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The Altar of Victory

Epistle XVII

by St. Ambrose of Milan

Among the Fathers of the Church St. Ambrose of Milan (c. 340-370) is particularly important for the subsequent development of Catholic Social Teaching. On many questions his teaching constitutes both a precious witness to the perennial tradition, and a solid foundation on which subsequent teachers built. For example, he gives one of the clearest patristic witness to the principle of the universal destination of goods. But perhaps his most important contribution was to the question of the relation of spiritual and temporal power. A talented politician, as well as a great pastor and theologian, Ambrose expounded his teaching in direct confrontation with several Christian emperors at a time in which the persecutions of the Christians had but recently ended, and Christianity was becoming the majority religion of the empire.

Epistle XVII, written in the Summer of the year 384 to the young emperor Valentinian, was occasioned by a controversy over the altar of the goddess Victoria in the Curia Julia, the Senate house in Rome. The altar, with its statue of the goddess, had been removed by Constatius II, restored by Julian the Apostate, and removed again by Gratian. Conservative, pagan aristocrats in the Senate asked the young emperor to restore the altar. It appeared to be the prudent and generous thing to do— a sign of respect to the old, pagan aristocracy by a young, Christian emperor who could use their support. But St. Ambrose protests vigorously against the request. Christian senators, he argued, would be forced by the erection of the altar to take part in pagan worship. But more fundamentally, he lays down a principle that contains the germ of all subsequent Catholic integralism. The Christian emperor is a servant of God, and must promote the true religion. He must be “zealous for the true faith,” and not give equal rights to error. Political justice cannot be reduced to a balance of interests in which various influential groups are conceded something of what they want. Rather, justice consists in giving what is truly due to each, especially in giving the one, true God what is His due. “I myself advise you to defer to the merits of illustrious men, but undoubtedly God must be preferred to all.” Continue reading “The Altar of Victory”

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Contrasting Concepts of Freedom

The following paper was delivered at the Conference Heute gerecht leben: Impulse zu Ordnungskonzeptionen aus katholischer, orthodoxer und schiitischer Tradition, Vienna, September 19th, 2016.[1] A pdf version can be found at the VIQo Circle website. A version of this paper was also published in: Stefan Gugerel, Christian Machek and Clemens Egger (eds.), Ordnungskonzeptionen für die Zukunft: Impulse aus schiitischer, orthodoxer und katholischer Tradition, Ethika Themen (Vienna: Institut für Religion und Frieden), pp. 125-146.

That in all things God might be glorified.

1. Two concepts of freedom, two forms of culture

The contemporary world is being dominated ever more by a secular, liberal, hedonistic anti-culture that is a threat to true human happiness, and flourishing. This secular anti-culture originated in the West in a rejection of the traditional culture of Western Christendom, but it has now become a global force, and one therefore that Islam will have to contend with as well. One way of understanding the conflict between secular anti-culture and the traditional Christian culture against which it rebelled is to distinguish their very different concepts of freedom. In the following reflections I want to consider the concept of freedom found in the Bible and the Christian tradition (and to some extent in the philosophy of antiquity), and then contrast it with the secular concept, rooted in the philosophy of the so-called Enlightenment. I shall try to show why the secular concept of freedom is so dangerous.

One can consider freedom on many different levels. For the sake of clarity I shall distinguish between three such levels: 1) exterior or political freedom, 2) interior or natural freedom, 3) moral freedom. The secular and Christian concepts of freedom differ on all three levels. I shall summarize the differences briefly before considering each view more closely.

1) For the Christian tradition external freedom means not being subordinated to another’s good, not being a slave. Politically such freedom is realized by a political rule that orders people to their own true common good— a good that is truly good for them. For the secular tradition of the Enlightenment in contrast, external freedom means not being commanded by another to act in one way rather than another. Negatively this kind of freedom is realized by limiting the scope of government to the preservation of external peace, leaving each citizen free to seek whatever he thinks is the good. Positively it is realized by the participation of all citizens in political rule— so that everyone can claim to be “self-ruled.”

2) Interior or natural freedom is taken in the mainstream of the Christian tradition to mean the ability of man to understand what is good, deliberate about how it is to be attained, and choose means suitable to attaining it. Unlike the animals, man is not determined by instinct, but is able to deliberate about his actions. On the secular view, however, internal or natural freedom is taken to mean a completely undetermined self-movement of will. On the secular view man is free not only to deliberate about how to attain the good, but to decide for himself what the good is.

3) Moral freedom, according to the Christian tradition, means knowing what the true good for man is, and what means are necessary to attain it, and being able to make use of those means. Moral freedom means being liberated from bad habits and disordered passions that lead us away from what we know is the good. To be morally free is to live in accordance with the nature that God has given us— it is to be virtuous and wise. For secular culture on the other hand, moral freedom means not being determined by cultural pressures, rejecting conformity for the sake of “authenticity” and “originality” deciding on one’s own peculiar way of living human life, based on one’s own “freely chosen” (i.e. arbitrarily chosen) “values.”

2. True freedom

The Book of Exodus is a story of liberation, of attaining freedom. The people of Israel is enslaved, they are forced to work hard for the Egyptians. Their slavery is in the first place an external slavery: they are forced to work for the good of their Egyptians masters rather than their own good, to realize their master’s end, not their own end. Their liberation is therefore also in the first place and external, political liberation. They are to be liberated from the power of Egypt in order to attain to their own true good and end as the chosen people of God.

“Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” (Ex 5:1) God’s message to Pharaoh demands an external, political freedom for his people in order that they might attain to their true good, which consists in worshiping God (holding a sacrificial feast in God’s honor). But it becomes clear in the desert that the people need moral freedom as well as political freedom to be able to attain to their good. They are enslaved to the false gods of Egypt and to their own disordered passions— they fall back into idolatry, and long for the fleshpots of Egypt. They are unable to live as God’s chosen people in peace and justice, worshiping Him alone.

The Ten Commandments can be seen as an aid that God gives to the people to teach them moral freedom. God introduces the commandments by reminding the people of their liberation from Egypt: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (Exodus 20:2) But the commandments are meant to bring them to a truer liberation: liberation from sin.

The giving of the commandments implies that the people have natural freedom, that is, “free will.” They must be able to understand the good, and chose the means that lead to it. In Deuteronomy God emphasizes their need to make a choice:

See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you this day, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you this day, that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land which you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him; for that means life to you and length of days, that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)

The law shows the way to life, to the true good, and the people are able to understand this and choose to obey the law.

In the New Testament, St. Paul, tells us that the law was not enough. Human nature is wounded by original sin. And it is too difficult for persons with this wounded nature to follow the law, even though they know that it leads to life. But the grace of Christ heals human nature, and gives it the power to obey the law, and to attain to an even greater good than the life promised in the Old Testament. St. Paul teaches that Christ’s grace frees us from the law, insofar as it enables to do the good spontaneously without need for the law. I quote a famous passage from the Epistle to the Galatians at length:

For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” […] But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. (Galatians 5:13-23)

The desires of the flesh prevent us from doing what we would, that is what we truly desire, what leads to our true good. But the power of the Spirit enables us to be free from the law, not because it gives us permission to break the law, but because it enables us to fulfill the essence of the law, which consists in loving the good, easily and without coercion.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus teaches that He has come to liberate the people from slavery to sin:

Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin.” (John 8:31-34)

The Jewish leaders think that they are already free, but Jesus teaches them that true moral freedom will only come if they remain with Him, allowing themselves to be formed by Him, so that they know God as their true good and attain to unity with Him.

The vision of freedom given in the Bible was further unfolded throughout the Christian tradition. St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) is the first great theorist of “free will,” as a faculty of choosing.[2] This faculty chooses which of our inclinations to follow. But it is naturally inclined to happiness; it chooses to follow inclinations, only because they seem to lead to happiness. All men want to be happy. The will is not “free” to desire unhappiness. Happiness is found in wisdom, which is the attainment of God as the highest good, and no one can be prevented from attaining God against his will. Therefore, no one can be made unhappy against his will. But everyone wills happiness. So why is it that so many persons are not happy? How is that possible? How can one both will to be happy and choose not to be happy? “How does anyone suffer an unhappy life by his will, since absolutely no one wills to live unhappily?”[3] Augustine’s answer is that the will is able to err by choosing things that are incompatible with happiness, even while continuing to will happiness:

All the people you mentioned, who follow different things, pursue good and avoid evil. Yet because different things seem good to one person and to another, they follow different things. Thus anyone pursuing what should not have been pursued – even though he pursues it only because it appears good to him – nevertheless is in error. […] To the extent that all people pursue the happy life, then, they are not in error. But people are in error to the extent that they stray from the road of life that leads to happiness, even if they profess and protest that they only want to attain happiness; “error” means following something that does not lead where we want to reach.[4]

