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The Spirit of the Law in the Thought of Reinhold Niebuhr

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2015

Daniel F. Rice
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Extract

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) possessed wide-ranging interests and a unique penchant for intellectual synthesis which understandably commended him to a far broader audience than is normally accorded theologians in this desacralized age. Niebuhr's orientation was theology and politics, and by his own admission, he saw himself working out of the context of Christian social ethics. Precisely because this was the framework of his labors, Niebuhr figured and continues to figure prominently among those persons whose interests center upon social, political, and ethical concerns so pertinent to the domain of law. Niebuhr neither fashioned himself a legal expert, nor did he conceive of himself as a legal theorist. Nonetheless, because of his standing in contemporary Protestantism, and because of his orientation as a theologian of social ethics, Niebuhr finds himself in the rather select circle of theologians who have something of note to say about the place of law in the affairs of humankind.

Political theorist Hans Morgenthau called Niebuhr “the greatest living political philosopher of America, perhaps the only creative political philosopher since Calhoun.” In this context, Gordon Harland makes the point that Niebuhr's “theological and political thought forms one consistent whole: and that there is a “vital organic relation between Niebuhr's social and political thought and the ultimate reaches of his theological reflections.” It is because Niebuhr spoke with conviction out of the Biblical tradition that he was concerned about the relationship of love to law. And precisely because he spoke convincingly as a political realist, he was concerned with the relationship between justice and law. But in speaking as both theologian and political realist, Niebuhr's approach to the problem of law was articulated in terms of the dialectical relationship between love and justice.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , 1986 , pp. 253 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 1986

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References

1. Niebuhr, Reinhold: His Religious, Social and Political Thought 3 (Kegley, C.W. & Bretall, R.W. eds. 1956)Google Scholar.

2. Morgenthau, H., The Influence of Reinhold Niebuhr in American Life and Thought, Reinhold Niebuhr: A Prophetic Voice in our Time 109 (Landon, H. ed. 1962)Google Scholar.

3. Harland, G., The Thought of Reinhold Niebuhr x, 25 (1960)Google Scholar.

4. Freidrich, C.J., The Philosophy of Law in Historical Perspective 105 (1963)Google Scholar.

5. Niebuhr, R., Human Destiny in II The Nature and Destiny of Man 266–67 (1943)Google Scholar.

6. Niebuhr comments that “John Dewey's pragmatism is quite innocent of the taint or moral cynicism which is frequently levelled at it by the advocates of law. Like Herder and all modern believers in development, he seems at times to believe that growth and development are themselves a norm to which life may conform. ‘Since there is nothing in reality to which growth is relative save more growth,’ he declares, ‘there is nothing to which education is subordinate save more education…. The criterion of value in education is the extent to which it creates the desire for more growth.’ (Dewey, John, Democracy and Education, 60–62Google Scholar.) Actually this confidence in growth as a norm of life is qualified by the belief that historical development moves in a particular direction. For Dewey the direction includes both freedom and justice. If one were to make a charge against modern evolutionary relativists it would be that they usually implicitly accept some version of the Christian norm which they explicitly deny. Very frequently, also, they fail to recognize that the two values of freedom and order which are involved in the Christian norm of love are not easily reconciled, when the effort is made, as it must be made, to embody the law of love into norms of justice.” Niebuhr, R., Faith and History 187–88 (1949)Google Scholar.

7. Niebuhr, R., Faith and History 172 (1949)Google Scholar.

8. Love and Justice: Selections From the Shorter Writings of Reinhold Niebuhr 11 (Robertson, D.B. ed. 1975)Google Scholar.

9. Niebuhr, R., Christian Realism and Political Problems 170 (1953)Google Scholar.

10. Id. at 162-63.

11. Niebuhr, supra note 1, at 435.

12. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 172.

13. Niebuhr, R., Man's Nature and His Communities 49 (1965)Google Scholar.

14. Niebuhr, supra note 7, at 186.

15. Id. at 180-81.

16. Id. at 180.

17. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 173.

18. Niebuhr, R., Human Nature in I The Nature and Destiny of Man 301–02 (1941)Google Scholar.

19. Niebuhr, supra note 5, at 262.

20. Id. at 258-59.

21. Niebuhr, supra note 18, at 298.

22. Niebuhr, supra note 13, at 50.

23. Id.

24. Niebuhr, R., Christian Faith and Natural Law, in Theology 89 (02, 1940)Google Scholar.

25. Niebuhr, R., The Self and the Dramas of History 101 (1955)Google Scholar.

26. Niebuhr, supra note 24, at 89-90.

27. Niebuhr, supra note 18, at 3-4.

28. Niebuhr, supra note 24, at 29.

29. Niebuhr, supra note 18, at 4.

30. Harland, supra note 3, at 67-68.

31. Niebuhr, supra note 7, at 182.

32. Id. at 180.

33. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 157.

