The Divine Lamp

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6. The Sovereign People and its Representatives. To understand properly the Thomistic view on the seat of authority or of government in the State, we must distinguish as he does between two questions: (a) where is the seat of sovereignty in any case, (b) what is the most perfect form of government?

(a) At the outset, and in every state, sovereignty belongs to the collectivity, i.e., the sum total of individuals. The people are the State. This is logical, for the only realities in society are the individuals, and apart from them the State is nothing, and moreover, government has as its object the well-being of all (see # 2, 5). The doctrine of the sovereignty of the people is thus no modern invention.

But the collectivity or sum total of individuals is too complicated, too chaotic, to exercise power itself. In its turn, therefore, the collectivity delegates it usually, but not necessarily, to a monarch. For in theory one could choose instead an aristocratic or a republican form of government: “To ordain something for the common good belongs either to the whole community, or to someone taking the place of the community.” (Summ Theol. Ia Iae. q. 90, art. 3) Thus power is transmitted by successive delegation from God to the people, and from the people to the ruler. The people hold it by a natural title which nothing can destroy, the king holds it by the will of the people, and this may change. There is, accordingly, at the ase of the p[eople’s delegation to the king a contract, rudimentary or implicit in less perfect forms of society, explicit in States which have arrived at a high degree3e of organization. This will of the people, which can make itself known in many different ways, legitimatizes the exercise of power. Monarchy, in the opinion of Thomas, has the advantage of not scattering power and force. But he adds that circumstances must decide which is the best form of government at a particular moment in the political life of a nation. This gives his theory all the elasticity which could be desired.

(b) Still, he himself shows a very marked preference for a composite form; which he considers to be the most perfect realization of delegated authority. It is a mixed system of government, in which sovereignty belongs to the people, with the intervention of an elective monarchy, and an oligarchy which modifies the monarch’s exercise of power. “The best regime will be realized in that city or state, in which one alone commands all the others by reason of his virtue, where some subordinate rulers command according to their merit, but where nevertheless power belongs to all, either because all are eligible as rulers, or simply because all are electors. Now this is the case in a government which consists of a happy combination of royalty, inasmuch as there is only one head, or aristocracy inasmuch as many collaborate in the work of government, according to their virtue, and of democracy or popular power inasmuch as the rulers may be chosen from among the people, and it belongs to the people to elect their rulers.” (Summ Theol. Ia Iae. q. 97, art. 1) Aquinas affirms such political principles as universal suffrage, the right of the lowest of men to e raised to power, the appreciation of personal value and virtue, the domination of reason in those who govern or an ‘enlightened government,’ an elective system giving the means of choosing those most worthy, and the necessity of the political education of the people.

7. The duties of the Sovereign, and the Legislative Power. In the De Regimine Principum, of Thomas Aquinas, the ruler is charged with a threefold duty: he must establish the well-being of the whole, conserve it, and improve it (Lib. I, cap 15). First he must establish the common weal by preserving peace among the citizens (sometimes peace is referred to as convenientia voluntatum,agreement of wills), by encouraging the citizens to lead a moral life, and providing a sufficient abundance of the material things which are necessary to it. Teh public weal once established, the next duty is to conserve it. This is accomplished by assuring the appointment of sufficient and capable agents of administration, by repressing disorder, by encouraging morality, through a system of rewards and punishments, and by protecting the state against the attacks of external enemies. Finally the government is charged with a third mission, which is vague, more elastic: to rectify abuses, to make up for defects, to work for progress.

