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Democracy and Religion: On the Existence and Nonexistence of Nations
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10942 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1993 |
7,684 Words |
| Author
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James V. Schall
James V. Schall is associate professor of government at
Georgetown University. His most recent work is entitled the
Politics of Heaven and Hell. |
A nation, he [Marcus Antoninus the Orator] went on to say, does not exist at all, or at the very least finds itself in an extremely poor moral situation, unless it is furnished with a lot of things like religious and educational institutions, and qualities such as justice and endurance and moderation.
—Cicero, On the Orator, I, 19, 85.
Each human being is a political being and, at the same time, more that a political being. His ultimate meaning is not exhausted by the significance of his civil life. This higher, transcendent purpose limits the state, every state. In the order of principal, religion is more important than democracy. This principle does not deny that democracy is important, but it does affirm that if democracy is not in fact compatible with true religion, then it is democracy, not religion, that must be tempered. Democracy is not itself a self-evident proposition, but its validity must be argued to, made clear on rational grounds. Our dealings with God are more important than our relationships to one another in any civil society. The civil society is not and should not be thought of as an alternative to God.
Thus, it seems likely that if our relation to God is not proper and valid, our relationships with one another will most likely be skewed. Soul craft and statecraft are intimately related, as Plato taught in the second book of The Republic. If democracy is to be made the test of the validity of religion, this criterion can mean only that democracy itself claims the status not merely of politics but also of religion. That is to say, on these grounds, democracy is not democracy, a question of the right ordering of the civil society, but rather itself a quasi-religion, delivering ultimate meanings. Democracy can become a doctrine that itself claims to be the criterion of what it is to be religious. Democracy can itself become idolatry. Before one can be a "democrat", one must first know the purpose of the human will. A multiplicity of empty wills does not constitute a democracy rightly founded.
THE RISE AND FALL OF NATIONS
Ever since the time of the Roman Empire and Saint Augustine, moreover, historians and philosophers have been pondering the rise and fall of nations (including democracies), their existence, their vigor, and their disappearance. Thinkers look for signs and portents of decay or degeneracy that result from the way life is habitually lived in these nations. They even seek a "science" of decay or decline.
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