The Case for a Theocentric Right

For Chambers and countless others fascinated by the theo-political question of relating God to political order, Christian dogma is suffused with political consequences. If we are not self-creating creatures, we cannot create ourselves or society in our own image but should act to align ourselves with the Creator’s intentions. We are called to recognize, protect, and honor God’s creational design. “Aware that they are created, people should acknowledge that they owe their very being and everything they have to the Creator,” philosopher and theologian Germain Grisez observed. “So, they should be grateful to him. Harmony with this transcendent source of meaning and value is one of the basic human goods.” If our existence is due to divine forces outside of ourselves, autonomy is not humanity’s greatest political need. Instead, self-ordering and political ordering around the divine constitute the summum bonum of human existence. While conservatives disagree with one another on the extent to which the government is responsible for directing man to his ultimate good, a failure to recognize the spiritual nature of man will leave humans destitute and bereft of the life-giving, life-sustaining, and life-directing purposes for which they were created. Chambers’s realization is one that contemporary conservatism must not forget if it wishes to remain true to its history: Theism is at the core of the conservative vision, and modern conservatism must champion the necessity of God as the foundation for political reflection.