Catholic Republic, page 3
“Whatever would there be to measure, after all, if there are no immaterial or mathematical truths?” the Natural Law Catholic asks the Enlightenment thinker. But Enlightenment science did not ask itself this question, and so it remained in a state of perpetual self-contradiction.
So, both of the Prot-Enlight halves posited the meaninglessness of reality and thereby rejected nature’s intelligibility. But republican self-rule is simply impossible without meaning. After all, meaning confers upon the citizen his conception of principles like liberty or justice. How do we know, for example, that living under just government is better than living under tyranny, if the invisible principle of justice does not make sense to us in the first place?
The Catholic answer, of course, is that our natural intellect tells us so. The intelligibility of the natural universe renders it knowable! But, given the hostility of both Prot-Enlight halves to this proposition, we infer that they secretly borrowed against Natural Law Catholicism!
Nature as Teleological, Purpose-Driven
The third and final property of the Natural Law is that nature is teleological. This five-dollar word simply means that nature has a “purpose.” The goal of nature, as designed by God, is to get us back to Him through Jesus Christ, who created nature and entered it as a man. The Catholic worldview has always been that both philosophy and science should be grounded in this goal.
Thomas Aquinas writes in the Summa:
all things partake somewhat of the eternal law, insofar as, namely, from its being imprinted upon them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to divine providence in a more excellent way, insofar as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident for itself and for others. Wherefore it has a share of the eternal reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end, and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law.18
But in the 16th century, both halves of Prot-Enlight rejected this third aspect of the Natural Law. Both the Protestants and the Enlightenment thinkers rejected any purpose in nature. In other words, they rejected the “inclinations [of created things] to their proper acts and ends.”
The Protestants—even as they have always agreed with Catholics that Christ is the final goal of existence—held that He no longer has anything to do with the universe (aside from His thirty-three historical years of dwelling in it). About this, Louis Bouyer writes that “in Protestantism, everything…seems to go on, as if the Incarnation had ended with the Ascension of the Savior.”19 Chapter Four will explain how Christ continues to be connected to nature: via the sacraments, most especially through the consecrated host in His real presence. This is an explanation of how the Natural Law leads right up to the supernatural law.
But for Protestants, the universe points us in no way to anything about Him as Creation’s purpose. Only the Bible, not nature, does that. So, it can be said that what’s missing in Reformation theology is the teleological connection linking Christ and the universe, the natural clue about the purpose of all things. In a word, most Protestants hold all the rest of the world outside of the Bible to be wicked, misleading, predetermined, and pointless. That’s what sola (“only”) indicates after all.e They do not believe alongside the Natural Law Catholic that the human being “partakes of a share of providence.” For Protestants, then, man is unable to perceive not only the intelligibility of the universe, but also he is unable to use such intelligibility for detecting its goal, Christ.
On the other hand, the Enlightenment thinkers, following one of their luminaries Francis Bacon, specifically removed from the study of science the purpose of nature.20 This is a bit simpler to see. Under Bacon’s “new science,” nature became a subject to be studied (for the first time in human history) with the expectations of both meaninglessness and purposelessness. Science immediately thereafter came to contradict its own truth-seeking purpose. Further, post- Enlightenment scientists became deeply dishonest as to their own motivations for doing science at all.21 Obviously, the sciences seek after a natural goal, although they still do not admit it!
Until science reinstates natural purpose, its modern practitioners cannot in earnest resume its quest for truth. Chapter Six will investigate this dilemma in greater detail.
So, this book will show how these three properties of nature—its moral freedom, intelligibility, and teleology—are “must haves” for citizens of republics. Specifically in America, these secretly wired properties of Natural Law bear out in six ways. Each chapter of this book covers one of the six.
Six Ways (in Six Chapters) the Catholic Natural Law has been Mis-wired in America
While the Reformation and the Enlightenment began as allies (the Christian and secular versions of rejecting the Natural Law and Catholicism), their intellectual “grandchildren” grew into bitter 21st century rivals in America. In fact, you know these grandchildren as the “religious Right” and the “secular Left,” respectively. Today they are bitterer rivals with one another than either one ever was with Catholicism!
So, you’ve been forewarned: this book exposes irony after irony, in American history. Ex- bedfellows make the bitterest rivals. After all, the descendants of the Reformation and the Enlightenment—the religious Right and the secular Left—today seem to hate one another with a fury particular to former fellow travelers. In the last analysis, one must even conclude that the Reformation was part and parcel of the Enlightenment.22
This is really no surprise, considering that both camps rejected the Natural Law so vigorously. For the secular Enlightenment thinker, science replaced the old, goal-oriented view of nature. For the Protestant thinker, naturally a bit closer to the Catholic worldview, sola scriptura offered all the information required about nature.
