(LifeSiteNews) — In the previous part, we saw that religion – the sum total of truths about God and duties which we owe to him – is a matter of justice.
Through the natural light of unaided human reason, we can know that God exists and has certain attributes and characteristics. Because he is goodness, truth and power itself, we owe him love, honor, assent and obedience.
However, because God is infinite in all perfections, and because he created us and sustains us in being, there is an infinite disparity between him and us. We are unable to discharge our duties to him fully, and as such we cannot attain a relation of equality, or make God indebted to us.
We can never say that we have loved him enough, or honored him enough, etc.
In this series, we have been focusing on why religion is necessary in itself – that is, in the concept of religion itself, as well as of who God is and what we are in relation to him. Having established that the primary importance of this concept of religion, and having shown that religion is a completely non-negotiable obligation on every rational creature, we can now acknowledge that, as a secondary consideration, religion is also necessary and useful as the conceptual foundation for the following goods:
- Individual happiness
- The natural moral law
- Marriage and all relations with our fellow man
- Law, legitimate authority and society itself.
Some of these goods may exist and continue for some time in settings without any religion. However, the important point here is that they rest, conceptually, on the existence of the God whom we know through natural reason, and that they benefit from this knowledge and the corresponding duties.
However, all this comes with a significant qualification. It is essential that we recognize that the benefits for these goods are secondary byproducts of religion. Adopting religion for the sake of these goods alone can lead to disaster, as we shall discuss.
In this overview, we will be primarily following Monsignor Paul J. Glenn’s treatment of the issue.
Personal happiness, and the reward of God
As rational creatures, we each have both an intellect and a will.
Because of this, the knowledge of truth and the possession of goodness are what satisfies us and brings us happiness.
Both truth and goodness answer the deepest needs of man: our intellect is made for truth, and seeks to know what is true; and our will is made for goodness and that which is good.
We saw in the previous part that God is supreme truth and goodness itself. He is the perfect and infinite goodness, and it is through religion that man reaches up to God, both knowing him and possessing him in so far as our nature is able.
As such, while religion remains an objective duty for man, without regard for reward or punishment, it is nonetheless true that the enduring happiness of the individual here and now, in this life, is rendered possible only through knowing God and fulfilling our duties to him.
This was indeed a commonplace of many of the ancient philosophers, who did not have the benefit of the revealed religion of Israel or of the Church. This is because it is a truth knowable by reason alone.
Morality is religious, even when ‘secular’
Many Catholics have a tendency to distinguish matters of natural law – such as the immorality of abortion, or of usury – from religion.
This is true, to a significant degree. What we mean is that the proposition, “abortion/usury/etc. is immoral” is a statement of natural law, knowable by human reason without the assistance of supernatural revelation. We mean that it is not necessary to be a Christian to recognize the immorality of these acts.
This distinction also serves to distinguish moral imperatives of the natural law from those of the Church, which are only binding on her members (such as the obligation to abstain from meat on Fridays, and to receive the sacraments).
However, from another perspective, morality is indeed a religious reality (naturally understood), and religion is necessary as its ultimate conceptual basis. Monsignor Paul J. Glenn writes:
Morality consists in the relation which exists between free human activity, on the one hand, and the Eternal law (i.e., Divine Reason and Will) or, in a word, God Himself on the other.[1]
The natural law itself, St. Thomas Aquinas explains, is a “participation of the eternal law in the rational creature.” This eternal law is imprinted on every human being, and directs us to our proper natural ends:
‘The light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function of the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine light.’
For this reason, although morality does not pertain to supernatural revelation, it does pertain to God – who is the lawmaker and sanction of every moral law, and the proper goal of all our actions.
As obedience to this moral law is a duty which we owe to God, it is evidently also related to religion (as we have defined it). Without God, our knowledge of him and of our duties to him, morality is denatured. Those without religion try to evade this problem in various ways, but there seems no way to conceive of an objective moral law without a Lawgiver – one way or another, we end up in subjective opinions.
Conscience alone cannot fill this gap, because without a realization that the judgment of conscience refers to the law of the Supreme Lawgiver, conscience is also denatured and can be seen as little more than private prejudice, or a chemical function of the brain.
This in turn leads us to a wider social necessity of religion.
The external necessity of religion for relations with our fellow man
Marriage is a natural institution, a contract between a man and a woman whose terms are largely knowable from the nature of things (i.e., related to the centrality of the procreation and education of children) and through reason alone.
Nonetheless, it is well known that family life carries with it challenges and duties, some of which are sometimes difficult – others of which are always difficult.
Religion, Glenn says, is crucial for helping parents recognize the importance and goodness of these duties, and thus to fulfil them. The recognition that God and his law are sovereign – and that we will be judged on the basis of our observance of this moral law – is a further powerful means by which parents and spouses are sustained in their duties and mutual love towards each other, and the children whom they must love, support, work for, and educate.
