As some of the panelists indicated, one of [J.] Budziszewski's main ideas is to oppose what he calls "the Second Table Project." It is said that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai Ten Commandments on two tablets of stone. Traditionally, the first four commandments are identified as the first tablet or table, and they concern the worship of God; the last six commandments (beginning with honoring father and mother) are identified as the second table, and they concern moral laws. Some Christians (Roger Williams, for example) have seen here a separation of Church and State, in that the Church enforces the first table of theological law, while the State enforces only the second table of moral law. The first table requires religious faith. But the second table can be known by natural reason. The first table corresponds to divine law that can be known only by those who are believers in the Bible as divine revelation. The second table corresponds to natural law that can be known by all human beings, even those who are not biblical believers, because it depends on natural human experience. The second table can stand on its own natural ground without any necessary dependence on the supernatural. But this is exactly what Budziszewski denies, because, he insists, there cannot be a natural law if there is no divine lawgiver.In the title of my post I used the term "weakness of fideism." Admittedly, it's only a weakness if we understand the Bible's apparent sanction of slavery to be problematic.
[...]
A third example of natural law correcting the Bible is recognizing the wrongness of the Bible's endorsement of slavery. While the Bible sanctions slavery (see my post here, which includes links to other posts), Budziszewski knows by natural law that this is wrong, and therefore he looks for some way to correct the Bible to conform to his natural moral knowledge that slavery is wrong. He writes: "Consider how many centuries it took natural law thinkers even in the Christian tradition to work out the implications of the brotherhood of master and slave. At least they did eventually. Outside of the biblical orbit, no one ever did--not spontaneously" (The Line Through the Heart, 36). The explicit teaching of the Bible is that the "brotherhood of master and slave" is consistent with preserving slavery as a moral good, and this was the understanding of many Christians in the American South before the Civil War. But Budziszewski rightly judges that Christians had to correct the Bible by seeing that human brotherhood demands the abolition of slavery as a great moral wrong.
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Arnhart on Natural Law, Darwin and Weakness of Fideism
See here from Larry Arnhart. A taste:
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20 comments:
With next to zero direct quotes from Budziszewski himself provided by you or Arnhart, I think the gentle reader is making a huge mistake investing any more time in Arnhart arguing with his own paraphrases of Budziszewski.
Further, in one of the few quotes he does use, Arnhart tries to use it to catch Budziszewski in a contradiction. This is sophistry in its rawest: trying to beat the other fellow instead of searching for truth.
As for slavery, the Hebrew version was not the same as the Greek version was not the same as the medieval feudal version was not the same as the race slavery of the American South--the lattermost explicitly banned by the Bible as "manstealing."
_________
KIDNAPPING (MANSTEALING)
kid'-nap-ing The term itself occurs only in the New Testament andrapodistes ="manstealer") in 1 Timothy 1:10. The crime was directly forbidden in the Hebrew law (Exodus 21:16 Deuteronomy 24:7), and was made punishable with death.
_______________
And as for the Story of Isaac, if God had permitted Abraham to kill Isaac, now we're talking about the Bible contradicting the natural law. But God didn't permit it, did he? More crap arguments from people who get their Bible piecemeal from Google.
When will it end, Lord, when will it end?
Hi, Tom.
Putting aside the question of whether the prohibition on "manstealing" applied only to the involuntary enslavement of other Hebrews (my sense is it did, but we don't need to get into it), the Torah certainly didn't prohibit the acquisition of slaves, whether by purchase, inheritance, or sometimes conquest. It describes regulations for temporary debt-slavery (for Hebrews), permanent chattel-slavery (largely for gentiles), corporal punishment, manumission, etc.
Is such a system consistent with natural law?
I don't think it's right that the American or European version clearly qualifies as what the Bible prohibits as "manstealing."
The American/European version would, it seems to me, qualify as "manstealing" only if Europeans went to Africa to kidnap free people. I'm sure it happened. But if I am not mistaken -- I'm certainly no expert on the history of the slave trade -- that practice was illegal under British law as part of their regulations of the legal slave trade.
