‘Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit’ and ‘Creatio Ex Nihilo’: Science and Creation

William E. Carroll 

Is there a fundamental incompatibility between the first principle of the natural sciences that it is not possible to get something from nothing and a primary religious belief that God creates all that is “out of nothing”? Claims that we must choose between the two suffer from a misunderstanding of both. Thomas Aquinas provides a solution to the apparent contradiction between the two.

Continue reading “‘Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit’ and ‘Creatio Ex Nihilo’: Science and Creation”

No King but Caesar?

Kevin Vallier, All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023)

Philosophy, as Etienne Gilson famously observed, always buries its undertakers. Perhaps the same will one day be said of integralism. For decades after Vatican II, it seemed lost to oblivion. Yet around ten years ago, it reemerged with surprising suddenness, vigor, and visibility, attracting formidable advocates such as Thomas Pink, Adrian Vermeule, Gladden Pappin, and Pater Edmund Waldstein. As these names indicate, the movement has been able to draw on academic expertise across a wide variety of fields, including philosophy, law, political science, and theology. And if there were any doubt that integralism is very much alive, it would be dispelled by the fact that so many seem desperate to kill it off. 

Continue reading “No King but Caesar?”

TRACT IV or The Tome of Pope Gelasius on the Bond of Anathema

By Pope St. Gelasius I

Translator’s preface: Pope St. Gelasius I (r. 492-496) will be known to Josias readers as the author of the famous letter Famuli vestrae pietatis, more commonly known by its famous phrase Duo sunt. It is the paradigmatic statement of “Gelasian dyarchy.”

Pope Gelasius here addresses the case of Peter III “The Hoarse,” patriarch of Alexandria (477-489), a Monophysite and hence an opponent of the Council of Chalcedon (451). He had been excommunicated by Pope Felix III in 484 for accepting the heretical Henoticon, or reunion formula, of the Emperor Zeno. This episode, called the Acacian Schism after the Monophysite patriarch Acacius of Constantinople who held communion with Peter the Hoarse, is described more fully in our preface to Famuli vestrae pietatis

In this Tome, meanwhile, Pope Gelasius insists that that imperial authorities have no power to absolve Peter from his excommunication, which is reserved to the Apostolic See. This occasions a more general discussion of the distinction between ecclesiastical and temporal authority.

Continue reading “TRACT IV or The Tome of Pope Gelasius on the Bond of Anathema”

The Josias Podcast Episode XXXIX: Urbanism

In his final episode (pre-recorded prior to entering seminary), Urban Hannon is joined by Nathaniel Gotcher and special guest Prof. Philip Bess, for a discussion about the theological and philosophical foundations of urbanism—and how we should think about urban form.

Prof. Philip Bess is a Professor at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture. You may read Prof. Bess’s full academic profile here.

Bibliography

Header Image: Gentile Bellini, Procession in Piazza San Marco (1496)

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Reading Laudate Deum in Context

It is a sad reality that many Catholics continue to see the social teaching of Pope Francis as somehow at odds with the history of Catholic social doctrine reaching back to Pope Leo XIII. Yet if we are to say that the temporal power ought to be subordinate to the spiritual power, we cannot with much credibility undermine the legitimacy of the Pope’s intervention into public life. But more to the point, what Pope Francis has put forward in his encyclicals Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti is truly in harmony with the social vision that the popes have been advancing for the past 130 years.

To that end, what I intend to do is to situate the Pope’s most recent apostolic exhortation, Laudate Deum, within the context of the history of the Church’s social teaching. I propose to read the document as, at its heart, a critique of a technocracy which manifests itself in an individualist anthropology and a nationalistic global order. 

At the outset, it must be conceded that the specific scientific data to which Pope Francis appeals is not itself part of magisterial teaching. But Laudate Deum is not setting out to make any specific policy proposals. So the concern about whether or not the Holy Father is correct in his assessment of the risks of climate change seems to somewhat miss the point. For although he writes with clear conviction, he tempers his absolute certainty when he says: 

Certain apocalyptic diagnoses may well appear scarcely reasonable or insufficiently grounded. This should not lead us to ignore the real possibility that we are approaching a critical point. … We cannot state with certainty that all this is going to happen, based on present conditions. But it is certain that it continues to be a possibility.[1]

The Pope is not an authority in climate science, this much is true. But where the Church does exert her authority is as an “expert in humanity.”[2] Therefore what we ought to focus on is the moral core of the document’s message. Laudate Deum is a compelling assessment of the failures of modern society and as such is in substantial agreement with the whole tradition of Catholic social doctrine.

