'A relation between us': Religion and the political thought of Edmund Burke

This study seeks to understand religion as a guiding thread in the political thought of Edmund Burke. It utilizes his conception of "a relation between us" as the overarching framework for both politics and religion. This understanding is explored in the three cases of his impeachment prosecution of Warren Hastings, his writings on the French Revolution, and his lifelong involvement in the cause of Catholic emancipation in Ireland. Like politics, religion is "a relation between us" and together they express normative claims discernible through history.; An understanding of the law of nature can be identified at the base of Burke's political thought from the beginning of his career. Yet the idea was only articulated coherently when Burke's pragmatic needs were driven to the level of principle by the necessities of the Hastings case. An account of the "law of nature and of nations" as a fundamental law of God expressed through diverse circumstances in the positive laws of nations is also a key to Burke's response to the French Revolution. Burke believed all law and political obligation to find their ultimate origins in ancient, revelatory moments of lawgiving. The French Revolution, besides upsetting the civilizational order of Christian Europe, interrupted an ancient, unbroken continuity of political order that had produced flawed but improvable political institutions. Burke's account of the religious consecration of the state encountered difficulty when he faced an established church that opposed itself to ninety-five percent of the population of Ireland. To reconcile a hostile church establishment to the religious consecration of the state Burke attempted to forge an uneasy compromise solution of tolerant establishment.; Burke's efforts to engage his ideas in the practical problems of eighteenth century Europe were not successful, and alternative understandings of politics have taken root in Western civilization. But Burke's understanding of politics as a tension between divine and earthly poles confirms his importance as a political thinker who can help recover the sources of political order without compromising the achievements of liberty. In this way, Burke remains a meaningful contributor to the ongoing effort to address the crisis of modernity.