Enlightened Chains, pg. 5
greatest threat to Enlightenment when he wrote, “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
Earlier French writers were not quite as militantly oppositional to the church, and even less hostile to the idea of faith. Montesquieu actually based many of his ideas put forth in The Spirit of Laws on an idea of a supreme being he called “God”. He states, “God is related to the universe, as Creator and Preserver; the laws by which He created all things are those by which He preserves them. He acts according to these rules, because He knows them; He knows them, because He made them; and He made them, because they are in relation to His wisdom and power.” Man must have laws, Montesquieu reasons, because even God has laws.
Following this reasoning, Montesquieu sees that laws are even more necessary for man than for God. Man, says Montesquieu, “…incessantly transgresses the laws established by God, and changes those of his own instituting. He is left to his private direction, though a limited being, and subject, like all finite intelligences, to ignorance and error: even his imperfect knowledge he loses; and as a sensible creature, he is hurried away by a thousand impetuous passions.” In other words, God makes laws because he is perfect; man must have laws because he is imperfect. Much of The Spirit of the Laws is an explanation of how man’s laws agree or disagree with “natural” law or what Montesquieu sees as God’s laws.
This is in perfect agreement with the story in Exodus 18 where Moses is convinced to petition God for a set of laws by which to govern the Children of Israel. To this point in the Biblical story, God has not set forth any set of laws - although they have been referred to earlier - by which man was to be ruled. At the urging of his father-in-
Next Page
Earlier French writers were not quite as militantly oppositional to the church, and even less hostile to the idea of faith. Montesquieu actually based many of his ideas put forth in The Spirit of Laws on an idea of a supreme being he called “God”. He states, “God is related to the universe, as Creator and Preserver; the laws by which He created all things are those by which He preserves them. He acts according to these rules, because He knows them; He knows them, because He made them; and He made them, because they are in relation to His wisdom and power.” Man must have laws, Montesquieu reasons, because even God has laws.
Following this reasoning, Montesquieu sees that laws are even more necessary for man than for God. Man, says Montesquieu, “…incessantly transgresses the laws established by God, and changes those of his own instituting. He is left to his private direction, though a limited being, and subject, like all finite intelligences, to ignorance and error: even his imperfect knowledge he loses; and as a sensible creature, he is hurried away by a thousand impetuous passions.” In other words, God makes laws because he is perfect; man must have laws because he is imperfect. Much of The Spirit of the Laws is an explanation of how man’s laws agree or disagree with “natural” law or what Montesquieu sees as God’s laws.
This is in perfect agreement with the story in Exodus 18 where Moses is convinced to petition God for a set of laws by which to govern the Children of Israel. To this point in the Biblical story, God has not set forth any set of laws - although they have been referred to earlier - by which man was to be ruled. At the urging of his father-in-
Next Page
© 2004 by Xpatriated Texan
<< Home