tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post26208947074550907..comments2024-03-28T10:44:30.518-06:00Comments on American Creation: Hamburger: "Separation of Church and State: A Theologically Liberal, Anti-Catholic, and American Principle"Brad Harthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17669677047039491864noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-63193603302444338722022-04-23T17:02:49.820-06:002022-04-23T17:02:49.820-06:00Man is a social animal. Absolute freedom [as radi...Man is a social animal. Absolute freedom [as radical individualism] does not exist.<br /><br />"To those that say there were never any men in the state of Nature, I will not oppose the authority of the judicious Hooker (Eccl. Pol. i. 10), where he says, “the laws which have been hitherto mentioned” i.e., the laws of Nature, “do bind men absolutely, even as they are men, although they have never any settled fellowship, never any solemn agreement amongst themselves what to do or not to do; but for as much as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent store of things needful for such a life as our Nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of man, therefore to supply those defects and imperfections which are in us, as living single and solely by ourselves, <b>we are naturally induced to seek communion and fellowship with others; this was the cause of men uniting themselves as first in politic societies.</b>” <br /><br />Locke then tries to sneak in social contract theory, but by then it is too late.<br /><br /><i>But I, moreover, affirm that all men are naturally in that state, and remain so till, by their own consents, they make themselves members of some politic society, and I doubt not, in the sequel of this discourse, to make it very clear."</i>Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-89059422040167179612022-04-21T05:59:26.548-06:002022-04-21T05:59:26.548-06:00"Reilly admits to problems, the greatest of w..."Reilly admits to problems, the greatest of which is the long-term mischief nominalism wrought in Western thought. Largely the work of an Englishman, William of Ockham ...."<br /><br />I tried to get through the Michael Hanby series responding to Reilly, but it was very dense and "inside baseball" from the trad. Catholic perspective.<br /><br />But I note, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau specialized in arguing their own "inside baseball" -- "state of nature"/ social contract and rights -- language. And that language does seem in tension with the Ancient natural right and then traditional Christian way of viewing things.<br /><br />But even they didn't coin the term "State of nature." Who did? (As far as I know): William of Ockman.<br /><br />So it seems to be that whatever it was about Protestantism that Reilly and the trad. Catholics have an issue with (the decentralized, individualistic element) was "on steroids" during the American Founding, especially when combined with its Enlightenment component.<br /><br />So it's "Richard Hooker" to the rescue.<br /><br />I'm skeptical.Jonathan Rowehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04079637406589278386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-36103342251837814542022-04-18T16:13:56.425-06:002022-04-18T16:13:56.425-06:00Sorry, but where in the following sentence is ther...Sorry, but where in the following sentence is there language about separation of church and state. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" This was, after all, an amendment that was omitted from the Constitution. Looking into influences in the intent of the framers, in this instance, is useful for the purposes of argument only.<br />David Tamaninihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925959411850096585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-31741903752085664472022-04-17T21:44:33.338-06:002022-04-17T21:44:33.338-06:00"Reilly argues that these dilemmas are not ju..."Reilly argues that these dilemmas are not just false but unnecessary. He insists that the Founders did not cull their political insights — especially the Declaration’s central assertion about “unalienable rights” that come from a “Creator” and not man — just from contemporary Enlightenment thinkers but from a long philosophical tradition whose roots reach to Athens, Rome and Jerusalem.<br /><br />If that’s true — and Reilly makes powerful arguments it is — it also forces us to reckon with modern biases, including the prejudice that a millennium of history, from the fall of Rome to the rise of the Renaissance, was one big “Dark Ages.” <br /><br />What the Founders took from antiquity, they carried through medieval England — Catholic medieval England. Their commitments to the rights of persons; to government by consent of the governed (with roots in medieval orders like the Franciscans and Dominicans); to law as rooted in reason; and against unbridled divine right of kings were all part of their English heritage that was ultimately … Catholic.<br /><br />Reilly admits to problems, the greatest of which is the long-term mischief nominalism wrought in Western thought. Largely the work of an Englishman, William of Ockham, it shifted law from an act of divine reason to an act of divine will and delinked it from objective reality, so that “the law is what God (or the judges) say it is” (Oliver Wendell Holmes, adapted). Reilly knows that nominalism was largely baked into Protestant DNA by its theology, but makes great efforts to say that Richard Hooker mitigated its baneful effects in Anglicanism and that the Founders were profoundly influenced by him."Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-85743670719453980802022-04-17T20:30:33.064-06:002022-04-17T20:30:33.064-06:00I think Mark David Hall's case for orthodox Ca...I think Mark David Hall's case for orthodox Calvinism as the driving force for revolution and independence is far more persuasive than the argument for the Enlightenment brand of unitarianism/liberalism/secularism which was the province of a handful of marquee elites. <br /><br /><i>Drawing from hundreds of personal letters, public proclamations, early state constitutions and laws, and other original documents, Professor Hall makes the airtight case that America’s founders were not deists; that they did not create a “godless” Constitution; that even Jefferson and Madison did not want a high wall separating church and state; that most founders believed the government should encourage Christianity; and that they embraced a robust understanding of religious liberty for biblical and theological reasons.</i><br /><br />As for strict separationism, I think the Baptists are more to blame/credit than the Enlightenment and it does not conform neatly with the modern secularist argument either.<br /><br />As for the case for the Catholic Church supplying the rigor of the political theology of the Founding, Robert Reilly makes an excellent case here.<br /><br />https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/is-the-american-founding-compatible-with-a-catholic-vision-of-the-human-personTom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.com