Human moral and religious authority remains historically entangled with power and has never been authenticated in a way that distinguishes revelation from human assertion; obedience cannot be justified by claiming divine warrant alone. This essay develops the argument through two independent movements that converge on a single epistemic conclusion. The first movement presses the metaphysical case that a self-sufficient, omniscient God has no coherent, non-self-referential reason to create or command — engaging the strongest contemporary classical replies (Davies and Stump on actus purus, Molinist middle knowledge) and finding the future closed from the creator's side even when the strongest defenses are granted intact. The second movement is historical and behavioral: the observed conduct of moral-religious systems — how they bind and mobilize groups, how they serve as the contested lever of power between rulers and the ruled — is fully explained without appeal to a divine author. The case applies as forcefully to secular moral movements (Marxist projects, nationalisms, contemporary ideological frameworks) as to religious ones; the target is unauthenticated moral authority of any kind, not religion specifically. The conclusion's real weight rests on the convergence: whatever the metaphysics, no claimed revelation has ever been externally authenticated in a way that separates genuine disclosure from human assertion, because the corroboration available is always to the fact the report was made and to events that occurred, never to the source the report names. What replaces obedience is not another commandment but a two-step diagnostic: first, can the authority be authenticated; second, if not, who benefits if it is believed? Both questions can be examined, including when turned reflexively on the essay itself. The position rests on a single thin commitment — that clear sight is preferable to manufactured holiness — and is named, not commanded. Follow the benefit, not the banner.
William Stafford (Thu,) studied this question.