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Governmental Right In Theocratic Society

Chapter 1

The nature of theocratic society

633. Perfect theocratic society, that is, the Church of JESUS Christ, is simply the natural society of mankind raised in certain human beings to the supernatural order and brought to its final completion and full realisation.

634. Let us begin by viewing globally the traces of theocratic society presented by nature. We shall then see how the Redeemer, after taking up the primal design of the Creator, notwithstanding the devastation wrought in it by the sins of men and women, restored his work and brought it to completion without abandoning these traces, and raised theocratic society to its highest level on earth and in heaven.

635. Does mankind form a society by nature? This is the first question springing to mind when serious thought is given to government in theocratic society. In this chapter we shall answer the question, and show that:

636. Our heading does not refer to domestic society, which is produced contemporaneously by human nature and human activity. Because it is produced, it does not depend solely upon the nature of things.

637. Our question asks whether human beings, by their simple co-existence on earth, are joined in a de iure society, inherent to their humanity.

638. I am speaking of a de iure society. I do not deny that an external, de facto society corresponding to the de jure society may either be lacking or in a deplorable state. A domestic society may be torn apart by internal strife, for example; citizens may be engaged in civil war. But despite the disunion and struggle between members of these societies, forgetful of their social obligations, the right which presides unchangeably over domestic and civil society, and forms them, is not destroyed. In so far as they exist by right, such societies are immune from damage and unfailing. A natural society amongst human beings has to be thought of in the same way. Although the obligations it imposes may be left unfulfilled by human waywardness, and men and women live unconscious of its existence, it continues to be.(70)

639. Philosophers and historians of antiquity agree in affirming this.
Philosophers often speak of a universal society of mankind;(71) historians, in describing the history of their particular nations, often show them made up of wanderers thrown together in a life that was at least uncivilised, if not altogether unsocial [App., no. 2]. St. Augustine summed up this two-fold condition of mankind when he said, `There is nothing more viciously disagreeable nor more naturally social than mankind.'(72)

640. It is easy to recognise in mankind all the constitutive elements of society we have already explained. Hence we can affirm that the Creator, in placing mankind upon earth, posited with it an essential, co-created society which would precede all others, and be their foundation and support.

641. As we have said, every society is constituted by a common good, towards which the wills of several persons aim together in order that all may enjoy it or profit from it.
Every human being possesses connatural, identical rights, that is, rights having as their object three goods identical in all human beings: truth, virtue and happiness. (cf. RI, 84-244).
These three goods can never be the private and exclusive possession of any one person because they are inexhaustible and unlimited by time and space. Characteristically and essentially they are common to all (cf. RI, 390-391).

642. Because they are not subject to the laws of time and space, these intellectual and moral goods enjoy a property lacking in other so-called inexhaustible goods, such as light and air, which cannot be entirely appropriated by a single person, although they are limited and material (cf. RI, 392). Such goods can in fact be diminished by the use made of them by other human beings. Air, for instance, can be used up by a crowd in a room, or infected by people or clothes. Moreover, each individual enjoys only a part of these material, so-called inexhaustible objects and cannot enjoy another's part of them. On the other hand, intellectual and moral goods - truth, virtue and happiness - are:

1.undiminishable; that is, they are not decreased in relationship to individuals whatever the satisfaction obtained from them by other persons;
2.indivisible: each individual enjoys them in their integrity and totality, not as a separate part of a whole, although the totality itself can be enjoyed to different degrees by different individuals;
3.identical: these goods enjoyed identically by an individual of the human species can be enjoyed by all the other individuals of the species indefinitely and without limit.

643. In addition, the three goods we have indicated are proper to human nature.
Truth is inherent to human beings, and informs them;(73) virtue is the perfection of the human person;(74) happiness is the perfect state to which man's essential feeling tends incessantly (that is, a human being tends by nature to happiness because he is a substance-feeling, and the perfect state of feeling cannot be found outside virtue, the perfection of the person).(75)

644. All this, however, would not be sufficient to prove that there is by nature a universal society of mankind. The good which forms society must not only be common and public; it must be used in communion if a society is to exist. Solitary contemplatives could not be said to be united in a society if, while sharing in what is true and just, they ignored one another (cf. USR, 45).
This constitutive element is not lacking, however. Granted only that human beings know of their co-existence, we may affirm that the goods we have mentioned are, of their own nature and because of human nature, posited and enjoyed in communion.

645. In fact, truth unifies human individuals. It is nothing more than the idea making known real things. But the idea, in so far as it makes man known, becomes the foundation of the human species. Every real human being is known through the same identical idea of human being, that is, ideal human nature, or human nature as knowable. Because a single, identical idea makes known all human individuals, the same identical realised essence, the same nature, is known in each of them. Consequently, all men and women are said to form a single human species. All intelligent beings, however, and this includes human beings, love things in the way in which they know them.

Love proceeding from the subject receives its direction from the idea (the object). Granted the nature of the idea, it is clear that when we see a single thing, that is, a single nature in ourselves and in all other human beings and, as a result, love this nature, we come naturally to love all the individuals of our species as ourselves. This single love for all human beings sown in each by nature makes each one desire for the others the same good as he desires for himself. His supreme goods, however, are truth, virtue and happiness, which he naturally wishes to possess and enjoy in communion with all his fellows. Human nature longs for and tends towards these goods as its end. But the human nature which a human being loves is identical in himself and in all those sharing it with him. Truth, therefore, draws all human beings towards love of one another as a single entity,(76) and calls out to be enjoyed by human beings in communion.

