More's Utopia and the Reform of Christianity

���People who have made up their minds to rush headlong down the opposite road are never pleased with the man who calls them back and points out the dangers of their course. But, apart from that, what did I say that could not and should not be said everywhere? Indeed, if we dismiss as outlandish and absurd everything that the perverse customs of men have made to seem alien to us, we shall have to set aside, even in a community of Christians, most of the teachings of Christ. Yet he forbade us to dissemble them, and even ordered that what he had whispered in the ears of his disciples should be preached openly from the housetops. Most of his teachings are far more alien from the common customs of mankind than my discourse was. But preachers, like the crafty fellows they are, have found that people would rather not change their lives to fit Christ���s rule, and so, following your advice, I suppose, they have adjusted his teaching to the way people live, as if it were a leaden yardstick. At least in that way they can get the two things to correspond in some way or other. The only real thing they accomplish that I can see is to make people feel more secure about doing evil.--Thomas More Utopia, Book 1, translated by Robert M. Adams

The quoted passage is part of the response by Raphael Hythloday to Thomas More's suggestion to use an "indirect approach" in one's attempts to offer expert advice to sovereigns, to use tact, and to try "what you cannot turn to good, you may at least make as little bad as possible." (37) I leave aside here the delicate question to what degree the character Thomas More stands in for the views of the author Thomas More. The character More (echoing Cicero) promotes a mitigation or amelioration strategy in contexts where one knows that there is no appetite for uptake of better, minimally decent courses of action.  

And Hythloday claims that the strategy advocated by More (the character) is a dangerous form of self-deception. Because one ends up legitimizing, even advocating true evil (even if -- one can stipulate -- it is less evil than it otherwise might be). And because More (the author) understands the problem and its complex temptations first hand, the issue is treated in timeless fashion. As I have noted before (recall; and here) the theme is pursued throughout Utopia.

But what I had not quite noticed before is that Hythloday uses the occasion to point out that speaking truth to power is as difficult as speaking truth to ordinary people (assuming, for the sake of argument, he believes in the truth of Christ's teaching). And not unlike the early Protestants who are just about to arrive on the historical horizon, Hythloday claims (in very Epicurean fashion) that the clergy have corrupted Christ's teaching in order for it to be acceptable by the people. (The point survives the further thought that on balance, Hythloday's pure religion is a rather Spinozistic Christianity [see here; here; and here.] He had made the same point -- the key role for the opinion and sentiments of the governed -- about the nature of royal authority in his vignette (recall) on the Achorians a few pages before. Interestingly enough, in both cases ordinary opinion dramatically constrains the ambitions of a ruling authority, in the case of royalty for the better (it makes it more responsible and pacific) and in the case of Christianity for the worse (it undermines the core teachings of the religion).

But the situation is a bit more complicated yet. As I noted when I was still writing at NewAPPS, earlier Hythloday contrasts, (i) Moses's legal code and the more gentle rule of Christianity. (Both are treated as mediation's of God's will.) And an implied contrast (ii) between the way one rules a barbarous people (recently liberated from tyranny) and the way one rules a more civilized people. The implied contrast (ii) effectively historicizes the Bible, whose commandments are now understood as fitted to a people at a particular time and place in need of strict rule. But in the passage quoted above, it becomes clear that the gentle rule of Christianity is in some sense felt to be too demanding for kings and people alike in the context of Roman empire and European feudalism.

Now, one way to go at this point is to look for a renewal of Christianity by a legislator with Moses' political skill. And it is not farfetched to see Utopus and (say Bacon's refounder of Bensalem, King Salomana) as an example hereof (recall here; here). And there are echoes of this project throughout the early modern period (up to Rousseau's divine legislator in the Social Contract).

Another way to go, if you think religions are in part a function of context and popular uptake, is to suggest that traditional Christianity has outlived its possibility. And that what is needed is a new kind of religion better suited for time and place. Comte is the best known example of an explicit attempt at this. But plenty of religious reformers between More and Comte can be said to fall in this category. I actually think an option like this is explored  in Book II of Utopia, but that's for another time.

At this point one may well wonder 'why religion at all?' Rather than treating the question as an anachronism, it is pretty clear that there is an answer to it in Utopia; where throughout religion is treated (anticipating Spinoza and Kant) as a regulator of moral life. And, as the quoted passage reveals, at least Hythloday believes strongly (anticipating Spinoza's eighteenth century critics) that without the restraint of religion people would be even more evil than we find that they are. People claiming to be Christians act in very unchristian fashion.

I will stop here. But I don't mean to suggest this exhaust the issue in Utopia. Of course, that people claiming to be Christians act in very unchristian fashion may also suggest that the problem is Christianity. Whatever else Book 1 of Utopia establishes (recall) is that people respond to incentives and that one must design and reform social institutions accordingly. It also establishes that monopoly power (in economic and political life) without countervailing powers is very dangerous to public or "common good." So, Book 1 also invites us to consider to what degree one needs religion to promote common good, and if one does, how it should be organized given a given material context. And if I understand More (the character) aright, this will be articulated in an indirect fashion.