Notice how John Paul II and Abraham Kuper challenge the joint opinion of the Supreme Court in 1992:
"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under the compulsion of the State."--Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)
"Others speak, and rightly so, of 'thenomy,' or 'participated theonomy," since man's free obedience to God's law effectively implies that human reason and human will participate in God's wisdom and providence. By forbidding man to 'eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,' God makes clear that man does not originally possess such 'knowledge' as something properly his own, but only participates in it by the light of natural reason and of Divine Revelation, which manifest to him requirements and the promptings of eternal wisdom. Law must therefore be considered an expression of divine wisdom: by submitting to the law, freedom submits to the truth of creation."--John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor
"In a Calvinistic sense we understand hereby, that the family, the business, science, art, and so forth are all social spheres, which do not owe their existence to the state, and which do not derive the law of their life from the superiority of the state, but obey a higher authority within their bosom; and authority which rules, by the grace of God, just as the sovereignity of the State does."--Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism
Do you think John Paul II speaks about all 'law' when saying that 'Law must therefore be considered an expression of divine wisdom'? Even unjust law?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I understand the Kuyper quote.
I think he means the principle of law, the idea being that laws (based on reason and nature) when they get the divine will mostly right are expressions fo wisdom that point back to rather than arbitary social conventions or contracts put in place by power groups.
ReplyDeleteI'll explain the Kuyper quote in a new post sometime soon--it is the idea of sphere soverignity and goes back to the community element I've been stressing.
I am seeing that much of the difference of opinion that we have ends up coming from the different views of 'individual' and 'society' that we hold. I look forward to reading more about the idea of sovereignty and community.
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