Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural LawRickaby, Joseph
Philosophy
Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural Law
Rickaby, Joseph
Ethics
3. From this view it appears that the end for which the State exists
is indeed an important and necessary good, but it is not all in all to
man, not his perfect and final happiness. To guide man to that is the
office of the Christian Church in the present order of Providence.
Cook and statesman must so go about the proper ends of their several
offices, as not to stand in the way of the Church, compassing as she
does that supreme end to which all other ends are subordinate. This
limitation they are bound to observe, not as cook and statesman, but
as men and Christians. A perfectly Christian State, as Christian, has
a twofold duty. First, it has a _positive_ duty, at the request of the
Church, to follow up ecclesiastical laws with corresponding civil
enactments, _e.g_., laws against criminous clerks and excommunicates.
On this spiritual ground, being beyond its jurisdiction, the State
must be careful not to forestall but to second the precept of
spiritual authority. It is no business of the State, as such, to
punish a purely religious offence. The second duty of a Christian
State, and a more urgent duty even than the former, is the _negative_
one of making no civil enactment to the prejudice of the Church:
_e.g._, not to subject clerics to the law of conscription. Useful as
their arms might be for the defence of the country, the State must
forego that utility for the sake of a higher end.
4. In the order of pure nature, which is the order of philosophy,
there is of course no Church. Still there would be, as we have seen
(c. i., s. i., n. 8, p. 197), erected on the same lines as the civil
power, and working side by side with it, a religious power competent
to prescribe and conduct divine worship. This power the State would be
bound to abet and support, both positively and negatively; something
in the same manner, but not to the same degree, as the Christian State
is bound to abet the Church. The supreme direction of the natural
religious power would conveniently be vested in the person of the
Civil Ruler. Thus the Roman Emperor was also Chief Pontiff.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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