Technocratic anthropology

There is a deep irony in those who want to criticize Pope Francis for addressing an issue such as climate change because of his lack of expertise or competent authority in the matter, for this is an expression of precisely the kind of technocratic ideology that Laudate Deum rightly condemns. After all, who was Leo XIII to talk about economics? Who was Paul VI to talk about international development? They spoke not as “experts” in economics or politics per se, but with moral and spiritual authority as Vicar of Christ. And so now does Pope Francis. 

To contend that on issues such as the environment or international order, we should heed only the voice of specialized experts is to deny the properly human art of politics. Indeed it is a way of excluding ethics altogether and reducing politics entirely to a question of managerial expertise. 

This is what Laudate Deum regards as the “technocratic paradigm.”[3] The regime of experts, in its “admiration of progress” has “blinded us to the horror of its consequences.”[4] In other words, the technocrat is one obsessed with the “how,” but ignorant of the “why.” Such is our atheistic culture, devoid as it is of any sense of teleology. Yet it is precisely this ends-oriented worldview that Francis is looking to reassert. The counter to the technocratic paradigm is one in which “the creatures of this world no longer appear to us under merely natural guise, because the risen One is mysteriously holding them to himself and directing them towards fullness as their end.”[5]

The critique, at its most fundamental level, is that the technocrat has an essentially flawed anthropology. The technocratic view understands man purely as an economic animal, rather than as a properly political animal. That is to say, this flawed anthropology severs the essential link between man’s appetitive dimension and his rational dimension. Our desires are infinite. (And this is why they can only be properly fulfilled in God.) But the technocrat tries to address man’s desire through infinite material advancement, since man is seen as a being “with no limits, whose abilities and possibilities can be infinitely expanded thanks to technology.”[6]

Francis therefore calls for a “situated anthropocentrism,” which is in so many words an appeal to what the Church has taken to calling an “integral humanism,” that is, a “complete humanism,” which considers “the whole of man and all men.”[7] Genuine social progress relies on understanding human nature in all of its dimensions, both material and spiritual. Francis here emphasizes that this requires understanding man as situated within a finite cosmos. 

Contrary to this technocratic paradigm, we say that the world that surrounds us is not an object of exploitation, unbridled use and unlimited ambition. Nor can we claim that nature is a mere “setting” in which we develop our lives and our projects. For “we are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it,” and thus “we [do] not look at the world from without but from within.”[8]

It is from this vantage that the Pope addresses the people of the world. Thus he calls upon mankind to “respect the laws of nature.”[9]

International Order

Another common criticism of Pope Francis is that he is too cozy with the United Nations and therefore speaks not on behalf of the faith of the Church but of an insidious globalist agenda. The text of Laudate Deum, however, provides a different picture.

But first, consider the words of Pope Paul VI in his address to the UN: “We are tempted to say that in a way this [international] characteristic of yours reflects in the temporal order what our Catholic Church intends to be in the spiritual order: one and universal.” Cooperation with and an optimistic view towards the United Nations would be nothing new on the part of Pope Francis. And yet, the words of Laudate Deum are hardly so starry-eyed.

The fourth major section of the document is mostly dedicated to recounting the failures of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to accomplish anything of real substance. “Failure,” “ineffective,” “no progress,” “poorly implemented,” are words that resound throughout these paragraphs.

Doubtlessly, there are many who would want to see the Pope condemn altogether the notion of a supranational authority that can provide the kind of accountability that Francis is calling for. But such a nationalist agenda would itself be the real rupture with tradition. (As has previously been argued here at The Josias, the call for global authority is entirely traditional.)  Francis thus speaks in full continuity with both the pre- and post-conciliar magisterium in calling for a strengthening of international law and accountability.

Pius XI, for example, was emphatic on the need to subordinate merely national interests to the global common good.

Unsuppressed desires … are precisely the source of all international misunderstandings and rivalries, despite the fact that oftentimes men dare to maintain that acts prompted by such motives are excusable … out of love for country. …  [A]ll men are our brothers and members of the same great human family [and] it is never lawful nor even wise, to dissociate morality from the affairs of practical life.[10]

Benedict XVI likewise very famously called for “a true world political authority … universally recognized and vested with the effective power to ensure security for all … to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties.” All this, he writes, is “as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations.”[11]

Francis therefore proposes nothing new in his advocacy of a strong international order. In fact, the language of Laudate Deum appears considerably softer than previous papal statements on the matter.

