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The Dignity of Politics and the End of the Polity

by Henri Grenier

We have published several extracts from Henri Grenier’s Manual of Thomistic moral philosophy on The Josias. We find Grenier’s manual notable for its rich understanding of the common good. Grenier’s understanding of the common good allowed him, as an early reviewer noted, to return to Aristotle’s division of practical science into ethics (or monastics), domestics (or economics), and politics, with politics given pride of place. Many other modern Thomists, affected by liberal-reductionist accounts of the common good, saw the final end of man as being a matter of individual ethics, and reduced politics to a subdivision of the special ethics. But Grenier recovered Aristotle’s insight that the end of man and of the polity are the same (Ethics I,2), that is, that the end of man is a common good. It follows from this that in the natural order politics is the preeminent moral science. The following sections are taken from the General Introduction, where Grenier defends Aristotle’s division of practical philosophy, and the preeminent role it gives to politics; and from the section on the causes of civil society, where he argues that the end of civil society is happiness. — The Editors

821. Division of Moral Philosophy

1° Moral Philosophy, as a practical science, is specified by its end, which is the principle of human acts and the formal object quo of moral science, i.e., of the science of human operations.

2° Man is a social animal, and, in the natural order, is a part, i.e., a member, of two societies: domestic society and civil or political society.

3° Society is a whole of which man is a part. Continue reading “The Dignity of Politics and the End of the Polity”

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The End of the Family and the End of Civil Society

by Charles De Koninck

In 1943 the Belgian born dean of the department of philosophy at the University of Laval in Quebec, Charles De Koninck (1906-1965), published his controversial book On the Primacy of the Common Good: Against the Personalists, in which he argued that the private good of persons is subordinate to their common good. De Koninck is at pains to show that his position is not totalitarian, nevertheless, many of his critics remained unconvinced. One of the objections that he anticipates, but which was nevertheless repeated by his critics, was that the free man is causa sui (for his own sake), and that therefore it would be repugnant to his dignity to be ordered to the good of the community. De Koninck responds as follows: Continue reading “The End of the Family and the End of Civil Society”

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Maxima Quidem

Introductory Note

Blessed Pope Pius IX is imagined by many as a bitter reactionary and megalomaniac, the Pope who locked himself up in the Vatican and shut out the modern world, who arranged his own apotheosis and announced “La Tradizione son Io!”  

We reject this slanderous caricature of the great Pope, whom we cannot help but venerate.  He was a zealous and holy man, plagued by political difficulties beyond his control, struggling to preserve the integrity of the faith amidst the death throes of Christendom.  Here at The Josias, we remember him fondly as the Pope of the Syllabus, the architect of the First Vatican Council, and the great defender of the rights of the Church vis a vis the modern nation state.   Continue reading “Maxima Quidem”

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The Illegitimate State as Chastisement

by Gregory de Rivière-Blanche

 The following essay rounds out our series on the question of political legitimacy, taking up the question from a somewhat different angle, with the guidance of St. Paul and St. Thomas Aquinas. —The Editors

The Josias’s ongoing symposium regarding legitimacy has raised several interesting questions about the legitimacy of modern states. One point that has come up repeatedly in the various contributions is whether a Catholic ought to obey an illegitimate government.[1] In discussing this question, Daniel Lendman has assumed that the illegitimate state is necessarily at variance with the divine will.[2] For our part, we shall show that, to the contrary, the illegitimate state may be an expression of the divine will as a chastisement sent by God to a sinful people. We suggest, therefore, that the Catholic should consider this point when examining his relationship to an illegitimate government. Continue reading “The Illegitimate State as Chastisement”

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On the Relation of the Individual Person and the Family to Civil Society

by Henri Grenier

In the second half of the 20th century a shift took place in much Catholic social and political thought. Catholic social teaching in the ‘Pian Age’ had called for an integrally Christian society, a restoration of a pre-modern ideal of political community, which saw in political community the ‘likeness and symbol as it were of the Divine Majesty’ (Sapientiae Christianae, 9), a likeness which was itself to be subject to the social kingship of Christ. But then the focus shifted toward the duty of the political power to respect the inalienable dignity of individual persons. As Russell Hittinger has pointed out, the idea of seeing the likeness of God in political authority was practically abandoned, and instead much emphasis was put on the likeness of God in the individual person. In our view this shift was highly imprudent, and its effects have been mostly pernicious. It has led to an exaggerated value being put on individual freedom of conscience, and in many cases to a policy of appeasement toward liberal ideology. The promoters of this new approach to social questions thought that it would aid in the re-evangelization of culture, but most of the evidence suggests that they were wrong. As Christian Roy has argued, a ‘Weberian paradox of the heterogeneity of the spiritual intentions and social effects of religious reform movements’ took place, in which ‘progressive Christian personalism’ ‘unwittingly helped usher in’ a ‘drift towards hedonistic secular individualism.’

This ‘personalist’ shift, as we can call it, is often attributed to Vatican II (or even Centesimus Annus), but it began earlier as a response to the horrors of World War II. Jacques Maritain was a key figure in the early phase of the shift. Having been in favor of authoritarian restorationism early on he came to support a form of modified democratic liberalism. He wanted to find a third way between totalitarianism and individualistic liberalism. He thought he could find it by distinguishing between man as an individual, who is a part of the polity and ordered to it, and man as a person, who transcends political community through his direct relation to God.

Some Thomists saw danger in Maritain’s position. They argued that far from finding a third way between totalitarianism and individualism such a position really adopted their common error of seeing the common good as being opposed to the proper good of individuals. Personalism was thus really reducible to individualism. Moreover, taken to its logical conclusions, the position would yield an absurd and blasphemous notion of human dignity. The most famous of these Thomist critiques was Charles De Koninck’s masterful treatise On the Primacy of the Common Good Against the Personalists. De Koninck did not explicitly refer to Maritain, but his work was generally taken to be directed against Maritain and Maritain’s followers.

