The great mistake of our primal parents was their belief in moral autonomy. Consequently, they believed that they did not need the guidance of God in order to determine what is good and what is evil. Their disobedience itself, and consequent estrangement from their Maker, offered sufficient evidence that their ability to make moral judgments was defective. Their Original Sin was to put themselves first and reality second, a disorder of the first magnitude.
This same mistake is being played out in contemporary society. It is now commonly believed that we do not need an objective basis for determining what is good and what is evil; we can do that ourselves. As a result, the illusion of moral autonomy replaces the objective reality of the Natural Law. What should be regarded as an invitation to chaos, is popularly regarded as a strike for open-mindedness, tolerance, and freedom. Nonetheless, we do not “determine” or “cause” the nature of things; we discover them.
Pope Benedict was a minority voice in pleading that the Natural Law must be the foundation of democracy. This law would give people a common and unifying basis for distinguishing between both good and evil, as well as between right and wrong. Ancient Greece gave birth to democracy because it also gave birth to philosophy. Because there is an intelligible reality, any intelligent person can see the truth of things. Therefore, philosophy is possible. Because these truths (such as the value of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) can be embraced by society, people of good will can live together in peace and harmony. Therefore, democracy is possible.
In Walt Disney’s The Lady and the Tramp, two animated cats pay respect to the rigorous continuity if the natural order of things. “We are Siamese if you please. We are Siamese if you don’t please”. Being a Siamese cat is a reality that is established independently of external opinion. Disney’s oriental felines are not relativists in any sense. They know who they are and do not care what other people might think or say. They stubbornly “purr-sist,” in being who they are. They illustrate the axiom that the order of naming should always conform to the order of being. But if the order of naming came first, then we would hear a different song: “We are Siamese if it pleases you, but if something else it pleases you more, perhaps we are ragamuffins, Turkish angoras, Chantilly-tiffanies, or even panthers.”
Without an objective basis for grasping the nature of things, chaos is inevitable: the nature of the unborn becomes indeterminable, marriage becomes uncertain, fatherhood becomes unnecessary, sex differences becomes fluid, and death becomes an option. If peace, as St. Augustine stated, is the “tranquility of order,” this cherished, though elusive value cannot possibly be achieved in an atmosphere of total confusion.
Among the moral verities that are needed for democracy, according to the former pontiff, are “human dignity,” “human life,” “the institution of the family,” and the “equity of the social order”. These are essential verities, he reasoned, so that “skepticism and ethical relativism” do not “threaten to undermine the foundations of democracy and a just social order.”
It is perhaps ironic that the Catholic Church can be a more realistic advocate for democracy than are many societies today that presume to be democratic. The Church continually teaches that it is far better, and certainly more democratic, for citizens to live and act in accordance with their natural inclinations than to have political leaders impose on them arbitrary and artificial standards. Democracy is not only a government of the people, but one that is grounded in nature.
Dr. Donald DeMarco is a Senior Fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, CT, and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That is Going Mad and Poetry That Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart are available through Amazon.com.
Articles by Don:
- Pro-Life Model: The Tenacity of Pierre Duhem
- Democracy and the Natural Law
- Health as a Burden
- In Solitary Witness
- Sweet Land of Liberty. . .Let Freedom Ring