Here Augustine is arguing that those who err are deceived by a false appearance of good. But how does such deception arise? Augustine argues that there are three kinds of false appearance of good:

but the will sins when it is turned away from the unchangeable and common good, towards its private good, or towards something external, or towards something lower. The will is turned to its private good when it wants to be in its own power; it is turned to something external when it is eager to know the personal affairs of other people, or anything that is not its business; it is turned to something lower when it takes delight in bodily pleasures.[5]

The “great and fundamental good” of human beings is a common good, in the sense that “he who is unwilling to share this possession cannot have it,”[6] but for this very reason turning away towards one’s own private good has an appearance of the self-sufficiency proper to God. In the Confessions, in wondering about why he had stolen pears as an adolescent, Augustine describes this false appearance in terms of apparent freedom:

Of what excellence of my Lord was I making perverse and vicious imitation? Perhaps it was the thrill of acting against Your law—at least in appearance, since I had no power to do so in fact, the delight a prisoner might have in making some small gesture of liberty—getting a deceptive sense of omnipotence from doing something forbidden without immediate punishment.[7]

In struggling with the question of what led him to steal the pears, Augustine also explains turning toward the external and toward the lower in terms of deceptive appearances of likeness to God, and yet a mystery remains. For, Augustine teaches that it is natural for the will to be turned toward God, where true happiness is to be found.[8] The the turning away is a defect, a weakness, a sort of nothingness, a failure to be what we are: “We admit that this movement is sin, since it is a defective movement, and every defect is from nothing.”[9]

St. Thomas Aquinas further developed Augustine’s account with the help of Aristotle. According to St. Thomas, will is a faculty that is dependent on the faculty of reason. It is rational desire. Just as there is a desire in the sensitive part of the soul when we sense something pleasurable to senses (eg. when we smell good food), so there is desire in the rational part of the soul when we understand something good. And the faculty for this desire is the will. As soon as reason understands something as good, the will moves toward it. To understand something as good is to understand it as contributing to my perfection and completion. That is, as leading to the final end, which is happiness. Now since there are many individual good things that can lead to happiness, the will is free to choose among them.[10] The very highest good, the attainment of which is happiness, is God. In this life, however, the mind does not necessarily see the connection of God and happiness, and thus, while it necessarily desires happiness, it does not yet necessarily desire God. In Heaven, where we shall directly attain to God, it will not be possible for the will to turn away from Him.[11] In earthly life, however, the knowledge of God is indirect, and therefore weak.

Sharpening Augustine’s account with Aristotelian notions, St. Thomas gives two ways in which we can be deceived by a false appearance of good. The first comes from the fact that in this life all our knowledge is begins with sense-knowledge. Only with effort does the mind rise above sensible particulars to universal truths. Similarly the first goods that we first know are sensible goods, and so the desires of man are first pulled down towards those goods, and only with effort does the will rise to desire more universal goods.[12] The second way in which we can be deceived comes from the fact that the God, in Whom our happiness lies, is the common good, of all creation, but the good that is first known to us is the proper good of our nature. Thus to seek God as our good requires that we subordinate ourselves to Him, this requires a certain self-transcendence, which can fail.[13]

St. Thomas’s account of freedom was officially endorsed by the popes of the 19th century in their struggle with modern liberalism. In his great encyclical Libertas (1888), Pope Leo XIII summarized St. Thomas’s teaching on natural, moral, and political freedom. He explains that natural freedom is called natural because it is not acquired but is given to man by God as part of man’s created nature.[14] Because man has universal, rational knowledge he knows not only particular, sensible goods, but also the good in general. He therefore understands that no particular good is necessary to man, and he can then choose those particular goods that he thinks suitable means to his highest good and final end.[15] In order for a person to choose some particular good they must understand it as being good, that is, as desirable, as contributing toward the complete goodness of the final goal of life.[16] But because both reason and will are fallible, man can be deceived by a false appearance of good.[17]

Moral freedom is the freedom from such error: the ability to know what means really lead to happiness and the ability to make use of them. To attain such freedom man has a need for law, which is “a fixed rule of teaching” in which “reason prescribes to the will what it should seek after or shun, in order to the eventual attainment of man’s last end.”[18] Law is thus not contrary to freedom, but a great help in attaining it.

The most important kind of law is natural law, which is “our reason, commanding us to do right and forbidding sin.” This voice of reason has the force of an obligatory law, because it is given to us by God, the author of our nature.[19]

Political freedom is attained when the laws of a society correspond to the natural law. In such a case the laws do not enslave the people by ordering them to someone else’s good, but rather help them to attain what is really good for them— the common good in which their happiness lies— they help them to be morally free.[20] Thus Leo XIII teaches that political freedom is not dependent on any particular form of government, such as democracy. Any government that makes laws that are compatible with the natural law, whether it is monarchical, aristocratic, democratic, or some mixture of those three, gives its subjects or citizens political freedom.[21] Participation of the greater number of the members of a society in political life might be a good means to helping frame laws that are in fact ordered to the common good (rather than the private good of some faction), but such participation is only a means; the essence of political freedom consists in the ordering of the laws to the true common good.[22]

3. False Freedom

The account of freedom that I have just sketched out sees human freedom at every level as being tied to an objective order of the good. But another account of freedom came to be dominant in modern times, an account that sees freedom as independent from any objective good. Such has, of course, ancient antecedents. Even in the book of Genesis the serpent tempts Eve to eat the fruit that God has forbidden by saying, “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). This can be understood to mean that you will be independent of the objective order of good established by God, and will yourself decide what is good and what is evil.[23] This is tempting because it flatters human pride, giving human beings an apparently more exalted status. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that such pride is always the reason for rebellion against God.[24] The Roman poet Lucretius gave an account of freedom as “pleasure driven randomness” that is similarly disengaged from any objective order of good.[25]

But in modern times such an account of freedom became dominant. Ironically, the modern view of freedom was developed out of the view that can be found in certain late-medieval theologians, who certainly did not want to rebel against God, but rather to emphasize the sovereignty of God’s will. Peter of John Olivi (c. 1248-1298),[26] John Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308),[27] and especially William of Ockham (c. 1287-1347)[28] developed a theory of free will that saw it as completely arbitrary determination, not constrained by natural desire for the good. They applied this account to God in the first place, but then also to man. According to Ockham, the choice of the will does not follow knowledge of the good, but rather precedes all other acts including knowledge: “For I can freely chose to know or not to know, to will or not to will.”[29]

But it was the French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) who must be seen as the true father of the modern idea of freedom. Descartes’s philosophy of pure thought emptied the natural world of all inherent goodness and teleology.[30] The world was seen merely as material for human domination, the imposition of human will. Hence will was not seen as appetite for an objective good, but as pure self-determination. Descartes is very explicit that freedom of the will makes the human person independent of God: “freewill[…] makes us in a certain manner equal to God and exempts us from being his subjects.”[31]

Descartes’s idea of freewill was highly influential on all of modern philosophy. Modern ideas of political freedom were especially indebted to him. If the freedom of the will means the will is not determined by the good, but only by itself, then political freedom can no longer consist in having laws ordered to the true good. Instead, modern so-called “liberal” political theory understands political freedom as self-legislation. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), to take only one particularly clear example,[32] argued that a ruler who tries to order its subjects to their own true good would be acting against their freedom:

A Government founded upon the principle of Benevolence towards the people—after the analogy of a father to his children, and therefore called a paternal Government—would be one in which the Subjects would be regarded as children or minors unable to distinguish what is beneficial or injurious to them. These subjects would be thus compelled to act in a merely passive way; and they would be trained to expect solely from the Judgment of the Sovereign and just as he might will it, merely out of his goodness, all that ought to make them happy. Such a Government would be the greatest conceivable Despotism; for it would present a Constitution that would abolish all Liberty in the Subjects and leave them no Rights.[33]

In order to preserve freedom, Kant argues, the government must be limited to balancing the freedom of different individuals:

No one has a right to compel me to be happy in the peculiar way in which he may think of the well-being of other men; but everyone is entitled to seek his own happiness in the way that seems to him best, if it does not infringe the liberty [i.e. freedom] of others in striving after a similar end for themselves when their Liberty is capable of consisting with the Right of Liberty in all others according to possible universal laws.[34]

This is one side of modern political theory, and it has had tremendous consequences. One thing that it demands is the complete independence of the state from religion, since religion always proposes a definite idea of human happiness, and therefore is seen as a threat to freedom. In the West, this view of political freedom has been embedded in the laws. A particularly clear expression of it was given by the United States Supreme Court:

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.[35]

But there is also another side to the modern idea of political freedom, namely the demand that each citizen participate in the framing of the laws. Kant expresses the reason for this demand as follows:

All right, in fact, depends on the laws. A public law, however, which determines for all what is to be legally allowed or not allowed in their regard, is the act of a public Will, from which all right proceeds and which therefore itself can do no wrong to anyone. For this, however, there is no other Will competent than that of the whole people, as it is only when all determine about all that each one in consequence determines about himself. For it is only to himself that one can do no wrong.[36]

