Religio-Political Cooperation for State Stability: Influence of the Egyptian 'God-King' Model on State Politics

Abstract

Religion and politics are as old as the amassing of humans to establish communities or states. Consequently, man is described both as 'homo religiosus' and 'homo politicus.' Both are assumed to relate to each other on the ground of shared purposes of pursuit of 'human welfare' and 'happiness' in the state. However, both are also considered, based on existential realities, to live in cahoots to maintain state stability on terms tantamount to satisfying the inordinate ambitions of rulers at the expense of the ruled. The apparent partiality of this attitude raises the following questions: How is the state to be ordered so as to guarantee the peace, harmony and happiness of all its members and achieve political stability? How is inequality and the disadvantages that draw from it be addressed? Put differently, how does one justify the 'advantages' of the ruling class over the 'disadvantages' of those ruled? These questions, ultimately, raise curiosity over the origin of religion and its primal purpose. The findings of this study include the fact that the origin of religion is tied to Plato's mythical invention, “convenient fiction” and a “noble lie.” This, in turn, is linked up to an earlier invocation of religion in ancient Egypt to cook up a similar myth, which confers divine status on Pharaoh for purposes of state stability. Using the analytic method of research, the study finds that religion's role in the world today serves the same purpose of political stability as Plato's political justice, where justice is doing the biddings of the 'Philosopher-King' or 'Egypt's Pharaoh,' whose 'divine mandate to rule' is a product of fiction, a 'noble lie.'