The text that we offer below is from another philosopher working in Quebec, Henri Grenier (Thomistic Philosophy, Vol 3: Moral Philosophy, pp. 363-373), and it offers a critique of personalism remarkably similar to De Koninck’s. It is likely that Grenier influenced De Koninck, since the substance of Grenier’s remark appeared already in a 1938 edition of his manual, that is, one published several years before De Koninck’s book. Like De Koninck, Grenier never gives the names of the ‘personalists,’ but it is even clearer in Grenier’s case than in De Koninck’s that Maritain is the target. Grenier’s summary of the personalist distinction between person and individual in 1091:3° is almost a quotation from Maritain. — The Editors

  1. Statement of the question.

1° The problem of the relations which unite individual persons and families to civil society is of utmost importance, for today there are many theories which do not recognize the natural rights of the individual person and of the family, and which regard the State as omnipotent and as possessing all rights over persons and families.

2° The problem has three aspects, which may be stated as follows:

First, admitting that civil society has a proper end which is a good, we may ask: have the individual person and the family, both of which live in society, proper ends distinct from the end of civil society?

Secondly, if they have proper ends, are these ends directed to the end of civil society, or vice versa?

Thirdly, if the ends of the individual person and of the famliy are directed to the end of civil society, is it their absolutely ultimate end?

3° In the thesis, first, we state that the individual person and the family have, according to the ordinance of nature, their own proper ends, distinct from the end of civil society. Moreover, since the order, i.e., the ordinance, of nature is the ordinance of God Himself, the author of nature, civil society may not disavow them, nor place any obstacle in the way of their attainment.

Secondly, we state the proper ends of the individual person and of the family are directed to the end of civil society, not vice versa. Moreover, since this order or relation of ends obtains in society, it is directly concerned with external acts by which men work for the common good, although indirectly it can be concerned with internal acts, in as much as the latter can regulate external acts.

Thirdly, we assert that the end of civil society is not the absolutely ultimate end to which the ends of the individual person and of the family are directed.

  1. Opinions.— There are various opinions on the relations of the individual person and the family to civil society.

1° All who conceive civil society as an organism, in the strict sense of the term, i.e., as an entity possessing absolute unity, not merely unity of order, do not admit that the individual person and the family have proper ends which are distinct from the end of civil society. For a part of a whole which is an absolute unit, v.g., a hand, which is a part of man, has no operation which is not the operation of the whole, and therefore has no end which is not the end of the whole.

Such was the teaching of Plato, who conceived society as a superior man.

The same conclusion is reached by the Caesarists, with Machiavelli, who proclaim the omnipotence of the State; by the Democrats, with Rousseau, who conceive the general will as the source of all rights, even of private rights; by the Pantheists, with Fichte, Schelling and Hegel; and by the Socialists, with Bebel, Wagner, and others.

2° All Pantheists and Naturalists hold that the end of civil society is man’s absolutely ultimate end.

According to the exponents of these opinions, individual men are dependent on the State for everything, because all their rights are derived solely from the concessions of the State.

A summary of these errors is found in the thirty-ninth sentence of the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX: Reipublicae status, utpote omnium jurium origo et fons, jure quodam pollet nullis circumscripto limitibus.

3° Today, some Catholics teach that it is not as a person, i.e., as formally an individual substance of a rational nature, but as an individual, i.e., as multiplied in the same species, that man is subordinate to the end of civil society; for man, they say, is subordinate to the end of civil society, because he is related to civil society as the part to the whole ; but man is not a part of a whole, v.g., of the human species, because of his personality, but because of his individuation by which he is multiplied in the same species.

But this opinion appears untenable, because society is essentially a union of persons, i.e., of intelligible beings. If this were not so, a union of individual horses, or cows, or bears, etc., would be a society.

 

  1. Statement of the thesis.
    THESIS.    — THE INDIVIDUAL PERSON AND THE FAMILY IN CIVIL SOCIETY HAVE, ACCORDING TO THE ORDINANCE OF NATURE, THEIR OWN PROPER ENDS; AND THESE ENDS ARE DIRECTED TO THE END OF CIVIL SOCIETY, BUT NOT UNDER THE ASPECT OF THE ABSOLUTELY ULTIMATE END.

First part.— The individual person and the family have according to the ordinance of nature, their own proper ends.— The parts of a whole which have operations distinct from the operations of the whole have, according to the ordinance of nature, ends which are not the ends of the whole, i.e., have their own proper ends. But the individual person and the family are in civil society as the parts of a whole, and have operations which are not the operations of the whole. Therefore the individual and the family in civil society have, according to the ordinance of nature, their own proper ends.

Major.— Operation is an end in itself, or tends to a proper end. Therefore, when operations are distinct, ends also are distinct.

Minor.— The parts of a whole which has only unity of order have operations which are not the operations of the whole; v.g., a soldier in an army has operations which are not the operations of the whole army.[1] But civil society, of which the individual person and the family are parts, is a whole which has only unity of order: society is a stable union of a plurality of persons in pursuit of a common good. Therefore.

Second part.— The proper ends of the individual person and of the family are directed to the end of civil society.— The individual person and the family are to civil society as the parts to the whole: the individual person and the family are the natural parts from which the whole which is civil society results. But the ends of the parts are directed to the end of the whole. Therefore the proper ends of the individual and of the family are directed to the end of civil society.

The major is evident, for civil society is composed of individual persons and of families.

The minor also is evident: the good of the part, as a part, is necessarily directed the good of the whole.[2]

Third part.— The proper ends of the individual person and of the family are not directed to the end of civil society under the aspect of the absolutely ultimate end.— The end of civil society is the temporal happiness of this life. But the temporal happiness of this life is not man’s absolutely ultimate end. Therefore the end of civil society is not the absolutely ultimate end of the individual person and of the family, i.e., the proper ends of the individual person and of the family are not directed to the end of civil society under the aspect of the absolutely ultimate end.

The major is evident from what has been already said.

