Dionysius’s Table, the Republican Party Platform, and Solzhenitsyn’s “Warning to the West”
Aug 8, 2024 by David Fowler
As I reflected on the reaction of many Americans to the depiction of Dionysius’s Table at the Olympics and complaints by Christians over changes in the Republican Platform regarding abortion and the definition of marriage, something Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said came to mind. It is particularly relevant to these two things, and a harbinger of where we are and where we are headed.
Solzhenitsyn said the following to those gathered for his Harvard Commencement address in 1978, entitled “Warning to the West”:
When I read this more than twenty years ago, I would not have connected his comment to what the table of Dionysius communicates about the nature of law. But the connection is there. You need to know about it if you want to know why things are so unstable.
The Cosmologies Represented by Dionysius’s Table and the Communion Table
Dionysius’s table depicts mankind’s escape from the bonds and bounds of a God-imposed reality through the release that wine can bring.
That table and its wine stand in contrast to the communion table established by Jesus Christ as mediator between God and Man, bringing the two together in an indissoluble bond.
These two tables represent two different understandings of reality and are the only two available to humanity.
The Relationship between Dionysius’s Table and Law
For the French, the view of reality depicted by Dionysius’s table also represents a change in the nature of law, because law is a part of the reality we experience.
The French Revolution of 1789 introduced a new understanding of law. More specifically, it introduced a change from an objective legal scale to a subjective, man-made one that Solzhenitsyn described as “terrible.”
Its purely subjective view of law grounded in and created by man is reflected in Voltaire’s mad cry, “No God, no Master.”
Dionysius, Solzhenitsyn, and Law in America
I doubt few Americans appreciate that Solzhenitsyn’s remark and Dionysius’s table both describe the American systems of law—judicial and legislative—as they function today.
I will briefly explain that change below, but at a surface level, it explains why American jurists and legislative bodies allow abortion, define and license marital relations without regard to sex, and permit health care providers to continue practicing even if they believe sterilizing minor children will bring them peace of mind and harmony between body and soul.
These changes in our nation’s “law” represent what Solzhenitsyn described as the manipulation of law.
But here is the point: We must understand how our law became so manipulatable if we don’t want to live under an increasingly “terrible” legal and political regime.
What Changed That We Weren’t Taught
Our nation has abandoned any objective legal scale because it no longer functions on the basis of common law, the understanding of law that our founders carried over to our nation from England. Its foundation was thoroughly Christian, even if not always applied well.
However, today, we think mostly in terms of civil law, meaning legal codes, i.e. tomes of enacted statutes trying to spell out what is to happen in respect to every possible relation that might have a legal consequence.
If you want to visualize the change, the picture below should do the trick. The tattered brown book contains all the statutes enacted by the legislature from Tennessee’s statehood in 1796 through 1858. The green books represent the statutes enacted since 1858.
The reason 1858 is important is that it is the year in which Tennessee officially began to transition from the English common law system to the Dionysian-born French civil law system, also known as a Code system.
That’s why the green books are called the “Tennessee Code.” In that picture you are looking directly at the fruits of the French Revolution.
The Dionysian-French View of Law Sweeps into America
The Christian understanding of common law and its foundational precepts were largely swept away by the United States Supreme Court in 1938.
Without belaboring the historical development, that year the Court, quoting Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, an atheist, said there is “no transcendental body of law,” which can only mean there is no transcendent lawgiver, which is a declaration that the Christians’ view of God is false.
Not surprisingly, the Court said common law, “as we think of law today,” does not “exist” by virtue of Christian revelation being applied by the reasoned judgment of wise jurists to individual legal controversies. That process was at the foundation of common law.
No, the Court said, common law now “exists by authority of the state” and “the only authority is the state.”
In sum, law in America has gone from originating in God to originating strictly and exclusively in man, even the American lawyer’s understanding of common law. “No God, no Master” is now the de facto legal creed in America.
American jurisprudence and law now largely rest on the same non-objective man-made foundation as that of the Communist regime Solzhenitsyn referred to.
For that reason, most Americans and, in my view, most Christians now fall into the category of those Westerners Solzhenitsyn described as thinking the “supreme solution” is to “acquire[] considerable skill in interpreting and manipulating law.”
