Political Philosophy and Revelation

Conclusion: What Is “Roman Catholic Political Philosophy?”

265 Conclusion What Is “Roman Catholic Political Philosophy?” I • Let me conclude these reflections on philosophy, revelation, and political philosophy with a succinct statement of how they fit together. A course in “Roman Catholic Political Philosophy” is rarely found in any academic institution, including those sponsored by the Church. We do find courses entitled “Religion and Politics,” “Social Doctrine of the Church,” or “Church and State.”1 But “Roman Catholic Political Philosophy” is something different. It is a commonplace, going back to Plato, that most people consider philosophers and academics, not to mention clerics, to be rather foolish and naïve when it comes to dealing with the practical affairs of this world. Philosophers are notorious for studying everything else but politics. And when they do, they insist on studying them as if their object were like that of the physical sciences and not that of free human agents. Aristotle already warned us not to use a method that was inappropriate to the nature of the object studied. Two questions are combined in the title of these remarks: (1) “What is political philosophy?” And (2) “What is Roman Catholicism?” The two are not to be confused. They are, if possible, to be related in a coherent , noncontradictory whole based in reason such that each retains its essential nature as it relates to the other. Whether we like it or not, both are present in the actual human world in which we live. Philosophy , to be itself, cannot, by its own methods, exclude any consideration of what is, of what claims to be true. Roman Catholics, during their time on earth, live in the polities to which they belong or dwell in. Like everyone else, they too are “political animals,” as Aristotle said. An earlier version of this chapter was published online in Crisis Magazine, May 20, 2011. 1. Brian Benestad’s book is a welcome exception to this tendency: Church, State, and Society : An Introduction to Catholic Social Doctrine (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010). See also James V. Schall, Roman Catholic Political Philosophy (Lanham , Md.: Lexington Books, 2006). 266  Conclusion From its beginnings, Roman Catholicism took for granted, as Benedict XVI remarked in the “Regensburg Lecture,” that it addressed itself first to the philosophers, not to other religions. And yet, very little about politics is found in the New Testament—“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” “Be obedient to the emperor.” “We must obey God rather than men.” This relative silence could mean that politics are not particularly important, that more important things exist. Alexander Solzhenitsyn said in his From under the Rubble, that “[i]n relation to the true ends of human beings here on earth, the state structure is of secondary significance.” But also, the New Testament could quietly affirm that politics are something human beings can find on their own capacities from, say, experience and reading Plato. Aristotle had already explained much of the basic things we need to know about political things before Roman Catholicism ever appeared. Revelation is not mainly concerned with things that we can already know by our natural powers. This is the compliment it pays to reason. It is one of the major reasons that give us pause in our doubts about the coherence of revelation. In a famous essay, “What Is Political Philosophy?” Leo Strauss, as we have seen, indicated that specifically “political” philosophy inquires , not about the philosophic understanding of political things but about the “political” understanding of philosophical things.2 Politics itself, as Aristotle said, is a practical knowledge and activity. What is it that politics needs to know about philosophy to let it be itself? The politician , if he wants, has the raw power to eliminate the philosopher or prophet. Thus, the proper question is: “Why should the philosopher be free to philosophize in the polity?” In some sense, philosophy must also be a political good. Such a question clearly implies that philosophy, be it good philosophy in a bad regime or bad philosophy in a good regime, may be dangerous to any existing regime. From outside its immediate context, it casts doubts on the foundations of existing political regimes. The philosopher’s insight into things is not merely political. The philosopher seeks to know the whole, all the things that are, including 2. Leo Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?” in What Is Political Philosophy and Other Studies (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1959), 9–64. [3.147.72.11] Project...