Triangle of first principles:
Virtue requires Faith
Faith requires Freedom
Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.
~ John Adams
Alexander Hamilton and George Washington: The Great Experiment
America is a gigantic wager:
The Republic requires ultimate beliefs; it requires them;
otherwise, there is no root to the rights.
On the other hand the Republic rejects any statement of what
those ultimate beliefs are. There is no orthodoxy, there is no heresy.
How do you bring those things together? The Republic
requires them. The Republic rejects anyone saying what they are.
The only way you bring that together is, the republic wages,
that in the free democratic debate the best beliefs the most human, the most
true, the most just, etc. win the argument.
Constitutionally, there is absolutely not limit to what
anyone in America can believe. Is there?
Sociologically and culturally there is a limit. You can have
beliefs arise that endanger the whole thing.
How do you bring that tension together? Once again:
democratic debate.
Os Guinness
1941-Here is a post that goes against the idea of Faith requires Freedom. It is interesting from the point of democratic debate:
(adding a quote from C.S. Lewis:)
the Church grows under the harshest persecution and grows lethargic
and dies when apart from it
(Thanks to Wesley Smith and all the comments below related to his post)
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2012/03/30/faith-does-not-require-freedom/
Friday, March 30, 2012, 1:48 PM
Former Senator Rick Santorum has an interesting piece at Real Clear Religion about the difficulties in being a faithful Catholic in politics. I don’t know about that. But he makes a statement that, based on history and current events, I think is patently false. From “It is Hard to be Catholic in Public Life:”
In fact, freedom can lead to a weak faith because it remains untested. Indeed, the strongest and most enduring faith is often forged in the hottest fires of oppression. Consider, for example, how the Church was persecuted by Rome. Those martyrs eaten alive in the arena were hardly free. But they sure had faith! And because of their sacrifices, the Church grew.
Faith has historically thrived in the face of tyranny and deadly persecution wielded against it. Look at how the Russian Orthodox Church survived what may have been the worst religious oppression in history during the Soviet era–only to emerge and rebound strongly from its grievous wounds. Look at the Buddhists in Tibet who today maintain their faith in the face of Chinese occupation and oppression. Good grief, look at the history of the Jews!
Consider the experience of the Romanian priest Fr. George Calciu, of blessed memory, whose biography I reviewed here at First Things. He was imprisoned and tortured for his faith almost to the point of death, worse, forced to torture other Christians–and yet his faith grew to the point that he exclaimed to one of his torturers on Pascha, “Christ is risen!” to have the cruel man stumble back with the almost involuntary reply, “Indeed, His is risen!” Fr, George’s great fear once he was released to freedom in the USA was that decedance also thrives in freedom, to the detriment and undermining of faith.
It is good to be free. It is right to be free. It is best to be free. But faith does not require it.
Our founders understood it was relatively easy to establish freedom in our Constitution, the harder task was to create a system that would maintain it against the corrosive force of time. The author Os Guinness describes how they accomplished this as the Golden Triangle of Freedom: “Freedom requires virtue, virtue requires faith and faith requires freedom and around again.”I certainly agree that about our founders’ “inspired brilliance and agree that the USA is a nurturing home for faith. But, faith certainly does not require freedom.
Faith requires freedom. Why has America remained a deeply religious country averting the road to secularism traveled by many of our European brothers and sisters? Again Madison’s “true remedy,” the combination of “free exercise” and no religious state supported monopoly, has created a vibrant marketplace of religions. Our founders’ inspired brilliance created a paradigm that has given America the best chance of any civilization in the history of man to endure the test of time.
In fact, freedom can lead to a weak faith because it remains untested. Indeed, the strongest and most enduring faith is often forged in the hottest fires of oppression. Consider, for example, how the Church was persecuted by Rome. Those martyrs eaten alive in the arena were hardly free. But they sure had faith! And because of their sacrifices, the Church grew.
