Freedom and Law: Pope Leo XIII's Libertas praestantissimum, Part 8

FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE is a precious freedom, one jealously guarded by the Church, but it also--alas--tends to be used as a last refuge of scoundrels, an excuse to sanctify nothing but sheer subjectivism. To some extent, freedom of conscience overlaps with the freedom of religion or worship which Pope Leo XIII addressed in an earlier part of his encyclical Libertas praestantissimum. But Leo XIII discusses the liberty of conscience more broadly, particularly with regard to its relationship to the State. For Leo XIII, liberty of conscience is a sacrosanct liberty, one enshrined by both natural and divine law, if that liberty is defined as the right of "every man in the State may follow the will of God and, from a consciousness of duty and free from every obstacle, obey His commands."

This, indeed, is true liberty, a liberty worthy of the sons of God, which nobly maintains the dignity of man and is stronger than all violence or wrong - a liberty which the Church has always desired and held most dear. This is the kind of liberty the Apostles claimed for themselves with intrepid constancy, which the apologists of Christianity confirmed by their writings, and which the martyrs in vast numbers consecrated by their blood. And deservedly so; for this Christian liberty bears witness to the absolute and most just dominion of God over man, and to the chief and supreme duty of man toward God.

Haec quidem vera, haec digna filiis Dei libertas, quae humanae dignitatem personae honestissime tuetur, est omni vi iniuriaque maior: eademque Ecclesiae semper optata ac praecipue cara. Huius generis libertatem sibi constanter vindicavere Apostoli, sanxere scriptis Apologetae, Martyres ingenti numero sanguine suo consecravere. Et merito quidem: propterea quod maximam iustissimamque Dei in homines potestatem, vicissimque hominum adversus Deum princeps maximumque officium, libertas haec Christiana testatur.

LP, 30.

This freedom of conscience is authentic, and it is world's apart from the freedom of conscience invoked by a "seditious and rebellious mind." Authentic freedom of conscience insists on obedience to human authority, but insists equivalently on the limits of that human authority, and the absolute preeminence of the law of God and divine authority, whose law and authority take precedence over any mere human authority, and in whose law is perfect freedom.

Pope Leo XIII also issues a warning against those liberals who would exclude God from reasons of State, and, in effect, make the State the Leviathan, the Mortal God of Hobbes, from whose absolute power there is no appeal:

By the patrons of liberalism, however, who make the State absolute and omnipotent, and proclaim that man should live altogether independently of God, the liberty of which We speak, which goes hand in hand with virtue and religion, is not admitted; and whatever is done for its preservation is accounted an injury and an offense against the State. Indeed, if what they say were really true, there would be no tyranny, no matter how monstrous, which we should not be bound to endure and submit to.

Contra Liberalismi fautores, qui herilem atque infinite potentem faciunt principatum, vitamque nullo ad Deum respectu degendam praedicant, hanc de qua loquimur coniunctam cum honestate religioneque libertatern minime agnoscunt: cuius
conservandae caussa si quid fiat, iniuria et contra rempublicam factum criminantur. Quod si vere dicerent, nullus esset tam immanis dominatus, cui subesse et quem ferre non oporteret

LP, 31.

The proper understanding of these liberties--of religion, of speech, of conscience--and the rejection of the false liberal interpretations of them is essential for the "cankered and bitter" fruit that liberalism's political acculturation has brought forth to become once again "sweet and wholesome." We suffer sociological plagues caused, in large part, by liberalism's errors: destroyed marriages and ruined families, collapse of any social mores, disregard for human life, the plague of abortion, the clamor for homosexual marriage, fraud in our basic financial and economic institutions, an inability to engage in any meaningful political discourse, increasing vulgarity, loss of reverence . . . . The de-Christianized West is not a model of virtue: it is a landscape of utter moral vapidness. "If, then, a remedy is desired," the Pope said, "let it be sought for in a restoration of sound doctrine, from which alone the preservation of order and, as a consequence, the defense of true liberty can be confidently expected." LP, 32.

(continued)

Freedom and Law: Pope Leo XIII's Libertas praestantissimum, Part 7

ANOTHER SHIBBOLETH OF MODERN LIBERALISM is the notion of the right to free speech, which includes, in Leo XIII's view, collateral liberties of the press and of teaching. While Leo XIII recognizes liberty of speech and of the press, he also recognizes that such liberty is not absolute, but is one that must be "used in moderation," and is subject to limits, the same "bounds and end of all true liberty." LP, 23. "Right," Leo XIII reminds us, is a "moral power," a facultas moralis, that is not indifferent to "truth and falsehood," to "justice and injustice." LP, 23. Here is the right to free speech recognized by Leo XIII:

Men have a right freely and prudently to propagate throughout the State what things soever are true and honorable, so that as many as possible may possess them. . . . In regard . . . to all matter of opinion which God leaves to man's free discussion, full liberty of thought and of speech is naturally within the right of everyone; for such liberty never leads men to suppress the truth, but often to discover it and make it known.

LP, 23. The liberty of speech, however, does not cover "lying opinions," opinionum mendacia, nor "vices which corrupt the heart and moral life," vitia quae animum moresque corrumpunt. LP, 23.

Here we confront what to moderns and liberals is repulsive, but which is at the heart of modern society's revolution against the reign of God and natural and divine law. It is the notion that our intellectual inquiry is not lawless, but, like all things human, is governed by law, by the natural moral law and by divine law. Lawless thoughts and lawless words are not allowed us, and we are morally responsible for thoughts, ideas, concepts, teachings, speech, and words that violate the natural moral law or divine law. We are doubly answerable for promulgating those errors among our fellows. The natural moral law governs the propagation of such ideas through speech and writing since such pernicious ideas can deeply affect the common good:

The excesses of an unbridled intellect, which unfailingly end in the oppression of the untutored multitude, are no less rightly controlled by the authority of the law than are the injuries inflicted by violence upon the weak. And this all the more surely, because by far the greater part of the community is either absolutely unable, or able only with great difficulty, to escape from illusions and deceitful subtleties, especially such as flatter the passions.

LP, 23. What we say, and what we write, falls under the natural moral law and its prescriptions. We are not simply morally free to say and publish what we want.

If unbridled license of speech and of writing be granted to all, nothing will remain sacred and inviolate; even the highest and truest mandates of natures, justly held to be the common and noblest heritage of the human race, will not be spared.

LP, 23.

We have, of course, heard of the alleged statement of Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." It is one of those hackneyed phrases on everyone's lips which is really stupid and banal. It is, of course, wrongly ascribed to Voltaire.* Be that as it may, it is an absurdity. One would be a fool or a scoundrel indeed if one would defend to death the right of a Larry Flint to peddle his Hustler or of Tony Alamo to peddle his false anti-Catholic leaflets. This sort of "right" to publish error or promote vice is what Leo XIII will not entertain as existing.

It is another thing entirely, however, to have defended to death the right of the Christian priest Perfectus, who, according to the Memoriale sanctorum of Eulogius, was asked by some Muslims in the 8th century in Cordoba, Spain, then under Islamic rule, what he thought of Jesus and Muhammad. Prudently, Perfectus responded that he thought Christ divine, but did not dare say what he thought of Muhammad for fear of angering his questioners. Upon their assurance that he had nothing to fear, Perfectus stated that he thought Muhammad was one of the false Christs and false prophets predicted by the Gospel, and that he thought him and his law lascivious. Ultimately, it led to his death for blasphemy. Perfectus had a right to free speech that was denied him, and the Islamic qadis or judges did him wrong and violated both the natural law and divine law in putting him to death for speaking truth. (Whether they did so in ignorance is another question.)

We have no moral obligation to give air space or publication rights to error, in particular error as it relates to things relating to the natural and divine law. Since the end of communication is to advance the true and the good, it follows that any person who engages in communication that advances error or evil has, from a strictly moral standpoint, no rights to do so; rather, such propagation should be counted as vicious.

