In the previous posting in this series we saw that, in
orthodox Christian belief, the “grant” of the natural rights of life, liberty,
and property is not, and could never be separated from the act of creation or
existence itself. To argue otherwise is
to claim that natural rights are not, in fact, part of nature at all — a
contradiction in terms. They would be,
rather, a later “add-on” that is not, strictly speaking, essential for human
beings to be able to conform themselves to their own human nature.
Nor does the essential argument change for non-Christians or
even non-theists. This makes sense if we
agree with Aquinas that the natural law is written in the hearts of all men,
that all people are equally human, and are human in the same way as all other
people. We need merely start with the
supremely logical premise that essential human nature cannot change and is the
same for everyone.
If, on the other hand, we admit that what defines humanity’s
substantial nature can change, then we have admitted that nothing can define
anything, for who knows when the definition will
change, or who has the power to change it?
If human — or any other — nature is not certain, then what is certain? How can we be said to know anything?
It does not matter (at least for our purposes here) that,
for example, Thomas Jefferson was not Catholic, or possibly in any meaningful
sense a Christian. In writing the
Declaration of Independence, Jefferson assumed as a matter of course that
humanity’s natural rights are absolute — “unalienable” — in human nature. There is thus no way to separate rights from
each individual human being, and therefore no way to sever personality from being as
so many today demand by making natural rights alienable or subject to
redefinition.
Had Jefferson meant that the Creator first made man and
later vested him with rights, he would have said so. Jefferson, whatever you may think of his
equivocations, even hypocrisy on slavery, was not a stupid man, nor was he a
poor writer. Benjamin Franklin was by
far more clever and witty a writer, John Adams more forceful and emotional,
George Mason more precise and legalistic, but Jefferson was, all things
considered and for all his faults, brilliant.
Jefferson might avoid a subject, but when he stated
something, you knew what he was talking about . . . assuming you knew what the
words meant in the first place. Thus,
had Jefferson meant that the Creator vested humanity with rights apart from
human nature itself (and therefore alienable), he would have said “all men are
created equal, and are then endowed by
their Creator with certain alienable
rights,” or words to that effect. (Had Jefferson
done so, of course, or had he meant that natural rights are really alienable at the will of the
strongest, he would have undermined the whole case the colonies had against
Great Britain.)
Jefferson’s position on the natural law was Aristotelian, Jefferson
being a sort of unbaptized or pre-Thomist, to use an analogy Chesterton used
more cleverly with respect to Aristotle himself. The Creator created humanity with rights as
an inherent — inalienable or absolute — aspect of human nature. The grant of existence, and the grant of the rights
of existence (life, liberty, property, etc.),
was not a contradictory two-step process that nullifies itself. It was, rather, a single unified and
consistent act of creating “being.”
This “unity of creation” is analogous to and derived from Aquinas’s
“unity of the Intellect.” The unity of
creation ensures that, God being perfect, knowing and being wholly and all, that
is, knowing everything fully, with His Intellect and His Nature perfectly
integrated (“self-realized”), relations between God and man are, ultimately,
based only on charity. At the same time,
man being imperfect (but perfectible), knowing and being only in part, relations
between man and man are necessarily based on justice, albeit fulfilled or
completed by charity. As Paul explained
in Chapter 13 of his first letter to the Corinthians,
“Charity
never falleth away: whether prophecies
shall be made void or tongues shall cease or knowledge shall be destroyed. For we know in part: and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, that
which is in part shall be done away. When
I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a
child. But, when I became a man, I put
away the things of a child. We see now
through a glass in a dark manner: but
then face to face. Now I know in
part: but then I shall know even as I am
known. And now there remain faith, hope,
and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.”
Why is this important?
Even God cannot take away or change rights that He has built
into something created in His own image and likeness. That would be to change human nature — being
— itself. If (as Christians, Jews, and
Muslims believe) God is a perfect Being, and humanity was created in His “image
and likeness,” then God cannot change human nature. To say that God can change human nature is
the same as saying that God can change His own Nature. This is impossible.
Here is the argument.
Change implies movement toward or away from perfection. God’s perfection therefore necessarily implies that God cannot
change. Change in the natural law based
on God’s Nature would mean that He is then either “more perfect,” or less perfect. The former is an oxymoron when applied to
that which is already absolute perfection.
The latter implies that He is imperfect, and therefore not God.
God being perfect, and His perfect Nature being reflected in
imperfect but perfectible human
nature, it necessarily follows that natural rights cannot be a mere “add-on” to human nature, or some kind of
revocable or changeable gift. As a
reflection of God’s Nature, “human nature” without natural rights would not truly
be human nature, for it would not
then reflect God’s Nature, even
imperfectly, “through a glass in a dark manner.”
By the same token, if human nature could truly be human
nature without natural rights, then
either human nature is not a reflection of God’s Nature, or God’s Nature would
be imperfect as It would then not embody the natural law that manifests as
natural rights. Natural rights are a
gift of God, not as something separate from being, but as an integral part of
the larger gift of existence (being) itself.
Can God do anything?
Yes — except be “not-God,”
that is, embody a contradiction such as an imperfect perfect Being, or a
reflection that does not reflect, even imperfectly. This is why Fulton Sheen in his first book, God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy
(1925), insisted almost to the point of redundancy that the problem with the
modern world is the ease with which people accept contradiction. Contradiction violates the first principle of
reason, negating everything that follows.
G. K. Chesterton concurred, both in the “Introduction” (technically a “foreword”)
he wrote to Sheen’s book, and in many of his own books and essays.
And therein lies a tale — and why I believe, however worthy
Chesterton may be, and however deserving of canonization, he will not be
canonized any time soon. That is what we
will look at in the next posting in this series.