سازش و ستيزش دين و دولت در فلسفه سياسي ويليام اوكامي

Reconciliation and Conflict between Religion and State in the Political Philosophy of William of Ockham

Between the two intellectual periods of classic (before Augustine) and modern (before Renaissance) there is a long time space of a thousand years, which is named by many as dark age, and also known as the domination of theology over reason. A serious and critical deliberation, however, refutes this one-sideness. The first political philosopher of the period is Augustiue who considered understanding as the reward of faith. Apart from Augustine, as a prominent theological philosopher, there were in the same period, Averroes and Averroesians who vigorously defended rationalism against fedeism and considered philosophical deliberations as religiously obligatory. Thomas Aquinas undertook the coordination of these two extremes and systematically drew the boundaries between reason and revelation, religion and state, God and man. But these contrasts and interactions did not mean that there were no other philosophers engaged in the debate. William of Ockharn is among the prominent political philosophers who avoided the imployment of science and faith before reason and identified the church tyranny as the refutation of Christianity. To Ockham, Christianity is a religion of mercy and what the church authorities did in restricting reason and degrading human being contradicted the holy scripture. The present paper examines part of Ockhamʹs efforts and views in standing against despotism and the absolute monarchy of the Pope. The author argues that Ockhamʹs ideas and opinions in the 14th century played a distinct role in the formation of modem thought and the transcendence of reason over faith.