The same sort of reasoning follows from what liberals called "liberty of teaching," docendi libertatem. Since the whole purpose of education is to remove ignorance and to imbue men's minds with truth, the teacher has the duty "to banish error from the mind, and by sure safeguards to close the entry to all false convictions." LP, 24. There is no right of teaching whatever one pleases, and such a claim of right is "greatly opposed to reason, and tends absolutely to pervert men's minds." LP, 24. There is, to be sure, a liberty of teaching, but such liberty of teaching is linked to the duty to teach truth. The liberty of teaching goes to two areas of truth: natural and supernatural. Leo XIII explains:

Now, truth, which should be the only subject matter of those who teach, is of two kinds: natural and supernatural. Of natural truths, such as the principles of nature and whatever is derived from them immediately by our reason, there is a kind of common patrimony in the human race. On this, as on a firm basis, morality, justice, religion, and the very bonds of human society rest: and to allow people to go unharmed who violate or destroy it would be most impious, most foolish, and most inhuman.

Veri autem, in quo unice versari praecipientium doctrina debet, unum est naturale genus, supernaturale alterum. Ex veritatibus naturalibus, cuiusmodi sunt principia naturae, et ea quae ex illis proxime ratione ducuntur, existit humani generis velut commune patrimonium: in quo, tamquam fundamento firmissimo, cum mores et iustitia et religio, atque ipsa coniunctio societatis humanae nitatur, nihil tam impium esset tamque stolide inhumanum, quam illud violari ac diripi impune sinere.

LP, 25. It follows that no one has the right to teach others matters that contradict the natural moral law. For example, homosexuals do not have a moral right, and they shall never have a moral right, to insist that school children be taught that homosexuality is a legitimate life option. No one can insist on a moral right to advance an activity that is repugnant to the natural moral law.

The same may be said for the divinely revealed truths, including those relating to the Incarnation and Christ's founding of the Church. The Church herself has a role in teaching. She is both Mater and Magistra, Mother and Teacher:

In faith and in the teaching of morality, God Himself made the Church a partaker of His divine authority, and through His heavenly gift she cannot be deceived. She is therefore the greatest and most reliable teacher of mankind, and in her swells an inviolable right to teach them. Sustained by the truth received from her divine Founder, the Church has ever sought to fulfill holily the mission entrusted to her by God; unconquered by the difficulties on all sides surrounding her, she has never ceased to assert her liberty of teaching, and in this way the wretched superstition of paganism being dispelled, the wide world was renewed unto Christian wisdom. Now, reason itself clearly teaches that the truths of divine revelation and those of nature cannot really be opposed to one another, and that whatever is at variance with them must necessarily be false. Therefore, the divine teaching of the Church, so far from being an obstacle to the pursuit of learning and the progress of science, or in any way retarding the advance of civilization, in reality brings to them the sure guidance of shining light. And for the same reason it is of no small advantage for the perfecting of human liberty, since our Saviour Jesus Christ has said that by truth is man made free: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32)

LP, 27.

Neither science nor advocates of civil rights ought to be "indignant" or "feel aggrieved" at the thought that law, in particular the natural moral law, should provide just and necessary restraints on speech and teaching. It is not a violation of human liberty, but a great boon to human liberty, to insist that human knowledge, human communication, and human teaching should be consonant with the moral law and with revealed truth. LP, 27. Historically, the Church has been a promoter and patron of human learning. "For learning is in itself good, and praiseworthy, and desirable." And the constraints of morality and of truth are not confining from a practical perspective since, "we must not forget that a vast field lies freely open to man's industry and genius, containing all those things which have no necessary connection with Christian faith and morals, or as to which the Church, exercising no authority, leaves the judgment of the learned free and unconstrained." LP, 28.

In concluding the section on liberty of speech, the press, and teaching, Leo XIII notes that the liberals have a double standard: one the one hand, they maintain a virtually unconstrained right to promote their liberalism, but on the other hand, they are quick to deny such ample rights to the Church, which they call intolerant:

From all this may be understood the nature and character of that liberty which the followers of liberalism so eagerly advocate and proclaim. On the one hand, they demand for themselves and for the State a license which opens the way to every perversity of opinion; and on the other, they hamper the Church in divers ways, restricting her liberty within narrowest limits, although from her teaching not only is there nothing to be feared, but in every respect very much to be gained.

LP, 29.

Leo XIII next turns to the liberty of conscience, to which we will also turn in our next blog posting.

(continued)

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*The quotation represents a synopsis of Voltaire's doctrine on free speech and his attitude toward Helvetius, and is found in the book Friends of Voltaire (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1906), 199, a book published by Evelyn Beatrice Hall under the pseudonym S. G. Tallentyre.

Freedom and Law: Pope Leo XIII's Libertas praestantissimum, Part 5

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A MODERATE LIBERAL, a liberal that does not jettison notions of natural law and eternal law, that is, one that does not spurn the notion of an objective and knowable moral realm? Not all liberals, Pope Leo III admits, are as radical as those whom he addressed in the earlier part of his encyclical Libertas praestantissimum. There are those that reject any notion of an intemperate do-as-you-feel liberty, and maintain that liberty ought to be ruled by right reason and the natural law and, at least in theory, divine law. These liberals , however, would reject any public role of the Church as interpreter of the divine law and the natural law. They would expand the freedom of man and hold that man "as a free being is bound by no law of God except such as He makes known to us through our natural reason," LP, 17, thus cutting out divine law altogether at least in a public role, and thereby necessarily assigning "limits to His [God's] legislative authority." But this is to fail to render the obedience to God which God is due. Man's obligations to God go beyond the mere natural law (though they certainly encompass these), but they also include the obligation to obey the divine positive law. To these liberals who would limit God's bailiwick to the natural law, Leo XIII taught, to the contrary:

Man must, therefore, take his standard of a loyal and religious life from the eternal law; and from all and every one of those laws which God, in His infinite wisdom and power, has been pleased to enact, and to make known to us by such clear and unmistakable signs as to leave no room for doubt. And the more so because laws of this kind have the same origin, the same author, as the eternal law, are absolutely in accordance with right reason, and perfect the natural law. These laws it is that embody the government of God, who graciously guides and directs the intellect and the will of man lest these fall into error.

Necesse est igitur, vivendi normam constanter religioseque, ut a lege aeterna, ita ab omnibus singulisque petere legibus, quas infinite sapiens, infinite potens Deus, qua sibi ratione visum est, tradidit, quasque nosse tuto possumus perspicuis nec ullo modo addubitandis notis. Eo vel magis quod istius generis leges, quoniam idem habent, quod lex aeterna, principium, eumdemque auctorem, omnino et cum ratione concordant et perfectionem adiungunt ad naturale ius: eaedemque magisterium Dei ipsius complectuntur, qui scilicet, nostra ne mens neu voluntas in errorem labatur, nutu ductuque suo utramque benigne regit. Sit igitur sancte inviolateque coniunctum, quod nec diiungi potest nec debet, omnibusque in rebus, quod ipsa naturalis ratio praecipit, obnoxie Deo obedienterque serviatur.

LP, 17.

Yet another school of liberalism, even more moderate and tempered, stands condemned by its internal inconsistency. In this kind of liberalism, the advocate affirms "that the morality of individuals is to be guided by the divine law, but not the morality of the State." The divine law may be safely and morally disregarded by the State, and the "fatal theory of the need of separation between Church and State," is compelled as a matter of good governance. Given the existence of God, and given his revealed will in both the natural and divine law, and given that God is the author of both the Church and State, and is the authority behind both of them, "the absurdity of such a position is manifest." LP, 18. Indeed, the real problem seems to be a practical loss of faith.