646. Virtue produces the same effect. As justice, it respects equally all human beings because they have the same nature, and consequently wants the supreme goods of this nature to be common to all the individuals possessing it.(77) As goodness, it leads human beings to desire the supreme goods not for themselves alone, but for the whole human race, and to encourage their common possession. No one would be virtuous who desired to have virtue for himself alone, or did not rejoice in having it in common with others, and in being able to love it with them and in them.

647. Happiness cannot be attained unless it is preceded by virtue, just as virtue is impossible if human beings do not accept truth as their escort. A person refusing to hold the supreme goods in human nature in communion with his fellows cannot be happy because he would no longer be reasonable or virtuous, and would in fact have already renounced truth and virtue.

648. Happiness consists in the love and enjoyment of good, and good is being. A person who does not love his fellows cannot be happy because he excludes from his love that part of being, and therefore of good, which he finds in them, thus depriving himself culpably of a part of good. This malicious and willed privation constitutes evil. Depriving oneself of the natural love of one's fellows means rejecting the good found in such love, which is such that Cicero, quoting Archita of Taranto, could say, `If a human being were to ascend alone into the heavens, and from there admire the world of nature and the beauty of the stars, the wonder would mean nothing to him if he had no companion to listen to his comments.'(78) How true this is! The only qualification to be made about applying it to the possession of absolute good, which contains every good, is that absolute good, although it could certainly be enjoyed fully by an individual, could not be enjoyed by an individual wishing to be its sole possessor to the exclusion of others.(79)

649. The unity and simplicity of the sublime goods to which human nature is directed gives unity to this nature, and constitutes in a natural society the real individuals in human nature. On the one hand, these goods are common by nature; on the other hand, they would cease to be if human beings, knowing one another, refused to possess them in common.

650. Another consequence is that truth, virtue and happiness can be said to be bonds between intelligent beings. Their very concept includes society between intelligences, which are essentially unitive and social.(80)

651. Unity, universality and justice are the three characteristics of natural theocratic society.

652. Unity: theocratic society is one, as truth and justice are one.

653. Universality: theocratic society is universal because it sets before itself the supreme good of human nature, a good which is identical for all those belonging to this nature.

654. Justice: theocratic society is just because its very desire for justice gives it existence.
The sublime characteristics of these three supreme goods which form the object of pure-connatural rights shows that such goods are of their nature social to the highest degree. A society taking them as its aim is bound to excel, and to possess a singular degree of intimacy.

655. The intimacy of a society depends upon the intimacy of its communion in the good forming its object.

656. When communion is at its most intense,

1.the object enjoyed by the members is perfectly identical;
2.the object cannot be divided, but is so simple that it is given whole to all;
3.each person enjoys this unique, simple object to the extent of his capacity, and of his desire to satisfy his capacity.

657. Communion in any material good whatsoever lacks these conditions, and can never be as perfect as communion in intellectual and moral goods, which alone are suitable for constituting a society that draws its members into the intimacy of greatest union.

658. If the society of mankind, as we have described it above, is brought into being by nature, it is part of socio-natural right, and as such antecedent to positive right, which cannot destroy it.

659. No other society or legislation whatsoever can destroy or change the first, natural society of mankind without offending, violating and destroying human nature. Positive laws directed against the basic society of mankind are per se null.
Confirmation can be found in the following argument. The supreme goods, the aim of universal society, are the great and final object of human rights and duties.
In so far as mankind's greatest right lies in these goods, any attempt to violate them is an injury committed against mankind itself, harmed in its supreme, essential rights.

660. In so far as mankind's greatest duty lies in these goods, any attempt to deflect mankind from this society is a crime against all moral legislation.

661. Every other society formed by human beings is therefore guilty and evil if it does not respect the primal human society and acknowledge its laws as inviolable.
Every society dependent upon human initiative is subordinate to and dependent upon primal, universal society.

662. The goods proper to universal society are supreme goods, rooted in absolute good, and cannot be renounced by human nature, which would have no final end without them. Consequently every other society must have as its remote end the same good as universal society, from which it can differ only in reference to its proximate end. The proximate end itself must be desired as a means of obtaining the remote end.(81)

663. No good falls within the absolute notion of good unless it is destined to increase true human good, that is, virtue and happiness. Other societies must aim finally at the realisation and fulfilment of the end of human society. This society is the nucleus of all other societies which legitimately draw together human beings.

664. Nevertheless, it often happens that particular, artificial societies are unashamedly opposed to natural, universal society.

665. There are two principle reasons for this.
First, particular societies have relative, partial good as their aim. Universal society is directed towards ultimate, total good. If members of a particular society love excessively and exclusively the good that forms its proximate end, they will not order and submit it to the good of universal society, the remote end it must serve. In this way, love of finite things often wages war against truth and virtue, which are infinite goods.

666. The second reason is that the membership of particular societies is limited numerically, while universal society embraces all human beings. The bond of particular societies is special love of family, city or so-called public domain; the bond of universal society is the universal love of mankind called humanity or, to use St. Paul's Greek word, philanthropy.(82) Every time special love expands and seeks absolute status, it excludes universal love. Particular societies thus become inhuman and as such hostile to universal love amongst human beings, and adversaries of their own natural society.

