One wonders what so-called values voters in the recent South Carolina primary thought they were doing.  Apparently the wrong “values” were in play.  Some were repelled by the ugly character of the winning candidate; most weren’t.

The fundamental problem is that above a certain threshold of moral and practical judgment, people prefer rulers who are better than themselves -- but when they fall below it, they begin to prefer rulers who are worse than themselves.  A significant proportion of the voting public now falls below that threshold.

In the first place, they fall too easily for the view that bad men can be good statesmen.  “He may be a thug,” they reason, “but thugs get things done.”  What kinds of things?  Whatever they want.  For example, some see the candidate as a businessman who will dismantle big government.  In fact, like most of our big business class, he is a crony capitalist who loves big government and its favors.

In the second place, they don't see him as a bad man.  They view him as a strong man, because he boasts and bullies – and as a smart man, because he has money and breaks the rules.

In the third place, they find brutishness magnetic.  We see this in private life; some women feel safer with men who beat them up, and some men feel stronger in the company of men who dominate them.  The same drives operate in politics.

Finally they want a savior:  If not a Son of God, then a son of the devil.  They hunger for a cure for "this world of troubles," for a machete heavy and sharp enough to cut through all the dark vines in the jungle.

Question:

Thanks for your Commentary on Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Law.  I know you touched on “theonomy” (as in Old Testament civil law for today) in there, but is there any more you can say about it?  It's becoming very popular in [certain Protestant circles].”

Reply:

That’s a good question, but I think we are using the same word for very different things.  Let’s see if we can get this straightened out.

I’ve edited out the names of specific groups and individuals, but in the ultraconservative Calvinist circles you mention, “theonomy” is a buzzword for applying Old Testament law to contemporary society, just as you say.  This is a mistake, because Old Testament law was never intended as a blueprint for all societies.  In fact, it wasn’t even meant to be a permanent blueprint for the Hebrew people; it was a civil code, yes, but also a schoolmaster or teaching tool.

Christ pointed out, for example, that the Old Testament law merely limited revenge by means of the precept “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”  This was good, but God’s ultimate intention was to put an end to revenge.  Thus, the underlying moral principles of Old Testament law, such as punishment for those who do evil and honor for those who do well, are universally valid, and these are precepts of the natural law.  But the implementation of these precepts in the Old Testament is not universally valid.

Some of the “theonomists” you mention might agree with me in part, because they say they do not want to apply Old Testament law literally, but only to apply what they call “the equity of the law,” meaning just those underlying principles I have mentioned.  If this approach to Old Testament law were fully implemented, then I think it would flower in a complete doctrine of natural law.  This hasn’t happened, because, unfortunately, many of these “theonomists” reject natural law altogether.  They argue that because human nature is fallen, no one can know anything about right and wrong except from the Bible.

This denial of natural law in favor of the Bible is not only mistaken, but it is contradicted by the Bible itself, which makes clear that although our nature is fallen, it is not destroyed, and that although the “law written on the heart” may be overwritten, it cannot be erased.  By the way, Calvin agreed with me about this; he wrote that the view that our nature has been destroyed is not Christian, but Manichean.

When I used the term “theonomy” I was using it in a different sense – in the sense of John Paul II, who wrote in Veritas Splendor (“The Splendor of Truth”) as follows.  Notice that he modifies the term, making it “participated” economy.  In part, this echoed Thomas Aquinas, who called the natural law the mode in which the mind of the rational creature “participates” in the law in the mind of God.  It was also a response to those who mistakenly think obedience to God is a kind of “heteronomy,” something imposed on man from outside.  Thus the Pope writes,

“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. By forbidding man to ‘eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’, God makes it clear that man does not originally possess such ‘knowledge’ as something properly his own, but only participates in it by the light of natural reason and of Divine Revelation, which manifest to him the requirements and the promptings of eternal wisdom. Law must therefore be considered an expression of divine wisdom: by submitting to the law, freedom submits to the truth of creation. Consequently one must acknowledge in the freedom of the human person the image and the nearness of God, who is present in all (cf. Eph 4:6). But one must likewise acknowledge the majesty of the God of the universe and revere the holiness of the law of God, who is infinitely transcendent: Deus semper maior.”

Here is what I wrote in part of my book that you must have read:

“Law is an extrinsic principle of acts because it is promulgated by God, and in this sense comes from outside us.  However, in another sense it is inside us, for it finds an echo in our own created being; natural law is the ‘participation’ of the rational creature in the eternal law.  For this reason, obedience to God’s law in no way diminishes human freedom. On the contrary, being made in His image, we are most true to ourselves precisely when we are most true to Him.  This also shows that when Immanuel Kant distinguished between autonomy, or self-legislation, and heteronomy, or passive subjection to the law of another, he was posing a false alternative. To use an expression of John Paul II, the human sort of freedom is a third kind of thing, a ‘participated theonomy.’”