The emphasis in Laudate Deum regarding international order is on “multilateralism” as opposed to “a world authority concentrated in one person or in an elite with excessive power.”[12] The Holy Father also points out the importance of the principle of subsidiarity as we consider how global and local authorities interact.[13] The proposal here is quite the opposite of technocratic elitism.

Many today insist on treating political authority, whether national or international, as merely a question of “more” or “less,” but the vision of the Church has never been about more government or less government, but simply better government, suited to the necessities of the present. And insofar as the world now faces problems that are truly global in scope, it follows necessarily that a world political authority is needed. As Catholics we ought to be grateful our Holy Father is wading into such discussions and, if anything, should wish to see more and stronger assertions of this moral authority. 

Francis’ vision for an ethical international order is a strong refusal of the amoral, nationalistic, political realism that has taken root across the political spectrum. The thrust of Laudate Deum is unmistakably a call to conversion. That is why he concludes with these forceful words: “For when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies.”[14]

Conclusion

The failure of technocracy shows itself both in the atomization of the individual vis-à-vis society, and of the nation vis-à-vis the global community. Laudate Deum is therefore a call to “integration,”[15] or as Pope Francis put it in a 2022 speech: “We cannot live with an economic pattern that comes from the liberals and the Enlightenment. … We need a Christian economy.” The claims regarding rising global temperatures and the proceedings of various climate conferences are simply not the heart of the document. The real thesis of the exhortation, as he states, is the twin claim: “Everything is connected.” and “No one is saved alone.”[16]

In rejecting technocracy, Pope Francis calls us back to “the nobility of politics,” and the reintroduction of both ethical and spiritual concerns in the public square.[17] So despite his failure to align with the political imagination of many conservatives especially in the United States, Pope Francis writes in clear continuity with the tradition of the Church’s social magisterium. 

Br. Anthony Maria Akerman, O.P. is a friar of the Western Dominican Province. He earned a Ph.D. in Theology from Claremont Graduate University and is currently studying at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in preparation for ordination to the priesthood.


[1] Laudate Deum, 17.

[2] Compendium, 61; cf. Populorum Progressio, 13.

[3] Laudate Deum, 20.

[4] Ibid., 24.                                          

[5] Ibid., 65; quoting Laudato Si’, 100.

[6] Laudate Deum, 21.

[7] Compendium, 6-7, 82.

[8] Laudate Deum, 25; quoting Laudato Si’, 139, 220.

[9] Laudate Deum, 62.

[10] Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, 25.

[11] Caritas in Veritate, 67.

[12] Laudate Deum, 35.

[13] Ibid., 36.

[14] Ibid., 73.

[15] Ibid., 36.

[16] Ibid., 19.

[17] Ibid., 60.

Is Integralism Conservative?

1 Introduction

Integralism is a name that was given to the traditional political principles of Catholic Christendom at a time when those principles were coming under sustained attack by modern revolutions. Integralism is therefore traditional in the sense of belonging to a tradition. But is it traditionalist in the sense of giving importance to tradition as a measure of political and moral life? In other words: Is Integralism conservative? Does it have respect for long-established customs, and the wisdom embodied in long experience? Or is it rather a radical, puritanical doctrine that would completely remake societies on the basis of abstract, absolutist principles?

In the Catholic parts of Europe after the French Revolution, for the whole of the “long 19th century” integralism simply was conservatism. A conservative was a defender of throne and altar—that is, an integralist.[i] But now that the principles of the French Revolution have been established in Europe for so long, can one still call integralism conservative?

I will argue that integralism has aspects of both radicalism and conservatism. There is certainly in integralism an intransigent adherence to moral absolutes, which gives it an element of radicalism. But integralism has always also given an important place to tradition as a principle. We integralists respect the experiences of history, long-established custom, and local political variation. I want to manifest this briefly by summarizing the fundamentals of integralism as a teleological doctrine, and show how tradition is one important integralist principle among others. 

2 Integralism and Teleology

Integralism is based on a thoroughly teleological understanding of reality. It is based on an understanding of reality as most deeply explained by final causes, by goals or purposes that nature aims to reach or realize. Natures are not simple facticity, they are potentials being actualized. They are goal-directed. This understanding of reality was given an influential formulation by Aristotle. His view was profoundly consonant with that of the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament. Hence, it is not surprising that in the Middle Ages this view was developed and extended among Christian, Jewish, and Islamic thinkers of various schools.

