The Politics of Heaven and Hell: Christian Themes from Classical, Medieval, and Modern Political Philosophy

by James V. Schall

The Politics of Heaven and Hell makes an invaluable contribution to the understanding of classical, medieval, and modern political philosophy, while explaining the profound problem with modernity.


Christianity "freed men from the overwhelming burden of ever thinking that their salvation will ultimately come from the political order", writes Fr. James Schall, S.J. Modernity, on the other hand, is a perversion of Christianity, which tries to achieve man's salvation in this world. It does this by politicizing everything, which results in the absolute state: "The distance from the City of God to the Leviathan is not at all far once the City of God is relocated on earth."


The best defense against this tyranny is "the adequate description of the highest things, of what is beyond politics". Both reason and revelation are needed for this work, and they are eloquently and ably set forth in this book.

Genres: Theology, Philosophy

340 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Fr. James V. Schall, SJ was Professor of Political Philosophy at Georgetown University.

He was born in Pocahontas, Iowa, January 20, 1928. Educated in public schools in Iowa, he graduated in 1945 from Knoxville, Iowa High, and then attended University of Santa Clara. He earned an MA in Philosophy from Gonzaga University in 1945.

After time in the U.S. Army (1946-47), he joined the Society of Jesus (California Province) in 1948. He received a PhD in Political Theory from Georgetown University in 1960, and an MST from University of Santa Clara four years later. Fr. Schall was a member of the Faculty of Institute of Social Sciences, Gregorian University, Rome, from 1964-77, and a member of the Government Department, University of San Francisco, from 1968-77. He has been a member of the Government Department at Georgetown University since 1977.

Fr. Schall has written hundreds of essays on political, theological, literary, and philosophical issues in such journals as The Review of Politics, Social Survey (Melbourne), Studies (Dublin), The Thomist, Divus Thomas (Piacenza), Divinitas (Rome), The Commonweal, Thought, Modern Age, Faith and Reason, The Way (London), The New Oxford Review, University Bookman, Worldview, and many others. He contributes regularly to Crisis and Homiletic & Pastoral Review.

He iss the author of numerous books on social issues, spirituality, culture, and literature.

Reviews

[Brian Griffith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Schall is on a mission to rescue the world from absolutist secular ideologies. These, he argues, are movements claiming to be humanity’s ultimate solution and final goal. And to correct such extremist idealism, Schall urges a return to a balanced Augustinian understanding—that no fallible human system can ever be the ultimate answer. In realizing our limitations, we must place our trust in a higher power.

I concede that Schall has a point. Absolutist ideology is madness. In religious terms it’s a kind of idolatry. But don’t most idealists for human progress just try to make things better, see what helps, and discard what doesn’t? Isn’t accusing them of worshipping false gods a bit like Protestants accusing Catholics of worshipping (rather than just respecting) their saints? And isn’t it commonly religious leaders who claim to know God’s infallible, ultimate will for the world?

To my mind, Schall’s best insight concerned the danger of thinking that changing our outer social environment will solve our inner struggles. Clearly, we also need inner change to achieve a better life. But don’t those two things go together?

[Ian Clary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book that is at once quite thoughtful and hard to read -- or at least so I found. James Schall was a prolific scholar who wrote on a wide range of philosophical and theological topics. He taught at Fordham and held to what we might call today 'classical theology.' The book is ultimately an indictment on modern political theory, beginning as it does with Machiavelli. Schall's basic argument is that we need a return to some kind of transcendent grounding for our politics, but at the same time we don't want to politicise theology. I appreciated his critiques of political theology, which I had not considered before. Modern political theory needs to return to many of the timeless ideas expressed in the classical and especially medieval Christian political traditions.
I'm not sure what it was, whether because I took a long time to read it, or because of the writing style, but I had a hard time retaining what I was reading for large swathes of the book. As a result, I've had to go back and re-read parts. I know that Schall is brilliant and so want to read more of him, I'm hoping that my issue was that I just didn't click with this particular book, not is overall corpus.

[Alex McDougall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fr Schall was such a brilliant thinker I am saddened to only now have encountered him (perhaps because he has SJ at the end of his name :/...). This book was pretty solid. Fr. Schall leads us through Israel to Plato and Aristotle, with sizeable contributions from Augustine and Aquinas, and an impluvium of modern and contemporary thinkers. He is a biig Straussian which keeps things fun, too. Schall takes a notably Augustinian approach with the limits of politics; it can probably be best summed up by a pithy line of his:

the distance from the City of God to the Leviathan is not at all far once the City of God is relocated on earth


overall: +1 for St. Benedict
-10 for liberation theology

[Jason Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Father Schall at his best!