Michelangelo Buonaroti, The Damned Soul (Uffizi)
(Enjoying his unbridled freedom of religion, speech, and conscience without reference to God)

The problem with an absolute separation between Church and State is that it ignores the complexity of the relationship between these two powers or institutions and substitutes in its place a facile formula that is calculated to reduce the authority of the Church in practical life. The problem is that there are, and always will be, areas of overlap between the two institutions. In those areas of overlap, how can one separate Church from State without giving one precedence over the other? In practice, the overweening State elbows the Church out as it has, for example, in the areas of marriage (e.g., instituting no-fault divorce), family life (e.g., homosexual marriage), education (especially moral education), health care (contraception, abortion, euthanasia, etc.):

[A]lthough the civil authority has not the same proximate end as the spiritual, nor proceeds on the same lines, nevertheless in the exercise of their separate powers they must occasionally meet. For their subjects are the same, and not infrequently they deal with the same objects, though in different ways. Whenever this occurs, since a state of conflict is absurd and manifestly repugnant to the most wise ordinance of God, there must necessarily exist some order or mode of procedure to remove the occasions of difference and contention, and to secure harmony in all things. This harmony has been not inaptly compared to that which exists between the body and the soul for the well-being of both one and the other, the separation of which brings irremediable harm to the body, since it extinguishes its very life.

Sed quod magis interest, quodque alias Nosmetipsi nec semel monuimus, quamvis principatus civilis non eodem, quo sacer, proxime spectet, nec iisdem eat itineribus, in potestate tamen gerenda obviam esse interdum alteri alter necessario debet. Est enim utriusque in eosdem imperium, nec raro fit, ut iisdem de rebus uterque, etsi non eadem ratione, decernat. Id quotiescumque usuveniat, cum confligere absurdum sit, sapientissimaeque voluntati Dei aperte repugnet, quemdam esse modum atque ordinem necesse est, ex quo, caussis contentionum certationumque sublatis, ratio concors in agendis rebus existat. Et huiusmodi concordiam non inepte similem coniunctioni dixere, quae animum inter et corpus intercedit, idque commodo utriusque partis: quarum distractio nominatim est perniciosa corpori, quippe cuius vitam extinguit.

LP, 18.

From his general review of liberalism, it its extreme dogmatic or ideological forms, to its more seeming moderate but equally inconsistent pragmatic forms, Leo XIII launches into an analysis of some of the more common "liberal" liberties or rights, and criticizes the liberal understanding or scope of these liberties or rights: the liberty of worship, liberty of speech and liberty of the press, and liberty of conscience. So much confusion is engendered by those who, wed to relativism or skepticism, or seeking to justify their own disordered appetites or immoral habits, would import license in worship, speech and press, and conscience, transforming license into liberty, and thereby making these rights theoretically or practically absolute, as if they transcended the very obligations of the natural and eternal law. It is, in fact, sheer error to suggest that liberty of worship, liberty of speech or the press, or liberty of conscience is a "safe harbor," a place where one may escape obedience to the law of nature and nature's God.

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy face?
If I ascend into heaven, thou art there: if I descend into hell, thou art present.
If I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea:
Even there also shall thy hand lead me: and thy right hand shall hold me.

(Psalm 138:7-10)

Liberty of religion, speech, the press, and conscience are not secular sanctuaries outside the pale of natural law or God's divine law, and those who think otherwise stand in the darkness of nothingness, which are the haunts of the Devil. For where there is not God, there is, by definition, nothing, or at least nothing real, and toward nothing is where the Devil trends. One should think there may be a lot of freethinkers and journalists in the Devil's retinue as he traipses to the Land of Nada, the Kingdom of Nihilo.

(continued)

Freedom and Law: Pope Leo XIII's Libertas praestantissimum, Part 4

A LIBERAL WILL SUFFER HEARTBURN at the next paragraphs in Leo XIII's encyclical Libertas praestantissimum. Indeed, the disquiet one may feel as one reads these parts of the encyclical dealing with liberalism may be a good indicator as to how much we have absorbed, and internalized, the liberal conventions of the day without even knowing it. (Another document that serves this salutory purpose may be the Syllabus of Errors issued during the pontificate of Pius IX.) These conventions have drawn us, as it were, away from the natural law main stream into a liberal distributary. Modern Westerners--Americans in particular--have a sort of liberalism as part of their civil religion, since there is more than a seed of liberalism, at least in its Lockean form, in the foundational documents and theories of the American revolution which began the American experiment. We have come to view liberalism as normal.

There is a certain freshness, boldness in Leo XIII's language, a "calling a spade a spade" type of style, a style more akin to the Jewish prophet than a Greek philosopher, or an unctuous diplomat, a style which is less circumspect, less reserved, and more biting than the more judicious language we have come to expect from papal encyclicals modernly. And yet, when it comes down to it, is it any less true?

But many there are who follow in the footsteps of Lucifer, and adopt as their own his rebellious cry, "I will not serve"; and consequently substitute for true liberty what is sheer and most foolish license. Such, for instance, are the men belonging to that widely spread and powerful organization, who, usurping the name of liberty, style themselves liberals.

Sed iam permulti Luciferum imitati, cuius est illa nefaria vox non serviam, libertatis nomine absurdam quamdam consectantur et meracam licentiam. Cuiusmodi sunt ex illa tam late fusa tamque pollenti disciplina homines, qui se, ducto a libertate nomine, Liberales appellari volunt.

LP, 14.

For Leo XIII, liberalism is rationalist or naturalist philosophy brought into the moral and political domain. "The fundamental doctrine of rationalism is the supremacy of the human reason, which, refusing due submission to the divine and eternal reason, proclaims its own independence, and constitutes itself the supreme principle and source and judge of truth." LP, 15. With a similar shrug and dismissal of the divine and eternal law, the liberals apply the same principle to the practical realm. Liberals ultimately "proclaim that every man is the law to himself," sibi quemque esse legem, thereby advance an ethical system that is essentially autonomous, "and which, under the guise of liberty, exonerates man from any obedience to the commands of God, and substitutes a boundless license." LP, 15. If this principle is applied to the political realm, we have entered into what Pope Benedict XVI would later call the tyranny of relativism, where the will of the majority determines right and wrong:

For, when once man is firmly persuaded that he is subject to no one, it follows that the efficient cause of the unity of civil society is not to be sought in any principle external to man, or superior to him, but simply in the free will of individuals; that the authority in the State comes from the people only; and that, just as every man's individual reason is his only rule of life, so the collective reason of the community should be the supreme guide in the management of all public affairs. Hence the doctrine of the supremacy of the greater number, and that all right and all duty reside in the majority.

Hoc enim fixo et persuaso, homini antistare neminem, consequitur caussam efficientem conciliationis civilis et societatis non in principio aliquo extra aut supra hominem posito, sed in libera voluntate singulorum esse quaerendam: potestatem publicam a multitudine velut a primo fonte repetendam, praetereaque, sicut ratio singulorum sola dux et norma agendi privatim est singulis, ita universorum esse oportere universis in rerum genere publicarum. Hinc plurimum posse plurimos: partemque populi maiorem universi iuris esse officiique effectricem.

LP, 15.

It is clear that the will of the majority does not define right. In a democratic form of government the majority, no less than one individual, is bound by the natural and eternal law, which alone determines right. A liberal democracy founded on relativism is a recipe for disaster for the very simple reason that it is repugnant to reason:

To refuse any bond of union between man and civil society, on the one hand, and God the Creator and consequently the supreme Law-giver, on the other, is plainly repugnant to the nature, not only of man, but of all created things; for, of necessity, all effects must in some proper way be connected with their cause; and it belongs to the perfection of every nature to contain itself within that sphere and grade which the order of nature has assigned to it, namely, that the lower should be subject and obedient to the higher.

