Recovery of the Father Figure at the Margins of the Franciscan Middle Ages

Abstract

There are three arguments that we have tried to discuss with respect to the general assumption that the modern age distances itself from the medieval age in general and the Franciscan age in particular, not because it is authoritarian (according to the typical historiographic cliche, which depicts a son who rebels against his father) but because it wants to embed the interpretation of being no longer in the will of God and man, but in parameters inspired by the primacy of reason, autonomous and self-sufficient – the irrefutable tribunal of truth. It is argumented in the first thesis that the “father”, as a figure of creative will to some extent, seems to be the most representative figure of “Franciscan thinking”. The second thesis is that the father fulfils this will not by taking, but by giving, not by dominating but by serving. The third thesis is that the father incarnates in an extraordinary way the responsibility, ascribed to his own individuality, but at the same time open to others: family, group, nation, world. In short, the Franciscan seems to look at the father as the most complete expression of his philosophical-theological perspective, in that he represents the one who gives all that he is and has, with full responsibility. Given that responsibility, voluntarism appears as an attitude in which creatures exist not because they have a right to be, but because they are wanted with radical disinterestedness.