Oct 012008
Chuck Colson quotes Russell Kirk in God & Government. Kirk claims:
Although church and state stand separate, the political order cannot be renewed without theological virtues working upon it… It is from the church that we receive our fundamental postulates of order, justice and freedom, applying them to our civil society.
Nothing exists in a vacuum, you replace one set of values another is bound to take its place. When individual’s values replaces a common shared set of values (which we have seen in our society) we either see chaos or despotism.
What do you think?
2 Responses to “No Theological Virtues, No Political Order”
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You need a value system to operate from. If it is not based on God, it will be based on something else, something less.
It depends what standard of behavior you want to hold yourself to: your own standard, that of another person, or God’s.
This is a tricky one. While I think the real values are those that come from God, I can’t say that I believe theology of any sort is necessary for values.
Certainly, being a follower of Christ doesn’t make one a saint; my own blog, full of irreverance and bad language as it is, is proof of that. Likewise, lack of a deity doesn’t mean total lack of morals or values or even a significant shortage.
Philosophers going way, way, way back into ancient times espoused values without necessarily including deities.
And civilization in general demands a certain level of values to function, and that is propped up both by mutual need for order AND actual laws.