"God's Law" is the title given in Palm Sunday to a speech delivered at an American Civil Liberties Union fundraiser in Sands Point, New York on Long Island on September 16, 1979. The house where it was delivered was purported to be the model for the house in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Vonnegut "saw no reason to doubt the claim".
Summary[]
Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor Angelicus, with saints and angels, Andrea di Bonaiuto, 1366. Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, fresco.
Electing not to speak on Slaughterhouse-Five being removed from the school libraries of nearby Island Trees High School, Vonnegut instead talks of Thomas Aquinas and his hierarchy of laws, developed when the world was still flat. At the top was God's law, followed by natural law—which apparently includes the "right to shield our children from poisonous ideas"—and finally mere human law. In analogy to a deck of cards, they are an ace, a king, and the Bill of Rights "a lousy queen". This idea is not ridiculous, but is in fact believed by almost everyone, since most people believe in a higher law than human words. Unfortunately, there is extremely little agreement about the content of this higher law by theologians, with dictators often providing the practical details, such as what a "mere corporal" tried to do for Germany and then all of Europe not very long ago, playing endless aces and kings. The United States does not play with a full deck, being allowed to play nothing higher than the queen that is the Constitution. This incompleteness has clearly been key to American freedoms, although many government officials continue to insist on trying to play aces and kings.
Perhaps we can learn from nature how to behave, even if God in unknowable, but such claims in the past included the knowledge that "blacks are obviously inferior to whites", an idea which allowed even Thomas Jefferson to own slaves. Vonnegut says what troubles him most about the United States is that children are rarely taught that American freedom relies on insisting as citizens that the government not be guided by divine or natural law. Most teachers and parents don't teach this since they often didn't learn it themselves or know that they can land in trouble for implying that "no one really understands nature or God". It is this claim, and not sex or violence, that caused his book to be removed in Island Trees and Drake, North Dakota, where it was burned, among other communities. This does not mean the government of the United States is anti-nature or anti-God, but must by necessity be non-nature and non-God oriented. However, one day American freedom, like all things, will come to an end, because we will allow kings and aces to be played, a struggle that will continue until someone plays the ace of spades, which nothing beats.[1]
See Also[]
- "Why You Can't Stop Me from Speaking Ill of Thomas Jefferson", which mentions Aquinas' hierarchy of laws
- ↑ "God's Law", Palm Sunday, pp. 9-12.