667. If particular societies are not to endanger universal society, they have to submit to two laws:

1.No particular society is to seek absolutely and unconditionally the special good at which it aims. It must do so moderately, that is, relatively to the supreme good of universal society, which it will prefer to its own special good when a clash occurs between them.
2.A particular society's love for its members may not detract from or restrict universal love for all men. On the contrary, it must further it. All love of family, country or any other society whatsoever is to be founded in common love, and is to be at the service of the universal love of humanity embracing every human individual.

668. We have illustrated the nature, splendid gifts and sublime prerogatives of the natural society of the human race. Such teaching is already sufficient to enable us to form the concept of what we have called theocratic society, because mankind's first, natural society is an outline, still to be fleshed out, of theocratic society.

669. Let us ask ourselves again: what is theocratic society? It is society at its highest level, where human beings and God have the same good, which they share and enjoy in communion.
Pagan philosophers themselves recognised expressly that mankind's natural society implies society between mankind and God.
The great sages, who truly merited the name of philosophers, recognised truth and virtue as divine goods in which God and human beings intercommunicate.

670. Cicero admirably develops on platonic lines this truly noble thought. Seeking for a solid basis of civil laws, he finds it in the natural society of the human race, and recognises that this natural society involves a kind of society with God himself. This is how he describes the theocratic character of human society:
What is more divine in the whole of heaven and earth, man included, than reason? Developed and perfected, it is rightly called wisdom. But because there is nothing better than reason, and reason is found in both man and in God, man forms an initial society of reason with God.

Those with reason in common, however, have right reason, that is, law, in common. We must affirm, therefore, that human beings are associated with the gods through law. But those with law in common also possess communion of rights. Having these things in common means existing as members of the same city. Because it obeys the same laws and authorities, and especially when it obeys the heavenly rules of the all-powerful, divine mind, the entire world(83) has to be thought of as a single city common to God and human beings. What happens in civil society, where agnation is the rule for distinguishing states, occurs also, but at a much higher level, in the nature of things: human beings consider themselves agnate descendants of the gods.(84)

671. Nevertheless, the natural society of mankind is theocratic society in outline only. The design still lacks the realisation that posits the society it initiates in perfect being. This realisation can be brought about by God alone, through the supernatural communication of himself to human beings and by the consequent communion of his very own goods with them. It is worthwhile illustrating this briefly from various points of view already indicated in our previous publications.

672. The truth naturally manifested to our soul is something divine, but not God himself. Pagan philosophers who thought of it in this way can be excused, because it was the only divine element to be found in the whole universe. But God himself has been communicated to Christians, who are able to compare the light of reason with the light of faith. The comparison enables us to discern easily the difference between God, to whom we are joined supernaturally by faith, and the simple idea (truth) to which we are joined by nature.(85)

673. The difference can best be understood by first noting accurately that every being can be communicated to us under two forms, which I have called ideal form and real form. However, we do not normally say that an entity has been truly communicated to us if it has been communicated only in its ideal, and not in its real form. The subsistence of a being lies in its real form, which we have defined as `the real act by which the essence of a thing exists', and, as we have said, `essence is that which is manifested in the idea'.(86) If the idea of food had been communicated to us, we definitely would not say that food had been communicated to us. The idea of food allows us to know the possibility of food, the essence of food, but until food has acted upon us in its subsistence it would not be communicated to us. In order that a being communicate itself (in its subsistence) to us, it must communicate itself in its real form. In this form, it does not communicate itself to the mind enlightened by the idea, but to the feeling, by working with its reality in our own reality. If we have the idea of food, and food itself is really present and working upon our senses so that we can see, touch and taste it, etc., then we say that it is truly communicated to us. Let us apply the same distinction to God.

God is being in its fullness, but as long as being communicates itself to us only in its ideality it does not communicate itself in its fullness, which requires both forms. It is not correct, therefore, to say that God communicates himself to us in the natural light of the intellect: 1. because in God the ideal form cannot be divided from the real form without the destruction for us of the divine being, to which fullness and absoluteness are essential; 2. because even if the division were possible, ideal being would be insufficient to communicate to us the being itself which it enables us to know.

In fact, one cannot rightly say that being in its ideal form is the idea of God because there is no (positive) idea of God. If there were, it would express a possible God. A possible God, however, is not God because subsistence is essential to God. God in real form cannot be separated from God in ideal form. In God, these forms are absolutely undivided. Human beings, who have been given being in its ideal form, have not been given God.

674. Hence (essential) being is communicated to us by nature in its ideal form only. This constitutes the natural order. Being itself is shown to us in the fullness of its real form through grace, a true communication and perception of God, which constitutes the supernatural order.

675. The distinction between the two orders eliminates rationalism, which reduces everything to natural reason, that is, to the idea; it also eliminates the contrary error of mysticism, which asserts that human beings by nature are in communication with the reality of God.

676. The supernatural order, therefore, is constituted by a real communication of God to man. God, with his grace, works in the substance of the human soul. Because the soul consists entirely of feeling, the effect of the supernatural communication is a deiform feeling of which initially we have no consciousness, just as we have no consciousness of any substantial, fundamental feeling of our own.(87)

677. The deiform feeling of which we are speaking has its beginning in this life, in which it constitutes the light of faith and of grace; and its completion in the next life, in which it constitutes the light of glory.