This demand is fulfilled by representative democracies. Hence, in the modern view, the only legitimate form of government is democracy.[37]

It has often been noted that there is a certain tension between the two sides of the modern idea of political freedom, with some modern political movements giving more emphasis to the first, and others to the second. But almost all modern political movements accept both sides in some form or other.[38]

Another important element in the modern idea of freedom, what we might call the modern ideal of moral freedom arose out of the Romantic reaction against the rationalism of philosophers such as Descartes and Kant. The 18th and 19th century Romantics rejected the Cartesian idea of cool, dis-engaged will and reason, confronted with a neutral meaningless world of extension. But Romanticism did not return to a pre-Cartesian, teleological world-view. It wanted to preserve the sovereignty of the human subject, but in a new way. Therefore it imagined an inchoate “current of life” underlying all things that expresses itself through living things, striving for ever higher expression. Man’s spirit is stirred by the sublime in nature, and this allows him to “create” new expressions of spirit that articulate and bring into being what was only potential before.[39] This Romantic vision underwent many developments and changes over time, but what remained was the idea that for a human being to be really free they had to express themselves in their own unique way. Human desire, on this view, is not elicited by good things, but is rather a potential force that expresses itself, and brings “value” (as the good now comes to be called) into existence. Freedom means being “true to oneself” by finding an “authentic” way of expressing one’s desires, and thus creating one’s own “values.”[40]

The Romantic, expressivist idea of freedom was an important element in bringing about the so-called “sexual revolution” of the 1960s, which continues to our own day. Sexual desire being particularly strong and ecstatic, contemporary culture sees sexual expression as a key to “authenticity” and freedom. Hence the proliferation of various forms of sexual perversion, all seen as “authentic self-expressions,” giving value and meaning to human life. And hence the violent opposition to the natural law, which forbids such perversions, when it is proclaimed by traditional Christians and Muslims.

4. Conclusion: The Slave of Sin

The modern idea of freedom, and the “liberal” culture built on it, have many attractions. Their individualistic, self-determining, approach to the good does do away with some of the limits and self-sacrifices demanded by an approach based on a common pursuit of objective ends. It gives room for movement and an independence from others. Moreover, as our very own Heinz Theisen has argued,[41] such an individualistic approach can avoid some of the conflicts that arise from different views of what the objective good for man is. In our discussions he also raised the point that in such a liberal order individuals are free to accept religious teaching on God as the final end of human life, the good in whom alone we can find happiness.

But the advantages of the modern view of freedom come at a great price. The attempt to determine one’s own “values” for oneself often means that one becomes dominated by one’s own passions; the desires and loathings that arise from the sense-knowledge in which all our knowledge begins. This is not freedom, but slavery. The American novelist David Foster Wallace spoke of the “default settings” of human beings as being the “worship” of things like money, sexual allure, and power, but that the “worship” of such things will “eat you alive.”[42] To become free of such things requires great effort, and usually a communal effort.

The claim that the modern culture of liberal freedom leaves room for those who hold to an older notion of freedom as related to objective good to follow their beliefs has to be qualified. The very fact that the whole culture is based on the competing, modern, “liberal” view of freedom exerts tremendous pressure on those who would hold an older view to conform. As David Schindler put it:

Liberalism invites us to adopt only its freedom and its institutions while (putatively) permitting us to supply our own theories which will give meaning to freedom and free institutions; but liberalism does so— paradoxically— all the while hiding the very theory (of liberalism) which alone justifies this (purported) extrinsic relation between freedom institution and theory. In fact, this very extrinsic relation, which is taken to guarantee a supposedly ‘empty freedom,’ already embodies a definite, though hidden, conception of human nature and destiny[.][43]

Thus, the crisis of religious faith that we are witnessing in the West today is a logical outcome of the prevalence of this liberal idea of freedom, which inevitably leads to viewing religion as a limit on freedom. The supposedly neutral view of the good, in which each person decides his values for himself, really turns persons away from their true good, in which alone true happiness can be found. In its place it sets an ethics of arbitrary self-expression that is becoming more and more perverse and irrational by the day. This is not freedom, but slavery: “every one who commits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). I am therefore convinced that we should oppose the modern view of freedom by every possible means. The most important means of opposition is the revival of the traditional and true account of freedom.

[1] I have revised my remarks in the light of the discussion at the conference. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the organizers and participants in the conference especially Christian Machek, Taher Amini Golestani, the Johannes-Messner-Gesellschaft, the Institut für Religion und Frieden of the Austrian Military Diocese, the International Institute for Peace and Religions, and the ViQo Circle for Catholic-Shi’a Dialogue on Religion, Philosophy, and Political Theory. I would also like to thank Peter Kwasniewski, Alan Fimister, and Susan Waldstein for helpful comments.

[2] See: Johannes Brachtendorf, Einleitung to Augustinus, De libero arbitrio – Der freie Wille, vol. 9 of Augustinus Opera – Werke (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2006), p. 45; Eva Brann, Un-Willing: an Inquiry into the Rise of the Will’s Power and an Attempt to Undo it (Philadelphia: Paul Dry, 2014), pp. 22-37. Brachtendorf and Brann go slightly too far in saying that Augustine invented the will— the denial of the term “will” to ancient concepts such as the Aristotelian boulesis seems to me to be based on a too narrow, modern concept of will. As Brann herself admits, Thomas Aquinas’s account of voluntas (will) corresponds to Aristotle’s account of boulesis— if one can call the one “will” why not the other?

[3] De libero Arbitrio, 1.14.30.100; On the Free Choice of the Will, On Grace and Free Choice, and Other Writings, trans. Peter King (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 25.

[4] De libero Arbitrio, 2.9.26.100-101; trans. King, p. 50.

[5] De libero Arbitrio, 2.19.53.199; trans. King, p. 70.

[6] De civitate Dei, XV,5; The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (New York: The Modern Library, 1993), p. 483.

[7] Confessiones, II,VI; The Confessions, trans. Frank Sheed, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006), p. 32.

[8] See: William R. O’Connor, The Natural Desire for God (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1948), pp. 18-25.

[9] De libero Arbitrio, 2.19.53.200-2.20.54.204; trans. King, pp. 70-71.

[10] Summa theologiae, Ia q83 a1 c.

[11] «Until through the certitude of the Divine Vision the necessity of such connection be shown, the will does not adhere to God of necessity, nor to those things which are of God. But the will of the man who sees God in His essence of necessity adheres to God, just as now we desire of necessity to be happy.» (Summa theologiae, Ia q83 a1 c).

[12] See: Charles De Koninck, On the Primacy of the Common Good: Against the Personalists, trans. Sean Collins, in: The Aquinas Review 4 (1997), pp. 10-71, at pp. 45-46.

[13] «Indeed, although natural inclination of the will is present in every volitional agent to will and to love its own perfection so that it cannot will the contrary of this, yet it is not so naturally implanted in the agent to so order its perfection to another end, that it cannot fail in regard to it, for the higher end is not proper to its nature, but to a higher nature. It is left, then, to the agent’s choice, to order his own proper perfection to a higher end.» (Summa contra gentiles, III,109).

[14] Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Libertas (Rome, June 20, 1888), English translation: https://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_20061888_libertas.html (accessed October 2, 2016), ¶1.

[15] Libertas, ¶3.

[16] Libertas, ¶5.

[17] Libertas, ¶6.

[18] Libertas, ¶7.

[19] Libertas, ¶8.

[20] Libertas, ¶10; cf. my essays “The Politics of Nostalgia,” Sancrucensis, April 29, 2014: https://sancrucensis.wordpress.com/2014/04/29/the-politics-of-nostalgia (accessed November 8, 2016), and “The Good, the Highest Good, and the Common Good,” The Josias, February 3, 2015: https://thejosias.com/2015/02/03/the-good-the-highest-good-and-the-common-good (accessed November 8, 2016).

[21] See: Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Diuturnum illud (Rome, June 29, 1881), English translation: https://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_29061881_diuturnum.html (accessed November 8, 2016), ¶7.

[22] «Unless it be otherwise determined, by reason of some exceptional condition of things, it is expedient to take part in the administration of public affairs. And the Church approves of every one devoting his services to the common good, and doing all that he can for the defense, preservation, and prosperity of his country. Neither does the Church condemn those who, if it can be done without violation of justice, wish to make their country independent of any foreign or despotic power. Nor does she blame those who wish to assign to the State the power of self-government, and to its citizens the greatest possible measure of prosperity. The Church has always most faithfully fostered civil liberty, and this was seen especially in Italy, in the municipal prosperity, and wealth, and glory which were obtained at a time when the salutary power of the Church has spread, without opposition, to all parts of the State.» (Libertas, ¶¶45-46).