Nullum siquidem velle homini aut societati civili cum Deo creatore ac proinde supremo omnium legislatore intercedere vinclum, omnino naturae repugnat, nec naturae hominis tantum, sed rerum omnium procreatarum: quia res omnes effectas cum caussa, a qua effectae sunt, aliquo esse aptas nexu necesse est: omnibusque naturis hoc convenit, hoc ad perfectionem singularum pertinet, eo se continere loco et gradu, quem naturalis ordo postulat, scilicet ut ei quod superius est, id quod est inferius subiiciatur et pareat.

LP, 15. It matters not what form of government a society finds itself under--democratic, aristocratic, regal--civil law, however engendered, remains subordinate to and must remain informed by, the natural law, that is to say, the eternal law.

The Upshot of Leo XIII's Libertas praestantissimum

Rejection of any principle of law outside man himself is a recipe for the corruption of both individual and society and it leads to eventual tyranny, for if man is the measure of all things, then man is the measure of what is right and wrong, and there is no appeal to reality itself: to nature, that is creation, and to God. Law has nothing to do with essence or form, but law becomes existential and formless. Law thing springs forth from the subjective, arbitrary will of man himself, to be formed as he sees fit. Usually, the form comes from an overruling and disordered passion: greed, lust, pride, power. Not ratio but libido is the principle of such law. Ultimately, the will that carries the most power determines what is most right. And this is no longer law.

Listen to the warnings which Leo XIII proclaimed in 1888 where the rejection of natural law would lead individuals vis-à-vis individual morality.

For, once ascribe to human reason the only authority to decide what is true and what is good, and the real distinction between good and evil is destroyed; honor and dishonor differ not in their nature, but in the opinion and judgment of each one; pleasure is the measure of what is lawful; and, given a code of morality which can have little or no power to restrain or quiet the unruly propensities of man, a way is naturally opened to universal corruption.

Sane reiecto ad humanam rationem et solam et unam veri bonique arbitrio, proprium tollitur boni et mali discrimen; turpia ab honestis non re, sed opinione iudicioque singulorum differunt: quod libeat, idem licebit ; constitutaque morum disciplina, cuius ad coercendos sedandosque motus animi turbidos nulla fere vis est, sponte fiet ad omnem vitae corruptelam aditus.

LP, 16.

The effect of such doctrines would have equally deleterious effect on public mores:

With reference also to public affairs: authority is severed from the true and natural principle whence it derives all its efficacy for the common good; and the law determining what it is right to do and avoid doing is at the mercy of a majority. Now, this is simply a road leading straight to tyranny.

In rebus autem publicis, potestas imperandi separatur a vero naturalique principio, unde omnem haurit virtutem efficientem boni communis: lex, de iis quae facienda fugiendave sunt statuens, maioris multitudinis permittitur arbitrio, quod quidem est iter ad tyrannicam dominationem proclive.

LP, 16.

It follows as the night the day, that once natural law is rejected, so will the public role of religion, which will be the last bastion against the tyrants. Neither natural law nor religion forming the characters of the citizens will require something other than conscience to hold them in check: "there will be nothing to hold them back but force, which of itself alone is powerless to keep their covetousness in check." LP, 16.

This may, perhaps, be the view of the more extreme liberals, and there are liberals who are more conservative or moderate in their views, and attempt to temper them, as it were, with some tie to natural and eternal law. Pope Leo XIII acknowledges that there are liberals that would seem more moderate or circumspect in their opinions, and it is to these theories that Leo XIII next turns in his encyclical Libertas praestantissimum.

(continued)

Freedom and Law: Pope Leo XIII's Libertas praestantissimum, Part 3

NATURAL LAW IS NOT ONLY THE FOUNDATION of the moral life of individual man, but also of his social combinations, his societies, in particular, the state. "What has been said of the liberty of individuals is no less applicable when considered as bound together in civil society." LP, 9. So Leo XIII turns from the true notion of individual, moral freedom--doing what one ought--to civil law and notions of civil liberties.

The law of the State, in fact, is nothing but the natural law writ in human law, at least for those kinds of cases where the positive law of the State concern "what is good or bad by its very nature," quod est bonum malumve natura, the so-called malum in se and the bonus in se.

For, what reason and the natural law do for individuals, that human law, promulgated for their good, does for the citizens of States. Of the laws enacted by men, some are concerned with what is good or bad by its very nature; and they command men to follow after what is right and to shun what is wrong, adding at the same time a suitable sanction. But such laws by no means derive their origin from civil society, because, just as civil society did not create human nature, so neither can it be said to be the author of the good which befits human nature, or of the evil which is contrary to it. Laws come before men live together in society, and have their origin in the natural, and consequently in the eternal, law. The precepts, therefore, of the natural law, contained bodily in the laws of men, have not merely the force of human law, but they possess that higher and more august sanction which belongs to the law of nature and the eternal law.

Quae vero de libertate singulorum dicta sunt, ea ad homines civili inter se societate coniunctos facile transferuntur. Nam quod ratio lexque naturalis in hominibus singulis, idem efficit in consociatis lex humana ad bonum commune civium promulgata. --Ex hominum legibus aliae in eo versantur quod est bonum malumve natura, atque alterum sequi praecipiunt, alterum fugere, adiuncta sanctione debita. Sed istiusmodi decreta nequaquam ducunt ab hominum societate principium, quia societas sicut humanam naturam non ipsa genuit, ita pariter nec bonum procreat naturae conveniens, nec malum naturae dissentaneum: sed potius ipsi hominum societati antecedunt, omninoque sunt a lege naturali ac propterea a lege aeterna repetenda. Iuris igitur naturalis praecepta, hominum comprehensa legibus, non vim solum habent legis humanae, sed praecipue illud multo altius multoque augustius complectuntur imperium, quod ab ipsa lege naturae et a lege aeterna proficiscitur.

LP, 9.

Bust of Leo XIII

With respect to these matters that are evil by nature or good by nature--those matters that relate to the laws that exist before men ever gather together as societies, those that have their origin in the natural and consequently the eternal law, e.g., the law against the intentional killing of an innocent life--the civil legislator has a duty before both God and men. The duty of the civil legislator, the charge, the burden, the "munus" on him, is to "keep the community in obedience by the adoption of a common discipline," obedientes facere cives, communi disciplina adhibita. It also has the complementary duty of "putting restraint upon refractory and viciously inclined men, so that, deterred from evil, they may turn to what is good, or at any rate may avoid causing trouble and disturbance to the State."* LP, 9.

There are other areas where the civil authority may pass laws that do not have the direct relationship with the natural or eternal law, but have only a more or less remote relationship to the law of nature, where the law of nature treats the subject matter only in a general and indefinite way. At the extreme, these laws may even involve matters that are morally indifferent. These matters are typically referred to as the area of the mala prohibita where something that is morally indifferent (e.g., driving on the left side of the road in most Western countries) is made wrong by law for purposes of the common good (preventing accidents by maintaining orderly use of the highways). It would also include areas where matters that are not, in themselves wrong in nature, are proscribed for reasons of the common good, the boni prohibita (e.g., laws against gambling, or laws prohibiting hunting during certain seasons). Even these may still be be generally referred to the natural law obligation of each person to contribute to public peace and prosperity and to life in common:

For instance, though nature commands all to contribute to the public peace and prosperity, whatever belongs to the manner, and circumstances, and conditions under which such service is to be rendered must be determined by the wisdom of men and not by nature herself. It is in the constitution of these particular rules of life, suggested by reason and prudence, and put forth by competent authority, that human law, properly so called, consists, binding all citizens to work together for the attainment of the common end proposed to the community, and forbidding them to depart from this end, and, in so far as human law is in conformity with the dictates of nature, leading to what is good, and deterring from evil.

