauthority is derivative, transient, postlapsarian, the dead hand of the past,or the polite mask of force, this book offers a clear-headed alternative.Austin exploresthe ineliminable centrality of fallible authority in our social, epistemic,political, and ecclesial communal lives, and discerns structures ofauthority in the Trinity and the paradisal life of friends livingtogether. In part Christian theology, in part humane anthropology, inpart philosophical reflection, this is altogether a galvanizing book.' - RonaldMawby, Whitney Young School of Honors and Liberal Studies, Kentucky StateUniversity, USA.