Between Scylla and Charybdis: Aquinas Political Thought and His Notion of Natural Law and Ius Gentium (original) (raw)

In the process of secularization of legal institutions, the thirteenth century - with all its political conflicts between emperors and popes - is relevant to understand the evolution of those institutions in modernity. Contextualized in that period, this chapter shows the importance of Aquinas's line of thought about the common good, law, and right in this process. In general, the context of Aquinas’s era and his personal circumstances were characterized by tensions between two perilous alternatives, the imperial and the papal power. Because of this, Aquinas was cautious to express his opinion in specific political issues of the time. This chapter argues that, in spite of Aquinas's caution in putting forward his political ideas, the essence of his political thought and his opposition to theocratic theory of government could be inferred also from his notions of natural law and ius gentium, in which he addressed the basic issues of property rights and slavery. Contrary to the tendency in academia which adscribes Aquinas's political thought to the theocratic theory, the present work argues that Aquinas was not a defender of this theory, but really a defender of secular power. Furthermore, in Aquinas's view, there was no need to invoke revealed truth to support political decisions and enactments, but only natural reason. Every law must conform to natural reason and natural law, and in order to be legitimate must aim for the common good. From this standpoint, Aquinas dealt with topics such as dominium, private property, commerce and slavery. The chapter concludes that with his notions of natural law and ius gentium, Aquinas defended the legitimacy of secular power and contributed to the secularization in its meaning as declericalization, by depriving temporal, political power of the clerical character it had in late thirteen century Europe. Aquinas also provided the grounds for the development of the doctrines about religious freedom, human natural sociability, and property rights that were used afterwards to discuss the rights over the new world. Keywords: Aquinas, political thought, common good, theocratic theory, secularization, natural law, ius gentium, property rights, slavery.