Similarly, religion is necessary in order to make any kind of human fraternity a reality.
The French Revolution (and its heirs in Freemasonry, Communism and other naturalist movements) treats fraternity and human brotherhood without proper regard for the God who made us all. Claiming our fellow man to be our brother rings hollow unless we have also a common father – and this common Father is God.
No-one can claim God as his Father if he is indifferent to what God is actually like, and what he wants from us and for us. This is why religion is essential for any sense of human fraternity.
But this religion must, of course, be true. It would be getting ahead of ourselves to talk of the Church, the supernatural society for God’s revealed religion, but we can also add St. Cyprian’s comment for future reference:
He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.[2]
All this points, in turn, towards the necessity of religion for civil society itself.
The external necessity of religion for society
Everything which we have already discussed constitutes an important benefit for society – but society itself depends on a clear notion of religion for its own legitimacy and good functioning.
Natural law, which we already saw is a participation in the eternal law, is itself the basis for human law. Human law exists to specify the natural law in society, and to regulate other matters in accordance with it (i.e., without contradicting it.)
Because of human law’s dependence on the natural law, religion – that is, the recognition of God and of our duties to him – is the secure basis for law and civil authority. Glenn writes:
[T]he exercise of any authority is always a religious act. It is a tacit appeal to a higher (and ultimately to the highest) authority, who has set or approved the ruler in his place and will back him up in it.[3]
As the naturally-knowable source of all power and authority, God is in turn the ultimate sanction of civil power and authority.
It is difficult to underestimate how important this is. Without God and the natural law, society is at the mercy of whichever warlord, cabal or mob has sufficient strength and lack of scruples to seize power.
Without God, all government is merely power – and the reason to observe the law is the menace of this power and its punishment.
By contrast, with a supremely good, just and lovable God as the basis of civil authority, subjects can treat obedience as a duty to God himself.
Further, God provides the objective standard by which the actions and laws can be judged. Without God, human laws could be as tyrannical and irrational as the warlord, cabal or mob desire. With him, we know that ordinances which are irrational, or ordered contrary to the common good, or issued as mere whims, are no laws at all – they are “acts of violence rather than laws.”[4] There is no greater safeguard for true liberty than God and true religion.
Similarly, this provides us with clarity of conscience: when the lower authority of the state rules against the higher authority of God (or presumes to usurp his place), a clear view of true religion allows us to say that we are obliged to obey God rather than human authority; and that we are not lesser servants of the latter by seeking to serve God first.
Finally, we can know that whatever injustice we may suffer in this world is referred to a higher (and indeed the highest) authority, whose judgment will always be just – and to whose recourse we can always turn in prayer.
Conclusion
In this piece, we have seen that religion provides important benefits for the individual, for families and society, and for the nation and civil authority.
We have not discussed the necessity for such groups to adopt the true religion, because that would be getting ahead of ourselves at this stage. Nonetheless, let us acknowledge for now that this is a real obligation.
However, the utilitarian benefits of religion are secondary to the reality of what religion represents – namely, the truths and duties that bind man to God, which he must accept and render to him as a matter of justice. It is essential that we understand this, because otherwise we may find ourselves in difficulty along the road.
For example, our confidence may be undermined by experience, or by specious arguments to the contrary. What then? If we have base dour acceptance of religion on its role in securing and safeguarding such secondary goods, and we then doubt this role, we may end by doubting religion altogether.
This unfortunate turn of events is common: many persons have adopted religion based on utilitarian grounds (thinking it makes them happy, or is good for their marriage, or is a way of working towards a more ‘based’ society) only to be disappointed and fall away.
It is true that recognizing the existence of the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of existence, is the chief means by which civil society can ensure the peace and freedom of its citizens, and root itself in what is true, good, and right.
But the fact that religion has personal, moral, social and legal benefits can only be seen as the byproduct of fulfilling our objective duties to God, which are knowable through unaided human reason.
We fulfil the duties of religion because they are necessary in themselves.
Below are the first three parts in this series on the fundamental arguments for the claims of the Catholic Church:
Christians have a strict duty to develop their understanding of the faith
Religion is a fact of life. Here’s why
Everyone must know, love, serve and worship God. Here’s why
See also for the ongoing series on natural theology made simple:
God exists. But is His existence self-evident?
Is it possible to prove the existence of God?
God’s existence can be known by the light of natural reason
Without God nothing else could exist
Created beings cannot be the source of creation. Only God can be
The Catholic Church teaches that men can know God exists through reason alone
False philosophies can’t solve man’s problems. Only the true philosophy can
Nietzsche and Kant won’t lead you to truth. Scholastic philosophy will
How the wonders of creation lead us to God
How God helped get Catholic philosophy started