Tag Archives: Politics

On the Necessity of Government

American Founding, Angels, Anthropology, Church and State, Culture, Moralilty, Natural Law, , , , ,

Our country was founded upon a rather strange amalgamation of principles.  A perusal of the writings of the Founders will uncover both references to Catholic Natural Law and principles of the Enlightenments. One can imagine that there are some pretty stark contradictions.  One such contradiction is found in the question of why we need government at all.  In the midst of defending the need for a government that includes checks and balances in  Federalist Paper no. 51, James Madison makes what seems like at first to be a very Catholic statement saying that government is “the greatest of all reflections on human nature.”  Rather than remaining on that train of thought, Madison diverts to another track claiming that “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”  Understanding both of his statements will help us go a long way in understanding why our country seems to be plagued by moral decay.

If Men Were Angels…

Obviously one of the important questions that the Founders sought to address was how authority was to be exercised by the State.  Trying to emerge from the shadow of Divine Right Theory, the Founders thought authority came from the individual.  Men would form a society like the State by bartering freedom for security.  The individuals would bestow authority upon a Governor in order to ensure that his rights would be secured against encroachments from other men who had all entered the society via a social contract.

When Madison says that government is the “greatest reflection upon human nature”, he has this view of human nature in mind—man as the individual who enters society via the social contract.  This principle of the Enlightenment treats government then as a necessary evil that must be tolerated because man is fallen.  In his own words, “anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger.”  If men were not fallen, like the angels, then government would not be necessary.  So commonplace is this idea today, that hardly anyone questions whether Madison has greatly misunderstood human nature.

Madison’s anthropological error comes into relief if we challenge his theological assertion that “if men were angels, no government would be necessary.”  Angels do, in fact, live within a hierarchy, a hierarchical structure that includes authority.  Scripture provides us with an example in Chapter 10 of the Book of Daniel.  Daniel calls upon the help of Gabriel, but the angel does not immediately respond because the Guardian Angel of the Kingdom of Persia would not allow him to act.  After Michael intervenes, the lower angel is allowed to help Daniel (Dn 10:11-21).  What this reveals is that angels, even unfallen ones, do have a government, one that is based upon a clear authoritative structure.

The Greatest of All Reflections on Human Nature

So, if men were angels then government might be necessary rather than being a necessary evil.  Contra Locke, Rousseau and their intellectual progeny, including the Founders, man is not a solitary being, but is naturally a social creature.  In order to fulfill his nature, man has need of other men.  This is not just a matter of convenience but part of his natural instinct.  There are two natural societies in which man’s needs are supplied, the Family and the State.

Because men naturally form these two societies, they must have an authoritative structure.  As Pope Leo XIII put it, “no society can hold together unless some one be over all, directing all to strive earnestly for the common good, every body politic must have a ruling authority, and this authority, no less than society itself, has its source in nature, and has, consequently, God for its Author. Hence, it follows that all public power must proceed from God. For God alone is the true and supreme Lord of the world. Everything, without exception, must be subject to Him, and must serve him, so that whosoever holds the right to govern holds it from one sole and single source, namely, God, the sovereign Ruler of all. ‘There is no power but from God.’” (Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, 3).

St. Thomas says that the act of authority would be applied in four ways.  First, the ruler must direct the members of society towards what they should do to contribute to and achieve the common good.  Second, the ruler should supply for difficulties such as protection against an enemy.  Third, the ruler should correct morals via punishment and (four) he should coerce the members to virtuous acts.

Now it becomes obvious that the first two would apply whether or not men were fallen or not.  Virtuous men might agree about some common good, but because it is possible to achieve a good in multiple ways, they disagree as to means.  Without a ruler, that is one without authority, there would be no one to make the final decision.  Because men, even in a state of innocence would not be equal with respect to virtue, it is the most virtuous who would govern.

St. Thomas describes this virtuous ruler in the Summa:

“But a man is the master of a free subject, by directing him either towards his proper welfare, or to the common good. Such a kind of mastership would have existed in the state of innocence between man and man, for two reasons.  First, because man is naturally a social being, and so in the state of innocence he would have led a social life. Now a social life cannot exist among a number of people unless under the presidency of one to look after the common good; for many, as such, seek many things, whereas one attends only to one…Secondly, if one man surpassed another in knowledge and virtue, this would not have been fitting unless these gifts conduced to the benefit of others…Wherefore Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xix, 14): ‘Just men command not by the love of domineering, but by the service of counsel”: and (De Civ. Dei xix, 15): ‘The natural order of things requires this; and thus did God make man.’”