Minor.— Man’s absolutely ultimate end is the beatific vision, for which man is supernaturally elevated in accordance with the positive ordinance of God.[3]

 

  1. Scholia.

1° The civil authority, or the State, as it is called, has no right to refuse recognition to the proper ends determined by nature for the individual person and for the family, nor has it any right to limit them. On the contrary, the civil authority is in duty bound to aid the individual person and the family in the attainment of their proper ends, for these ends, as directed to the common good of society, lead to that temporal happiness which is the end of civil society.

2° The virtue by which the good of the individual person and of the family is directed to the end of civil society is legal justice.

In virtue of legal justice, citizens are mutually dependent on one another in regard to their end. Moderns call this mutual dependence solidarism, which, according to them, is divided into human political, family, and class solidarism.

In dealing with this division, two things must be kept in mind: first, up to the present, humanity is not constituted as a society; secondly, solidarism is not applied univocally to the different kinds of society.

Solidarism, in the strict sense, is found only in civil society, for civil society is the only society whose end is a good which, in the order of nature, is a perfect human good; and therefore only in it is realized, in the strict sense, legal justice by which man is wholly directed to the common good.

In other particular societies, there obtains between the members and the whole a relation only similar to the relation of legal justice, because the good which they pursue is not a perfect good, but rather an imperfect good. Therefore it is only by analogy that solidarism is found in them.

3° Although individual man is destined for civil society, society is for man, and not vice versa,[4] because its proper and immediate end is the temporal happiness of this life, which is the good of man. The temporal happiness of this life is directly the common good of the whole multitude, although, as a consequence, it becomes the good of individual men who appropriate it to themselves.

4° Society, under its formal aspect as a union, may be called the means by which man attains the temporal happiness of this life.[5] Society, however, considered as the union of all the members of the multitude for the pursuit of the common good, is not the means, but the cause by which individual man can attain the temporal happiness of this life: for the united members of the whole multitude are the cause of that happiness which individual men later appropriate to themselves.

5° According to Pius XI,[6] the following are the principal goods or rights with which God, the author of nature, has endowed individual man living in society: the right to life, to bodily integrity, and to whatever is necessary for life; the right to pursue his ultimate end in the manner determined for him by God; the rights of association and of the private ownership and use of property.

The proper ends of the family are the procreation and education of offspring, the mutual aid of the spouses, and the allaying of concupiscence. Hence the family, in accordance with the ordinance of nature, has the right to all things necessary for the attainment of these ends, as are the indissolubility and unity of marriage, its own authority and power of determining the means to attain its ends, without violation, however, of its subordination to civil society.

 

  1. Personalism.

1° Personalism is the teaching of those who, in order to safeguard the dignity of the human person, hold that the end of man, as a person, is superior to the end of civil society. Hence personalism denies that the proper ends of individual man are, as we have shown, directed to the end of civil society.

2° All Catholic philosophers hold that the supernatural end of the human person is not subordinate to the end of civil society. The problem with which we are concerned at present is the relation between the ends of the individual person and the end of civil society, in the natural order only.

3° Personalism holds that man may be considered either as an individual or as a person.

Man, considered as an individual, is, according to personalism, a part of civil society, and is related to it as the part to the whole.

But man, considered as a person, is superior to civil society, and is not related to it as the part to the whole. Therefore the ends of the individual man, in as much as the individual man is a person, i.e., has the dignity of a person, are not subordinate to the end of civil society.

Hence personalism may be defined: the doctrine of those who hold that the ends of the individual man, in as much as the individual man has the dignity of a person, are not subordinate, in the natural order, to the end of civil society, but vice versa.

4° In refutation of personalism, we may make the following observations.

a) The distinction which the personalists make between the individual and the person is of no value in the present question.

For the individual, considered as distinct from nature, can mean only one of two things: either a singular nature without subsistence; or a subsisting supposit in general,[7] not a supposit subsisting in a rational nature.

If the individual signifies a singular nature without subsistence, it is wrong to say that man, as an individual, is a part of civil society. For society is a stable union of men in the order of operation, and, moreover, operations are proper to the supposit, i.e., to the subsisting being, not to nature without subsistence.

If the individual means a supposit in general, it is again wrong to say that man, as an individual, is a part of civil society, for otherwise, as we have already pointed out, a union of irrational animals would be a society. The individual man is formally a part of civil society in as much as he is endowed with an intellect, i.e., as he is a person.

b) The end of civil society is the greatest of all human goods. Hence the subordination of the individual person to civil society, as the part to the whole, is not at variance with the dignity of the human person, but is a subordination of the human person to the human person’s greatest natural good, i.e., to the temporal happiness of this life.

c) Personalism is a form of individualism, because it makes the common good subordinate to the good of the individual person.

  1. Difficulties offered by personalism.

1° Man is related to civil society as the part to the whole. But man is not a part of a whole as a person, but as an individual: for the principle by which man is multiplied in the same species is not personality, but the principle of individuation. Therefore man is not a part of civil society as a person, but as an individual, i.e., it in as an individual that man is subordinate to society. (So teach the Personalists.)

Major.— As the part to the whole in the order of being, I deny; in the order of operation, I concede.

Minor.— It is not as a person, but as an individual, that man is a part of a whole in the order of being, I concede; in that order of operation which constitutes society, I deny.

Society, as we have seen, is not a union of a plurality in the order of being, but in the order of operation, for society is a union of men for the pursuit of a common good; and, since operation is proper to the supposit, it is formally as a person that man is a part of society, and therefore it is as a person, not as an individual, than man is subordinate to the end of society.

The principle of individuation, i.e., first matter signed by quantity, is the principle by which man is multiplied in a whole, that is to say, in the same species, in the order of being.

2° If the person is immediately destined for God, man as a person is not destined for society. But man is immediately destined for God.[8] Therefore man as a person is not destined for society. (So claim the Personalists).

Major.— If the person is immediately destined for God, in as much as he, as living in society, does not attain God, I concede; in as much as the person is not destined for another creature, as the irrational animal is destined for man, I deny.

Minor.— In as much as he, as living in society, does not attain God, I deny; in as much as he is not destined for another creature, as the irrational animal is destined for man, I concede.

3° If as a person man were destined for ciyil society, all that he is and all that he possesses would be destined for civil society. But all that man is and all that he possesses are not destined for civil society.[9] Therefore man, as a person, is not destined for civil society.