Application of Solzhenitsyn to the New Republican Party Platform
An example of the preceding conclusion is found in the fact that when the new platform’s provisions on abortion and marriage came out, several Christian organizations started campaigns to pressure the platform delegates to change it back. One of them started running a mini-campaign against Senator Blackburn challenging her to a debate about the platform’s adoption, even though it has already been adopted.
Communicating our views to others is rarely a bad thing, but when there is no objective standard for law, manipulation of law (or proposed laws) is all that is left. And that brings me to the Republican Platform’s preamble.
The Republican Party’s Preamble Calls Us to Dionysius’s Table
I am not aware of any Christian policy organization that squawked about the fact the Platform urges people to “call upon” the “American Spirit of Strength, Determination, and Love of Country” that “led us” in the past. Supposedly, that “American Spirit” is what we need “if we are going to lead our Nation to a brighter future.”
Why was this not highlighted to fellow Christians by Christian leaders? I did not see these Christian leaders publicly expressing concern about Americans being urged to call on an amorphous, non-objective, gnostic, mystical “spirit” for help. I did not see them decrying the claim that this spirit is what led us in the past.
Not only is such a call idolatrous, and, therefore, welcomed at Dionysius’s table, but because it is idolatrous, it can provide no objective legal standard for abortion or marriage.
I don’t know what that “spirit” would say about abortion and marriage, and how can I argue with its “revelation”?
But bottom line: When Christians knowingly acquiesce to calling on this spirit or urging others to do so, I think they are effectively sitting at Dionysius’s table.
Hope for the Future
Thankfully, the God revealed in Scripture brings the dead to life, me (including my understanding of law) being a case in point. I once didn’t know any of these things about law. It was not taught to me.
But I am not filled with despair. Rather, I believe that when God’s people begin to repent of sitting at Dionysius’s table for the last 100 years, He will raise up a new generation of citizens and Christian legal and policy advocates desirous of returning to an objective standard for law.
I pray He will grace me with the opportunity to help lay a foundation for that future grace.
If you are interested in learning more about common law and the importance of recovering its precepts, let me know.
Solzhenitsyn said the following to those gathered for his Harvard Commencement address in 1978, entitled “Warning to the West”:
People in the West have acquired considerable skill in interpreting and manipulating law. Any conflict is solved according to the letter of the law, and this is considered to be the supreme solution. . . . I have spent all my life under a Communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed.
When I read this more than twenty years ago, I would not have connected his comment to what the table of Dionysius communicates about the nature of law. But the connection is there. You need to know about it if you want to know why things are so unstable.
The Cosmologies Represented by Dionysius’s Table and the Communion Table
Dionysius’s table depicts mankind’s escape from the bonds and bounds of a God-imposed reality through the release that wine can bring.
That table and its wine stand in contrast to the communion table established by Jesus Christ as mediator between God and Man, bringing the two together in an indissoluble bond.
These two tables represent two different understandings of reality and are the only two available to humanity.
The Relationship between Dionysius’s Table and Law
For the French, the view of reality depicted by Dionysius’s table also represents a change in the nature of law, because law is a part of the reality we experience.
The French Revolution of 1789 introduced a new understanding of law. More specifically, it introduced a change from an objective legal scale to a subjective, man-made one that Solzhenitsyn described as “terrible.”
Its purely subjective view of law grounded in and created by man is reflected in Voltaire’s mad cry, “No God, no Master.”
Dionysius, Solzhenitsyn, and Law in America
I doubt few Americans appreciate that Solzhenitsyn’s remark and Dionysius’s table both describe the American systems of law—judicial and legislative—as they function today.
I will briefly explain that change below, but at a surface level, it explains why American jurists and legislative bodies allow abortion, define and license marital relations without regard to sex, and permit health care providers to continue practicing even if they believe sterilizing minor children will bring them peace of mind and harmony between body and soul.
These changes in our nation’s “law” represent what Solzhenitsyn described as the manipulation of law.
But here is the point: We must understand how our law became so manipulatable if we don’t want to live under an increasingly “terrible” legal and political regime.
