True law is right reason in agreement with Nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrong-doing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, although neither have any effect upon the wicked. It is a sin to try and alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal a part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by Senate or People, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and for all times, and there will be one master and one rule, that is, God, over us all, for He is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge.
Cicero - On the Republic
These stimulating statements are perhaps too worldly insofar as Cicero places reason and natural law over those useful skeptical and apophatic views conducive to a deeper spiritual, and thus more comprehensive, insinuation of happiness and justice throughout the lives of men and women, and so throughout government and the social order. Here we see the case of a philosopher of Skepticism drawing too close to the erroneous pagan convictions we associate with the Stoics. And I think this might be verified by St. Augustine's criticisms of On the Republic; St. Augustine properly challenges Cicero, observing the book fails to define a Republic.
Cicero is applying broad brushstrokes that draw our attention to the consideration of what St. Thomas Aquinas calls Natural Theology, which is very well and good. But in order to understand the full range of possibilities for a good (happy) Republic, we must bring into our conversation the consideration of what Aquinas calls Revealed Theology, appropriately centering our considerations at the focus--as upon the microscope stage--of a skeptical-empirical method.
Above, my use of "skeptical" and "apophatic" are necessary approaches for elevating Revealed Theology to the status of an anthropological understanding, which is a discussion that is philosophical rather than an exercise of the mythography and poetry which are the subjects of that inquiry.
The study of scripture and myth--and importantly the study of the history of our commentary regarding these subjects--define the formulations yielding the "Revealed" understanding that 1) return Cicero to the school of Skepticism, and 2) yield the elusive (but not too elusive) definition of a Republic that St. Augustine calls for. Thus, we seek to include unworldly understanding (and hopefully unworldly solutions) in our essay of very worldly problems. Here we might imagine Wittgenstein calling for a synoptic examination of unworldly possibilities (and indeed he would call for a long list of such possibilities), framing the language of these possibilities in the human context--in the "stream-of-life."
Framing his political science and his history as an inquiry into a Revealed and Natural understanding of the world, Locke has some useful things to say about these matters, and he advances many happy suggestions for proceeding in peaceful, inclusive, informed, wise, productive and profitable directions.
Finally, we would be remiss were we to fail to view these suggestions as matters of aesthetic impression. Thus, I am wont to evoke something of a Japanese manner and call Locke's suggestions "pleasant," moreover encouraging visions of a harmonious community.
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| Marcus Tullius Cicero |
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