Law and Government
Law and Government
Aquinas’ lasting contributions to politics and legal theory were a synthesis of Christian doctrine, Scripture, contemporary practice, and Aristotelian methodology. To Aquinas, as for Aristotle, humans’ moral fulfillment is achieved by correct use of the rational faculties, but, Aquinas, of course, includes his understanding that God, the creator of all, is the “first principle” in whose image humans are made, and by whom human destiny is set. As first and foremost a theologian, he had a realistic view of humans’ proclivity to sin. Yet, he held out to the aspirations of government to protect the common good.
In the thirteenth century, governments were seen as ordered according to divine intention. Then, the Napoleonic philosophy of the “Great Chain of Being” justified a government hierarchy that Aquinas accepted. Yet, the Aristotle in him recognized that the single ruler monarch could rule over free subjects who had basic sense to conduct themselves reasonably. The people, he maintained, could get rid of a monarch when corrupted judgment turned tyrannical and violated the common good. As often as Aquinas tipped in new directions from the established feudal order of his day, it would be a long time coming before religious freedoms and democracy as we know it would enter public discourse. Yet, many neo-Thomists interested in promoting Christian democratic theory centuries later found plenty of fodder in Aquinas’ sources and writings.
After his Five Ways as proof for the existence of God, Aquinas’ “Treatise on Law” may be the best known section in his Summa theologica. Aquinas’ definition of law was, “an ordination of reason for the common good promulgated by the one who is in charge of the community.”
Aquinas placed “law” into four hierarchical categories: First came eternal law, rational governance under God’s rule over the universe. Natural law ranked under eternal law. Aquinas maintained that rational humans had a natural inclination to behave morally and properly and were inclined to avoid evil. Prudence he names often as the virtue applied to attain reasonable outcomes in matters domestic and political. Human law related to human application of Natural law in society. Divine law was God’s law set forth in Scripture. He left few issues of family life, public policy, and governance unaddressed: from opinions about sexual conduct, abortion, the role of women, pricing in the marketplace, usury, property rights (including slavery) to the role of governments. The Summa Theologica is his exhaustive treatise on all matters civil, domestic, and theological.
Just war theory was first introduced by Cicero who defended the rightness of Roman wars. Aquinas established criteria for just war. First, wars should never be waged for self-gain or for gaining power. Second, higher authorities, like the state, must fight wars. Third, peace, even in the midst of violence, must be held as central vision.
His influences on political ideas, morals and ethics have had far reaching impact. In the sixteenth century Jesuit theorists adopted his ideas on international law and influenced many others. Aquinas’ natural law theory was popular in late sixteenth-century England, finding its way into the writings of John Locke. He has influenced the political and social ideologies of countries around the world, on issues of democracy, human rights, and religious tolerance. Even our Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted him on the invalidity of unjust law. His thinking has penetrated some modern Catholics’ thinking on communitarianism versus individualism of a free market capitalist system.
He has had his critics, of course, among them liberals (including feminists) who roundly reject his advocacy of slavery, hierarchy, the inferiority of women, anti-Semitism, and clericalism, indicating that Aquinas seemed to choose order over freedom. Many of his proponents, moral and social philosophers hold forth that Aquinas’ basic optimism about human capacity to set goals, seek purpose, and choose values that can critique and implement legal, political, and social life to achieve the common good.