Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucla-cs!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Separation of Church and State Message-ID: Date: 20 Sep 90 07:58:52 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Labs (Liberty Corner) Lines: 133 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu There are a number of things that need more explanation on this thread. One, I am surprised that someone objected to my statement that no one has any right to sin. What I said was just common sense, as far as I'm concerned. Let me explain. When I say someone has a "right", I'm talking about morality. A right imparts a power to action, with no one to say nay. But, God certainly says nay to sin -- He punishes it -- so there is just as certainly no right to it. Else He would allow people to sin without any punishement at all. Men would say to God at their judgement: You cannot send me to Hell, I have every right to sin. At the core of Liberalism is a confusion over freedom. Human beings are free in several different respects. There are two that are being confused: - psychological freedom - moral freedom Psychologically, we are free to sin. But morally, we are not. Meaning, yes, I have the ability to commit sin. But not with impunity. God will punish me for my sins. There is no equivalence to a sinful act of the will and a virtuous one. Sin is inherently depraved, and contrary to human nature. It's a defective use of the human faculties. Man's dignity is not in the fact that he has free will, but in how he uses that free will. There is no equivalence between good and evil. This is proved from the consideration that God alone need exist. And if He alone existed, there would be no such thing as evil. So, good and evil cannot be on a par. Our Lord calls sin a slavery: "He who commits sin is the slave of sin." This is quite the right word, because sin is unnatural. When a man sins, he is acting irrationally, not in accordance with right reason. Since he is by nature constituted to act in accordance with reason, actions not in accordance with reason proceed from something foreign to man. Which is slavery -- subjection to an outside power. Between the saints doing the will of God for eternity, and the damned doing their own, there is no equivalence. The saints are truly free, while the damned are truly slaves. The situation in this country is only one of many possible. I do say that the American Constitution is approximately what one might expect in a pluralistic society. It's a matter of practicality. You cannot force beliefs on people, as has been said. I have no disagreement with that. On the other hand, though, the American type of pluralistic Liberal democracy is fundamentally a flawed one, in its attitude towards God. It does not recognize God as the sovereign of the land. This situation is due mainly to the religious pluralism, in my opinion. Christ did indeed say that His Kingdom was not of this world. However, that does *not* mean that the truth has nothing to do with government. When He said what He did, He was saying that He did not come to be the world's temporal ruler. He didn't want to collect everyone's taxes. That's all He was saying. The reign of Christ is in hearts and minds. It is in conforming all aspects of human existence to His teaching. This means public institutions as well as private ones -- for governments are just as much a creature as people, an just as subject to God's sovereignty. If a country is faced with a pluralistic poulation, sure, there is only so much that can be done. But that's not the entire story. Don't get the American situation mixed up, and start to think it's the only possible one. It's not. American pluralistic Liberalism will, in the end, cause the loss of many souls. What do you think is going to happen to all those people having abortions? You think they're going straight to Heaven after murdering their own children? No way. No way. There will always be a certain element of society that is bad. People who will not behave, who will not have law and order. With such people what can you do? No matter what system you have, they'll cause trouble. But the mistake of Liberalism is to give free reign to such people. Sure, they're going to cause trouble no matter what you do. But what about the weak people, or the ignorant, the poor, who are defenceless against the ill-willed? What about them? The ultimate good isn't *temporal* order and prosperity, it's *eternal*. A government certainly should ensure the one. But it should also foster the latter. Sure, it can't guarantee it. But it can foster it, with prudence. People who kill bodies should certainly suffer the just punishments of law. What is temporal murder compared to eternal, though? Why should someone be set free to murder souls, as long as he doesn't cause any temporal disturbance? Yet such is the teaching of Liberalism: "Don't steal his car, but go ahead and take his soul, if you can." The idea that people should be left exposed to both good and evil, so that they can choose for themselves, this being somehow more in accordance with their true dignity, is illusory. People are too weak, the effects of the original sin too strong. The pluralistic Liberal democracies will be the occasion of the loss of many souls for just this reason. Governments shouldn't offer people any more choices between good and evil than they already have to make. Well, this is the sort of thinking that brings about things like the Ecuadorian concordat, part of which I posted. Admittedly, such things are only possible where there is religious unity. This is a piece of cake where the large majority of the people are Catholic. There are of course, some people who object to such a situation. Such as the Freemasons who eventually assasinated President Garcia Moreno, who established the Ecuadorian concordat. Joe Buehler What more harmful for souls than freedom of error -- St. Augustine [There's also legal freedom. One could certainly hold the position that there is no moral or religious right to err, but that there is a legal right to err as long as the error does not cause one to commit acts that are within the State's charter to prevent. It is sometimes not clear from your postings whether saying that one does not have the right to sin is a religious statement or a call for legislation. I think there would be a wide agreement among Christians that when we are called before God's judgement seat we will not be able to call on a "right to sin". I think there's a good deal of disagreement over how far the State should attempt to prevent sin, with positions ranging from one side that says the State has no business concerning itself with morality, and is simply there to prevent citizens from damaging each other, to the other that says that the State has a responsiblity to work with the Church to create a Christian society. American political theory has normally taken a position somewhere between. --clh]