I recently visited a lovely little square in a very old, a very nice, historical city. My friends and I had just come from a local community meeting which had gathered an assemblage of people representing all cuts of the proverbial cloth. It had been a pleasant summer evening. The late sun set an orange tinge to the cool muggy air as we walked outside and surveyed the street scene before us. Our meeting place had been an old church, the kind with the tall tower rising above its neighboring buildings.

It was a pleasant enough evening, so we took a seat right on the steps leading up to the church which, being raised just above the level of the sidewalk and the people upon it, afforded a very picturesque scene. Across from us in a small triangular park there was a group of young people lying on blankets conversing with each other. No books, no picnic basket. Just people and conversation. A few cyclists rode by on the road, slowing just slightly before riding on through the quiet intersection. Several people exited one of the corner stores, loaded their groceries into their cars which were parked lining the street or walked a block up the way and entered their townhouse or small home which fronted the several streets and park within view. I’m fairly certain I counted at least three couples walking casually on the sidewalk pushing baby strollers, not counting the half dozen or more with children or walking arm in arm by themselves.

You may be wondering by this point where I could have been enjoying such a charming and comforting little scene; perhaps one of the romantic public squares in Paris; maybe a homely marketplace in a London borough; perhaps one of the great plazas in Rome, or Venice, or any other of the world’s old and famous cities. After reading this list you’re probably not surprised to learn that it wasn’t any of these places at all. I was, rather, sitting right in the middle of a very common neighborhood close to the heart of Richmond, Virginia.

Politics and Place

These few observations didn’t even form part of our conversation that evening. We were merely concerned with the issue of political life and leadership in the local community. Odd actually, that this should be our topic. Because what we were watching was in fact a political scene. Each of these people was participating in and contributing to what Tocqueville called the “public spirit” of a place. Here was a place where people were exercising ownership of their community by partaking in its public life, an extremely public public life I may add. These simple acts of walking, talking, and making small purchases don’t take place behind closed doors but rather in the company or at the exposure to others. This leaves open the occasion for interaction where a communal interest may come up for discussion. But even should you choose not to speak to someone you may pass on the street, you are forming political associations in the back of your head – because you are cognizant that you don’t exist in isolation, but rather form a small part of something to which you can attach spaces, places, people, and therefore meaning.

It’s hard to imagine anyone devoting their life to the destruction of everything good in the story just described, but that in fact is what the famed architect, urban planner, and philosopher Le Corbusier sought to do. Corbusier developed his principles in the political climate of 1930s Italy, France, Germany, and Russia…not the happiest of times for modern political thought. Corbusier, outside of the Soviet Academy of Architecture, made the strongest connections between political ideology, architecture, and culture of any architect of his, and subsequent, generations.

The Godfather

Theodore Dalrymple provides us with a very thorough examination of Corbusier’s influence in his essay, “The Architect as Totalitarian.” Dalrymple’s essential point is that were Corbusier to rule the world, it would be a very dry and barren place void of humanity. It’s difficult to argue anything against Corbusian principles because of his status enshrined in the academy as the pantheon of all architectural ideals.

Corbusier’s many plans for the rebuilding of great European cities and towns after the World War II called for the complete decimation of all the old, historic city quarters and the erection of tall concrete and glass towers connected not by streets, but by roads. It may seem like a pedantic distinction, but a street is a road for people, and a road is a street for machines. Up until the technocentric development of the modern age cities had been built with streets. Essentially, beginning with Corbusier they would be built with roads.

This small difference is vastly significant because it would go on to make all the difference in the world for how people would use their cities, and consequently how pleasant their experience of them would be. It may also serve as a metaphor for the age of the machine, the age of automation, and the age of efficiency which made speed, precision, and streamlined perfection our god in the temple of minimalism. This minimalism evidenced itself in his scorn for humanity. Corbusier disdained regular streets because they were theatre for “disorderly human conduct.” It was unpredictable. It was incalculable. It was social. It was messy.

In his architecture, Corbusier denounced humanity and all of its historical expressions. Dalrymple calls it “inhumanity” or “ahumanity.”

