IMPRIMIS Because Ideas Have Consequences and, therefore, were properly enslaved. Only tianity, modern socialist movements reject the persons of gold are truly to be treated as ends in stratification of citizens into gold, silver, and themselves. For Judaism and Christianity, on lead, as in Plato’s scheme. But, since they are the contrary, the God who made every single materialistic at root, their traditional impulse child gave worth and dignity to each of them, has been to pull people down, to place all on however weak or vulnerable. “What you do the same level, to enforce uniformity. This pro- unto the least of these, you do unto me.” God gram is inexorably coercive, unlovely, and identified Himself with the most humble and depressing. most vulnerable. Our Creator knows each of us by name, and Compassion understands our own individuality with a far greater clarity that we ourselves do; after all, He t is true that virtually all peoples have tra- made us. (Thomas Aquinas once wrote that ditions of compassion for the suffering, God is infinite, and so when He creates human care for those in need, and concern for beings in His image, He must in fact create an others. However, in most religious tradi- Itions, these movements of the heart are limited infinite number of them to mirror back His own infinity.) Each of us reflects only a small to one’s own family, kin, nation, or culture. In fragment of God’s identity. If one of us is lost, some cultures, young males in particular have the image of God intended to be reflected by to be hard and insensitive to pain, so that they that one is lost. The image of God reflected in will be sufficiently cruel to enemies. Terror is the human becomes distorted. the instrument intended to drive outsiders away In this respect, Judaism and Christianity from the territory of the tribe. In principle grant a fundamental equality in the sight of (though not always in practice), Christianity God to all human beings, whatever their tal- opposes this limitation on compassion. It ents or station. This equality arises because teaches people the impulse to reach out, espe- God penetrates below any artificial rank, cially to the most vulnerable, to the poor, the honor, or station that may on the surface dif- hungry, the wretched, those in prison, the ferentiate one from another. He sees past those hopeless, the sick, and others. It tells humans things. He sees into us. He sees us as we are in to love their enemies. It teaches a universal our uniqueness, and it is that uniqueness that compassion. It teaches people to see the dignity He values. Let us call this form of equality by even of those who in the eyes of the world have the clumsy but useful name, equality-as- lost their dignity, and those who are helpless to uniqueness. Before God, we have equal weight act on their own behalf. This is the “solidarity” in our uniqueness, not because we are the whose necessity for modernity Rorty perceives. same, but because each of us is different. Each In the name of compassion, Christianity is made by God after an original design. tries to humble the mighty and to prod the rich This conception of equality-uniqueness is into concern for the poor. It does not turn the quite different from the modern “progressive” young male away from being a warrior, but it or socialist conception of equality-sameness. does teach him to model himself on Christ, The Christian notion is not a levelling notion. and thus to become a new type of male in Neither does it delight in uniformity. On the human history: the knight bound by a code of contrary, it tries to pay heed to, and give respect compassion, the gentleman. It teaches him to to, the unique image of God in each person. learn, to be meek, humble, peaceable, kind, For most of its history, Christianity, like and generous. It introduces a new and fruitful Judaism, flourished in hierarchical societies. tension between the warrior and the gentle- While recognizing that every single person lives men, magnanimity and humility, meekness and moves in sight of God’s judgment and is and fierce ambition. equally a creature of God, Christianity has also rejoiced in the differences among us and A Universal Family between us. God did not make us equal in tal- hristianity has taught human beings ent, ability, character, office, calling, or fortune. that an underlying imperative of histo- Equality-uniqueness is not the same as ry is to bring about a law-like, peace- equality-sameness. The first recognizes our able community, among all people of claim to a unique identity and dignity. The sec- goodC will on the entire earth. For political ond desires to take away what is unique and to economy, Christianity proposes a new ideal: the submerge it in uniformity. Thus, modern entire human race is a universal family, creat- movements such as socialism have taken the ed by the one same God, and urged to love that original Christian impulse of equality, which God. Yet at the same time, Christianity (like they inherited, and disfigured it. Like Chris- Judaism before it) is also the religion of a par- 4 ticular kind of God: not the Deity who looks fore simultaneously present to all things. (In down on all things from an olympian height God there is no history, no past-present-future. but, in Christianity’s case, a God who became In His insight into reality, all things are as incarnate. The Christian God, incarnate, was if simultaneous. Even though in history carried in the womb of a single woman, they may unfold sequentially, they are all among a particular people, at a precise inter- at once, that is, simultaneously, open to His section of time and space, and nourished in a contemplation.) local community then practically unknown to Our second president, John Adams, wrote the rest