Faith has historically thrived in the face of tyranny and deadly persecution wielded against it. Look at how the Russian Orthodox Church survived what may have been the worst religious oppression in history during the Soviet era–only to emerge and rebound strongly from its grievous wounds. Look at the Buddhists in Tibet who today maintain their faith in the face of Chinese occupation and oppression. Good grief, look at the history of the Jews!
Consider the experience of the Romanian priest Fr. George Calciu, of blessed memory, whose biography I reviewed here at First Things. He was imprisoned and tortured for his faith almost to the point of death, worse, forced to torture other Christians–and yet his faith grew to the point that he exclaimed to one of his torturers on Pascha, “Christ is risen!” to have the cruel man stumble back with the almost involuntary reply, “Indeed, His is risen!” Fr, George’s great fear once he was released to freedom in the USA was that decedance also thrives in freedom, to the detriment and undermining of faith.
It is good to be free. It is right to be free. It is best to be free. But faith does not require it.
March 30th, 2012 | 2:46 pm
I wonder if Santorum was thinking of “Without Roots,” which the then Joseph Ratzinger wrote with Marcello Pera. This is a quote from Ratzinger in chapter 9:
So faith does not require freedom but freedom requires faith. And indeed our current withering of freedoms parallels the decline of our largest Protestant churches.
With regard to your other points I think it was Bernard who said the church is in the best position when it is under attack from all sides.
March 30th, 2012 | 2:47 pm
["Forced" to torture other Christians?]
March 30th, 2012 | 3:12 pm
The second imprisonment they couldn’t break him and that is when he had the encounter with the brutal guard. Please check out the review to which I linked. A very rare and courageous man, was Fr. George.
March 30th, 2012 | 4:41 pm
A verse contained in some versions of an old hymn, which has been on my mind recently, comes to mind:
Our fathers, chained in prisons dark,
Were still in heart and conscience free;
And blest would be their children’s fate,
If they, like them should die for thee:
Faith of our fathers! holy faith!
We will be true to thee till death!
Source: http://www.hymnal.net/hymn.php/h/830#ixzz1qdNRvcy8
March 30th, 2012 | 5:30 pm
March 30th, 2012 | 5:55 pm
March 30th, 2012 | 8:01 pm
Indeed, political freedom is not necessary for the Christian faith to exist and thrive. Wesley’s examples demonstrate this clearly. In fact, I think Santorum has it backwards: [Political] freedom, in the sense we’ve known it in the US for 200+ years, requires faith in a transcendent God as the ultimate grantor and guarantor of the human rights mentioned in the DoI and Constitution.
However, david s’ quote is important too: Human hearts and consciences must be free to respond to Christ even when the bodies they reside in are “chained in prisons dark”. God gives this freedom; it’s an essential part of our human nature and can’t be beaten out of us (as Fr. George’s testimony demonstrates). It’s increasingly difficult for us to recognize and exercise this freedom to be in relationship with Christ, though, because of how popular/media culture has twisted the definition of ‘freedom’ (into ‘buy and consume as much as you can to maximize your pleasure’).
Real human freedom, as Pope JPII said, is not the license to do as you like, but rather the ability to become what you ought to be. It’s the loss of this conception of freedom, not necessarily the loss of free political speech or action, that will bring about our demise as a society.
March 30th, 2012 | 9:45 pm
March 31st, 2012 | 8:43 am
As he points out, ‘faith’ can indeed exist and on a certain level ‘thrive’ [martyrs etc] without it. However, especially at this time of the Passover-Pasch, we need to remember our roots.
When Moses was sent to Pharaoh the message was indeed, “Let MY (Referring to the Lord God) People go”, however, what is often overlooked is precisely the reason: ‘that they may worship ME”. The whole structure of the Book of Exodus reveals this ‘thrust’ beginning with ‘slavery’ leading to liberation-redemption then Covenant at Sinai (sealing the liberation and forming the nation of Israel) then leading to the whole establishment of worship [cult, descriptions of sacrifices, ordination, vestments etc of Levitical priests] All so that the Holy One of Israel may abide in a holy, royal priestly people.
