Religious Toleration and the Theologico-Political Problem, Pt. III
Editor’s note: This article is the final installment in a three-piece essay. Parts one and two can be viewed here and here, respectively.
Storck’s second argument that natural law is an insufficient basis for government is that there is no “agreement on what we mean by natural law.” He continues:
[W]e encounter difficulties applying natural law in our legislative enactments. It is the case to be sure that the vast majority of human laws will be restatements or specifications of natural law, but who is to decide what is a legitimate restatement or specification? It is precisely over questions of the scope of natural law that today we have so much controversy: over marriage and contraception, for example.
Even if all of this were true, it proves nothing. This argument applies equally well to every other kind of law, because all law must be interpreted and applied by human reason. Do we agree on what is a “legitimate restatement or specification” of the plain language of the Constitution, or, for that matter, of the profound intricacies of Scripture and sacred tradition? Which of these, then, is Storck suggesting might be a plainer and more authoritative law for government? Even if magistrates consulted an infallible interpreter of God’s law, would they be able to infallibly understand that interpretation and infallibly apply it to the realities of politics?
This is precisely Locke’s point. “Men’s … Passions, Vices, and mistaken Interests” often lead human reason astray. [1] Thus, the immense power of government should be limited to dealing with only those things we are most certain are right and wrong. Locke writes that “Moral Actions,” like murder, theft and rape, are what our understandings most easily judge to be right or wrong. This is because they are not only intuited by our minds to be contrary to the natural law, but because they verify our intuitions by showing “fruit” immediately in the external world. Thus, almost all rational beings around the world agree in condemning them.
Speculative Beliefs (also called “opinions” in the Letter [2]), on the other hand, depend primarily on revelation and are an exercise in faith more than reason—for instance, belief in the Virgin Birth or the Second Coming. Beliefs of this sort don’t directly manifest themselves in actions, and for this reason lack the self-evident quality “Moral Actions” possess.
This is not to say that Locke thought “opinions” unimportant. (As we have seen, Locke himself thought that the “opinion” of a future state, which state is only knowable via revelation, was essential for a moral citizenry.) It is only to say that “opinions” are more open to dispute, and therefore should not be inculcated through the power of the state. Thus, Locke writes that “the business of Laws is not to provide for the Truth of Opinions, but for the Safety and Security of the Commonwealth.” [3]
I have thoroughly shown that the charges that Storck levels at religious liberty are groundless. As his own examples show, reason, if properly informed by “religious truth,” is sufficient for government. Far from suggesting a dichotomy between the natural and supernatural, Locke’s theory of toleration actually require magistrates and citizens to understand the interrelation between the two. God’s will, they are taught, is the ultimate source both of personal morality and civil justice. Although the language and scope of government’s decrees are confined to natural law’s expression of God’s will, the preaching of things above reason sharpens and adds authority to the natural law. Thus, while a Lockean polity may not embrace a particular church, it most certainly embraces religion over atheism, and monotheism over atheism. What’s more, it does so in such a way that leaves the defining of doctrine to God’s representatives rather than dangerously involving Caesar’s.
Lastly, I’d like to point out several parts of Storck’s argument that I think should be of serious concern to every conscientious reader. By way of making his case against Locke, Storck has been forced to contend that governments ought to judge not only the morality of actions, but “the truth or falsity” of beliefs as well. The state, he asserts, must not only profess the whole truth of orthodox religion, but should judge on this basis in its highest courts—and even require its justices to make “theological arguments,” as well as proselytize, as part of their official duties.
In his criticisms of the First Amendment, Storck has unequivocally implied that government ought to take an active interest in which church best represents the truth, and should actively support that church at the expense of the others. Of course, he attempts to cloak this in nebulous assurances that the state need not “require civil disabilities of any kind for non-Catholics.” But he gives no reason why not. Given his insistence that governments make law based on the “truth” of the prevailing church’s doctrine and criminalize what is considered to be theological “falsity,” such assurances are fanciful.
Perhaps even he realizes this, for he has written elsewhere (contradicting himself) that the “just requirements of public order,” at least in a Catholic society, “would necessarily include that social unity based upon a recognition of the Catholic Church as the religion of society, and the consequent exclusion of all other religions from public life.” [4] This is why Storck, if he wishes to continue this discussion, will need to articulate, in a thorough and detailed way, exactly what kind of political society he is proposing as a replacement for the Lockean model. I challenge him to do so in a way that proves that it is less likely to abuse religion and misconstrue the common good, and more likely to preserve orthodoxy, than those proposals found in the Letter. Thus far, he has been able to hide safely behind his cavilling about the Letter. As we have seen, this attitude has led him to object to elements of Locke’s theory (such as the way that appeals to the common good can be abused) that are simply part of the nature of politics.
Especially troubling about Storck’s arguments is the flagrant way in which they disregard—or, at the very least, rationalize beyond recognition—the Vatican’s defense of religious liberty, as expressed in Dignitatis Humanae:
[M]an perceives and acknowledges the imperatives of the divine law through the mediation of conscience. In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor … to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially in matters religious. The reason is that the exercise of religion, of its very nature, consists before all else in those internal, voluntary and free acts whereby man sets the course of his life directly toward God. No merely human power can either command or prohibit acts of this kind. The social nature of man, however, itself requires that he should give external expression to his internal acts of religion: that he should share with others in matters religious; that he should profess his religion in community. Injury therefore is done to the human person and to the very order established by God for human life, if the free exercise of religion is denied in society, provided just public order is observed.
Locke would have wholeheartedly agreed with these sentiments. Perhaps if Storck is willing to make this viewpoint central to his discussion of religious liberty, [5] as Pope Francis has recently done in Evangeli Gaudium, continuing this conversation could be more fruitful:
The Synod Fathers spoke of the importance of respect for religious freedom, viewed as a fundamental human right. This includes “the freedom to choose the religion which one judges to be true and to manifest one’s beliefs in public.” A healthy pluralism, one which genuinely respects differences and values them as such, does not entail privatizing religions in an attempt to reduce them to the quiet obscurity of the individual’s conscience or to relegate them to the enclosed precincts of churches, synagogues or mosques.
[1] Locke, Writings on Religion, ed. Victor Nuovo (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 195
[2] Locke, Letter Concerning Toleration and Other Writings, 44-45. Storck chastises Locke for having the audacity to call “religious truth” “opinion.” But Locke is using “opinion” in a way that, as the Oxford English Dictionary states, is obsolete. According to this definition, the word means: “knowledge; expectation based on knowledge or belief.”
[3] Ibid, 44-45
[4] “The Problem of Religious Liberty: A New Proposal.” Faith & Reason, vol. 15, no. 1 (Spring 1989).
[5] I am aware that Storck elsewhere (as in the essay listed above, n4) attempts to find a way to make his arguments compatible with Dignitatis Humanae by exploiting a single clause of that document, but so far as I can tell this is the viewpoint of a very small minority of Catholics, and most certainly seems to be at odds with Pope Francis’s view of the subject.
