One of Dostoevsky’s characters famously claims that if there is no God, then everything is permitted.  Dostoevsky himself believed in God, but millions of atheists have taken comfort from his character’s line.  They reason that since God isn’t there to judge me, I can do what I want.

The statement is a queer one.  In at least three ways it is false, and in only one sense sort of true.  Even that sort-of-a-sense depends on an impossibility.

The speaker supposes that things are permitted and forbidden only because God has arbitrarily decreed them so.  Thus, he imagines that if there is no God, everything is just the same as if He exists -- except that there are no divine commands or prohibitions.  This being the case, everything is permitted.

The first flaw in this reasoning – and so the first sense in which the statement is false -- is that God’s decrees are not arbitrary.  They correspond to the natures of things that He has brought about.  We can’t create ourselves, any more than we can create another sky; He has done it already.  By nature, a lion eats lambs and is exempt from culpability.  By nature, human beings are responsible for their actions, and innocent human beings are inviolable.  By nature, children need and have a right to their parents’ care, and parents have the right and duty to care for them the best they can.  All this would be true – and we could tell that it is -- even if no one had told us.

The second flaw in this reasoning – and so the second sense in which the statement is false -- is that we don’t believe in God, and then, from this belief, derive a conscience.  Rather we are endowed by Him with conscience from the beginning, and this conscience testifies to us of God.  It presents itself to us as His voice.  If I stop believing in God, I don’t cease to have a conscience, any more than I can unmake my own nature.  What happens instead is because I no longer believe in God, I can no longer explain my conscience.  I have to make it out to be something other than a conscience.  For example, I might take it to be merely an instinct, or a residue of how I was brought up, or even me talking to myself.  Actually it couldn’t be any of those things.  The first hypothesis can’t explain how I can ever think it right to resist my instincts; there cannot be an instinct to resist instinct.  The second one can’t explain why I may think it right to go against some element of my upbringing; if I am how I was taught, that’s the end of it.  And the third one can’t explain how what I say to myself somehow becomes a law which I can’t change to suit myself.

The third flaw in this reasoning – and so the third sense in which the statement is false -- is that the universe requires an ultimate explanation, a First Cause.  An infinite regress of explanations is no explanation at all; a chain of causes with no beginning is no cause at all.  Since the universe does not have to exist, if there were no cause, there would be no universe, and so there could be no moral evaluation of acts whatsoever.  It would not be that all human acts would be permitted rather than forbidden, but that there would be neither acts nor actors, therefore no permitting or forbidding at all.  There would be nothing.  In fact, there would be less than nothing, because the something of which nothing is the absence could not be conceived, and there would be no one to conceive it.

Now in a fourth way, the statement might be called true, but this way would require us to believe something impossible – that the universe could exist without God having brought it into being and endowed it with order.  Such an existence would make no sense of any kind, neither logical, nor causal, nor moral.  Nothing could be forbidden, simply because there could be no ultimate explanation for anything.  This is the supposition of existentionalists, who say existence is absurd.

Then again, the fact that nothing could be forbidden wouldn’t really mean that everything would be permitted.  In a world in which everything were meaningless, both permitting and forbidding would be meaningless, and the statement “everything is permitted” would make no more sense than “everything is required,” or for that matter “everything is Kltpzyxm.”  We would not even declare existence absurd, because the idea of absurdity makes sense only against the frustrated expectation of meaning.  To be appalled that we have no meaning, we have to know what meaning is, and in such an impossible world, we couldn’t know what it is.  Meaning itself would be meaningless.

So the idea that if there is no God, then everything is permitted, leads to absurdities

But now turn this around:  If the universe does make sense, then as we saw above, there must be a First Sense -- a First Cause, a First Origin of whatever sense it does make – and this is what we call God.  In this case, we have no more reason to reject the moral order we see in things than to reject their logical order, their causal order, the order of ends to means, or the order of our minds.

Thus, among other things, created beings have natures.  Some things make our natures flourish, and others are inimical to them.  Therefore there are a good and evil.  Moreover some things can be rightly directed to our highest good in Him, and other things cannot.  Therefore there are an intrinsic good and evil.  Therefore not everything is permitted.

Query:

I’ve been reading about the American founding, but the failure to explain what a “republic” is or what “republicanism” is supposed to be is frustrating.  Take the late Gordon Wood.  He is helpful in other ways, but he writes long chapters on how republican the English were, how the colonists were more so, and how England itself was a highly republican sort of monarchy – and what does this mean?

