The Law Beyond

Idea and action define each other: they either fit in mutual support or they clash in confusion. The struggle against Communism, active by the measure of billions of dollars, has been weakened by a lack of clarity at the level of ideas. Why is the U.S. against world Communism? What does the U.S. stand for? What standards justify its policy?

Last week John Foster Dulles, with the help of his enemies, made a lot of progress in clarifying the U.S. idea. He told the United Nations Assembly that the U.S. acts on the idea that the final test of policy is the moral law, which the Creator legislated by making men the way they are. Since this idea is explicit in the first American document, the Declaration of Independence, the utterance of the Secretary of State, considered by itself, was scarcely spot news.

The news comes out of the context of the time. Many leaders in philosophy and politics either deny 1) the existence of the moral law, or 2) its relevance to politics. They recoil from what they call the "absolutism" of any political system that claims any connection with standards beyond man's capacity to repeal. They point to the thousands of arrogant and wrong-headed politicians who claimed to be the voices of God.

The Basis of Freedom. In politics, the Christian emphasis on humility is a warning against putting God on any banner; men know or at least feel the moral law, but they cannot always be certain how it applies to specific situations. Men are compelled to seek the truth, and counseled to be humble about assuming that they have found it.

In his speech to U.N.. Dulles coupled the strongest recent U.S. statement of belief in absolute morality as the basic standard of politics with the humblest recent U.S. denial that it believes in its own omniscience. "We are ready to learn from others. Also we recognize that our views may not always prevail. When that happens, we shall regret it, but we shall not sulk. We shall try to accept the result philosophically. We know that we have no monopoly of wisdom and virtue. Also we know that sometimes time alone proves the final verdict.''

Politically, the Christian insistence on absolute standards and the Christian insistence that man is a frail and erring creature came together in the idea of freedom; since he is free to save or lose his soul, he ought also to be able to influence the lesser matter of his political destiny.

Dulles quoted another humble American, Abraham Lincoln: "There is something in the Declaration [of Independence] giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time." Then Dulles brought Lincoln's sentiment up to date by ringing a resonant change on the name of the sterile and negative policy associated with the word "containment." Of the American belief in liberty for all peoples. Dulles said: "We do not conceal that conviction, and no United States Government could contain it."

The Relevance of Religion. Does it follow that the U.S. is therefore committed to a holy war for the liberation of all peoples? Dulles explicitly denied this, as a commitment or as a policy. Yet he warned the Communists that their enslaved peoples will always seek political freedom, because the springs of freedom well from the universal human spirit. He rejoiced that the U.S. example encourages resistance to tyranny, and he stands ready to assist such resistance wherever, in the circumstances, he prudently can.

In this great speech, which voices, without arrogance or belligerence, an undying U.S. opposition to Communism, Dulles made more progress at the level of idea than he has yet made in specific diplomacy. But there is some progress in action, too.

One measure of Secretary Dulles as the champion of a moral order in politics is the rising opposition to him. For weeks, the British, soaked in the politics of expediency, have been working behind the scenes to unseat Dulles. After Dulles' speech. Clement Attlee struck a public blow, professing to find "certain tendencies toward intolerance" in the U.S. approach. Attlee is still glowing from a visit to Communist Yugoslavia. No Communist sympathizer, Attlee yet feels compelled to find some good in Communism before he can cooperate with it. That is the kind of absolutism that emerges from Attlee's relativism. Dulles can do business with Tito without giving an inch in his absolute opposition to what Tito stands for. He can even outline, as he did in his speech, six areas where he hopes to reach specific agreement with Russian and Chinese Communism (see below). No note of intolerance creeps into these proposals. In spirit, they are considerably milder than, say, the unbending British attitude toward Iran worked out by Attlee's government.

But Attlee must give place to Nehru in the matter of denning Dulles by the character of his opposition. On the day that Dulles spoke, the conspicuously unhumble Nehru rose in the Indian Parliament to denounce U.S. policy. He called it "a narrow approach which considers everything in terms of black or white [with an] element of dogmatic fervor, something resembling the old approach of bigoted religion." Nehru said that religion was all right in private life or ethics but should be left out of politics.

Not even Molotov or Vishinsky ever publicly accused U.S. leaders of suffering from Christianity. Perhaps the fact was not apparent until Dulles, in idea and action, made it clear.

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