Before there was Sidney, there were the "Schoolmen," the Scholastics, the philosophical descendants of Thomas Aquinas such as the Jesuit priest Francisco Suárez, whose work informed Dutchman Hugo Grotius's seminal work on natural law.
The notion of liberty as a natural right predates the Enlightenment, the Whigs, and modern "rationalism."
SECT. II. The common Notions of Liberty are not from School-Divines, but from Nature.
Tho the Schoolmen were corrupt, they were neither stupid nor unlearned: They could not but see that which all Men saw, nor lay more approv'd Foundations, than, That Man is naturally free; That he cannot justly be depriv'd of that Liberty without cause, and that he dos not resign it, or any part of it, unless it be in consideration of a greater good, which he proposes to himself.
But if he unjustly imputes the Invention of this to School-Divines, he in some measure repairs his Fault in saying, This has bin foster'd by all succeeding Papists for good Divinity: The Divines of the reformed Churches have entertain'd it, and the Common People every where tenderly embrace it.That is to say, all Christian Divines, whether reform'd or unreform'd, do approve it, and the People every where magnify it, as the height of human Felicity. But Filmer and such as are like to him, being neither reform'd nor unreform'd Christians, nor of the People, can have no Title to Christianity; and, in as much as they set themselves against that which is the height of human Felicity, they declare themselves Enemys to all that are concern'd in it, that is, to all Mankind.
—Sidney, Discourses concerning Government, c. 1683
Like any good 17th century English Protestant, Sidney disparages and minimizes the role of Catholicism in creating the emerging political philosophy that would be known as "liberalism," but then again it still goes on today with the 21st century secularists.
Plus ça change.
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[See also Timothy Gordon's Plagiarizing Catholicism: Algernon Sidney and the Whigs:
In the end, the only stretch of “intellectual reality” inheres in the American hagiography suggesting that Whig theory was a new American innovation in the late 18th Century…or even a new British one during the prior century…or even a new Northern European Protestant one during the century prior to that.
Whiggism is simply Anglified Catholic political theory imported by sola scriptura Protestants (many of whom were also Enlightenment empiricists) and turned directly against the Catholics in 17th century England—and somewhat less directly against the Catholics in 18th century America. Now how simple is that? Probably not simple enough to plagiarize effectively!]
17 comments:
Lot of great links providing material for future front page posts. I think we will be forever consigned to argue over what Locke really meant. I don't think T. Gordon does a good job here:
Locke was as Protestant as he was empiricist. As Jeremy Waldron notes, “Locke was intensely interested in Christian doctrine, and in the Reasonableness he insisted that most men could not hope to understand the detailed requirements of the law of nature without the assistance of the teachings and example of Jesus [i.e. the Bible].” This is a repudiation, not an affirmation, of natural law—the abiding epistemological expression of the Protestant one, at least until Immanuel Kant came along. Only revelation is meaningful. By implication then, Locke’s metaphysics was the perfect expression of Anglo-Protestant Christianity, notwithstanding his very un-Protestant “tabula rasa,” which was only a small setback. Such a setback is quite negligible in light of the more predominating Lockean concomitance between a meaningless empiricist nature and a meaningless Protestant nature—both of which thrive in Locke’s philosophy. And this means that the concept of “natural law” should be utterly anathema to Locke or the Lockean.
This is why, Waldron continues, “like the two other very influential natural law philosophers [being read by the Founders], Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf, Locke equated natural law with the biblical revelation.” Natural law equals Biblical revelation? What an intentional misconstruing of opposites!
Natural law is what we know about reality from nature, not from revelation. Locke, however had to proceed like that because he wanted to overthrow the (ironically Catholic) tyrant in 1688. And he wanted to do so even though natural law and revelation are conceptually distinct. Indeed, such a distinction between Natural Law (inherent in the two out of three of Catholicism’s teaching voices the Reformation excised) and Revelation informed the sine qua non of the Reformation, which repudiated the Catholic view of their concomitance.
To the extent that he's quoting Waldron, accurately in context, I agree with Gordon and not Waldron. Natural law is not biblical revelation and I don't think either Locke or those other natural law thinkers equated them as such. Rather the argument is that they are separate channels that will arrive at the same conclusion.
