According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the created order is just that: orderly. All things partake not just of being, but also of purpose and function. The natural world is teleological, and every part of creation strives to fulfill its own particular excellence or virtue. Thus planets keep their orbits and birds instinctively build their nests according to an eternal law: "God imprints on the whole of nature the principles of its proper actions. . . . And thus all actions and movements of the whole of nature are subject to the eternal law." Non-rational creatures ("natural contingents," as Aquinas terms them), such as planets and birds, "are subject to the eternal law through being moved by divine providence."

Man, however -- as a rational creature with an independent will -- is not a contingent automaton. Instead, "the light of reason is placed by nature in every man, to guide him in his acts toward his end." Furthermore, man's comprehension of his ends in this way is more diffuse than the instinctive reflexes that suffice to guide non-rational animals:

Man, on the contrary, has a natural knowledge of the things which are essential for his life only in a general fashion, inasmuch as he is able to attain knowledge of the particular things necessary for human life by reasoning from natural principles. But it is not possible for one man to arrive at a knowledge of all these things by his own individual reason.

So while "man was endowed with reason, by the use of which he could procure all [necessities] for himself by the work of his hands. . . . one man alone is not able to procure them all for himself." Thus, St. Thomas concludes, "it is natural for man, more than for any other animal, to be a social and political animal, to live in a group. This is clearly a necessity of man's nature."

Law among men follows from this original, created need for human community: "If, then, it is natural for man to live in the society of many, it is necessary that there exist among men some means by which the group may be governed." In this way, as St. Paul declared, "the powers that be are ordained of God."

Ontological Definition: The Types of Law

From the human perspective, St. Thomas identified four different types of law: eternal, natural, human, and divine.

As discussed above, the eternal law "is nothing else than the type of divine wisdom, as directing all actions and movements." Gravity and animal instinct, for example, are its manifestations. All things partake of the eternal law "in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted on them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends." By seeing these inclinations, all men know the eternal law to a certain extent, but "it does not follow that anyone who knows the eternal law in [its effects] knows also the whole order of things, whereby they are most orderly." That is, knowing the eternal law in its effects is not the same as comprehending it -- man can recognize what he cannot define.

Unlike non-rational creation, man participates in the eternal law "in the most excellent way," via the natural law. The natural law is man's rational, knowing participation in the eternal law -- his reflective capacity recognizing the Good. In this way, "the rational creature . . . partakes of a share of providence, by being provident both for itself and for others." Because the natural law is imprinted upon human reason, all men know the natural law, though not to the same extent. St. Thomas explained:

there belong to the natural law, first, certain most general precepts, that are known to all; and secondly, certain secondary and more detailed precepts, which are, as it were, conclusions following closely from first principles. As to those general principles, the natural law, in the abstract, can nowise be blotted out from men's hearts. But it is blotted out in the case of a particular action, in so far as reason is hindered from applying the general principle to a particular point of practice, on account of concupiscence or some other passion.

Human law is the particular application of the precepts of natural law to certain matters, by the use of reason. A human law is "an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated." Any human law has its origin in the positive act of the lawgiver, but its status as true, binding "law" depends on its consonance with the natural law, as deduced by "right reason."

Because human laws provide for the order of the human community, they concern themselves with the external actions of men. They forbid "only the more grievous vices from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained." The "human law falls short of the eternal law" in that it does not require present perfection, but instead "lead[s] men to virtue . . . gradually." Both the existence and the limitations of human law are required by the fallen state of human nature: if the "precepts of a perfect life . . . [are put] into imperfect men, . . . the precepts are despised and those men, from contempt, break out into evils worse still." Thus human law is not coextensive with the natural law.

In addition, human law is contextual in a way that the eternal law is not. Human law may be changed justly where either (1) human reason has advanced in the area: "the reason of man is changeable and imperfect, wherefor his law is subject to change"; or (2) the human condition has changed.

St. Thomas divides human reason into two types, speculative and practical. Speculative reason "is concerned primarily with what is necessary, that is, with those things which cannot be other than they are." It concerns axioms that are universally true, whether or not they are known to all. Thus, for example, speculative reason recognizes that the sum of the three angles of a triangle equal two right angles.

Practical reason, on the other hand, "is concerned with contingent matters, such as human actions." Aquinas stated that "on the part of the practical reason man has a natural participation of the eternal law, according to certain general principles, but not as regards the particular determinations of individual cases." In particular determinations, "there is neither the same truth and rectitude among all men, nor, where it does exist, is it equally known to all." This uncertainty does not mean that the eternal law is mutable. Rather, it signifies that a generalization of practical reason fails to suffice as an instantiation of the eternal law in certain particular circumstances. For example, while it may be generally true that deposits should be returned to the owner, Aquinas asserts that such a return would be contrary to reason where the owner returned to claim his deposit for evil use. But the more we qualify the principle according to practical reason, the less general and more uncertain its applicability becomes. Thus, the scope of human law is narrower than that of the natural law.