“This manifests itself in several ways, including in his thousands of architectural photos and drawings, in which it is rare indeed that a human figure ever appears, and then always as a kind of distant ant, unfortunately spoiling an otherwise immaculate, Platonic townscape.”

Corbusier wanted humans “out of sight, out of mind” because the landscape would be “cleaner” that way, less adulterated. He dehumanized every facet of design as machines; a “machine for living” (house), a “machine for moving” (cars), or a “machine for sitting” (chairs).

Corbusier criticized Gothic architecture because it provided “an ingenious solution to a difficult problem” but it is an irrelevant solution because it ignores basic primary forms (or in other words, it isn’t streamlined minimalism).

The Egotism of the Age

Everything about Corbusier is a mark of the egotism of the age, especially prevalent in the Architecture profession. Architects heralded themselves literally as the builders of a “new” modern age and made certain that they alone held the adulation of the public in such a way they could manipulate themselves to the highest stratas of society and command the reverence of all those beneath them. Much like the architect himself, “A Corbusian building is incompatible with anything other than itself.”

By Dalrymple’s fascinating and appealing study, Corbusier’s influence couldn’t have been more devastating or more total. From the grave he reaches out and still manipulates architectural thought and practice to the detriment of society. All it should take to convince his most ardent fan is to see the ruin and desolation of his built work in places like Chandigarh, India, and the Unite d’Habitation in Marseilles and then visit a place like that small neighborhood in Richmond. It is places like those church steps that make us more human and make life more worth living. Corbusier, for all his lofty ideals and “primary forms,” cannot account for an ounce of humanity of which we can choose to be a part.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Other Political Writings

Although the Marquis de Condorcet welcomed the French revolution, his critique of the execution of Louix XVI led to his condemnation as an enemy of the republic of France. It was Condorcet’s believe that a conspiracy between priest and king as models of government were responsible for the greatest assault on the rights of man which constituted the largest body of his political work.

Condorcet’s ideas paved the way for a new kind of nationalism, one born out of the individual man’s pursuit of self-interest. The individual improvement of man would make for a stronger thread for which the fabric of a national identity would eventually be composed. In a way, though the individualism born out of the ideas of hobbes, locke, rousseau, Condorcet, and others, would usher in a relatively quick decline of the European states, it bred the ascendancy of the modern superpower in the form of American nationalism.

Condorcet’s rationalism was a key component of the French enlightenment, paving the way for the enumeration of the rights of man, stated in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man. “After long periods of error, after being led astray by fake were incomplete theories, publicists have at last discovered the true rights of man and how they can all be deduced from the single truth, that man is a sentient being, capable of reasoning and of acquiring moral ideas. . . .

At last man could proclaim aloud his right, which for so long had been ignored, to submit all opinions to his own reason and to use in the search for truth the only instruments for its recognition that he has been given. Every man learnt with a sort of pride that nature had not forever condemned him to base his beliefs on the opinions of others; the superstitions of antiquity and the basement of reason before the [rapture] of supernatural religion disappeared from society as from philosophy.”

Condorcet’s abandonment of religion can be compared to the evolution of thought in Hobbes’ Leviathan. Since the idea of the body of Christ no longer exists for Hobbes, he can have no view of any transcendant power that unifies human nature into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. The very foundation for understanding any transcendant view of human nature, and thus community life, is eradicated. The application and reason to understand and apply the biblical command to love is rooted in the idea that there exists something greater than the individual which motivates an individual to think less of himself and more of someone or something else, thus forming a basic link or connection to the second thing and creating in effect a third thing. When government is a necessary beast, existing on a basis of practical despotism, government becomes a negative, not a positive, thing. Its role is divisionary, separatist, and keeping one person from another, because the assumption is that the activity is a violent activity. The individual is the only thing that can exist for Hobbes, and that individual’s motives to move about arise out of self-interest and fear.

1. Condorcet lists equality between nations as a hope for a better condition for the future of the human race. How does this compare to the declarations of rights of man’s assumption that sovereignty resides in the nation?