Major.— All that man is and all he possesses would be destined for society if the end of civil society were the absolutely ultimate end of human acts, I concede; if the end of civil society is ultimate only in its own order, in as much as it is the greatest of all human goods, I deny.

Minor.— Because the end of civil society is not the absolutely ultimate end of human acts, I concede; because man, as an individual person, is not destined for civil society, as the part to the whole, I deny.

The absolutely ultimate end of human acts is a divine good, i.e., the beatific vision; and the end of civil society, which is temporal happiness, is the ultimate end of human acts only in the order of human goods. Hence the end of civil society itself must be destined for a divine good. Hence all that man is and all that he possesses are not destined for civil society, but for a higher good.

4° That which has substantial unity is superior to that which has only accidental unity. But the individual person has substantial unity, whereas civil society has only accidental unity, i.e., unity of order. Therefore the individual person is superior to civil society, and is not related to it as the part to the whole.

Major.— As a being, I concede; as a good, I deny.

Minor.— The private good of the individual person is superior to the common good, I deny; is inferior, I concede.

Goodness and being, though identical in reality, are logically distinct, i.e., distinct by a distinction of reason; and, moreover, absolute being in not absolute goodness, whereas absolute, goodness is relative being (n. 533). Therefore the common good of persons united in society is greater than the private good of the individual person.

NOTES

[1] In Ethic. l. I, l. 1, n. 5

[2] I-II, q. 109, a. 3, c.

[3] Cf. In Politic., l. VII, 1. 2.

[4] Divini Redemptoris, n. 29.

[5] Ibidem.

[6] Ibid, n. 28.

[7] Et dico superfluum non solum respectu sui ipsius, quod est supra id quod est necessarium individuo, sed etiam respectu aliorum quorum cura ei incumbit; respectu quorum dicitur necessarium personae, secundum quod persona dignitatem importat.— II-II, q. 32, a. 5, c.

[8] Sola autem natura rationalis creata habet immediatum ordinem ad Deum; quia caetera creaturae non attingunt ad aliquid universale, sed solum ad aliquid particulare, participantes divinam bonitatem vel in essendo tantum, sicut inanimata, vel etiam in vivendo et cognoscendo singularia, sicut plantae et animalia. Natura autem rationalis, inquantum cognoscit universalem boni et entis rationem, habet immediatum ordinem ad universale essendi principium.— II-II, q. 2, a. 3.

[9] I-II, q. 21, a. 4, ad 3.

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The Lawfulness and Social Character of Private Ownership

by Henri Grenier

The Québécois priest, theologian, and philosopher, Henri Grenier (1899-1980), was the author of a popular Cursus Philosophiae that was translated into both French and English. He was a major Thomistic opponent of personalism, and is thought to have been an influence on the great Laval School Thomist, Charles De Koninck. The following passages are taken from Thomistic Philosophy, Vol 3: Moral Philosophy, trans. J.P.E. O’Hanley (Charlottetown: St. Dunstan’s University, 1949). A scan of the complete text of this volume can be found here.

I

LAWFULNESS OF PRIVATE OWNERSHIP

  1. Statement of the question.

1° We know that man has perfect dominion over external things, i.e., over things which are inferior to him, in as much as they are destined for man’s use. Such being the finality of external things, we may now ask: may the individual man and the family possess external things? This is the question of private ownership. Continue reading “The Lawfulness and Social Character of Private Ownership”

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The Duties and Rights of Subjects toward the Civil Power

by Tommaso Maria Cardinal Zigliara, OP

Cardinal Zigliara was a prominent Thomist philosopher and theologian in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Among many other accomplishments, he was closely involved with the preparation of the Leonine edition of the Angelic Doctor’s Opera Omnia (the first volume of which contains his synopses and annotations on St. Thomas’ Organon commentaries), and assisted in preparing the encyclicals Aeterni Patris and Rerum novarum. This present excerpt is taken from the Cardinal’s widely circulated manual, Summa philosophica (14th ed., 1910), vol. III. Philosophia moralis, lib. ii, cap. II, art. 7. De officiis et iuribus subditorum erga politicam potestatem, pp. 251-261. Translated by Timothy Wilson.

ARTICLE SEVEN

On the duties and rights of subjects with respect to political power.

I. Duties and rights in general. Often has it been said, that society ought to be conceived after the manner of an animated organic body, or, as I might better say it, after the manner of a human individual. Therefore, just as it is necessary, that in the individual the members should aid and support themselves, and all be at once submitted to the soul; so it is necessary that citizens, who as members compose a social body, should love themselves with greater love, mutually maintain and sustain themselves, and obey authority—authority, which is as it were the soul which vivifies the social body and preserves it in unity. But on the other hand, the civil authority ought sedulously to be intent on guarding the unity of the social body, in that manner, and with those means, which we have indicated above when treating of legislative authority.

II. First question. These things generally having been touched upon, the first question is concerning the duties of subjects with respect to legislative power; that is, whether subjects are held from conscience to be subject to laws given by the sovereign for the rule of society. But that the question might rightly be understood, note that laws are divided into moral and penal: the first are those, the transgression of which is culpable; but the second sort adjudge transgressors not to fault, but to some punishment to be suffered. Because, therefore, obligation, concerning which at present we speak, arises only from law as it is precisely human, if this law be exclusively penal, it is manifest that a transgressor indeed incurs punishment, but not fault. I say, if it is exclusively penal: for generally speaking, the intention of a human legislator is not directed solely to punishment, but he wills also to oblige the citizens morally to the observance of laws: whence generally speaking, human laws ought to be retained as moral-penal, unless the contrary should by some other reason be clear. Concerning moral laws, therefore, the question is whether they oblige citizens in conscience. I respond:

III. Human laws: 1˚ if they are just, oblige citizens in conscience; — 2˚ but they do not oblige PER SE, if they are unjust; — 3˚ yet these are able to oblige PER ACCIDENS, so long as they be not contrary to divine laws. St. Thomas proves this proposition, with respect to all of its parts, in IIaIIae, q. 96, art. 4, by means of the following brief and lucid argumentation.

