The Eagle's Flight. - 'On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding' - book review

National Review, April 8, 2002 by Charles R. Kesler

Here, toward the end of the book, Novak brings out the heavy artillery of theology-because he realizes that he hasn't disposed of the problem of the Enlightenment. He now has to confront "the very flatness and insipidity of Locke's ethical vision" and "its frequent reduction of the higher to the lower," which rendered it "unlikely of itself to inspire nobility of spirit." Accordingly, the Founders' doctrine of natural rights will need "auxiliary supports" or somehow "to be rooted in human dignity"-and for most of the Founders, Novak argues, the source of human dignity was religion.

By the end of Novak's book, then, reason seems to be dependent on faith not just for an "added lift," but for internal consistency and goodness. "The actual ground on which the Founders turned to natural rights was the ground of faith," he writes, "where they grasped the dignity of every individual" and hence his inalienable rights. Even the Enlightenment turns out to be a secret believer: "To the extent that the Enlightenment depends upon the principle of 'created equal,' it depends upon Jewish metaphysics and Christian faith." It now looks as though the American eagle is a one-winged bird after all; or, at any rate, it has only a single wing unclipped.

A better interpretation, which Novak actually sketches alongside this primary one, takes seriously the human capacity for "reflection and choice" appealed to in The Federalist. The common sense of the American Founding surely arose from its recognition that human beings are distinguished from other animals by this capacity. Our dignity thus rested on our special rank in nature-a truth that plain reason could grasp as self-evident. Our rank in nature was also, however, a special rank in Creation, between the beasts and the angels. Reason and revelation concurred in seeing our rights in light of our rank, and hence insisted that human rights are inseparable from human duties.

Michael Novak is one of our most valuable philosophers of freedom, and he understands well that "the American theory of rights is religious as well as reasonable." In this important book-uneven though it may be-he proves the point convincingly.