Godwin's Law is Wrong

The task of applying the criterion of law to power leads to a further question: how does law come into being, and what must be the characteristics of law if it is to be the vehicle of justice rather than the privilege of those who have the power to make the law?

It is, on the one hand, the question of the genesis of the law, but on the other hand, of its own inherent criteria. The problem that law must be, not the instrument of the power of a few, but the expression of the common interest of all seems—at first sight—to have been resolved through the instruments whereby a democratic will is formed in society, since all collaborate in the genesis of the law. This means that it is everyone’s law; it can and must be respected, precisely because it is everyone’s law…

And yet is seems to me that one question remains unanswered. Since total consensus among men is very hard to achieve, the process of forming a democratic will relies necessarily either on an act of delegation or else on a majority decision… But majorities, too, can be blind or unjust, as history teaches us very plainly. When a majority (even if it is an utterly preponderant majority) oppresses a religious or racial minority by means of unjust laws, can we still speak in this instance of justice or indeed, of the law? In other words, the majority principle always leaves open the question of the ethical foundations of the law.

Joseph Ratzinger, “That Which Holds the World Together: The Pre-political Moral Foundations of a Free State,” in The Dialectics of Secularism: On Reason and Religion, 59-60

Reflection – Ratzinger continues to be deeply relevant and insightful here. The book this short essay is taken from is itself a short little thing, less than a hundred pages, consisting of two essays. The first is by Jürgen Habermas, the great atheist secularist philosopher and sociologist; the second is this one by… well, you know who he is!

The subject is the difficulties of forming a functioning democratic society in a secular age. Habermas approaches it from the secularist side, arguing (unconvincingly, in my opinion) for the possibility of a stable society formed without a stable metaphysical view of reality. Ratzinger goes on from this passage to argue that democratic society must be based on something above politics, and that human law must be founded on divine law to avoid the very abuses of power and violation of rights he mentions here, or at the very least to provide an coherent intellectual framework in which to condemn such violations as are bound to happen given our fallen humanity.

This is why, in a certain sense, it is always relevant (Godwin’s Law notwithstanding) to reference Hitler and Nazi Germany in discussions of law and society. Not because Obama = Hitler, or (earlier) Bush = Hitler, or because anyone particularly equals Hitler in our world today. But Hitler and the rise of Nazi Germany raises precisely this question. I do realize that he did not exactly rise to power on an unequivocal majority vote. I do realize that once he was in power he quickly used precisely the tools of state and governance to dismantle and semblance at all of democracy in Germany.

But nonetheless, he was elected, and for much of his regime enjoyed the large support of his countrymen. And if our only criterion for just and legitimate laws is the consent of the governed, or at least procedural propriety, then we have nothing really to say against Nazi Germany.

This is why the question of what happened in Germany is relevant seventy years later. We must provide a rationale for human law and human justice that does not allow, on the level of theory, the wholesale slaughter of a class of human beings in society.

Christianity, rooting the legitimacy of human law in its correspondence to divine law, even while allowing for the messiness of translating one to the other, does indeed provide a coherent way to do this. Secularism has so far failed to do this. Consent and consensus is the only way secularism can find to justify the claims of the law; if tomorrow or the day after we achieve a consensus to suppress enemies of the state without due process or allow the legal killing of some human beings at the arbitrary whim of others, or violate the civil rights of citizens to privacy (hmmm…. all that has happened already… must find more outrageous examples…) – well, secularism has nothing to say to any of that.

So, too bad for Godwin, in other words. Because we have seen a society go mad, essentially, and engage in this level of truly unprecedented evil, we are continually challenged to provide a coherent theory of law and society that excludes Hitler and Nazi Germany as a legitimate government. In a sense, much of Ratzinger’s political and social writings have been done in this very context and for this very reason.

Suspicion Cast on the Law

It is the specific task of politics to apply the criterion of law to power, thereby structuring the use of power in a meaningful manner. It is not the law of the stronger, but the strength of the law that must hold sway.  Power as structured by law, and at the service of the law, is the antithesis of violence, which is a lawless power that opposes the law.

This is why it is important for every society to overcome any suspicion that is cast on the law and its regulations, for it is only in this way that arbitrariness can be excluded and freedom can be experienced as a freedom shared in common with others.

Freedom without law is anarchy, and hence, the destruction of freedom. Suspicion of the law, revolt against the law, will always arise when law itself appears to be no longer the expression of a justice that is at the service of all, but rather the product of arbitrariness and legislative arrogance on the part of those who have the power for it.

