I once read that Aquinas says that the closest thing to divine charity that one will find in the natural order is love for the common good of society. I just looked for that quote, however, and couldn't find it. But let's assume that my memory is accurate. If it is, then it would not be difficult to argue that justice and the common good in some sense point to God.
But put that thought on hold for a second and turn now to Marx, who looks at these concepts quite differently. He thinks that talk of justice and equality as an alienating dualism just as much as theism. In a similar spirit Nietzsche also says that focusing on freedom, responsibility and justice, good and evil are all -- like theism -- nihilistic, because they are metaphysical and hence otherworldly.
[later addition: I need to put Freud here, because his three part analysis of the human subject does not allow for a per se desire for the common good: there is a self-interested id and a demanding super-ego, but the latter calls one to pleasure-depriving ostensibly altruistic behavior, not to the enjoyment of a bonum communis]
Comparing Aquinas, Marx and Nietzsche, we find the following:
First, the fact that previous brilliant materialists have rejected such fundamental political concepts as justice places a burden of explanation on today's materialist: For the materialist must consider whether the rejection of talk of the divine as non-sensical (q.v., "invisible spaghetti monster") is likewise a basis for rejecting equality, freedom, justice, the common good as illusions. After all, these political notions are likewise intangible.
To the materialist who wants to scoff at theism as illusory while refusing to accept the challenge of justifying his or her commitment to justice, I would point out the inconsistency of ridiculing one while adhering dogmatically to the other.
I would propose, secondly, that to affirm justice is to open the door to theism.
Thirdly, it is good for priests and other preachers to study politics from the perspective of the common good, for doing so will give them a way of talking to folks who are habitually somewhat anti-metaphsycial: justice in some sense falls within human experience while also pointing to God (in the sense that a premise points to the conclusion).
To affirm justice/common good is to be "not far from the kingdom of God."
But put that thought on hold for a second and turn now to Marx, who looks at these concepts quite differently. He thinks that talk of justice and equality as an alienating dualism just as much as theism. In a similar spirit Nietzsche also says that focusing on freedom, responsibility and justice, good and evil are all -- like theism -- nihilistic, because they are metaphysical and hence otherworldly.
[later addition: I need to put Freud here, because his three part analysis of the human subject does not allow for a per se desire for the common good: there is a self-interested id and a demanding super-ego, but the latter calls one to pleasure-depriving ostensibly altruistic behavior, not to the enjoyment of a bonum communis]
Comparing Aquinas, Marx and Nietzsche, we find the following:
First, the fact that previous brilliant materialists have rejected such fundamental political concepts as justice places a burden of explanation on today's materialist: For the materialist must consider whether the rejection of talk of the divine as non-sensical (q.v., "invisible spaghetti monster") is likewise a basis for rejecting equality, freedom, justice, the common good as illusions. After all, these political notions are likewise intangible.
To the materialist who wants to scoff at theism as illusory while refusing to accept the challenge of justifying his or her commitment to justice, I would point out the inconsistency of ridiculing one while adhering dogmatically to the other.
I would propose, secondly, that to affirm justice is to open the door to theism.
Thirdly, it is good for priests and other preachers to study politics from the perspective of the common good, for doing so will give them a way of talking to folks who are habitually somewhat anti-metaphsycial: justice in some sense falls within human experience while also pointing to God (in the sense that a premise points to the conclusion).
To affirm justice/common good is to be "not far from the kingdom of God."
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