[23] That was famously the interpretation given by Heinrich Heine, who saw the parallels with modern philosophy in the shape of G.W.F. Hegel: «there are indeed many […] beautiful and noteworthy narratives in the Bible […] as, for example, just at the beginning, there is the story of the forbidden tree in Paradise and of the serpent, that little adjunct professor who lectured on Hegelian philosophy six thousand years before Hegel’s birth. This blue-stocking without feet demonstrated very ingeniously how the absolute consists in the identity of being and knowing, how man becomes God through cognition, or, what is the same thing, how the God in man thereby attains self-consciousness. This formula is not so clear as the original words: When ye eat of the tree of knowledge ye shall be as God!» (Heinrich Heine, Religion and Philosophy in Germany, trans. John Snodgrass (London: Trübner and Co., 1882), p. 13 (I have slightly modified the translation).

[24] «Aversion from God has the nature of an end, inasmuch as it is sought for under the appearance of freedom, according to Jer. 2:20: “Of old you have broken my yoke, you hast burst my bonds, and you have said, ‘I will not serve.’”» Summa theologiae, IIIa q8 a7 c.

[25] Brann, Un-Willing, p. 14.

[26] See: Dominic Whitehouse, O.F.M., Asserting the Absolute Freedom of the Will: Petrus Iohannis Olivi’s Intertextual dialectical Investigation of the Nature of Liberum arbitrium in his Quaestiones in secundum librum Sententiarum (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Vienna, 2019).

[27] See: Brann, Unwilling, pp. 60-64.

[28] See: Servais Pinckaers, O.P., The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P. (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), chs. 10, 14.

[29] Quoted in: Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, p. 331.

[30] See the chapter on Descartes in my dissertation: https://www.academia.edu/13118432/Symbolic_Calculation_and_the_Scientific_Revolution.

[31] René Descartes, Letter to Christina Queen of Sweden, 10 November, 1647, in: The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. John Cottingham et al., 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985-1991), vol. 3, p. 326. Cf. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Havard University Press, 1989), p. 147.

[32] Similar accounts had already been given by “liberal” thinkers as diverse as John Locke (1632-1704) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778).

[33] Immanuel Kant, “The Principles of Political Right Considered in Connection with the Relation of Theory to Practice in the Right of the State,” in: Kant’s Principles of Politics, Including his Essay on Perpetual Peace, ed. and trans. William Hastie (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1891), p. 36.

[34] Kant, “The Principles of Political Right,” p. 36.

[35] Planned Parenthood v. Casey, United States Supreme Court, 1992: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/505/833.html (accessed November 11, 2016).

[36] Kant, “The Principles of Political Right,” pp. 42-43.

[37] See: Waldstein, “The Politics of Nostalgia.”

[38] Cf. Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in: idem, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 118-172.

[39] See: Taylor, Sources of the Self, ch. 21.

[40] Cf. Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).

[41] Heinz Theisen, “Coexistence and Cooperation of Civilizations,” ViQo Circle: https://viqocircle.org/2016/11/09/theisen-on-coexistence-and-cooperation-of-civilizations/ (accessed November 11, 2016).

[42] David Foster Wallace, “Kenyon Commencement Speech,” in: Dave Eggers (ed.), The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006 (Boston; Houghton Mifflin, 2006), pp. 355-364, at p. 362.

[43] David L. Schindler, Heart of the World, Center of the Church: Communio Ecclesiology, Liberalism, and Liberation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), pp. 33-34.

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Catholics and the Ethics of Voting

by Stomachosus

The main purpose of our civic actions must be the promotion of the common good. Voting becomes a duty when the common good or the good of religion demands it:

It is the duty of all citizens who have the right to vote, to exercise that right when the common good of the state or the good of religion and morals require their votes, and when their voting is useful. (Davis, SJ, Moral and Pastoral Theology, v. 2 pg. 90)

It is important to note the second qualifier “when useful.” It is fully possible that a vote might be useless—say, if all candidates were equally wicked and no write-ins were allowed.

But whom must we vote for? Well, we must choose good candidates. What makes a candidate good? Those are good “who with strength of mind, in a christian spirit, and skill in bearing affairs, exhibits knowledge of political matters and sufficient eloquence” (Prümmer, Manuale theologiae moralis, v. 2, § 608). They must be upright, capable, and have a strong backbone. Obviously, the eloquence necessary in a county clerk may  be different than that needed in a Senator, but it must be sufficient for the position they are running for. Continue reading “Catholics and the Ethics of Voting”

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Urbanism and the Common Good

by Nathaniel Gotcher

Society exists for the common good, the shared happiness of humans. The modern city, however, is characterized not by happiness but violence and there is a sharp political divide between urban and rural citizens. The way we have organized our residential and commercial developments reinforces this reality: the city is in one place, the countryside in another, divided by “suburbs” developed with huge swaths of unproductive land. If the modern polis is fractured, is it any wonder our politics are just as fractured? If we are to make the common good central to our politics, we could do worse than look at how our cities are organized.

Cities have traditionally been organized to facilitate the everyday activities of the community. These activities include worship, exchange of goods, study, and recreation. Markets, where the exchange of goods took place, were often centrally located so that they were available to all. Temples (and later the church) were given prominent locations near the center of the city, making the worship of the gods (and later the one God) central to the lives of the citizens, both symbolically and practically. Those buildings and areas used most often were given greater attention and those buildings which symbolized the community, and its identity were given places of honor. These material features of traditional cities were promoted out of necessity. Without the common sharing of space and resources, the economy would fail and so too would the city. This practical and public good of urban design is linked to the common good of a community, beneficial activity and happiness shared by all.

Cities in our day are so tied into the global economy that it is unlikely that they will fail. Resources can be shared across oceans and continents in a matter of days; funds can be allotted instantly through the internet. While this can and does lead to a very many good things (not least among them is the ease with which we can aid those starving or experiencing violence around the world), it has also all but abolished the necessity for citizens to share with each other the practical goods which promote a truly common good. Families (and even individuals) can survive and even thrive separately from those who live near them, as long as they have the funds to support their way of life. With enough personal wealth or property, we do not need the others in our community, at least not materially, as humans have in the past.

If traditional urbanism promoted the common good in addressing the practical necessities of city life, how should cities approach urbanism where those necessities no longer pertain? Cities, generally speaking, are made up of buildings and roads. Urban design focuses on where buildings and other destinations should be built and how best to get to them. Before proposing principles of urbanism that support the common good, we must know which buildings and spaces encourage the common life. The citizens of the modern world need, as humans always have, security and sustenance. To support this need, a community must have certain building types and appropriate infrastructure. What this means will vary greatly between countries and even between neighboring cities, but the types remain the same.

The first and most fundamental type is housing. Houses provide immediate security to the citizens and give families a place in which to organize their personal lives so as to better participate in the common life of the city. Secondly, farm buildings and other buildings where food is grown, prepared and stored for the sustenance of the citizens. All further urban development is built on this foundation. The production of tools for the everyday needs of the city’s households and other manufactured goods requires workshops. Storage buildings are necessary to keep these goods safe, and markets provide a place where these goods can be distributed and exchanged. These building types make up the basic layer of urban development; however, these building types only address the ordinary material needs of the citizens. The common good ultimately concerns the whole person, spiritual as well as material. The material needs provided by these buildings are essential to maintain a city, but without buildings which address the spiritual goods of the community, the city remains incomplete.

The human spirit must first of all be formed. To this end, a city should have schools where children are educated “in the arts and sciences for the advantage and prosperity of civil society.” (Divini Illius Magistri 77). This education allows the citizens to determine just and prudent action in the face of political uncertainty. A city thus needs a place set aside for careful political deliberation. Furthermore, a city needs places for artistic and scientific endeavors so that the human spirit might be elevated by the contemplation of truth and beauty. Finally, the city requires houses of worship so that the final end of the human person, union with God, is given a place of honor in society.

The arrangement of these buildings is the second half of urban design. There are three aspects of urban arrangement: number, proximity, and hierarchy. There must be a sufficient number of each building type so that every citizen is able to participate in the life of the city. Some needs, such as the storage and distribution of goods, are related and so their respective buildings should be built near each other. Also, the buildings which provide the daily needs of the citizens ought to be close to their houses so that travel does not dominate their lives. Those buildings which concern the human spirit should be given special attention in the design of the city. Streets, bridges, lighting and other infrastructure aid in the effective arrangement of a city.

All urban design decisions should weigh these considerations carefully. The arrangement of the parts of the city is an essential aid in the pursuit of the common good. The buildings and infrastructure of a city provide the necessary support for the security and sustenance of the citizens. Furthermore, they designate places for the pursuits of the human spirit. Scientific progress has brought us many things: new and more efficient ways to grow food, faster transportation, and global trade among others. New urban forms are possible, and the organization of communities is more varied than ever. Despite this, human nature is the same, and cities should be designed to fulfill the common good, both material and spiritual.