Joseph Ratzinger, “That Which Holds the World Together: The Pre-political Moral Foundations of a Free State,” in The Dialectics of Secularism: On Reason and Religion, 58

Reflection – I have been hesitant to write anything about the welter of political scandals on both sides of the Canada-US border these past weeks. I have my reasons for this hesitance: this is really ‘not that kind of blog,’ and I don’t really like the social media peer pressure thing where everyone has to jump on the latest story and blather away about it; the scandals in America have been far more serious than those in Canada, and I am not American, although I love and respect America very much; I didn’t have anything noteworthy to say, and I’m not simply going to clutch my pearls in horror to no good end.

So the other day when I happened to read the above essay by Joseph Ratzinger, which essentially begins with this passage, I said, ‘well, now I have something to say.’ In fact, Ratzinger says it all here. Power as structured by law, and at the service of law, is the antithesis of violence.

Of all the many, many scandals that have filled the news in recent weeks, I think the one that horrifies me the most is the American one of the IRS targeting conservative and pro-life groups for harassment in what appears to have been a pretty blatant (and successful) effort to silence them in the lead-up to the last presidential election.

Because the IRS (and Revenue Canada, its north-of-the-border equivalent) has such power in our current model of governance, the subversion of that power to the agendae of partisan and electoral politics is no small thing. In fact, it calls into question the very legitimacy of the Obama administration, and will continue to do so until there is a full disclosure of evidence, which can only be achieved by the appointment of an independent special prosecutor.

Right now, it appears that the whole power of the state’s taxation apparatus was put to the task of silencing the opponents of the executive branch of the US federal government. And the very appearance of this is effectively the destruction of the American claim to be a free, democratic society. That it has occurred under a party called ‘Democrat’ is a sad irony. Law does indeed seem to have degraded to be ‘the product of arbitrariness and legislative arrogance’ instead of being at the service of justice for all. The only path open back to a coherent society ‘of laws, not men’ is a full and free investigation into the matter (and the other half dozen or so scandals), and criminal charges for anyone who has in fact violated the law, up to and including the president, if need be.

Well, that’s all I have to say. I think Joseph Ratzinger’s words are worth disseminating and reflecting on, and I hope this blog post will play a small part in that process. Talk to you tomorrow.

Send Out the Clowns

The liturgical level [of Christian life] does not stand on its own. It has meaning only in relation to something that really happens, to a reality that is substantially present. Otherwise it would lack real content, like bank notes without funds to cover them. The Lord could say that his Body was ‘given’ only because he had in fact given if; he could present his Blood in the new chalice as shed for many only because he really had shed it. This Body is not the ever-dead corpse of a dead man, nor is the Blood the life-element rendered lifeless. No, sacrifice has become gift, for the Body given in love and the Blood given in love have entered, through the Resurrection, into the eternity of love, which is stronger than death.

Joseph Ratzinger, Spirit of the Liturgy, 55

Reflection – Well, back to Benedict on this wonderful Sunday in June (it is currently grey, cold, and rainy outside here in Combermere). It is still too soon to talk about ‘legacy’ with Joseph Ratzinger and his life of service to the Church. I think, though, that in the long run this book Spirit of the Liturgy will be the most significant contribution.

I say this because of the very real chaos that has existed in the Church in the past 50 years, a chaos expressed on the local level in widespread liturgical disobedience, an ‘anything goes’ attitude where the rubrics and texts of the Mass are at best suggestions, a chaos expressed on the level of liturgical theory by a determinedly horizontal, anti-hierarchical, ahistorical casting of liturgy as primarily or exclusively the local community’s self-expression—a sort of Hegelian manifestation of Spirit through the locally devised rituals of the parish gestalt (a gestalt that is in fact the pastor and his hand-picked liturgical committee inflicting their creations on the rest of the parish).

Ratzinger’s book, which is the best of several fine works on the liturgy he has written, is so significant because it shows the vacuity of that reigning liturgical ideology, and establishes the theology of liturgy on the sure foundations of Christology, soteriology, and ecclesiology. By knowing how the saving work of Christ has been communicated in the Church, we can see why the liturgy is structured as it is, and how each rubric is carefully fashioned to express some dimension of this saving work of Christ, each text is carefully formulated to precisely articulate it.

And so we can’t mess around with it. The era of experimentation and liturgical improv is over. Alas, the memo has not quite gone out everywhere. Just recently there was a Star Wars themed first communion Mass in Germany, complete with light saber blessings. Because, you see, they had used Star Wars in the catechesis of the children, and so it was really ‘relevant’ to the community’s self-understanding. That ‘the Force’ has no connection whatsoever to the Christian understanding of God and that there is actually a pretty profound historical, mystical, transformative reality of Christ being, well, communicated in the Eucharist is dismissed as irrelevant. The children had a good time and everyone had a great laugh, and church was fun for once. That’s what matters.

