Classical Liberalism Owes The Holy Spirit Royalty Fees

A theological account of the moral overlap between Christianity and liberalism

The relationship between Christianity and classical liberalism is all the rage these days. Patrick Deneen believes such liberalism has produced a culture that has ebbed away Christian moral conscience and culture. Jürgen Habermas has gone as far as to say classical liberalism is drawing from Christian moral resources it cannot generate itself. Tom Holland, from a historical angle, has proclaimed that the entirety of the Western world has been indelibly marked by Christian moral values (even the anti-Christian ones). And, of course, Christian Nationalists want to replace liberalism with magisterial Christian rule, all while avoiding the question of whether this new state will be Roman Catholic or Reformed Presbyterian.

But what is the relationship between Christian theological thought and classical liberalism? I seek to argue that classical liberals went looking for what already existed in Christianity.

It is at this point in an essay that I usually get annoyed with an author and exclaim, “Define your terms, nerd!” And so I should. I define classical liberalism, in broad terms, as the family of theories that became prevalent in the Enlightenment. This family of theories includes commitments to individual rights, private property, the rule of law, the equal moral standing of persons, free markets, the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, the freedom of religion, and the freedom of people to have agency over their own lives.

Classical liberals believe people are moral equals capable of self-direction, and that societies flourish when law, markets, and free expression create space for responsibility, choice, and human creativity.

The connection between the Christian worldview and the explicit formulation of liberal theory is not my main concern. I am not seeking to baptize classical liberalism. There is a temptation here to run to the “cut flowers” analogy. Liberal ideas are borrowing Christian moral capital and then discarding the religious part. Sometimes that is the case.

But classical liberals have also recreated moral claims that already existed in Christianity but reached those claims through reason. It’s not just morality stealing. All of these mechanisms are in place in the liberal tradition: explicit borrowing, moral framework without religion, simple inspiration from other thinkers who were inspired by Christianity, and moral claims without supernatural grounding.

Regardless of the explicit or implicit connections, there are clear conceptual overlaps in at least three areas.

1. Human rights and the doctrine of the Imago Dei

2. The rule of law and both Israelite and Church governance requirements for judicial process.

3. Freedom of conscience and the doctrine of conscience

The overlaps include similar normative claims, similar moral commitments, and similar anthropological assumptions. The intrigue is that the structural similarities found in Christian doctrine predate classical liberal theory formation. What might that mean for us? Liberal theorists can arrive at Christian principles in all the ways described above. So how do we explain similar conclusions even when thinkers aren’t directly inspired? I argue that both classical liberal theory and Christianity are reflecting the moral order of the universe. This explains how they have overlapping concepts even when liberal theory is not directly pulling from Christianity.

In other words, what we’re seeing is an analogy to the moral argument for Christianity. The moral argument contends there is a moral order to the universe, perfectly expressed in God, and that the morality we see in all human beings and societies is a reflection (albeit imperfect) of that ultimate moral reality.

Herman Bavinck defines the moral argument this way:

“Man is not merely a rational but also a moral being. He feels in his conscience that he is bound to a law which stands high above him and which requires unconditional obedience from him. Such a law presupposes a holy and righteous law-giver who can preserve and destroy.” (Bavinck, Wonderful Works of God, pg. 24-25)

Therefore, the overlaps between liberalism and Christianity aren’t ultimately because of causal mechanisms, but because they reflect the divine moral order. Classical liberals are onto something. They are rightly tracking the moral composition of human beings. Yet the grounding for those principles ranges from human reason (Kant), human sympathy (Smith), utilitarianism (Mill), and natural law (Locke). Christianity, on the other hand, provides grounding that is established on supernatural order and revelation.

The Moral Equality of Persons and the Imago Dei

All human beings have inherent dignity and worth. By extension, all human beings have equal moral status. This axiom is found throughout liberal history. It is the moral proposition that undergirds all liberal thought, even when those liberal thinkers err. John Locke is the liberal thinker most associated with this proposition. His arguments for a rights-based approach to liberalism are contingent on this truth claim.

“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason… teaches all mankind… that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.” – John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 2nd Treatise, sec. 6.