678. Granted these notions, it is easy to deduce that in the natural order theocratic society is only outlined because the idea is the rule of good, but not itself real good.(88) In the supernatural order, theocratic society is complete because the good which it possesses and intends to enjoy is God, full ideal-real being.
It will help if we list more carefully the successive grades of perfection that can be conceived in theocratic society amongst humans, beginning from its most imperfect state.

679. Constitutive elements in every society are

1.the common good;
2.the communion in which the common good is enjoyed.
Theocratic society, the society which human beings form with God, is therefore more perfect in so far as
1.the common good between human beings and God is greater;
2.the communion in which this good is possessed and enjoyed is more intimate.

680. It is not difficult to deduce from these two criteria the states or levels of varying perfection that can be thought of in theocratic society.

681. First, we realise that natural, human society, is the most imperfect state of all. It is an outline of theocratic society rather than its first level.

682. In this state the common good (the first constitutive element) is truth, ideal being.
But ideal being, unaccompanied by the reality of being, is the least of divine goods for mankind. To demonstrate this, it is sufficient to recall what we have said elsewhere.(89)

683. Man's perfection is moral perfection. Moral good consists in adhering with one's entire self to the totality of being, of which ideal being is only one form.

How do human beings adhere to being in its form as truth?

They take it simply as a rule, according to which they have to direct their longings and actions. Because ideal being is only the means of knowledge, (that is, the light manifesting the essences of things,(90)) it is simply that by which we know the various degrees of being contained in these essences; it is the norm according to which our willed acknowledgement of every being is directed. But ideal being has no other function, and we have to love, respect and obey it only in so far as it carries out this noble function of enlightening and directing our will and our feeling.

684. If the entire function of ideal being consists in directing our activity, it requires something other than itself. Its value is relative to the beings it enables us to know and to which it leads us so that we may adhere to them in an orderly fashion, as we should. Let us consider its value in the order of nature.
Within the circle of nature, ideal being can lead us to adhere only to natural things, to limited and finite beings. It is true that it leads us to do this in right order so that amongst these beings we give preference to what should be preferred. For example, we give preference to a human being rather than a horse, and consider a horse on a lower level than a human being. But in the last analysis, we are dealing in nature with finite beings. Virtue will be present, but virtue having as its object a finite being - for example, man. Humanity, friendship, and so on, will be present, but nothing more.

This virtue is necessarily imperfect (in so far as it can be put into practice) because its object is finite; all virtue is reduced to acknowledging the order of being within the sphere of the finite. But because this virtue is imperfect, actual adherence to truth is also imperfect. Our greater adherence to truth depends on our acknowledging it in a wider sphere of real objects whose value and order is revealed by truth itself. We adhere to truth through virtue; we adhere to truth when we adhere to real beings according to the order indicated in them by truth itself.

Now, God is his own good. He loves truth in acknowledging himself; he loves it infinitely because he loves it in the sphere of the infinite. He loves creatures in himself, in the creating act where the strength of their subsistence lies. The love which God has towards creatures does not increase or diminish in him his love for himself, nor does this love really differ from love of himself.

Without the love of his creatures (granted that these have been willed by him in their subsistence and hence created) he would not love himself. What common good, therefore, is found between God and human beings constituted within the limits of nature?

The real good loved by human beings, and the real good loved by God, is essentially different because God's good is himself, while the real good of human beings is created good. These goods are essentially different; no society is present because there is no communion in good. Nevertheless, an opening exists through which humans can arrive at communion of good if God draws them to it. The created good can be loved in itself, or loved in its source, in God. It cannot, however, be loved in God if God is not loved first. If, therefore, God draws human beings to himself by communicating himself to them, created good can be loved by them in God and thus become a good common to God and human beings. Properly speaking, there is no communion with created good alone. There is only a passive power, or capacity, for such communion, which cannot be the foundation of society.

685. Ideal being remains as something certainly common to natural man and to God, but at an infinite distance. The beauty and lovableness of ideal being springs from its relationship with real being, whose essence and intrinsic order it reveals. As long as human beings are in contact with real finite being alone, ideal being is loved and appreciated in a finite manner. This explains why the Gentiles could never in practice consider justice and moral good as superior to all transitory goods.

686. It is true that ideas (laws and rules of what is just) can be contemplated speculatively by means of a ray of infinite beauty, but this is altogether inadequate for producing in our reality a corresponding love, which can only be roused by another reality working within us. Plato was right when he said of wisdom, `If it could be seen, it would stimulate wonderful love for itself'.(91) Because platonic wisdom is reduced to virtue, Cicero applied these words to the beauty of decency and justice.(92) Wisdom, in fact, depends upon the intellect's intuition of truth; virtue consists in adhering with the will to the truths known by the intellect; and the truth to which human beings adhere becomes known as wisdom. But the sages of antiquity saw that the idea alone without the thing it indicated had no power to move man, a real substance, to action. Cicero speaks of this explicitly, `In all that we do, we are moved not by word, but by reality'.(93)

687. The common good, the first constitutive element of society, is barely present in the natural order if we compare it with what God and human beings could have in common. What is the situation with regard to the second constitutive element?

What kind of communion in good is found between God and human beings?

This depends upon the possibilities of what we call natural religion. Reason can certainly argue to the existence of a God who loves truth and virtue but, although logically necessary in itself, such reasoning has little effect in producing living persuasion and operative faith in what lies beyond the senses, although it boldly surpasses the confines of the universe and, by virtue of the principles of integration and absolute subsistence,(94) penetrates the invisible and infinite.