2. What are the effects of rousseau’s rationalism on state local sovereignty?

3. is the declaration of the rights of man an decidedly atheist document? (man is capable of reasoning and acquiring moral ideas)

4. What is the general will?

5. Just how important is Liberty to God?

Gertrude Himmelfarb. The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenment. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2004

As contrasts to the origin and nature of Government, Hobbes and Locke posit competing views to the nature of humanity, authority, and political community. Hobbes, writing amidst the great struggle of the English civil war but in the safety of Parisian life, wrote in defense of the monarchy in England. He argued that society is nothing more than a collection of selfish individuals who must be kept from devolving into such absolute chaos that a concentration of power is the most philosophically reasonable justification for the sovereignty of a king. (Kirk 271) Locke on the other hand wrote his primary treatises on government after the civil war and culmination of the Glorious Revolution in 1688; and, after the publications of Hobbes. Ultimately, power rests within the grasp of the common people. Those who are governed ought to compose that Body of those who govern them. The people may delegate their power to a body of parliament, but under conditions of tyranny may use their strength to lawfully oppose such tyranny. (Kirk 284)

Hobbes’ Leviathian, i.e. the absolute authority of the state, is predicated on his understanding of human nature. Although Hobbes is quick to divorce almost all of Christian authority from the affairs of politics, he is certainly influenced by Reformation thought regarding the nature and humanity of man. People are by nature bent on anarchy and chaos, and would live by the sword against each other because of a savage and selfish nature. True, men are depraved, but Hobbes does not account for the role of common grace and the restraining influence of that grace on the evils of man.

In one great and terrible blow Hobbes reduces almost all Christian thought to mere rationalism and secularism. The classical and Christian tradition of natural law becomes merely a set of rules man has evolved over time to maintain order and peace with one another. Christian kingship is no longer necessary even if kingship in general is necessary. These principles have no divine or eternal origin. Even though Hobbes is consistent with Reformation’s low view of human nature, he completely substitutes the Leviathan for the Christian understanding of grace and the body of Christ.

Since the idea of the body of Christ no longer exists for Hobbes, he can have no view of any transcendant power that unifies human nature into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. The very foundation for understanding any transcendant view of human nature, and thus community life, is eradicated. The application and reason to understand and apply the biblical command to love is rooted in the idea that there exists something greater than the individual which motivates an individual to think less of himself and more of someone or something else, thus forming a basic link or connection to the second thing and creating in effect a third thing. When government is a necessary beast, existing on a basis of practical despotism, government becomes a negative, not a positive, thing. Its role is divisionary, separatist, and keeping one person from another, because the assumption is that the activity is a violent activity. The individual is the only thing that can exist for Hobbes, and that individual’s motives to move about arise out of self-interest and fear.

This concept influenced the founders and continues to influence America today more than anybody has yet realized. In colonial America there existed such conditions ripe for the propagation of individualism.

1. Locke argues that reparation and restraint are the only two justifications for one man doing harm to another, what he calls punishment. (272). Is such punishment diminishing of Christ’s punishment that he took on the cross? Isaiah 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

2. Should punishment be a role of government? Discipline yes, punishment no?

3. Given Christ’s command to turn the other cheek, scripture’s admonishment for self-sacrifice, and love of neighbor, do we indeed have a “Right to reparation” and Locke claims? (273)

4. Is the invention of money a boon or a blessing to the furtherance of an economic state? Locke argues that it allows us to increase our stores beyond what is necessary…and thus creates property more than can be used, and desires to accumulate more than can be used. Is this helpful or hurtful to living in a harmonious state?

Berman, Harold J. Law and Revolution II: The Impact of the Protestant Reformations on the Western Legal Tradition. (Cambridge, Massachusettes: Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2003)

The story of the English Revolution is a story of the development of parliament and the struggle for power between Monarch and Parliament, Parliament and Monarch. From absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy, the evolution of political and legal organization was determined by the power struggles of England’s rulership and the constant back and forth between politically-sanctioned Catholicism and politically-sanctioned Protestantism, in all their various forms. At one point in the history both ends of the spectrum were given sanction, including anglo-catholics and conforming puritans. The two groups left out however were the extreme branches, Non-Conforming Puritans and hyper Roman Catholics.