I make sense of it by distinguishing between the form of government and the societal mores. A country may nominally be a monarchy, but the society is monarchical to the extent its sense of the nation (of its constitution?) is mediated through the monarch. It is "republican" to the extent that sense is independent of the monarch.

In a true monarchy, the king has more power to interpret the constitution, literally and symbolically. His embodiment of the nation counts for more.  It makes sense that as common people became more educated, they would have less need of monarchical forms.

This enables me to make sense of claims about American republicanism.  Do you think I am on the right track?

Reply:

I do think you’re on the right track.  The failure of various writers to explain what they mean by the terms “republic” and “republicanism” has long frustrated me too -- also the terms “democracy” and “democratic,” but that’s a different story.

Writers speak of republics in widely different senses.  I used to offer my students a one-size-fits-all definition, that republican government is government without a king, structured in such a way that "the last word" always rests, directly or indirectly, with the whole body of eligible citizens.  They -- not a body of nobles, though one might exist -- are where "the buck stops."

By a “king” I mean someone who actually exercises a share in rule.  Contemporary England has sometimes been called a “crowned republic” because the king no longer counts for much politically, although he does socially.  We seem to be something like an informal monarchy because of the way we treat our presidents.

By “eligible citizens” I meant "citizens eligible to participate in the stage of politics in question.”  In ancient republics like Rome, I told them, the body of eligible citizens was given the last word by requiring that every law be submitted for their personal approval at an Assembly of the People.  (In practice, of course, the aristocratic Senate manipulated the popular assemblies and most of the time did pretty much as it pleased, although the tribunes were a real check.)  Our method has been much less direct.  For that reason, Madison and Hamilton used the term “republic” simply for a regime dependent on representation rather than direct popular rule, although I think this is misleading.

I like your distinction between republicanism in the form of government and republicanism in the mores of the society.  However, although knowledge of public affairs is important, I wouldn’t necessarily say that how educated the citizens are is the key factor.  If they are highly educated, but don’t believe in a common good or don’t have civic virtue, they won’t be able to participate in government in a republican way.

Of course then we have to ask what we mean by civic virtue and the common good.  Influenced by Montesquieu, some of the Founders thought civic virtue lay mostly in devotion to the law and willingness to set aside personal interest for the common good.  Montesquieu would have had us think of Sparta, in which a woman who was told by a runner that her sons had fallen in battle gave the answer, “Don’t bother me about that.  Did we win?”

I am all for civic virtue and the common good, but I think the Spartan view of them was perverse.

Happy semiquincentennial!

NEW STUFF:

Sean McDowell’s interview with me (Dr. McDowell is a professor at Biola University):  “Why This Nihilist Professor Couldn’t Escape God.”  You can view it either here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w52USVw6t4 or here:  https://seanmcdowell.org/blog/why-this-nihilist-professor-couldnt-escape-god-j-budziszewski-testimony.

Query:

You’ve written and taught about moral prohibitions which have no exceptions.  Thomas Aquinas gives as an example the prohibition of lying.  Aristotle would never deny that someone has the right to lie to his enemies, but as you explain, Aquinas holds that lying is always immoral.

But while lying is not something noble or befitting the conduct of a gentleman, isn’t it a necessity?  Necessity sometimes triumphs over the noble.

I do not mean to imply that the thought of this sublime genius, Aquinas, is naïvely inflexible.  The natural law would even require a legislator to take the deficiencies of his subjects into account when legislating.  But it is certainly the case that his natural law teaching would not allow a city to take certain necessary actions to preserve its existence if it involved something prohibited by the natural law.

Reply:

Your question is certainly topical.  The Rasmussen polling organization, RMG Research, found that among economically elite voters who talk about politics every day, 69% say they would rather cheat than lose a close election.

Would it help to make a distinction?  For it seems to me that your objection mixes together three different issues:

1.  Are there any exceptionless prohibitions?

2.  Is the prohibition of lying, properly understood, one of them?

3.  What is the proper understanding of a lie?  Is the classical definition right, so that a lie is saying what one knows to be false with the intention of deceiving?  Or is a lie only speaking in such a way to someone who has a right to the truth?  Or does anything which conceals the truth count as a lie, so that, for example, silences, disguises, ambushes, and polite equivocations are kinds of lie?

To put it my point another way:  I wonder whether your objection to the idea of exceptionless prohibitions may really be an objection to certain exceptionless prohibitions, especially lying – or, perhaps, to certain exceptionless prohibitions understood in a certain way.

