“When we reflect on the attested facts of all history, when we understand that in the chain of human institutions, from those that have marked the great turning points in history down to the smallest social organization, from empires down to brotherhoods, all have a divine foundation, and that human power, whenever it isolates itself, can only give its works a false and passing existence, what are we to think of the new French structure and the power that produced it? For myself, I will never believe in the fecundity of nothing.”
Joseph de Maistre
Considerations on France — p. 42
De Maistre’s point in this section is, as he says elsewhere, “every imaginable institution is founded on a religious concept or it is only a passing phenomenon.” De Maistre is driving at the point that what he calls the social edifice is hopelessly religious and any attempt to strip it of its foundation of religion will only result in “a false and passing existence.”
What de Maistre rightly points out concerning the work of Jacobins and Revolutionaries to strip the social edifice of its religious foundation is precisely what R2K is pursuing. Like the Jacobins and the Philosophes of the French Revolution R2K desires to strip the social edifice of Christ by declaring for a public square (de Maistre’s “social edifice) that is no longer animated by and founded upon Christ. Inasmuch as R2K argues that a culture cannot be Christian, that a family cannot be Christian, that education cannot be Christian, that law cannot be Christian, in that much R2K is arguing for precisely the same social edifice that the Robespierre, Marat, and Danton desired.
Good night people… do you realize what we have done by allowing R2K into our Seminaries, Churches and pulpits? We have invited the intellectual descendants of the Jacobins and Philosophes into our Churches. Robespierre gave us the goddess of Reason to govern the social edifice. Similarly Van Drunnen has given us the goddess of Natural law to govern the social edifice. The only difference between the two is while Robespierre admitted that he was giving the people a new god, Van Drunnen wants to insist that this new god is the same God we’ve always served. Frankly, if forced to choose between Robespierre’s goddess of Reason and D. G. Hart’s God of Natural Law I’ll choose Robespierre. At least Robespierre isn’t pissing on my boot while telling me it’s raining out.