LP, 9. In most cases, even these human laws bind in conscience because of their relationship to the natural, and therefore eternal, law.**

The natural and eternal law, however, places immediate constraints upon personal and communal behavior. It places restraint on the power of the legislator. There are certain matters that are outside the ability of the individual or the State to change. Neither the individual nor the State are autonomous from the natural law or eternal law. They act under, and not outside, the auspices of the natural and eternal law. LP, 10. In support of this notion, Leo XIII invokes the words of St. Augustine:

I think that you can see, at the same time, that there is nothing just and lawful in that temporal law, unless what men have gathered from this eternal law.

Simul etiam te videre arbitror in illa temporali [lege] nihil esse iustum atque legitimum, quod non ex hac aeterna [lege] sibi homines derivaverint.***

LP, 10.

The intrinsic limit on civil authorities (which is nothing other than the awareness that the State is not divine, but under God) translates to the principle that laws that contradict the natural law or eternal law have no force and effect. They are nullities:

If, then, by anyone in authority, something be sanctioned out of conformity with the principles of right reason, and consequently hurtful to the commonwealth, such an enactment can have no binding force of law, as being no rule of justice, but certain to lead men away from that good which is the very end of civil society.

Si quid igitur ab aliqua potestate sanciatur, quod a principiis rectae rationis dissideat, sitque reipublicae perniciosum, vim legis nullam haberet, quia nec regula iustitiae esset, et homines a bono cui nata societas est, abduceret.

LP, 10.

Later in his encyclical, Leo XIII reiterates the principle, with greater clarity and fervor:

But where the power to command is wanting, or where a law is enacted contrary to reason, or to the eternal law, or to some ordinance of God, obedience is unlawful, lest, while obeying man, we become disobedient to God. Thus, an effectual barrier being opposed to tyranny, the authority in the State will not have all its own way, but the interests and rights of all will be safeguarded - the rights of individuals, of domestic society, and of all the members of the commonwealth; all being free to live according to law and right reason; and this, as we have shown, true liberty consists.

Verum ubi imperandi ius abest, vel si quidquam praecipiatur rationi, legi aeternae, imperio Dei contrarium, rectum est non parere, scilicet hominibus, ut Deo pareatur. Sic praecluso ad tyrannidem aditu, non omnia pertrahet ad se principatus: sua sunt salva iura singulis civibus, sua societati domesticae, cunctisque reipublicae membris, data omnibus verae copia libertatis, quae in eo est, quemadmodum demonstravimus, ut quisque possit secundum leges rectamque rationem vivere.

LP, 13.

Pope Leo XIII concludes this portion of his encyclical thus:

Therefore, the nature of human liberty, however it be considered, whether in individuals or in society, whether in those who command or in those who obey, supposes the necessity of obedience to some supreme and eternal law, which is no other than the authority of God, commanding good and forbidding evil. And, so far from this most just authority of God over men diminishing, or even destroying their liberty, it protects and perfects it, for the real perfection of all creatures is found in the prosecution and attainment of their respective ends; but the supreme end to which human liberty must aspire is God.

Natura igitur libertatis humanae, quocumque in genere consideretur, tam in personis singulis quam in consociatis, nec minus in iis qui imperant quam in iis qui parent, necessitatem complectitur obtemperandi summae cuidam aeternaeque rationi, quae nihil est aliud nisi auctoritas iubentis, vetantis Dei. Atque hoc iustissimum in homines imperium Dei tantum abest ut libertatem tollat aut ullo modo diminuat, ut potius tueatur ac perflciat. Suum quippe finem consectari et assequi, omnium naturarum est vera perfectio: supremus autem finis, quo libertas aspirare debet humana, Deus est.

LP, 11.

There were those in Leo XIII's day (and there are those in our day) that resist this sort of notion: that liberty, both individual and communal, is circumscribed by, indeed, defined with reference to the natural law or eternal law. They err both by excess and defect. One group errs by excess in individual liberty, subscribing a false notion of individual liberty wherein the individual is by nature free to do what he pleases, instead of doing what he ought. These err by defect in arguing that the state, therefore, has no business "legislating morality." These are the liberals. Another group errs by ascribing to the State powers it does not have (for example, powers to take private property), thereby adopting a defective notion of the natural law as it relates to the individual. Therein we may place communists or socialists. It is to the first group--the liberals--and specifically their erroneous theories of law and society, that Pope Leo XIII next turns. And in doing so tramples on the conventional shibboleths of modern society often supported, not by reason, but by propaganda, and often held, not for reasons of conscience, but as rationalizations, as cover, for inordinate desires.

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*It is apparent that with respect to certain acts against the natural law, such as abortion, homosexuality, and laws pertaining to marriage, the modern State has wholly lapsed in its duty. The abandonment of its fundamental duties raises the question of whether the modern State, as a result of such abandonment, is legitimate, and, if legitimate, brutally oblivious to injustice and in serious state of disrepair. If a legislator has a duty to pass laws that uphold fundamental moral norms derived from the natural and eternal law, and the executive the duty to enforce them, it follows that we have a right, by natural justice, to insist that they comply with those duties.
**To go further into this are of whether human civil laws bind in conscience, one gets into the area of gradations or distinctions in civil laws, and into the controversial areas of, for example, whether a human law, though unjust ought to be obeyed for purposes of the common good, whether a human law may be disobeyed or not enforced for prudential reasons, whether a law is being enforced or has fallen into desuetude and so we are not under an obligation to follow it, whether we are dealing with purely penal laws (leges pure poenales) in which case they do not obligate in conscience with respect to the act prohibited or proscribed, but obligated in conscience in the matter of the payment of penalty, and so forth. Pope Leo XIII is therefore speaking generally.
***The quote is from St. Augustine's dialogue De libero arbitrio (On Free Will), I.6.15.

Freedom and Law: Pope Leo XIII's Libertas praestantissimum, Part 2

CONTINUING WITH OUR REVIEW OF LEO XIII'S encyclical Libertas praestantissimum, we recall briefly our last post which ended with the thought that our natural human liberty has a defect because our reason may adjudge as good and the will may seek as good things that are not good, but are merely evils masquerading as good, seeming goods. Our natural liberty must be therefore be enlightened and strengthened by law so as to provide guidance to our reason about what is a real good. "[T]here must be law, that is, a fixed rule of teaching what is to be done and what is to be left undone." LP, 7. Since, as we have seen, judgment precedes choice, and reason is what guides judgment, "reason prescribes to the will what it should seek after or shun, in order to the eventual attainment of man's last end, for the sake of which his actions ought to be performed." LP, 7. "This ordination of reason is called law." Iamvero haec ordinatio rationis lex nominatur. Law is, then, this ordinatio rationis, the ordinance of reason, which guides reasoned judgment and determines the good which is to be sought. It follows that law is essential for the right ordering of reason, the right formulation of judgment, and hence for the right direction of the will.

Nothing more foolish can be uttered or conceived than the notion that, because man is free by nature, he is therefore exempt from law. Were this the case, it would follow that to become free we must be deprived of reason; whereas the truth is that we are bound to submit to law precisely because we are free by our very nature. For, law is the guide of man's actions; it turns him toward good by its rewards, and deters him from evil by its punishments.

Nihilque tam perversum praeposterumque dici cogitarive posset quam illud, hominem, quia natura liber est, idcirco esse oportere legis expertem: quod si ita esset, hoc profecto consequeretur, necesse ad liber tatem esse non cohaerere cum ratione: cum contra longe verissimum sit, idcirco legi oportere subesse, quia est natura liber. Isto modo dux homini in agendo lex est, eumdemque praemiis poenisque propositis ad recte faciendum allicit, a peccando deterret.

LP, 7.

For man, the supreme law is the natural law:

Foremost in this office comes the natural law, which is written and engraved in the mind of every man; and this is nothing but our reason, commanding us to do right and forbidding sin.

Talis est princeps omnium lex naturalis, quae scripta est et insculpta in hominum animis singulorum, quia ipsa est humana ratio recte facere iubens et peccare vetans.

