Not Law, But Corruption of the Law
In New York last week, Rev. George Rutler celebrated the annual "red mass," the mass offered on behalf of judges, lawyers, and the whole judicial system. From his homily:
George Washington was granted to our nation by a singular providence, and in his wisdom he knew that what the Founding Fathers had ensured, could only be maintained by vigilance. In his Farewell Address in 1796, he asked: “Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion....”
Right now, in these mild autumnal days, the Supreme Court is hearing cold challenges to the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of our nation’s Constitution. At the same time, the bishops of the United States have given six specific reasons why religious liberty is threatened now. The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking to force private healthcare providers to carry contraceptive and sterilization services. That same department wants to force the Church’s Migration and Refugee Services to provide what it calls “the full range of reproductive services.” The federal government is seeking to impose this on international relief programs. The Department of Justice is attacking the Defense of Marriage Act, arguing that support for the natural law of marriage is a criminal form of bigotry. The Justice Department is attacking a religious liberty known as the ministerial exemption which insulates religious employers from state encroachment. And the State of New York has defined same-sex relationships as legal marriage with a very narrow and fragile religious exemption.
When laws are legislated that invent as “rights” conduct contrary to natural law, power usurps truth. So St. Thomas Aquinas said (STh 1-2.95.2): “every law made by man can be called a law insofar as it derives from the natural law. But if it is somehow opposed to the natural law, then it is not really a law but rather a corruption of the law.”
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Re: Not Law, But Corruption of the Law
We forget how important oaths were to the Founders. The Constitution requires that all federal officeholders swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. Under late 18th Century law, oaths were valid only from people who believed in a Supreme Being, and an afterlife, with a system of rewards and punishments. It is true that the Constitution prohibits religious tests for office -- meaning that we cannot require federal officials to belong to a particular sect -- but the original understanding was that all officials would be theists, at the least.
Mar '11
Re: Not Law, But Corruption of the Law
"What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right--from God--to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties?" - Frederic Bastiat
As the Founders envisioned a Constitution that protected individual rights, which are granted by their Creator, it could only stand to reason that office holders would promise that Creator that those rights would be protected.
This may not be the place to ask this, but I will anyway. When Jefferson wrote "endowed by their Creator", was he speaking of God specifically, or by using the word "Creator", was he acknowledging that each of us may have a different view of our origin, even as an atheist, but still have natural rights as were understood at the time as arising from God? I support the latter view, but my wife the Good Catholic calls me heretical.
Re: Not Law, But Corruption of the Law
Adam Freedman
We forget how important oaths were to the Founders. The Constitution requires that all federal officeholders swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. Under late 18th Century law, oaths were valid only from people who believed in a Supreme Being, and an afterlife, with a system of rewards and punishments. It is true that the Constitution prohibits religious tests for office -- meaning that we cannot require federal officials to belong to a particular sect -- but the original understanding was that all officials would be theists, at the least. · Oct 10 at 12:25pm
As usual, Adam, you've added to my education. Absolutely fascinating--and something of which I was totally unaware.
Mar '11
Re: Not Law, But Corruption of the Law
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
I have often wondered how people who believe in unalienable rights, but do not believe in a deity square the two. Where do an atheist's rights come from?
Jan '11
Re: Not Law, But Corruption of the Law
I take it to mean that whether a man acknowledges it or not, God created him with natural rights. At the same time, however, Jefferson never assumes that God was a personal and universal father figure; he considered God as a disinterested creator.
It's hard to reconstruct the intellectual climate of the time. John Locke and Isaac Newton were very popular, but David Hume was just starting to get traction. (Hume's Treatise on Human Nature was published - but not widely - in 1739.) Because Hume opposed the conventional view of religion, his work wasn't widely supported by the English government and church of the time, and so you wonder how much of his philosophy seeped into the consciousness of colonial America. Then again, Hume seemed to believe in a deity but not in religion, which sounds like Jefferson.
Mar '11
Re: Not Law, But Corruption of the Law
KC Mulville
I take it to mean that whether a man acknowledges it or not, God created him with natural rights. At the same time, however, Jefferson never assumes that God was a personal and universal father figure; he considered God as a disinterested creator.
But then in your view, can an atheist lay claim to natural rights?
Jan '11
Re: Not Law, But Corruption of the Law
Illiniguy
But then in your view, can an atheist lay claim to natural rights? ·
In my view? My view is that natural law is simply what you think human beings' nature is, and what logically flows from that. I believe that human beings are creatures of God who had some reason (bizarre though it may have been - it may have been mere amusement) for creating us, and that has ramifications for us.
An atheist doesn't believe that we were deliberately or intentionally created, therefore the atheist wouldn't see anything implied by that in our nature. But he could still say that merely having intelligence, for instance, implies certain things. Having free will implies certain things. The atheist would see these aspects of our nature and conclude that we have certain rights and responsibilities that flow from them.
We would both claim that we have rights (and responsibilities) that come from our nature, but we would disagree over what that nature is, and perhaps what would be logically implied by that.