Locke may well have repudiated natural law; but if that's true, it's an esoteric conclusion. Locke's exoteric texts don't do such. Rather, one could argue Locke changed or weakened the classical understanding of natural law by providing such a metaphysically thin basis for it.
But ultimately I think Locke made a good point when "he insisted that most men could not hope to understand the detailed requirements of the law of nature without the assistance of the teachings and example of Jesus." It's a point that the Christian-Deists, Unitarians, and other expositors of "Primitive Christianity" would later run with. And I don't see it as a repudiation of natural law or equating it with biblical revelation.
If I'm not mistaken Locke makes similar points about the entire "canon" of the Bible.
The average person is average in intelligence. I'm not. And Tom's not. Dr. Ben Abbott is not. We are lucky in a sense. (Though we may be deficient in other areas; I'm not for instance, a great bar fighter.)
I've gotten through Aristotle and the natural law thinkers. And I've read the Bible and so on. All of this can be very difficult to understand. Parts of the Bible are as difficult to understand as the intricacies of Aristotle and Aquinas.
Locke was NOT saying that whereas natural law can be difficult, the Bible is easy. Rather he was saying that Jesus' moral teachings were much easier for people of average or below average intelligence to understand than what you get through the long chain of reasoning required to understand the natural law.
In essence, Jesus here provides a shortcut to get to the same conclusions you get to through reason alone, when one examines nature.
What Dr. Frazer terms the "theistic rationalists." That's what they most appreciated about Jesus. And they did this as "rationalists" who strongly believed in the power of man's reason.
The point of this post is to show Algernon Sidney giving credit to the Catholic scholastics for the Founding principle of liberty as a natural right, long before the Enlightenment, which today is [wrongly] given the credit.
When the list is made of the "5 principle sources"
1. Ancient Greco-Roman; 2. Biblical, with a focus on Protestantism; 3. English Common Law; 4. Enlightenment rationalism; and 5. Whig, with a focus on the British "Commonwealth" thinkers
Catholic political thought, which is not strictly Biblical, is conspicuously absent, and should take precedence over #4 and 5. Anti-Catholic prejudice--then and now--is likely why. Gordon's Trenchant [see what I did there?] commentary
Whiggism is simply Anglified Catholic political theory imported by sola scriptura Protestants
is at least partially confirmed by Algernon Sidney himself, which is why I posted this "smoking gun" of a proto-Whig giving the credit where it is due. Sidney was not the only one aware of this fact, but since Founders such as Adams give Sidney so much credit for the Founding principles, it's helpful to see where the latter got them.
I would also submit that the American context, where there was and is no separation between civil courts and separate "ecclesiastical" courts that adjudicated much of everyday life--marriage, adultery, drunkeness, inheritance, even landlord-tenant disputes--dangerously overlooks canon law in speaking only of #3, English "common" law in our list of Founding sources.
http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7774&context=penn_law_review
Again, it's the whitewash of the unmistakably Christian milieu that allows theses such as "The Godless Constitution" to escape closer scrutiny by those led to believe John Locke dropped in from Mars one day in 1688 to bring the Enlightenment and save Christendom from the error of its ways.
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As for Jeremy Waldron's work on John Locke's Christianity as essential to his thought, that's also an area where the modern secular "Enlightenment" narrative could use some serious re-evaluation, not to mention this "theistic rationalist" business.
Anything that sidelines "Christian," especially "Catholic."
I think the problem here is that since that America's Founders and their Protestant European influences were anti-Roman Catholic, your argument is that the Catholic influence was an accidental esoteric influence.
I can't distinguish this from the Straussian idea that Hobbes deserves such credit as an esoteric but profound influence.
No, because this post shows Algernon Sidney openly admitting that the Catholic Scholastics got there first. No "esoteric" about it.
It depends on what "esoteric" means. Perhaps "accidental" is the better term. Whatever the Founders retained from Sidney, they forgot that part.
If we are going to play the "who got there first game" I wonder what to make of the truthfulness of Sidney's assertion. He seems to argue that "such" was a very old idea that and many people got there before the schoolmen.