LP, 8. Law, however, implies authority, as "authority is the one and only foundation of all law," tota [lex] in auctoritate nititur: all law rests upon authority. Law must be promulgated. Law requires sanction for its breach. Law therefore requires a "voice," a vox, an authoritative voice, a vox auctoritatis. LP, 8. Where is the vox auctoritatis legis naturalis to be found?

We know where it is not to be found. It is not to be found in man. When it comes to the natural law, man is not autonomous. Man does not make his own fundamental law. He is not the rule of his own actions. If he were, then he would not be bound by his own law. Selflaw is not law. As the jurist Ulpian noted long ago, a prince is not bound by his laws: princeps legibus solutus est. If man were the source of his own standards, his own prince, then he would be governed by whim: for what pleases the prince has the force of law, quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem. But man is not the prince of the natural law. There must be an authority, a voice outside of man to account for the binding nature of the natural law. If it were not binding, if it were self-prescribed, it would not be law. All, therefore, points to God as the vox auctoritatis the vox legis naturalis. The princeps is not man, but is the summus princeps, the summus rex, the summus Deus, God who is the Eternal Reason and Eternal Law.

It follows, therefore, that the law of nature is the same thing as the eternal law, implanted in rational creatures, and inclining them to their right action and end; and can be nothing else but the eternal reason of God, the Creator and Ruler of all the world.

Ergo consequitur, ut naturae lex sit ipsa lex aeterna, insita in iis qui ratione utuntur, eosque inclinans ad debitum actum et finem, eaque est ipsa aeterna ratio creatoris universumque mundum gubernantis Dei.

LP, 8. The natural law, which is nothing but the eternal law writ in a voice man can understand, is therefore the fundamental rule, the ratio ordinis, which man should follow in forming his reasoned judgments which direct his will to the seeking of good. The natural law, however, is not the only aid given man. "To this rule of action and restraint of evil," agendi regulam peccandique frenos, which the natural law is, "God has vouchsafed to give special and most suitable aids for strengthening and ordering the human will." "The first and most excellent of these is the power of His divine grace whereby the mind can be enlightened and the will wholesomely invigorated and moved to the constant pursuit of the good." LP, 8.

Pope John Paul II in Camden Park, Baltimore, Maryland

Here, the natural law and grace work hand-in-glove, "for grace works inwardly in man and in harmony with his natural inclinations." The author of grace is the author of the natural law. The Redeemer is the Creator. "As the Angelic Doctor [Thomas Aquinas] points out, it is because divine grace comes from the Author of nature that it is so admirably adapted to be the safeguard of all natures, and to maintain the character, efficiency, and operations of each." LP, 8.

What a marvel! That God who makes law is God who gives grace! What human legislator is so solicitous that he both gives the law and the means to fulfill it?

Every single man and woman is therefore bound by the natural law. The natural law is the voice of the eternal law in us, a voice which guides each of our individual actions, a voice which guides our natural or human liberty, which orders it to the good, and which leads us from mere natural or human freedom to moral liberty, which is liberty pure and simple.

We might briefly turn from the Pope to the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin in his Poor Richard's Almanack:

Would you live with ease, do what you ought, and not what you please.*

If "ease" is defined as freedom, then Ol' Ben is on point.

What is true for the individual liberty or freedom is true for a people, true for a civil society. In his Homily at Oriole's Park at the Camden Yards in Baltimore, Maryland on October 8, 1995, John Paul II had the following to say to America:

Surely it is important for America that the moral truths which make freedom possible should be passed on to each new generation. Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.**

So it is from the individual to society to which Pope Leo XIII next turns in his encyclical Libertas praestantissimum.

(continued)
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*Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack: Selections from the Apothegms and Proverbs (USC Publishing, 1914), No. 658
**Pope John Paul II, Homily at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, Maryland, Sunday, October 8, 1995, 7. Available at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/homilies/1995/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19951008_baltimore_en.html.

Freedom and Law: Pope Leo XIII's Libertas praestantissimum, Part 1

WE HAVE IN EARLIER POSTINGS looked at Pope Leo XIII's encyclicals In plurimis, which addressed the issue of chattel slavery from the perspective of both natural and revealed law, and Diuturnum illud, which dealt with the foundations of civil government. Both of these encyclicals invoke the natural law in a clear, express, and central fashion. In this blog posting we shall review another of these Leonine encyclicals, one which dealt with the issues of liberty and freedom entitled Libertas praestantissimum, frequently translated On Liberty. This encyclical literally drips with the natural law from beginning to end.

Liberty, Pope Leo XIII states, is "the highest of natural endowments," attached to "rational natures," which can be used for both the highest good and the greatest evil. Jesus Christ "restored and exalted the original dignity of nature," brought it gifts of grace and promises of future salvation, and thus "raised it to a nobler state. Human liberty is therefore a matter that belongs to human nature, and as such is governed by the natural moral law. And yet, human liberty has been fundamentally transformed by the advent of the God-Man Jesus:

[T]his great gift of nature has ever been, and always will be, deservingly cherished by the Catholic Church, for to her alone has been committed the charge of handing down to all ages the benefits purchased for us by Jesus Christ.

Hoc tam excellenti naturae bono et merita est et constanter merebitur Ecclesia catholica, propterea quod eius est, parta nobis per lesum Christum beneficia in omnem saeculorum aetatem propagare.

PD, 1.

The liberty with which Pope Leo XIII is concerned about in the encyclical is moral liberty (libertatem moralem) as distinguished from natural liberty (libertatem naturalem). However, natural or human liberty, though distinct and separate from moral liberty, is intrinsically connected to moral liberty. It is the foundational source of moral liberty, and it is ultimately founded upon man's rational nature, which in turn, relies on a spiritual and immortal, and not material and perishable, soul. As Pope Leo XIII puts it:

But, first of all, it will be well to speak briefly of natural liberty; for, though it is distinct and separate from moral liberty, natural freedom is the fountainhead from which liberty of whatsoever kind flows, sua vi suaque sponte. The unanimous consent and judgment of men, which is the trusty voice of nature, recognizes this natural liberty in those only who are endowed with intelligence or reason; and it is by his use of this that man is rightly regarded as responsible for his actions. For, while other animate creatures follow their senses, seeking good and avoiding evil only by instinct, man has reason to guide him in each and every act of his life. Reason sees that whatever things that are held to be good upon earth may exist or may not, and discerning that none of them are of necessity for us, it leaves the will free to choose what it pleases. But man can judge of this contingency, as We say, only because he has a soul that is simple, spiritual, and intellectual - a soul, therefore, which is not produced by matter, and does not depend on matter for its existence; but which is created immediately by God, and, far surpassing the condition of things material, has a life and action of its own so that, knowing the unchangeable and necessary reasons of what is true and good, it sees that no particular kind of good is necessary to us. When, therefore, it is established that man's soul is immortal and endowed with reason and not bound up with things material, the foundation of natural liberty is at once most firmly laid.

Principio tamen iuvat aliquid de libertate naturali breviter dicere, quia quamquam a morali omnino distinguitur, fons tamen atque principium est, unde genus omne libertatis sua vi suaque sponte nascitur. Hanc quidem omnium indicium sensusque communis, quae certissima naturae vox est, in iis solum agnoscit, qui sint intelligence vel rationis compotes, in eaque ipsa caussam inesse apparet, cur auctor eorum, quae ab eo aguntur, verissime habeatur homo. Et recte quidem: nam quando ceteri animantes solis ducuntur sensibus, soloque naturae impulsu anquirunt quae sibi prosint, fugiuntque contraria, homo quidem in singulis vitae factis rationem habet ducem. Ratio autem, quaecumque habentur in terris bona, omnia et singula posse iudicat esse, et aeque posse non esse : et hoc ipso nullum eorum decernens esse necessario sumendum, potestatem optionemque voluntati facit ut eligat, quod lubeat. Sed de contingentia ut appellant, eorum bonorum, quae diximus, ob hanc caussam iudicare homo potest, quod animum habet natura simplicem, spiritualem cogitationisque participem: qui idcirco quod est eiusmodi, non a rebus corporeis ducit originem, neque pendet ex eis in conservatione sui; sed, nulla re intercedente, ingeneratus a Deo, communemque corporum conditionem longo intervallo transgrediens, suum et proprium habet vivendi genus, suum agendi: quo fit ut, immutabilibus ac necessariis veri bonique rationibus iudicio comprehensis, bona ilia singularia nequaquam esse necessaria videat. Itaque cum animos hominum segregatos esse statuitur ab omni concretione mortali eosdemque facultate cogitandi pollere, simul naturalis libertas in fundamento suo firmissime constituitur.

