The Nature of State
A Cocktail of Christian Nationalism, Thomas Aquinas, and Liberalism
Photo by Megan Earl
In the well heated but dimly lit conversation that continues to go on about Christian Nationalism, a lot of downward moves, toward the foundations of the concepts at play, have been made recently.1
I am grateful that this has been happening, but I for one need more of it. I’m the sort of person that sometimes needs the push and pull of a real conversation to stress test my position on something. Albert Mohler is fond of saying that books and readers are conversation partners. I’ve found this to be true. On the subjects that are raised when Christian Nationalism is addressed, I’ve needed to have a long, thorough conversation with a serious, judicious, clear thinker who knows his own mind better than I know mine.
This means reading a book. And yet here I am adding to the pile of articles on the subject of Christian Nationalism—sort of. It’s an article about my time spent in conversation with Thomas Aquinas and Augustine on the topic of human government.2 I haven’t yet read any works of theirs on this issue cover to cover, but I am on that road. Aquinas’ most thorough treatments of this subject come in various Questions from the Summa, and in De Regno (On Kingship); Augustine’s in The City of God.3 Aquinas followed Augustine in many things, but he also followed Aristotle, whose writings had not long before Aquinas’ time come to light again for Europeans.
I’m not going to give any kind of summary or scholarly treatment of their works. I simply want to use this article as a way to see how a conversation with them can help me better understand human government from a Christian perspective.
My fiancée recently broke into an old dresser drawer of hers and found some books she had collected a long time ago. One of them was a helpful volume from The Hafner Library of Classics that goes by the title The Political Ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas, proving first that Mr. Hafner, whoever he was, was a savvy gentleman, and secondly that my fiancée and I were meant to be together.
When someone asks you “What do you think about Christian Nationalism?”, there are about eight other questions that you find you must have answers to before you can give a real opinion on this. I think that is a thing worth knowing. And yet, there does seem to be a solid core to the many questions that are being asked, something they seem to all point at. If I had to put it in one sentence it would be something like, “Is a free society with rule of law inherently glorifying to God or not?”
What I’ll do is share several excerpts from Aquinas to give a taste of his views on government, and then I’ll start my comment salad. Let me start by citing a passage in which Aquinas gives something, at least on the surface, quite similar to the non-aggression principle of libertarianism. In The First Part of the Second Part (bless him), Question 96, Article 2, in his Reply to Objection 1, he says, “Audacity seems to refer to the assailing of others. Consequently it belongs to those sins chiefly whereby one's neighbor is injured: and these sins are forbidden by human law, as stated.” He is saying that it is the part of human laws and human government to more or less keep people from harming the person or property of another physically, or punishing those who do. (The examples he gives elsewhere are murder and theft.) It is not their job to repress all vices.
In speaking of human law, he lays out four things which must be said of it:
It must be derived from the natural law
It must be ordained to the common good of the state
It must be framed by the one or those who govern the state
It must direct human actions4
Within number 3, he recognizes that there are basically five kinds of human government which each provide their own kind of law. There is monarchy, the rule of one. There is aristocracy, the rule of the best or of the highest ranking members of society. Then there is oligarchy, the rule of the rich and powerful few. And there is democracy, the rule of the people, which provides us decrees of the “commonalty”. Tyranny, the last, really doesn't have any law of its own, because it only has the will of the tyrant governing the state.
Then he says, “Finally, there is a form of government made up of all these, and which is the best; and in this respect we have “law (in its proper sense) sanctioned by the Elders (or Lords) and Commons,” as stated by Isidore.”5 This is what Aquinas calls the mixed regime, and he believes it is what God gave Moses and the Israelites.6
Number 1 of that list of things belonging to human law is key. Let me cite a famous sentence of his from a few articles before this one:
“...every human law has just so much of the nature of law as it is derived from the law of nature. But if in any point it deflects from the law of nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of law.”7
And he says that a law can be unjust in two ways: by being contrary to human good, and by being contrary to divine good, as when a law induces one to idolatry or some other sin. In that case, it of course ought not to be obeyed. He also believes that Christ has one political body, which includes the civil and the ecclesial, and that the Pope is the head of both. As Dino Bigongiari says, for Aquinas, “[t]he ecclesia includes the res publica.”8 In other words, the Church includes the state.