The means par excellence by which a Government is enabled to fulfill its threefold task is the power of making laws, i.e., of commanding. The Thomistic theory of human or positive law, in its double form of jus gentium, law of the nations, common to all states, is closely connected with the theory of law in general. For the civil law is, and can only be, a derivation from natural law, and in consequence it ultimately comes from the eternal law (13:2). Here once again the individual is protected against the State, for “in the measure that positive law is in disagreement with the natural law, it is no longer a law, but a corruption of law” (Summa Theol. Ia IIae, q. 95, art. 2). In this way the arbitrary element is banished as “a rational injunction, made in view of the common good, and promulgated by the one having charge of the community” (Summa Theol. Ia IIae, q. 90, art 4). Positive law adapts to concrete circumstances the immediate prescriptions of the natural law, which in their abstract form belong to the law of nations. For instance, the law of nations enjoins that malefactors are to be punished. Positive law determines whether the punishment is to be by fine, imprisonment, ect. Positive law is therefore at once fixed and variable. It changes with the circumstances, and it belongs to a government to modify it if necessary, always on condition that it bears in mind that every modification of a law lessens its force and majesty.

8. Social Justice and the Commonwealth. The common good is the result of good government and the reign of social justice. Thomas’ views on social justice and solidarity are worthy of note. To understand them we must ear in mind what we have said of the notion of right and of justice (14:3).

A compensation is due to each individual for whatever benefit accrues from his acts, and right is simply the requirement that this equal adjustment be made. To render to each one his due is to do justice. When the act benefits an entire community, social justice arises.

Hence social justice demands two elements :(a) that the actions of the individual citizen or of the several members of a group be conducted in such a way that the community, i.e., all its members, shall be benefited thereby; (b) that, in return, the individual should receive from the community an adequate compensation.

Social justice thus understood rest upon a solemn affirmation of solidarity and mutual assistance. Every human action, inasmuch as it is performed in a community, has its reaction upon that community, and benefits or harms it more or less, in some way (Summa Theol. Ia IIae, q. 58, art. 5. Cf. art. 6). The soldier who fights, the laborer who works, and the scholar who studies are engaged in social activities which, being such, do good to the whole community. Even the outbursts of individual passions admit of being referred to social justice, and “can be regulated with a view to the common good,” (Summa Theol. Ia IIae, q. 58, art 9, ad.3) since these outbursts intensify action, and every action has its echo in society.

Who ensures this convergence of individual activities? An individual citizen is obviously without the qualifications necessary for this task. It therefore belongs to the ruler to orient all good acts towards the common good of all. He is the custos justi, the justum animatum,-the guardian of right, the living embodiment of justice (Summa Theol. Ia IIae, q. 58, art. 1, ad 5). He is the architectonic chief architectonice). Just as the master builder of the cathedral supervises the stonecutters, the carpenters, the sculptors, the painters, so that they may be ready at the proper time and place, so the master builder of social justice oversees all the diverse social activities and takes account of their relative importance in the community. It belongs to the ruler to see that the soldier fights, the scholar studies, the laborer works, ect., in such a way that all their activities may be directed to the realization of the harmony of the body politic. He must think out the best way of ensuring mutual assistance in order that everything may be of profit to all. His intervention will above all regulate all external actions: such as diligence in work, temperance, meekness. But if necessary he will also occupy himself with actions which belong to the “internal forum” (Summa Theol. Ia IIae, q. 58, art. 9).

How is the ruler to carry out this high humanitarian mission? He can only do so by way of commandment. For, he possesses the virtue of justice as commanding per modum imperantis et dirigentis, while the citizens share in it only as obeying per modum executionis (Summa Theol. Ia IIae, q. 58, art. 1, ad 5). At first sight this looks like an intolerable and autocratic notion, a worship of the state, which is bound to destroy individual autonomy. But these fears are groundless. The theory contains within itself the correctives for those abuses to which it seems to open the door, for the realization of the common good is the one and only motive which can render legitimate the intervention of the ruler. And this common good “is no other than the good of each one of the members of the collectivity” (Summa Theol. Ia IIae, q. 58, art. 9). An arbitrary intervention on the part of the ruler which would be destructive of individual good-and thus of liberty-would be contrary to the common good, and as a consequence to social justice.

The doctrine of social justice constitutes in the Thomistic system and ideal which governments must never forget, and which they must realize to the fullest measure consonant with the actual conditions of a good civilization.

As to the compensation to the individual, which is owed by the community for services done, it is again the ruler who should decide as to the demands of social justice, although Thomas Aquinas does not insist upon this second aspect of the question.-Maurice De Wulf