Meanwhile, the Body and Blood of Christ are given, not as symbols or notional ideas but as living realities. Sacrifice has become gift, and love flows through every prayer, every gesture, every element of the liturgy, until it rises to a climax where Christ in the priest transubstantiates the bread and wine into His own being, which is then given to those present who are in communion with Him (by being free of grave sin) and with His Church (by being members in good standing of the visible Catholic Church).

This is simply the truth of the matter. I think what jars me, and people like me who would be classified as ‘conservatives’ liturgically (I call myself no such thing), is the idea that we have to dress this truth up with balloons or clowns or skits or comedy routines or… I don’t know – something else. Like what’s there is not enough and needs a little help from us. What God has given us is insufficient and so the creative skills of the liturgy committee needs to come to God’s rescue with pirates or dinosaurs or superheroes or strobe lights.

At Mass, we are at the last supper, on Calvary, at the empty tomb, in the upper room. Jesus is there, risen, living, radiant, bearing the wounds of his passion and death, and bearing his love and salvation. We don’t need to dress it up with the fashions of the day or the latest pop culture references (coming soon, a Twilight themed Mass!).

We just need to say the black and do the red and prayerfully, reverently, gratefully, let Jesus love us and save us in the action of the liturgy. Happy Sunday – see you in church!

Let the Sun and the Moon Fall From the Sky

The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.

 St John Henry Newman

Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching, Volume 1, Lecture 8

Reflection – I ran across this quote from Newman on Mark Shea’s blog, and immediately knew I wanted to blog about it. What a radical statement this is. What a horror, a detestation, an utter rejection of sin this entails. And how… utterly at variance with how most people, even most Catholics, I would say, actually think about the matter.

We are very quick, most of us, to excuse not only venial sins but grave ones, on the basis that to follow the moral law would entail suffering on the part of the person. We fornicate and commit adultery or sodomy, or tacitly approve these actions in others, because the worst possible thing we can imagine is to be lonely.

We cheat and steal, practice dishonesty in our businesses and work lives, horde the world’s goods to ourselves while others starve, or again tacitly approve these actions in others, because the worst possible thing is to be poor, and we must do whatever it takes not to be poor.

Lying, too – we tell lies to avoid suffering, embarrassment, or inconvenience, because what is the harm of a lie compared to those tremendous evils? What is the harm of any of this stuff—silly old moral rules!—compared to our temporal happiness, our prosperity, our immediate gratification of desire?

Newman is throwing down a tremendous challenge for us, then. Better that the sun and moon fall from the heavens and millions die in agony than one venial sin be committed! Wow. What do you all think about that? I am really interested in hearing from people, so much so that I just changed my comments setting so that people can comment unmoderated.

Personally, I think this is a matter of strict and unavoidable theo-logic. When we admit that any sin, even venial ones, weaken if not sever our union with God, and that (as I said yesterday) this union with God is the whole purpose of the entire cosmos, then it is clear that even a single venial sin is a more serious matter, with more riding on it, than any amount of events and calamities that are not sin.

So all of this is a grand and sweeping condemnation of and a pretty strong theological argument against the moral theory of consequentialism. This theory, which is the ruling operative ethical theory in society at large, is that when evaluating the moral status of an action we do not first look at whether this action is intrinsically good or evil, but on what the results of the action will be.

So if we see a bunch of results that are all rainbows and sunshine and happy happy joy joy—go ahead! Tell that lie! Steal that money! Sleep with that person! And if the results we foresee are all storm clouds and desolation and starving to death in a garret somewhere, well then, don’t let a bunch of old men in skirts tell you there’s anything wrong with breaking them rules! Do what ya gotta do, baby.

The fact is, of course, that the results of any single action we perform are like ripples in a pond, and we cannot foresee any of them beyond the immediate and obvious. Consequentialism fails as a moral theory right there, since the data one must use to evaluate morality is simply not available to us. But Newman goes much further, and argues that the consequence of a single venial sin, insofar as it is a sin, outweighs a universe of temporal benefits.

Of course, moral heroism, which we are all called to, says it is far better to starve to death on the streets than to tell a single lie or break even the least of the commandments of God. We just had this in the Gospel yesterday—if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off… better to enter heaven with one hand than hell intact.

Serious stuff, serious challenge, seriously controversial in our modern day of government surveillance, drone killings, torture, abortion, pollution, and sexual libertinism. (Notice how I include issues bound to offend both conservatives and liberals there!). So… what do you all think of that?