One way to settle which kind of objection you are making is to ask yourself whether there is any prohibition at all which you would view as exceptionless.  Consider the question and see what you think.

How about "Never rape your mother," or "Never torture a baby to death"?  Would you ever do those things so that good would result?  If not, then you are really on Thomas Aquinas’s side.  It may be an exaggeration to say that your disagreement is only about the details – but at least you agree that there are some exceptionless prohibitions.  We must not do what is intrinsically evil even so that good will result.

Query:

I was wondering about your thoughts on whether there should be social consequences for people or women who have been sexually promiscuous.  For example, would it be a reasonable course of action for all socially conservative men and women avoid marrying anyone who has been promiscuous in the past, even if they have changed and repented?  Should such people be shamed and condemned to singlehood?

Reply:

I certainly understand your concern.  Sexual sin cheapens personal relationships, disorders marriages, and dreadfully damages the well-being of children, yet we’ve come to consider sexual promiscuity normal, harmless, and adorably cute.  In a movie adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great work The Scarlet Letter, the adulterers live happily ever after.  For “adaptation,” read “typical Hollywood lie.”

But to discourage sexual promiscuity, does it make sense to shame and shun people for sinful practices they repented and abandoned long ago?  Should the broader community – or at least the community of faith – exclude them and make examples of them?

For three reasons, I think the answer to your question is “No.”  Since my negative could easily be misunderstood, let me first explain it, and then provide cautions and clarifications.

The first reason for the “No”:  God Himself forgives truly repented and absolved sins, and we dare not presume to have higher standards than He does.  Doing so would be not only presumptuous, but also hypocritical, because all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Moreover, our own former sins are not any less shameful than the former sins of other people, just because ours may be invisible but theirs may be known to everyone.

The second reason for the “No”:  God works through the Church, through the household of faith.  A repentant person needs the help and support of other people in the amendment of his life.  If everyone shuns him, this is impossible.

The third reason for the “No”:  Leaving grace aside and speaking from a purely sociological point of view, social disapproval is a lot like censorship.  Although it may be effective in preserving pure mores, it has little if any power to bring them about where they do not yet exist.  After all, who is to do the disapproving?  It is futile to urge a community of persons whose lives are impure to shun those whose lives are impure.  What is required here is not shunning, but conversion.

Now the cautions and clarifications.  I don’t suggest that repented former sins make no difference, for they do.  How so?

Both common sense and sound moral theology distinguish between the guilt we incur through sin, and the damage we do ourselves and other people by it.  Forgiveness heals the guilt, but it does not sponge away the damage.  That requires the medicine and surgery of penance, and in the case of those we have hurt, it requires reparation.  Suppose I have injured myself or another person by driving recklessly.  I am sorry and confess.  Good.  God forgives me.  Good.  But the injuries are still there. 

In the case of sexual sin, even if no one else has been hurt (which, by the way, is unlikely), a person who is genuinely repentant and forgiven may continue to suffer from bad habits, distorted ways of thinking, and soiled imagination.  Even with the help of grace, the cleansing of these stains may take a long time.  Bearing this fact in mind is not necessarily hypocritical or pharisaical.

Suppose that for years a young man immersed himself in the hookup culture – or, what is much the same thing, suppose that for years he used prostitutes.  Now he has repented.  He is attracted to a young woman.  Knowing his past, however, she is reluctant to consider marrying him, or even dating him, because ultimately, dating is about finding a suitable marriage partner.

Is she wrong to hesitate?  Of course not.  She is merely prudent.  Why?

As Augustine says in his Confessions, “My soul is like a house, small for you to enter, but I pray you to enlarge it.  It is in ruins, but I ask you to remake it.  It contains much that you will not be pleased to see: this I know and do not hide.  But who is to rid it of these things?  There is no one but you.”

All in a moment, I open the door of my house to Christ, bidding Him to come in.  And so He does.  Right away he begins scouring, throwing out trash, and letting in light and fresh air.  I imagine that I have made Him the Lord of the manor, but have I?  Not necessarily.  I may only have given him possession of the entrance hall.  After a while — maybe after a very long while — I permit myself to hear his persistent tap on the door of the living room.  Reluctantly, I relent and open that door too.  He now has possession of both entrance hall and living room.  What a relief to get them cleaned up.  So has He the whole house at last?  No, for even now I am shutting him out of my innermost, secret rooms.  Will I ever allow Him to be truly the Lord of the manor?  If I do, how long will it take?  For many, perhaps most of us, years, and perhaps with great suffering and struggle.  This is normal.  The suffering is part of the healing, like the pain of dental work.