First part. Laws are called just from the end, when they are ordained to the common good; and from the Actor, when the law given does not exceed the power of the one giving it; and from the form, when according to equality of proportion there are imposed upon the subjects burdens in the order to the common good. Man, considered as a citizen, is a part or member of society; but a part, if it be considered as a part, is ordained to the good of the whole: and hence it is, that the very nature of a part imports a certain diminishment, when it is necessary to preserve the whole. Therefore, if human laws are just, they oblige citizens in the forum of conscience, by that principle by which they are obliged to the good of society.

Second part. Now laws are unjust in a twofold way. In one way, through contrariety to a human good; and this, either from the end, just as when a President imposes laws which are burdensome to the subjects, not pertaining to the common utility, but more to his own cupidity or glory; or from the Actor, just as when someone promulgates a law exceeding the authority committed to him; or from the form, e.g., when burdens are dispensed unequally upon the multitude, even if they are ordained to the common good. Considered in this way, human laws are more violences than laws: because as Augustine says in Book I of his De libero arbitrio, ch. 5, n. 11, That seems not to be a law, which is not just. Wherefore such laws do not oblige per se in conscience, because no man is held in conscience to visit injustice upon another.

Third part. Nevertheless, if thereafter there should arise scandal or disturbance of public order, although unjust laws in conscience do not oblige per se, as has been said; yet because a citizen is obliged not to scandalize little ones, and not to disturb public peace, for this reason is he held, in external actions, not to make resistance to the aforementioned laws. In this case, therefore, and on account of this unique reason, “a man ought to cede even his own right, according to Matth. V, 41: If a man contend with thee in judgment, and take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him. And whosoever force thee one mile, go with him other two.”

Fourth part. “In another way, laws are able to be unjust through contrariety to a divine good, as the laws of tyrants inducing to idolatry, or to any other thing whatsoever which is contrary to the divine law; and such laws (not only do not oblige in conscience, but more) it is in no way permitted to observe them: because, as is said in Acts V: It is necessary to obey God, rather than men,” as has been said above.

IV. Second question. But the preceding conclusion opens the way to another and most grave question, that is, of resistance to the unjust laws of sovereigns, and consequently, to yet another question, concerning resistance to a sovereign, who is placed at the head of a society to rule and govern. Is there in the subjects a right of resisting the unjust laws of sovereigns, and consequently the Tyrant himself, and of expelling him, lest he rule longer in the society which he oppresses? Behold the question, the solving of which requires that we proceed cautiously and step by step: for from its false solutions, either too much is allotted to the sovereign, or too much is conceded to the subjects; or, either the tyranny of the sovereign is justified, or the treason of the subjects.

V. First preliminary note. Resistance, generally taken, is opposition to the activity of another subject: morally taken, it seems to signify the same as disobedience: for then another is morally resisted when obedience is refused to him. But there is passive and active resistance; passive, if the subject suffers violence, but his will is not prevailed upon, as in the martyrs; active, if he repels violence inflicted with violence.

VI. Second preliminary note. The question is not concerned with passive resistance. For if human laws are just, they oblige in the forum of conscience; therefore that citizen is culpable, who even passively makes opposition to those laws; but much more is he culpable, if he actively resists the executive power of the laws themselves. And the same is absolutely to be held howevermuch a given law may seem to be of dubious justice: for in this case, it does not pertain to the citizen to judge of the law, because it does not pertain to him to make provision for the common good, but to the sovereign. If, finally, a law is manifestly unjust by contrariety to a divine good, since in this case a man is held from conscience not to obey, passive resistance is not only licit, but also commanded, as with St. Thomas we have said in the final part of the thesis, and as we are taught from the example of the martyrs. Briefly. Passive resistance is to be adjudicated from the morality of the law. Therefore, the entire question is concerned with active resistance, and with respect to laws manifestly unjust, whether contrary to the common good of society, or contrary to a divine good, by which resistance the executive, and consequently the legislative, power is so resisted, that violence is visited upon it by the subjects. It is asked, whether this resistance is licit? With one mouth do all toadies of popular sovereignty proclaim the affirmative part, who place the true subject of political authority in democracy, as they say, or in the multitude. Wherefore, laws, which are not pleasing to them, they proclaim unjust, so that they arrogate to themselves the right of stirring up the multitude and of rising up against legitimate sovereigns. What, therefore, should be thought in this matter, we shall say little by little.

VII. On the tyrant. Tyrant τύραννος signifies the same thing as king or sovereign, one who has fullness of power over his subjects; whence at first it was accustomed to be taken in a good way, as may be seen in the books of the Politics of Aristotle, in the Miltiade of Cornelius Nepos; in which sense Virgil, Aeneid VII, 265-6, says: Let him come, let not his face shudder at friends. — The part of peace, for me, shall be to have touched the right hand of the tyrant, that is of Aeneas. — But in the progress of time, the name of tyrant acquired a perverted sense, that is, for signifying sovereigns, who, abusing the powers of rule through arrogance, ruled, not by right and equitable laws, but by force and a certain wantonness of soul (Cf. Lexicon latinum, etc., in usum Seminarii Patavini, Tyrannus). In this sense, the nature of the tyrant is described by Tully, in De amicitia, cap. XV: «For this is the life of tyrants, in which, without doubt, there is able to be no faith, no charity, no confidence of steadfast goodwill: all things are always suspected and in turmoil: there is no place for friendship.»

VIII. On the tyrannical regime, and on tyrannical usurpation. Tyrant, taken in its unfavorable signification, commonly is distinguished into tyrant by rule and tyrant by usurpation. He is called tyrant by rule, who legitimately took up the principate in some society, but governs through laws manifestly unjust; he is called tyrant by usurpation, who through ambition, or in some other illicit manner secured power, as St. Thomas says in lect. 1 on Rom. 13.