Natural liberty, then, which every man has as a result of his rational and spiritual nature, is the very life and basis of moral liberty. Natural liberty, at least as the Pope understands it, is not founded--cannot be founded--upon a view of man that is materialistic, for it presupposes a spiritual, rational soul. When a materialist, such as a Marxist or a secular humanist, talks about natural liberty, he is talking about something else entirely. It is this rational and spiritual nature that man has which makes man ontologically free, and therefore pulls him out of the determinism or fatalism or which is the concomitant of every materialistic or even extreme dualistic creed. "At no time," Pope Leo XIII declares, "and in no place," has the church "held truce with fatalism," nullo tempore nulloque loco fatalismum passa consistere. LP, 4. Indeed, were the Church even to stand with fatalism, it would be to put man in chains. And the Church, like her Christ, is not on mission to enslave man, but to set him free, authentically free, and not "free" with "freedoms" that are false and are in fact enslaving.

This natural liberty, which all men possess, "is the faculty of choosing means fitted for the end proposed, for he is master of his actions who can choose one thing out of many," facultas eligendi res ad id, quod propositum est, idoneas, quatenus qui facultatem habet unum aliquod eligendi e pluribus, is est factorum suorum dominus. LP, 5. Those things chosen as means toward an end are either good or useful. Though the natural freedom is a "property of the will, or, rather, is identical with the will in so far as it has its action the faculty of choice," it can only be exercised if there be a prior intellectual judgment of the good, since the exercise of the will is "subsequent to a judgment upon the truth of the good presented," and this judgment is "an act of reason, not of the will."

The end, or object, both of the rational will and of its liberty is that good only which is in conformity with reason.

Libertas igitur si in voluntate inest, quae natura sua appetitus est rationi obediens, consequitur ut et ipsa, sicut voluntas, in bono versetur rationi consentaneo.

LP, 5. Reason proposes, and the will disposes.

Yet all is not well in Camelot. In man, both the will and reason are imperfect. Often, the reason proposes something as good that is not in objective reality good: it proposes a seeming good, an evil under the guise of good. The will, which relies on what reason presents to it as good, is also therefore necessarily corrupted by this imperfection in reason. There is therefore a defect, a vitium, in natural human liberty. LP, 6.

At this juncture in his encyclical, Pope Leo XIII addresses a frequent error in the understanding of natural or human liberty. Liberty is not the freedom to choose evil, even evil under the guise of good. Liberty is the freedom to chose authentic good. Otherwise, God--who is supremely good and whose will chooses only real good--could not be said to be wholly free. Yet we know that God is supremely free, though he necessarily, by his very nature, chooses only good. The fact that God necessarily cannot chose evil does not make him any less than absolute free. It follows, therefore, that the ability to choose evil or an apparent or seeming good over an authentic good is not a characteristic of true liberty. In fact, choosing an apparent good, an evil, is the opposite of liberty; it is an enslavement to sin. This is the upshot of St. Thomas Aquinas's teaching on natural liberty: "The possibility of sinning is not freedom, but slavery." Facultatem peccandi non libertatem esse, sed servitutem. LP, 6. As Pope Leo XIII summarizes St. Augustine's argument against the Pelagians, "if the possibility of deflection from good belonged to the essence or perfection of liberty, then God, Jesus Christ, and the angels and saints, who have not this power, would have no liberty at all, or would have less liberty than man has in his state of pilgrimage and imperfection." LP, 6. The proposition that freedom means the opportunity of doing evil is preposterous. This notion was also grasped by the pagan philosophers, "especially they who held that the wise man alone is free," since they understood by the term "wise man," "the man trained to live in accordance with his nature (secundum naturam), that is, in justice and virtue (honeste et cum virtute)." LP, 6.

The intrinsic debilitated or imperfect condition of human liberty stemming from the imperfection or debility of man's reason and will means that natural human liberty "necessarily stands in need of light and strength to direct its actions to good and to restrain them from evil." LP, 7. What is the first source of "light and strength"? Pope Leo XIII explains:

First of all, there must be law; that is, a fixed rule of teaching what is to be done and what is to be left undone. . . .

Ac primo quidem lex, hoc est agendorum atque omittendorum norma, fuit necessaria . . . .

LP, 7. Law, then, is the first foundation of liberty. Those who would suggest that liberty is the absence of law, or that liberty is release from law, or that liberty only arrives when all law is abrogated are utterly in the dark. They suffer from weakness and debility, their soul shows paleness and sallowness, bearing the decrepitude and loss of sinew and virility of a man who lives in a cave or a well or a prison and has never seen exercise in the light of day, but insistently wallows in his foolish and insipid illusions and dreams, thinking them reality, never daring to escape out into the light of the real. The fool thinks himself free and strong, when he is patently captive and his strength dissipated. There are many sorts of fools. There is the fool who says in his heart there is no God. There is the fool who says in his heart there is no Law.

It is to this Law, this Law which makes us free and repairs the defects in natural human freedom and assures our freedom, the Law which the fool rejects but the wise embrace, to which Pope Leo XIII next turns.

(continued)

The Disfigured Face: Pope Leo XIII to the Rescue

TO RESTORE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY was the aim of Pope Leo XIII, and the Magna Charta of his efforts was the Encyclical Aeterni Patris, presented to the world on August 4, 1879. We have reviewed in the last three blog postings, the errors of John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and G. W. F. Hegel. These three (and many others) spouted "false conclusions concerning divine and human things," which were nothing other than "intellectual sins." And since, "if [one's] intellect sins at all his will soon follows," these errors had been institutionalized in modern government and law, promoted by the academe, and swallowed whole, albeit in various levels of understanding, by the masses of men. AP, 2. Even the institution of the family--the domestic society--was among its victims. Among the "intellectual sins" and "false conclusions" was the rejection of ontologically-based ethics, ethics based upon being, upon man as he existed, upon his nature, a nature supplied him by God. The cure for these social and domestic evils, as Leo XIII saw it, was revival of Christian philosophy, and the place to find it in its most distilled, reliable form was in the philosophical work of St. Thomas Aquinas. For it was he who, in the words of Cajetan repeated by Leo XIII in his Encyclical, "in a certain way seems to have inherited the intellect of all" the "ancient doctors of the Church." AP, 17. St. Thomas in persona sua was a summa philosophiae. A return to the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas was what Leo XIII viewed as necessary to bring society into proper order.

For the teachings of Thomas on the true meaning of liberty, which at this time is running into license, on the divine origin of all authority, on laws and their force, on the paternal and just rule of princes, on obedience to the higher powers, on mutual charity one toward another--on all these and kindred subjects--have very great and invincible force to overcome those principles of the new order which are well known to be dangerous to the peaceful order of things and to public safety.

The new world order, the novus ordo seclorum ushered in by Locke, by Kant, by Hegel, and countless others who had separated Faith from Reason, could only be overcome by Thomistic philosophical principles. What this meant in the discipline of moral philosophy is that we had to return to the ontologically-based eudaemonistic ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas, if there was ever to be any hope for the restoration of any peaceful, any sane order. Reason had to be first restored, so that Faith would follow.


