[From a student in my "Catholic Social Thought and the Law" seminar]:
On Consent, Consequences, and Christian Law Schools
In our culture, consent is the paramount moral criterion: the presence of consent is the ultimate blessing, while the lack thereof is the ultimate curse. This is readily seen in the way we think about the consequences of our actions. We believe that we should have free reign to act according to our whims and fancies (or deep principles and convictions, if you swing that way), and that any results of those actions can and should affect us only if we first consented to those costs. We certainly don’t think we should have to suffer the consequence of any unintended or unforeseen consequences—after all we didn’t consent to it, and thus it must not be our fault. And we definitely don’t think we should have to do so for someone else’s actions. We shun commitment because we fear that we won’t get to do what we want down the road; we are unwilling to pay the costs of what we believe in. Our culture likes to deny that principles and beliefs require consistent actions, and that actions have actual consequences. Our culture thus effectively denies the existence of natural consequences in favor of contractual costs.
But Christians don’t believe that. The Christian does not deny the existence of sin’s consequences; he affirms that all those consequences have already been paid by Christ. At the foundation of the Christian faith is the belief that we are sinful beings, but that the consequences of such sin were borne by Jesus Christ: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” (Rom. 3:23-25) Actions have consequences, whether we like it or not, and someone must pay the price—even if we didn’t know the full price.
Now you may think that I am about to say how important it is to hold people morally accountable and how significant it is that we have a justice system which holds individuals responsible for their actions. And, in fact, that is certainly a significant aspect to the idea of actions and their consequences. But I think there is another aspect: our commitment to our principles may require us to bear more burdens and make more sacrifices than we had initially thought as consequences of our convictions. The idea that consent is crucial to the moral legitimacy of any given consequence is often introduced and cemented in post-secondary educational institutions; therefore the refutation that consent is not necessary for a morally legitimate consequence may and should also be introduced at that time.
Christian educational institutions, then, have a significant part to play in the formation of their students: in the midst of our cultural denial of consequences the Christian has an intimate understanding that consequences are real and their existence is not contingent on our consent. Christian law schools in particular have a unique role to play in training their students that in a discipline and field which places so much emphasis on contractual agreement—from the “social contract” to apartment leases—it is incumbent on the Christian lawyer to recognize that unintended and unforeseen consequences must and should be paid even if they have not been agreed on.
Lawyers, though, are entirely willing to tell others that costs must be paid; it is entirely another matter to apply that to themselves. Thus, the Christian law school faces another duty: to teach students that their faith, their convictions, and their principles will require them to make sacrifices. In a professional field which tends to measure success in terms of status (and the accompanying symbols), power, wealth, and creature comforts, students need to be willing to give them up as called in the course of living a life pleasing and glorifying to God. Professor John Breen encouraged the law students of Loyola University Chicago that “[t]he way our Christian faith defines success and the sign that represents it are radically different form the understanding of success prevalent in American society. According to the faith, success is to act with love in the imitation of Christ, and the sign that quite literally embodies this love is the Cross.” Christian law students are to be lawyers, to be sure, but they are also called to obedient to the living God with whom they have a relationship: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord desire of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic. 6:8)
Of course, our law schools can make that unique character of the vocation easier or harder, and they can make their message more or less efficacious. One thing our Christian law schools might want to consider is that it may be difficult for students to accept a new hierarchy of what is worthy if the school itself does not follow its own teaching. For example, can students really take seriously the Christian message that worldly status is unimportant, if their school is unwilling to take risks to conform its students to the image of Christ for the sake of a U.S. News & World Report ranking?
The world we live in has natural consequences for our actions, quite independent of our consent to their existence. The reality of unintended consequences which must still be paid seems at odds with the legal preference for the “four corners of the contract,” but it is therefore that much more important for Christian lawyers to recognize and bear witness to in their vocation, from crafting policy to sitting on a judicial bench to advising clients. It is incumbent on the Christian lawyer to be mindful of how grace and mercy relate to justice and righteousness within the context of the rule of law. And it is the duty of Christian law schools to instill those values and convictions in their students not only through their teaching, but also through their example.
