Chapter 1. Introduction: We Can't Get Along Without It -- To Succeed at Being a Human Being -- Why it Matters that We Value Authority -- After Authority -- Where Does Authority Come From? -- A Few Words Up Front About the Acceptance of Paradox -- Chapter 2. Authority And Freedom: Social Authority -- Is Authority Merely Substitutionary? -- Illustration: A Symphony Orchestra -- A Description of Authority -- Social Authority -- The Paradoxes of Freedom and of Free Action -- Social Authority Comes in a Living Person -- Charisma: Follow Me and Find Yourself -- Chapter 3. Authority And Truth: Epistemic Authority -- Authority and Our Flourishing as Beings Who Know -- Illustration: A Judge Deciding a Case -- Epistemic Authority -- Objections -- The Paradoxes of Human Knowing -- You Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free -- Chapter 4. Authority And Power: Political Authority -- Our Depoliticized Imagination -- Illustration: An Exercise of Political Judgment -- Political Authority -- The Public, the Political, and Certainty -- Christ the King and Earthly Rulers -- Chapter 5. Authority And God: Ecclesial Authority -- The Odd Place of the Church in this Discussion -- Illustration: The Aria in Bach's Saint Matthew Passion -- Authority in the Church -- The Inescapable Difficulty of the Reading of Scripture: The Wisdom of Richard Hooker -- The Reading of Scripture and the Making of the Authorized Individual -- Judge for Yourselves: The Church as the Locus of Authoritative Non-judgment -- Chapter 6. Authority And Error: Disputed Authority -- The Bind We are in -- Illustration: The Rejection of Polanyi's Paper on Adsorption -- What to do with the Fallibility of Authority -- Concrete Explorations of Fallible Authority -- 1. The Fallibility of church authority -- 2. The Fallibility of political authority -- 3. The Fallibility of epistemic authority -- 4. The Fallibility of social authority -- Chapter 7. Conclusion: Authority In Paradise -- Authority Without Compulsion -- Dante's Ordered Spheres: Ranking that is Neither Higher Nor Lower -- Authority in God -- Our Being in God.