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15 Ways to be a More Effective Pro-Life Advocate

by HHG

The state-sanctioned murder of millions of infants over the past half century is a moral outrage difficult to fathom; worse still, it is an outrage which continues. It must be stopped.  Because advocating for violence against the perpetrators or against the state perpetuating these crimes would only magnify the problem, we do not advocate such violence. Nonetheless, we encourage everyone who recognizes the gravity of the evil being perpetrated in our communities to take action against abortion and all the social evils which contribute to it.  The Catholic political movement in opposition to these enormities is stronger now than ever.  We offer the following suggestions as ways each of us individually can advance the pro-life apostolate—not merely by focusing on abortion, but by working to build up the kind of community in which abortion is once again unthinkable. Continue reading “15 Ways to be a More Effective Pro-Life Advocate”

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Brief Introductions to Texts in The Josias’s Library

The Josias’s Library links important texts that inform our attempt to articulate an authentically Catholic political stance from which to approach the present order of society. Most of the links have been to texts hosted on other websites, with the exception of our own Translations. We have generally prefaced our translations with short, introductory notes, explaining the context of those texts, and showing their relevance for our project. We now intend to provide similar Introductions to the other texts in the Library. The first of the new series of introductions introduces an excerpt from the Apology of Tertullian.

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Tertullian on the Duty of Praying for the Emperor

The following chapters from the Apology of the early Church Father Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 240) defends Christians against the charge that their refusing to offer pagan sacrifices for the well-being of the emperor is treasonous. They are a testimony to the continuity of Christian teaching on politics. Tertullian recognizes the legitimacy of the Roman emperor— the kingdom of God does not at once replace the rulers of the world. The political goods that such rulers can achieve are really good, and therefore the Christians pray for them: “We pray for life prolonged; for security to the empire; for protection to the imperial house; for brave armies, a faithful senate, a virtuous people, the world at rest, whatever, as man or Cæsar, an emperor would wish.” The authority of the emperor is in fact derived from God: “I might say Cæsar is more ours than yours, for our God has appointed him.” And yet, “my relation to him is one of freedom,” for there is a higher authority than the emperor. Continue reading “Tertullian on the Duty of Praying for the Emperor”

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Integralism in Three Sentences

Latin | Croatian | Filipino | French | German | Hungarian | Italian | Korean | Lithuanian  | Portuguese | Spanish | Polish

Catholic Integralism is a tradition of thought that, rejecting the liberal separation of politics from concern with the end of human life, holds that political rule must order man to his final goal. Since, however, man has both a temporal and an eternal end, integralism holds that there are two powers that rule him: a temporal power and a spiritual power. And since man’s temporal end is subordinated to his eternal end, the temporal power must be subordinated to the spiritual power.

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Conference on the Common Good at the University of Notre Dame

We would like to draw the attention of our readers to the following conference on the common good at the University of Notre Dame. The theme is clearly closely related to our concerns here at The Josias, and some of our authors will be presenting papers. 

CONFERENCE: THE COMMON GOOD AS A COMMON PROJECT

March 26-28, 2017

The Common Good as a Common Project is a graduate student conference sponsored by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, part of the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.

Continue reading “Conference on the Common Good at the University of Notre Dame”

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On Civil Authority, and on the Relations between Church and State

by Ireneo González Moral, S.J.

Translated by Timothy Wilson

Continuing our series of original translations of texts on Catholic political philosophy, we here offer an excerpt from a treatise on ethics by Fr. Ireneo González Moral, S.J. It is taken from vol. 3 of the manual Philosophiæ Scholasticæ Summa (BAC 1952), by the Jesuit Professors of the Philosophical Faculties in Spain, pp. 788-800. This particular selection deals very briefly with some matters concerning civil authority, and then proceeds to a lengthy and systematic examination of the question of what kinds of relations can and should exist between the civil power and the Church.

ARTICLE VI

ON CIVIL AUTHORITY IN PARTICULAR

1052. Nexus. We have treated of the origin and the original subject of civil authority. Now we wish to examine in more detail its extension or objective comprehension, the diverse ways in which political power is able to be acquired through derivation, the diverse forms which it is able to put on, and finally its different functions.

§1. On the comprehension of civil authority as regards its object.

1053. 1. General principles for resolving the question.[1] In this part, we wish to see how far civil power is able to extend itself in different questions which occur in civil society, that is, in material or economic, in moral, in religious questions; it is necessary, therefore, to have at the outset some general and fundamental principles for giving the right solution in all things.

1. The civil power has all those rights, and only those, which may be necessary for the fitting achievement of its end; this is clear from the end of society.

2. The civil power is able to command nothing which may be contrary to certain divine will. For since every authority descends from God, He is not able to concede to the same the power of subverting the order established by Himself.

3. The civil power, in the distributing of goods and burdens which are common, is held to observe distributive justice; for the common good demands this.

4. The civil power ought to govern according to a legitimate mode of governing in each and every society; for in this way, the rights of the subjects, both natural and positive, will be preserved.

1054. In the aforementioned four principles, the civil authority has an infallible norm in the exercise of its own activity; subjects also will find in them the guardianship of their own liberty and independence, so far as they are able to correspond with social life.

Treating of the end of civil society, we have seen that things of this sort include the protection of the rights of the subjects and the positive promotion of public prosperity; hence, the civil authority ought to defend directly all the rights of the subjects, both the private rights of individuals, families, and particular associations; and the public rights or relations between the citizens and civil society, and between civil society and other societies, in the first place the Church. Pertaining directly also to the civil authority is the positive promotion of all goods which are required for public prosperity, as has been said.

Whatever might also be necessary for the securing of the things aforesaid pertains to the civil authority, as e.g. the election and institution of public officials, the exaction of taxes, the erection of tribunals, etc.; but these pertain to it in an indirect manner.

1055. 2. On public decency. From the things just now said, there can arise a difficulty. Since decency of morals confers most of all to the public good, will care for decency of morals also pertain directly to the public authority?

a) Private decency, which consists in the especially interior acts of each person, by which he may accommodate himself to the norm of natural or supernatural morality, does not at all pertain to the civil authority, since it is not able to judge of purely interior matters; furthermore, this private decency is not referred per se to the common good, which is to be achieved by common cooperation.

b) Public decency, which consists in such a conformation of society that not only removes incitements to vice, so far as is possible, but also positively promotes virtue and encourages all toward it, certainly pertains to the necessary conditions of the common prosperity, and the activity of the civil authority extends itself to it.

1056. What the care of public decency demands. 1) That it impede all those things which are able to obstruct the practice of virtue, e.g. public prostitution, obscene houses, books contrary to good morals; 2) that legislation be of such a kind, that it not only does not impede the practice of virtue, but even positively promotes it; 3) that it should commend public offices to those men who are able to be an example to others.

1057. 3. On the care of religion in the purely natural order. It is asked, whether care of religion would pertain to the civil authority, in the hypothetical case in which there did not exist some supernatural society—the Church—to whom the care of religion was committed.

It seems that it ought to be answered affirmatively. For society itself, as such, is held to render worship to God (because of benefits received, because of the necessity of religious worship for civil society itself, and finally, because of its necessity for the subjects);[2] but since in the purely natural order, there would not be another society, at least a public one, to which the care of religion would be given, it follows that care of religion would pertain to the civil authority, which would fulfill a duty of this sort in the name of society.

But if some private society were formed for this, this society necessarily would depend upon public authority, just as any other societies of the merely private order. But this power would be contained within limits far more restricted than is the supernatural power of the Church now.

§2. On the relations between civil society and the Church

A. ON THE NEGATIVE RELATION

Thesis 58. Separation of any sort between the Church and civil society is to be rejected.

Ottaviani, A., Institutiones iuris publici ecclesiastici, 2nd ed. vol. 2, p. 75ff; R. Sotillo, Comp. Iuris publ. eccl. 2nd ed. (Santander 1951); Cappello, F., Summa iuris publici Eccles. 3rd ed. p. 266ff; Bendiscioli, La Política de la Santa Sede, span. vers. 1943, pp. 35-50; Chenon, El papel social de la Iglesia p. 146ff; G. Martínez, F., Credo Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam pp. 1-45; Maritain, J., Primacía de lo espiritual, span. vers. by Mariano Argüello (Buenos Aires 1947); Castañeda, E., El poder indirecto en el Dr. Navarro: Archivo Teológico Granadino 6 (1942) 63-93; Cathrein, Filos. morale vol. 2, pp. 604-624; Donat, Ethica vol. 2, p. 238ff.

1058. Nexus. We have the fact of the existence of this society which is called the Church, which declares itself to be a society perfect and supernatural, and which manifestly proves its constitution and aforementioned properties with such arguments as cannot be denied even in the merely philosophic order. This being posited, it is for us to inquire what sort of relations ought to be between these two perfect societies existing at the same time and in the same place, that is, between civil society and the Church.