of the peoples on this planet. Christian- that in giving us a notion of God as the Source ity is a religion of the concrete and the univer- of all truth, and the Judge of all, the Hebrews sal. It pays attention to the flesh, the particular, laid before the human race the possibility of the concrete, and each single intersection of civilization. Before the undeceivable Judgment space and time; its God is the God who made of God, the Light of Truth cannot be deflected and cares for every lily of the field, every blade by riches, wealth, or worldly power. Armed with of grass, every hair on the head of each of us. this conviction, Jews and Christians are Its God is the God of singulars, the God who empowered to use their intellects and to search Himself became a singular man. At the same without fear into the causes of things, their time, the Christian God is the Creator of all. relationships, their powers, and their purposes. In a sense, this Christian God goes beyond This understanding of Truth makes humans contemporary conceptions of “individualism” free. For Christianity does not teach that Truth and “communitarianism.” With 18th-century is an illusion based upon the opinions of those British statesman and philosopher Edmund in power, or merely a rationalization of power- Burke, Christianity sees the need for proper ful interests in this world. Christianity is not attention to every “little platoon” of society, to deconstructionist, and it is certainly not the immediate neigh- totalitarian. Its com- borhood, to the imme- mitment to Truth diate family. Our social “Better than the philoso- beyond human purpos- policies must be incar- es is, in fact, a rebuke nate, must be rooted in phers, Jesus Christ is the to all totalitarian the actual flesh of con- teacher of many lessons schemes and all crete people in their nihilist cynicism. actual local, intimate indispensible for the Moreover, by worlds. At the same working of free society.” locating Truth (with a time, Christianity capital T) in God, directs the attention of beyond our poor pow- these little communities toward the larger ers fully to comprehend, Christianity empowers communities of which they are a part. On the human reason. It does so by inviting us to use one hand, Christianity forbids them to be our heads as best we can, to discern the evi- merely parochial or xenophobic. On the other dences that bring us as close to Truth as hand, it warns them against becoming prema- human beings can attain. It endows human ture universalists, one-worlders, gnostics pre- beings with a vocation to inquire endlessly, tending to be pure spirits, and detached from relentlessly, to give play to the unquenchable all the limits and beauties of concrete flesh. eros of the desire to understand–that most pro- Christianity gives warning against both foundly restless drive to know that teaches extremes. It instructs us about the precarious human beings their own finitude while it also balance between concrete and universal in our informs them of their participation in the own nature. This is the mystery of catholicity. infinite. The notion of Truth is crucial to civiliza- “I Am the Truth” tion. As Thomas Aquinas held, civilization is constituted by conversation. Civilized persons he Creator of all things has total persuade one another through argument. Bar- insight into all things. He knows what barians club one another into submission. Civ- He has created. This gives the weak, ilization requires citizens to recognize that they modest minds of human beings the do not possess the truth, but must be possessed Tvocation to use their minds relentlessly, in by it, to the degree possible to them. Truth mat- order to penetrate the hidden layers of intelligi- ters greatly. But Truth is greater than any one bility that God has written into His creation. of us. We do not possess it; it possesses us. Everything in creation is in principle under- standable: In fact, at every moment everything is understood by Him, who is eternal and there- 5 registered inU.S.PatentandTrade Office #1563325. Subscription free uponrequest. IMPRIMIS following creditlineisused:“Reprintedbypermissionfrom Programs division.Copyright©1995. Permissiontoreprintinwholeor partisherebygranted,providedaversionofthe Curtis. 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IMPRIMISBecause Ideas Have Consequences 23rd “A New Vision of Man: year How Christianity Has Changed Political Economy” 590,000 subscribers by Michael Novak Author, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

One of the 20th century’s greatest religious ichael Novak, former U.S. M ambassador to the Human writers, Michael Novak, addresses the rela- Rights Commission of the United tionship between religion and economics. He Nations, currently holds the George argues that Christ revolutionized the human Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion conception of the political economy in at and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, least seven important ways. D.C. This presentation was prepared for a July He is the author of a dozen 1994 seminar in Crakow, Poland on “Cen- books, including: The Catholic Ethic tesimus Annus and the Free Society,” and for and the Spirit of a November 1994 seminar sponsored by Capitalism, This Hemisphere of Lib- Hillsdale’s Center for Constructive Alterna- erty, Freedom with tives seminar, “God and Man: Perspectives Justice, The Spirit on Christianity in the 20th Century.” of Democratic Capi- talism, and Belief or centuries, scholars and laymen have and UnBelief. The Polish Soli- studied the Bible’s impact on our reli- darity movement gion, politics, education, and culture, and the Czech but very little serious attention has been underground stud- devotedF to its impact on our