What was legal was to either directly or through Arab middlemen buy black African slaves from black African owners. And typically they were slaves as the result of being defeated in tribal wars.
Hi, Jon.
Along the same lines, Mosaic law permitted the procurement of chattel-slaves from gentiles, without apparent restriction on how the slaves came into bondage.
(Also, I would note that Arnhart doesn't discern parallels between ancient Hebrew and antebellum American slavery all by his lonesome. He states, correctly, that defenders of slavery themselves drew on the Bible's portrayal to justify the perpetuation of the American version. Modern secularists were not the first to see the analogy.)
But it strikes me that a point-by-point compare-and-contrast of Deuteronomy and Roots is a bit of a digression from Arnhart's principal idea that natural law "corrects" (a word choice that has me making faces) the Bible when it comes to slavery. Is there a way to reconcile the Hebrew system of debt- and chattel-slavery, taken on its own, with the natural law? (Not the theory and vocabulary of natural law, to be clear, but the thing itself--a universal(?), timeless(?) architecture of justice that transcends our gritty, temporal ordinances and statutes and injunctions.)
It's hard for me to see how. My sense is that either Hebrew slavery was inconsistent with natural law, or the natural law is grittier (or less universal or timeless) than is often advertised.
Again, it is necessary to delineate the different types of slavery. Isn't it better to being a conquered people under slavery rather than to exterminate them completely?
Here's some cool stuff, incl Jewish sources.
http://www.sefaria.org/sheets/6305
I'm not clear on your response to my question, Tom. Is it your position that enslaving conquered people is consistent with natural law because it's better than utterly exterminating them?
It's not my place to make Tom's argument for him. He, in the past, invoking Channing, made the better argument before.
The text of the Bible, without natural law doesn't get you out of slavery. Likewise, one could say the text of the Bible, doesn't prohibit contraception. Though it doesn't permit it either. That's where the Church's use of the natural law to supplement the Bible steps in.
We can go on. The right to rebel against tyrants (in lieu of Roman's 13)? Natural rights to political liberty? Again, such does not derive from the text of the Bible.
Fideism is Sola Scriptura, with no natural law or natural rights, discoverable from "reason" to supplement it.
The tradition of Thomism says read both revelation and reason together so they don't contradict one another. They come from the same source. All of scripture is true, but still incomplete without natural law to supplement it.
I think that's where Channing's case comes in. No it was not "revealed" in sacred scripture that slavery is forbidden. Rather, it was a later discovery in reason and integrated into Christian teachings.
The counterargument would be scripture actually does permit slavery and is in need of a "correction" as Arnhart put it. "Correction" in this sense means like you are revising or editing it like Jefferson did.
Hi, Jon.
Channing, at least in the excerpt Tom recently posted, is addressing a related but quite separate issue from my question about OT slavery and natural law. (For what it's worth, I'm inclined to agree that the NT doesn't affirmatively "authorize" slavery, and certainly not in perpetuity. Rather, the authors merely portrayed slavery as an accepted fact of life in the ancient world.)
And I understand, in rough terms, the efforts of the Scholastics and others to reconcile revelation and reason In the development of Christian theology. But that's also a bit beside the point of my question to Tom.
In his first comment, he stated that systems of slavery differ in their details (true), that the Mosaic law banned "manstealing" (true, but I think incomplete), and that Arnhart makes crap arguments to support his take on natural law "correcting" the Bible (opinions vary). I'm trying to get at first principles here--is slavery as described and regulated in the Torah consistent with the natural law (i.e., in no need of "correction")? If the answer is yes, then the fecal content of Arnhart's position goes up. If the answer is no, then his reasoning smells a bit better.
I'm happy to proffer an answer to my own question, incidentally: No, Hebrew slavery is inconsistent with the natural law (as the concept is generally understood these days/centuries).
The analysis strikes me as fairly straightforward.
1. Each individual possesses, in the words of James Wilson and other natural legal theorists, the inherent "right of natural liberty."
2. The condition of involuntary servitude, of being compelled to labor as another person's property, is inconsistent with the right of natural liberty.