Applied to moral and political life, this teleological worldview has a tripartite pattern, which Alasdair MacIntyre summarizes as: 

  1. human nature as it happens to be, 
  2. human nature as it could be if it realized its telos
  3. moral training and instruction as a means to move from 1 to 2.[ii]

There is according to this scheme a basic contrast between two states of man. In the first state, man as he happens to be for the most part, morally untutored, and marked by disharmony between the higher and lower parts of his soul. He is, as Aristotle puts it, “in bondage.”[iii] Man in this state is frustrated and miserable because he is unable to attain the good towards which his nature inclines. In the second state, man has realized his potential, there is harmony between the different powers of his soul, the passions and emotions are docile to reason, and he is able to act excellently with ease. Man in the second state is courageous, self-controlled, foresightful, generous, wise, and happy. He is constantly enjoying the goods toward which his nature strives.

Since man is a political animal, moreover, he can only have this second state as part of a virtuous community. The human good is a common good. Far from being a hindrance to his actualization, the human community is necessary to that actualization.[iv] Man can only properly possess his good if he sees it as the good of a greater whole, a good toward which he is ordered, and for which it is noble to give his life.[v]

The transition from the first state to the second takes place above all by habituation. This habituation is brought about in various ways. It is brought about by education, in which parents, teachers, and rulers give authoritative guidance; by the praise that is given to noble actions and the blame that is accorded to base ones; by the rewards and punishments that counteract the impulses of disordered passion; by the fitting representation of good and evil in music, poetry, and other arts; by philosophical instruction, which aids insight into the true good; and so on. All of these modes depend on the intrinsic attraction and draw of the good itself. Their role is to make it easier for the intrinsic power of the good to operate on souls. 

A particularly important role is played here by political rulers, since they order all of the other modes. As Aristotle puts it, “since politics uses the rest of the sciences, and since, again, it legislates as to what we are to do and what we are to abstain from, the end of this science must include those of the others, so that this end must be the good for man.”[vi]

3 Nature, Grace, and the Two Powers

The Aristotelian teleological scheme is deepened by Christianity. The doctrine of original sin intensifies the contrast between the state of man as he happens to be and man as he could be. Through original sin man has lost the original harmony of his nature and it has become difficult for him to know and do the good. God first helped man through the Old Law, which instructed him in the good. But the Law was not sufficient to save fallen man. Therefore, God sent His own Son into the world to atone for original sin, heal human nature, and allow human beings a share in His divine life. It is by grace that Christ gives us a participation in His life. Grace not only heals fallen nature, it also elevates it, giving us an end higher than that to which we are ordered by nature. Grace thus founds a new community, the Church, whose common good is a supernatural good, greater than any natural fulfillment.

Grace does not replace nature, but it does subordinate natural ends to a higher end. Hence, we have a hierarchy of ends and a hierarchy of rulers. We have the natural end of human life (virtuous activity and wisdom in friendship), to which we are directed by natural (political) rulers, but we also have the supernatural end of human life (participation in God’s own activity), and we are directed to this by the rulers whom God has placed over His Church by sacramental grace, the successors of the Apostles.

From this follows the doctrine of the two powers or the two swords, which was taught already by Pope St Gelasius I in late antiquity, and which was further developed by the popes of the Middle Ages. In its details, this doctrine was highly contested, but in its basic principles it was accepted throughout Catholic Christendom. In the De Regno, St Thomas gives a summary of the basic principles which would have been broadly acceptable, and which it is worth quoting at length:

Through virtuous living man is further ordained to a higher end, which consists in the enjoyment of God. … Consequently, since society must have the same end as the individual man, it is not the ultimate end of an assembled multitude to live virtuously, but through virtuous living to attain to the possession of God. If this end could be attained by the power of human nature, then the duty of a king would have to include the direction of men to it. … Now the higher the end to which a government is ordained, the loftier that government is. Indeed, we always find that the one to whom it pertains to achieve the final end commands those who execute the things that are ordained to that end. For example, the captain, whose business it is to regulate navigation, tells the shipbuilder what kind of ship he must construct to be suitable for navigation. … But because a man does not attain his end, which is the possession of God, by human power but by divine, … therefore the task of leading him to that last end does not pertain to human but to divine government. Consequently, government of this kind pertains to that king who is not only a man, but also God, namely, our Lord Jesus Christ. … Hence a royal priesthood is derived from Him, and what is more, all those who believe in Christ, in so far as they are His members, are called kings and priests. Thus, in order that spiritual things might be distinguished from earthly things, the ministry of this kingdom has been entrusted not to earthly kings but to priests, and most of all to the chief priest, the successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Christ, the Roman Pontiff. To him all the kings of the Christian People are to be subject as to our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. For those to whom pertains the care of intermediate ends should be subject to him to whom pertains the care of the ultimate end, and be directed by his rule.[vii]

