“According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the struggle aroused by envy has three stages:
During the first stage, the envious person attempts to lower another person’s reputation
In the middle stage, the envious person receives either “joy at another’s misfortune” (if he succeeds in defaming the other person) or “grief at another’s prosperity” (if he fails)
the third stage is hatred because “sorrow causes hatred”[38]
“Bertrand Russell said that envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness, bringing sorrow to committers of envy, while giving them the urge to inflict pain upon others.[39]
This article is excerpted from the first 5 chapters of The Ethics of Liberty. Audio versions of these chapters, read by Jeff Riggenbach, are available for download.
Among intellectuals who consider themselves “scientific,” the phrase “the nature of man” is apt to have the effect of a red flag on a bull. “Man has no nature!” is the modern rallying cry and typical of the sentiment of political philosophers today was the assertion of a distinguished political theorist some years ago before a meeting of the American Political Science Association that “man’s nature” is a purely theological concept that must be dismissed from any scientific discussion.1
In the controversy over man’s nature, and over the broader and more controversial concept of “natural law,” both sides have repeatedly proclaimed that natural law and theology are inextricably intertwined. As a result, many champions of natural law, in scientific or philosophic circles, have gravely weakened their case by implying that rational, philosophical methods alone cannot establish such law: that theological faith is necessary to maintain the concept. On the other hand, the opponents of natural law have gleefully agreed; since faith in the supernatural is deemed necessary to belief in natural law, the latter concept must be tossed out of scientific, secular discourse, and be consigned to the arcane sphere of the divine studies. In consequence, the idea of a natural law founded on reason and rational inquiry has been virtually lost.2
The believer in a rationally established natural law must, then, face the hostility of both camps: the one group sensing in this position an antagonism toward religion; and the other group suspecting that God and mysticism are being slipped in by the back door. To the first group, it must be said that they are reflecting an extreme Augustinian position which held that faith rather than reason was the only legitimate tool for investigating man’s nature and man’s proper ends. In short, in this fideist tradition, theology had completely displaced philosophy.3 The Thomist tradition, on the contrary, was precisely the opposite: vindicating the independence of philosophy from theology, and proclaiming the ability of man’s reason to understand and arrive at the laws, physical and ethical, of the natural order, if belief in a systematic order of natural laws open to discovery by man’s reason is per se anti-religious, then anti-religious also were St. Thomas and the later Scholastics, as well as the devout Protestant jurist Hugo Grotius. The statement that there is an order of natural law, in short, leaves open the problem of whether or not God has created that order; and the assertion of the viability of man’s reason to discover the natural order leaves open the question of whether or not that reason was given to man by God. The assertion of an order of natural laws discoverable by reason is, by itself, neither pro- nor anti-religious.4
Because this position is startling to most people today, let us investigate this Thomistic position a little further. The statement of absolute independence of natural law from the question of the existence of God was implicit rather than flatly asserted in St. Thomas himself; but like so many implications of Thomism, it was brought forth by Suarez and the other brilliant Spanish Scholastics of the late sixteenth century. The Jesuit Suarez pointed out that many Scholastics had taken the position that the natural law of ethics, the law of what is good and bad for man, does not depend upon God’s will. Indeed, some of the Scholastics had gone so far as to say that:
even though God did not exist, or did not make use of His reason, or did not judge rightly of things, if there is in man such a dictate of right reason to guide him, it would have had the same nature of law as it now has.5
Or, as a modern Thomist philosopher declares:
If the word “natural’ means anything at all, it refers to the nature of a man, and when used with “law,” “natural” must refer to an ordering that is manifested in the inclinations of a man’s nature and to nothing else. Hence, taken in itself, there is nothing religious or theological in the “Natural Law” of Aquinas.6
Dutch Protestant jurist Hugo Grotius declared, in his De Iure Belli ac Pacis (1625):
What we have been saying would have a degree of validity even if we should concede that which cannot be conceded without the utmost wickedness, that there is no God.