1059. Notions. 1. The CHURCH: is a society that is supernatural, visible, perfect and independent, instituted by Christ our Lord, and governed by His Vicar, the Supreme Pontiff, for the direct care of religion and for the eternal salvation of souls.[3]

a) Society: or some multitude of men stably united unto a common end under some authority. b) Supernatural: on account of its origin and most of all on account of its means and end. c) Visible: for the following are visible: the material element of the Church (men), the formal element, and the means. d) Perfect: because it has all the elements and power which are required for acquiring its end, independent. e) Independent: for in no way does it depend upon any other society. f) Instituted by Christ our Lord, Who both established the Church, and gave to it His divine mission. g) Governed by His Vicar, or monarchically constituted. h) Religious, for the direct care of religion was committed to it. i) Supernatural: for it provides for the eternal salvation of souls.

1060. 2. SEPARATION: by this is understood that state of public affairs in which civil society regards the Church as something merely private and disjoined from public life.

1061. WHAT THIS IMPLIES: 1) Negatively: in a regime of separation, the Church is not had as a corporation of public right; its jurisdiction is not recognized, nor are its ordinances defended by the civil authority, nor are privileges of worship conceded to its ministers, such as exemption from military service, or from taxes, nor are subsidies given to them; the ministry of the Church in public organs, e.g. in schools and the armed forces, is not admitted. 2) Positively: Liberty, according to the right common to all, is granted to the Church so that it might establish itself after the manner of some private society, which in all things is subject to the laws of private societies, with the rights and obligations annexed to the same.

Therefore, so long as it is not opposed to civil laws, the Church will be free in internal things, in worship, in doctrine, in rule; any of its goods and rights are defended by the civil authority.

But the civil authority arrogates to itself the right to govern by its own authority all things, even religious, insofar as they touch civil life, as e.g. schools, matrimony, funerals, and ownership.

N.B. Separation properly speaking is not present if only liberty of worship is had, or if equality is granted to all religions; for, this notwithstanding, the Church is able to enjoy the rights and privileges of public corporations, most of all with respect to the ordering of schools and the regulation of marriages according to the doctrine of the Church.

In reality there is not found a perfect separation, since contact between either society is not able to be avoided; thus, at most it is able to be more or less perfect; sometimes it is established in order to avoid a regime of persecution and hostility (amicable separation); but sometimes—which more often happens—it is instituted in order to plague and oppress the Church, and restrict her liberty in preaching, in the administration of goods, in founding schools (hostile separation).

1062. State of the question. We suppose the fact of the institution of the Church, and that she is a society that is perfect, visible, spiritual, universal, and completely free.

Between it and civil society, existing mingled together, diverse relations can be found[4]:

a) Friendship or perfect concord, that is, if they are closely and perfectly united, and mutually respect and sincerely help one another.

b) Enmity and persecution (hostile separation), that is, if civil society harries and persecutes the Church, even as a private association.

c) Separation (amicable separation) of liberty and indifference, that is, if civil society neither positively assists the Church, nor persecutes her, but rather prescinds from her, considering her not as a perfect society, but as one merely private, just as any other society, e.g. literary, industrial, etc.

It is inquired in the thesis: is this regime of separation something to be admitted?

1063. Opinions. 1. The first opinion holds to the hegemony of civil society, and attributes supreme power to the civil authority, subjecting the Church entirely to civil society. After Marsilius Patavinus (14th cent.), who professed this system, many regalists of every age henceforth have defended it, as well as many modern positivist jurists.

2. The liberals in particular defend perfect separation, who prefer the Church to be free in the churches and in some activities of private life, but not in all; yet in the whole of her external activity they wish her to be subject to the civil authority, which is able to intervene directly in ecclesiastical affairs. Nor do they suffer the Church, as they say, to mix herself up in political matters; thus do they abusively call any external activity of the Church.[5]

Certain authors in our own times, led by Maritain, seem to defend something similar.

3. Our opinion. We defend as certain that a regime of separation of this sort is not at all per se to be wished for; yet we do not deny that sometimes it is able to be tolerated or even chosen per accidens as a lesser evil, in order to avoid open persecution of the Church even as a private society. But when there may be given sufficient cause for permitting a regime of this sort, is for the Church herself to determine.

1064. It is proved. 1°. From the divine wisdom. Christ, establishing the Church, was not able to will a regime disordered and liable to commotions. But such would be a regime of any kind of separation between the Church and civil society. Therefore the regime of separation between the Church and civil society is per se to be rejected.

Major: It is evident given the infinite wisdom and sanctity of the founder of the Church.

Minor: Often there are two jurisdictions to be exercised over the same subjects, in the same territory, about the same matter, at the same time, e.g. about feast days, about impediments of matrimony…Hence, if civil society should not recognize the Church as a perfect society, nor admit the juridical personality of the same, and her supreme power concerning those things which are proper to her, necessarily there will be conflicts; for one society is able to declare e.g. some day to be festive, but the other that it is not; one might say that some matrimony is valid, but the other might say it is invalid, etc.

1065. 2°. From the obligation which society has of rendering worship to God.

Civil society, in the order in which we find ourselves, is obliged to render to God Catholic worship. But this implies a necessary relation between the Church and civil society. Therefore any kind of regime of separation between the Church and civil society cannot be admitted.

Major: For to God is owed the worship which He Himself wishes; but He expressly has manifested Himself to desire that all render to Him Catholic worship.

Minor: The care of Catholic worship of this sort has been committed expressly to the Church by God; therefore civil society is not able to arrogate to itself the regulation of this kind of worship. It pertains therefore to the Church to command that magistrates and public officials be present at religious ceremonies, and to establish those things which are connected with social worship.

1066. The doctrine of the Church concerning this matter. It is best declared: by Leo XIII, Immortale Dei §§6-8, 10-15, 18, 21-22, 34-35; Libertas præstantissimum §§14-22, where the doctrines of liberalism are exposed and refuted, and most of all at §§38-41; by Pius XI, Dilectissima nobis §6-7.

1067. Objections. 1. The end of civil society is the public prosperity to be obtained in this life; but the end of the Church is eternal felicity, which is to be obtained in another life. But each society is best able to achieve its own end, so that it ought not to have any relation with the other. Therefore separation between civil society and the Church ought not to be rejected.

I respond. I distinguish the major: such that it ought to be subordinated to the final end, that is, to perfect felicity in another life, I concede; otherwise, I deny. I contradistinguish the minor.

2. That the Church might be able to achieve her end, it suffices that she have liberty within her own sphere. But in a regime of separation between the Church and civil society, this liberty is conceded to the Church. Therefore the separation of the Church from the State is not to be rejected.

I respond. I distinguish the major: the liberty due to her, I concede; only tolerance and a portion of liberty, but not all which is due to her, I deny. I contradistinguish the minor.

3. A regime different from the regime of separation supposes that social authority knows the true religion. But generally this does not happen. Therefore at least then, the regime of separation is better.

I respond. I distinguish the major: the civil authority is able, if it wishes, to know it, I concede; otherwise, I deny. I contradistinguish the minor. For the true religion, by means of evident signs, reveals itself to any who should be willing to know it.

4. In a society in which different religions are professed by the citizens—as often happens—to recognize one, but not the others, as a perfect society, would beget hostility against the worshipers of that religion. But then this regime would harm the worshipers of the true religion. Therefore at least then, the regime of separation is to be preferred.

I respond. I distinguish the major: and this harm would spring forth from the malice of those men, I concede; from the nature of the regime itself, I deny. Thus, in practice the Church will consider what is more agreeable for avoiding greater evils. For at present we set forth the doctrine from is to be supported from the nature of civil society and the Church.

5. It seems that the regime of separation of civil society from the Church is to be preferred; for in this way other civil societies which do not recognize the Church, whether from fault or inculpably, in the same manner will be moved to tolerate the Catholic religion as a society merely private; otherwise, if this tolerance for other religions is not had in Catholic nations, tolerance for the Catholic religion will not be able to be urged in other nations.

I respond. I deny the assertion. The tolerance of error, such that truth also would be destroyed, of itself is to be rejected. For the truth alone has the right to rule in the intellects of men. The trouble which would follow from other quarters would arise, not from the nature of religion and from the reverence toward the true religion, but extrinsically and from the malice of men.

6. The practice of separation, e.g. in the United States of America, demonstrates that it is the best regime.[6]

I respond. I distinguish the assertion: Per accidens in some regions, I concede; per se, and as the ideal regime, I deny.

B. ON THE POSITIVE RELATION BETWEEN THE CHURCH AND CIVIL SOCIETY

Thesis 59. In matters merely civil, the State is independent of the Church (I); in matters moral and religious, the Church is independent of the State (II); but in mixed matters, unless a mutual concord be obtained through convention, the supreme authority is with the Church (III).

1068. Nexus. We see that the Church and civil society are not able to be separated; now we wish to see what sorts of relations ought in fact to exist between them.