IX. On resistance against a tyrant by usurpation. «He who through violence steals dominion, is not truly effected the prelate or ruler; and thus when the means are present, one is able to remove such dominion: unless perhaps he should presently be effected a true ruler, whether by the consensus of the subjects, or by the authority of a superior.» This St. Thomas writes, in II Sent., dist. XLIV, q. 2, art. 2: from which it is manifest, in the first place, that a tyrant by usurpation is able to become a legitimate ruler, as all agree. But the question is not concerning this.

Again, we are able to consider the tyrant by usurpation in a twofold manner, namely in the act of usurpation, that is, in the act of war unjustly inflicted on the state; and after the usurpation already has been completed, namely when, the state having been pacified, the tyrant is in control and draws up and promulgates laws not by right, but in fact, he yet is not had as a legitimate ruler. — In the act of usurpation, the tyrant is an unjust invader; and thus, just as an individual person is able to repel force with force, so a fortiori the Respublica, upon which force is visited, is able to repel force with force and kill the tyrant: and I say the Respublica, or the citizens, not by private authority, but by the public authority, whether express or tacit, of a legitimate ruler; or of those who legitimately carry on its successions: for it pertains, not to the private judgment of citizens, but to the public authority to judge concerning the common good of the Respublica. — St. Thomas speaks to this sense, in the place cited above, in the response to the fifth objection: «When some one steals dominion for himself, the subjects being unwilling or even coerced to assent, and when there is no recourse to a superior, through whom a judgment might be able to be made concerning the invader; then he who slays the tyrant for the liberation of the country is lauded and accepts a reward.»

But if the tyrant already is in control, yet in fact is not a legitimate ruler, absolutely speaking, the oppressed Respublica, or the legitimate ruler, if he exists, has the right against the tyrant, and through force is able to expel the unjust invader of the Kingdom. I say absolutely speaking: for if the tyrant should not be able to be expelled without great public calamities, and without the utmost detriment to the Respublica, neither is the legitimate ruler able to move against the tyrant, but the latter is patiently to be borne: because the ruler is to be procured for the good of the Respublica. Therefore, if the legitimate ruler were to make war upon the tyrant only amid the utmost ruin of the Respublica, he would provide not for the Respublica, but for himself; and thus in another way, when he would oppose the tyranny, he himself truly would incur the mark of tyranny. In this hypothesis, therefore, the legitimate ruler retains the right, but the exercise of his right is suspended.

But with respect to laws which are promulgated by the dominating tyrant, and which look to the external ordering of the Respublica, these words wisely are given by Francisco Vitoria, Relection. theol., Relect. III De potestate civili, no. 23: «Since the Respublica is oppressed by the Tyrant and is not of its own right, it is neither able to promulgate laws, nor execute those previously given; if it were to not be obedient to the Tyrant, the Respublica would perish besides. Certainly it seems that laws, which are agreeable to the Respublica, oblige, even though they be promulgated by a Tyrant: not indeed because they are given by a Tyrant, but from the consent of the Respublica, since it is more pious, that laws given by a Tyrant be observed, than that none be observed. And certainly it would be unto the clear ruin of the Respublica, if rulers, who do not have just title, should occupy a kingdom, that there should be no judgments, nor that malefactors should in no way be able to be punished, or coerced (since the tyrant is not a legitimate judge), if his laws do not oblige.»

X. On resistance against a tyrant by rule. But the question chiefly is agitated concerning the tyrant by rule: namely, whether active resistance is licit in subjects against the tyrant, such that either he may be despoiled the kingdom by the subjects, or even punished by death. In this question to be solved, the teaching of the Catholic Church ought to be kept in mind. Therefore in the Council of Constance, session VIII, and in the Constitution of Martin V, Inter cunctas, there is condemned this proposition, which is the seventeenth of the forty-five articles of Wycliffe: «Peoples are able, according to their own will, to set aright delinquent Rulers.» — And in session XV by the same Fathers, and from Paul V, Constitut. Cura dominici gregis of 14 January, 1615, there is proscribed this teaching: «Any tyrant is able and ought licitly and meritoriously to be killed by any vassal or subject of his, even by means of secret plots, and subtle flatteries, or adulations, notwithstanding any past oath or confederation made with him, the sentence or mandate of any judge not being hoped for.» — Cf. Roselli, Ethica, ult. q., art. 5, where he also refers to the definitions of the Fifth Council of Toledo. — Tyrannicide, therefore, perpetrated by private authority, is illicit and to be detested: but from this, is any active resistance whatsoever to a tyrant illicit?

XI. First opinion. In this difficult question which is to be solved, therefore, various opinions are proffered by writers. Without doubt, wicked rulers are bestowed by God upon degenerate peoples, according to Osee XIII, 11: I will give thee a king in my wrath; and Job XXXIV, 30: Who maketh a man that is a hypocrite to reign for the sins of the people. From all these things St. Thomas wisely concludes, in De regimine principum I.6, that the fault of the people must be put away, so that the plague of tyrants might cease. — Nevertheless, all these things do not justify the Ruler. Woe to the Assyrian!, it is said in Isaiah X, 5; and the Assyrian was the rod of the wrath of the Lord sent to a deceitful nation, and against the people of the wrath of the Lord (ibid. v.5-6). But «when the Lord shall have performed all His works in mount Sion, and in Jerusalem, I will visit the fruit of the proud heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of the haughtiness of his eyes» (v.12). The question therefore remains intact.

XII. Second opinion. It is said secondly, that tyrannical oppression is to be endured patiently, just as infirmities, and just as all the other evils with which the life of men is afflicted in this world. But by this response the question is changed, not resolved. For we ask about justice, and the response is about patience. Moreover, there is a distinction between the evil of tyranny and the other evils: for these latter are inflicted by God, with whom there is for us no right; but subjects have the strict right, that they be governed rightly by a Ruler, and thus they suffer unjustly by a tyrant, who is most culpable, even though God may permit that he exercise his tyranny, as has been said above. Finally, that the injustices of men ought patiently to be borne, I most willingly admit, but patience does not destroy the faculty in the one suffering of claiming his right; and if this is true among individual citizens it will be at least equally true in a republic in respect of the ruler. The question therefore remains.