688. There have been atheists in every age of history. What they lack is not proof of God's existence, but the persuasion that makes people assent to proof. The best of pagan philosophers have hesitated over the question of the immortality of the soul and the existence of another world. As Cicero says, he believed in immortality as long as he was reading the Phaedo, but doubted about the arguments as soon as he put the book down. In the same dialogue, which can be considered the final achievement of Greek thought (and how uncertain and hesitant it is!), Socrates shows clearly that he wants to persuade people of the existence of the world to come by suggestions, rather than argue to it rigorously [App., no. 3]. Kant, in turn, was discouraged enough to abandon theoretical reason, when he saw it presented no argument powerful enough to lead to a conclusion about the existence of God. His rejection of all theoretical proofs of God's existence was copied by one author after another in Germany, and has been echoed in Italy.

689. Why do these intellectual proofs demonstrating the existence, reason and origin of a world beyond what is visible have no power to impel a strong, undoubting assent from so many when they seem to me rigorous in the extreme? Because although they have their origin in ideal being, the source of the principles on which they rest, ideal being alone has very little operative power over man, a real subject, and hence does not always produce persuasion within him. Persuasion is not an idea, but a reality, a real act, a feeling of a real being.(95)

690. We conclude that communion in good (in truth) between human beings and God is only tenuously present in the order of nature. Communion is lacking between members of a society if the members neither know one another, nor know the common good, nor desire to enjoy it together. But, in the order of nature, human beings have an ineffective persuasion of the God whom they know in a certain way only. Moreover, it is difficult for them to consider him as a moral God, loving the truth and virtue in which he delights. In this state, man's appreciation and evaluation of truth and virtue are very imperfect. Practically speaking, at least in the long term, man does not place such goods above all others.
It follows that communion in good, the second constitutive element of society, is to be found between man and God at its most imperfect level in the natural order where the theocratic society possesses only an incipient grade of perfection.

691. Natural theocratic society, or embryo of society, is elevated to a higher grade when God, acting in wonderful ways, positively manifests to human beings the truth of his existence and his holiness of being, which makes him delight and rejoice in truth and justice.

692. These positive proofs of the existence of an infinite and eternal Being and his sublime attributes, point to another life where evil is punished and good rewarded. They consolidate persuasion of these truths, and thus strengthen communion in good (the second constitutive element of society).

693. The common good itself (the first constitutive element of society) is not increased, however, nor enhanced, unless God adds to the revelation he makes to human beings the interior communication called grace. Without grace, the common good remains at the level of ideal being, at the level of truth naturally possessed by human beings, and at the level of consequent natural virtue.

694. On the other hand, God may communicate the gift of his grace to the human spirit, in addition to a revelation which provides positive proofs of his existence, holiness and justice in rewarding good and punishing evil. If so, theocratic society receives a new, highly uplifting impulse.

695. Through grace the common good between mankind and God is completed, and in reaching completion changes its character. It is no longer merely ideal being; it is now God himself, ideal-real being.

696. The word `grace', as we understand it here, indicates a real communication made by God of himself to human beings. God gives himself to human beings by means of an interior, hidden work; he gives himself to intimate, human feeling. Through grace, human beings have the feeling of God, and the faculty for acting according to this divine feeling. As we have often said, every feeling produces of itself an instinct, or activity.(96)

697. By `feeling of God' or `deiform feeling', we understand a feeling whose nature is such that it shows itself to the person reflecting upon it as a felt action of God. As an effect it is felt in such a way that it cannot be attributed to any finite cause, but only to the infinite cause. Properly speaking, it makes us perceive God,(97) (that is, God's immediate action in us); it does not enable us to argue to God.

698. A direct action of God in the substance of the human soul, where it produces a deiform fundamental feeling, raises man above the natural order and places him in the supernatural state. This action, which is God himself (because the immediate action of God is God) puts human beings in immediate communication with God; it makes them perceive God. God as felt, as perceived, is the supreme common good between God and man, and brings theocratic society to its completion. Nevertheless, this society, which has thus passed from an embryonic to a completed state, may still receive another, finally perfecting touch.

699. God, who is most simple and perfect, cannot be perceived piecemeal; he can only be perceived in his totality. However, limited being, while perceiving him as all cannot, as the theologians say, perceive him wholly. The object of perception is unlimited, but the mode of perception remains limited. Yet God, who is his own absolute good in which he finds bliss, wished to put himself in communion with human beings not only by bestowing on them the perception of the all but, with a decree worthy of his divine attributes, by doing this as completely as possible. How can we come to grips with such a problem and such a profound mystery?

700. The divine mind purposed the Incarnation, by which God in the entirety of his substance would be joined to man in the person of the Word. What happened as a result?

The inevitable occurred. In the composite effected between man and the Word, God as infinitely greater had to prevail and himself alone remain as person. The human person vanishes because the supreme principle of the human nature assumed by the Word ceases to be supreme, and so ceases to be person. Person, as we have defined it, is `a substantial, intelligent individual, in so far as the individual contains a supreme, active and incommunicable principle.'(98) In the God-man, the supreme principle alone is divine. In Christ, therefore, there is only one person, a divine person. The situation was necessarily overturned. The total communication of God to man required this; instead of man's assuming God, which was impossible, God came to assume man; he became man; he came to assume the whole of human nature and every part of human nature, including the flesh, through the unity of his personal principle. God became flesh; et Verbum caro factum est.(99)

701. As far as possible, human nature possessed the divine nature totally, but in the sense that the divine nature possessed human nature as its own, and possessed it in subsisting as a divine person. The total possession of God by human nature consisted in the total possession of human nature by the divine person. The divine person possessed human nature as his very own.