economics. It is as ied translations if our actions in the marketplace have nothing (often secretly and illegally) in the to do with our spiritual beliefs. Nothing could 1970s, as did mem- be further from the truth. My aim here is to bers of pro-democ- demonstrate how Judeo-Christianity, and Jesus, ratic movements in in particular, revolutionized the political econo- South Korea, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and the Philip- my of the ancient world and how that revolu- pines, and China in the 1980s. Pope tion still profoundly affects the world today. John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus, I wish to propose for your consideration the published in 1991, is widely regard- following thesis: At least seven contributions ed as having been influenced by Mr. made by Christian thinkers, meditating on the Novak’s writings, and in her memoirs former British Prime Minister Mar- words and deeds of Jesus Christ, altered the garet Thatcher noted that they vision of the good society proposed by the classi- “proved the intellectual basis of my cal writers of Greece and Rome and made cer- approach to those great questions tain modern conceptions of political economy brought together in political par- possible. Be warned that we are talking about lance as ‘the quality of life.’” In May of 1994, Mr. Novak was foundational issues. The going won’t be entirely awarded the Templeton Prize for easy. Progress in Religion. i Be warned, also, that I want to approach this

Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan 49242 IMPRIMIS Because Ideas Have Consequences subject in a way satisfying to secular thinkers. that did not flow from necessity. It was an act of You shouldn’t have to be a believer in Jesus in intelligence, it was a choice, and it was willed. order to grasp the plausibility of my The Creator knew what He was doing, argument. In that spirit, let and He willed it; that is, “He saw me begin, first, by citing that it is good.” From this Richard Rorty, who notion of the One God/ once wrote that as a Creator, three practi- progressive cal corollaries for philosopher he human action owes more to follow. Jesus for certain Be intelligent. key progressive Made in the notions, such image of God, as compassion we should be and equality, attentive and than to any of intelligent, as the classical our Creator is. writers. Analo- Trust liberty. gously, in his As God loved us, book, Why I so it is fitting for am Not a us to respond Christian, with love. Since in Bertrand Russell creating us He conceded that, knew what He was although he took doing and He Jesus to be no more willed it, we have than a humanistic moral every reason to trust His prophet, modern progressivism is will. He created us with under- indebted to Christ for the ideal of compassion. standing and free will; creation was a In short, in order to recognize the crucial free act. Since He made us in His contributions that the coming of Christ image, well ought we to say with Jefferson: brought into modern movements of political “The God who gave us life gave us liberty.” economy, one does not have to be a Christian. Understand that history has a beginning, One may take a quite secular point of view and and an end. At a certain moment, time was still give credit where credit is due. created by God. Time is directed toward “build- Here, then, are the seven major contribu- ing up the Kingdom of God…on earth as in tions made by Jesus to our modern conceptions heaven.” Creation is directed toward final of political economy. union with its Creator. As many scholars have noted, the idea of To Bring Judaism “progress,” like the idea of “creation,” are not Greek ideas–nor are they Roman. The Greeks to the Gentiles preferred notions of the necessary procession of rom Jerusalem, that crossroads between the world from a First Principle. While in a three continents open to the East and limited sense they understood the progress of West, North and South, Jesus brought ideas, skills, and technologies and also saw recognition of the One God, the Creator. how these could be lost, in general, they viewed TheF name this God gave to Himself is “I AM history as a cycle of endless return. They lacked WHO AM”–He is, as opposed to the rest of us, a notion of historical progress. The idea of his- who have no necessary or permanent hold on tory as a category distinct from nature is a being. He is the One who IS; other things are Hebrew rather than a Greek idea. those who are, but also are not. He is the Cre- Analogously, as Lord Acton argued in the ator of all things. All things that are depend essays he prepared for his History of Liberty, upon Him. As all things spring from His action liberty is an idea coincident with the spread of in creating them, so they depend upon Him for Christianity. Up to a point, the idea of liberty is their being maintained in existence, their a Jewish idea. Every story in the Bible is about a “standing out from” nothingness [Ex + sis- drama involving the human will. In one chap- tere, L., to stand out from]. ter, King David is faithful to his Lord; in anoth- The term “Creator” implies a free person; it er unfaithful. The suspense always lies in what suggests that creation was a free act, an act he will choose next. Nonetheless, Judaism is 2 are the deepest ideals and energies working in For the present form of the free society, our culture, as yeast works in dough, as a seed therefore, we owe a great deal to the interven- falling into the ground dies and becomes a tion of Jesus Christ in history. In bringing those spreading mustard tree. of us who are not Jewish the Word that brings These are practical recognitions. They have life, in giving us a nobler conception of what it effects in every person and in every