Sidney IS saying that. But it's bullshit. This is what Strauss means by the exoteric, the publicly acceptable way of putting things so they don't hang you. [The crown hanged Sidney anyway, BTW. Which is why Locke published his Two Treatises anonymously!]
Sidney is attempting to avoid being linked to the Catholics, specifically Robert Cardional Bellermine, who opposed the divine right of kings.
I thought you knew the story of Filmer and Patriarcha. Both Sidney and Locke wrote versus Patriarcha, which was a response to Bellarmine! READ THE COMMENTS IN THE ORIGINAL GORDON ARTICLE!
http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2014/04/plagiarizing-catholicism-algernon-sidney-and-the-whigs.html
TGordon
Apr 11, 2014 at 9:37 am Reply
Dr. Birzer: thanks for the kind words. I look forward to ongoing dialogue here! Your article was greatly helpful to the Whig chapter in my book, to which the Sidney connection (which sounds like a film!) informs quite the “cherry on top.” It led me to Royalist Robert Filmer’s “Patriarcha,” the crown gem of Tory Royalism leading to 1688. Patriarcha was primarily a response to both Bellarmine AND Suarez, who became the first source for Protestant Whigs in combat with Protestant Tories. Prots looking to Caths against other Prots. But even that fact was mere cherry-on-top, considering the requirements of “Prot-Enlight,” which tells one everything up front.
I knew Locke and Sidney wrote against Filmer. I am more familiar with their works than I am with Filmer's original.
"But if he unjustly imputes the Invention of this to School-Divines, he in some measure repairs his Fault in saying, ..."
"Sidney IS saying that. But it's bullshit. This is what Strauss means by the exoteric, the publicly acceptable way of putting things so they don't hang you. [The crown hanged Sidney anyway, BTW. Which is why Locke published his Two Treatises anonymously!]
"Sidney is attempting to avoid being linked to the Catholics, specifically Robert Cardional Bellermine, who opposed the divine right of kings."
It may be bullshit. However, I think the way it works with esoteric messages is we have to take people at their exoteric word and speculate. If in private letters they let you know what they really mean, then that solves the riddle. Otherwise, no.
So I will assume that it's Sidney's sincere opinion informed by anti-Roman Catholic bias.
Though it's good that we are engaging in critical study.
Filmer wrote against Catholic Cardinal Bellarmine. This is how Bellarmine and the Catholic argument for liberty ended up in the hands of Sidney, Locke and even Thomas Jefferson, who also had a copy of "Patriarcha."
You keep arguing esoterica where there is none.
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https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=6607
The most interesting aspect of Patriarcha from a Catholic perspective is that the first pages discredit and attack the writings of St. Robert Bellarmine, who was one of the most eloquent and prolific defenders of freedom the Catholic Church has ever produced. It was customary that writers dealing with political and religious controversies begin their books by presenting their nemesis as an anti-thesis, which in Filmer's case was Bellarmine's position that political authority is vested in the people and that kings do not rule by divine right, but through the consent of the governed. This was a radical idea in the early 1600's, though it is widely accepted today.
In Patriarcha, Filmer quotes Bellarmine directly as follows: "Secular or Civil authority (saith he) 'is instituted by men; it is in the people unless they bestow it on a Prince. This Power is immediately in the Multitude, as in the subject of it; for this Power is in the Divine Law, but the Divine Law hath given this power to no particular man. If the Positive Law be taken away, there is left no Reason amongst the Multitude (who are Equal) one rather than another should bear the Rule over the Rest. Power is given to the multitude to one man, or to more, by the same Law of Nature; for the Commonwealth cannot exercise this Power, therefore it is bound to bestow it upon some One man or some Few. It depends upon the Consent of the multitude to ordain over themselves a King or other Magistrates, and if there be a lawful cause, the multitude may change the Kingdom into an Aristocracy or Democracy' (St. Robert Bellarmine, Book 3 De Laicis, Chapter 4). Thus far Bellarmine; in which passages are comprised the strength of all that I have read or heard produced for the Natural Liberty of the Subject." (Patriarcha, page 5.)
