As we all know, on January 7, two Islamist terrorists murdered eleven innocent people at the Paris offices of the French Satirical Newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, and six more in the aftermath. On January 11, two million people marched through the streets to show their solidarity with the victims and defend the right to free expression.

The murders shocked what is left of the conscience of the West. They also present a moment ripe with both possibility and danger. The perpetrators attributed their acts to obedience to the dictates of their “god.” In so doing, they exposed their blasphemy. They also uncovered the void in the West.

A Nihilistic Vacuum

We are familiar with the idiomatic expression, “nature abhors a vacuum.” The events in France expose the loss of the soul of the West, a nihilistic vacuum. It will be filled. The question is with what?

Though we should champion free speech, we must reaffirm the bond between freedom and truth. The idea that the exercise of freedom can be divorced from the moral norms necessary to govern our choices corrodes a nation from within.

When there is nothing objectively true – which can be known by all and form the basis of a common life – there is no freedom. We teeter on the brink of anarchy while mouthing “liberty.”

Men and women lose their humanity when they reject God. We are created in His Image. At the center is our capacity for free choice. However, what we choose matters. Our choices not only change the world around us, they change us.

When the exercise of freedom is divorced from the obligation to choose what is true, noble and good, it builds its own shackles. We cannot be free without the God who is the source of freedom — and who makes it possible.

In referring to the hungry emptiness, Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Emeritus Benedict, coined the phrase “dictatorship of relativism.” His insight becomes increasingly prophetic as we face the growing intolerance of libertine secularism and the ascent of a death cult inspired by radical Islam.

Relativism is a philosophy which asserts there is no truth. Or rather, it asserts that my “truth” and “your truth” are both acceptable, even if they are in conflict and at odds. In effect, it rejects the existence of any objective truth by which to govern human behavior and order our lives.

The United States of America was birthed out of a Revolution in the 1700’s. The birth certificate of the new nation was called a Declaration of Independence because it declared independence from an unjust civil ruler. It did not declare independence from a just God.

It was founded upon first principles, informed by the Jewish and Christian roots of the West, affirmed the existence of inalienable rights which were endowed by the Creator and the existence of a natural moral law.

Another Revolution

There was another revolution in the 1700’s which took place in France. Sadly, it devolved into de-christianization and ended in the denial of liberty and the ascent of tyranny. In its rejection of the existence of a divine law, clergy were soon guillotined and the Church was persecuted.

The French revolution set itself against Christianity with such a fervor that it sought to root out of French life even the memory of Christian influence. For example, the seven day week was replaced with a ten day week in order to eliminate Sunday, the Lord’s day.

The events in France expose our moral vacuum, a vacuum that abhors true freedom.  There is a moral basis to a free society. We have been deceived by a counterfeit notion of freedom as giving us the right to do whatever they want rather than the freedom to choose to do what is right.

The Natural Moral Law

There is a Natural Moral Law. It is a participation in the Divine Law. It can be known by all men and women because it is written on the human heart. It can discerned through the exercise of reason and must inform our life together. The existence of such a Natural Moral Law is the ground upon which every great civilization has been built.

This Natural Moral Law gives us the norms needed to build a truly free and just society and govern ourselves. It must inform the positive or civil law of our Nation or we become lawless and risk devolving into anarchy.

We need a recovery of the classical Jewish and Christian worldview. The struggle we face involves competing definitions of human freedom, human dignity, and human flourishing. Relativism met radicalism in Paris. Only true freedom will secure the future.

Deacon Keith A. Fournier is a Senior Contributor of The Stream and Founder and Chairman of Common Good Foundation and Common Good Alliance. A married Roman Catholic Deacon of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, he and his wife Laurine have five grown children and seven grandchildren. He is a human rights lawyer and public policy advocate who served as the first and founding Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice in the nineteen nineties. He has long been active at the intersection of faith and culture and serves as Special Counsel to Liberty Counsel. He is also the Editor in Chief of Catholic Online.