For Locke, it is self-evident from natural law that human beings are equal, both from Christianity and natural reason. Locke is an example of where liberalism is explicitly borrowing from Christianity.

“For men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker… they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another’s pleasure.” Locke, Two Treatises, 2nd Treatise, sec. 6.

The liberal tradition continued to emphasize the moral equality of all persons, even as it pertained to the sexes, even when the basis for that principle shifted. J.S. Mill helped write The Subjection of Women to contend for women as having equal moral status and to decry institutions that didn’t treat them this way. Marriage, as practiced in his day, removed any legal status from women outside of their husbands. Mill responded:

“The subjection of individual women to individual men is a monstrous contradiction to all the principles of the modern world, and to all the experience through which those principles have been slowly and painfully worked out. It is the sole case, now that negro slavery has been abolished, in which a human being in the plenitude of every faculty is delivered up to the tender mercies of another human being… Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house.” – J.S. Mill, The Subjection of Women. London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1869.

Mill, of course, is a thinker who would deny his conclusions rely on Christianity. He believed that equality and liberty were good because they produced the best outcomes for society. This is the utilitarianism he inherited from his father and from Jeremy Bentham. He exemplifies the liberal thinker who comes to Christian conclusions while developing novel reasons for them (even as those reasons are hard to prove empirically; at least he tried). Some argue that this is an example of liberalism living on borrowed moral capital from Christianity. But that requires believing that Mill absorbed Christian values through osmosis from the culture he lived in. To some extent, that’s plausible. We’re all influenced by the worldviews we live and breathe. Yet, it is quite dismissive of Mill’s intellectual reasoning. The more compelling explanation is that Mill has found something real, yet incomplete. Through natural reason, which Christians would call God’s common grace to all people, he’s glimpsing the moral order of the universe. The Christian phrase for that moral order, as it relates to moral equality, is the Imago Dei.

“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26–27 ESV)

The inherent dignity of human beings is there from the start. So too is the moral equality between men and women. Christian theology holds that one of the reasons wronging another human being is bad is because it is ultimately a sin against the image of God in that person. This is the principle that is meant to govern human relationships. It is the basis for why murder is wrong and why slavery is forbidden in the Old Testament. “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.” (Exodus 21:16)

So when Locke says;

“Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his.” – John Locke, Two Treatises, 2nd Treatise, sec. 27.

He is rhyming with the principle of the Imago Dei. Human beings have the right to their own labor. Likewise, when Mill argues for the moral equality of persons to women, his conclusions correspond with the Imago Dei. The key difference is that Christianity gives us a firm “why” we should do these things. All human beings are intrinsically valuable because they are made in the image of an infinite God. Because we have this intrinsic dignity, we must relate to one another as moral equals.

Lest we think that something changed, the New Testament also bears witness to this reality.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

In the Old Testament, the people of God were most clearly identified with the nation-state of Israel. In the New Testament, it is the church that bears that designation. Galatians is saying what we already know from the Imago Dei: that in Christ, in the church, there is no distinction in status among the people of God. It does not matter who someone’s father was, what their occupation is, or what culture they belong to; they are equal in Christ. It’s worth noting that the first witnesses of Christ’s resurrection in the Gospels were a group of women, including Mary Magdalene, and their testimony was recorded in the Gospel accounts. In one detail, the New Testament affirms the recognition of women as equal heirs of the gospel.

The Rule of Law and Biblical Requirements for Justice

The rule of law is the idea that people are governed by an established set of laws that are applied equally to all people, regardless of power, status, or identity. Both the rulers and the ruled are under the law. These laws are formulated by stable, predictable processes that are not subject to the whims of power.

The rule of law didn’t originate with classical liberals, but they embraced and developed it. John Locke is yet again at the forefront.

“First, They are to govern by promulgated established laws, not to be varied in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the favourite at court, and the countryman at plough. Secondly, These laws also ought to be designed for no other end ultimately, but the good of the people.” – John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, in The Works of John Locke, vol. 4 (London: 1823; repr., Liberty Fund, 2011), II.142

Locke gives us a concise formulation of the rule of law. His concern is oppression. He guards against mechanisms that allow such oppression. This reveals the anthropology behind this legal discourse. Locke is concerned with human tendencies towards wrongdoing.

