The Place of the State in Society According to Thomas Aquinas

Abstract

THE PLACE OF THE STATE IN SOCIETY ACCORDING TO THOMAS AQUINAS IN RENDERING THE Aristotelian formula, "Man is by nature a political animal," 1 Aquinas generally prefers to say" Man is by nature a social animal." 2 The texts containing this rendition of the formula, taken collectively, reveal that he considers the social realm to be grounded in man's physical, intellectual and moral need for assistance from his fellow man and in a basic love that one man has for another. In addition , they reveal that he regards the social realm, in its concrete expression, as ranging from the family up to, and including, its natural culmination in the political realm of the State (cimtas) as a civically governed society. Accordingly, though society cannot be identified exclusively with the State, it ultimately takes the form of the State, wherein the social concern for the welfare of the whole man is most fully satisfied.8 St. Thomas, therefore, has reason to say, as he does on one occasion, "Man is by nature a political or social animal," 4 since 'the social ' assumes the form of ' the political ' in the realm of the State.5 Speaking in this vein, St. Thomas is assigning a positive, natural value to the State, hitherto generally unrecognized by writers in the Middle Ages, for whom the divinely appointed lay ruler had merely the negative function of restraining the waywardness of man.6 1 Aristotle, Politics, I, 2; 125Sa2: "Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal " (Jowett transl.) . • This mode of expressing the Aristotelian formula is found in the following: Summa Theologiae, I, 96, 4; I-III, 95, 4. 11-11, 109, S ad 1. Su11/1T114 Contra Gentilu, Ill, 117, 128, 129, 147. In Eth., I, 1. • In Eth., I, 1. •Summa Contra Gentiles, III, 85. 5 These are the conclusions I reach upon a review of these texts in another article, entitled "Aquinas' Political Philosophy: A Political Economy?". 6 Cf. Walter IDlman, Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle Ages (London: Methuen, 1961). pp. 255-66. 407 408 EDGAR SCULLY But in adopting this basically Aristotelian position, he would seem to favor the notion of a State so exalted and all-encompassing that it would deny any autonomy to its component communities and its individual citizens.7 When this is combined with the fact that there were in his own day the beginnings of a separation of the political and the social, in which the political tended to become identified with the legislative and juridical, we have the makings of a State that rules society from above and without.8 In other words, we have the makings of a totalitarian , absolute State, caring paternalistically for society and its members. There are, however, other texts in Aquinas, containing further renditions of the Aristotelian formula, which must be considered before establishing whether or not his position ulti7 This Aristotelian position, in the hands of the Medieval Schoolmen, was interpreted by Gierke as an organic theory of the State (Otto Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle Ages, transl. with an introd. by F. W. Maitland, Cambridge University Press, 1900). For a re-examination of Gierke's interpretation, see Ewart Lewis, "Organic Tendencies in Medieval Political Thought," American Political Science Review, XXXII (Oct. 1938), pp. 849-76. In addition, it might be noted that St. Thomas's successors were inclined to strengthen the community at the expense of the individual. For example, Peter of Auvergne, the continuator of St. Thomas's Commentary on Politics, writes: cum vivit secundum rempublicam operatur secundum rationem (In Pol., V, 7). Cf. Thomas Gilby, O.P., The Political Thought of Thomas Aquinas (London: Longmans , Green, 1958), p. ~50. 8 Along with a pervasive legal positivism, this tendency was, in fact, subsequently fed by strains of Latin Averroism, which precluded the higher inspiration of religio-spiritual values in civil affairs; and by notions of sov.ereignty and compact in Roman Law, interpreted along the lines of political voluntarism, according to which the will of the ruler was supreme. The tendency, under these influences, ultimately culminated in Jean Rodin's...