Why do we not feel free? As modern liberalism continues to isolate and divide, our common experience is a lack of freedom, of being constrained and enslaved. But, how can true freedom be restored? In this episode of the Politics of Paganism, Alex Denley and Dr. Andrew Jones discuss the New Law and how grace restores true freedom.

St. Thomas Aquinas presents salvation history in three stages: The Age of Nature, the Age of Law, and the Age of Grace. The pagans are stuck within the age of nature; fallen humanity inevitably declines into idolatry and slavery. But, God has a plan for saving man. From the time of Moses until Christ, God's chosen people are in the Age of Law which points forward to the coming of Christ. In this podcast, Alex Denley and Dr. Andrew Jones discuss salvation history and the culmination of the Age of Law in the Cross.

The pagan cosmos is a closed world: the city is never truly self-sufficient, requiring natural slaves and war; regimes rise and fall cyclically; the regime's justice is never true justice. In the Treatise on Law (ST I-II, Q.90-108), St. Thomas Aquinas presents a different vision: the open world of grace. God orders the world through the eternal law; rational creatures participate in providence through human law; divine law is necessary to bring man to his final end. In this episode of the Politics of Paganism, Alex Denley and Dr. Andrew Jones discuss how St. Thomas' vision of law answers the closed world of the pagans.

Plato and Aristotle argue that aristocracy is the ideal regime, but it never lasts for long. What's most powerful wins, and the masses are always the most powerful in number. Eventually, every pagan regime declines into the production of idols and temple slavery---whether Egypt, Greece, or Rome. In this episode of the Politics of Paganism, Alex Denley and Dr. Andrew Jones discuss this decline and what brings it about.

Aristotle's "Politics" is full of deep insight: politics as the architectonic science, the mixed constitution, happiness as the end of the city. But, there's a group which is excluded from human virtue; namely, the natural slave. Alex Denley and Dr. Andrew Jones discuss how the "natural slave" reveals the structure of Aristotle's just city: a limited class of citizens over an unspecified amount of slaves. And, that the despotic relationship extends into the mixed constitution of the citizens. The masses believe they are ruling in a democracy, the notables believe they are ruling an oligarchy, and the one, true philosopher-statesman rules the whole; each class instrumentalizes the other. They discuss how this doesn't vilify Aristotle, or presume nefarious intentions; this is what a science of a pagan political order demands. Ultimately, it is this structure that Christianity transforms from both within and above.

Plato presents a vicious circle that every regime goes through: from a limited aristocracy, to a timocracy of honor, an oligarchy based on wealth, a democracy based on liberty, and, finally, the tyranny of the one against all. While some regimes may be more just than others, it is bound to collapse eventually. Alex Denley and Dr. Andrew Jones discuss Plato's description of the individual and his regime, the circle of regimes, and how Christianity can provide an answer to the circle.

Everyone has a sense of what is just and unjust, but what is the source of justice? In this episode of "The Politics of Paganism," Alex Denley and Dr. Andrew Willard Jones discuss Plato's "Republic." Through a discussion of the luxurious city, the myth of the mixture of the elements, the Allegory of the Cave, and finally the Philosopher-King, Alex and Andrew show the tension in Plato between relative and absolute justice; between the shadows of justice in the city and true justice that the philosopher contemplates.

Death comes for everyone. For the Christian, death is the passage into eternal life; but, what about for the Pagan? Alex Denley and Dr. Andrew Willard Jones discuss the problem of death for pagan regimes. Using St. Augustine's "City of God," they discuss Cain's murder of Abel, the founding of the city by violence, the inferior law of violence, and the overturning of death by Christ.