Can we flip this around?

[Billie Hoard]

Also, Derek at least seems to be explicitly rejecting a "two kingdoms" framework.

 —

And on a (side?) note, I am really interested how that works. I am a big fan of a two kingdoms framework so I am pretty sure I am just missing some large chunk of theology. Is there a thread I can go read or re-read?

But on the question of agape eclipsing or extending a human rights paradigm, I want to ask why someone who operates out of an agape paradigm would want to talk much about human rights (outside of it's being very interesting and wildly relevant to contemporary culture). This is why I think the word "paradigm" is useful here. So far as I can tell, if agape is the lens through which we understand human interaction (pardon the mixed metaphor) human rights questions just don't come up because we are busy loving people. Whereas if we are looking through a human rights lens it is at least possible that we will still fail to love people.
So could we take the human rights-agape paradigm relationship as analogous to the Newtonian-Einsteinian  physics paradigm. The Newtonian paradigm (is model a better word at this point?) isn't exactly wrong, in fact it is great for doing all sorts of things, but it will only get us so far and once we shift to a more accurate paradigm (model) it becomes apparent that Newtonian physics isn't exactly right either. I think the analogy breaks down in that Einstein wasn't quite right either, where I take agape to actually be the Way of Jesus.
So that is where I am trying to track the pro-HR thinking, is there a version of Human Rights which would not have to be modified (would not also be "not quite right either") when we take an agape approach of human interaction. Of if I were to try asking one more way: Does the shift from HR to Agape only involve addition to the HR framework or is there a modification of the framework involved to en extent significant enough to make it no longer fit its old definition?

[Jon Stovell]

Also, Derek at least seems to be explicitly rejecting a "two kingdoms" framework.

 —

And on a (side?) note, I am really interested how that works. I am a big fan of a two kingdoms framework so I am pretty sure I am just missing some large chunk of theology. Is there a thread I can go read or re-read?

 —

The search function in the site menu should answer that pretty quickly for you. If you don't find anything that answers your questions well, you can always start a new discussion topic for it. The best location for that would probably be in The Nerd Zone.

[Daniel L Heck]

So could we take the human rights-agape paradigm relationship as analogous to the Newtonian-Einsteinian  physics paradigm...

To look at the analogy I used before, I think the relationship between agape and human rights is like the relationship between water and hydrogen. (I'm a moral objectivist, natural law type with a super-Creational theology, so I think that both are part of the created order ) One reason that I have been talking about human rights in this context is that I'm surprised when other care agapists understand human rights to be antagonistic to care agapism, or to be unneccessary to a full account of care agapism. To me,it sounds like they're saying, "We need pure water, which we'd have if only we got that pesky hydrogen out!" This largely seems obvious to me, although I can also understand the confusion. (Which I think is largely semantic, although there are also some knotty conceptual issues here, as well as some real questions about political engagement.) At any rate, I also prefer the water analogy to the scientific paradigms analogy because the epistemic questions come in from a different angle. (Notice, for example, that what I'm saying about water does depend on a certain shared theory of chemistry, so there is an operative theory of water involved. I think this an important distinction, because but I think that human rights are more than a merely human construct that are imposed on the world by human decision, whether individual or collective. So we have theories of human rights, which bear a broad analogy to theories of chemistry...and Locke's theory of human rights has more than a little alchemy in it.)

This analogy to water and hydrogen can be understood in either personal or political terms.

Loving care for another person involves respect for their rights (the dignity that is due to them, specifically as image-bearers.) Sometimes, people really do treat their 'loved ones' with less respect than that, and in those cases, I think they are being unloving. The example of a husband who comes to treat his wife's body as his property, rather than a unique example of the image of God, comes to mind. I choose this example because it helps to directly challenge the propertarian collapse of 'human rights' into 'property rights' ... which is also how we get to the position that slavery is freedom. Specifically, slavery is my freedom to own you as property. And here, I have rather quickly pointed out one of the bridges from the personal to political dimensions of this

If you want to understand what I'm saying, you can first approximate "human rights" by reading "treating people according to the dignity that is due to them all as image-bearers." Insofar as secular institutions insist on treating people in this way, I think they are approximating something central to the Biblical narrative and natural law...even if they don't understand what they're doing in this way. In this, they are like faithful Gentiles or Samaritans who can sometimes offer correction to us (as Messianically-expanded Israel) by their example.

I do think there is another discussion going on here as well, for which this one is foundational in some senses. That involves states, and how Christ's kingdom relates to them. I think that is certainly germane as well, and I'd like to get into it shortly. My SVS paper is focused on developing our theology of kingdom-state-relationships in the context of the refugee crisis.  But right now, my daughter needs me

[Michael Raburn]

Christians once had a social ethic based on love. Aquinas' account of the virtues in his Summa Theologica lays out the full range or moral and theological virtues. In laying those out, he gives special place to justice and to charity.
Justice is in one sense a general virtue that covers all relations between people. The closest thing to rights language in Aquinas is probably legal justice (although conflating them would be a mistake). Note what he says about legal justice:
"...legal justice is said to be a general virtue, in as much, to wit, as it directs the acts of the other virtues to its own end, and this is to move all the other virtues by its command; for just as charity may be called a general virtue in so far as it directs the acts of all the virtues to the Divine good, so too is legal justice, in so far as it directs the acts of all the virtues to the common good. Accordingly, just as charity which regards the Divine good as its proper object, is a special virtue in respect of its essence, so too legal justice is a special virtue in respect of its essence, in so far as it regards the common good as its proper object. And thus it is in the sovereign principally and by way of a mastercraft, while it is secondarily and administratively in his subjects.
However the name of legal justice can be given to every virtue, in so far as every virtue is directed to the common good by the aforesaid legal justice, which though special essentially is nevertheless virtually general. Speaking in this way, legal justice is essentially the same as all virtue, but differs therefrom logically: and it is in this sense that the Philosopher speaks." (ST. II-II. 58)

It is in this sense that human rights language can be somewhat helpful in that it can help direct people toward common good.