3. Slavery, as regulated and described in the Torah, is a condition of involuntary servitude (certainly with regard to the permanent, mostly-gentile chattel-slaves; temporary Hebrew debt-slaves arguably present a more ambiguous situation).
4. Therefore, slavery (at least the chattel-slavery, if you prefer) as regulated and represented in the Torah is not consistent with the natural law.
The chief potential flaw I can discern here is in connection with assumptions underlying the first proposition. Perhaps the natural law is not timeless, and changes over the years (and possibly even by location), wholly contrary to the traditional view.
Or were Wilson, other Founders and Framers, and similarly-minded thinkers simply wrong about "natural liberty" being an inherent right possessed by all persons (at least in theory)? Was Aristotle correct when he contended that some people were, by nature, born to be slaves? Of course that's a patently repugnant idea, often rejected through the ages and finally put down (in the U.S., at least) by both arms and argument in the 1800s. But applying Aristotle's approach would allow one to conclude that slavery as practiced by the Israelites was consistent with the natural law.
Two points of order:
1) The argument is not that natural law supplements scripture, it's that natural law is assumed, known even by the Gentiles who have no scripture.
Romans 2:
14 Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the Law, do by nature what the Law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the Law, 15 since they show that the work of the Law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts either accusing or defending them.…
This is also in accord with what the Scottish Enlightenment called the "innate moral sense."
2) Theologically, I would not argue that the Torah contains a perfect moral code. Although it is just, the New Covenant calls for more.
For instance,
Matthew 19
8 Jesus answered, “It was because of your hardness of heart that Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but it was not this way from the beginning. 9 Now I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery.”…
and of course
Matthew 5
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[a] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[b] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven.
My point being, I reject trying to weaponize the Torah against the natural law or Christian thought. "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" [Exodus 21:24] is not unjust, so we move to the question of whether compassion and mercy are part of the natural law. I would say even the reputed atheist Hume, who saw man motivated by "fellow-feeling," might go along with that.
To Lex's question
Is it your position that enslaving conquered people is consistent with natural law because it's better than utterly exterminating them?
the link I posted argues that slavery, esp of the ancient sort, was "conventional," meaning a political arrangement not subject to natural law. Surely you're not saying that the genocide of a conquered people is preferable to a humane system of involuntary servitude.
I mean slavery or death isn't a fair choice, but I'll take slavery. I can always opt for death at a later date.
Hi, Tom.
1. "the link I posted argues that slavery, esp of the ancient sort, was 'conventional,' meaning a political arrangement not subject to natural law." So I'll put you down for a yes, slavery, especially of the ancient sort, is consistent with the natural law. I can't agree, for the reasons I explained to Jon earlier today, and won't bore you by repeating. (I also find Rousseau unsatisfying, both in this quote and elsewhere, but I'm no expert, so let's not take up any time on that.)
2. "Surely you're not saying that the genocide of a conquered people is preferable to a humane system of involuntary servitude." Of course not. I haven't even mentioned genocide, and I think this comparison casts no illumination on my specific question or the excerpt from Arnhart. By itself, the fact that evil A is better than evil B doesn't mean that evil A must therefore be consistent with the natural law. Exiling Native American families to reservations and compelling the children to attend distant boarding schools was better than summarily executing them all, but that doesn't mean it was consistent with natural law.
Also, this comparison presents a false dichotomy. The Israelites had more options that just enslavement or committing tribal genocide (although the Torah certainly describes them as engaging in both): client state status or occupation; population assimilation; uneasy or actual peace; conquest followed by eviction with a donkey and a week's worth of food and water for each family; not conquering neighbors to begin with, etc.
"1) The argument is not that natural law supplements scripture, it's that natural law is assumed, known even by the Gentiles who have no scripture."
Whose argument? Is this what the Roman Catholic and other natural law affirming Churches teach? The evangelical-fundamentalists who reject natural law and natural rights -- the fideists -- don't understand scripture this way.
I do know what James Wilson argues and the argument over his understanding. Dr. Frazer, fideist, among others, argues Wilson taught the findings of "reason and the senses" trump scripture. Others (you included) argue that's not correct. Rather, he follows more in the tradition of Aquinas (he inherited it from Hooker).
