Kant thought we could either give the law to ourselves, which he called autonomy, or accept a law imposed from outside, which he called heteronomy.  In this view, autonomy is freedom, but heteronomy is bondage.  What does the picture leave out?

John Paul II wrote inVeritatis Splendor that “obedience to God is not, as some would believe, a heteronomy, as if the moral life were subject to the will of something all-powerful, absolute, extraneous to man and intolerant of his freedom .... Others speak, and rightly so, of theonomy, or participated theonomy, since man's free obedience to God's law effectively implies that human reason and human will participate in God's wisdom and providence .... Law must therefore be considered an expression of divine wisdom: by submitting to the law, freedom submits to the truth of creation.”

Notice that John Paul speaks not simply of theonomy, which Kant would have regarded as just another heteronomy, but of “participated” theonomy.  That is a very different thing.  God’s law is not an imposition on us from outside, but an imprint on own rational nature.  We are not jerked around by it, but made finite participants in His providential care for the universe.  If we refuse to participate, if we decline to accept the privilege, we become not more ourselves and more free, but less ourselves and less free.  To deny Him is to deny man as well.

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“Why did the slaveholders act as if driven by the Furies to their own destruction? ... Why did they take such risks, why did they persist beyond prudent calculation?  The answer must be that in a moral question of this kind, turning on basic concepts of humanity, you cannot be content that your critics are feeble and ineffective, you cannot be content with their practical tolerance of your activities.  You want, in a sense you need, actual acceptance, open approval.  If you cannot convert your critics by argument, at least by law you can make them recognize that your course is the course of the country.”  --  John Thomas Noonan, A Private Choice (1979)

Does that phenomenon sound familiar?

"Suppose we agree with the Supreme Court's new gospel that there is a right enshrined in the Constitution to make intimate and personal sexual decisions .... If I were a stereotypical lawyer, I would gleefully contemplate our new divorce laws.  Thing of the fees I could charge litigating cases such as these:  Can Wife #2 claim visitation privileges with the children of Husband and Wife #4 on the grounds that an emotional bond had arisen within the context of the progressive family?  How is Husband #3's pension to be divided between himself and the two other husbands who want to remain married to Wife?  If Wife #1, who was barren, prevailed on Wife #2 to have Husband's child, are both Husband and Wife #1 to pay child support when Wife #2 wants out of the marriage?”  --  Ian A.T. McLean, “Criminal Law and Natural Law"

A churchgoing colleague explained to me once that his personal rule of faith is to believe whatever doctrine is the most “uplifting.”  He tells me that he finds it more uplifting to believe in reincarnation than in death, judgment, and resurrection, because it “gives us as many chances as we need to get it right.”

Though I’m told they are legion, I don’t happen know many other people who share his belief in reincarnation.  But I frequently encounter his underlying attitude, which has two main features.

Its first feature is not to think clearly.  His attitude is not just wishful thinking; it is thoughtless wishing.  Historically, millions have found the prospect of rebirth after rebirth a better reason for despair than rejoicing.  Buddhism was founded to provide an escape from the Wheel of Becoming.

Its second feature is to separate the question of whether to believe something from the question of whether it is true.  This can’t even be done without doublethink, for isn’t regarding something as true what it means to believe it?

The warlords, satraps, and barons of ancient times visited cruel burdens upon the underclass, but there was a natural limit to what they could do.  Though a man could be treated like a dog, in the end a man was a man, and a dog was a dog.

We are entering an age in which, if the line of development is not broken, our rulers will not recognize natural limits to what they can do.  Viewing nature as an unnatural obstacle, they will set themselves against it.  If they can treat a man more like a dog by stitching a few dog genes into him, they will try to do it, and say they are improving the human stock.