(ST I q.96, a.4)

Madison, because he thinks government a necessary evil, would have us tolerate evil in our rulers.  But when we see the State as something natural, we begin to identify its purpose of making men better.  It is necessary for men to fulfill their nature by becoming more virtuous.  The virtuous ruler will create virtuous subjects.  St. Thomas thinks we can, and must, do better.  The transition may be rocky, but if our society is to turn around and become morally sound, we must not settle for moral degenerates in our leaders.  With Primary Season upon us, especially with a total lack of emphasis on the character of our leaders, this is an important message. 

The Un-Person

Devils, Spiritual Warfare, , , ,

It what is becoming a recurring theme. Fr. Arturo Sosa, SJ, the Superior General of the Jesuit Order recently told an Italian magazine that the “devil exists as a symbolic reality, not as a personal reality…The devil exists as the personification of evil in different structures, but not in persons, because [he] is not a person, [but] is a way of acting evil. He is not a person like a human person. It is a way of evil to be present in human life.” This statement comes on the heels of a similar statement two years ago in which told another magazine that “we have formed symbolic figures such as the Devil to express evil.”  This, of course, contradicts the unbroken Tradition of the Church, rooted in Sacred Scripture, that the devil is in fact a person and with his minions in tow, he actively works to destroy humanity out of envy.  Fr. Sosa is not alone in his belief however and therefore his position merits a thorough examination. 

One might be tempted initially to dismiss the whole discussion.  The reality of evil in the world, it seems, is a human problem and therefore the nature of its source is not really important.  If you want to believe in an actual devil or a symbol, then what difference does it make?    As we shall see, and without danger of hyperbole, it makes all the difference in the world.

Let us first call to mind what we mean when we speak of the devil as a person.  At root, a person is a being that has intelligence and the capacity to choose.  Lucifer along with the rest of the fallen angels were endowed with these inherent capabilities by God at their creation.  Rebelling against God, their intelligence and perverse will remain fixed on the destruction of His human creatures.  Endowed with a power over nature, the demons work with extreme intelligence to set in motions plans for this destruction.  These diabolical plans are carried out both directly and through human cooperation.  Any notion that evil does not have a personal power behind it then would not fit with the reality of what the Church knows to be true.  Fr. Sosa, on the other hand, would have us believe that the devil “exists as the personification of evil in different structures” (emphasis added).  Removing the personal element, we now find evil as presented to us in “different structures”.    

Why the Difference Matters

The difference is no mere subtlety but amounts to a vastly different Christianity.  If evil exists and is aided and abetted by the devil, then the battle is primarily a spiritual battle.  Knowing who our true enemy is, we engage in the appropriate battle.  The devil who is pure spirit is only susceptible to spiritual combat.  Aided by grace and the Communion of Saints, we engage first and foremost on a spiritual front—“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12).  Using an image from St. Thomas Aquinas, men are like horses and the demons are like riders.  When we dislodge the riders, the horses run free.  Souls are saved in the midst of this combat.

Compare this to evil in “different structures”.  If there is no person behind the evil then the battle is no longer spiritual but political.  This sounds very similar to the ideas of Rousseau, Marx, Nietzche, Stalin, and Mao.  They all sought to create political solutions to remove the structures of evil, even at the edge of a sword.  They became demons themselves.  But even if they were to find some utopic solution, it would still mean demonizing any men and women that opposed them.  In short, if you deny the existence of demons, then you will most certainly create them.  And because the proper home of demons is hell, souls will most certainly be lost.

The Devil as the Un-Person

The substitution of the political for the spiritual solution is precisely why Fr. Sosa’s ideas are not just stupid, but dangerous.  They open up a Pandora’s Box of sorts that ultimately tears at the roots of true Christianity.  His very ideas are diabolical because it creates “structures” that are turned away from God and de-personalize man.  When then Cardinal Ratzinger was asked the question in 1973 about whether there was a personal devil he said, “If one asks whether the devil is a person, then one must in an altogether correct answer that he is an Un-Person, the disintegration and corruption of what it means to be a person” (Ratzinger Reader, p.44).” 

What the future Pope was saying is that the diabolical disorientation that Fr. Sosa is proposing ultimately leads to more “Un-Persons” and not some cute theological trick.  It is clear based on past evidence that he truly believes this to be true and thus should be corrected as the International Association of Exorcists did last week.  For our part, we too need to realize that there is a powerful person who hates each one of us more than we can possibly imagine and our only refuge is in the Blood of Christ, the only Person Who can save us.