But still, what cannot be disputed is Wilson argues scripture even if superior to the findings of "reason and the senses" is INCOMPLETE and in NEED of such naturalism at the very least to supplement it.
The question is whether the findings of "reason and the senses" -- discoverable in "nature" -- either supplement scripture or supersede it.
Below is the disputed quotation from Wilson:
"But whoever expects to find, in [Scripture], particular directions for every moral doubt which arises, expects more than he will find. They generally presuppose a knowledge of the principles of morality; and are employed not so much in teaching new rules on this subject, as in enforcing the practice of those already known, by a greater certainty, and by new sanctions. They present the warmest recommendations and the strongest inducements in favour of virtue: they exhibit the most powerful dissuasives from vice. But the origin, the nature, and the extent of the several rights and duties they do not explain; nor do they specify in what instances one right or duty is entitled to preference over another. They are addressed to rational and moral agents, capable of previously knowing the rights of men, and the tendencies of actions; of approving what is good, and of disapproving what is evil.
[...]
"These considerations show, that the scriptures support, confirm, and corroborate, but do not supercede the operations of reason and the moral sense. The information with regard to our duties and obligations, drawn from these different sources, ought not to run in unconnected and diminished channels: it should flow in one united stream, which, by its combined force and just direction, will impel us uniformly and effectually towards our greatest good."
http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2010/06/thomas-jefferson-james-wilson-laws-of.html
Also, this comparison presents a false dichotomy. The Israelites had more options that just enslavement or committing tribal genocide (although the Torah certainly describes them as engaging in both): client state status or occupation; population assimilation; uneasy or actual peace; conquest followed by eviction with a donkey and a week's worth of food and water for each family; not conquering neighbors to begin with, etc.
The argument is that slavery is a natural human institution found in every civilization everywhere; the purpose of the Torah instruction is to make it equitable and just.
You seem to miss the point of my examples. The Torah law was not a perfect moral code; it took man as it found him and tried to make him just. But just as divorce was still permitted, so was slavery. If you saw my recent post, the Torah's instructions on slavery need not be read as an endorsement of the PRINCIPLE, just as its permission of divorce was not an endorsement of it.
The fulfillment of the natural law had to wait for Christ.
Matthew 5
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
I usually don't do the theology thing on this blog, but Arnhart's trying to weaponize the Bible against itself--and against the Christian religion--but as Leo Strauss said, you must always attempt to understand it as it understands itself. This line of attack is, as you say, fecal. ;-O
1) The argument is not that natural law supplements scripture, it's that natural law is assumed, known even by the Gentiles who have no scripture."
Whose argument? Is this what the Roman Catholic and other natural law affirming Churches teach?
It's what James Wilson taught. From your very own quote:
"But whoever expects to find, in [Scripture], particular directions for every moral doubt which arises, expects more than he will find. They generally presuppose a knowledge of the principles of morality
that was precisely my point. The scriptures presuppose the natural law, indeed knowledge of it, or the ability to reason to it.
The evangelical-fundamentalists who reject natural law and natural rights -- the fideists -- don't understand scripture this way.
I never know what to do with statements like this. It's a straw man argument, or the corollary to one, finding the dumbest MFers on the other side and beating up on them.
But even the only-semi-coherent fideist Francis Schaeffer writes [contra Gregg Frazer, etc.]
Therefore Christ died that justice, rooted in what God is, would be the solution. Bracton codified this: Christ’s example, because of who He is, is our standard, our rule, our measure. Therefore power is not first, but justice is first in society and law. The prince may have the power to control and to rule, but he does not have the right to do so without justice.
Rejecting the literalist interpretation of Romans 13 that allows for the divine right of kings. Clearly even fideists cannot be hammered into the same pigeonhole. God's law is still justice, even the imperfect Mosaic one.
Wilson is saying the Bible is incomplete and in need of a supplement. That's not necessarily the same thing as Romans where it says the Gentiles who have no scripture have the law written onto their hearts.