As the closest thing yet to a “Natural Law republic,” America has given republicanism a real run for its money…the best yet. But as noted in opening, that run is quickly nearing its end, without drastic change. The fly in the ointment is what you have read above: America is the republic wired Catholic, labeled Protestant, and currently functioning secular. Its wiring was almost adequate—but secretly and dishonestly hidden. Thus, the hidden wiring became ineffective prematurely since certain Catholic precepts could not be openly embraced or honored in early America. The problem is that America’s mostly-correct principles got lost in translation from wiring to labeling, and then even more so from labeling to functioning.
The list of our current problems is longer than the mere symptoms tyranny and popular immorality. The longer list names six specific marks of decay, stemming from the Prot-Enlight misunderstanding of the Natural Law described in the previous section. These comprise the six chapters of this book. And these six marks of decay can be countered only with an unwavering acceptance of the Catholicity of the Natural Law. In America, the best we have had to offer, to this point, has been crypto-Catholic (rather than outright Catholic). This must change.
In each of the six elements of crypto-Catholicism below, note how Natural Law Catholicism emerges with clear answers, between two bickering, confounded “opposites”—the secular Left (“Enlight”) and the religious Right (“Prot”):
Chapter One takes a look at the crypto-Catholicism of the natural rights appearing in Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. This covers the first step in any republic’s life: breaking the old regime. Natural rights, it turns out, do not exist for their own sake: according to the Natural Law, we have natural rights only in order to fulfill our moral duties. Chapter One examines the British suppression of American natural rights in the 1770s and the ensuing revolution. The upshot is that the Prot- Enlight American Colonists wanted natural rights without the source, Natural Law Catholicism. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, especially if you’re a Prot-Enlight thinker, whose two constituent philosophies each reject the Natural Law, as we now know. Following the Catholic model, Thomas Jefferson kept the original list of such rights in his Declaration very short. Today we find those rights inverted, perverted, and subverted by a far longer list of false new “rights” created by Prot-Enlight. Crypto- Catholic in their approach, the American founders lacked the open Catholicity to correctly access the Natural Law. Americans accept natural rights as catholic, but not as Catholic. You can’t do that. Chapter One shows why.
Chapter Two zooms in on the framing of the crypto-Catholic American Constitution and on its primary author, James Madison. This is the second step in a republic’s life: making the new regime. Chapter Two further examines one of the three natural rights in greater detail: liberty. In what way does true liberty function? The Catholic answer, subsidiarity, holds that matters should be handled at the level most local, the closest to home. Chapter Two takes a look at the false, secular copy of subsidiarity operative in the U.S. Constitution, explaining why local rule eventually broke down in America. Prot-Enlight plagiarized and mongrelized this primary Catholic social principle; with it, Madison wound up establishing something opposite to liberty: license. The republican culture degenerates if it forgets the moral object of its freedom. And so in our day, even most political conservatives who love freedom express it wrongly. They say that government should be done by a system of “local rule,” rather than by subsidiarity. (Political liberals don’t say it at all.) Because we’ve secularized a religious-political principle, the present version operates improperly, actually disabling local rule in our country.23 Chapter Two shows why.
Chapters Three through Six describe the third, longest, and final step—the cultural one—in a republic’s life: staking the Catholic Natural Law regime within the republican culture:
Chapter Three examines the crypto-Catholic element of popular morality in America. After the founding and framing of a republic (described in One and Two), only a republic’s people, not its governors or lawmakers, can maintain it. Both halves of the Prot-Enlight worldview deny any possibility of a truly moral citizenry. Luther and Calvin (“Prot”) reduced all human behavior to inevitable sin; secular thinkers Hume and Hobbes (“Enlight”) did basically the same, while refusing to name it sin! And without a moral citizenry, a nation is not truly a republic, because as Saint Augustine explained, wicked men are slaves to sin and cannot self-govern. Good men exercise their citizenship simply by leading virtuous lives and by tending the God-given moral authority over their families. Chapter Three closes by asking whether, after good laws have been established, the people or the government of the republic are what continue to make the regime and the culture good. The Catholic answer must be that only properly formed culture, rather than government, makes a republic truly moral.Forced morality is, as Aristotle taught,“accidental morality.” Only free choice begets “true morality.” Chapter Three shows why both halves of American Prot-Enlight deny the Natural Law proposition that culture is capable of sustaining morality.