Even Adam Smith, who had a high view of human systems to naturally guard against bad actors, held the belief that justice must be enforced.

“Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force… But justice may be extorted by force.” Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

The market still requires justice to be implemented. The invisible hand has great ability to create spontaneous, beneficial order, but still requires legal enforcement.

Similarly, Montesquieu was deeply concerned with humanity’s tendency to abuse power.

“Constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it; he pushes on till he comes to the utmost limits. Is it not strange, though true, to say that virtue itself has need of limits?” – Montesquieu – The Spirit of the Laws, bk. XI, chap. 4 (or chap. 6 in some editions).

Montesquieu wants to guard against people’s ability to take advantage of others. This is where the concept of power checking power comes to the fore in liberal thought. Mechanically, one of the clearest examples of this principle being put into practice is in the U.S. Constitution. The three branches of government are intended to check one another; the Bill of Rights is intended to protect minorities from having their liberties infringed upon. They are there because there is a fundamental belief that power corrupts human beings. Locke, Smith, Montesquieu, and the U.S. Constitution all presuppose an anthropology that recognizes humanity’s tendency toward oppression.

Christianity grounds both of these principles: procedural design to guard against abuse and an anthropology that claims moral failing in human beings. The Old Testament begins with the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Torah can be rendered guidance, teaching, or direction, but it is most often translated law. In it, we find principles consistent with liberal legal views.

“And I charged your judges at that time, ‘Hear the cases between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with him. You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.” (Deuteronomy 1:16–17)

Impartiality is stressed repeatedly in Israelite legal processes. Bias, or partiality, is strictly forbidden. Beneath this impartiality is a recognition of the image of God in all human beings, regardless of ethnic, socioeconomic, or power differences. There is even layered, overlapping authority in cases that are too difficult.

The Torah contains process requirements, witness requirements, and prohibitions against false testimony.

“A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.” (Deuteronomy 19:15)

Why does the Bible have these provisions? Because it shares an anthropology that recognizes the temptation of men to take advantage of other men. There are hundreds of references to the concept of oppression in the Old Testament. The picture Scripture wants to guard against is the trampling of one individual by another. It is particularly concerned with oppression that comes from those with power.

“Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!” (Isaiah 10:1–2)

The rich are warned against oppression frequently, and the king must commit to serving the people. Yet bias against the powerful is also warned against, though not as frequently.

This shared concern for mechanisms that prevent oppression and an anthropology that recognizes humanity must be checked demonstrates another convergence between Christianity and liberalism. But the causal mechanism is still variable. Locke is happy to use both theology and reason to support his conclusions, whereas Montesquieu is drawing conclusions from his observations of legal systems in multiple places. Smith bases his conclusions on moral psychology and the social nature of human beings. Yet they still find their way to Christian moral principles. The best explanation is that they see portions of the moral order of the universe, but without its moral grounding in Christian theology.

The Freedom of the Conscience

Freedom of conscience includes religious freedom, but it extends to more than just religious concerns. The conscience is our internal capacity to evaluate right and wrong. The freedom of conscience is our ability to adhere to those judgments. Necessarily, true freedom of conscience cannot exist without the ability to live out those moral convictions. Both the internal and external freedom matter. The First Amendment serves as a mechanism to allow the external pursuit of our convictions while presupposing the ability to follow our internal moral conclusions.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

The vehicles for outward expression are named: speech, press, assembly, and the ability to appeal to the government for relief. In order for those to be meaningful, the freedom to follow internal conscience is a necessary condition. They are extensions of the internal conscience into public life.

The First Amendment is one link in a long chain of liberal tradition concerned with the conscience. In both Baptist history (even though he left later, we don’t hold it against him) and U.S. history, Roger Williams declared the need for religious freedom.