Imagine what Jefferson must have been thinking as he read the opening paragraphs of Patriarcha, a direct assault on the Roman Catholic scholarship of Bellarmine:
"Since the time that school divinity (i.e. Catholic Universities) began to flourish, there hath been a common opinion maintained as well by the divines as by the divers of learned men which affirms: 'Mankind is naturally endowed and born with freedom from all subjection, and at liberty to choose what form of government it please, and that the power which any one man hath over others was at the first by human right bestowed according to the discretion of the multitude.' This tenet was first hatched in the (Medieval Roman Catholic Universities), and hath been fostered by all succeeding papists for good divinity. The divines also of the reformed churches have entertained it, and the common people everywhere tenderly embrace it as being most plausible to flesh and blood, for that it prodigally distributes a portion of liberty to the meanest of the multitude, who magnify liberty as if the height of human felicity were only to be found in it — never remembering that the desire of liberty was the cause of the fall of Adam."
There is no doubt that Jefferson, after reading Filmer, must have been struck by Bellarmine's definition of individual freedom and popular sovereignty. It may come as a surprise to some, but a closer analysis of Bellarmine's writing and Catholic Church history demonstrates that since 1200 AD, Catholic Church has defended individual rights and freedoms, which eventually led to the abolition of slavery, serfdom, and the rise of popular sovereignty at the expense of absolutist monarchs and tyrannical nobles.
And Jon, re-reading Filmer, he himself says that the best argument for liberty is Cardinal Bellarmine's.
Thus far Bellarmine; in which passages are comprised the strength of all that I have read or heard produced for the Natural Liberty of the Subject." (Patriarcha, page 5.)
Yes, it may be said that Filmer is picking the Catholic to refute in order to gain Protestant sympathy for his patron King James [yes, THAT King James! The one the Prots name their Bible after!].
The fact is, Bellarmine is there well before Sidney or Locke. And the Jesuit Francisco Suarez before him--whose book King James also burned!
We're only doing the philology here. What I'm posting is not in serious scholarly dispute. "Theistic rationalist" Jefferson surely read Catholic St. Robert Bellarmine, who is on page 5 of "Patriarcha," which Jefferson owned.
Wearin' me out, bro. I thought you knew all this.
No I'm not arguing esoterica. I am examining the face value of Sidney's statement that the schoolmen were arguing what lots of other people knew before and around them and that it's wrong to impute the idea to them. That paraphrases what Sidney said. You called it bullshit. Maybe it is. Maybe he knew it was. Or maybe he sincerely believed it. Maybe there was something to his point.
By the way, this is what I mean by "critical study" and how it illustrates just how bad as both history AND theology the "Providential history" of David Barton is.
Barton and those likeminded in his movement (W. Federer, etc.), see a sermon that the Founding Fathers dug claiming the Ancient Israels had a republic. Instead of merely noting that fact, he concludes Ancient Israel in fact had a republic.
My critical question is "did they in fact" have a republic?
Likewise A. Sidney claims it's wrong to credit the school-men for the invention of such "rights" theories.
Barton's method would say, yes, Sidney said it, therefore it's wrong the credit the school-men with a citation to Sidney as authority for the proposition.
David Barton is not part of any serious discussion about anything. That's poisoning the well.
Barton and those likeminded in his movement (W. Federer, etc.), see a sermon that the Founding Fathers dug claiming the Ancient Israels had a republic. Instead of merely noting that fact, he concludes Ancient Israel in fact had a republic.
My critical question is "did they in fact" have a republic?
No, the question is whether the Founding era believed the Hebrews had a republic. The answer is, yes, somewhat, per Paine's "Common Sense," especially when "republic" is used in contradistinction to a monarchy, which represented the overwhelming majority of European political systems up until the UK's Glorious Revolution of 1688, followed by America's.
"Near three thousand years passed away, from the Mosaic account of the creation, till the Jews under a national delusion requested a king. Till then their form of government (except in extraordinary cases where the Almighty interposed) was a kind of Republic, administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under that title but the Lord of Hosts."
"But if he unjustly imputes the Invention of this to School-Divines, he in some measure repairs his Fault in saying, ..."
I see this as an open question that hasn't been answered.
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