Mirror of Justice

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

One preliminary thought on Just Passing Through

Thanks to Rob for his posting on the Hutchens article. Rob poses a sensible question about how does the theist, the Christian explain to the secularist that Earth is only a “first creation” rather than a “final thing.” It seems that the secularist would not hear this just from religious believers. After all, the scientific community has explained that our Sun will one day enter a phase in its development where it will extinguish Earth and most likely the outer planets in the Solar System. This strikes me as another (and secular) way of translating the point that Earth is not a “final thing.” We probably will have to wait some time for this to happen, but science has spoken that Earth’s future is limited in time; therefore, the reality that Earth is not a “final thing” should be easily accessible even to the most die-hard secularist. But of course theists, including Christian Catholics, have also relied on secular science to reinforce Church teachings on other matters too, e.g., abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and human sexuality, just to mention a few topics that frequently appear in current day political debates. RJA sj

Just Passing Through

By Rob Vischer

Growing up, I sang a hymn with the opening line, "This world is not my home I'm just passing through." We don't hear that sentiment much anymore in conversations about Christian stewardship and the environment, but it undoubtedly still shapes many Christians' hesitation about fully embracing the climate change struggle. Writing in the New Atlantis (HT: Touchstone), S.M. Hutchens explains:

The principal difference in the horizons against which orthodox Christianity and earth-piety work is that the earth as it presently exists is the eschatological telos of the latter’s vision, while for the former it is subsumed under the more general category of Creation. The concept of Creation carries with it belief in the biblical God as its Creator, and thus acquires subordination to a purpose in which it exists not as the end of a vision, as it must be to non-theists who believe in no other home, but a means to the accomplishment of a divine purpose that transcends and shall eventually subsume it.

Here, then, is the first inescapable offense Christianity gives to earth-piety: the earth as we know it empirically is not a final thing but a first creation. The second offense is that Christianity’s principal reason for the earth’s existence is to serve the cause of human redemption, to be defined and carried out not by what seems reasonable to man, but the purpose and method of God. The earth is presented to the faith as sacramental, and as sacrament its end is to be consumed so that a second and higher Creation may come. Its end is as the end of man who has been made from and returns to its dust, who must pass away so the Second and Eternal Man can arise to take his place in a new heaven and earth, the old having passed away. It is difficult to exaggerate the breadth and depth of the chasm that exists between biblical religion and earth-piety.

Most (all?) MoJ-ers believe that faith is relevant to political deliberations regarding the common good. But does the passage quoted above suggest that faith's relevance is not all-encompassing? The Christian belief in the earth as a "first creation," rather than as a "final thing," seems practically impossible to translate into secularly accessible terms. Is this an example of a belief that is, in the Christian's exercise of prudential judgment, best left at home when entering the public / political sphere? (Perhaps another example is leaving biblical prophecies about the nation of Israel out of our public deliberations about foreign policy?) And if I'm correct, do we leave these teachings out of our political conversations because of the degree of Christian uncertainty regarding the timing of these events (the divinely ordained end of the earth as we know it; the realization of prophecies regarding Israel), or is there a reason derived from the substance of the teachings that separates them from biblical teachings about the sanctity of life, sexual morality, etc.?

Michael P.'s Headline a Bit Premature

By Michael Scaperlanda

Yesterday Michael P. posted on the abolition of the death penalty in New Jersey under the headline "No more 'state-endorsed killing' in New Jersey." MOJ friend John Breen writes the following:

A Bit Premature

Thanks to Michael Perry and Rick Garnett for posting on New Jersey's decision to abolish capital punishment in the Garden State. Although this news is certainly welcome, and deserves to be celebrated, the facts on the ground, as indicated here and here, show that Michael's headline "No More State-endorsed Killing in New Jersey" is a bit premature, to say the least.

Waterboarding is torture

By Rob Vischer

I oppose the use of waterboarding, but I admit that I have zero expertise on issues of national security. The editors of the The Armed Forces Journal, however, are more credible and experienced, and they have made their views crystal clear in response to Rudy "every method they could think of" Giuliani and our linguistically Clintonesque Attorney General Michael Mukasey. (HT: Sullivan)

In an interview, Giuliani was asked for his views on using “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding. He responded that in a hypothetical scenario that assumed an attack, “I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they can think of.” Prompted again on the specific use of waterboarding, he repeated “every method they could think of.” Mukasey said he found waterboarding to be “repugnant,” but he wouldn’t answer whether it amounted to torture.