And again:
Measureless as is the power of God, nevertheless it can be said that there are certain things over which that power does not extend…. Just as even God cannot cause that two times two should not make four, so He cannot cause that which is intrinsically evil be not evil.7
D’Entrèves concludes that:
[Grotius’s] definition of natural law has nothing revolutionary. When he maintains that natural law is that body of rules which Man is able to discover by the use of his reason, he does nothing but restate the Scholastic notion of a rational foundation of ethics. Indeed, his aim is rather to restore that notion which had been shaken by the extreme Augustinianism of certain Protestant currents of thought. When he declares that these rules are valid in themselves, independently of the fact that God willed them, he repeats an assertion which had already been made by some of the schoolmen.8
Grotius’s aim, d’Entrèves adds, “was to construct a system of laws which would carry conviction in an age in which theological controversy was gradually losing the power to do so.” Grotius and his juristic successors—Pufendorf, Burlamaqui, and Vattel—proceeded to elaborate this independent body of natural laws in a purely secular context, in accordance with their own particular interests, which were not, in contrast to the Schoolmen, primarily theological.9 Indeed, even the eighteenth-century rationalists, in many ways dedicated enemies of the Scholastics, were profoundly influenced in their very rationalism by the Scholastic tradition.10
Thus, let there be no mistake: in the Thomistic tradition, natural law is ethical as well as physical law; and the instrument by which man apprehends such law is his reason—not faith, or intuition, or grace, revelation, or anything else.11 In the contemporary atmosphere of sharp dichotomy between natural law and reason—and especially amid the irrationalist sentiments of “conservative” thought—this cannot be underscored too often. Hence, St. Thomas Aquinas, in the words of the eminent historian of philosophy Father Copleston, “emphasized the place and function of reason in moral conduct. He [Aquinas] shared with Aristotle the view that it is the possession of reason which distinguished man from the animals” and which “enables him to act deliberately in view of the consciously apprehended end and raises him above the level of purely instinctive behavior.”12
Finally, a belief in the Divine is necessary to avoid the omnipresent temptation of being drawn into utopian politics, which at its root, stems from a rejection of God. Support for utopian politics proceeds from disbelief in God, because there is only one true heaven. And, when people do not believe in and cannot aim for this true heaven, as a means of averting psychological anguish, they attempt to institute their own heaven on earth.
Russell Kirk, on page 474 of The Conservative Mind, defines conservatism as the “negation of ideology,” with there being “no simple set of formulas by which all the ills to which flesh is heir may be swept away.”
To delineate this concept, it is prudent to clarify what the “negation of ideology” does not entail. It does not deny there are superior ways of ordering society which can be procured from a careful analysis of history, prejudice and experience. As Kirk puts it, there exist “general principles of morals and of politics to which thinking men may turn.”
However, conservatism is the negation of ideology to the extent that it rejects ideology–be it communism, progressivism, white nationalism, or pro-vaccination fanaticism–as an enduring political solution or feasible cure to societal ills.
Why conservatives reject ideology
As to why conservatives rejects ideology, there are various good points in support. These include but are not limited to:
1. The impermanence of things:
On page 10 of the White Nationalist Manifesto, Greg Johnson notes that 99.9 % of all recorded animal species have gone extinct. Taking this statistic, Johnson warns:
Simply by virtue of existing, there is a 99.9 % chance that our (white) race will become extinct. If we want to be among the long-term survivors, we certainly can’t just depend upon luck (my emphasis).
There is a significant problem with this hope of being “long-term survivors,” a goal later used by Johnson to justify his vision for ‘whitopia’. Which is, no matter the action or precautionary measures taken, the white race–along with all other races, countries and cultures–will ultimately go extinct.
This is because, to paraphrase St. Thomas Aquinas, everything which is contingent and comes into being must also go out of existence. If something can go out of existence and enough time is allowed for, it assuredly will go out of existence. There is no reason to believe that a contingent being can defy the fulfillment of its inherent potential for non-existence; as such, the European people cannot and will not persist forever.
To be clear, the preceding remarks are not to dismiss the importance of racial identity or even the novel achievements, inventions and ideas of men. It is to say, however, that as all things are transient, no political ideology or system can be a permanent solution to anything.