702. In Christ, therefore, theocratic society between God and mankind reached and, we could say, even surpassed its fullness of perfection because:

1.The common good between God and man in the Incarnate Word is the greatest possible. In other words, all the good possessed by God is placed in communion with man, understood in the following sense: Christ as God, possessing the divinity as his Father does, consequently possesses all the good the Father has. As Scripture says, `And all my things are yours, and yours are mine'.(100) These words express the greatest communion in good, and greatest society. If Christ possesses all this as God, the same can be said about his humanity, according to the communication of idioms, as theologians rightly put it. That is to say, what belongs to the divine nature is attributed to the human nature, and vice-versa, through the intimate, ineffable union joining them in a single person.

703.2.Communion in this good is also at its height because the good enjoyed by God and man, the members of this society, is not a third thing, but the members themselves: God and all that he has; man and all that he has. In this union the Word enjoys the divinity and the humanity as his very own natural goods; man too enjoys the identical divinity and humanity as his very own goods. If the good were distinct from the members themselves, they could enjoy it separately, without knowing anything of one another; but if the members are this good, they can only enjoy each other, or rather each can enjoy both, in the most intimate communion. The order of communion is as follows. The good of human nature and that of divine nature are held in common; the greatest good of the society is the divine nature possessed by Father and Son and enjoyed as such.

Christ, therefore, can say continually, `We are one'.(101) The Son delights in this nature in the Father, the source from which he has received it; the Father delights in it in the Son, to whom he has communicated it through generation. But the person of the Son, having united human nature to himself, loves it and enjoys it from eternity. The Father cannot delight in the Son without delighting in the human nature of the Son because this nature possesses his Son in so far as it is possessed by him. The Father, therefore, can say, `This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased: listen to him'.(102) He is speaking of delight in the divine person of the Son, which then descends to the Son's human nature in which and through which Christ exercises his office as legislator and teacher of human beings.

704. The greatest communication of himself made to man by infinite good consists in the possession taken of man by God. This reached its height in the Incarnation where the divine person was the supreme, operative principle in the composite. Human nature lost its personal principle because it no longer retained any supreme principle. All the human principles of action were subordinated to the divine principle, which directed and dominated them as its own.

705. Christ, the divine person who communicates the divinity to the human nature joined with him, also communicates the perception of the divinity to the other individuals of the human species through baptism and the grace of faith. In this way, Christ realises in himself the most perfect society between God and man, and draws other human beings into the same society.

706. These other human beings retain their personality because they are not individuated with the divine person who, however, while exercising the fullest dominion over them, does not destroy, but strengthens their freedom.

707. Complete theocratic society gradually forms itself around Christ, the divine person who assumed human nature, in this way:

1.The divine person, by means of the human nature he has assumed, communicates perception of the divinity to human persons with an interior action which, received in them, is called grace.

2.This infinite, feelable action enables human beings to perceive the divinity, and feel themselves obliged to submit fully to its dominion, wherein lies every good.

3.If humans do not reject this dominion but co-operate as adults with grace, God continues his sanctifying action, and directs all their actions according to the words, `The Lord conducts the just through right ways;'(103) `Abide in me, and I in you. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing'.(104) In these words, Christ expresses the communion of good between himself and those belonging to him; they must abide in him, he in them. But he also commands them, `Abide in me', indicating that their consent, the co-operation of their will, is necessary, because every society requires voluntary consent (cf. USR, 34-36). Although human beings can do nothing in the supernatural order without Christ, they can do evil by freely rejecting grace, just as they can accept it when Christ, solely out of his infinite goodness, posits it in their souls.

708. The true interior and exterior society between human beings and God is proclaimed, therefore, only in the time of grace, through the society between Christ and human beings, whom he rightly calls his friends because he has placed in communion with them divine wisdom itself, as he said, `All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you'.(105) St. Paul could write to the Corinthians, `God is faithful, by whom you were called into the society of his Son JESUS Christ, our Lord',(106) and St. John, announcing the things he had seen and heard, could write of this society to the faithful, `so that you may have society with us; and OUR SOCIETY IS WITH THE FATHER AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST'.(107)

709. We conclude that perfect theocracy is realised not only in Christ but through Christ in other human beings whom he co-incorporates to himself by placing his divinity in communion with them to dominate in them as it does in him.

710. All that we have noted conforms exactly with what we said above about divine seigniory benefiting the servants, not the Lord (cf. 579-585).

711. God's full dominion in the human being, that is, in the will (where human personship lies) constitutes the only way in which human beings can possess and enjoy God, the highest good. God cannot be possessed except as he is - and he is supreme Lord. Man, in possessing God acknowledges him as such, annihilating himself beneath him, in order to taste and enjoy what God is essentially, that is, Lord of creatures by essence. No one can benefit from that essence except by delighting in God's absolute, infinite seigniory, and in the power he exercises in the very substance of his creatures by the communication of himself. For this reason, theocratic society is also called, most suitably, the KINGDOM OF GOD.

712. In considering the human side in such a society, we rightly say that communion in the highest good, when present, is accompanied by a society of service, submission and worship. Such service and submission is the only thing (cf. USR, 141) human beings have in common with one another but not with God in this society, although it is possible to say, through the communication of idioms, that God in Christ serves and renders worship to himself. God, however, in acknowledging himself, renders himself honour by glorifying himself; men render him honour by humbling themselves.

