In a 2009 essay in Political Theology , Jamie Smith notes the difference between libertarian freedom and the Augustinian notion of freedom to pursue and do the Good. He puts the matter starkly: Quoting David Burrell, he argues that libertarian freedom “demands ‘that a free agent parallel a creator ex nihilo . What the Christian (and Jewish and Muslim) theological tradition ascribes to the Creator, modern libertarian accounts of freedom ascribe to creatures.” He adds that “to affirm libertarian non-teleological auto-sovereignty . . . requires rejecting the Creator - or, at least, rejecting the theological claim that there is a determinate Good for human freedom which is specified by the Creator; in other words, it requires rejecting anything more than a deist creator.” The “Creator” invoked in American public statements must be the deist creator, since the freedom he underwrites is a freedom without any determinate telos .

The usual way to deflect such a theological critique of modern political freedom - from both the left and the right - is to distinguish different senses of freedom. In liberal order, individuals and “mediating” communities pursue their own substantive ends; no such end determinate end is allowed for the polity as a whole, since that would endanger the freedom of lesser communities to pursue their own ends.

This argument has a certain power, but it ultimately fails in various ways.

First, it fails because liberal order does have a substantive end, whether it admits to it or not. In the US, that end is the “American Dream” recently articulated by the President - hard work and creativity leads to sufficient prosperity to raise a family, save for retirement, provide funds for other projects. Whatever we say about this Dream, it is substantive, and the order of liberal America exists to ensure that this Dream can be realized.

Second, it fails because it assumes a divide of public and private that is belied by lived social life.

Third, it fails because this division of public and private overlaps a theological distinction of nature and grace. Liberal order has certain political ends in view; its stated ends are freedom, peace, equality of opportunity if not outcome. Gracious ends - the end of God’s glory, for example - are relegated to the private sphere. Nature and grace are dichotomized, and nature subordinates grace.

Finally, it fails because, if Smith is correct, the institutionalization of liberal freedom entails a rejection of the Creator. The liberal deflection mentioned above ends up carving out autonomous social and political space, space where the Creator is not acknowledged as Creator. It is a denial that Jesus is Lord, and is therefore intolerable for believers.