It’s also important to note what Thomas says about man’s condition before the Fall. When he makes the case that before the Fall, men would have still been political and formed societies (first in his commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences), he says that this is because some men would still have been wiser and more intelligent than others and would have needed to give direction to them “in things to be done and known”.9 In other words, the political nature of man is just that—part of nature, not part of any gracious ‘superadded gift’ which his theology says fell away after man’s first sin. The pagan can be a just ruler quite as well as the Christian can.
Finally, here is a passage from him that really stood out. It is from De Regno, Chapter Two, in which he says
“The aim of any ruler should be directed toward securing the welfare of that which he undertakes to rule. The duty of the pilot, for instance, is to preserve his ship amidst the perils of the sea and to bring it unharmed to the port of safety. Now the welfare and safety of a multitude formed into a society lies in the preservation of its unity, which is called peace. If this is removed, the benefit of social life is lost and, moreover, the multitude in its disagreement becomes a burden to itself. The chief concern of the ruler of a multitude, therefore, is to procure the unity of peace.”
This is the thing that grabbed me, because it spoke to how many Americans feel about our society now. We have become a burden to ourselves because of our ‘disagreement’. Something feels like it has to give. We seem to be in ever increasing need of a pressure release valve. This unity or peace he speaks of, if I’m not mistaken, is a kind of moral consensus or agreement. It is not just the lack of warfare or civil strife, although that is certainly part of what Aquinas believes is necessary for a state.
For us in America today, we conservative Christians feel the weight of God’s judgment on our nation (even if that judgment only takes the form of the natural consequences of our actions) for the increasing wickedness in our midst. Many have started to wonder if a liberal society is even conducive to godliness. Or perhaps, it was once good when a Christian moral consensus could be had, but now the tread on its tires has worn off and the car is drifting. This is where the appeal of Christian Nationalism shows up.
By ‘liberal’ I mean rule of law, equality under the law, and the freedom of all adults to be citizens—that is, to own property and to participate in the process of government, by voting or running for office (in our country, anyway). But I suppose I’ve left a dull point on the tip of that definition, since what has become obnoxious about liberalism to some of these conservatives (who often get called post-liberals or integralists, in the Catholic variety) is the kind of tolerance of wicked behaviors and viewpoints which they believe have led to the erosion of the very freedoms that liberalism promised to safeguard.
This question of the inherent good of liberalism has come up in different forms as I’ve read through the 9Marks journal on Christian Nationalism, and listened to Christ Over All’s podcast interviews on it. Yes, other things are at play, such as eschatology, one’s biblical theology of the covenants, theonomy, and so on. But this one seems to underlie a lot of the disagreements that have been aired, in my estimation. And I want to know: is liberalism a proximate good, contingent on the moral fiber of the citizenry, or is it an absolute good?
On this question, see this passage from the respondio of Question 97, Article 1, in which Aquinas cites Augustine:
“On the part of man whose acts are regulated by law the law can be rightly changed on account of the changed condition of man, to whom different things are expedient according to the difference of his condition. An example is proposed by Augustine: ‘If the people have a sense of moderation and responsibility and are most careful guardians of the common weal, it is right to enact a law allowing such a people to choose their own magistrates for the government of the commonwealth. But if, as time goes on, the same people become so corrupt as to sell their votes and entrust the government to scoundrels and criminals, then the right of appointing their public officials is rightly forfeit to such a people, and the choice devolves to a few good men.’”