“Notwithstanding the successe of later times, (wherein sundry opinions have been hatched about the subject of Religion) a man may clearly discerne with his eye, and as it were touch with his finger that according to the verity of holy Scriptures, &c. mens consciences ought in no sort to be violated, urged or constrained. And whensoever men have attempted anything by this violent course, whether openly or by secret meanes, the issue hath beene pernicious” – Roger Williams, The Bloody Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience (1644)

For Williams, the violation of a person’s conscience is a moral evil. It harms both religious practice and public life. He put this belief into action as he founded Rhode Island, in part to have this religious freedom he cared so much about.

It’s not only mechanisms and classical liberal history that testify to the principle of conscience freedom. It’s also the necessary condition for much of the philosophical systems that undergird classical liberal thought. Adam Smith, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, puts forth his argument of the impartial spectator. Smith had a problem: if human beings are inherently self-interested, partial to themselves, and desire social approval, simple feeling cannot be the moral basis for our actions. Enter the impartial spectator.

“We endeavour to examine our own conduct as we imagine any other fair and impartial spectator would examine it.” Adam Smith – The Theory of Moral Sentiments

The impartial spectator begins with sympathy: how would I feel in another’s place? It is extended by observing social feedback around us. How do others respond to our actions and behaviors? We then construct a moral framework based on these factors. It grounds moral categories in that framework instead of natural law like Locke or reason like Kant. More importantly, it serves the function of a conscience. It renders judgment on issues of moral right and wrong. As optimistic as it might be to imagine that any internal appraisal is impartial, it nevertheless rests on the freedom to make such judgments. Smith’s entire philosophical argument needs the freedom of conscience to be exercised.

Christianity both affirms the existence of a conscience and the necessity that we be free to follow it. The conscience is an outflow of the Imago Dei. We reason morally.

“For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 2:14–16)

All people, regardless of whether they are faithful believers, have a conscience. It’s an internal matter. Only individuals and God know whether they have behaved according to their conscience in any given situation. It is not an internal matter only, but no other human has full access to our interior life. But God does. He holds us accountable for how we deploy the conscience, but men cannot do so.

Consciences can be misinformed and in need of refinement, but in areas where the Bible does not give instruction, to go against one’s conscience is a sin. Likewise, to bind someone’s conscience in an area where Scripture is silent is akin to spiritual tyranny. For these reasons, Christian theology has long held that God alone is the Lord of the conscience. The reformer John Calvin argued:

“There is the other evil, the correction of which is not less necessary. The laws which the tyrants recommend under the name of the Church they term Spiritual, as being destined to rule the conscience…But God claims spiritual government for himself alone, and for his word, that conscience untouched by man may learn to look only to his word… Have done then with that prevaricating obedience which breaks the bridle of God in order to strangle us with the chords of men!” – John Calvin, Tracts and Letters, Vol. 3, p.270

Since the conscience is properly the domain of the divine, the practice we see in Scripture is to inform the conscience, not dominate it. In Acts 2 and 4, the apostle Peter preaches and tries to persuade his hearers to become Christians. Paul would enter synagogues and try to reason with the Jewish congregations there that Jesus was the Messiah from the Scriptures. They used persuasion, not force. In this, they refuse to coerce, but seek to exhort their hearers while leaving conscience matters to the proper authority: God.

But Tell Me Why

What best explains these areas of overlap between classical liberalism and Christianity? As I’ve stated, I find the most plausible answer to be that they both tap into the true moral order of the universe. Why do I find this explanation to be more satisfying than others? I can name two.

1. This explanation preserves the agency of great classical liberal thinkers. Historical explanations show the mechanisms by which ideas are passed from age to age and place to place. But it is not as if simply encountering an idea automatically leads to the adoption of that idea. Tom Holland convincingly shows how Christianity changed the Western world’s value of human life. In the Roman Empire, human life was very cheap; those in power could take the lives of those under their power with little to no recourse. Something changed. Christianity is a big part of that change. As Roman/Western culture expanded, so too did the value of human life. This is how it happened. Yet, when thinkers like Adam Smith or J.S. Mill grappled with the ideas of the moral equality of persons and the value of life, it is not as if they had no choice but to accept the historical stream into which they were born. Indeed, they found their own arguments for these values. We are carried along in the currents of history, but we still choose whether to drift downriver or to break for the shore.