1069. Notions. MATTERS MERELY CIVIL. Here are understood those things which, because of their end or destination, tend toward merely temporal prosperity, e.g. exaction of taxes, the ordering of public servants, custody of order, public health, national defense, ways of communication, postal and telephone services, etc.

1070. MATTERS MERELY MORAL AND RELIGIOUS. These refer to all those things which singly look to morals or to the salvation of souls: e.g. faith, administration of the sacraments, preaching of the Gospel, etc.

1071. MIXED MATTERS. These are those things which at once have a twofold aspect, namely, temporal and religious.

a) Mixed per se are those things which by their nature have this twofold aspect, e.g. matrimony between Christians, and education.[7]

b) Mixed per accidens are those things which of their nature are merely temporal things, but per accidens take on a religious aspect, e.g. ordering of the military, which of its nature is a merely temporal action; yet to ordain it such that soldiers are not able to be present at religious rites on feast days, endues it with a religious aspect; possession of some building is a merely temporal affair, but if this building is intended for worship, or for the residence of sacred persons, it participates in a religious aspect.[8]

1072. MUTUAL CONVENTION. By mutual convention there is understood the mode of proceeding pacifically in these matters, by previously determining what, in any affair, should pertain in practice to each society, mediated by some mutual pact which is accustomed to be called a concordat or manner of living. But in this pact, each member cedes a little from its right, so that a perfect and mutual concord might be able to be had, limiting well what should pertain to either society in these mixed matters; e.g. in the military service of clergy, in youth associations, in education, in matrimony, etc.

We must note that concordats are neither the only nor the more perfect solution.[9]

1073. State of the question. There are matters and questions which, of their nature, are merely temporal, nor do they bespeak in any way a relation to spiritual things; we treat of these in the first part, so that we might see whether in them the Church may make intervention. On the other hand there are others which especially present a spiritual aspect. We treat of these latter in the second part, that we might see whether civil society is able to intervene in some way in these things. There are, finally, other matters which, of their nature, pertain to both societies; we treat of these in the third part, so that we might see whose is the ultimate and definitive decision in a case of conflict, and how these might be able to be forestalled.

1074. Opinions. 1. The first is of those who are opposed to the preceding thesis.

2. Some mediævals[10], perhaps many, asserted that all power, both spiritual and temporal, has been given by God to the Church, such that princes would not rule peoples except by power received from the Roman Pontiff, and thus they would be directly subject to the jurisdiction of the Church. They therefore conceive of the State as a counterpart of the diocese.[11]

3. Radical liberals and regalists. These make the Church entirely dependent upon the State. For them, the Church is as it were an instrument of the State; this is also the doctrine of modern statolatrists of every sort.[12]

4. All moderate liberals concede to the State supremacy over the Church in mixed matters.[13]

5. Our opinion: a) in the first part we assert the full independence of the State in merely temporal affairs; b) but in the second part, the full independence of the Church in merely moral and religious affairs, i.e. in those which look especially to the sanctification of souls; c) but in the third part we state the supremacy of the Church in mixed matters, that is, we defend that which by many is called the indirect power of the Church in temporal matters, by reason of the spiritual element conjoined with the temporal.

Hence in this third part we assert the indirect subordination of the State in all things which, although of their nature temporal, are either united with spiritual things or are referred to them; and thus they are subordinate by reason of the end or destination.[14]

The first part is proved: In merely civil affairs the State is entirely independent

1075. For this reason, that the Church does not think herself to have any power in these matters.

The State enjoys that independence which it had before the institution of the Church, unless it be proved that the limits to this independence were placed through the institution of the Church. But before the institution of the Church, the State had full independence in merely temporal affairs, nor can it be proved that limits were placed upon it through the institution of the Church. Therefore the State is independent from the Church in merely temporal matters.

Major: For the State is in possession of power.

Minor: a) In respect of the first part, from the nature of the State and from history.

b) In respect of the second part: 1) It is not proved indirectly, for this indirect limitation would not have a reason except on account of the end of the Church. But even now the end of the Church—the sanctification of souls—does not postulate these limits, since for this, it is not at all required that the Church be able to ordain merely civil affairs, e.g. to determine taxes to be required by the State, composing agrarian laws, etc.; no indeed, this would rather be harmful to the end of the Church, because it would excite innumerable offenses.

2) Nor is it proved directly from the positive will of Jesus Christ granting such power to the Church, for nowhere is such a will revealed.

3) The Church expressly acknowledges that power in merely civil affairs does not at all belong to her.[15]

The second part is proved: In moral and religious matters, the Church is independent from the State.

1076. 1. From the positive will of Christ.

The Church, as a society, must be believed to have that independence which Christ willed to confer upon it. But Christ conferred to the Church fully independent power in matters merely spiritual and religious. Therefore the Church has full independence in matters moral and spiritual.

Major: Since Christ, the founder of the Church, is God, He is able to confer to the Church the power which He freely wishes.

Minor: a) Jesus Christ communicated all regal power which He had to the Church represented in the Apostles: (John 18:37: I am a king; Matt 28:18: all power has been given to me in heaven and on earth; Matt 28:20: going therefore teach ye all nations). But now Christ is not a king without a kingdom, nor does he have a kingdom without supreme rights; but since His perduring kingdom is the Church, He granted to her the power which He Himself had, that is, supreme power, independent relative to the supernatural end committed to her.[16]

b) It had been understood thus from the beginning by the Apostles, who always conducted themselves as equipped with a supreme and independent power with regard to moral and spiritual matters, by preaching the Gospel even against supreme legislators and human kings, and administering the sacraments: which would not have been licit for them, if the Church were not independent of the State in spiritual affairs.[17]

1077. 2. From the necessity of the Church’s end.

Christ bestowed upon the Church an end, to be attained necessarily; all things therefore which might be necessary for this, He granted to her. But that the Church might be able to achieve her end, it is required that she have full independence from the State in matters moral and spiritual. Therefore the Church is independent from the State in matters moral and spiritual.

Major: Mark 16:16: He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned.

Minor: The diversity of nations and the mutability of kingdoms being considered, since the Church is a spiritual kingdom, full independence is for her altogether necessary; otherwise, perpetual variations in her laws and in policy from States would be required, to the very great detriment of souls.

1078. 3. From the preeminence of the Church.

Christ could not have willed a higher power to depend upon another and inferior power. But the power of the Church is higher than the power of the State, as is clear from their origin and end. Therefore the Church does not depend upon the State in matters spiritual and moral.[18]

1079. Corollary. 1. Some applications of the independence of the Church. The Church is therefore independent in teaching; in administering the sacraments; in the ordering of divine worship; in drawing up laws and in communicating them with the faithful; in the election both of bishops and of parish priests; in the institution of clergy; in decreeing penalties, the effect of which ought to be recognized by the State; in founding and fostering religious orders, for the members of which there is the right that they might follow the evangelical counsels under the direction of the Church.

Similarly, she has the right of freely acquiring and administering material things, without which no human society is able to exist.

The State cannot in any way impede the communication of bishops or parish priests with their faithful, and a fortiori there is not required any placet regium or exequatur[19] of the civil government in order that ecclesiastical acts might have force; nor do many other similar things which modern States allot to themselves truly belong to them.

All civil laws also which are concerned with spiritual matters, if they are drawn up without the consent of the Church, and infringe upon her rights, are utterly invalid, since they lack the due competence.[20]

1080. 2. On the indirect power of the Church. It also is concluded, from the first and second part, that the Church has no direct power over the State, or vice versa, at least if the relation between the jurisdictions qua jurisdictions be considered.

A direct power of some society toward another is had when one society is subordinated to another by reason of its own end, that is, if the same end is also intended directly by another society, e.g. a province or district depends directly upon the State. An indirect power is had when one is subordinated to another by reason of an end intended by a superior power, or if both societies are referred to the same thing but under a different aspect; for order then demands that the superior right should prevail: thus the power of the head of the family is subordinated to the State. When there is had an indirect power of one society over another, then there is had an indirect independence of the inferior society from the superior society.

The third part is proved: In mixed matters, the supreme authority lies with the Church.

1081. As a corollary of the preceding thesis.

Between the powers of the Church and the State, there ought to be some relation. But no other proper relation is able to exist between them, except that the Church should have supreme authority in mixed matters. Therefore in mixed matters the supreme authority lies with the Church.

Major: From the preceding thesis.

Minor: Relations other than the aforementioned would not be proper:

1) In the first and second part of this thesis we excluded a direct power of the Church over matters merely temporal, and likewise of the State in matters moral and spiritual.

2) The supreme decision concerning a matter in which there is present something spiritual and something temporal is not able to lie indirectly with the State; for this would be a disorder, since it would subordinate a superior thing to an inferior. Therefore there remains no other option but that the supreme decision is with the spiritual power, because the temporal matter depends indirectly upon the spiritual, as is said in the second corollary of the preceding part.