You can see how quickly both of them part ways with democracy when unrighteousness becomes rampant enough. Whether this is evidence of them parting ways with liberalism is a question I am still asking. Incidentally, I do believe one can have a liberal state that is not purely democratic, even though we in America associate the two very closely. Once again, I am using ‘liberal’ to refer to a state in which all adults can be citizens, can own property, and are equal before the law (in other words, can testify in court, have the same legal rights, etc.). This can happen in a monarchy too, it seems to me, but a curtailed and bounded one; not one where the monarch is understood to have some overarching right to use the people and resources of the realm however he chooses. It would have to be a republican monarchy to be just. (I know I’m not proving that; I’m just asserting it.)
While I think I agree in principle with what Aquinas and Augustine are saying here, it is extremely tricky to see how that could work out in a liberal society without sedition and great civil strife—things which Aquinas is strongly against. After all, he considers sedition a mortal sin. And what Augustine says here seems to cut both ways: if a ruler is himself a criminal or scoundrel, his government is forfeit and devolves on those few good men by right.
I really want this to help in our current situation, but I don’t see how it can. What happens if trying to do away with some evil just makes things worse? Context matters a lot as well. In America, the Constitution is the highest law of the land. A Christian ought not do something unconstitutional, unless he would be disobeying God if he didn’t. It’s not clear to me how in America the “few good men” take power into their hands to govern the people less corruptly. Secession?
I am very consensus driven, and therefore probably at root committed to some form of liberalism. What I mean is that I believe it would be good and right for a nation or a town to, say, ban pornography or gambling, and enforce the ban, if there were a strong enough consensus behind this. If not, this would probably not be wise for those in power to force on the populace. It would not be wise, I think, in two cases: first, if civil unrest would ensue from trying to enforce such a thing. And it would also be unwise if it could not be properly or sufficiently enforced to begin with. In my opinion, no law which cannot be enforced has any business being a law. If both of those are good reasons not to push something through, then we may find ourselves agreeing with Aquinas that the peace and stability of a state are paramount.
That second case takes some explaining. If a law cannot be enforced, then to try to enforce it is sure to cause either one or both of two things: citizens will cease to respect the laws along with those who try but fail to enforce them; or citizens will bridle at the attempted enforcement and rebel.
Thomas speaks of this in Article 2 of Question 96, saying:
“The purpose of human law is to lead men to virtue, not suddenly, but gradually. Wherefore it does not lay upon the multitude of imperfect men the burdens of those who are already virtuous, viz., that they should abstain from all evil. Otherwise these imperfect ones, being unable to bear such precepts, would break out into yet greater evils; thus it is written: “He that violently bloweth his nose, bringeth out blood””.
In conclusion of the main body here, I find myself largely agreeing with Thomas here. I do think he is right in emphasizing the primacy which governors and laws ought to place on the peace and safety of the state they govern. That isn’t necessarily an argument for liberalism, but it is an argument against codifying burdensome laws which only the Holy Spirit or the Church are competent to address or enforce in a person.
He has at least helped me see a little more clearly into the problems we have to solve to understand how we move forward. They are tough indeed, and neither he nor the Scriptures give a simple answer. I have a feeling that he would also find our situation difficult and probably lock himself in a room with Aristotle, Isidore, and Augustine (and maybe Robert George as well) until he had some answers.
Me Thinking On Paper
This is where the messy musing begins (or continues, according to the smart alecs). I’ll take it as a given that both Church and state were instituted by God. No Christian will dispute that God instituted the Church, and most will also agree that he established human government and told us to respect it. Christians don’t get some exemption from having to obey laws or participate in civil society simply because they worship the King of the universe. That, I think, was Paul’s main thrust in Romans 13, and Peter’s in 1 Peter 3.
For this article, I will also take it as a given that ultimately, the calling or end or final goal of everything that exists is to bring glory to God. That would include Church and state. But it seems obvious, from Scripture and reason, that the calling of Church and state differ at a certain point. I think Jonathan Leeman has it right when he says that even though there is one kingdom of God, not two, there are separate spheres of sovereignty in the world; that is to say, there are different areas of life which each have their own final human authority. God of course is the final authority over all things, but in human affairs, he has delegated a lot of that authority to others. In a family, the father and husband is the final authority. In a local church, I would argue it is the congregation, led by the elders. In a government, it is the people as a whole, whose rule must be administered to them by certain individuals from among them.