I added later:

“The doctrine of the inviolability of conscience is often confused with the doctrine of moral autonomy.  In reality, no two things could be further apart.  According to those who hold the former doctrine, my freedom lies in my willing participation in a law that I did not make, but that I see with my mind to be right.  But those who hold the latter view believe that I myself originate the law.  Consequently, they view my freedom as consent to nothing but my own will.  A person who holds the doctrine of the inviolability of conscience recognizes the dreadful possibility of an erring conscience, but a person who holds the doctrine of moral autonomy cannot see how the individual could really err, as he originates the law that he obeys; there is no ‘external’ standard by which he could be held to be mistaken.  To him it seems that obedience to God is just as much slavery as obedience to the lowest earthly tyrant, for in both cases I submit to something that is alien to myself.

“Those words, ‘external’ and ‘alien,’ are the crux. Is God really alien?  Is His standard really external?  According to St. Thomas, no, because my whole God-given being resonates with God inwardly. Natural law is the mode in which I share in the eternal law as a rational creature.

“To put it another way, the proponents of the doctrine of moral autonomy recognize but two alternatives.  Heteronomy, or obedience to an alien ‘other,’ they view as slavery; autonomy, or obedience to myself, they view as freedom.  But St. Thomas recognizes three alternatives.  Heteronomy, or obedience to an alien ‘other,’ is certainly slavery.  Autonomy, or obedience to myself in alienation from God, is still slavery because it is disguised heteronomy.  For since I am made in God’s image, if I am alienated from Him, then I am also alienated from myself.  Obedience to my alienated self is but obedience to yet another alien ‘other.’  The only true freedom is ‘participated theonomy,’ joyful participation in the law of the God in whose image I am made.  Only in this way can I be fully what I am; and so only in this way can I be fully and truly free.”

In using the term “participated theonomy,” then, John Paul II was speaking to at least two groups.  First he was speaking to theologians, who recognized the term “participated” from Thomas Aquinas’s definition of natural law.  Second he was speaking to philosophers, who recognized the terms “autonomy” and “heteronomy” from Immanuel Kant.

But some of us think John Paul II was trying to speak to a third group as well.  By using the term “theonomy,” but modifying it, he may have been engaging in a cautious, respectful bit of ecumenical diplomacy with Protestants, inviting them to join in the ongoing dialogue about natural law.

The Church has wanted that to happen for a long, long time.

Among the cruelest slaveries is mood, because we recognize neither the master nor the manacle.  In the first place we don’t notice our moods; in the second place we don’t notice that they have mastered us.

The first step toward freedom from this tyrant is to see him.  This step is often the most difficult; my mood will usually be plain to everyone else long before it is visible to me.

The second step toward freedom is to defy him.  I may feel foul; it does not follow that I must do his bidding and act foully.

The third step is to break the shackle.  Although it is not easy to change a mood, it is often much easier than we expect, even when we are in affliction.

The last and most difficult step is not to be caught again.  I must not to venture into the alleys and culs de sac where my known foul moods hide out; I must carry my weapons lest they leap out unexpected; I must practice the martial art of being cheerful.

A common view has it that we have a moral duty to talk with everyone – that unless we are constantly in dialogue, we are both unreasonable and uncharitable.  On the contrary, sometimes both charity and reason require breaking off conversation.  Or even refusing to enter it.

Recently a woman wrote because – she said – she had questions about the Church.  I answered them.  She then became personally insulting and claimed that I was lying.  I said that I thought she was too angry for a continuation of the exchange to be helpful, and that it grieved me to see her deceive herself about wanting to engage in dialogue.

On another occasion a young man approached me because – he said -- he wanted to learn to debate sexual hedonism better against people like me.  I told him that if his mind was open, I would be glad to discuss whether his philosophy was true, but I was not interested in helping him sharpen his debating technique.

Just what motive is operating in a given conversation may be difficult to discern.  To someone who rattles off a great many questions without listening to the answers, I sometimes put the question, “Would it make any difference to you what the answers were?”  You may be surprised by how many people reply “No.”

At least that’s honest.  Here is one way to respond:  “Then let’s not waste time with all that.  Can you think of something you really want to know?”

I blogged the other day about the idea of the fitting, or appropriate.  One of the paradoxes of the fitting is that there is a place even for ugliness – not for its own sake, but to resensitize our jaded minds to the unfitting.  The classical model for this is the gross style adopted by Dante Alighieri in his Inferno, so different from the styles of the other two canticles of the Comedy.

A good contemporary example of this paradox is a fine piece by Anthony Esolen, who writes “We live in an age of phantasmagorical masks, vandalizing the second most beautiful thing in physical existence, the body, and turning into the ego’s billboard the most beautiful thing in physical existence, the thing that the blind Milton longed most to see again -- the human face divine.  In emphasis, it is as if the abdomen or the crotch or the bosom were what we thought made us most ourselves; as if we were walking and talking groins, with stunted little countenances hidden away below.”

Such ugly images are not to be too often conjured.  Here, they work, for Esolen, who loves loveliness, knows when an arresting and finely calibrated crudity in words is the only thing that will serve to break through our hardened indifference to crudity in fact – when it is just enough to jolt us about what ought to jolt us, but doesn’t.

Then again, he is a Dante scholar.