Some thoughts about the role of religious faith, believers, and claims in policy and political debates, from a student in my "Catholic Social Thought and the Law" class:
Inspired by the public debate that arose most recently during the Republican primary concerning whether and to what extent politicians should rely on their religious convictions when making policy decision (see Santorum’s comments on JFK’s speech and ensuing hoopla), I decided to write a short-paper on Catholic politicians’ support of abortion rights—specifically, the assertion that a Catholic can justifiably be “pro-life” in private while pro-choice when acting in the public sphere. This led me to Mario Cuomo’s famous speech at Notre Dame from 1984, which I decided to critique. One of his core arguments to justify his position was that the Church does not demand particular “political” strategies to achieving its public morality goals. As Cuomo explains: “I repeat, there is no Church teaching that mandates the best political course for making our belief everyone’s rule.” Thus, a Catholic politician can be justified in refusing to force his beliefs on others since there are other issues related to the protection of life that are equally viable political tactics to realize this principle that all life has intrinsic value.
Yet this argument misses a critical doctrinal distinction between the roles of the Church (in not providing political strategies) and that of the laity. Cuomo fails to appreciate the distinction between the Church, which has the role to participate through education and example in the shaping of the moral values of society, and the laity, who have the “corresponding moral responsibility…to hear, receive, and act upon the Church’s teaching in the lifelong task of forming his or her own conscience.” Thus the Church can and should be very reluctant to advocate for specific policies to achieve its goals, but the laity have the moral responsibility to take the Church’s teachings and apply them in their actions, both public and private. What Cuomo is dismissing as a particular “political course” for anti-abortion supporters is actually a tangible obligation, which flows from a principle claim that all life, from the moment of conception, has inherent human dignity and cannot be intentionally destroyed by man.
Some thoughts -- about a pretty big question! -- from a student in my "Catholic Social Thought and the Law" seminar:
“The Church’s social teaching argues on the basis of reason and natural law” (Pope
Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est).
Catholic Social Thought relies heavily on the natural law as a source of authority outside revealed theology. The natural law is “written on the heart” of all people; therefore normative statements by the Church on social issues may be accepted as true or right simply through the exercise of reason, without accepting the Scriptural authority of the Church through Faith. The natural law is a valuable foundation for moral reasoning, where Christians and unbelievers can meet and build agreement.
But does the natural law “work”? Does the natural law provide a stable foundation for moral agreement? Unfortunately, a quick look at natural law scholarship reveals a MacIntyrian post-Enlightenment landscape: disagreement abounds. “New” natural law scholars battle “Classical” natural law thinkers and any attempts to specify moral precepts break down into disagreement just outside the second half of the Decalogue. And all of this disagreement exists within the natural law tradition, among allies. Perhaps we can at least agree that we disagree?
In the face of all this disagreement, one may be tempted to say, “so what”? People always disagree about ultimate questions of right and wrong, good and bad. But Alasdair MacIntyre reminds us that, because of the premises of natural law reasoning, deep disagreement in practice creates real intellectual problems: “if the precepts of the natural law are indeed precepts established by reason, we should expect to find agreement in assenting to them among rational agents. But this is not what we find, . . . [m]any intelligent, perceptive, and insightful agents either reject what Catholics take to be particular precepts of the natural law or accept them only in some very different version, or, more radically still, reject the very conception of a natural law. And these disagreements seem to be intractable. How can this be?”
Perhaps the natural law has a proper use, and we have missed it. If the natural law does not exist to create agreement among reasonable minds on the requirements of morality for human action, then we should not be surprised when it does not.
But what is the purpose of the natural law? I believe the natural law exists to convict the sinful human heart. We can see this purpose in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. Catholic Social Thought often quotes Romans chapter 2 for the proposition that “the law is written on the heart,” but Paul says much more about this law: “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” (Romans 3:19-20).
“Through the law comes knowledge of sin.” The Apostle Paul certainly “uses” natural law, but not to reach agreement on social policy. The Apostle Paul uses the natural law to demonstrate that we know right, yet do wrong. The standard is high and we fall short. He uses the natural law for eternal purposes, to crush any faith we may have built up in ourselves, so our faith may find rest in Christ. Is this the purpose of natural law? Can the natural law be used as a common foundation for moral reasoning, when no one lives up to the full extent of the law?
Can we expect people to consent to the rule of natural law, as a basis for State enforced social policy, when serious contemplation of the natural law illuminates our shortcomings? Or should we focus on pushing the sharp conviction of the law upon the human heart, so hard hearts are plowed, and the ground is made fertile for seeds of grace?
Wednesday, May 16, 7:00 PM