2. The limitations of temporal glory:
Ideologues tend to imagine that in the event of attaining their political objectives, they will acquire corresponding feelings of glory and happiness.
Irrespective of the specific ideology, the problem with this expectation is that temporal glory is always fleeting: no matter the greatness of the victory obtained, humans always return back to an ordinary, basal level of happiness.
In the Jewish Revolutionary Spirit, E. Michael Jones refers to these inherent limitations on natural human happiness, as became apparent from the emotional hangovers of anti-Vietnam war activists:
By the time the revolutionary Jew got what he wanted it, he no longer wanted it. The Vietnam War was a classic case. In the spring of 1975, Radosh and his new wife attended a victory celebration for the Vietcong in Central Park, where they listened to Joan Baez, “the diva of the antiwar movement,” as well as “the artist who stood alongside the young Bob Dylan and epitomised the union of art and politics,” and Phil Ochs, as they sang Ochs’ anti-war anthem “I declare war is over.” A few months later, Ochs, an alcoholic wreck, committed suicide when Bob Dylan did not include him in the Rolling Thunder revue. Radosh and his wife experienced a milder form of letdown. Instead of a moment of triumph, “the end of the war,” Radosh says, “produced a great void.” It was “an occasion of deep melancholy” because the war and the draft had been “the issue that had given meaning to our lives” and now that issue was “beginning to evaporate,” and when Nixon abolished the draft, it evaporated.
3. Life is always the same:
Closely related to the above point, political circumstances, whether contributing to a moral as well as cohesive society, or an immoral and divided society–do not alter the fundamental nature of human life.
Life always follows the same essential pattern: there are happy times and sad times; there are triumphs and failures; we physically and intellectually blossom in youth, before being afflicted by old age, infirmities and ultimately, death.
For this reason, excessive stock should not be placed in ideology, or for that matter, political outcomes.
4. The true motives of ideologues:
It is well to be sceptical of ideologues, given what truly actuates their political advocacy. On page 382 of The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk captures their frequent underlying motivations, as exampled by a former marxist revolutionary from the late-19th century:
The boy who wrote Workers in the Dawn (1880), brimming with Ruskinian socialism, aspired to be “the mouthpiece of the advanced Radical party.” But social reform went the way of positivism, as Gissing came to maturity and saw the denizens of mean streets for what they were: four years later, Waymark in the The Unclassed dissects Gissing’s own youthful socialism, compounded of sentimentality and egotism. “I often amuse myself with taking to pieces my former self. I was not a conscious hypocrite in those days of violent radicalism, workingman’s-club lecturing, and the like; the fault was that I understood myself as yet so imperfectly. That zeal on behalf of the suffering masses was nothing more nor less than disguised zeal on behalf of my own starved passions. I was poor and desperate, life had no pleasures, the future seemed hopeless, yet I was overflowing with vehement desires, every nerve in me was a hunger which cried out to be appeased. I identified myself with the poor and ignorant; I did not make their cause my own, but my own cause theirs. I raved for freedom because I was myself in the bondage of unsatisfiable longing” (my emphasis).
When someone is in a state of sexual restlessness, they will commonly promote utopian politics. As such people are driven by an insatiable appetite and lack satisfaction at the individual level; at the collective level and in lieu of addressing their personal flaws, they often resort to ideology as a purported (and contrived) solution to social problems. In essence, ideologues seek to control others because they cannot control themselves.
Given this, support for ideology does not so much derive from or depend on its actual merits–again, be it communism, progressivism, white nationalism, or pro-vaccination fanaticism. Rather, the attraction to ideology more draws from the disordered psychological state of its adherents.
5. Our fallen nature:
Clearly, our fallen nature has many implications which are utterly inconsistent with the foundation and maintenance of utopias.
To give one such example, our fallen nature means that even when we understand what is right, we will in many cases choose to do evil–for reasons of convenience, selfishness, excitement, pleasure, etc. When we freely choose evil, this necessarily comes at the expense of others and the common good; an outcome which arises regardless of poverty, wealth inequality, political systems, and educational opportunities.
