Eric Nelson’s Theology of Liberalism: A Comment from the Periphery

Abstract

We liberals, Eric Nelson tells us, live in a political world that has two possible theological or philosophical foundations. One holds that our fellow humans are moral agents (and social, economic, and intellectual agents); they are the owners of their works, responsible for the good and bad consequences of their works, and so meriting praise and blame, reward and punishment. According to the other, our fellow humans are vessels merely, through which external forces work: God, history, economic conditions, nature/nurture—so that they are not responsible agents. Their natural endowments, their capacities and talents, even their strength (or weakness) of character are “arbitrary from a moral point of view” and cannot give us any reason for praise or blame—certainly not for reward (an exception is sometimes made for punishment). The first view, which Nelson describes as Pelagian, underlies what we might call classical liberalism, the second, Calvinist or anti-Pelagian, underlies Rawlsian and post-Rawlsian liberalism. Both these versions of liberalism have theological roots, which Nelson urges us not to forget. But he is most engaged with the second version and with its anti-Pelagian sources. Its contemporary protagonists, he thinks, have not been well served by secularization. His argument is dense, and I am not sure that I fully understand every part of it. But I am also not sure about its necessity, since there seem to me good reasons to worry not only about post-Rawlsian liberalism but also about the theology that preceded it. (I like to think, but won't argue here, that my own liberal social-democratic commitments work well in both their Pelagian-religious and secular forms.)