Prior to 1640 and the Cromwellian insurgency Mother England was governed by an absolute monarchy. By 1689 not only had a party system emerged with major forms of power, but Parliament (with a capital P) was the defacto head of the Church of England). In the judiciary circuit, in 1640 judges were appointed and served at the will of the monarch and exercised justice as was proportionate to the whims of the King. By 1689 justices were given independence of the crown, and the common law court system was made supreme over all other courts, (including the powerful prerogative courts established by the Tudor monarchs) and common law itself became the constitutional law of England. Jury and judge became separate and independent of one another, witness and evidence systems were established, and the doctrine of precedent was given its modern meaning.

In response to the growing popularity of natural reason as the foundation of jurisprudence, King James I and Jean Bodin argue that “through law the ruler keeps order in society just as through law God keeps order in nature. Reason, in King James’ philosophy is not immanent in nature and in society, as it was believed to be by most scholastic theologians and philosophers ever since Saint Anselm and Abelard.” (235) In any state of nature, James argued, headship is necessary and the most similar form to that of the nature of God this can take is in the form of kingship. This authority bears out on society patterned after that of Christ to the Church, and soul to the body. “Kingship in [James] theory, is the soul of the body politic.” (235)

Jean Bodin’s major polemic work targeted the French Heugenot conception of divided sovereignty. However, Bodin was not in total opposition to the possibility of an aristocratic order. He merely argued instead that monarchy was far preferable. Francis Bacon made similar claims across the chanel in King James’ court, and argued that as nature requires and produces government, thus “government requires and produces law.” Anything other than absolute monarchy, Bacon claimed, “were apt to dissolve.”As god’s representative to earthly rule, kings are required by God to fulfill the divine commandment to “maintain justice in their kingdoms and to observe the principles of natural law, that is, the principles of reason and conscience.”

Jean Gerson wrote that “all law, including English law has its ultimate sources in the natural law of reason, the eternal law of God, general customs, and general legal principles.” 232

Does Gerson place too much emphasis on reason for the derivation of law?

Hooker asserts that law “is founded in will and politics and in the corruption of human nature, which requires, for the sake of sociability itself, submission to the commands of a political authority. Government is the result of man’s natural inclination to sociability; all particular forms of government, however are the result of man’s express or tacit consent to submit to those particular forms…” 233

If government is the natural result of man’s sociability, and if man had sociability before the fall, would hooker argue that government is prelapsarian?

Does the shift towards Constitutional Monarchy indicate changes in social mores?

Coke did not deny the validity of King Jame’s version of natural law theory…was he right then to shift English common law and define it in historical terms?

Berman, Harold J. Law and Revolution II: The Impact of the Protestant Reformations on the Western Legal Tradition. (Cambridge, Massachusettes: Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2003)

In his discussion of the origins and influence of the Protestant Reformation on Western legal tradition, Harold Berman examines the beginnings of the Lutheran Reformation in Germany and its successors as a changing of the political landscape rife with potential for the re-examination of the conceptualization of law. Berman begins by stating the importance of Reformation thought to Western society’s conceptualization of law. He says first of all that law is a product of the protestant and catholic traditions, an heir to spiritual and human traditions interpreting our notions of justice. Second, that without a knowledge and understanding of past influence on modern conceptualization, there can be no commitment to future principles. Third, our legal heritage is rooted historically in different forms of Christian faith. And finally, that reformation thought keeps in mind the religious dimension of legal tradition, arising out of spiritual and moral motivation, not mere human invention.

One of the most fundamental elements to a Lutheran conception of law was a shift from a “two swords” to “two kingdoms” theory of law. Certainly Luther tended towards heavy dualism in his understanding of church/state governance, but his overall shift in thinking from Roman Catholic interaction of spiritual and secular powers to heavenly and earthly kingdoms and their respective Law / Gospel divide, prompted a fundamental shift in the Western conception of Law.

The Catholic church had, up to this point, adhered to the “two swords” theory proclaimed by Gregory VII. This approach saw the church as a lawmaking institution, and as Gregory advocates, superior in jurisdiction to secular, or royal, power. Catholicism elevated human will and reason to the point of salvation by works. This fundamentally optimistic view of human nature says that “despite man’s sinfulness, his will and reason were thought to remain capable of obtaining a ‘natural’…perfectibility. In addition, the sacrament of baptism forgives humanity’s original sin.

