America’s current malaise, w/ Bidenesque government failure and an illiterate societal implosion is ultimately predicated upon a loss of religious foundation for moral order. It’s reminiscent of the 16th century brilliant intellectual Hugo Grotius’ canny removal of God from law to protect mankind from ongoing religious wars, which backfired. Instead, this innovation created a godless law, ultimately leading to tyranny. For one description of Marxism is humanistic nihilism. See Hugo Grotius' secular and subjective concept of natural law:
The Dutch humanist Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) presented in his magnum opus De Iure Belli ac Pacis (1625) a comprehensive and unified theory of natural law on a secular rational basis. He declared that natural law is a separate discipline from divine law and other forms of volitional norms, and may in principle be exclusively identified by reason.
Likewise, modern US Democrats are so fixated with control they’ve jettisoned religion and rights, as expressed in the Founder’s Rule of Law, to absolutely control society. Eric Voegelin referred to this as Modernity without Restraint, a lawless expression of Political Religion, which Democrats now mindlessly worship. Liberals knew if God were removed from the minds of men there would be no support if constitutional rights were suddenly set aside.
Now consider how America's loss of faith means we are becoming godless, with 30% of residents now religious unaffiliates. Christian identity has fallen to 63%, down from 75% just 10 years ago. And in 2022, belief in God was at 81%. Yet, from 1944 into the 1960s, 98% of Americans believed in God. Yet, after all the decades of public attacks against the faith, what if God is needed to help form values, convictions and plans for a prosperous and safe society?
But what difference does it make? After all, we’re now famously untethered from belief as we’re repeatedly informed religion causes wars, is a seedbed of ignorance, and unnecessary to understand a universe built on numbers. But is this true? Is the universe really self-generating and self-explained?
Consider that the existence of our Fine-Tuned Universe, aka Goldilocks, which strongly suggests a divine architect involved in its construction. Bearing in mind the number of subatomic particles in the known universe is 1x 10 80 , anything that reaches beyond 1x 10 50 is considered a mathematical absurdity (impossibility). Now, consider the odds of an accidental universe:
Roger Penrose , a British physicist, has calculated that this initial entropy of the universe was fine tuned to an exquisite degree. You can’t even get your mind around this: The calculation he made showed that the initial condition of fine tuning was one part in 10 to the 10th of the 123rd power, or 10 123
Note: “In math, the value 10123 means 1 followed by 123 zeros. (This is, by the way, more than the total number of atoms [1079] believed to exist in the whole universe.) But Penrose’s answer is vastly more than this: It requires 1 followed by 10123 zeros.”
Now ponder the odds of the following: Probability of a Single Protein Forming by Chance;
& Probability of a Single Cell Forming by Chance; & Probability of Life Arising Purely by Chance?; Or, for example, the “Fine-Tuning” Cosmic Constants which had to be in the exact correct measure for life to exist: (1) Gravitational (2) Electromagnetic (3) Strong Nuclear (4) Weak Nuclear (5) Cosmological. There are many more elements to the Fine-Tuning argument. But understand the odds of life spontaneously arising, even a single cell, is 1x 10 340,000,000 .
Now, the point of all this is to assert that there is no accidental universe or random life. And therefore, God’s opinions on our activities are precious and must be considered. that we see from a logical, mathematical or factual angle that life appearing accidentally is impossible, let’s ponder Hugo Grotius’ appeal to godless law to solve problems. See: Roots of Today’s Secular Humanism.
The Dutch scholar and jurist Hugo Grotius (1538–1645), the ‘Father of Modern Natural Law’, remolded the universally held concept of natural law—the law of God written in the heart of man. It was his belief that the law of nature would still exist etiamsi daremus Deum non esse (even if we were to say there is no God). While Grotius had the best of intentions, specifically to invite the then-body politic to propagate just laws that would ensure peace in society, he inadvertently paved the way for the atheistic philosophy of the Enlightenment and today’s effective altruism that has reduced the human person to a mere statistic.
The truly odd aspects of Grotius’ ideas were also brilliant, but flawed. He argued, in essence that a Natural Law can be proved to exist without God. And much like the philosopher Plato suggested ideas existed naturally with men, so Grotius said law existed with man. But a few problems resulted. First, Grotius also believed in God, so did the biblical God create the law above the law, too? And second, if there was no God, but we still had a Natural Law – or Law Above Human Law – where did it come from? There are no easy answers. See the Roots of Today’s Secular Humanism.
Grotius, an Arminian Calvinist, never refuted the existence of God, but wanted to dispel the belief, which emerged when John Calvin’s teachings became prevalent, in the tenet that God only renders justice by an ‘absolute decree’, which in turn left no room for free will. In fact, Grotius’s religious writings emphasised that the truths of Christianity, which were held in common by Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans, and Arminians, were fundamentally more important than the peripheral points on which they felt they differed. Hence, it was no longer going to be ‘the law of God’ written in man’s heart that would guide him to make the morally correct decisions. Instead, man’s reason alone—independent from the divine precepts—was to determine what was ethically sound and what was not.
We realize that Grotius was alive during a 30 year religious war that raged between his country and Spain, a Protestant v Catholic struggle. Also, things were so dangerous regarding religion, that when Grotius wrote he wasn’t a traditional Calvinist, his mentor was prosecuted and executed. Hugo himself barely escaped in a trunk of books to France, voiding himself education. But a very ironic way for an intellectual to be snuck out of the Dutch Republic!
Ultimately we see that Grotius sought to free philosophy and law from the war of religion. But instead, he made a slavemaster of both which is now centuries later being used to oppress both the religious conservatives and Libertarian free will believers whom the Marxist seek to enslave and destroy. See, Roots of Today’s Secular Humanism:
Yet it was not until the arrival of Grotius (1583 – 1645), recognised by most scholars as the Father of (Modern) Natural Law, that the course of individualism was altered in the most extreme secular manner, with his concept that godless natural law would still exist.
What’s the lesson here? That we can’t let anyone sell us an atheistic fantasy that life’s better without God, especially a mindless old fool. Further, unless we resist, all the godlessness unleashed today, our children won’t even know about God, so completely will He be buried. That’s why, setting aside such well-meaning but mistaken do-gooders as Grotius, we cannot disconnect God from law or we will suffer inevitable future tyranny, in the deified godless state.
As Eric Voegelin states, “Man cannot transform himself into a superman; the attempt to create a superman is an attempt to murder man. Historically, the murder of God is not followed by the superman, but by the murder of man: ” Humanism’s ultimate goal is to achieve God’s murder, so humans can escape dangers of hell’s everlasting torment by destroying sin & canceling the Judgment.
Kelly O’Connell is an author and attorney. He was born on the West Coast, raised in Las Vegas, and matriculated from the University of Oregon. After laboring for the Reformed Church in Galway, Ireland, he returned to America and attended law school in Virginia, where he earned a JD and a Master’s degree in Government. He spent a stint working as a researcher and writer of academic articles at a Miami law school, focusing on ancient law and society. He has also been employed as a university Speech & Debate professor. He then returned West and worked as an assistant district attorney. Kelly is now is a private practitioner with a small law practice in New Mexico.