It is this teleological doctrine of the two powers which is today the most controversial element of integralism. But in premodern Christendom, this basic doctrine was not controversial. Controversies arose with regard to the exact scope of each of the two powers and the cases in which they could interfere with each other. But the basic teleological order of the two powers was not in doubt. I have quoted St Thomas’s teaching on this, but the teaching was by no means peculiar to the Thomistic School. As Timothy Gerard Aloysius Wilson has shown, all of the schools of the first and of the second scholasticism shared this doctrine; we find it not only among the Thomists, but also among Scotists, and later among Molinists, Suarezians, and so on. 

Even Dante, in the De Monarchia, with its vehement defense of the distinction of imperial from papal power, concludes by conceding the point:

But the truth of this final question must not be restricted to mean that the Roman Prince shall not be subject in some degree to the Roman Pontiff, for felicity that is mortal is ordered in a measure after felicity that is immortal. Wherefore let Caesar honor Peter as a first-born son should honor his father, so that, refulgent with the light of paternal grace, he may illumine with greater radiance the earthly sphere over which he has been set by Him who alone is Ruler of all things spiritual and temporal.[viii]

In the 19th century, this teaching was vehemently defended by the integralist as an important consequence of a properly teleological understanding of nature and grace. The defense of the doctrine of the two swords was a defense of the primacy of the spiritual, the finality of the spiritual end, and of the social Kingship of Christ. As Father Félix Sardá y Salvany, one of the leading thinkers of 19thcentury integralism, put it:

[The] Integralism [the liberals] abhor and continuously revile is the integralism of the social rights of Christ-God, the Integralism of his divine sovereignty over States as much as over individuals. … [The] Integralism of the social laws of God and His holy Church is what we may call the fundamental Integralism.[ix]

And in the Manifesto of Burgos, the founding document of the first political movement to be explicitly called “integralist,” the principle is explained as follows:

As the body to the soul, so must the state be united and subordinated to the Church, the lesser luminary to the greater, the temporal sword to the spiritual sword, according to the terms and conditions that the Church of God lays down, and are established in our traditional laws.[x]

Note that the Manifesto of Burgos makes appeal to the “traditional laws” of Catholic Spain when it comes to the application of the principle. What role does integralism give to such traditional laws?

4 Teleology and Tradition

To readers of Hegelian philosophy, the notion of teleology might suggest the notion of social progress. But it is not difficult to see that the teleological scheme that I have sketched is in fact antithetical to modern progressivism. Every human being begins from square one with human nature in its untutored state, wounded by original sin, with reason out of harmony with the passions. Every human being must be rectified and perfected by the acquisition of good habits, both natural and supernatural. This rectification takes place by means of habituation, which is in effect the conforming of the individual to a traditional way of life, handed down from the excellent men of the past. Excellence is not achieved by innovation, but rather by conformity to the best models. The perfect man, Jesus Christ Himself, is the unsurpassable model, and the great saints of the early Church are the best mirror of His perfection. The ardor of the early days has waned, and so the expectation is of a tendency toward decline, which has to be resisted by constant striving to recover the excellence of the past. The human telos is fixed and determined, as are the means of approaching it. 

A good society is therefore a traditional society in which new generations are taught to imitate their elders and aspire to the excellence of their ancestors. A good society is also a hierarchical society, in which the necessary superiority of rulers is seen as beneficial to subjects, who are led thereby to their true happiness. The harmonious and hierarchical order of the parts of society reflects the harmonious and hierarchal order of the parts of the soul.

Progressivism, by contrast, in both of its main forms, is based on a rejection of the teleological scheme. One form of progressivism, which we can see in the tradition of Hobbes and of classical political economy, sees human beings as essentially selfish, slaves of restless passions, with no true telos, and no common good that could unite them to others. Social progress is achieved by setting up social mechanisms by which the self-interest of each furthers the general interest of all. Social progress is cumulative and linear, because it does not depend on the moral formation of the individual, but on the unintended consequences of non-moral actions.

Another form of progressivism, which can be seen in the tradition of Rousseau, sees human passion and feeling as basically good and generous, but corrupted by the artificial constraints of society. Progress is achieved, therefore, by eliminating social constraints on authentic feeling. This is the ideology that we see, for example, in the sexual revolution. Social progress is seen as cumulative and linear, because it depends not on the difficult struggle for virtue that has to be repeated in each human life, but rather on the abolition of repressive taboos which prevent the unimpeded expression of passion.