Pope Leo XIII's Encyclical had tremendous influence, one that "would be difficult to overestimate." Cortest, 69. But there had been grass-roots efforts, so to speak, at Thomistic revival and in the efforts to apply natural law principles to the social problems that were confronting society. In some ways, the encyclical was confirming something that was already happening. However, the encyclical bore more fruit than most.

In a way difficult to understand in terms of today's indifferent reactions to encyclicals, Aeterni Patris bestowed a decisive impetus upon the budding Thomistic revival.

John F. X. Knasas, Being and Some Twentieth-Century Thomists (Fordham 2003), 2. The Italian Jesuit Luigi Taparelli D'Azeglio (1793-1862), for example, the man perhaps responsible for coining the term "social justice," co-founder of what was to become the influential journal Civiltà Cattolica, inventor of the violicembolo (symphonium), first rector of the restored Roman College, and author of numerous works on political and social philosophy, including the two-volume work on natural law and natural right, Saggio teoretico di diritto naturale appogiato sul fatto (A Theoretical Treatise on Natural Right Based on Fact), had experienced a "conversion" to Thomism, and had made it his life's work from that time to promote this philosophy and to instill it in a number of disciples. As Thomas Behr describes this work in his article on Taparelli:

Taparelli’s major work, the Saggio teoretico di diritto naturale appoggiato sul fatto, that is, the Theoretical Treatise on Natural Right Based on Fact, resulted from his responsibilities at the Collegio Massimo in Palermo where he had been assigned—indeed demoted—and had been given a course in natural law to teach. He could find no textbook that was not filled with misguided and often dangerous doctrines from thinkers such as Burlamaqui, for example, and other popularizers of Pufendorf and Grotius, not to mention those who divulgated the thought of Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau. After spending his first year refuting those works, he felt compelled to put together his own treatise, between 1840 and 1843. Taparelli embarked on his project, braced with the conviction that German idealism and French eclecticism had succeeded in undermining Lockean empiricism and had made possible the rebuilding of metaphysics, and natural law from the ground up.

Behr,* 101. But there were those before and after Taparelli, among whom we can include Canon Vincenzo Buzzetti (1777-1824), a maestro at the Vincentian Collegio Alberoni in Piacenza, "who began his intellectual life as a disciple of John Locke, learned his Thomism and became convinced of its value . . . [coming] to recognize that the modern period had not produced the kind of philosophical guidance for Catholic theologians that would keep Catholic theology from tumbling into eclecticism." Romanus Cessario, O.P., A Short History of Thomism (Catholic University of America, 2005). Canon Buzzetti's pupils, the Jesuits Serafino Sordi (1793-1865) and his brother Domenico, would later become the teachers of, and along with Taparelli, influence the thought of the Pecci brothers, Giuseppe Pecci (1807-1890) and Vincenzo Pecci, the latter better known as Pope Leo XIII. Another that may be named is the German Jesuit Josef Kleutgen (1811-1883), who had a hand in preparing the first draft of Aeterni Patris, and whose role in advancing Thomistic philosophy earned him the name Thomas redivivus, Thomas reborn, and the praise of Pope Leo XIII, who eulogized him with the words, "erat princeps philosophorum," he was a prince of philosophers. Similarly, one can mention the Italian Jesuit Matteo Liberatore (1810-1892), editor of the Civiltà Cattolica beginning in 1850, and author of more than forty published works. The Dominican Tommaso Zigliara (1833-1893), a close friend of Leo XIII, author of numerous works on St. Thomas, and superintendent of the Leonine edition of the works of St. Thomas is another light of the early Thomistic revival.

The influence of St. Thomas on the thought of Leo XIII is clearly seen in his later encyclical, Libertas. Published on June 20, 1888, this encyclical's discussion of human law and its source in both the natural law and eternal law is nothing other than distilled Thomism.

Nothing more foolish can be uttered or conceived than the notion that, because man is free by nature, he is therefore exempt from law. Were this the case, it would follow that to become free we must be deprived of reason; whereas the truth is that we are bound to submit to law precisely because we are free by our very nature. For, law is the guide of man's actions; it turns him toward good by its rewards, and deters him from evil by its punishments.

Foremost in this office comes the natural law, which is written and engraved in the mind of every man; and this is nothing but our reason, commanding us to do right and forbidding sin. Nevertheless, all prescriptions of human reason can have force of law only inasmuch as they are the voice and the interpreters of some higher power on which our reason and liberty necessarily depend. For, since the force of law consists in the imposing of obligations and the granting of rights, authority is the one and only foundation of all law - the power, that is, of fixing duties and defining rights, as also of assigning the necessary sanctions of reward and chastisement to each and all of its commands. But all this, clearly, cannot be found in man, if, as his own supreme legislator, he is to be the rule of his own actions. It follows, therefore, that the law of nature is the same thing as the eternal law, implanted in rational creatures, and inclining them to their right action and end; and can be nothing else but the eternal reason of God, the Creator and Ruler of all the world.

L, 7, 8. Liberalism, nothing other than a false view of liberty, was in Leo XIII's eyes vicious and spiritually deadly because it constituted a treasonable abuse of man's liberty; indeed, it was not liberty at all, but it was the act of a man who was already enslaved in his rebellion.

Hence, these followers of liberalism deny the existence of any divine authority to which obedience is due, and proclaim that every man is the law to himself; from which arises that ethical system which they style independent morality, and which, under the guise of liberty, exonerates man from any obedience to the commands of God, and substitutes a boundless license.

L, 15. It was the eternal law, that in man is denominated the natural law, that was the ultimate standard of all individual morality and communal life, of civil society, of its political institutions, of its laws:

From this it is manifest that the eternal law of God is the sole standard and rule of human liberty, not only in each individual man, but also in the community and civil society which men constitute when united. Therefore, the true liberty of human society does not consist in every man doing what he pleases, for this would simply end in turmoil and confusion, and bring on the overthrow of the State; but rather in this, that through the injunctions of the civil law all may more easily conform to the prescriptions of the eternal law. Likewise, the liberty of those who are in authority does not consist in the power to lay unreasonable and capricious commands upon their subjects, which would equally be criminal and would lead to the ruin of the commonwealth; but the binding force of human laws is in this, that they are to be regarded as applications of the eternal law, and incapable of sanctioning anything which is not contained in the eternal law, as in the principle of all law.

L, 10. Pope Leo XIII's Thomism exercised itself in addressing the social concerns of the day. It was the ultimate foundation of his encyclical Rerum novarum, an encyclical dealing with the issue of capital and labor and the condition of workers, and which ushered in the whole series of Papal encyclicals dealing with social and economic issues. Beginning with Rerum novarum, these papal encyclicals--Quadragesimo anno by Pius XI, Mater et magistra by John XXIII, Octagesima adveniens and Populorum progressio of Paul VI, and John Paul II's Laborem exercens, Sollicitudo rei socialis, and Centesimus annus, and, most recently, Caritas in veritate by Benedict XVI. It is unfortunate that there is no government that has the goal to implement the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, which is nothing other than prudential application of the natural moral law to matters of civil society and economic life.

The legacy of Leo XIII's Aeterni Patris is great, too great to be summarized here. It will have to be a topic, perhaps, for another day. What is important is the commitment it shows to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, and to the notion of ontological ethics which the unholy trinity of Locke, Kant, and Hegel, in various ways, rejected. An ontological ethic will reject the liberalism of Locke, the perverse autonomy of Kant, and the bizarre deification of the State of Hegel.

In our next posting we will review the conclusions of Cortest in the final chapter of his book The Disfigured Face, one entitled "The Survival of Tradition."

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*Thomas C. Behr, "Luigi Taparelli D'Azeglio, S.J. (1793-1862) and the Development of Scholastic Natural-Law Thought as a Science of Society and Politics," Journal of Markets & Morality (Vol. 6, No. 1) (Spring 2003), 99-115.