Because humans choose evil of their own volition, no political system can ever incubate itself against these decisions and their ramifications.
6. The human need for disruption and upheaval:
Strongly agitating against societies based on a peaceful (but purposeless) material prosperity, is the human impulse towards disruption and upheaval. Frequently, this impulse expresses itself against societies that have grown mundane and predictable, as martial values and transcendentalism cannot be indefinitely neglected. On page 79 of The True and only Heaven: Progress and its Critics, Christopher Lasch sets out how this impulse shored up popular support for the Third Reich:
In 1940, George Orwell made the same point about fascism. The Western democracies, he observed, had come to think that “human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain.” Whatever else could be said about it, fascism was “psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life.” Hitler knew that men and women wanted more than “comfort, safety, short-working hours, hygiene, birth control.” “Whereas socialism, and even capitalism … have said to people, ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them, ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.”
Religion, conservatism and the negation of ideology
In closing, there are many good arguments in favour of rejecting ideology, which contain persuasive value of themselves. Notwithstanding this, in practical terms, mere unaided reason is an insufficient justification for the conservative negation of ideology. This is because a belief in the Divine is also essential: conservatism cannot (beyond a few exceptions) be sustained in the absence of religious faith.
There are, in the main, three practical reasons forconservatism requiring this added sustenance of religious faith.
In the first place, if understood that we are directed towards a knowledge of and relationship with God–the Divine is our ultimate end–there is no potential for ideology to emerge and displace the primacy of faith.
In the second place, absent religious belief and an understanding of there being an eternal import to our actions, people are incapable of mustering the requisite moral discipline for maintaining a conservative society.
Finally, a belief in the Divine is necessary to avoid the omnipresent temptation of being drawn into utopian politics, which at its root, stems from a rejection of God. Support for utopian politics proceeds from disbelief in God, because there is only one true heaven. And, when people do not believe in and cannot aim for this true heaven, as a means of averting psychological anguish, they attempt to institute their own heaven on earth.
Or consider the United States. Here, “We the People” are in theory the sovereign authority, and our ruling officers are mere servants. The powers “delegated” to those servants are defined and limited by the Constitution. Must we obey them, even when they usurp powers never entrusted to them? When they claim such powers, it would seem that “they” are in rebellion against “us”, and we have no duty to obey. “Masters, obey your servants”?
Must we obey them, even when they usurp powers never entrusted to them? When they claim such powers, it would seem that “they” are in rebellion against “us,” and we have no duty to obey. “Masters, obey your servants”?
A classic by Joe Sobran
Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation
Sobran’s: The Real News of the Month, March 2002 — In recent weeks I’ve been debating with people I usually agree with: conservative Christians. Many of them feel I’ve gone too far in the direction of philosophical anarchism, in defiance of both Scripture and Catholic teaching.
Many people feel I’ve gone too far in the direction of philosophical anarchism, in defiance of both Scripture and Catholic teaching.
One reader, a self-identified Catholic socialist, went so far as to call my views “heresy.” He cited particularly the encyclicals of Leo XIII and Pius XI. His e-mail message was so intelligent, provocative, and yet charitable that I answered him at some length, and we have had a long, friendly exchange ever since. We’re still arguing, and neither of us is backing down.
“You must all obey the governing authorities. Since all government comes from God, the civil authorities were appointed by God, and so anyone who resists authority is rebelling against God’s decision, and such an act is bound to be punished. …The state is there to serve God for your benefit.” – Romans 13: 1-4
I’ve also been in touch with an old Protestant friend, now a minister, whom I haven’t seen since high school. He too thinks Christian doctrine requires submission to government, and he argues his case with a power and sophistication I find especially impressive, considering the level of our old Scripture-banging arguments in our school days.
But this interpretation, though obvious at first sight, soon raises difficulties for Christians. After all, the Christian martyrs — including Paul himself — lived under pagan tyrants and chose to die rather than submit to worship the emperor.