Now of course, I’ve just taken a side on some seriously contested issues, and this is not the place to back all of them up. I’m taking all of these things as givens here. Back to Leeman. He says that God has one kingdom, one structure of authority flowing from him to his creation; God is not king only over the Church. He is king over the universe. However, he has set up multiple spheres of human authority in the world, which are not supervenient upon each other. The state was given the sword of the kingdom (Romans 13), whereas the Church was given the keys (Matthew 18). It is not part of a Church’s job to physically or financially punish lawbreakers, to take life, to levy taxes, to impose fines, or to try cases of law. Those things belong to the sword-holder, not the key-holder. In matters of doctrine, of church discipline, of spiritual and moral imperatives, the Church is the final authority, and even a king is subject to its rulings on those matters. Conversely, going to war, fixing land boundaries, maintaining and protecting peace and physical safety of citizens, passing down sentences for violators of that peace, and many other such things, belong to the state to decide on, and even church elders are subject to its rulings on these things.
I was recently wrestling with Doug Wilson’s article entitled “Toppling the Cosplay Satan” in which he critiques Andrew Walker’s response to the guy who defaced some Satanist display somewhere in Iowa. He says Walker is too fussy and focused on process rather than law. Those who know what the law is, Doug says, think in terms of righteousness and unrighteousness, and want to promote the former, since any law which is unrighteous is no law at all. But this is not in full color. Doug himself in other places has acknowledged that by no means can all sins be treated as crimes. You can’t have a lust police or pride police. And if this is so, then there must be some metric by which we are excluding some sins from being crimes. That metric would seem to have to take into account Aquinas’ notion of peace and unity, as well as the common good.
So what do you do in a giant nation like ours when all kinds of rampant wickedness and harmful practices are going on? Things like abortion and drug abuse and homosexuality (not to mention the unhealthy eating). There is no way consensus will be reached on all, or perhaps on any, of these. So what do you do, hoping to limit and end these evils, but also to not cause civil war? I think the only way forward, the only just thing, is to allow smaller units within that huge nation to govern themselves and make their own choices on those things. This is the pressure release valve I mentioned before. But we don’t have the proper mechanisms for that to happen at any level lower than that of the state.
Another opinion is going to leak out here: I think we ought to take a hint from Exodus and create a more bottom-up, localist structure of government, something more like the rulers of tens, of fifties, of hundreds, and of thousands; a hierarchy of subsidiarity which is based on the will of the governed.
The gnarly question for Christians is what to do when a society seems to be gliding along nicely on the backs of its victims. It seems to me there are three options for how a sinful state can get along: either on the backs or dead bodies of parts of its own, such as in slavery from 19th Century America or abortion in 21st Century America; or on the blood of those it conquers—and it must perpetually be conquering as a shark must be always swimming; or else it limps along in its own filth and decrepitude due to its dissipation and corruption and love for perversion, as perhaps Greece and Rome did in their final years, and as we are now doing. And there is of course some overlap. Let enough perversion happen and you get plenty of victims.
This is the conundrum that has led, I believe, to all the fuss around Christian Nationalism. Should we as Christians seek, so far as we are legally able, to make new laws that try to ban wickedness? Should we only do this insofar as it seems to promote peace? Or to the extent of helping those who need help and are victims, as in the case of slavery and abortion? I think certainly the answer to the second question is yes. And this we must do even if we disobey a law, for we must obey God rather than men. But exactly what laws can we break? We can’t break a law which it would be a sin to break, such as murdering or stealing.
Or should we only try to win souls to Christ? Or perhaps there is a middle ground? This might be passing laws that we think have a shot at being passed and enforced. In other words, we shouldn't waste time trying to ban sodomy in California. Do what is feasible, enforceable, and not likely to be ignored. And this, I think, should hold even if you were the king of California. You shouldn't pass an edict which couldn’t be enforced or which would cause great civil strife to the point of endangering the society’s continued existence. I know, I’m asking a whole lot of questions and hardly answering any.