What Changed That We Weren’t Taught
Our nation has abandoned any objective legal scale because it no longer functions on the basis of common law, the understanding of law that our founders carried over to our nation from England. Its foundation was thoroughly Christian, even if not always applied well.
However, today, we think mostly in terms of civil law, meaning legal codes, i.e. tomes of enacted statutes trying to spell out what is to happen in respect to every possible relation that might have a legal consequence.
If you want to visualize the change, the picture below should do the trick. The tattered brown book contains all the statutes enacted by the legislature from Tennessee’s statehood in 1796 through 1858. The green books represent the statutes enacted since 1858.
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The reason 1858 is important is that it is the year in which Tennessee officially began to transition from the English common law system to the Dionysian-born French civil law system, also known as a Code system.
That’s why the green books are called the “Tennessee Code.” In that picture you are looking directly at the fruits of the French Revolution.
The Dionysian-French View of Law Sweeps into America
The Christian understanding of common law and its foundational precepts were largely swept away by the United States Supreme Court in 1938.
Without belaboring the historical development, that year the Court, quoting Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, an atheist, said there is “no transcendental body of law,” which can only mean there is no transcendent lawgiver, which is a declaration that the Christians’ view of God is false.
Not surprisingly, the Court said common law, “as we think of law today,” does not “exist” by virtue of Christian revelation being applied by the reasoned judgment of wise jurists to individual legal controversies. That process was at the foundation of common law.
No, the Court said, common law now “exists by authority of the state” and “the only authority is the state.”
In sum, law in America has gone from originating in God to originating strictly and exclusively in man, even the American lawyer’s understanding of common law. “No God, no Master” is now the de facto legal creed in America.
American jurisprudence and law now largely rest on the same non-objective man-made foundation as that of the Communist regime Solzhenitsyn referred to.
For that reason, most Americans and, in my view, most Christians now fall into the category of those Westerners Solzhenitsyn described as thinking the “supreme solution” is to “acquire[] considerable skill in interpreting and manipulating law.”
Application of Solzhenitsyn to the New Republican Party Platform
An example of the preceding conclusion is found in the fact that when the new platform’s provisions on abortion and marriage came out, several Christian organizations started campaigns to pressure the platform delegates to change it back. One of them started running a mini-campaign against Senator Blackburn challenging her to a debate about the platform’s adoption, even though it has already been adopted.
Communicating our views to others is rarely a bad thing, but when there is no objective standard for law, manipulation of law (or proposed laws) is all that is left. And that brings me to the Republican Platform’s preamble.
The Republican Party’s Preamble Calls Us to Dionysius’s Table
I am not aware of any Christian policy organization that squawked about the fact the Platform urges people to “call upon” the “American Spirit of Strength, Determination, and Love of Country” that “led us” in the past. Supposedly, that “American Spirit” is what we need “if we are going to lead our Nation to a brighter future.”
Why was this not highlighted to fellow Christians by Christian leaders? I did not see these Christian leaders publicly expressing concern about Americans being urged to call on an amorphous, non-objective, gnostic, mystical “spirit” for help. I did not see them decrying the claim that this spirit is what led us in the past.
Not only is such a call idolatrous, and, therefore, welcomed at Dionysius’s table, but because it is idolatrous, it can provide no objective legal standard for abortion or marriage.
I don’t know what that “spirit” would say about abortion and marriage, and how can I argue with its “revelation”?
But bottom line: When Christians knowingly acquiesce to calling on this spirit or urging others to do so, I think they are effectively sitting at Dionysius’s table.
Hope for the Future
Thankfully, the God revealed in Scripture brings the dead to life, me (including my understanding of law) being a case in point. I once didn’t know any of these things about law. It was not taught to me.
But I am not filled with despair. Rather, I believe that when God’s people begin to repent of sitting at Dionysius’s table for the last 100 years, He will raise up a new generation of citizens and Christian legal and policy advocates desirous of returning to an objective standard for law.
I pray He will grace me with the opportunity to help lay a foundation for that future grace.
If you are interested in learning more about common law and the importance of recovering its precepts, let me know.
