Faith and social order : latin civilization face to catharism

The article rises the question of ontological and ethical basis of the social order. As an example, catharism will be discussed. Catharism, based on speculative and abstract metaphysical thesis, gave origin of an original culture. The fact that political system and cultural forms have ontological basis is a consequence of the relationship between ethics and law. Each ethical system is more or less evidently based on ontological principles. Law, at it’s turn, is a sanction and codification of moral convictions, which are an implementation of ethics. Social order, or - as we could describe civilization - all method of social living in general, is shaped by law, which defines relations between people living under it. In this way, ontological convictions, usually abstract - as they concern the issues of existence of the Supreme Being, or a soul and its relation to the matter - became indirectly an important and fundamental to social order. In a similar way religion, which is metaphysics sacralized and transferred to the practical sphere, creates and organizes political and public life. In the case of catharism, radical dntological principles have visible and profound consequences for everyday human life. The manichaeist rapport to marriage, carnality, death, work, nutrition or political duties is a direct outcome of specific theological dualism and the negative approach to the physical sphere. The example of catharism and of, as opposed to it, of Christian theology shows that consistent application of a set of metaphysical principles implies a necessity of adopting a specific legal system and a specific method of social living. Furthermore, contradictory metaphysical systems usually - but not always and not necessarily - generate dissimilar cultural and political forms. From this remark we might draw cardinal conclusion for the issue of religious tolerance. Religious convictions, as a collection of metaphysical opinions, viewed in this way shouldn’t be considered as a personal attribute of an individual human being, but, as long as they imply practical actions, should be regarded as an important factor conditioning public life. They have an important culture-forming potential. Tolerance for a given religious belief is, in fact, acceptance or rejection of legal and cultural forms that are it’s consequences. In particular, the issue of religious tolerance, or intolerance is in complete disregard of the questions of conscience, because it concerns social life, and conscience is a strictly individual matter. The burden of the question of religious tolerance is transferred to the issue weather the cultural forms implied by two religions may be reconciled within a consistent legal system. The history of the medieval manichaeism shows us that impossibility of a practical reconciliation between them forces a choice between corresponding sets of ontological convictions and to rejection of one of them on the most abstract and basic level.