It’s rather sadly ironic; October 11, 2007
Posted by Anya in : I won't keep things purposely vague , 2comments
Rousseau finishes The Social Contract with the words, “I should always have kept [my eyes] fixed on things closer by.” But in the preceding chapter (III, 
it is obvious that his eyes are fixed on close things. He writes against Christianity, saying that it is incompatible with a strong state, because a Christian “does his duty, certainly; but he does it without caring whether his efforts meet with success or with failure.” He completely missed the point that while God’s kingdom is not of this world, that doesn’t mean that God is indifferent to this world – or that His people are to be, either.
Rousseau had the misimpression that Christians would be extremely likely to tolerate tyrants because “Christian charity does not lightly permit a man to think ill of his neighbor”. However, in that same chapter, he excludes Christianity from being the state’s religion, because it is too intolerant. He wrote, “One cannot live in peace with people one regards as damned. To love them would be to despise God, who has decreed their punishment: one must bring them back into the fold, or else make them suffer.” This statement has so many problems, first from the problem of consistency with himself and then from a theological perspective. First of all, if he thinks that we cannot live in peace with people who are damned, why in the world does he think that Christians would bow their heads to the rule of an ungodly tyrant? Secondly: this statement exhibits a stunning lack of grasp on how salvation works. We don’t know who God has called to salvation, and therefore we have to live in a mixed culture – wheat and tares together, as Jesus put it – and the idea that we have to hate everyone around us is equally messed up. God doesn’t tell us to hate other people. He asked what fellowship light has with darkness, and the answer is, clearly, none. But. He commanded us to go into all the world, and disciple the nations. Does that sounds as if we’re supposed to hunker down in our little cells, hating the rest of the world?
The other sad thing was that Rousseau had no conception that there might be something more to life than earth… maybe we’re here for a bigger purpose than creating the perfect government.
Anyway. That was probably enough of a rant to give you a quite sufficient idea of my thoughts reading parts of this book (The Social Contract).