1082. The doctrine of the Church concerning the relations between her and the State in mixed matters is admirably set forth by Leo XIII, Immortale Dei §§13-15.

1083. Scholion. On Concordats. Concerning concordats, we should note that a regime founded upon a concordat is not the ideal regime; for in these, the Church always cedes something without any compensation; for those things which seem to be compensations are already due to her from other quarters. Yet the Church accepts and promotes concordats, seeing that she very much desires concord and peaceful relations with civil society.[21]

1084. Objections. 1. The care of public prosperity was committed to the State by natural right. But care of public prosperity requires also care of religion. Therefore the care of religion pertains also to the State.

I respond. I distinguish the major: dependently or independently, I concede; in respect of religion, I subdistinguish: in the purely natural order, I concede; in the supernatural order, I deny. I concede the minor. I equally distinguish the consequence.

2. If this thesis is admitted, the rights of the State are diminished through the institution of the Church, and its condition is made worse, which is not able to be admitted. Therefore the State in no way depends upon the Church.

I respond. I distinguish the antecedent: in respect of things other than religion, I deny; in respect of religion, I subdistinguish: in respect of private religion, which was never subjected to the State, I deny; in respect of public religion, I subdistinguish: in respect of the power of ordering and defining it, I concede; in respect of the power of protecting and promoting it, I deny; this rather is amplified, because now it extends itself even to the protection of the rights of the Church.

The condition of the State simply speaking is not made worse, for the condition of the Christian State simply speaking is better; only per accidens is it made worse, that is, insofar as its power is diminished in the sense explained.

3. If the Church were independent from the State, then we would have a State within a State. But this state of affairs cannot be admitted. Therefore the Church is not independent from the State.

I respond. I distinguish the major: the Church is in the State, as a society of the same end and power, I deny; as a society of a higher order, I concede. Rather, the State is within the Church, for the latter is more universal. I contradistinguish the minor (cf. García, Credo Sanctam Catholicam, nos. 29-30).

4. The State has the right of impeding, lest it suffer some detriment from the Church. But if the decision in mixed matters were to pertain to the Church, the State would be able to suffer detriment at the hands of the Church. Therefore the supreme power in these matters is not with the Church.

I respond. I distinguish the major: with proportionate means, as e.g. monitions, information, postulations, etc., I concede; with disproportionate means, as by exercising jurisdiction in moral and spiritual matters without a concession of the Church, I deny. I contradistinguish the minor (cf. García, p. 37).

5. The Church is a spiritual society. But power over temporal things does not belong to a spiritual society. Therefore in mixed matters the supreme power lies with the State.

I respond. I distinguish the major: by reason of the end, I concede; by reason of persons and all means, I deny. I contradistinguish the minor: if it were spiritual in every aspect, I concede; otherwise, I subdistinguish: a direct power over temporal things, I concede; indirect, I deny.

6. The Church does not have coercive power. But in order that some society be perfect and independent, it is required that it have coercive power. Therefore the Church is not a perfect society, independent from the State.

I respond. I distinguish the major: through spiritual means, I deny; through physical means, I subdistinguish: she does not have the right to exert physical coercion either per se or through recourse to the civil power, in order to demand help of it, I deny; often she does not have the actual power of compelling through physical force directly, if the civil authority should deny cooperation to her, I concede. But this is not required for the essence of the right. I contradistinguish the minor.

7. For a perfect and independent society, it is required that it have territory. But the Church does not have territory. Therefore it is not a perfect and independent society.

I respond. I distinguish the major: in which it might be able to exercise true jurisdiction, I concede; in which it might also have civil power, that is, over temporal matters, I subdistinguish: generally it is required for civil society, I concede; for any society whatever, I deny. But the Church also has this territory, even though it be very small. I contradistinguish the minor.

8. If these things were true, then the indirect power would need to be granted to the Church in nearly all temporal matters, since all things are able to be conjoined with spiritual things. But this is an entirely inadmissible doctrine. Therefore the indirect power in mixed matters does not belong to the Church.

I respond. a) If the arguments are true, the doctrine ought not to be rejected because of the fact that it must needs be extended to more things than many believe. b) There are many things which produce no conflict with the spiritual end of the Church; and to these the indirect power of the Church does not extend itself.

9. This doctrine is agreeable neither to our times nor to the dignity of the State, and it is impossible that it be brought back into practice. Therefore it ought to be rejected.

I respond. I distinguish the antecedent: it is not agreeable in our times to the erroneous ideas which many have about the power of the State, and about its dignity, I concede; it is not agreeable to objective truth and a proper estimation of the dignity of the State, I deny. It is not able to be brought into practice in its whole purity, on account of the exaggerated statism existing nearly everywhere, I pass over; it is not able to be brought into practice at least in a determinate way through concordats between the Church and the State, in which the Church most benevolently is accustomed to cede something from her right, for the good of peace and harmony, I deny.

10. The Church has claimed for herself a direct power even over merely temporal matters. For Boniface VIII, in the Bull Ausculta fili, says: for God has set Us over kings and kingdoms; and in the Bull Unam sanctam, he says: Furthermore, We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.

I respond: in these testimonies, as is clear from context as well as history, Boniface VIII only asserted the indirect power of the Church over temporal matters, or by reason of the spiritual element with which they are joined, as is shown by the classic phrase ratione peccati, “by reason of sin” (cf. Chenon, op. cit., p. 153ff; Pilati, op. cit. pp. 329-354).

[1] Cf. Cathrein, Filos. morale vol. 2, pp. 593-604; Phil. Moralis n. 623ff.

[2] Cf. Leo XIII, Immortale Dei §6.

[3] We take this definition from ecclesiastical documents; cf. e.g. Leo XIII, Immortale Dei §§8-12. The theologians and canonists prove this brilliantly; cf. e.g. Salaverri, J., De Ecclesia Christi: Sacræ Theologiæ Summa (BAC Madrid 1950) vol. 1, tract. 3, p. 785ff.

[4] Cf. Cappello, Summa Iuris publici Eccles., p.270ff; Chenon, El papel social de la Iglesia, p. 171 n. 50; Bendiscioli, La política de la Santa Sede, p. 45ff.

[5] Cf. Leo XIII, Libertas præstantissimum §14-16, 29-31, 38-41.

[6] Cf. Chenon, El papel social de la Iglesia, p. 172.

[7] Cf. Pius XI, Divini illius magistri §§26-27; Mérida, Carta pastoral sobre la restauración Cristiana de le enseñanza (Astorga 1947) pp. 40-41.

[8] Cf. Rodríguez Sotillo, Comp. publi. eccles., p. 210

[9] Cf. the best source concerning this matter, Fidel García, Credo Sanctam Catholicam, n. 38; Benoist, Las leyes de la política, p. 205ff.

[10] Cf. Castañeda, El poder indirecto…: Archivo Teológico Granadino 5 (1942) 69ff.

[11] Cf. Chenon, El papel social de la Iglesia, p. 148.

[12] Cf. Syllabus errorum, props. 19, 20, 24.

[13] Cf. Syllabus errorum, props. 41-42, 54.

[14] Cf. Código social de Malinas no. 53-56; García, Credo Sanctam Catholicam, no. 33-35, 38; Pilati, G., Bonifacio VIII e il potere indiretto: Antonianum 8 (1933) 329-354; Castañeda, El poder indirecto, p. 67-68 (here he sets forth well what are the elements of the indirect power); Yaben, El poder indirecto de la Iglesia y sus aplicaciones actuals: Revista Eclesiástica 5 (1933) 131-153; 6 (1934) 257-273.

[15] Cf. Leo XIII, Immortale Dei §14; Diuturnum illud §26.

[16] Cf. Leo XIII, Immortale Dei §§10-12.

[17] Cf. García, Credo Sanctam Catholicam, pp. 20-21; Salaverri, De Ecclesia Christi nos. 937-971.

[18] Cf. Leo XIII, Immortale Dei §§10, 14.

[19] The regium placet, as the article concerning it in the Catholic Encyclopedia relates, is “a faculty which civil rulers impart to a Bull, papal brief, or other ecclesiastical enactment in order to give it binding force in their respective territories.” Cardinal Tarquini, in his celebrated Dissertatio de regio placet, writes with the mind of the Church when he characterizes it as an egregious usurpation of the Church’s rights and jurisdiction and an overturning of the order of things, setting the student as judge over the teacher and the son over the mother: “ne quid fari libere valeat, iudicem imponit filium matri, discipulum magistræ, interdicens perduellionis scelere populos ne huic magistræ ac matri morem gerant, nisi discipulus filiusque permiserit.” — Tr.

[20] Cf. García, Credo Sanctam Catholicam, p. 23 scholion, and p. 38 scholion.

[21] Cf. García, Credo Sanctam Catholicam, n. 38 with the note.