713. Nevertheless, in the present life Christ does not communicate clearly to others the perception of his divinity. The light he gives is veiled; faith is necessary. In this state, theocratic society is called the Church militant because in faith it fights the Angel of Darkness who endeavours to destroy the Holy City.

714. Living faith is the principle of good works, and of the eternal glory in which God is perceived unveiled.
Glory is the great term to which perfect theocratic society tends, and where it attains its final perfection. In this state, theocratic society is called the Church triumphant.

715. Theocratic society, therefore, considered as attaining glory, is a society for enjoyment; considered as still travelling and battling in this life, it is a society of both fruition and action.

716. Even here on earth Christ's society is a society of fruition. It cannot be otherwise if in it, God, the essential good, is communicated to human beings; he cannot be possessed without being enjoyed. Christ said, `Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'(108) Moreover, his society is blessed with hope.(109)
It is also a society of action. In the present life human beings have to act to merit their reward; they have to trade with their talents, conquer the enemy, increase their possession of God until the moment they pass to the other life. Only then will the effort of action cease and give way to unbroken fruition in the life of peace defined by St. Augustine as `THAT MOST ORDERLY AND HARMONIOUS SOCIETY IN WHICH WE ENJOY GOD, AND ONE ANOTHER IN GOD.'(110)

717. From what has been said, we may infer that it is possible to distinguish, as it were, two intimately connected societies: that of human beings with God, and that between baptised people.

718. The society of baptised human beings with God is similar to that between children and their father (parental society); the society between the baptised resembles that between brothers and sisters having the same father (fraternal society).

719. In both societies, the good placed in common is the paternal patrimony; the children enjoy it, but the father owns and distributes it.

720. If we merely consider human beings living on earth, the distinction between their society with God and their society with one another is based on the variety of what has been placed in common.

721. Earthly sojourners, and God, have the divinity in common; it has to be acknowledged (virtue) and enjoyed (happiness).
But the wayfarers also have in common the power to merit with new, free actions that obtain for them greater right, and greater possession of the enjoyment of the divinity.

722. Human society with God is always a society of fruition. The theocratic society of action is that between human beings living on this earth.
This society is nevertheless rightly called theocratic not only because it possesses the good towards which it tends in hope, but also because God co-operates with his grace in human works and merits.

Christ said to Mary Magdalene, `I am ascending to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God.'(111) With these words he shows that the good placed in communion is the Father, God, but he does not speak of `our Father' nor `our God' in order to indicate that God was his Father and his God in a way different from that in which he is Father and God of other human beings. He is Christ's Father by nature, not by adoption; and as his God, he is to be enjoyed. Christ no longer tends towards God meritoriously as pilgrims here on earth still have to do.

723. If we consider the two societies as a single, resultant society, we can note certain of its very general marks.

The first, most general marks of theocratic society can only be those essential to the natural society of mankind, which we have already examined (cf. 651-654). The Church, as we said, is simply the society of mankind realised and completed by Christ.
The essential marks of the society of mankind are three: unity, justice and universality (cf. 651).

724. Christ himself unfolds the marvellous unity of his Church with words indicating the intense intimacy of the members of his mystical body with himself and contemporaneously amongst themselves.(112)

725. Moreover, in vivifying the Church with his Spirit, he gave the Church justice, indeed all justice, perfect and lasting holiness. He gave it not only natural justice, but the justice which consists principally in fulfilment of the precepts related to a God substantially communicated to man. In other words, he bestows on human beings a share in God's holiness.(113)

726. Finally, Christ called all human beings to himself,(114) and sent his disciples to all nations alike. The first teachers of the Church, therefore called her `universal' or `catholic'.(115)

727. We can also apply to theocratic society the distinction made between invisible and visible society.(116)
According to this distinction, theocratic society amongst human beings is invisible and visible.

728. The invisible society is more extensive than the visible because it embraces both those who remain united to the body of the Church and those united only with its spirit.

729. The invisible society extends to those possessing the vision of heavenly glory; it is a society of fruition.

730. The visible society lives and fights upon earth.

731. The visible, hierarchic, militant Church, animated by an invisible spirit, constitutes of itself a perfect society whose invisible head is JESUS Christ. He governs it partly by his invisible grace and divine influence, and partly through his visible ministers who make up the hierarchy on earth.

732. United in spirit with the Church militant are the Church triumphant and the Church in purgatory (so called because its members, who have departed this life, must be cleansed and adorned to be worthy of entering the Church triumphant). These two parts of the Church are not visibly represented on earth, nor do they depend on the visible government of the Church militant. They are ruled only by their invisible head.

733. This does prevent the visible Church from being a perfect society, because it contains within itself all that is required to constitute a true, invisible society clothed in visible form. If we abstract mentally from the other two parts belonging only to the invisible society, the Church, although cut off from many of its noblest members, is not deprived of any element necessary for its constitution as a perfect society.(117)

734. Because the Church militant is a theocratic society which exists per se, it differs from every other society, including civil society.

735. The community of the faithful differs therefore from the community formed by citizens, who may not be part of the assembly of the faithful; the ruling body presiding within the community of the faithful differs from that presiding over the community formed by citizens; the communities differ in their end. The Church, therefore, is not the nation, the nation is not the Church; the diocese is not the civil province; the parish is not the municipality. The Church therefore has rights distinct from those of civil society, or the State; and the State has rights distinct from those of the Church.

