Scalia and God’s Will
16 February 2008 - 11 אדר א' 5768 by Huw
Over at Religion Dispatches, Ira Chernus stumbles on an old (4 years) theological treatise from Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. Chernus notes his issues right up front:
Scalia notes (correctly, I think) that for most of Western history people assumed that the state derived its authority from God. But then he argues, quoting St. Paul (Romans 11) at length, that a believing Christian must hold the same political theory today: Authority comes from God. So when a state puts a person to death, it is merely a servant doing the will of God.
That’s all well and good when there is only one state involved. But it also means that the former leaders of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan and Iraq were each doing God’s will in their time and place and so are the current leaders of Israel, Venezuela and Iran.
In other words it is impossible to hold this belief and be rational - unless the deity from which all this authority is derived is without morals entirely.
Although the entire speech is rather explicit, the Justice does hedge his bets a little:
One can understand his words as referring only to lawfully constituted authority, or even only to lawfully constituted authority that rules justly. But the core of his message is that government - however you want to limit that concept- derives its moral authority from God.
The phrase “however you want to limit that concept” give me the shivers, for it seems clear that he would limit the Authority to one nation or, at least, certain nations. This is clearly the justification of most US political actions: God is on our side, but not on others. Some American expand this to God is on our side and Israel’s. Some Americans limit this to “God is on our side because we are on Israel’s side.
The rest of the speech takes a rather Augustinian and/or Calvinist view of mankind - one might go so far as to say Jansenist, given that Mr Just Scalia is a Roman Catholic. At times, it’s easy to believe the Atheists and their claims of irrationality.