But, also note what Aquinas says later about charity:
"Ambrose [Lombard, Sent. iii, D, 23 says that charity is the form of the virtues.
I answer that, In morals the form of an act is taken chiefly from the end. The reason of this is that the principal of moral acts is the will, whose object and form, so to speak, are the end. Now the form of an act always follows from a form of the agent. Consequently, in morals, that which gives an act its order to the end, must needs give the act its form. Now it is evident, in accordance with what has been said (7), that it is charity which directs the acts of all other virtues to the last end, and which, consequently, also gives the form to all other acts of virtue: and it is precisely in this sense that charity is called the form of the virtues, for these are called virtues in relation to "informed" acts." (ST. II-II. 23)

Charity is the form of all the virtues. According to Aquinas, Christians grow into the virtues - all of the virtues - as the Holy Spirit infuses the theological virtue of charity into us. Love makes all the other virtues possible and actual in our lives. From this perspective, there is no dichotomy between love and justice. Love make justice happen. The only argument against a human rights approach is that the reverse is either less likely or perhaps not possible. Justice does not make love happen. The counter to that claim would be that justice creates an environment where love can grow. That is an interesting possibility but it is not the Christian way. Love is infused in us as we are filled with the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised his followers. We are people empowered to love and that enables us to excel in all the virtues, many of which can be generalized and called justice. This is the Christian social ethic and it has nothing to do with Stoicism. Quite the opposite. (Okay, I'll stop, Niebuhr bashing is too easy.)

We might want to converse with the world with human rights language but we have to understand that in doing so we are not using our native language and what we really mean, what we are really about, is Spirit-infused-charity expressed in virtues. And we have to clear that the world lacks the power to sustain human rights and justice because it is still the world and the only power to do such things comes from God and comes in the form of love (apart from the Spirit some degree of moral virtue, including justice is possible, but imperfectly and temporarily). So we have to decide how much energy we want to give to making the world incrementally better and how much we want to give to being the church and thus showing the world that it is the world and powerless to be otherwise.

(Re: Locke/modern expressions, I think the most common understanding now is a Rawlsian, bureaucratic understanding of rights. Michael Sandel gives the most lucid explanations: http://www.justiceharvard.org/)

[Daniel L Heck]

Charity is the form of all the virtues. According to Aquinas, Christians grow into the virtues - all of the virtues - as the Holy Spirit infuses the theological virtue of charity into us...The only argument against a human rights approach is that the reverse is either less likely or perhaps not possible. Justice does not make love happen... The counter to that claim would be that justice creates an environment where love can grow. That is an interesting possibility but it is not the Christian way.

I don't read those passages from Aquinas in a way that leads to this conclusion, and am interested in hearing how you get from A to B to C here.

If we grant that charity is the form of all the virtues, and that all of them have charity as their ultimate end, then doing justice truly (in Aquina's sense, which explicitly involves a sovereign*) is always ordered toward charity. This isn't a causal argument that would lead me to say that "justice does not make love happen," but is instead a teleological argument, which would lead me to say that "wherever justice is happening, it is justice only because it is ultimately oriented toward caritas." (And insofar as this implies a causal argument, it doesnt make sense to set a proximate cause against an ultimate cause in this way; the proximate causes are integrated into the ultumate cause, which precludes setting them against each other. If my ultimate goal is entering a room, and a proximate goal is opening a door, opening the door is a necessary part of the sequence of causes and effects that get me into the room.) So can justice create an environment where love can grow? Or as the non-Christian Catholic Workers often say, "We want to create a society (so common good is in play here, and so perhaps an idea of justice that links up with Aquinas's) that makes it easier for people to be good." On this account of the virtues, there should be nothing surprising or contradictory here. Growth in all of the virtues, including justice, happens as the Holy Spirit infuses the virtue of caritas in us; from love, through justice, we can grow toward love, empowered in every moment (of properly-ordered growth) by the Holy Spirit.

If we start with these texts from Aquinas (A), I don't see how you get to the conclusion that "justice doesn't cultivate caritas" is Aquinas's way (point B). And even if you do convince me that your way is Aquinas's way, there's a long way from there to saying that Aquinas's way is the (only) Christian way (point C). For now, I'd be happy if you could help me understand how you get from (A) to (B). The only clear roads I can see through these texts seem to go a different direction than the one it seems you want to go.

*Oh, and I do want to talk about sovereignty in light of a contextual Bible study of the image of God!

[Michael Raburn]

Before I answer, clarify one thing for me Daniel. What did you mean by "non-Christian Catholic Workers"?

[Daniel L Heck]

I'm glad we're engaging on this . I think there is some meat to what you're saying, and I'm trying to more clearly understand which parts of it are meat.

I was being ironic when I referred to them as non-Christian. I'm challenging the notion that creating a just social order that plays a role in cultivating love is "not the Christian way." I was tossing the Catholic Workers in as one (of many) possible counter-examples who are Christian (at least in their founding beliefs), and who pursue justice (in a way that might line up with Aquinas) in a way that is driven by caritas, oriented toward caritas, and expected to help cultivate caritas.