Originally published in 1974, English-Speaking Justice by George Grant traces the history of liberalism in the Western world. A Canadian philosopher and devout Christian, Grant argues that technology and liberalism rise together, and that liberalism will eventually be annihilated at the hands of technology, because it is inherently antithetical to true liberty.
The principles of natural rights and natural law cannot stand when there remains no knowledge of ultimate good or justice. If liberty lacks limits and forsakes the tradition of liberty, as laid out in classical Western thought and the Holy Scriptures, it will die at its own hands.
The vagueness of the term “liberalism” creates some difficulty in assessing its consequences. Nevertheless, Grant defines it broadly as “the belief that political liberty is a central human good.” This definition of liberalism connotes the existence of natural rights and principles of natural law that flow from the nature of God Himself. Most Westerners, even those who consider themselves as “conservatives,” would by this definition be “liberals.”
However, as Grant explains in his book, the liberalism of the modern age has morphed into an image quite antithetical to the tradition of liberty in the American founding and the West at-large. In contrast to that of a bygone age, today’s liberalism is a grotesque counterfeit. Because of the vagueness of the term “liberalism,” this article will use the terms “tradition of liberty” and “true liberty” to differentiate it from the liberalism of today.
At the dawn of the Scientific Revolution, the belief in God and a natural overreaching order began to erode. The possibility of good apart from divine authority and ultimate moral law became more realized (or so they thought). The mastery of the world through technological innovation was the eschaton awaiting humanity. However, one large looming problem became evident:
“The practical question is whether a society in which technology must be oriented to Cybernetics can maintain the institutions of free politics and the protection by law of the rights of the individual. Behind that lies the theoretical question of modern liberalism itself. What were the modern assumptions which at one and the same time exalted human freedom and encouraged that cybernetic mastery which now threatens freedom.”
The short answer to Grant’s question is no. For the liberal, the progression of humanity is the main goal, and freedom without definition is the highest good. This is the heart of technological innovation. Man is without bounds and liberty is without limits. Liberty turned into licentiousness.
While liberalism has “rights” rhetoric, it ends up killing natural rights. Grant explains that as a society increasingly focuses on scientific progress, nothing keeps that society from discarding natural rights when it becomes convenient, as is evident in the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade.
The natural, God-given rights of unborn children are sacrificed on the altar of convenience. Grant explains the liberals’ reasoning:
“Why should the liberalism of women to quality of life be limited by restraints on abortion, particularly when we know that the foetuses are only the product of necessity and chance? Once we have recognised ‘history’ as imposing of our wills on an accidental world, does not ‘justice’ take on a new content?”
From the liberal perspective, Roe is merely a matter of preserving the freedom and autonomy of American women. Ironically, it meanwhile denied the most basic natural rights of the unborn. By rejecting true liberty and denying the natural rights that come from God, man creates his own “liberty” and “rights” in the spirit of scientific progress.
This progressive understanding of human liberty, as demonstrated in Roe, is not that of the tradition of the Western world. “The view of traditional philosophy and religion is that justice is the overriding order which we do not measure and define, but in terms of which we are measured and defined,” Grant says.
True liberty and justice are not that which one can fabricate or mold according to one’s whims for societal advancement. Rather, right is that ultimate, objective standard by which man must conform to attain the happiness and flourishing of society. In contrast, liberalism says that “justice is a way in which we choose freedom, both individually and publicly, once we have taken our fate into our own hands, and know that we are responsible for what happens.”
Justice becomes, like technology, a tool by which one achieves the ends so desired. In this way, liberalism is at odds with the tradition of liberty.
The fundamental problem with liberalism is that it has no foundational philosophy by which to answer the fundamental questions about truth and human nature. The questions “What is it about human beings that makes liberty and equality their due?” and “why is justice what we are fitted for, when it is not convenient?” must be answered.
Liberalism, as much as it esteems the idea of liberty, is incapable of answering these questions. Instead, it merely prizes the idea of “liberty” absent of a definition. The liberal man does not know where to seek freedom from, nor what to seek freedom for. His understanding of liberty is one of utility and convenience, susceptible to a change in definition tomorrow. To the liberal, a woman may choose to keep her baby today, but choose to murder it tomorrow.
In contrast, the tradition of liberty, with a fundamental understanding of truth and human nature, cannot be retrieved apart from its source. Grant beautifully articulates the tradition of liberty in the West:
“In the pretechnological era, the central western account of justice clarified the claim that justice is what we are fitted for, it clarified why justice is to render each human being their due … That account of justice was written down most carefully and most beautifully in “The Republic” of Plato. For those of us who are Christians, the substance of our belief is that the perfect living out of that justice is unfolded in the Gospels.”
Before man saw the world in terms of man-made progress and scientific salvation, the classical Western tradition, embodied in the teachings of Jesus Christ, formed the foundation for liberty. Absolute moral truths come from the God of the Bible, providing man an understanding of the principles of justice and natural rights.
The tradition of liberty, completely contrary to the liberalism of the modern age, is not better illustrated in America than through the writings of Founding Father James Wilson. In his Lectures on Law, Wilson explains that love of law and love of liberty defines the American psyche. Like Grant, Wilson believed that true liberty flows from one source: God Himself.
He alone orders and governs the universe, setting the limits and terms by which man should live. “From a human source [law] cannot flow;” Wilsons says, “for no stream issuing from thence can rise higher than the fountain.”
Justice cannot be formed from human innovation, for man is incapable of setting the terms of his own existence. God alone sets the terms of justice and liberty, for they flow from His very nature.
Likewise, Wilson argued that unlimited liberty is not fit for human nature. Liberalism, the desire to determine one’s own destiny and define one’s own rights, is antithetic to how man was created:
“When we … contemplate the beautiful order observed in all its motions and appearances; is not the supposition unnatural and improbable–that the rational and moral world should be abandoned to the frolics of chance, or the ravage of disorder?What would be the fate of man and of society, was every one at full liberty to do as he listed, without any fixed rule or principle of conduct, without a helm to steer him–a sport of the fierce gusts of passion, and the fluctuating billows of caprice? To be without law is not agreeable to our nature.”
God created the order in which man lives, and man’s natural rights flow from this natural order of the universe. The laws to which man is subject and the liberty to which he enjoys are the means by which man finds his telos and happiness. Similar to Grant, Wilson argued that the true definition of liberty comes largely from the Holy Scriptures. Justly-fitted laws and liberty are discovered through the teachings of God’s Word.
In English-Speaking Justice, Grant laments the end of the tradition of liberty. Disregarding true liberty and natural rights as laid out in Scripture, liberalism seeks to progress human nature as it does technology. As Wilson explains in Lectures on Law, disregarding the tradition of liberty leaves man in a sea of lawlessness.
As Psalm 11:3 says, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” An absolute foundation of justice and liberty is necessary for the flourishing of mankind. Liberty is not limitless, and liberty needs law. For man to have natural rights, there must be a natural order – that order is God’s.
“What an enrapturing view of the moral government of the universe!” Wilson says, “Over all, goodness infinite reigns, guided by unerring wisdom, and supported by almighty power.”