Luther objected strongly to such a view, arguing instead that the earthly kingdom is in the order of sin and death. Therefore, it must be governed by the Law. Luther perceived a distinct heavenly kingdom of grace and faith which is governed by the gospel, that is the justification of faith by faith alone, qualifying humanity for God’s free gift of salvation. This left the earthly kingdom’s Law separate and distinct from heavenly jurisdiction and thus became an order of the secular realm. Politics and law are not, as traditionally seen, a path to grace and faith (The primary political understanding of the Roman Catholic church).

Here we arrive at the fundamental difference in the two realms of thought. Luther flips these two around and argues instead that grace and faith are a path towards the right politic and the right law. Berman argues that, “Lutheran reformers taught that it is the duty of Christians “to work the work of God in the world,” and to use their will and reason, however defective, to do as much good and to attain as much understanding as possible.” 42

“God himself ordained and established this temporal realm and its distinctions, and we must remain and work in them so long as we are on earth.”

1. In characterizing Luther’s fundamental orientation to earthly kingdom and humanity, Berman states “politics and law are not a path to grace and faith…but are not grace and faith a path to the right politics and the right law? Here Luther was torn between his belief in man’s essential wickedness and his belief that that wickedness itself, and the earthly realm which embodies it, are ordained by God.”

(43)

Which of these views does Luther ultimately gravitate towards?

2. Berman states “It is an essential tenet of the Lutheran doctrine of creation that sinful man is a creature of God and that God is present, though hidden, in the earthly realm…it is the duty of Christians to work the work of God in the world and use their will and reason to do as much good and attain as much understanding as possible.” (43)

How does this view differ from the Roman Catholic understanding and is Luther’s view properly rooted in a Biblical ethic?

3. Berman argues the fundamental difference between Lutheranism and Calvinism is where authority in ecclesiastical matters lies. Luther says they lie in the territorial prince, Calvin argues for the elders of the local congregation. Why does an theology otherwise in agreement render two such differing authorities? (58)

4. Berman states of the shift in legal jurisdiction in the church… “What has traditionally been a called a process of secularization of the spiritual law of the church must thus also be viewed as a process of spiritualization of the secular law of the state.” (65) This arises out of the massive body of ordinances drawn up to govern secular areas. Given the historical progression of this trend (falling closer to the secularization side of the map), would Calvin’s understanding of authority have begotten a different effect? I.E. if the elders drafted the law and left law in the realm of the church, as opposed to Luther’s princes, might we be living in a different society today?

O’Donovan, Oliver and Joan Lockward O’Donovan, Editors. From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1999)

“Rights sanctioned by men for their own advantage were very various, and changed with the social expectations and the times…Though man is an animal, he is an extraordinary one. And among the distinctive features of human behavior …is a desire for society.” Fundamental to the ordering of a peacable and just society is the nature of humanity to organize by their human rational capacities. This separates them from other animals because to use one’s human intelligence and acting upon a series of well-formed judgments is appropriate to human nature.

This discussion of human nature presupposes what Hugo Grotius calls “Right”. It is the concept that in creating human kind and endowing them with his image, that this bears certain implications for how man lives together and how God is concerned with human affairs. One of Grotius’ famously misinterpreted lines “even if we were to accept the infamous premise that God did not exist” is in the context of the discussion of Right, which Grotius argues would still be legitimate to human nature without God. However, he claims it bears even more gravity because of God. This Right bears the natural law that man must obey God without qualification. We owe it as much to ourselves as to our Creator, owning possessing nothing apart from him.

Some would divide the complete conception of right into Natural Right and Civic Right. Some would even say there is a Right of Nations. Grotius argues, “If a citizen who breaches civil Right for his own immediate interest destroys the fabric which protects the enduring interests of himself and his posterity, so a people that violates natural rights and the rights of nations, undermines the supports of its own future tranquility.”

In his discussion of what is Right, Grotius asks the followup question, what is Just? For Rightness and Justice are inextricably linked. “’Right’ in this context means simply, what is just – ‘just’ being understood in a negative rather than a positive sense, to mean ‘what is not unjust.’ ‘Unjust,’ in turn, means what is inconsistent with the nature of a society of rational beings.”