Let AFJ be crystal clear on a subject where these men are opaque: Waterboarding is a torture technique that has its history rooted in the Spanish Inquisition. In 1947, the U.S. prosecuted a Japanese military officer for carrying out a form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian during World War II.

Waterboarding inflicts on its victims the terror of imminent death. And as with all torture techniques, it is, therefore, an inherently flawed method for gaining reliable information. In short, it doesn’t work. That blunt truth means all U.S. leaders, present and future, should be clear on the issue.

I can't resist offering my favorite description of Giuliani from one of today's leading political theorists, Chris Rock. Rock explained that Giuliani is great “in a crisis. But in real life Giuliani’s kinda like a pit bull. He’s great when you have a burglar, but if you don’t, he just might eat your kids.”

Interesting New Paper by MOJ-er Susan Stabile

By Michael Perry

Can Secular Feminists and Catholic Feminists Work Together to Ease the Conflict between Work and Family?

SUSAN J. STABILE
University of St. Thomas - School of Law (Minnesota)

U of St. Thomas Legal Studies Research Paper No. 07-39
University of St. Thomas Law Journal, 2008

Abstract:
Anti-essentialist critiques of feminist legal theory have led to a broadening of feminist theory to reflect the voices of women of color, those of different classes and those of homosexual orientation. However, despite both the insistence on the need to include other voices and the growing development of Catholic feminist theologians, mainstream feminist legal thought has paid insufficient attention to what a religious perspective might add to the secular feminist dialogue about the law. This paper represents the first step in a broader project to explore a Catholic feminist legal perspective.

The Article begins by exploring the theoretical underpinnings of what may be called a Catholic Feminist Legal Theory to see what such a theory adds to secular feminist legal theory. It then considers how that theoretical framework speaks to the relationship between work and family. Work and family make a good starting point for this inquiry in that secular feminists and Catholic feminists share a concern about issues that affect women both generally and in their ability to participate fully in the workplace. They also share a concern about family, albeit not always in the same way. That is, while there are places secular and Catholic feminists can walk together in promoting a restructuring of the workplace to accommodate family, there are also areas in which they part company. This Article represents an effort to see where those points of convergence and divergence lie.

Click here to download.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Sad turn of events at Princeton ...

By Michael Perry

... involving, inter alia, MOJ-friend Robert George. Many MOJ-readers will be interested. Click here and then here.

UPDATE: here.

A Follow-up to the Carroll op-ed piece

By Robert John Araujo, SJ

Thanks to Rick for bringing our attention to James Carroll’s sobering column “The Politics of Religion.” The subtlety and nuance of Carroll’s argument disregards some important history regarding the origin of human rights as a subject of interest to politics, the law, and religion. I fear that Carroll puts too much “faith” in the Enlightenment and not enough in God and the proper role of religion. I cannot dispute that some “believers” throughout history have undermined the rights and responsibilities God authored for the human person; however, I am surprised that Carroll, a former priest, could have forgotten important principles of politics, law, and religion on rights promoted by Pope Gregory X in the thirteenth century and Fathers de Vitoria and Suárez in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries (as a few examples). While I suggest their writings enlighten us about authentic human rights I cannot view them as products of the Enlightenment since the preceded it. RJA sj

Carroll on religion in the Globe

By Rick Garnett

Here's James Carroll's latest op-ed in the Boston Globe. His views are not mine but, if you are interested . . . His in-a-nutshell aim is to push back on the Romney-esque idea that religion and political freedom are connected. He writes, for example:

The politics of human rights, like the idea of individual freedom, were born not in religion but in the Enlightenment struggle against it.

This is not quite right, of course. But read it for yourself.

Answer to Michael's question

By Rick Garnett

Like Michael, I am delighted by the death-penalty news out of New Jersey. (As I noted earlier, the New Jersey result is particularly welcome because it is not the result of judicial overreach.)

Michael asks, "[d]oes anyone know if any Republican governors have called for the abolition of the death penalty in the their states?" George Ryan (IL) comes to mind.