Christianity has long recognized that unbelievers still have access to some portions of the truth.

“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” – (Romans 1:19-20)

Natural reason gives all human beings insight into God’s power and divine nature. It is this ability that also reveals moral truths in the universe, because those moral truths are grounded in God. So the liberal thinkers who perceive these truths, despite not believing in Christ, still choose to affirm the truths they’ve come to via their own natural reason. This reason is partially suppressed; it is not salvific, and it does not bring individuals to faith, but it is able to perceive some truth. Furthermore,

“For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them (Romans 2:14–15)

God has made mankind with an incomplete perception of natural law (a contested and loaded term if there ever was one). This moral reasoning is present in all human beings, regardless of faith tradition. Classical liberals had it too. To label them as simple inheritors or plagiarizers is to flatten the way God made them.

2. This thesis is also flexible in that it allows for historical mechanisms and for borrowed moral concepts from Christianity while not being cynical. The view that classical liberals want Christian morality without Christ is sometimes accurate. Or, more sympathetically, John Locke is explicitly borrowing Christian values and logic for his conclusions while also making public, non-religious arguments. But there are intellectuals who think classical liberalism is just stealing from Christianity who scoff at those who present ideas with conceptual overlap. Insofar as we are co-belligerents, we should be glad to find ourselves on similar moral ground. In other words, almost nothing is monocausal. This thesis allows for multiple pathways to reaching classically liberal and Christian moral presuppositions and harmonizes them.

Practical Implications

If this hypothesis is true, there are at least four practical implications.

1. Christians Should See Liberals as Sharing Key Principles: In other words, for those Christians playing footsies with Christian Nationalism because they think liberalism and Christianity are incompatible, they are wrong.

2. Liberals Should Appreciate Faith Traditions, Especially Christianity, as Doing Moral Formation Work That Is Essential: The alliance between classical liberals and Christianity has been tenuous at times. But classical liberalism does not specialize in character formation. Christianity does. Liberalism does need moral people to make it run.

3. Christians Should Participate in Liberal Society: There is a natural pull toward isolation and removing ourselves from the world, but Scripture is clear: we have to be in the world while not of it. And while liberal governance will sometimes (often?) lead to policies that we find inconsistent with biblical truth, retreat from the public square isn’t the answer. Engagement is.

4. Where Christianity and Classical Liberalism Are at Odds, It’s Worth Pausing and Figuring Out Why: For classical liberals, there is a temptation to simply reject any apparent critique from Christianity as superstition. The Flying Spaghetti Monster might even be invoked (in fairness, this trope comes from libertarians most often). But given the deep overlap in first principles, I’d encourage my liberal friends to seriously understand why. You’ll understand Christians who are likely allies better, and your understanding of your own position will improve.

Conclusion

The conceptual overlaps and shared moral values between Christianity and Classical Liberalism don’t end with these three. Old Testament kings were required to provide the conditions in which individuals could try their own hand in business. There are overlapping authority structures in the nation of Israel and in the church. Forms of voting were present in the New Testament. We could go on.

What is the best explanation for this overlap? It’s simple; a shared grounding in the true order of the universe. C.S. Lewis makes a corollary argument in The Abolition of Man. He contends that rightly valuing the things in this world cuts across cultures. There is a true moral order to the universe and when we follow that order in what we value, we reflect God’s true design.

In the same way, the convergence between liberal values and Christianity is best explained by a reliance on ultimate reality. But of course there are differences. Classical Liberalism shares some of Christianity’s anthropology, but doesn’t give an explanation for why humanity is the way that it is. Christianity does, the Imago Dei and the reality of sin. Classical liberalism provides the environment for every person to pursue the good life. Christianity defines the good life and its purpose. “What is the chief purpose of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever.” as the Shorter Westminster Catechism says. Classical Liberalism is on the right track, but it fails to give the fuller picture of reality.

In the meantime, all the liberals can make checks out to Ben Brophy Ministries, memo line: Royalties Owed for Our Best Ideas.

* Thanks to ChatGPT for the Grammar and Spelling copyedit, research assistance, and the image