Sovereignty and Political Theology: from Plato’s Theory of Forms to Augustine’s idea of the will of God
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This article studies the implications of political theology for understanding the concept of sovereignty. It shows that Plato’s Theory of Forms and Philo’s political thought can be connected to the idea of Creator God: God firstly creates the world of intelligible things as ideas and patterns of His words, and then creates all sensible things from them. The idea of the Word of God also enlarges Augustine’s concept of the Trinity of God and free-will, which imply the contributions of the concept of ‘sovereign power’ and ‘sovereignty’ in terms of the transcendent and omnipotent God. The finding of this paper reaffirms that although the conventional concept of sovereignty is essentially a modern construct, the classical theology can be said to fall under the concept. It eventually shows the relationship between political theology in classical periods and modern political theory for the better understanding of the modern concept of sovereignty.
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