Finally, divine law is God's direct revelation of divine truth, as in holy scripture. Man's ultimate end of eternal happiness is not readily apparent from the natural law. Thus it must be illuminated by the explicit propositional statement of certain precepts of the eternal law. As St. Thomas noted in the first question of the Summa:

God destines us for an end beyond the grasp of reason; . . . Now we have to recognize an end before we can stretch out and exert ourselves for it. Hence the necessity for our welfare that divine truths surpassing reason should be signified to us through divine revelation.

Thus, in a properly ordered human community the eternal, natural, human and divine laws work together to form a harmony. While the four types are differentiated in the way we perceive and participate in them, they are, in their essence, a unity: "All laws, in so far as they partake of right reason, are derived from the eternal law."

Normative Aims: Legitimacy and Sovereignty

Most all of St. Thomas's political ideas, as included in the Summa and outlined above, are definitional. They declare the existence of the different realms and modes of law, and are basically ontological assertions. In general, the function of any political community is to order human society in a manner consonant with the eternal law. But -- more specifically -- what makes any particular rule a true law, or any particular ruler a proper sovereign?

According to St. Thomas, "Laws framed by man are either just or unjust. If they be just, they have the power of binding in conscience." That is, they morally require obedience by the subject, rather than merely threatening temporal harm for disobedience. In this sense, only just laws are truly laws: "The force of a law depends on its justice" and a thing is just "from being right according to the rule of reason." The justice of a law is determined relative to three things:

Now laws are said to be just -- from the end, when, to wit, they are ordained to the common good--and from their author, that is to say, when the law that is made does not exceed the power of the lawgiver -- and from their form, when, to wit, burdens are laid on the subjects, according to an equality of proportion and with a view to the common good."

If a human law deviates from reason and the natural law, "it is no longer a law but a perversion of law." Thus, for example, a tyrannical enactment which seeks to benefit the ruler at the expense of the community, is not a true law that binds in conscience. It partakes of the "nature of a law" in that it is "an ordinance made by a superior to his subjects, and aims at being obeyed by them, which is to make them good, not simply, but with respect to that particular government." But, while the rule appears lawful as to author and form, the subjective "good" of the tyrant's enrichment is not the proper end of a law: "A law, properly speaking, regards first and foremost the order to the common good."

St. Thomas illuminates the borders of legitimate sovereignty when he states that it is unjust "when a man makes a law that goes beyond the power committed to him." However, his discussion of sovereignty does not go beyond such descriptive statements. The sovereign is merely "that one who governs the community of the state." The sovereignty of any incarnation of the public power is judged not by its form -- St. Thomas recognizes the validity of kingship, aristocracy, and timocracy -- but by the end towards which it strives. It belongs to the sovereign to frame human laws, and human laws aim at the common good, "therefore the making of a law belongs either to the whole people or to a public personage who has care of the whole people, since in all other matters the directing of anything to the end concerns him to whom the end belongs." However, St. Thomas does not delineate how one "has care of the whole people" committed to him.

The Epistemological Challenge

As the discussion above illustrates, St. Thomas's political writings are a far cry from modern political philosophy, in that they do not submit the final source of legitimacy to human comprehension. Unlike consent (in a Lockean view, for example), the eternal law cannot be comprehended in itself. Thus, to a modern, St. Thomas's systematization appears question-begging, and is not helpful to one asking a specific question such as "Is this a good law?". An answer such as "Yes, if it is consonant with the eternal law," is unhelpful unless we have a means of knowing the eternal law.

And yet Aquinas looks to reason to guide the conduct of state: he does not regard his categories as meaningless. This is largely due to two aspects of faith that St. Thomas would not have in common with a modern skeptic. First, St. Thomas believed that the eternal law is imprinted on our nature, though to an incomplete extent: at a general level, all men know the natural law. Thus he expects men to naturally recognize the good, and to know their own happiness: it is their telos. Thus trusting the true, common sense of mankind will serve us well in our political communities. A government is "the more perfect the more it is sufficient unto itself to procure the necessities of life." Or, as Edmund Burke put it, "Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants." The legitimacy of a government can thus be seen in the satisfaction it produces. There is, of course, the danger that such a view, standing alone, could lapse into a positivism: whatever people settle for, in fact, is right because it is (arguably) their nature.

But secondly, St. Thomas looked to content of the divine law -- imparted through revelation -- to delimit the valid exertions of the temporal sovereign. Thus "if the emperor commands one thing and God another, you must disregard the former and obey God." Such an assertion naturally leads to the question of how one discerns true revelation from all other sensible phenomena. Aquinas answered this question for himself by noting the limits of natural reason. As wrote in his Summa Contra Gentiles, God "by suitable arguments proves His presence, and the truth of his doctrine and inspiration by performing works surpassing the capability of the whole of nature" such as healing the sick, raising the dead, and inspiring the simple minded. These and other such effects are incomprehensible to natural reason and, as such, Aquinas deduces, their cause must be greater than nature. Thus the supernatural form testifies to the divine source of the revelation. This realization constitutes the main source of proof, and it is on this basis that we are to invest faith in revelation. God reveals Himself in that way so "that man may know without any doubt what he ought to do" in many contingent and particular matters where unaided human reason would lead to no certain conclusion.