XIII. Third opinion. Wherefore, others say that with citizens there is the right of protesting, of appealing, and of employing other similar means. This is very charming indeed. But: 1˚ The tyrant who, through laws clearly unjust (for in this hypothesis, if the reader well recalls, we speak exclusively), destroys the common good, and does away with the rights of the citizens, so much more certain it is that he would prevent the citizens from legally claiming their rights. And in this case? The difficulty returns, the solution of which we seek. — 2˚ There is able to be danger in delay: think if a tyrant should with certainty hand over the Respublica to a foreign dominion, or draw up laws unto the manifest ruin of the citizens, and other similar things: in which cases, either he is to be resisted, or to be yielded to. Is resistance licit? If it is not licit, then ridiculous is the right to a Ruler with respect to right rule in society which is granted to the citizens; if it is licit, then there is granted to the subjects some right which is not the simple right of protesting, appealing, etc. — I assert, therefore, the strict duty of first employing all peaceful means so that the tyrant might retreat from laws manifestly wicked and clearly destructive to society; but I do not see the question solved, in the hypothesis in which those means are inefficacious.

XIV. Fourth opinion. In the fourth place it is animadverted, that resistance to a tyrant heedlessly begets greater evils for society. For either armed resistance does not prevail, and the tyrant, being provoked, rages more, as St. Thomas says in De regimine principum I.6; or it prevails, and as the holy Doctor notes in the same place, «from this often there often come forth the most grave dissensions in the people, whether while resistance is made against the tyrant, or while, after the casting down of the tyrant, the multitude is divided into parties about the ordering of the regime. It also happens, that sometimes when the multitude expels the tyrant with the help of someone, he, power having been received, seizes the tyranny: and fearing that he might suffer from one that which he made upon another, he oppresses the subjects with a heavier servitude. — This reason, which is confirmed by experience, is valid. For in order to expel a lesser evil, reason dictates that a greater evil ought not to be induced which is especially unto the ruin of society. And hence it is that if a tyranny is not excessive, it ought to be tolerated, because between two inevitable evils, the lesser evil is chosen. — However, we think that some things ought to be said in addition.

XV. Offensive resistance and defensive resistance. This distinction is necessary, although it may import a certain violence to the word, for resistance seems to signify defense, not offense. I call offensive resistance inflicted force; I call defensive resistance, repulsed force. Let us illustrate the thing by example. In an act of unjust aggression, he who is unjustly invaded repels force with force; and this is defensive resistance; but beside the act of unjust aggression, he who would attack an enemy, anticipating his aggression, would not repel force with force, but would inflict force, although he would do it in order to forestall aggression. This second resistance I call offensive.

XVI. OFFENSIVE resistance by subjects against a tyrant by rule is absolutely illicit. The reason adduced in the fourth opinion chiefly proves this our conclusion, and is confirmed with the following argument. Subjects, as subjects, inflicting force upon a tyrant, administer authoritative judgment upon the tyrant, and thus subject him to their own private judgment. But this is entirely illicit: for although the tyrant, not by force of authority (for this is per se to the good), but by his own ill will, enforces tyranny, he is yet the ruler by authority, and thus is juridically superior to the subjects, and is not subject to them. Therefore offensive resistance against a tyrant by rule is entirely illicit. — Add, that a tyrant by rule abuses the right of ruling. But from the abuse of a right, the right is not lost. A tyrant by rule, then, abusing the right, always has the right of ruling. But it is illicit to despoil someone of his right by private authority. Therefore absolutely illicit are the rebellions of subjects who undertake to remove a King, or punish him with death.

Against excessive tyranny, therefore, St. Thomas proposes three remedies in De regimine principum I.6.

1. «If it pertains to the right of some superior to provide the multitude of a king, a remedy against the wickedness of a tyrant should be expected.» But most of all does this right of defending the rights of peoples pertain to the Church, that is, to the Vicar of Christ, the Roman Pontiff: whatever those quarrelsome men should prate to the contrary, who, being subjects, affect the liberty for justifying rebellions, but when ruling, enforce tyranny to sustain the sovereignty of the State.

2. «If it pertains to the right of the multitude to provide itself of a king, an established king can, not unjustly, be deposed, or his power checked, by the same, if he tyrannically abuses regal power. Nor should it be thought that such a multitude, deposing a tyrant, acts unfaithfully, even if the multitude had previously subjected itself to the same tyrant in perpetuity: because he merited this, not comporting himself faithfully in the rule of the multitude, as the office of the king demands, so that that which was appointed to him by the subjects is not retained.» — Note the words of St. Thomas, if it pertains to the right of the multitude; as if he should say: if the right of judging and disposing of the person of the king (e.g. if such be fundamental laws of the kingdom) pertains to the multitude. It is therefore a simple hypothesis which the Angelic Doctor poses, lest he should omit some member in his disjunctive argumentation; but he does not say that this condition is always shown to be true: indeed, by the nature of the hypothesis he supposes in fact that the contrary is able to be granted, as is commonly granted.

3. «But if no human help is able to be had against a tyrant at all (according to the two preceding hypotheses), then recourse ought to be had to God the king of all things, Who is a help in times of tribulation. For it is within His power, that He might turn the cruel heart of a tyrant to gentleness, according to the words of Solomon, Proverbs XII, 9: The heart of the king is in the hand of God, whithersoever He will He shall turn it.»