Integralism is implacably opposed to both forms of progressivism. Human happiness is achieved not by economic or social liberalism, but rather by conservatism. That is, to use Yoram Hazony’s description of conservatism, by propagating “beneficial ideas, behaviors, and institutions across generations.”[xi]

5 Two Objections

To clarify in what sense integralism can be conservative, I want to consider two (nearly) opposite objections which have recently been brought against integralism. The first objection is based on the work of the philosopher Robert Spaemann, which sees integralism as in a sense too conservative, based on a reduction of questions of truth to questions of the utility for the conservation of social order. I will argue that integralism is not, in fact, conservative in that sense. The second objection comes out of the tradition of Edmund Burke. It sees integralism as too rationalistic and abstract, a radical, puritanical doctrine, that would completely remake societies on the basis of abstract, absolutist principles. I will argue that integralism can in fact be more conservative than this objection supposes.

5.1 The Spaemannian Objection

The philosopher Robert Spaemann argued that Louis de Bonald and other Catholic reactionaries in their attempt to refute the Revolution and defend tradition, actually reinterpreted the tradition in modern terms. Their reactionary mode of thinking, he argues, “converts ontological truths into social functions, thus paving the way both for the reduction of truth to ideology and for truth to function as ideology.”[xii] This error of Bonald’s was, Spaemann suggests, compounded in later authoritarian thinkers such as Charles Maurras.[xiii] Writers such as Michael Hanby, D.C. Schindler, and Reuben Slife have recently suggested that this Spaemannian critique of reactionary thought can be applied to integralism.

Now, Spaemann’s argument does contain an important insight. There were errors in the reactionary thought of thinkers such as de Bonald and de Maistre, which led to even worse errors in thinkers such as Charles Maurras and Carl Schmitt. They were indeed too marked by Hobbesian and Romantic ideas and did not think metaphysically and teleologically enough. Nevertheless, a careful reader ought to be able to distinguish their thought from that of Catholic integralists, even when the latter at times made common cause with them. For example, the great integralist theologian Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange saw Maurras as an ally in the anti-liberal struggle prior to the condemnation of Maurras’s movement by the Holy See. In his introduction to St Thomas’s On Kingship, Garrigou even makes use of Maurras’s slogan politique d’abord (‘politics first’). Now, for Maurras that slogan was certainly an expression of sociological reductionism: social utility is the ultimate measure of truth. But this is not at all the way Garrigou, as a good Thomist, uses the slogan:

We note, furthermore, that the imperium or command, which directs the execution of the means chosen beforehand, proceeds in the reverse of the order of deliberation. In place of descending from the consideration of the end to be attained to that of the subordinated means last of all, command begins by applying this infirm means and raising it afterwards little by little to the superior means capable of obtaining the end pursued: Finis est primum in intentione et ultimum in executione. From this point of view one understands that in the order of execution, but not in the order of intention, one could say: politique d’abord. [In order that] social life may be possible, the city or country must be habitable, and the agitators must be expelled or brought to reason.[xiv]

In other words, Garrigou-Lagrange saw in Maurras’s movement a useful counter to the “agitators” who were destroying France, but he by no means succumbed to Maurras’s reductionism.

I would make the same point about the use that I and other contemporary integralists have occasionally made of the writings of Schmitt. I see some helpful insights in Schmitt’s critique of liberalism and in his early work on political representation (Roman Catholicism and Political Form), but I have no use whatever for the Hobbesian decisionism and sociological reductionism seemingly implied by Schmitt’s Political Theology.[xv]

Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Æterni patris, which called for Catholic philosophy to be based on St Thomas was, I believe, partly inspired by the insight that the reactionary philosophy in vogue among many 19th century Catholics was too modern, too reductionist, and not realist and teleological enough. To be healthy, Catholic philosophy ought to turn to the most solid of the medieval scholastics. I fully agree with Pope Leo in this, as did the great integralists of the last century, men such as Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Louis Billot, Raphael Cardinal Merry del Val, Henri Grenier, Charles De Koninck, Louis Lachance, and Marcel de Corte.

