As we saw in the previous posting in this series, many
people have the idea that human rights come from God or the State as a grant or
gift. That is, they believe as an
article of faith that first humanity exists, and then is endowed with rights
from some source. This accounts (at
least in part) for the current movement to replace “exchange” (based on the
natural right of justice) with “gift” (based on the infused virtue of charity)
as the basis of economic activity, a demand based not on reason, but on faith.
Assuming that the granting of rights is separate from
creation itself (and thus not truly an inherent aspect of human nature) bases
the existence of rights on God’s Will rather than His Nature self-realized in
His intellect — faith rather than reason.
This means that if the agency that endowed humanity with rights changes
His or its mind for whatever reason, then either the rights no longer mean what
they once did, or they no longer exist.
This theory is completely wrong. God did not create humanity and then grant
humanity rights. Nor (for non-believers)
did humanity somehow first appear and then acquire rights. Jefferson’s phrasing in the Declaration of
Independence (and similar language used earlier by George Mason in the Virginia
Declaration of Rights) that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights” describes a single act, not a two-step
process. It is the act of creation by
means of which “their Creator” endows “all men” with “unalienable rights.” It is not a case of first one, then the other.
We do not first exist and then receive God’s gifts. Rather, both existence and our natural rights
are granted in a single act, and both are thus based on God’s Nature, self-realized
in His Intellect. We receive both the
rights and the exercise of rights in a single, unified creative act inseparable
from existence or being itself. Our
natural rights of life, liberty, and property are necessary aspects of
existence that allow us to “pursue happiness,” that is, acquire and develop the
virtue that conforms us closer to our own nature and that of God in Whose image
and likeness we are created.
If we were first created and then given rights as a “gift” — an act of Will instead of Intellect,
of faith instead of reason — that God or others (in God’s Name or that of the
State or Der Volk, of course) can
take away or order us to give away, we would have no true rights at all. Not having rights by nature, we could not be
natural persons. Remember — it is
possession of rights that define someone or something as a “person.”
The so-called “logic of gift” allegedly based on this sort
of coerced “charity” is completely illogical.
It attempts to nullify or negate the validity of “exchange” based on the
natural virtue of justice and the rights of the natural law inherent in each
person (especially freedom of association/contract and private property) and discerned
by reason. It replaces “exchange” with
“gift” based on the supernatural virtue of faith and the duties imposed on each
person as a result of the infusion of the virtue and accepted as an act of
will, not intellect.
The shift from “exchange” to “gift” is justified on the
fallacious grounds that we cannot “give” until we first “receive” as a discrete
and revocable benefice that which we
already have the right to take inherent in our nature from the moment of our creation!
If that were not enough contradiction, advocates
of this shift ignore the conflict inherent in how we can be said to own anything
by right if we are required to divest ourselves of it at the command of someone
else, even if that “someone” is God . . . or (more usually) someone who claims
to be speaking or acting in God’s Name.
The “logic of gift” therefore demands that God violate the
precepts He Himself teaches through Christ’s Vicar on earth or that are
discernible by human reason. As Pius XI
clearly stated, “[N]o vicarious charity can
substitute for justice which is due as an obligation and is wrongfully denied.”
(Quadragesimo Anno, § 137.)
The “obligation” mentioned by the pope is not on God, of
course. It is a duty imposed on all
humanity not to impede unjustly the acquisition of ownership or enjoyment of
the fruits thereof by anyone. In
contrast, the “logic of gift” requires that the duty to respect the rights of
others (a duty under justice) shift from man to God, which God then imposes
back on man as some sort of involuntary charity!
Perhaps not surprisingly, abolishing “exchange” in favor of
“gift” (a transformation that makes commutative justice meaningless) makes
Jesus into either a knave or a fool. He
clearly stated, “one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be
fulfilled.” (Matt. 5:18) and “Do not think that I am come to destroy the law,
or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” (Matt. 5:17). By substituting the principle of distribution
based on charity for the principle of distribution and exchange based on
justice, those who advocate replacing “exchange” with “gift” do the exact
opposite of what Jesus claimed as His mission.
This, too, flatly contradicts explicit papal teaching. As Leo XIII carefully explained, charity
cannot be forced if it is to be true charity; except in dire circumstances, we are morally, not legally obligated to distribute our surplus to those in need. We cannot, therefore, replace “exchange” —
contract — with “gift” (pseudo charity) as the principle for economic
transactions and expect to have a viable system, as the experience of communism
and socialism in the 20th century amply demonstrated. As the pope explained,
“[W]hen
what necessity demands has been supplied, and one’s standing fairly taken
thought for, it becomes a duty to give to the indigent out of what remains
over. ‘Of that which remaineth, give alms.’
It is a duty, not of justice (save in extreme cases), but of Christian
charity — a duty not enforced by human law.”
(Rerum Novarum, § 22.)
Still, the urge to “play God” is very strong among the
self-appointed judges of their fellow man.
As one of today’s premier Catholic intellectuals asserts, “As creatures, we are first
receivers before we are givers.” (Michael Naughton, The Logic of Gift: Rethinking Business as a Community of Persons. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette University
Press, 2012, 30.)
What
this means is that if we change the proper order of things and reverse the
meanings of justice and charity, we begin to think that God makes a legal
instead of moral demand that we give to others.
If that is the case, He is first required out of duty to give to us; we,
the creatures, are imposing an obligation on God, the Creator! As Fulton Sheen explained this subordination
of God to man, “[c]ontemporary thought . . . making religion start with self,
makes it the sum of God’s duties to man.” (Emphasis in the original; Sheen, God and Intelligence, op. cit., 317.)
Nor is this the worst error that people draw from the idea
that the natural law can somehow be separated from human nature, as we will see
in the next posting in this series.
