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Book Review, 14 January 2006 From Aquinas to fair-trade coffee
Human Rights and the Image of God The idea of human rights is arguably the only form of universal moral discourse in which we engage in the modern world, although it is vigorously contested by many who question its western bias or its lack of philosophical or theological foundations. Nevertheless, flawed though it might be, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights has become a rallying point in global politics, particularly since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The theologian Roger Ruston’s book makes a valuable contribution to Catholic thinking in this area, offering as it does a brief but balanced appraisal of the Church’s attitude to human rights over the past century, and a careful study of the historical and theological development of the idea of human rights. Engaging with critics such as Alasdair MacIntyre, who argues that the idea of human rights belongs within a post-Enlightenment rationalistic framework that lacks the coherence of earlier traditional religious values, Ruston points out that there are strands of thinking within the diverse traditions of pre-modern Christianity which have more in common with modern liberal rights theories than MacIntyre and others acknowledge. He suggests that the idea of natural rights or human rights can provide an effective remedy for the loss of human dignity that has come about through the disintegration of traditional societies, and he argues that there is an established tradition of active as well as passive rights in Catholic theology. In an introductory section, Ruston shows how Pope John XXIII’s 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris constituted an important development in its endorsement of the human rights movement, accompanied by a new Catholic understanding of the relationship between the citizen, the state and the international community. Ruston sees the return of a more pessimistic outlook under the papacy of John Paul II, resulting in ambivalence towards the idea of human rights, particularly regarding issues of sexuality, reproduction and women’s rights. It is against this legacy that Ruston sets out to explore the development of the idea of human rights, focusing on the formative, 150-year period from the Spanish conquest of the New World to the philosophy of John Locke, in order to ask if it might include a “hidden theology” which can be traced back to the doctrine that the human being is made in the image of God. Ruston situates the first part of his discussion in the context of Thomas Aquinas’ the-ology of nature. In a highly relevant chapter titled “Aquinas and Fair Trade Coffee”, he shows how the Christian doctrine of creation leads to an understanding of justice based on the fair distribution of the earth’s resources. Human moral agency – our capacity freely to order our acts towards the good – derives not from human nature per se, but from the fact that we are made in the image of God, and this is also what gives justice its objective capacity, since it applies equally to all. Ruston suggests that this objective concept of justice, although not inconsistent with the modern idea of subjective rights, can help to guard against some of the more individualistic tendencies of modern human rights claims. Ruston (who has worked on the Dominican Justice and Peace Commission) then offers an illuminating study of how these theological concepts informed the thought of two Spanish Dominicans – Francisco de Vitoria (1483-1546) and Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566) – both of whom sought to offer a theological defence of the rights of the Indians over and against Spanish claims to land and resources, during the time of the conquest. Next, Ruston considers Locke’s contribution, through a study of his Two Treatises of Civil Government (1689). Locke was concerned with issues of land and natural rights, not in the context of indigenous peoples, but with regard to the English citizens who became the colonists of North America. Ruston situates his discussion of Locke in the wider context of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century humanists, with their concerns about war, territory and natural rights. He argues against interpreters such as Leo Strauss and his followers, who have categorised Locke as one of a group of individualistic, rights- based thinkers concerned almost exclusively with property rather than with social responsibility. Ruston argues that Locke invites a more nuanced reading which takes seriously the extent to which his Christian faith informed his thinking, so that he is best read as a Christian theologian rather than as a prophet of secular individualism. Although not uncritical of the extent to which the individualism inherent in Locke’s philosophy lends itself to interpretations which support modern economic and social injustices, Ruston argues that Locke’s understanding of property is based, not in a modern idea of the individual’s right to ownership of material objects, but in terms of the rights and duties which derive from the original idea of a creation given by God to human beings made in the image of God. The biblical theme of creation is shown to provide a connecting link through these various theologies and the idea of natural rights that informs them. Ruston devotes considerably more attention to the historical study of the theology of human rights than to the implications of the human rights movement for contemporary Catholic thought and practice. A good follow-up to this thought-provoking study would be a similarly painstaking and rigorous analysis of contemporary theories and theologies of human rights, showing the points of similarity and difference between them, and their relevance for Catholic faith and practice. In the meantime, those who seek to develop a coherent theology of human rights, or to understand how the idea of the human rights movement might be interpreted with reference to the Christian tradition, will find this book a much needed and welcome resource.  |
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