Aquinas is not seeking an algorithm for legitimacy such as was propounded by the Enlightenment theorists of popular sovereignty, for example. In fact, given his faith in an eternal law, which proceeds from the essence of an infinite God, the modern project of finding final legitimacy in something human -- such as consent or Rousseau's equally metaphysical General Will -- is impossible. There can be no morality of mere process. The only thing that finally legitimates any given law is its being, in reality, in accord with the will of God. In sum, there is no proxy for the eternal law: it does not reside finally in a majority of the populace, or in the person of a king, but only in the essence of God.

This comparative lack of concern for an epistemology of legitimacy is probably due, in part, to St. Thomas's view of the origins of human society. His background default rule was not individualistic -- there was no imagined state of nature, per Hobbes, wherein each man is independent: "man must live in a group, because he is not sufficient unto himself." As Aristotle asserted, man is immutably social and political. Thus, it appears -- given St. Thomas's assumptions -- that a political view that began with a presumption of independence and vested natural rights (as opposed to natural law, in which man participates, but which is always vested in God) would inevitably overscrutinize legitimacy. Such a view engenders a presumptuous mindset that forces any given law or system of government to justify itself. "What right does this ruler have to govern me?" is not a good question to ask out of habit. This is especially true where -- as for St. Thomas -- the worst of all laws is preferable to anarchy. Order is the end of the perfect community.

In addition, given that the precepts of the divine law prevail over human laws and act as a check on the human ruler, St. Thomas did not have to worry so much about political legitimacy because of the temporal power of the Church. In his day, the expositor of the divine law held great sway over the political communities of Western Europe, especially through its use of papal interdicts and canon law. Thus, St. Thomas wrote that "today kings are vassals of the Church." In the Pope, he believed, "the secular power is joined to the spiritual. He holds the apex of both powers, spiritual and secular, by the will of Him who is Priest and King unto eternity." Thus, from St. Thomas's perspective, there was much less reason to concern himself with defining what would constitute a disjunction between human law and the natural law.

Even though St. Thomas was not outlining an algorithm for legitimacy, the system he spelled out does have concrete implications for real-world government. First of all, it precludes the legitimacy of a rampant egalitarianism. It is central to the "divinely appointed order" of creation that people hold differing stations in political society. Subordination is not the result of the Fall, but is a necessary part of even the perfect human community. Thus, "the order of justice requires that subjects obey their superiors, else the stability of human affairs would cease."

However, while "inferiors are bound to obey their superiors," St. Thomas also recognized natural limits to the legitimate commands of any sovereign. Obedience is required by the justice of the command, not by the mere will of the ruler. Thus St. Thomas wrote that

there are two reasons for which a subject may not be bound to obey his superior in all things. First on account of a higher power. . . . Secondly, a subject is not bound to obey his superior if the latter command him to do something wherein he is not subject to him. . . . Consequently in matters touching the internal movement of the will man is not bound to obey his fellow man, but God alone.

At the same time, St. Thomas was not an idealist, and espoused a pragmatic conservatism in favor of obedience and legal stability. While wicked laws do not bind in conscience, a subject must count the larger cost of disobedience and "avoid giving scandal or inflicting a more grievous hurt" before deciding to disobey them. St. Thomas recognized that "custom avails for much for the observance of laws," and that a habitual scrutiny or disobedience would undermine that salutary restraint. "Consequently," he stated,

when a law is changed, the binding power of the law is diminished in so far as custom is abolished. Wherefore human law should never be changed unless, in some way or other, the common weal be compensated according to the extent of the harm done in this respect.

Likewise, St. Thomas also recognized the more extreme possibility of revolution:

If to provide itself with a king belongs to the right of a given multitude, it is not unjust that the king be deposed or have his power restricted by that same multitude if, becoming a tyrant, he abuses the royal power. It must not be thought that such a multitude is acting unfaithfully in deposing the tyrant, even though it had previously subjected itself to him in perpetuity, because he himself has deserved that the covenant with his subjects should not be kept, since, in ruling the multitude, he did not act faithfully as the office of a king demands.

In sum, just as St. Thomas does not provide a temporal epistemology of legitimacy, he does not provide an epistemology for its obverse -- justified disobedience and revolution. For him, legitimacy is always and only a function of moral obligation. His view of human freedom and obligation is summed up in his enigmatic observation: "Though man is not always bound to will what God wills, yet he is always bound to will what God wills him to will." As a legitimating and obligating force, there is no proxy for the eternal law.

However, St. Thomas's observations are not meaningless just because we cannot fully comprehend the eternal law with human reason. Political order and legitimacy are not impossible for two basic reasons. First, because we participate in the natural law -- because it is ingrained on our beings -- we can recognize what we cannot define: namely, the ordained end of our happiness. And finally, because God has revealed himself through the divine law, we have substantial guidance for -- among other things -- the conduct of a human community.

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