Jesus came both affirming and transforming this ‘movement’. He set forth for the first time in history the ‘distinction’ between throne and altar, Caesar and God,-so that we might give to God what is God’s.
He came in fulfillment of the Father’s promise to Abraham “to set us free from the hands of our enemies, free to worship Him without fear, holy and righteous in His sight all the days of our life” [Luke 1 Benedictus]
He came not to be served but to serve and to give His Life as a ransom [liberation] for the many. Of course the fulness of that ransom is not some mere socio-political or economic program but the ‘forgiveness of sins’, freedom from ‘our past’ and the ultimate liberation, the liberation from death, from ‘being only in the past’, in the resurrection.
Ancient Israel’s intuition of the Jubilee became reality in the Kingdom: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land”. Leviticus 25. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, therefore He has anointed Me, to proclaim good news to the poor, liberty to captives, and an acceptable time (the Jubilee) of the Lord” Isaiah 61 and Luke 4.
Where the Gospel is proclaimed, freedom will follow, however the deepest freedom of them all-not merely a freedom from but freedom for-
This is why Pope Benedict in speaking to the bishops in the Washington DC grouping spoke of the need to speak out for religious freedom and to reclaim this fundamental value of our Founding Fathers. Was it accidental that President Obama, the very next day set forth his HHS plan? God knows and history will eventually tell us.
I am not advocating here for Senator Santorum but he is definitely ‘on to something here’
March 31st, 2012 | 11:40 am
March 31st, 2012 | 2:14 pm
March 31st, 2012 | 3:20 pm
March 31st, 2012 | 10:45 pm
April 1st, 2012 | 9:54 am
Martyrs may be faithful, but they are also dead, which is another kind of liberty. We say that people of faith, such as those mentioned in the post, are persecuted. Since when is persecution a desirable state of being?
April 2nd, 2012 | 4:44 am
“Since when is persecution a desirable state of being?”
“Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake” Matt 5:11 The Greek has μακάριοί makarioi = happy, blessed, to be envied.
cf “For unto you it is given for Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.” Phil 1:29 & “If you be reproached for the name of Christ, you shall be blessed: for that which is of the honour, glory, and power of God, and that which is his Spirit, resteth upon you.” Pet 4:14
April 2nd, 2012 | 11:39 am
April 2nd, 2012 | 6:08 pm
Faith does indeed require the freedom of conscience at a purely definitional, a priori level. The very existence of faith is a component of our freedom of will: God could compel us to submit to his glory, but he chose to rather give us the divine gift of volition that we may freely choose him. For this holy dynamic to exist, freedom must obtain from the foundations of the universe. This is why “evidence” for God seems invisible or improbable (though it is all around us), and this is why atheism exists, and this is why faith must exist until we are face-to-face with the Father.
We are not choiceless herds, we are not blissfully unaware animals. We are the choosing animal, made in the image of God. We are the flesh that has consciousness of itself. That consciousness is the essential criterion of the human. Free will is the Imago Dei that comprises our souls. God does not want the instinctive obedience of mindless fauna. He wants our friendship, and friendship requires volition.
Or:
In Originally turning our back on his friendship, the Knowledge of Good and Evil entered into the world, and so did its antidotes: faith, hope, and love. Free will, and therefore sin itself, is the residue of this fateful choice against God, which upset the intended dynamic until it could be repaired by the Second Adam. We intuit what the good is in this broken world, but only by freely choosing the good can we contemplate the good in all its fullness. “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Rom 7:15).
Being compelled to act in accordance with an inimical belief is not faith at all. If freedom is outwardly circumscribed then all expressions of faith become internalized and therefore reduced to a gnostic rump of its most robust self. “[F]aith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (Jas 2:17).
Fortunately for us Christians, we have no choice but to proselytize. We are commanded to spread the news of the Gospel. That means we cannot truly be faithful when we are forced to shut up about it. Our faith not only depends utterly on freedom, our faith invented freedom. The two are inextricable.