Dr. Feser tackles both Paul Griffiths and David Bentley Hart in one article http://www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/11/28/hot-air-versus-capital-punishment-a-reply-to-paul-griffiths-and-david-bentley-hart/

Edward Feser wrote:

As lawyers like to say, when you can’t win a case by pounding the facts or pounding the law, pound the table instead.

Now, is this about winning a case? And what is the case?

Feser presupposes that papal statements are (often enough) doctrinally binding. If "a Catholic defense of capital punishment" is Feser's case, then he is fully right to presuppose so. But for non-Catholics, the case with regard to capital punishment is quite different, because popes have as much authority as any random priest or theologian.

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

Seigneur,

I would say that, philosophically and theologically speaking, it is the ideal of Church and state relations that is more important than historical practice.

I agree. But what is the ideal? To me, the ideal is that there is no relation. The church is not of this world.

And I agree that Feser, from his own point of view, refutes all Hart's points. However, Hart's main point does not accept Feser's (Catholic) point of view at all and, different from what Feser supposes, Hart is not arguing from any specific Orthodox doctrinal point of view.

Hart is touching on an important scriptural point. Feser is talking past it - rightfully so, insofar as his book is elaborating a specifically Catholic doctrine. But if scriptural points are important to you, then it's unfortunate to see people talk past each other like this.

Feser says, "...because Griffiths’ interpretation would have such absurd consequences, it is hardly plausible to suppose that Jefferson and Co. meant for the term “unalienable” to be understood the way Griffiths understands it."

Good point. Why not give Hart the same treatment as to Jefferson?

"Now, the problems with [Hart's] claims are so obvious and so serious that it is almost embarrassing to have to call attention to them. First, if Hart’s position were followed out consistently, then we would have to abolish all punishments for all offenses."

Precisely because the problems are so obvious and serious and embarrassing, it is hardly plausible to suppose that Hart meant it the way Feser understands it. For example, Hart could have meant that punishments for offenses is something exclusively for the secular power to practice, not for Christians or the church.

Christian scriptures and Christian theology have zero prescriptive power to the secular authorities - this is exactly what defines them as secular authorities. When the church assumes to itself higher authority than secular authorities have (something that the popes can be quoted on) or when Christians presume to have a more complete understanding of how the world should work (in prescriptive sense, as much of Feser's oeuvre seems to insist), we have moved away from our scriptural basis.

Christians are not called to exercise secular powers, but to submit to them. When you presume to prescribe how secular powers should operate, then how can you say you are submitting to them?

This interpretation is quite obvious to me when reading Hart, but Feser ignores this - rightfully in some sense, but also conveniently (for Feser) in another sense, and unfortunately for the audience.

Writing in the hope that Providence has spared my interlocutor and the gentle reader temptations of an intensity that would necessitate the immediate removal of their eyes (and/or other sense organs), as I am presuming the best, naturally, and before turning to concrete points about Dr. Hart's review and Dr. Feser's reply, I'd just like to ask for clarification on what "the rest of the world', written by seigneur above, is supposed to mean.
Given that no ecclesial society with a more or less legitimate claim to succesion from the first millenium, apparently, fits his standards for Christianity, this also being the case with Anglicans or traditional Lutherans, say, I wonder precisely who is that supposed to be?  I admit I have my own suspicion, that is Catharism (it would explain the Manichean notes spotted by Jeremy), but to the best of my knowledge they're not really around, so this is quite unclear.

*Disclaimer: in what follows the word "scriptural" refers to whatever is in conformity with seigneur's understanding of the Bible and religion.

I hereby, invoking his scriptural duty, ask and compel seigner to respond in detail to all the points and objections made by Jeremy and me in this thread.
Should he refuse, he is to provide a scriptural basis for his non-compliance. Any defense's based on mere prudence or other natural and worldy considerations is to be withdrawn by him immediately upon notice.

Last edited by GeorgiusThomas (11/30/2017 10:23 am)

St. Augustine:

Tractate 115 (John 18:33-40)

Hear then, you Jews and Gentiles; hear, O circumcision; hear, O uncircumcision; hear, all you kingdoms of the earth: I interfere not with your government in this world, My kingdom is not of this world. Cherish ye not the utterly vain terror that threw Herod the elder into consternation when the birth of Christ was announced, and led him to the murder of so many infants in the hope of including Christ in the fatal number, made more cruel by his fear than by his anger: My kingdom, He said, is not of this world. What would you more? Come to the kingdom that is not of this world; come, believing, and fall not into the madness of anger through fear. He says, indeed, prophetically of God the Father, Yet have I been appointed king by Him upon His holy hill of Zion; but that hill of Zion is not of this world. For what is His kingdom, save those who believe in Him, to whom He says, You are not of the world, even as I am not of the world? And yet He wished them to be in the world: on that very account saying of them to the Father, I pray not that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil. Hence also He says not here, My kingdom is not in this world; but, is not of this world. And when He proved this by saying, If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews, He says not, But now is my kingdom not here, but, is not from hence. For His kingdom is here until the end of the world, having tares intermingled therewith until the harvest; for the harvest is the end of the world, when the reapers, that is to say, the angels, shall come and gather out of His kingdom everything that offends; Matthew 13:38-41 which certainly would not be done, were it not that His kingdom is here. But still it is not from hence; for it only sojourns as a stranger in the world: because He says to His kingdom, You are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. They were therefore of the world, so long as they were not His kingdom, but belonged to the prince of this world. Of the world therefore are all mankind, created indeed by the true God, but generated from Adam as a vitiated and condemned stock; and there are made into a kingdom no longer of the world, all from thence that have been regenerated in Christ. For so did God rescue us from the power of darkness, and translate us into the kingdom of the Son of His love: Colossians 1:13 and of this kingdom it is that He says, My kingdom is not of this world; or, My kingdom is not from hence.

