Interesting questions, Keith. I don’t have an answer for some ontological basis on which the institutional separation of ecclesial and political communities is maintained. More importantly, I don’t think there is a persuasive answer. More strongly, any quest for such a basis I would consider misguided. My leanings are toward historicism and particularism, and any theory of institutions that does not reckon with the vicissitudes of history and particularity of culture seems fruitless. So, you can see that for me a historical argument is not a “merely” good one. Let me then give a historical argument for the separation of institutions.
For simplicity of the discussion my case may be well made by appeal to the more recent history, at the time of, say, onslaught of modernity, rise of liberalism, secularization, you know what time frame I am talking about. Sometime after, or with the fragmentation of Christendom (in the wake of the Reformation), the irreducible plurality of what Rawls calls comprehensive doctrines becomes the mark of the age. At that point, the question becomes how is it possible for all of us to get along (and avoiding the strife of, say, religious wars) and yet maintain our integral identity. So, the typical answer has been to envisage a political and legal framework, what the Western jurisprudence calls the rule of law, which would then provide the necessary conditions for the sustained life of communities, like a Christian one. The purpose of civil authority is then to maintain the rule of law and adjudicate the LEGAL boundaries between other institutions of society. The mother-Church, i.e. Catholic church, may then exist along with the proliferation of Protestant denominations, without the two killing each other off. The purpose of the church (I guess you mean as an institution) has been debated since its birth, so I will not join that debate. This entire picture becomes more complicated of course in our post-modern milieu where the politics of recognition and identity prevail. The very legal and political framework is assaulted from various corners as being too restrictive. Whatever the merits of the “rule of law” tradition, it needs to be said that there was, at least, an aspiration to provide an impartial framework of laws in a society characterized by deep and thoroughgoing difference. To entrust the church, or any other “denomination” with procuring the legal and political conditions for all the colorful diversity of the populus is fraught with the dangers that the Federalist papers of the American founders did not foresee: the burdensome rule of the minority.
You give the example of the theocratic gov’t in Israel: need I remind us about the aberrations of that regime portrayed in the book of Joshua? In the name of some expansionist program, allegedly sanctioned by Yahweh, the nation of Israel extinguishes all the inhabitants of the land. Whatever one’s attitude toward the constitutional gov’t and the rule of law, I hope that we heed those historical examples.
Cheers,
Sam.
sgassanov
Sep 30 2002
04:17 am
Interesting questions, Keith. I don’t have an answer for some ontological basis on which the institutional separation of ecclesial and political communities is maintained. More importantly, I don’t think there is a persuasive answer. More strongly, any quest for such a basis I would consider misguided. My leanings are toward historicism and particularism, and any theory of institutions that does not reckon with the vicissitudes of history and particularity of culture seems fruitless. So, you can see that for me a historical argument is not a “merely” good one. Let me then give a historical argument for the separation of institutions.
For simplicity of the discussion my case may be well made by appeal to the more recent history, at the time of, say, onslaught of modernity, rise of liberalism, secularization, you know what time frame I am talking about. Sometime after, or with the fragmentation of Christendom (in the wake of the Reformation), the irreducible plurality of what Rawls calls comprehensive doctrines becomes the mark of the age. At that point, the question becomes how is it possible for all of us to get along (and avoiding the strife of, say, religious wars) and yet maintain our integral identity. So, the typical answer has been to envisage a political and legal framework, what the Western jurisprudence calls the rule of law, which would then provide the necessary conditions for the sustained life of communities, like a Christian one. The purpose of civil authority is then to maintain the rule of law and adjudicate the LEGAL boundaries between other institutions of society. The mother-Church, i.e. Catholic church, may then exist along with the proliferation of Protestant denominations, without the two killing each other off. The purpose of the church (I guess you mean as an institution) has been debated since its birth, so I will not join that debate. This entire picture becomes more complicated of course in our post-modern milieu where the politics of recognition and identity prevail. The very legal and political framework is assaulted from various corners as being too restrictive. Whatever the merits of the “rule of law” tradition, it needs to be said that there was, at least, an aspiration to provide an impartial framework of laws in a society characterized by deep and thoroughgoing difference. To entrust the church, or any other “denomination” with procuring the legal and political conditions for all the colorful diversity of the populus is fraught with the dangers that the Federalist papers of the American founders did not foresee: the burdensome rule of the minority.
You give the example of the theocratic gov’t in Israel: need I remind us about the aberrations of that regime portrayed in the book of Joshua? In the name of some expansionist program, allegedly sanctioned by Yahweh, the nation of Israel extinguishes all the inhabitants of the land. Whatever one’s attitude toward the constitutional gov’t and the rule of law, I hope that we heed those historical examples.
Cheers,
Sam.