Though that IS a good scriptural place to argue for incorporating Aristotle, and the work of other teachers who might richly flesh out discoveries found in nature by reason that aren't necessarily explicitly taught in scripture.
Wilson is saying the Bible is incomplete and in need of a supplement.
I'd say Wilson is arguing against that brand of fideist who insists if it's not explicitly in the Bible, it doesn't exist. Wilson finds the rejection of reason and thus natural law to be unacceptable.
Sort of like the other side of the coin, those who say abortion isn't in the Bible, therefore there's nothing wrong with it.
"You seem to miss the point of my examples."
Do you mean the point of the comparison of slavery and genocide? Perhaps. I confess to missing the logic in it. I don't see how an inquiry into whether conduct A comports with norm Z is answered by merely asserting that conduct A is preferable to conduct B (unless, I suppose, it's already been demonstrated that conduct B is consistent with norm Z). And the already shaky notion that conduct A must necessarily be consistent with norm Z because it's the best of only two options loses even more of its appeal if conduct A is actually the second or third worst of several available choices.
To be clear, I'm not critiquing the theological reasoning you eventually articulated here--that's another kettle of Gefilte fish. Rather, I just find the initial bare-bones responses of "slavery is preferable to genocide, therefore it's consistent with the natural law" (my paraphrase, of course) to be unpersuasive.
Rather, I just find the initial bare-bones responses of "slavery is preferable to genocide, therefore it's consistent with the natural law" (my paraphrase, of course) to be unpersuasive.
I've had it with Immovable Objects setting themselves up as the [subjective] arbiters of the worth of an argument. "I find your argument unpersuasive" is an admission of defeat for one's own arguments, if any. [Often there are none; "no it's not" is not a valid rebuttal.]
As to the discussion, the nuances of where slavery may be conventional [slavery or death] as opposed to the immoral forms such as children born into slavery, has been lost.
"Slavery is always immoral" is an assertion, but it is nor self-evident. Slavery as it existed in hebrew times was not necessarily against the natural law, although it's safe to say the chattel slavery of Rome and the American South were.
But again, the more significant point is what Christianity and/or natural law require to end what was already an existing institution.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14039a.htm
If it were to take killing every slavemaster to free his slaves, the cure gets morally problematic as well. Jesus and the Apostle Paul taught that slaves should obey their masters, not knife them in their sleep.
Does the position of "Immovable Object" come with a corner office? If so, I'm definitely interested.
"As to the discussion, the nuances of where slavery may be conventional [slavery or death] as opposed to the immoral forms such as children born into slavery, has been lost." That's a peculiar example. The Torah describes how the children of two slaves are likewise slaves. For instance, Exodus 21:12 refers to the "slave born in your household." Even the children of a temporary Hebrew debt-slave and a female slave were the property of their master, and remained so once the term of servitude ended: "If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out alone." Exodus 21:4.
Anyways. To be clear, I don't think Hebrew slavery was exceptionally immoral by the standards--of the time. The Mosaic law contemplated manumission, placed certain restrictions on maltreatment and corporal punishment (especially for debt-slaves), etc., like a number of other slave codes of antiquity.
"Slavery as it existed in hebrew times was not necessarily against the natural law, although it's safe to say the chattel slavery of Rome and the American South were." I don't dispute that there are differences between these types of slavery. In fact, even within them, there was significant variation over time and, in the case of the South, across state lines. Whether those differences are material to my question about the natural law depends on the standard against which we're measuring them (which is where you and I seem to diverge, right out of the gate). If the relevant standard is "comports with the inherent right of natural liberty described by natural legal theorists," then those differences would matter less, because it's hard to imagine any form of slavery (of the chattel variety, at least) meeting it. If the standard is, "not as bad as the worst forms of slavery in history," then the differences would matter more, and the analysis gets much more complicated and relativistic.
"But again, the more significant point is what Christianity and/or natural law require to end what was already an existing institution." That there was a path from scripture to eventual abolition, through natural legal theory as applied by Christian advocates, we can agree on.
Does the position of "Immovable Object" come with a corner office? If so, I'm definitely interested.
No, it parks itself right in the middle of your living room. :-D
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