Tag Archives: Rousseau

God’s Authority and the Modern State

American Founding, Church and State, Protestantism, , , , , , , ,

Pope St. Pius X once said that all errors in the practical and social realm were founded upon theological errors.  The Saintly Pontiff’s maxim seems almost common-sensical, so much so that, we can easily overlook it.  Ideas have consequences and bad ideas, especially bad ideas about Who God is and who man is, have bad consequences.  As a corollary then we might say that it is impossible to fix the bad consequences without rectifying the bad thinking.  One such bad idea, namely that all authority in the political realm comes from the people, has had the devastating consequence of erecting a “wall of separation between Church and State” leading to the loss of many souls.

The Source of Secular Authority

The properly Christian understanding about the source of secular authority is that it comes from God Himself.  This is made clear by Our Lord during His trial in which He tells Pilate that “You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above” (John 19:11).   In his usually blunt manner, St. Paul echoes the same principle when he reminds the Christians in Rome to “Let every person be subordinate to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been established by God” (Romans 13:1).  God as Creator and Sustainer of all Creation is also its supreme authority.  All authority is exercised in His name and flows from Him.  Kings, emperors and presidents all derive their power to rule from Him and it is only for that reason that they also have the power to bind consciences for just laws. 

Summarizing the Church’s understanding of secular authority, Pope Leo XIII instructs the faithful 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).

This view of authority flies in the face of countries such as the United States.  Rather than authority from above, it is based on authority from below.  Known as popular sovereignty, this founding principle is first articulated in the Declaration of Independence where Jefferson told the King that legitimate governments are those ‘‘deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.’’ 

Luther’s Error and Its Modern Consequences

So ingrained in the modern mind, we might not even realize that it is opposed to the correct understanding of the source of secular authority.  It would be easy to blame this on the Enlightenment, but the error pre-dates even the Enlightenment and Social Contract Theory.  Instead the error is rooted in Luther’s revolution in which he rejected the authority of the Church.  Leo XIII points this out in his encyclical Diuturnum  by drawing a line from the so-called Reformation to Communism and nihilism: “…sudden uprisings and the boldest rebellions immediately followed in Germany the so-called Reformation, the authors and leaders of which, by their new doctrines, attacked at the very foundation religious and civil authority; and this with so fearful an outburst of civil war and with such slaughter that there was scarcely any place free from tumult and bloodshed. From this heresy there arose in the last century a false philosophy – a new right as it is called, and a popular authority, together with an unbridled license which many regard as the only true liberty. Hence we have reached the limit of horrors, to wit, communism, socialism, nihilism, hideous deformities of the civil society of men and almost its ruin” (Leo XIII, Diuturnum, 23).

If we follow the logic we will see why this is a necessary consequence.  Animated by a Protestant mentality, each person treats directly with God without any intermediary.  Each person becomes an authority in himself and therefore any authority that is to found in a social body is by his consent.  In essence then it eliminates the Kingship of Christ in the temporal realm and completely privatizes religion. 

This helps to explain why most Protestants see no problem in the current belief in a “Wall of Separation” between Church and State. It was Luther himself that was the intellectual predecessor: “[B]etween the Christian and the ruler, a profound separation must be made. Assuredly, a prince can be a Christian, but it is not as a Christian that he ought to govern. As a ruler, he is not called a Christian but a prince. The man is a Christian, but his function does not concern his religion. Though they are found in the same man, the two states or functions are perfectly marked off one from the other, and really opposed.”  Both the Christian Prince and the Christian citizen were to live their lives in two separate realms and, ironically enough, not submitting to God in either since they also rejected His Kingship in the Catholic Church.  Once the divorce is complete, all types of political errors begin to take hold.  Luther’s insistence on individual and private judgement leads directly to Locke, Rousseau, and Marx.  One theological error leads to many political errors. 

The Church then will always find conflict with the modern state until this error is corrected.  The modern State hates the Catholic Church because it is an existential threat because it seeks, or at least ought to seek, to acknowledge God’s authority in the temporal realm.  It is also the reason that Catholics ought to make the best citizens.  They see no conflict between Church and State because both have their authority rooted in God Himself and to obey either is to obey God.

The Social Construct Myth

Anthropology, Church and State, Church Authority, marriage, , , , , ,

Marriage, according to conventional wisdom, is a social construct.  Governed by cultural norms and expectations, the institution of marriage is completely malleable.  This view of marriage was front and center in the debate over same-sex marriage, but the battle against traditional marriage was won long before that when divorce, especially in its no-fault variety, became an acceptable norm.  Divorce, or at least its cultural acceptance, is what changed marriage making it a social construct.  To say divorce made marriage a social construct is to suggest that things once were otherwise so that if we are to grasp how we got here, we might simultaneously find a remedy. 

Anthropological Roots of Divorce

Deeply imbedded within the Western mind is the notion of man as a rugged individual.  Naturally solitary and free, man forms a social contract either to escape the anarchy of the state of nature (Hobbes) or its noble savagery (Rousseau).  All social institutions become “social constructs” in which men and women freely enter and freely leave according to their own will.  From within this paradigm of liberalism, marriage like all other social institutions are “social constructs” in which men and women freely associate and equally as freely disassociate.  Only the State remains a permanent fixture so as to protect the individual from other individuals infringing upon their rights, even if it too is ultimately a social construct.

Civil divorce grew out of the soil of 18th Century liberalism because it, like all other private contracts, was completely voluntary and always in danger of one of the contracting parties dissolving the contract.  In order to protect this freedom, the State adopts the stance of arbiter and enforcer and is empowered to dissolve what was previously thought indissoluble.  Given the power to dissolve, the State must also then have the power to define and decide what marriage is and who should be married.

There is a certain irony surrounding the fact that marriage was not always thought to be a social construct.  The “social construct” viewpoint replaced the natural view of marriage.  For millennia, marriage was considered to be a natural institution that formed the foundation of the family which was the building block of society as a whole.  It is the natural view of marriage that would preclude either divorce or gay marriage.  By combining them into a single issue it avoids reducing the argument to mere biology.

It is not any mere external circumstances that draws man into society, but his nature.  Man is by nature a social animal.  In order to fulfill his nature, he must have a society of other men to do that.  Because they are absolutely vital for fulfillment, the family and the State are natural societies.

In order to grasp this truth, we must also see that men and women fulfill their nature by becoming virtuous.  Virtue is what perfects all our natural powers.  Marriage is the bedrock of virtue.  Only within the framework of the family are both the spouses and children perfected in their gift of self and unity.  It is where the children are educated in the cardinal virtues as they prepare to give themselves in service to society as a whole.  It is where siblings learn how to live as a community of equals.  It is where parents learn to shed ego.   As statistics repeatedly show, those who divorce or are victims of divorce severely handicap their chances at fulfilling their nature.

It is the Author of human nature, and not the State, that is the Author of marriage.  Marriage, because it is a complete union of persons in all their dimensions—bodily, spiritual and temporal—and thus naturally indissoluble.  The State does not make marriage but only provides an occasion for consent and works to protect and promote it.    The State in its role as guardian of the common good, may act to protect and promote marriage, even by dissolving legal bonds between spouses, but is powerless to dissolve the marriage itself.  In truth a civil divorce is worth no more than the paper upon which it is printed.

Marriage, because of its indispensable and irreplaceable role in fulfilling human nature, is a natural institution and not a social construct.  Understanding the roots of the errors that led to its demise helps us to go back and correct them.