This article comes from the website of the International Observatory for Social Doctrine of the Church.
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Laicity according to Dante Aligheri and the critique of Etienne Gilson
By Stefano Fontana
There is an issue Christians can in no way just shrug off, and which demands a response from them: is the organization of life on this earth, which in the final anaylsis pertains to political unison of intent, autonomous with respect to religion or is it insufficient as regards founding and maintaining itself? Depending on the response to this question is the relationship intended to be established between politics and religious faith, between the world with its modes of reasoning and Catholicism. Together with St. Augustine we can say it is a matter of establishing the relationship between the “city of God” and the “city of man”.
Efforts have been made down through history to come up with diverse solutions to this problem, and in 1952 the great philosopher-historian Étienne Gilson wrote a book in order to analyze the principles of these solutions. This book has now been reprinted by Cantagalli Publishers of Siena with the original title: “The Metamorphoses of the City of God”. It is a well known fact that the scales tend to shift from one side to another, now weighing in favor of the city of man, and then in favor of the city of God. Proposed in the course of this same historical process, however, has been one solution claiming to be perfectly balanced. Its proponent was Dante Alighieri, and Gilson deals with this solution in chapter IV of his book.
This is a useful exercise today as well because even many Christians retain politics and religion to be two autonomous and independent realties, each abiding its respective sphere.
But is it really like this?
According to Dante, political power receives from spiritual power not its selfsame existence, but only a sort of light that assists it spiritually in the exercise of its authority. The Church is founded on Christ, while political power is founded on law. The aim of the former is the salvation of souls, while the aim of the latter is the wellbeing of the corporeal person. The temporal level thereby enjoys full autonomy, Spiritual power can help it attain its aims and ends, but does not confer its authority. There is a natural level of the universal existence of persons which suffices unto itself. Therefore, it is also fully non confessional: all persons are part and party to it on the basis of their human nature, whether they belong to or practice one religion or another. Nature is autonomous with respect to grace, even if it is in its own interest to capitalize on the benefits of grace. For the first time, therefore, Dante intuited the notion of an autonomous and sufficient political level in its order, a level endowed with its own nature, its own ultimate end, and the autonomous means needed to achieve that end. In fact, today as well many are those who assert that we are all persons before being Christians or followers of other religions. The sense intended by similar assertions it that the human and natural level is in itself the source of full humanization, and that the union among persons as such does not need religion. There is a sort of temporal Church, which is autonomous humankind in its own order, and then there is a religious Church guided by the pope and animated by Christ.
Dante used two principal arguments to sustain his thesis. The first was that the empire, that is to say the organization of the political level without the Christian religion, was there before Christianity. He was naturally referring to the Roman empire, which was tendentially universal at its height. Therefore, he sustained, the poltical level was able to stand alone on its own two feet. The second argument was that through the philosophy of Aristotle, then fully assimilated in the western world thanks above all to St. Thomas Aquinas, human reason gave the impression of being fully able to attain all its truths on its own. This projected the idea that reason was autonomous with respect to the faith and able with its own forces to guide the emperor’s political actions.
As Gilson points out, however, neither argument was grounded in the history of western thought as it really was. In De civitate Dei, for example, St. Augustine had been very critical of the worst laws and customs of the Roman empire, sustaining that the empire’s downfall had been due to unbridled immorality. This demonstrated that without the advent of Christianity, which also raised “good citizens” while raising “good Christians”, natural reason and morals would not have succeeded in constructing the earthly city. Regarding the second argument or line of reasoning, “are we certain that the triumph of Aristotle in the Middle Ages was purely philosophical and rational?”. This is quite a question! If the Christian faith had not purified the errors present in Aristotle’s philosophy, would the great medieval philosophy have ever seen the light of day? As we can see, it is possible to doubt reason’s ability to do everything alone.
What can therefore be said about Dante’s proposal? Is it true that the political level is autonomous with respect to the religious one and able to attain its ultimate ends all on its own? In order to accept this approach it is necessary to accept the fact that man has two ends: a temporal end and a supernatural one. This is what Dante says, but from a Christian point of view it is an error. By not acknowledging the fact that man has but one vocation, he “failed to recognize the fundamental principle whereby, far from suppressing the autonomy of any inferior order, its hierarchal subordination has the effect of founding that inferior order, bringing it to perfection, guaranteeing its integrity and maintaining it. Nature informed by grace is more perfectly nature. Natural reason enlightened by the faith becomes more integrally reasonable. Through accepting the spiritual and religious jurisdiction of the Church, the social and political order becomes happier and wiser on the temporal level”.
Therefore, if Dante was off the mark, we together with Gilson cannot help but ask ourselves the most intriguing question we have today, a question difficult to be sidestepped by anyone who wants to get to the depths of things: “Can there be a Church without there being political unity on this earth; but can there be political unity on this earth without there being a recognition by the temporal order of the direct authority of the spiritual order not only in the moral realm, but also in the political sphere?”.
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: “In spiritual matters it is fitting to obey the pope, in temporal matters it is better to obey the prince, but even better to obey the pope, who occupies the summit of the two orders”. According to Gilson this means that “the spiritual is not subordinate to the temporal. The prince, who has authority over the temporal order, therefore has no authority over the spiritual realm; but the temporal is subordinate to the spiritual. The pope, who has authority over the spiritual realm, therefore also has authority over the temporal sphere to the degree that the latter depends on the spiritual order. The formula is quite simple and it suffices to apply it to see how it entails a precise meaning. The pope is not the political sovereign of any people on earth, but does have sovereign authority over the way all peoples conduct their political life”.
