This result is not what was aimed at or desired, but it is the
logical or necessary result of the attempt to erect the state on
atheistical principles. Unless founded on the divine sovereignty,
authority can sustain itself only by force, for political atheism
recognizes no right but might. No doubt the politicians have
sought an atheistical, or what is the same thing, a purely human,
basis for government, in order to secure an open field for human
freedom and activity, or individual or social progress. The end
aimed at has been good, laudable even, but they forgot that
freedom is possible only with authority that protects it against
license as well as against despotism, and that there can be no
progress where there is nothing that is not progressive. In
civil society two things are necessary--stability and movement.
The human is the element of movement, for in it are possibilities
that can be only successively actualized. But the element of
stability can be found only in the divine, in God, in whom there
is no unactualized possibility, who, therefore, is immovable,
immutable, and eternal. The doctrine that derives authority from
God through the people, recognizes in the state both of these
elements, and provides alike for stability and progress.
This doctrine is not mere theory; it simply states the real order
of things.
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