34. Niebuhr, supra note 18, at 286-87.

35. Niebuhr, supra note 7, at 183.

36. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 154-155.

37. See in particular Niebuhr, supra note 18, at 285-93.

38. Niebuhr, supra note 24, at 3.

39. Niebuhr, supra note 18, at 287.

40. Id.

41. Niebuhr, supra note 7, at 183.

42. Niebuhr, supra note 18, at 288-89.

43. Id. at 287-88.

44. Id. at 292.

45. Id.

46. Id. at 289.

47. Id. at 293-94. Niebuhr contends that action in this context is not to be conceived of too narrowly. “The self,” he writes, “may act even when the action is not overt. It acts whenever, as anxious self, it thinks or moves for its own protection in the welter of perils and passions which constitutes its world. Every thought, mood or action which proceeds from the self as anxious, finite, and insecure has some taint of sin upon it. But there is no consciousness of sin in such sinful action because the self is perfectly unified in its action. Without such inner unity it could not act at all. It is when, after the action, it takes a position outside rather than inside itself, that it becomes conscious of the inordinate character of its action.” Id. at 294.

48. Id. at 303.

49. Id. at 313.

50. Id. at 304-05. In the context of a discussion of Jesus' repudiation of Hebraic legalism, Niebuhr identifies three negative aspects of law in its relation to love. He notes that “(a) No law can do justice to the freedom of man in history. It cannot state the final good for him, since in his transcendence and self-transcendence no order of nature and no rule of history can finally determine the norm of his life. … (b) No law can do justice to the complexities of motive which express themselves in the labyrinthine depths of man's interior life [and] (c) Law cannot restrain evil; for the freedom of man is such that he can make the keeping of the law the instrument of evil.” Supra note 5, at 41-42.

51. Id. at 295.

52. Id.

53. Id. at 297.

54. Id. at 292.

55. Id. at 301-02.

56. Niebuhr, supra note 25, at 232.

57. Id.

58. Niebuhr, supra note 18, at 281.

59. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 148.

60. Niebuhr daims that “the compulsion may be the force and prestige of the mores and customs of a community, persuading or compelling an individual to act contrary to his inclinations. But there is also an inner compulsion of law. It is the compulsion of conscience, the force of the sense of obligation, operating against other impulses in the personality.” Id. at 147-48.

61. Id. at 148.

62. Niebuhr, supra note 18, at 303-04.

63. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 149.

64. Id. at 154.

65. Id. at 155.

66. Id. at 152.

67. Id. at 153.

68. Niebuhr, supra note 18, at 313.

69. Niebuhr, supra note 7, at 176.

70. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 154.

71. Niebuhr, supra note 7, at 184.

72. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 159.

73. Niebuhr, supra note 7, at 178.

74. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 160.

75. Id. at 161.

76. Niebuhr, R., Letter to the Editor in Christian Century 364 (03, 15, 1933Google Scholar).

77. Niebuhr, supra note 1, at 442.

78. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 152.

79. Niebuhr, supra note 5, at 253.

80. Niebuhr, R., The Spirit of Justice, Christianity and Society 5–9 (Summer, 1950)Google Scholar.

81. Harland, supra note 3, at 23.

82. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 171.

83. Niebuhr, supra note 5, at 261.

84. Niebuhr, supra note 80, at 6.

85. See supra note 18, at 283-84 and especially supra note 9, Chapter 9 “Augustine's Political Realism” at 119-46.

86. Niebuhr, supra note 5, at 267.

87. Id. at 268.

88. Niebuhr, R., Pious and Secular America 69 (1958)Google Scholar.

89. Niebuhr, supra note 5, at 268-69.

90. Reinhold Niebuhr on Politics 164 (Davis, H.R. and Good, R.C. eds. 1960)Google Scholar.

91. Neibuhr, supra note 5, at 270.

92. Id. at 274.

93. Niebuhr, supra note 7, at 193.

94. Id. at 173.

95. Niebuhr, supra note 18, at 301.

96. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 148.

97. Quoted supra note 18, at 291, note 3.

98. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 148.

99. Niebuhr, supra note 7, at 189.

100. Id. at 182.

101. Id. at 189.

102. Id. at 188-89.

103. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 173.

104. Niebuhr, supra note 7, at 183.

105. Id. at 173.

106. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 182-83.

107. Quoted supra at note 7, at 180.

108. Id. at 190.

109. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 166.

110. Niebuhr, supra note 7, at 184.

111. Id. at 179.

112. Niebuhr, supra note 9, at 171-72.

113. Niebuhr, supra note 5, at 275.

114. Id.

115. Id. at 257-58.

116. Niebuhr, supra note 7, at 185.

117. Id.

118. Niebuhr, supra note 5, at 255.

119. Niebuhr, R., Justice and Love, Christianity and Society 6 (Fall, 1950)Google Scholar.

120. Id. at 7.

121. Niebuhr, supra note 18, at 313.