Catholic Social Doctrine: Politics is Grounded in Personhood, Affirms the Natural Law

The Church's political vision clearly is founded on the natural law, on an order that is part of reality, of what is, an order which is given and is part of our creaturehood and createdness, an order which we do not make for ourselves, but an order to which conscience prompts us to conform.   This natural order, which is a moral one and is to be distinguished from a mere physical order, is part and parcel of God's creation, of which we are part.  And it reflects the divine order.

CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - As it relates to the foundation and the purpose of political community, the Church's social doctrine is personalist, personalist to the core.  "The human person is the foundation and purpose of political life." (Compendium, No. 384).  This is a wonderful affirmation.  But the affirmation implies a negative.  This personalist vision necessarily rejects several things.

First, a personalist political philosophy rejects any materialistic--that is, non-spiritual, non-Transcendental--vision of the world.  Second, it rejects any political theory that does not acknowledge the human as a person, with a particular nature (a nature which he does not make for himself, but one which is "given" him), with a particular final end, and with an ultimate destiny (not one which he fashions himself, but again one which is "given").

(As an aside, the natural law is "given," it is therefore a grace.  That is why it has been called the "first grace," the gratia prima, of God.  It does us good to recognize that the natural moral law is a gift, not a burden.)

The political community originates in the nature of persons.  It is the nature of a person to have a conscience that "reveals to [him or her] and enjoins [him or her] to obey" the order which God has imprinted in all his creatures.  This imprint is not just a physical order that is measured by science and its tools: it is most especially "a moral and religious order."  And "it is this order--and not considerations of a purely extraneous, material order--which has the greatest validity in the solution of problems relating to their lives as individuals and as members of society, and problems concerning individual States and their interrelations."  (Compendium, No. 384)

The Church's political vision clearly is founded on the natural law, on an order that is part of reality, of what is, an order which is given and is part of our creaturehood and createdness, an order which we do not make for ourselves, but an order to which conscience prompts us to conform.   This natural order, which is a moral one and is to be distinguished from a mere physical order, is part and parcel of God's creation, of which we are part.  And it reflects the divine order.

Drawing on the philosophical insights of Plato, Platonists, and Stoics, theologians such as St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas put it this way: the natural law is nothing but an expression of, a participation in, the Eternal Order, the Eternal Law insofar as it relates to the human person.

This natural law is, in its most fundamental expression, found in the two-fold commandment to love God and to love one's neighbor as one's self.  The Golden Rule is at the heart of politics.

As the  Compendium expresses it: "Being open to both the Transcendent [that is the God who is "beyond" him, "outside" of him, "above" him] and to others is [man's] distinguishing trait.  Only in relation to the Transcendent and to others does the human person reach the total and complete fulfillment of himself.  This means that for the human person, a naturally social and political being, "social life is not something added one" but is part of an essential and indelible dimension.  (Compendium, No. 384)

Because this order is found all about us and within us, and is part of the natural order of things, it is something that we "discover," not something we "invent."  Since it is principally founded upon the use of practical reason (which of course is a limited, created faculty), it should not surprise us that there may be some development in our understanding of the natural law.  It also should not surprise us that we may--from time to time, as individuals or even as cultures--get it wrong. 

(In fact, that is one reason we need the Church, as the Church has been given the authority to teach, in the name of Christ himself and infallibly.  And this teaching authority includes matters relating to the moral order, the natural moral law, which binds all men.  With respect to morals, the Church is therefore the teacher of all mankind.)

Though the order in which the natural law inheres and which it reflects is a priori, that is, it exists prior to, and independent of, our existence, the natural moral law is not something which we know a priori.  It is something which we learn a posteriori.  Reality exists before we exist.  We learn the facts after they exist.  We come upon them.  This is why the natural law is a form of discovery.

Our knowledge of the natural law is something we learn through the use of our practical reason, particularly the faculty of conscience, as it is informed with the reality that is both in us (especially our inclinations, something which might be described as "intellectual feltness"), and around us (especially the existence of others of our kind as who, in the words of Dr. John F. X. Knasas, are equally "intellectors of being" and "willers of good").  For this reason, the Church recognizes that this "order must be gradually discovered and developed by humanity." (Compendium, No. 384)

The fact that we "discover" or come upon the natural moral law means that there may be progressive "discovery" of it, i.e., there may be a development in our understanding of it.  This development occurs not only in the individual (we learn about right or wrong as we grow and develop and confront experiences following the age of reason; hence the notion of wisdom coming with age), but also in societies as a whole as they develop in time, confront situations to which they have to adapt and from which they learn, and develop their particular mores, traditions, and customs. 

It also means that not all of us may know the natural law with the same facility, just like we are not all equally good athletes or mountaineers.  While all of us have a conscience and live a moral life, there are sages, wise men and women, gifted and virtuous individuals--Christ and his Saints!--who have deep sensitivity to the moral realm.  And these should be our teachers and our exemplars. 

Unfortunately, there is a downside to our learning or discovering the natural moral law.  Our understanding of it may not only progress.  There can be regress.  While generally there is progress in man's knowledge, including his knowledge of the natural law (what Yves Simon calls the "law of progressivity"), it is not something assured, and there are times where regress is possible. 

For example, two generations ago, contraception, abortion, premarital sex, homosexual activity, and divorce and remarriage would have been recognized for what they were: moral enormities.  Modernly, we view these as goods or rights.  There has been a huge regress in this area.  One must also recognize that there is also a "law of regressivity."  What we have discovered, we can lose.

Man, a political animal, does not go about implementing this natural law on his own.  To be sure the natural law ought to guide his individual acts.  But it is also the basis of political life, of social life, of his life in common.  As the Compendium clarifies: "The political community, a reality inherent in mankind, exists to achieve an end otherwise unobtainable: the full growth of its members, called to cooperate steadfastly for the attainment of the common good, under the impulse of their natural inclinations toward what is true and good." (Compendium, No. 384)

In forming their political institutions and their social life, in coming together and cooperating for the common good, human persons are to give priority to the good over the right.  This is the center of the Church's personalist vision of politics and social life.

In the Church's view, which is one based upon man as he is, man as a person with a purpose, an end, the entire modern liberal construct--which gives priority to the right over the good, and ignores what man is made for--is ill-conceived.  It is, in fact, doomed to failure.

What must replace it? 

A political, economic, and social order based upon the personalist vision of society, one based upon an objective moral order, as found with the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.  We would all be better off-Catholics and non-Catholics alike-if the Church's social doctrine were lived, and not simply kept hidden under a bushel basket.

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Andrew M. Greenwell is an attorney licensed to practice law in Texas, practicing in Corpus Christi, Texas.  He is married with three children.  He maintains a blog entirely devoted to the natural law called Lex Christianorum.  You can contact Andrew at agreenwell@harris-greenwell.com.

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