5.2 The Burkean Objection

The second objection to integralism is in some ways the opposite of the first. It holds not that integralism is not metaphysical enough, but rather that it is too metaphysical, too abstract, too rationalistic. I once had a small exchange with the late Sir Roger Scruton in the pages of First Things in which Scruton raised just such an objection. I had argued that Scruton was too wary of a paternalistic understanding of politics, and Scruton responded as follows:

As for Fr. Waldstein’s theological vision of the good of government, I can only respond as Burke responded to the Reason advocated by the French Revolutionaries. He wrote: ‘We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages.’

Advocates of natural law in the Catholic tradition have often told us that the good is discoverable to reason, and that we have only to consult it. But they tend to be as reluctant as Waldstein to define who is doing the consulting, and how. Burke’s view, that there is a kind of reason that emerges through civil association, and which is both conserved in our traditions and irretrievably dispersed by the attempt to make it explicit, offers, to my mind, a better model of the place of reason in government. On Burke’s view, rational solutions emerge from below, by an invisible hand, and are not imposed from above by those who claim to have privileged knowledge of the natural law. (The same point is made in other terms by Hayek, in his defense of the common law.) One can agree with Kant’s warning against paternal government without thinking that ‘any submission to an authority other than the self is tyrannical.’ As I understand it, the art of living in society is precisely the art of submitting to authority—but doing so willingly, and in the little platoons that we ourselves create.[xvi]

Certainly, as an integralist I think that there are absolutely fixed moral truths that can be known both through reason and through revelation, and that the Catholic Church is the authoritative teacher about such truths. In that sense, I am not a conservative, that is, I am not a defeatist. No matter how long-established a certain moral error is in a society, no matter how universally it is accepted, I believe that it ought to be rooted out. Thus, for example, I do not think that we should ever give up the struggle against so-called “gay marriage,” no matter how long that practice has been established.

Nevertheless, I do think that there is a lot of truth to what Scruton was saying. There is a danger to seeing morality as a simple matter of rationalist deduction, as the Revolutionaries saw it, and of the impulse to simply overturn social order in accordance with such deduction. As I indicated above, morality is largely a matter of habituation, not deduction, and this demands a whole system of social traditions to be effectively carried on from one generation to the next. To the extent that there are still social traditions that are in accord with truth, they ought to be conserved. 

Moreover, most political questions are not a matter of moral absolutes. When it comes to the form of government, for example, I hold with Pope Leo XIII that monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy (as well as mixtures of the three) can all be just, as long as they pursue the true human good. On such questions I think we should indeed conserve the traditions of particular places and peoples. Even in the application of moral absolutes, we should be gentle and cautious. St Benedict of Nursia issues a warning to a zealous abbot that is equally applicable to politicians:

He must hate faults but love the brothers. When he must punish them, he should use prudence and avoid extremes; otherwise, by rubbing too hard to remove the rust, he may break the vessel.[xvii]

This, I believe, is how the restoration of a good society should take place, cautiously, lovingly, with reverence for the good that already exists, and nostalgia for the good that has passed away.


This paper is based on a talk which I gave at the Working-group on Conservatism in Europe (WoCE) Hosted by The European Conservative, Vienna, Austria, September 6th, 2023. My thanks to Mario Fantini for the invitation, and to all the participants for their helpful discussion.

[i] For the origins of the term “integralist” see the editor’s introductory note to Félix Sardá y Salvany, “Integralists?” trans. HHG, The Josias (2022), thejosias.com/2022/03/02/felix-sarda-y-salvany-on-the-word-integralists (accessed September 8th, 2023).

[ii] Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 53.

[iii] Metaphysics, Bk. I, ch. 2, 982b30.

[iv] Cf. MacIntyre, After Virtue, 229.

[v] See: Edmund Waldstein, “The Primacy of the Common Good,” The Josias (2023) thejosias.com/2023/06/19/the-primacy-of-the-common-good (accessed September 4th, 2023).

[vi] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. I, ch. 2, 1094b5.

[vii] De Regno, I.15.

[viii] De Monarchia, III.XVI.9.

[ix] Sardá, “Integralists?”

[x] “Como el cuerpo al alma ha de estar unido y subordinado el Estado á la Iglesia, el luminar menor al mayor, la espada temporal a la espiritual, en los términos y condiciones que la Iglesia de Dios señala, como lo establecen nuestras leyes tradicionales.” [Manifestación hecha en Burgos por la prensa tradicionalista el mes de julio de 1888 (Madrid: Gabriel López, 1903), 20].

[xi] Yoram Hazony, Conservatism: A Rediscovery (London: Forum, 2022), xvi.

[xii] Michael Hanby, “Are We Postliberal Yet?” New Polity 3.3, 11-27, at 16, footnote 16.