Chapter Four assesses the historically catastrophic American mis-definition of “personhood” (operative in, say, slavery and abortion). It looks at the view that Americans hold about the role of…well…themselves. Which view of the human person (i.e., humanism) should be embraced in a true republic? Various conceptions of humanism—Protestant, Enlightenment, Catholic—compete for the citizen’s attention in the years after the death and resurrection of the One True Man. The answer is that the correct humanism, like everything else which this book examines, must come from the Catholic Natural Law. Any semblance of correct humanism in America is therefore crypto-Catholic. To be fully human, our experience must extend to the supernatural—and this can only be accomplished through sacrament. The fostering of a sacramental humanism can only be done through the natural community of church, which notion was often falsely embraced by American Prot-Enlight. The concept of church reminds us that our connection to the supernatural remains natural: a republic simply cannot be populated by fully humane citizens (each recognized as persons) without the daily role of sacramental grace. In turn, this is why the Prot-Enlight “separation” between church and state in America has proven so disastrous.24 The Natural Law insinuates that the unique role of mankind (the only intelligent members of the universe, with souls to be nurtured) cannot be honored when church is ostracized by the state. Chapter Four breaks it all down.
Chapter Five takes a look at the Natural Law connection of family and economy needed in true republics (united into the term “family economy” by Aristotle). The moral economy of the family is the natural community which must serve as the “original cell”25 and the center of any republic, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms. As such, the Natural Law charges each family with self-determination, making its own decisions—moral, spiritual, and economic. But in America, the merely supportive role of labor and wealth grew and supplanted the true goal of family: sanctity.26 On this basis, Chapter Five shows why economic liberty can only be properly conceived by Natural Law Catholicism, not by the religious Right or the secular Left who mischaracterized it. It is quite simple: economic liberty does not always end in consumerism and careerism, as the materialistic Prot-Enlight conception of it does. True republicanism is rule by family (subsidiarity, as introduced in Chapter Two), involving a system of moral capitalism, wherein government is disallowed to interfere in the private property and private contracts of family life. A true republic will always require the citizen’s dependence upon family, not government.27 Chapter Five shows why.
Chapter Six examines the way in which modern science has been upended by the two 16th century rejections of the Natural Law: the Reformation and the Enlightenment. True science must be done in accordance with the three prongs of the Catholic Natural Law described in the beginning of this very Introduction. And as such, only Natural Law Catholicism can offer republics such as America the sixth and final element of true republicanism: rightminded science and technology. The dictates of the Catholic Natural Law contrast sharply with the pseudo-scientific claims made by the religious Right and the secular Left: the former vilifies science as the latter deifies it. Science is particularly important in an age of technological innovation and discovery, rendering us increasingly dependent upon it. In this sense, technology alienates us from spirituality. And we must therefore treat it cautiously. The pagan dangers inherent in science and technology cannot continue to be ignored in Prot-Enlight America: Chapter Six puts forward the solution.
Conclusion
The whole point of this book is that the Reformation and the Enlightenment cannot be taken at their own terms: if you reject the Catholic Natural Law, then you can’t make or maintain a republic. Period. No lengthy conclusion is necessary; that’s the easy part. The premises, properly conceptualized, bespeak an obvious implication: true republicanism involves a certain view of man amidst a free, intelligible, and goal-driven nature.
So, America must choose either: its Prot-Enlight philosophy, or its Catholic Natural Law. But it can no longer afford to harbor both quasi-loyalties.
If America were to opt for an upgrading from crypto-Catholic Natural Law to outright Catholic Natural Law, then indeed things can be turned around. This would be optimal.
If, conversely, America were to opt more openly and consistently against the Catholic Natural Law…best of luck. For both America’s religious Right and its secular Left, if they’re being honest, the rejection of the Catholic Natural Law means that government must be coercive and non-republican. Go get a king and hope for the best. (But at least this would be open and honest.)
As stated in the opening paragraph, this is not a book of philosophy or theology. It is a book about what republicanism requires.The limited philosophy and theology (and even history) that make appearances in this book are geared toward explaining republican decline. How could what began with the Virginian genius of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison wind up with…the options foisted upon the voter by the last, say, eight general Presidential elections?!
This book, by adverting to some philosophy and some theology will explain that.
Too often, authors of books of philosophy and theology put readers into an uncomfortable dilemma: “Believe either me, the author, or your own lying eyes.” Whatever you call the combo- genre of this book you are holding, it does not do that—toil hours to “prove” propositions which contradict what easily could have been observed. Yes, America (or Europe) really is as bad it looks in 2016!
One needs not extensive philosophy and theology to see that: one needs just a small dose of each to get out of the hole and see things afresh.
Notes
a. “Early in America’s history, many Protestants who came to America believed that they were extending the Reformation; God’s special hand of blessing was upon them as they hoped to realize the postmillennial dream: bringing God’s kingdom to earth…they assumed that they were the new people of God embarking on a new exodus—an errand in the wilderness—to do theocracy the right [Protestant, Calvinist] way.” John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Gospel, vol. 1 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015.
b. In most places in this book, this term appears as “Catholic Natural Law,” while in other contexts it appears as simply “Natural Law.” The latter should be conceived as the former, unless otherwise stipulated.
