Political Life and Man’s Ultimate End: Reading the De Regno of St. Thomas Aquinas

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St. Thomas’ purpose in writing the De Regno is to provide practical guidance for a Christian king on how it is that he ought to conduct his proper authority. The king, imitating God, is to lead those subject to him to their proper end, and this will be nothing other than communal virtue. This instantiation of the practice of citizen-wide virtue is the intrinsic finality belonging to political society, and for St. Thomas, it is the genuine concern of the king to lead and direct citizens towards the common good. However, before treating of the precise content of the common good of political society, and the specific means through which the king should bring this about, St. Thomas will present two principles that are fundamental for his treatise: 1) that man is naturally a political animal; and 2) the common good is the proper end of political society. Before establishing the first principle, that man is political by nature, St. Thomas tells us that “in all things which are ordered towards an end, wherein this or that course may be adopted, some directive principle is needed through which the due end may be reached by the most direct route.” Since man is a being who has an end towards which his life and actions are ordered, it is necessary for him to have some directive principle which leads him towards this end. This directive principle for man is nothing other than reason. While this directive principle of reason is good for man, it is not sufficient for attaining his end: “if man were intended to live alone, as many animals do, he would require no other guide to his end, but each man would be a king unto himself, under God, the highest King, inasmuch as he would direct himself in his acts by the light of reason given to him from on high.” It is the case that man, for St. Thomas, more than any other animal will seek to live in a group, for he is social and political by nature. Following these initial remarks, St. Thomas will then proceed to argue dialectically to establish the truth of his first principle. Man’s reason has been given to him for the purpose of providing all those things which are necessary for his life, but an individual man is incapable of garnering all these necessities on his own. Furthermore, unlike other animals, each individual man is unable to create all the things necessary for his life. With these two points taken together, Thomas has arrived at his first principle: “It is therefore necessary for man that he lives in a multitude so that each one may assist his fellows, and different men may be occupied in seeking, by their reason, to make different discoveries—for example, one in medicine, one in this and another in that.” Notice that this affirmation of man’s natural orientation to live in political society is not a fully developed account; Thomas has not yet accentuated the unique difference of political society from all other associations. He will take up this point later on in chapter 3 of book 2, wherein he treats of the finality of political society. After establishing that man is political by nature, St. Thomas goes on to defend why it is necessary for there to be a political authority governing a multitude: “F... ... middle of paper ... ...d the polis. In fact, this hierarchical order enables Aquinas to articulate and defend man’s perfection as he exists within political society, and show that it is ultimately inferior to that supernatural perfection attainable only by grace. Moreover, this natural perfection is not opposed to man’s supernatural happiness, since grace presupposes and builds upon the instantiation of those virtues that are the common good of political society. St. Thomas concludes this section by reiterating a foundational component of Catholicism, namely, that man’s ultimate happiness is not to be found in an earthly city, but transcends the political community. This prudential doctrine clarifies and concretizes the positive and substantial, albeit limited, aim of the ruler, since “if this end could be attained by the power of human nature, then it would be necessary that the office of a king would have to include the direction of men to it. We are supposing that he is called king, to whom the supreme power of governing in human affairs is entrusted.” Man’s supernatural end is incapable of being fully actualized in this life; it can only be brought about by divine government and the outpouring of grace, which properly belongs to the ministry of the Catholic Church and its priests. In light of this integration and crucial distinction between the intrinsic and extrinsic finality of the polis, articulating the precise content of the common good and man’s ultimate happiness beyond this life, St. Thomas can provide concrete guidance for how the king can inculcate genuine virtue in his subjects.

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