The key text for Christians is chapter 13 of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, which begins: “You must all obey the governing authorities. Since all government comes from God, the civil authorities were appointed by God, and so anyone who resists authority is rebelling against God’s decision, and such an act is bound to be punished. Good behavior is not afraid of magistrates; only criminals have anything to fear…. The state is there to serve God for your benefit.” This is from the Jerusalem Bible; the more familiar King James Version says that “the powers that be are ordained of God.”
St. Thomas Aquinas agreed with Augustine that a positive law that clashed with divine or natural law was unjust and void — a principle that might invalidate most statutes on the books.
Many Christians quote this passage to support the view that we owe allegiance and obedience to the government. But this interpretation, though obvious at first sight, soon raises difficulties for Christians. After all, the Christian martyrs — including Paul himself — lived under pagan tyrants and chose to die rather than submit to worship the emperor. Paul is thought to have died during Nero’s persecution.
Over two millennia …Christians have been forced to grapple with many questions: What is a state? How do we recognize its authority? What are its limits?
Later Christian political thought was extremely varied and complex. But St. Augustine took a dark view of earthly government, which, with slavery and war, he deemed a consequence of original sin. St. Thomas Aquinas held that even unfallen man would need government (as even good drivers need traffic laws), but he agreed with Augustine that a positive law that clashed with divine or natural law was unjust and void — a principle that might invalidate most statutes on the books.
Can we distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate states? Is rebellion ever justified? Must the state defer to the Church? Must the Church obey the state?
Over two millennia, pagan states were replaced by Christian states, which gave way to secularist states. During all this time Christians have been forced to grapple with many questions: What is a state? How do we recognize its authority? What are its limits? Can we distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate states? Is rebellion ever justified? Must the state defer to the Church? Must the Church obey the state? All these difficult questions have been further complicated by the experience of barbarian conquests, feudalism, monarchism, religious divisions, dynastic quarrels, republican constitutionalism, capitalism, nationalism, industrialism, mass democracy, dictatorship, Marxism, totalitarianism, the welfare state, and of course war, particularly total war.
Today almost nobody holds the position of Romans 13 in its full rigor, if that means a duty of unqualified submission to whatever regime happens to exist. Nearly all Christians distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate regimes.
Today almost nobody holds the position of Romans 13 in its full rigor, if that means a duty of unqualified submission to whatever regime happens to exist. Nearly all Christians distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate regimes; if rebellion is always a sin, how can we have a duty to obey the successful rebel when he assumes power? Must we obey the tsar one day, and the Lenin who topples him the next? Does Paul mean to say: “Thou shalt obey anyone who holds coercive power over thee”?
Here, “We the People” are in theory the sovereign authority, and our ruling officers are mere servants. The powers “delegated” to those servants are defined and limited by the Constitution.
Or consider the United States. Here, “We the People” are in theory the sovereign authority, and our ruling officers are mere servants. The powers “delegated” to those servants are defined and limited by the Constitution. Must we obey them, even when they usurp powers never entrusted to them? When they claim such powers, it would seem that “they” are in rebellion against “us”, and we have no duty to obey. “Masters, obey your servants”?
Must we obey them, even when they usurp powers never entrusted to them? When they claim such powers, it would seem that “they” are in rebellion against “us,” and we have no duty to obey. “Masters, obey your servants”?
When there are so many kinds of states, some of them mutually incompatible, the only defining trait they share is the claim of a legal monopoly of coercion. Paul doesn’t assert that brute power constitutes a right to command and compel. He must mean something else. But what?
Paul says the civil authorities serve God, and Christians can obey the law and be good citizens by simply keeping the Commandments.
He says the civil authorities serve God, and Christians can obey the law and be good citizens by simply keeping the Commandments. Were these words meant to ward off suspicions that Christians were subversive and to encourage them to respect human law, at least insofar as it conformed to God’s law?
Paul may have been subtly implying that Christians are “not” morally bound to cooperate with tyranny.
If so, Paul’s words may carry an ironic meaning that would escape the Roman authorities. By positing a just government — very unlike the rule of Nero — he may have been subtly implying that Christians are “not” morally bound to cooperate with tyranny.
If that’s what he meant, maybe I’m not such a heretic after all!
MCViewPoint 