moment of is to be human, and in giving us insight into life, and throughout society. If you stifle these our own weaknesses and sins, Jesus shed light notions, if you wipe them out, the institutions available from no other source. Better than the of the free society become unworkable. In this philosophers, Jesus Christ is the teacher of sense, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice once wrote, many lessons indispensible for the working of “Our institutions presuppose a Supreme the free society. These lessons may be, and have Being.” They do not presuppose any Supreme been secularized–but not without losing their Being. They presuppose the God of Judaism center, their coherence, and their long-term and Christianity. And not only our institutions persuasive power. presuppose these realities. So do our concep- But that alone would be as nothing, of tions of our own identity, and the daily actions course, if we did not learn from Jesus that we, of our own lives. Remove these religious foun- all of us, participate in His life, and in living dations from our intellects, our lives, and the with Him, live in, with and through the Father free society–in its complex checks and bal- and the Holy Spirit in a glorious community of ances, and its highly articulated divisions of love. For what would it profit us, if we gained power–becomes incoherent to understanding the whole world, and all the free institutions and unworkable in practice. that flourish with it, and lost our own souls? i

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7 IMPRIMIS Because Ideas Have Consequences Therefore, humans must learn such civilizing Federalist, eloquent about the flaws, weakness- habits as being respectful and open to others, es, and evils to which human beings are prone. listening attentively, trying to see aspects of the Therefore, they designed a republic that would Truth that they do not as yet see. Because the last, not only among saints, but also among search for Truth is vital to each of us, humans sinners. (There is no point in building a must argue with each other, urge each other Republic for saints; there are too few of them; onward, point out deficiencies in one another’s besides, the ones who do exist are too difficult arguments, and open the way for greater par- to live with.) If you want to make a Republic ticipation in the Truth by every one of us. that will last, you must construct it for sinners, In this respect, the search for Truth makes because sinners are not just a moral majority, us not only humble but also civil. It teaches us they are virtually a moral unanimity. why we hold that every single person has an Christianity teaches that at every moment inviolable dignity: Each is made in the image the God who made us is judging how well we of the Creator to perform noble acts, such as to make use of our liberty. And the first word of understand, to deliberate, to choose, to love. Christianity in this respect is: “Fear not. Be not These noble activities of human beings cannot afraid.” For Christianity teaches that Truth is be repressed without repressing the Image of ordered to mercy. Truth is not, thank God, God in them. Such an act would be doubly sin- ordered first of all to justice. For if Truth were ful. It violates the other person, and it is an ordered to strict justice, not one of us would offense against God. stand against the gale. One of the ironies of our present age is that God is just, true, but the more accurate the great philosophical advocates of the name for Him is not justice, but rather mercy. Enlightenment no longer believe in Reason (The Latin root of this word conveys the idea (with a capital R). They have surrendered their more clearly: Misericordia comes from miseris confidence in the vocation of Reason to cynics + cor–give one’s heart to les miserables, the such as to the post-modernists and deconstruc- wretched ones.) This name of God, Misericor- tionists. Such philosophers (Sophists, Socrates dia, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, is God’s called them) hold that there is no Truth, that most fitting name. Toward our misery, He all things are relative, and that the great reali- opens His heart. Precisely as sinners, He accepts ties of life are power and interest. So we have us. “At the heart of Christianity lies the sinner,” come to an ironic pass. The children of the Charles Péguy wrote. Enlightenment have abandoned Reason, while Yet mercy is only possible because of Judg- those they have considered unenlightened and ment. Judgment Day is the Truth on which civ- living in darkness, the people of Jewish and ilization is grounded. No matter the currents of Christian faith, remain today reason’s (without opinion in our time, or any time, may be; no a capital R) best defenders. For believing Jews matter what the powers and principalities may and Christians ground their confidence in rea- say or do; no matter the solicitations pressing son in the Creator of all reason, and their con- upon us from our families, friends, associates, fidence in understanding in the One who and larger culture; no matter what the pres- understands everything He made–and loves it, sures may be–we will still be under the Judg- besides. ment of the One who is undeceivable, who There can be no civilization of reason, or knows what is in us, and who knows the move- of love, without this faith in the vocation of ments of our souls more clearly than we know reason. them ourselves. In His Light, we are called to bring a certain honesty into our own lives, into The Name of God: Mercy our dealings with others, and into our respect for the Light that God has imparted to every hristianity teaches realistically not human being. It is on this basis that human only the glories of