God Again
by Leon Wieseltier
The New Republic
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...It was amusing to watch the conservatives at the lectern argue that the monument of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state capitol in Austin deserves the protection of the Court because it is the historical,
and even the secular, symbol of a common heritage; and encouraging to discover that the justices were having none of this Christian casuistry. They seemed all to agree that the Decalogue is a religious expression, which plainly it is. None of them seemed especially horrified by this fact, at least in these settings. A reasonable distinction between the acknowledgment of religion by the state and the establishment of religion by the state was in the air, and none of the justices wished government to be hostile to religion. I will be surprised if the Court orders the slab of pious stone in Texas, or the framed commandments that hang in courthouses in Kentucky, removed.
- "Government draws its authority from God."
- "Our laws are derived from God."
- "The moral order is ordained by God."
- "Human affairs are directed by God."
- "God is the foundation of the state."
Still, troubling things were said. A number of the justices declared--dispositively, as they like to say--that "we are a religious nation." The implication was that there is a quantitative answer to a philosophical question. But what does the prevalence of a belief have to do with its veracity, or with its legitimacy? If every American but one were religious, we would still have to construct our moral and political order upon respect for that one. In its form, the proposition that "we are a religious nation" is like the proposition that "we are a white nation" or that "we are a Christian nation" or that "we are a heterosexual nation," which is to say, it is a prescription for the tyranny of a majority. And if the opposite generalization were the case, if we were not "a religious nation," if we were a multitude of heretics and voluptuaries, would the case for tolerating a public display of the Mosaic creed be less powerful? The joke here is on the believers. They hold their faith not because it is popular, but because it is true. If they resort to the argument from numbers, however, they will rob their beliefs of philosophical prestige, and abandon them to the netherworld of popular nonsense. There is strength in numbers, but there is not truth. In this regard, the moral sensibilities of minorities are more refined than the moral sensibilities of majorities. They are never flattered by empiricism, never tempted by triumphalism.
The morning's disputations confirmed me in my view of Antonin Scalia's lack of intellectual distinction. He is very smart, of course; but now he shows only the brilliance of a perfectly settled perspective. I have been an amateur but diligent reader of his opinions for many years, and increasingly they seem like op-eds in robes. Scalia does not recognize the difference between a denunciation and a demonstration. At the court last week, he dripped certainties.
These are dogmas, not proofs. Scalia simply asserts them and moves on to incredulity and indignation. But how does he know these things? Does he hold these opinions, all venerable ones, by the authority of his reason or by the authority of his tradition? If by the former, then he should do my reason the honor of giving an account of his reason, so that I might be able in good conscience to assent; and if by the latter, well, his tradition is not my tradition, and so his assurances do not compel me. Certainty, as Maimonides warned his student, must not come by accident. It is an insult to democratic discussion to introduce these doctrines without an accompanying sense of the obligation to argue for them. But Scalia dispenses with argument, he lives after argument; and in its happy sensation of its own rightness, life after argument is very much like life before argument. Scalia's undisturbed experience of obvious truth is a kind of mental decadence. And his condescension can become cynicism, as when he insouciantly declared that "probably 90 percent of the American people believe in the Ten Commandments and I bet you 85 percent couldn't tell you what they are." It doesn't matter that 85 percent of the American people are taking His name in vain, as long as they are taking it...
Posted by RoadToPeace on Saturday, August 20, 2005.
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