P.S.
If someone is tempted to absolutise the non-interference of Christ according to St. Augustine, here's a quote containing his (scandlously?) natural-lawish (or even, for the sake of argument about submission to civil power, divine-lawish) saying. Indeed, that discussion itself is quite pertinent: 

E(vodius). I cannot imagine that men act without passion when they fight for things they would be unwilling to lose. If they cannot lose them, why need they go to the length of killing a man in their defence?

A(ugustinus). In that case the law is not just which authorises a traveller to kill a robber in self -protection, or any man or woman to kill an assailant, if possible before the violence has been carried out. The law also orders a soldier to kill the enemy, and if he refuses to do so he is punished by the military authorities. Can we possibly call these laws unjust, or rather no laws at all? A law which is not just does not seem to me to be a law.

De libero arbtitrio 1.5.11.33
http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Authors/Augustine/De_libero_arbitrio/L1#n32

@seigneur 

Yes, every man (as in social and political animal) is created by God, but some are called to be Christians.  Should the church (the sum total of Christians) govern the political and social life of all men or just of Christians? Is there a distinction at all between some average dude and a Christian, according to you? What is the distinction? Is Christian a churchgoer, but otherwise an ordinary social and political animal - in fact going to church also to satisfy his social and political instincts?
_ _ _ _ 

Please do provide your scriptural argument for the proposition that the Church is merely a sum total of all Christians. 
And, also, the part where "some" are called to be Christians, rather than all? The Great Comission is called great for a reason. Or are some people somehow not part of "all creation"? Are societies not creatures of God, aren't states? Where in Scripture can you find a divine law banning Christians from the government and civil service, or even reminding those who are not banned of their duty?

St. Ambrose, for example, certainly wasn't aware of any of it. He knew, however, of his duty to remind Christians of their duty, even if they are Emperors. He excommunicated Theodosius and made him do penance for months. What for? A massacre.
He somehow forgot to remind the Emperor of his duty to abdicate and name a pagan his successor. Or to do penance for Christianising law and persecuting opponents of Nicene orthodoxy or pagans.
_ _ _ _ 
Does this somehow imply that the Caesar should kiss the feet of the Pope and the Pope may depose him?
_ _ _ _ 
If you really want to fulfill your invoked obligation, you can start by re-reading my reply addressing this pet peeve of yours. You can start justifying your rejections. But here's a hint: if any feet are to be kissed at all (you're welcome to scripturally prove this act as illicit), should these not be the feet of a man, who is primate of all those who teach from the chair of Peter? I realise you probably reject pope's primacy (that is very unscriptural of you), but what is so hard to understand about it, if you were to grant that the Church is the kingdom of Christ on Earth, and the pope and the primates are officers of that kingdom? See, for example, the parallel of Matthew 16:18 in Isaiah 22: 15-25. If you generally consider reverences odd, do look up the ancient liturgies.

Do you seriously expect anybody who has read the OT Messianic prophecies and takes them to be divinely inspired to believe that the New Israel promised there amounts to nothing more than me-and-mah-Bible types who are prepared to schizophrenically refuse to make the revealed law of God that of their societies, to be governed by heathen laws and to let this situation stand? That -this- pathetic shell, possessed of less grandeur than a Central European local government, is the fulfillment of the people of the Temple and Zion? 

Come to think of it, yours is a very politically useful heresy, if not too popular. If you ever find like-minded individuals outside the Internet, I ask and compel you to run away from them, eventually achieving the distance of 25 miles from the place of encounter (fully expecting you to run two-times longer, as is your duty). Yes, in order to prevent its use by the powers-that-be. But then, my reasons shouldn't be of concern to you.

The least my quotes do is indicate how inadequate this conception of the Church is. What they were also meant to show you is that, as Jeremy noted, your "not of this world" quote - at least without further argument - doesn't mean what you claim it does. The last quotation also indicates what a Church Father of Augustine's importance thought about 'submission', natural law and liceity of killing (and yes, he is talking about Christians). I challenge you to argue from Sacred Scripture or find a single Father so miserable as to identify natural law with 'our wordly selves' or believe your  mind-boggling claim of the Christian duty to overcome it. 
 

Last edited by GeorgiusThomas (11/30/2017 2:41 pm)