[xiii] Robert Spaemann, Der Ursprung der Soziologie aus dem Geist der Restauration: Studien über L.G.A. de Bonald (München: Kösel, 1959), 181-191. This book was based on Spaemann’s dissertation, written under the direction of Joachim Ritter in Münster. Ritter was a liberal conservative, who wanted to move German conservatives away from nostalgia for past political forms, and towards support for the Christian Democratic principles of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is easy to see how a critique of Bonald’s intransigent support of the Ancien Régime fits into Ritter’s project.

[xiv] Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, On Royal Government, trans. Andrew Strain, www.academia.edu/8384944/Translation_of_Garrigou_Lagranges_On_Royal_Government (accessed September 4th, 2023), 9.

[xv] Schmitt is notoriously difficult to pin down, and it is not clear to what extent he actually holds the decisionism that he describes.

[xvi] “Letters,” First Things (October 2014).

[xvii] Regula Benedicti, 64:11-13.

Changes to Our Editorial Staff

At the end of this week, our editor Urban Hannon will enter the seminary of the Fraternity of Saint Peter, with a view to eventual ordination to the sacred priesthood. While this is great news in itself, it brings with it the sad consequence that we must lose him from our editorial staff.

Our current senior editor, Fr. Jon Tveit, will take the reins as editor.

We thank Mr. Hannon for his work at The Josias this year. Please join us in praying for him, for his seminary preparation, and for his ordination one day to the priesthood of our Lord, if it be His holy will.

Prayer for the Priests and Seminarians of the Fraternity of Saint Peter, and for vocations to the same.

V. Remember, O Lord, Thy congregation.
R. Which Thou hast possessed from the beginning.

Let us pray.
O Lord Jesus, born to give testimony to the Truth, Thou who lovest unto the end those whom Thou hast chosen, kindly hear our prayers for our pastors. Thou who knowest all things, knowest that they love Thee and can do all things in Thee who strengthenest them.
Sanctify them in Truth. Pour into them, we beseech Thee, the Spirit whom Thou didst give to Thy apostles, who would make them, in all things, like unto Thee. Receive the homage of love which they offer up to Thee, who hast graciously received the threefold confession of Peter.

And so that a pure oblation may everywhere be offered without ceasing unto the Most Holy Trinity, graciously enrich their number and keep them in Thy love, who art one with the Father and the Holy Ghost, to whom be glory and honour forever. Amen.

The Josias Podcast Episode XXXVIII: American Solidarity Party

Urban Hannon is joined by Lauren Onak for a conversation about the American Solidarity Party, third-party politics, and harmonizing political with spiritual. Lauren is the American Solidarity Party’s Vice Presidential candidate in the 2024 election.

Bibliography

Header Image: A Pelican Feeding her Young, Ms. Ludwig XV 3 (83.MR.173), fol. 72 (c. 1270).

If you have questions or comments, please send them to editors(at)thejosias.com.

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Many thanks to our generous supporters on Patreon, who enable us to pay for podcast hosting. If you have not yet joined them, please do so. You can set up a one-time or recurring donation in any amount. Even $1 a month would be splendid.

On the Crisis of Fat-Souled Men

The soul, like fire, rises by nature.[1] On the Mountain of Purgatory, the Roman poet Virgil explains to Dante that as a flame strives upward, so too does the soul strive to God.[2] The soul bears a “natural love” that desires to delight in beauty and be happy.[3] The soul hears the call to climb from lesser beauties to greater beauties until it is satiated in Beauty-itself, God. It is a primal desire kneaded into the nature of man that works in him to rise to God, his Maker. Every human soul has this love, this “desire for beauty.”[4] Yet, a thick forgetfulness, like a pall upon the heart, smothers modern man. Though called to ascend, he hates greatness and turns in his timidity to bestial pleasures and artificialities. We proclaim ourselves gods but live a life like cattle. We are called to ascend. We are called to shed the demon of our day and become beautiful in pursuit of Beauty.

Continue reading “On the Crisis of Fat-Souled Men”

The Josias Podcast Episode XXXVII: Barbenheimer

Urban Hannon is joined by Zac Mabry and Amanda for a conversation about the most memed and screened double feature of the year.

Bibliography

If you have questions or comments, please send them to editors(at)thejosias.com.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Many thanks to our generous supporters on Patreon, who enable us to pay for podcast hosting. If you have not yet joined them, please do so. You can set up a one-time or recurring donation in any amount. Even $1 a month would be splendid.