There is also a question about what we mean by ‘enforce’. A law against sodomy can be passed, but is the law to be carried out to the point of trying to eradicate all sodomy from the land? In that case, you would have SWAT raids on the homes of suspected homosexuals, and that isn’t something most of us would want. There is a trade off between the moral aims of law and the peaceful aims. Entrusting too much power into the hands of rulers and enforcers seems highly unwise, since, even if it is at times wielded for good, it can very easily be wielded evilly and turn into a tyranny, which would destroy peace. And that, as we know, is Aquinas’ ultimate worst case scenario.
Some More Thoughts on ‘Christian Nationalism’
A nation can certainly be called ‘Christian’ in the sense that a majority of its citizens are believers or at least confessors of the faith. And it can even more strongly be called ‘Christian’ if its founding and the framing of many of its laws have been influenced by the Bible. One could also call a nation ‘Christian’ if its founding documents, or its inaugural, electoral, or accessional scripts and rituals take words from the Bible or explicitly thank the Christian God and ask for his blessing on the land. In this nominal and verbal sense, a nation can be ‘Christian’. But a nation can’t be Christian the way a person can. A nation can’t be regenerate or reprobate because it isn’t alive and has not a soul that will survive this world. It is comprised of such, and is an aggregate of them.
Some theologians point to Psalm 2, which tells the kings of the earth to “kiss the Son”, and interpret it to mean that nations and rulers ought to be explicitly in submission to Christ. They often connect this with a certain translation of the Great Commission and say that “discipling the nations” means making nations Christian in some sense. They say that, because God clearly acknowledges the nation or people group as a valid entity with which he can deal in judgment or blessing, therefore nations must honor him to be blessed; and how can they honor him unless they acknowledge and worship and obey him? Just as individuals can bring most glory to God by repenting and believing in Jesus and being saved, so nations ought to repent and believe. But it’s not clear to me how one establishes from the Scriptures a clear line that a nation can cross to become Christian. Would it be a bare majority of its citizens converting? Or a super majority, or just a plurality? Or the conversion of the chief executive, or a certain amount of Bible verses and creeds in the founding documents and legal formulae?
Doug Wilson and others have held up America and said that obviously we are a nation that was once greatly blessed by God, and this must be because we had something of a godly founding and a righteous cause, and because we acknowledged him and praised him for our success at the start. But I don’t think this means we were a Christian nation in any formal sense. John Wilsey has given a good answer to this by saying that although America did have a Christian founding, it was never a Christian nation.10 In other words, we have been greatly influenced by the faith, but we have never explicitly made ourselves a Christian country, by, say, putting the name of Jesus or the Apostles’ Creed in the Constitution, or requiring a testimony of faith in Jesus from public officials.
1 Timothy 2:1-4
I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.
For those who haven’t followed this conversation, I’ll say a sentence on it and offer a couple of resources. The term ‘Christian Nationalism’ gained currency after the January 6th incident at the Capitol, at first as a sort of label for conservative Christians by non-Christians, and then increasingly became a conversation among those conservative Christians, who realized a lot of clarifying had to be done. I recommend starting with What To Do With Christian Nationalism and then, for some more historic background, moving on to The Many Faces of Christian Nationalism.
Probably just Aquinas in this article. They each deserve their own.
Other key texts for Aquinas are his Commentary on Aristotle’s Politics; for Augustine, his On Free Choice of the Will.
ST I-II, Question 95, Article 4
Ibid.
At least, at the time of writing this, that was his position.
ST I-II, Question 95, Article 2
From the introduction to the Hafner volume mentioned
This was pointed out to me, along with the same quotation, in a paper called “Augustine and Aquinas on Political Authority”, pg 361, by Paul J. Weithman.
See his interview on Christ Over All regarding Christian Nationalism.