human beings– beings may be said to have inalienable rights, their being made in the image of and dignity, and infinite worth. God–but also their sins, weaknesses, andC evil tendencies. Judaism and Christianity are not utopian; they are quite realistic about Jesus, the Teacher human beings. They try to understand humans hese seven recognitions lie at the root as they are, as God sees them both in their sins of Jewish-Christian civilization, the and in the graces that He grants them. This one that is today evasively called sharp awareness of human sinfulness was very “Western civilization.” From them, we important to the American founding. Tget our deepest and most powerful notions of Without ever using the term “original sin,” truth, liberty, community, person, conscience, the Founders were, in such documents as The equality, compassion, mercy, and virtue. These 6 not a missionary religion; normally one eration will take our place, and tramp over the receives Judaism by being born of a Jewish same field. We experience wonder at the sheer mother; in this sense, Judaism is rooted in fact: At this moment, we are. And we also genealogy rather than in liberty. Beyond this apprehend the fact that we are part of a long point, Christianity expanded the notion of lib- procession of the human community in time; erty and made it universal. The Christian idea and that we are, by the grace of God, one with of liberty remains rooted in the liberty of the God. To exist is already something to marvel at; Creator, as in Judaism. Through Christianity, so great a communion is even more so. Our this Jewish idea becomes the inheritance of all wonder is not so much doubled; it is squared, the other peoples on earth. infinitely multiplied. Recognition of the One God/Creator means This recognition of the Trinity is not with- that the fundamental attitude of human beings out significance for political economy. First, it toward God is, and ought to be, receptivity. All inspires us with a new respect for an ideal of that we are we have received from God. This is community not often found on this earth, a true both of our creation and our redemption. community in which each person is separate, God acts first. We respond. Everything is a gift. distinct, and independent, and yet in which “Everything we look upon is blessed” (Yeats). there is, nonetheless, communion. It teaches “Grace is everywhere” (Bernanos). Thus, offer- us that the relation between community and ing thanksgiving is our first moral obligation. person is deeper and richer that we might have It is difficult to draw out, in brief compass, imagined. Christians should not simply lose all the implications for political economy of themselves in community, having their person- the fact that history begins in the free act of the ality and independence merge into an undiffer- Creator, who made humans in His image and entiated mass movement. On the contrary, who gave them both existence and an impulse Christianity teaches us that in true community toward communion with their first breath. In the distinctness and independence of each per- this act of creation, in any case, Jefferson prop- son are also crucial. Persons reach their full erly located (and it was the sense of the Ameri- development only in community with others. can people) not only the origin of the inner No matter how highly developed in himself or core of human rights: “…and endowed by herself, a totally isolated person, cut-off from their Creator with certain inalienable rights, others, is regarded as something of a monster. including…,” but also the perspective of prov- In parallel, a community that refuses to recog- idential history: “When in the course of human nize the autonomy of individual persons often events…” The Americans were aware of creat- uses individuals as means to “the common ing something “new”: a new world, a new good,” rather than treating persons as ends in order, a new science of politics. As children of themselves. Such communities are coercive the Creator, they felt no taboo against original- and tyrannical. ity; on the contrary, they thought it their Christianity, in short, opens up the ideal of vocation. catholicity which has always been a mark of true Christianity. Katholike means all of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit humanity, the whole human world. In this world, persons, and even cultures, are distinct, hen Jesus spoke of God, He spoke of and have their own autonomy and claim on the communion of three persons in our respect. E pluribus unum. The many one. This means that, in God, the form one; but the one does not melt the many mystery of being and the mystery into the lowest common denominator. The ofW communion are one. Unlike the Greeks many retain their individual vitality, and for such as Parmedides, Plato, and Aristotle, who this they show gratitude to the community that thought of God or the Nous as One, living in allows them, in fact encourages them, to do so. solitary isolation, the Christian world was Person and community must be defined in taught by Jesus to think of God as a commu- terms of each other. nion of three. In other words, the mystery of communion, or community, is one with the very mystery of being. The sheer fact that we The Children of God are alive sometimes comes over us at dusk on n Plato’s Republic, citizens were divided an autumn day, as we walk across a corn field in this way: A few were of gold, a slightly and in the tang of the evening air hear a crow larger body of silver, and the vast majority lift off against the sky. We may pause then to of lead. The last had the souls of slaves wonder, in admiration and gratitude. We could I so easily have not been, and yet we are, at least for these fragile moments. Soon another gen- 3