Christianity introduced a concept into the thought of the West which is alien to the thinking of Plato and Aristotle, the two major political thinkers of the ancient world. This new concept has been called, after Augustine, the idea of the two cities: the City of God and the City of Man. Man, it is asserted, holds his citizenship papers in two realms, the earthly and the heavenly. He is to negotiate this life as best he can, seeking as much justice and such happiness as this world permits, but in full awareness that his ultimate felicity may be attained only in another order of existence. “The world is a bridge,” an Oriental sage remarked. “Cross it, but do not build your houses on it”.…
Christianity introduced another concept into Western thought which has had an effect upon our thinking about government: the concept of the Fall. Christian thought distinguishes between the created world as it came from the hand of God, and the fallen world known to history; between the world of primal innocence we posit, and the world marred by evil, which we know. It follows from this original premise that Christian thought is nonbehaviorist; it is based on the idea that the true inwardness of a thing—its real nature—cannot be fully known by merely observing its outward behavior. Things are distorted in the historical and natural order, unable to manifest their true being. Man especially is askew. He was created in the image of God, but now he is flawed by sin.
Some political implications may be drawn from these premises. It has been a characteristic note in Christian sociology, from the earliest centuries, to regard government not as an original element of the created world, but as a reflection of man’s corrupted nature in our fallen world. Government, in other words, is a consequence of sin; it appears only after the Fall. But if government is the result of original sin, it follows that governmental action cannot be a remedy for sin. By the same token it follows that sinful man will try to employ government for this impossible task, as well as for lesser purposes. In other words, the Christian rationale for government is incompatible with the total state required by collectivism. When the Christian rationale for government is understood and spelled out, the only political role compatible with it is the modest function of defending the peace of society by curbing peace-breakers. When government is limited to repressing criminal and destructive actions, men are free to act constructively and creatively up to the full limit of their individual capacities.
A third Christian doctrine which is politically meaningful is the idea of free will. Man’s fall, according to theology, resulted from an act of choice—an act of disobedience, as it turned out. The kernel of this story as related in Genesis is the conviction that the God who created man gave him at the same time sufficient freedom to deny his Maker. It is but a short deduction from this belief to the conclusion that the God who gave us inwardly such complete freedom that we could either accept or reject him wills that the relationships between men should be voluntary. The despot who repudiates individual liberty usurps a role which God even denies himself! The despot may be a majority, but this doesn’t alter matters. Outer and social liberty, in other words, is the necessary completion of inner and spiritual liberty; the free society is implicit in this reading of man’s nature. Man cannot be deprived of his spiritual liberty without being de humanized; this liberty survives under adversity, inside prison walls, and in totalitarian countries. This may be admitted, while at the same time we affirm to the hilt that man’s nature is such that anything less than a free society involves a denial of some part of it.
We arrive at a similar conclusion by contemplating the second half of the Great Commandment, where we are en joined to love our neighbor as ourselves. The bonds that should unite people, it is here implied, are those of unyielding good will, understanding, and compassion. But in collectivist theory, on the other hand, people are to be put through their paces by command and coercion. This is the nature of the means which must be, and are being, employed in even the most well-intentioned welfare state. In practice, every collectivized order careens toward a police state whose own citizens are its first victims. The love commandment of the Gospels brought down to the political level implies justice, parity, and freedom. There is no way whereby these basic premises may be twisted into a sanctioning of the operational imperatives of a collectivist society.—Remarks by EDMUND A. OPITZ of the Foundation for Economic Education to a seminar in Carmel Valley, California.
Perhaps one of the greatest challenges today, one particularly evidenced in our large cities, is to face and overcome the neglect of our heritage in law. The great legal principles that swayed our people and upon which our country was founded were based on inward convictions of the heart and persuasions of the mind. Our ancestors were born and raised on the sanctity and authority of law and order.
The moral law has a basis not only in religion and ethics, but also in intuition, instinct, and reason. We are in dire need, as a society exploding not only in population but with social problems, of recapturing its importance in American life.
We are living at a time when many conceive it to be no wrong to violate the law, but rather think that the wrong lies in being caught.… This is the direct antithesis of the moral law, which applies sanctions or penalties only because it recognizes there is a duty to obey the law. The law, under moral precepts, should be obeyed not because there are penalties. It should be obeyed irrespective of whether a violation would ever be detected or not.…
The Greatest Lawgiver gave us a Decalogue through Moses. “Thou shalt not kill” has after it a period. It does not read, “Thou shalt not kill, for if you do and are convicted of first degree murder in Pennsylvania in 1963, you’ll be sentenced to death or life imprisonment; or, if it’s second degree, a maxi mum of ten to twenty years’ imprisonment; or, if it’s voluntary manslaughter, a maximum of six to twelve years’ imprisonment.” “Thou shalt not kill,” period; whether you’re apprehended or not, whether you can get away with it or not, thou shalt not kill.
The same is true of the law, “Thou shalt not steal.” It doesn’t read, “Thou shalt not steal; if you do, and are convicted, you can get a maximum of two and one-half to five years in prison.” Whether you can get away with it or not, “Thou shalt not steal.”
Unless we as a nation can restore again among our people the persuasive force of moral and spiritual convictions, our people, multitudes of whom are growing morally soft and hungry with greed, will be overcome by their degeneracy.
A sense of duty to obey the law must be re-taught and re-learned. We afford our young people, for the most part, good and adequate recreational facilities, and these are needed. In addition to these, however, we must develop means to strengthen the moral fiber of America. This work cannot be left to the exclusive function of the schools, churches, and national youth organizations. Many, many are not reached by any of these. Greater encouragement should be given to neighborhood civic associations, clubs, forums, and other groups, where problems of moral responsibility are discussed. This should be not a piecemeal program but one that is carefully planned by competent individuals. Especially should such groups be developed, encouraged, and sponsored among young Americans in crowded areas of our large cities. The building of moral stamina and character is as much needed as are physical and intellectual growth.—The Hon. EDWARD J. GRIFFITHS, Judge of Common Pleas Court No. 1, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