XVII. Against excessive tyranny, DEFENSIVE resistance is able to be licit. I say against excessive tyranny: for, as St. Thomas emphasizes in De regimine principum I.6, if there be not an excess of tyranny, it is more useful to tolerate a moderate tyrant for a time, than to be entangled in many dangers by acting against the tyrant, which dangers are more grave than the tyranny itself, and which dangers the citizens are thus held to shun, lest the good of the Respublica be endangered. — These things being declared, the thesis is proved. It is commonly conceded, that passive resistance to laws manifestly unjust is licit for subjects. Hence St. Thomas, in IaIIae, q. 96, art. 4, ad 3, speaking of a law which imports an unjust burden upon the subjects, to which the order of power divinely given does not extend itself (as they are laws onerous to the subjects and not pertaining to the common utility, but more to the cupidity or glory of the legislator, or laws given above the power committed to the same legislator), affirms that in such things a man is not obliged to obey the law, if he is able to resist without scandal or greater detriment. All of these things we have noted above in n. III with the same Angelic Doctor. — It is therefore certain that there is in subjects the right of resisting passively, that is, of not obeying the aforementioned tyrannical laws. But the tyrant, just as he abuses the legislative power, so is able to abuse the executive power, and do violence to the subjects, that they might be subject to tyrannical laws. Therefore, the right, which in this case is in the subjects, passively of not obeying a tyrannical legislative power, gives to them the right of resisting the violence of the tyrannical executive power, repelling force with force, in which we have said defensive resistance to consist: otherwise, the right of passive resistance would be absurd, if it were not able to be defended from an unjust invader. In which case, there is no resistance to authority, but to violence; not to right, but to the abuse of right; not to the sovereign, but to an unjust aggressor against a proper right in an act of aggression.

But in this matter, one ought to proceed in an orderly fashion. For according to those things which we have proved above (49, V), the immediate elements of civil society are not individuals, nor families, but Municipalities or Provinces, which are perfect societies (to which, consequently—unless other fundamental laws should be in force, society being bereft of a legitimate sovereign—belongs the right of electing a new sovereign, not to the multitude or people) and which are means between the civil power and families. To Provinces, therefore, or Municipalities, which have the true authority in respect of families, and not to individuals or families, does it pertain to employ defensive resistance and to repel, with united powers, the violence of a tyrant. But if even the Provinces or Municipalities, in place of protecting and defending the subjects, should become instruments of social tyranny, then tyranny is to be withstood in passive resistance alone, and they ought to desist from defensive resistance, not because of a defect of absolute right, but on account of the certainty of greater evil. In this case, therefore, recourse ought to be had to the Lord, the king of all things, Who is a help in times of tribulation, as we have said above with St. Thomas.

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On the Subject of Civil Authority, and On Resistance of Tyranny

by Henri Grenier

The Québécois priest, theologian, and philosopher, Henri Grenier (1899-1980), was the author of a popular Cursus Philosophiae that was translated into both French and English. He was a major Thomistic opponent of personalism, and is thought to have been an influence on the great Laval School Thomist, Charles De Koninck. The following passages are taken from Thomistic Philosophy, Vol 3: Moral Philosophy, trans. J.P.E. O’Hanley (Charlottetown: St. Dunstan’s University, 1949). A scan of the relevant pages (including sections omitted below) can be found here. The overall context is a discussion of the causes of civil (or political) society. Grenier’s reflections on the ‘subject’ of civil authority, and on resisting tyrants are highly relevant to the problem of legitimacy discussed by Daniel Lendman, Felix de St. Vincent, and E. M. Milco. — The Editors

Subject Of Civil Authority

1116. Statement of the question

1° The question of the subject of civil authority is entirely distinct from the question of the origin of civil society. The former question is concerned with the material cause of civil society, and the latter with its efficient cause. Continue reading “On the Subject of Civil Authority, and On Resistance of Tyranny”

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Dubium: When Is Any Government “Legitimate”?

Mr. Daniel Lendman published a note recently here on The Josias that proposed that a government is illegitimate insofar as it is not “operating in accord with the laws and rules which properly govern” it. A state that redefines marriage contrary to the natural law does so illegitimately, and makes an illegitimate law. Lendman argues that this has implications for the legitimacy of the government as a whole, and may at some point abrogate citizens’ duty to obey the law. Continue reading “Dubium: When Is Any Government “Legitimate”?”

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‘In Dread of Modernity’: Republican Liberty and the Common Good in the American Tradition

by Felix de St. Vincent

The revolutions of the 18th century appealed to ancient as well as to modern authorities. As I have argued elsewhere, the American Revolution appealed to ancient republican notions of the rule of law and the advantages of a mixed regime, and to medieval English conceptions of cosmic order being embodied in the ancient laws which had held since ‘time out of mind.’ But, as Charles Taylor argues, these ancient conceptions were to a large extent ‘colonized‘ and taken over by modern, Enlightenment ones which took over much of the form of the more ancient ideas, but without the substance of cosmic order and the primacy of the common good: « The American Revolution is in a sense the watershed. It was undertaken in a backward-looking spirit, in the sense that the colonists were fighting for their established rights as Englishmen. Moreover they were fighting under their established colonial legislatures, associated in a Congress. But out of the whole process emerges the crucial fiction of “we, the people”, into whose mouth the declaration of the new constitution is placed. »[1] Several articles here on The Josias have examined the defects of liberal, Enlightenment political philosophy. But perhaps it would be possible for Americans to revive the ancient republican element in their founding, and thus find a form of politics that would be at once autochthonously American and truly ordered to the common good. This is the position argued in Felix de St. Vincent’s first essay for The Josias. We are pleased to publish it for its lucid exploration of the transmission of the ancient republican tradition in England and America, and its eminently practical suggestions for political action today. I myself disagree with a number of Felix de St. Vincent’s points including his reading of St. Thomas Aquinas on sovereignty, his account of the relative importance of ancient republican and modern liberal ideals in the American founding, and the ideal relative weight of the different elements in a mixed constitution for promoting the common good (he thinks the republican form per se preferable to the monarchical). But I agree with on the most important principles, especially the primacy of the common good, and am very pleased to be able to present his thought provoking essay to the public. — Pater Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist.

Are American democracy and Catholicism compatible? Are liberal democracy and Catholicism compatible? The first question was asked by John Courtney Murray in We Hold These Truths (1960).[2] More recently, Patrick Deneen proposed that the debate was about liberal democracy, slightly reframing the debate between Murray’s compatibilism and its “radical Catholic” critics.[3] Insofar as this debate is about Catholic teaching, the two questions appear the same. Continue reading “‘In Dread of Modernity’: Republican Liberty and the Common Good in the American Tradition”