Grotius, who refers often to historical and theological sources, quotes Aristotle on this issue of Right. Natural and Voluntary Rights, which roughly correspond to the Hebrew conception of natural right and positive right, are concerned with man “obliging us to do what is correct.” This involves virtues other than mere justice, because he uses the distinct phrase “what is correct” and not “what is just”.

On a very basic level, what is just and what is correct are close enough the same that we could use the terms interchangeably. However, sometimes other virtues supercede what is in fact just. In such cases, it may align more with the character of God to intervene in situations in ways other than the meting out of justice. One thinks of Christ’s atonement on the cross. Justice demands eternal damnation for all humanity. However, what is correct to the nature of God supercedes what God’s justice demands. That is, that some portion of humanity be reconciled to Christ. The question then, which most reformers dealt with, is how are God’s other attributes (mercy, justice, righteousness, sovereignty) fully satisfied in all cases?

O’Donovan, Oliver and Joan Lockward O’Donovan, Editors. From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1999)

Lutheran Reformer Philipp Melanchthon structured his theological formulations according to Martin Luther’s dialectic between the law and the gospel and the evolution of Luther’s own political thought through natural law. Melancthon centers his exposition of lex moralis on the power of sin, work of the law, and the fruits born through the appropriation of God’s grace to believers and unbelievers. All laws of nature and of man hinge upon universally rooted judgments that men should worship God, cause no harm, and establish common use of and sharing of earthly properties.

Earlier in his scholastic career Melanchthon held to a more distinct division between the “two kingdoms” espoused by Luther. His view, heavily dualistic, distinguished between inner freedom and external obligations (651). It was easily possible to separate natural and divine laws between social and political morality. It wasn’t until the peasant Anabaptist uprisings that this distinction came into sharp focus for Melanchthon and he was able to integrate the two kingdoms of God and their respective laws through Natural Law philosophy.

Melanchthon argues that the Decalogue offers a locus for the entire lex moralis. The ten commandments refer not merely to the ten statements issued to Moses on Mt. Sinai, but rather the entire composition of the moral law in scripture. The ten statements engraved on the two tablets happen to be a summation of the rest of the law. The fourth commandment specifically speaks to the desire of God for the appropriation of order and government in creation instead of a certain ‘freedom’ which allows the wanton desires of man to run rampant in society.

The corrupted nature of man longs to live with no restraint, but it is in a society of no restraint that corruption runs wild and brazen not held in check by any restraining force. In such a society a man must always live in fear of his neighbor, uncertain of what injury might be done to him, unsolicited and unmerited, but imparted nonetheless. Such a fear for neighbor does not birth freedoms but rather controls, for a man is controlled by those he fears. Thus the very freedom of the society is its enslaving force.

Instead, freedom is “an orderly use of one’s own body and goods, by choice, in accordance with divine law and other true statutes” (654). God’s law is not enslaving, it is freeing; for it provides the appropriate restraint due the nature of divine law and statutes. Deuteronomy 4:1 states, “You shall heed the ordinances that I have commanded, that you may live!”

The second aspect to the fourth commandment relates to the nature of obedience to one’s particular office or calling and the virtue of gratitude necessary to display in order to properly accord the grace of God in that circumstance. Gratitude comprises the other virtues of truth and justice. First, when gratitude is expressed you are also expressing truth by rightfully acknowledging we are not proud and have boasted in our own strength in accomplishing some particular task. Secondly there is justice in returning that for which particular help was given.

1. Melanchthon states “the light of natural law was planted in man when he was created, but in the heathen it has been obscured.” 658. What does Melanchthon mean by heathen and how has the law been obscured?

2. How does Melanchthon describe poverty and its relation to private property? What is his critique of the Anabaptists?

3. Melanchthon defines freedom as an orderly use of one’s own body and goods, by choice, in accordance with divine law and other true statutes (654). Do you agree with his definition and does it founded in the right jurisdiction of God’s law?

4. Melanchthon argues that the closer one gets to absolute freedom the closer one gets to tyranny and social chaos. Is this justification for me to abandon my libertarianism?