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Morality of Majority
Robert P. George on Democracy as a Limited Means and Not an End
Religious faith is a hot topic these days among liberal political philosophers and constitutional theorists, but not because they’ve gotten religion. They are, for the most part, as doggedly secular as ever. They are worried about the “bounds of accommodation” of religious faith and practice in a democratic polity.
They ask: How much room for the free exercise of religion should a properly constituted democratic order allow? When, or under what circumstances, does religion in general or particular religions or religious institutions and practices pose a threat to democratic principles and institutions, or to other values served or protected by democratic rule?
From the perspective of a religious believer, however, this is the less interesting and urgent way to frame the issue. Where the secular liberal regards democracy as the given or fixed value, the believer takes as given or fixed a religious faith and its practical demands. The question for him is the extent to which political systems—including democratic ones—are compatible with the content and demands of his faith.
The believer will “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” But he may not countenance any demand of Caesar’s that impedes his rendering unto God that which is God’s.
Of course, a particular faith, or a particular understanding of a particular faith, may itself demand the governance of a political society by democratic institutions and in accordance with democratic principles. And such a faith may also demand a separation of temporal and spiritual authority, at least at the institutional level.
It may leave many questions—including some important constitutional ones—open to practical prudential judgments that cannot be derived (at least in any direct sense) from the content of faith. Such judgments may depend on contingent local or historical circumstances, which will account for what is from the vantage point of faith a legitimate diversity of policies in different polities and in different eras.
Democratic Means
Let me give an example, that of my own church, of how this proper rendering to Caesar and to God can be done.
Although there was a time when the Catholic Church was skeptical about democracy, Catholicism, as its authoritative teaching has developed, especially in and after the Second Vatican Council, preaches democratic ideals and promotes democratic institutions in the political sphere. Beginning in the pontificate of Pope John XXIII, the church has “brought forth from the treasury of faith,” which “contains both old things and new,” the proposition that the democratic governance of political societies is to be encouraged, nurtured, advanced, and preserved.
This teaching is put forth not as a mere prudential matter, much less as some sort of modus vivendi with modernity, but as a matter of justice in the dealings of human beings with one another. At its core is the idea that of all systems of political governance, democracy best comports with the foundational anthropological and moral truth that every human being, as a creature fashioned in the very image and likeness of God, possesses a profound, inherent, and equal dignity.
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University (web.princeton.edu/sites/jmadison). His books include In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford University Press) and Conscience and Its Enemies (ISI Books). He has served as chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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