Something like that may be happening with the young man who has repented his sexual impurity.  First he opened the door to the room of his soul where he had been using prostitutes.  Some time later, he opened the door to the room of his soul where he had been hooking up.  Later still, he opened the door to the room of his soul where he had been using pornography.  Still later, he opened another.  Each time he was forgiven.  Is it a test of the young woman’s faith to believe that there are no locked doors left?  No, it is a test of her judgment to consider the matter carefully.  What doors has he yet to unlock?  Does she know?  Is she even in a position to know?

For that matter, how well does he understand himself?  Deep stains and injuries may remain in his imagination and desires, as well as injuries to his natural inclination for the truth.  Such infirmities generate stronger-than-usual temptations to relapse into the sins themselves.  Just as it may take a long time to yield every category of sin to Christ for His forgiveness, so it may take a long time for the Holy Spirit to repair the damage of already-forgiven sin, and to heal those pre-existing weaknesses which make the young man susceptible.

Since we are instruments to each other of the grace of God, the repentant young man needs encouragement in the amendment of his life, not shunning.  But since the interior grace of God is invisible to us, the young woman’s duty is not to believe that he is marriageable, but to weigh the matter.  To be careful even about repented sin is not to mistrust Christ’s work of redemption, but to recognize how redemption actually works.

I can see how at first the exercise of such discernment in the community may seem no different than shaming and shunning.  In fact, it is almost the opposite.

NEW STUFF

My conversation about Pandemic of Lunacy with Philip Davies, host of the very interesting British podcast Amazing Academics, is now online, and here it is.  As usual, I’ve also posted it to the Listen to Talks page.

Query:

If legislators and judges all accepted the philosophical theory of determinism, what would be the effect on criminal sentencing?  I haven’t found any clear consensus.  Since the subject is heavily debated, could you tell me your view on the philosophical principles which guide or ought to guide legislators and judges?

Reply:

Thank you for your letter.  You’re right that unfortunately, judges and legislators give sharply divided answers to your question.  Traditionally, sentencing depended on such factors as the gravity of the crime (for example, murder is worse that petty shoplifting), on whether the criminal acted intentionally (for example, murder is worse than involuntary manslaughter), on the criminal's ability to control his actions (for example, someone who has been struck in the head may not know what he is doing, but someone who is very, very drunk is at least responsible for having become drunk in the first place), and on whether the criminal knew what he was doing (for example, you would not be held culpable if you had schizophrenia and killed someone because you were hallucinating that he was a dangerous lion).  Certain extenuating factors were also considered.

Most ordinary people still think that approach is correct.  Today, however, some extreme progressives believe that no one is really responsible for what he does, and some speak of abolishing prisons, or even of abolishing all punishment.  This is unreasonable because the fact that our conditions influence us does not abolish free will – an issue on which your question touches.  In fact, even if there were no free will, the prospect of punishment would be one of the influencing factors, wouldn’t it?  I've discussed some of the issues involved — with the emphasis on "some" — in my book review "Explaining Everything." You may also find some interest in my short item "Can Mercy and Justice Embrace?" and my article "Mercy, Yes, but Justice Too."

Another issue is what punishment is for.  Traditionally, the answer was retribution, which means giving the criminal what he deserves.  Retribution is not the same as getting revenge – that’s just emotional satisfaction.  Other factors besides retribution have often been considered too.  For example, the sentence may have been reduced if the criminal was truly penitent and no longer endangered anyone, provided that an unduly light sentence would make a mockery of the victims he had harmed.

Retribution may sometimes be “medicinal” in the sense of making the criminal a better person, but that is not its point.  Its point is that the criminal deserves punishment whether it rehabilitates him or not.  Today, though, some people think so-called rehabilitation should be the only consideration in punishment.  This view leads to some paradoxes.  For example, basing sentencing on rehabilitation alone may seem more humane — but in fact it may be less.  Why?  Because retribution has a limit.  It precludes punishing the criminal more than he deserves.  By contrast, rehabilitation is potentially unlimited.  It has to continue until the wrongdoer is “fixed,” and who knows whether that will ever happen?  This paradox was first discussed by C.S. Lewis in his essay "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment."

I hope these few remarks shed at least a little light.

NEW STUFF:

Kerbey Anderson chats with me here on the Point of View podcast, heard on 290 radio outlets, the internet, and shortwave.