Notes

(70) Persons capable of self-observation should note how many things exist or arise in the human mind and heart without entering consciousness. This is one of the facts of the human spirit which are easily overlooked, although they are of extreme importance to the would-be philosopher. Cicero, for example, observed the existence of a natural society of mankind, of which human beings were often unconscious: `As we use our limbs before we learn the purpose for which they have been given us, so by nature we are united and associated in civil society' (De Finib., 3). We need only note in this passage that Cicero confuses civil society with natural (theocratic) society. This is the result of absolutism in pagan civil society which, as we have said before, absorbed every other society, just as civil right imagined it could swallow up all other right.

(71) `As far as I can see, it is obvious that we all come into existence forming a kind of society with one another' (Cic, De Am., 5).

(72) The City of God, bk. 12, c. 27.

(73) Ideal being, the form of human understanding, is truth itself. Cf. CE, 1112-1135.

(74) ER, 181-182.

(75) Cf. SP, 545-576.

(76) Hence the expression used by the head of humanity, the perfect man, when he prayed that human beings might find unity: `THAT THEY MAY BE ONE THING'. (Jn 17: 11).

(77) Cicero (De Legibus, bk. 1) proves the existence of a natural society of mankind from the identity of right and justice; and he proves this identity from the identity of human nature, his starting point. `We can distinguish good law from bad only by the rule given by NATURE; and it would be madness to say that such a rule depends upon what we think rather than upon NATURE' (c. 44). Hence he maintains that right between peoples is such by NATURE (De Officiis, bk. 3, c. 5, and elsewhere).

(78) De Amicitia, 23. Seneca agrees: `If wisdom were given on condition that it were to be kept hidden, I would reject it' (Letters 5).

(79) On the other hand, there is some good, or rather some form of enjoyment of what is good, that excludes the company of others. This depends upon the human instinct for being first and having a special place. Common good is desired, but not without some special, exclusive privilege in its enjoyment. Well-understood and correctly applied, this is not a defect, nor anything willed; it is dependent upon the nature of beings, and as such is an ontological law. For this reason God possesses something in himself that he does not and cannot communicate, and the saints themselves have been promised, besides the enjoyment common to all, some exclusive and special happiness: `To him who conquers I will give some of the HIDDEN MANNA, and I will give him A WHITE STONE with A NEW NAME written on the stone which NO ONE KNOWS EXCEPT HIM WHO RECEIVES IT (Apoc 2: 17). Because this kind of enjoyment is unknown to others, it cannot be enjoyed by them. It is non-existent to them, and cannot be desired for them by others. Desiring them to share it would be a contradiction destroying it.

(80) For our comments on society as invisible, cf. SP, 235-262.

(81) Cf. SP, 204-210.

(82) Cf. Tit 3: 4.

(83) Here we should perhaps read: et iam universus hic mundus instead of ut iam universus hic mundus. The error would have crept in as time went by.

(84) De Legibus, 1, 7.

(85) Arguments for this important distinction may be examined in Rinnovamento etc. bk. 3, c. 62, and La Storia Comparativa de' Sistemi Morali, c. 6. - To say that the being we intuit by nature is God would lead to most serious consequences. In fact, we predicate being of everything, including that which is contingent. Hence, we would predicate God of these things also. But if God can be predicated of all things, all entities, then everything is God, and we fall inevitably into pantheism, a doctrine far removed from what we maintain. To say, `What is divine can only be God', implies incapacity to grasp that the distinction between the divine and God is relative to us alone; it does not entail any kind of distinction or separation in God.

(86) Cf. OT, 646.

(87) Ibid. 715-719.

(88) CE, 1234-1236.

(89) Cf. Storia comparativa de' Sistemi Morali, c. 8, art. 3, §7.

(90) Cf. our definition of essence: `Essence is that which is seen in the idea' (OT, 646).

(91) Cf. Phaedrus.

(92) De Officiis, bk. 1, c. 5: `Mark, my son, you behold the form itself which you see as the expression of what is decent. If your eyes could penetrate it, wonderful love for it would be aroused, as Plato says.'. Pearcio's suggestion that the text should be corrected to read: `as Plato says about wisdom', is untenable. He did not realise that in Plato wisdom and decency can be taken as synonymous.

(93) The complete text is as follows: `Our eyes are a very sharp sense in us BUT WE DO NOT PENETRATE TO WISDOM THROUGH THEM (people felt the need to perceive wisdom in its reality). Wisdom would indeed stimulate such burning affection for itself if it WERE SEEN! (that is, if it were perceived not only ideally, but really). Why? Because it is so warm that it can excite the desires? Why do we praise justice? And what about that ancient proverb: everyone is in darkness? In a word, it is perfectly clear that in everything we do we are moved by what is real, not by ideas' (De Finibus, 2: 16).

(94) Cf. CE, 1460.

(95) On the very important distinction between persuasion and the intuition of truth, cf. CE, 1040-1042.

(96) Cf. AMS, 367-369.

(97) For perception as founded in the feeling of the action of things upon us, and how it provides us with positive knowledge of these things, cf. CE, 1219-1244.

(98) Cf. AMS, 832-837.

(99) Jn 1: 14.

(100) Jn 17: 10.

(101) Jn: [10: 30].

(102) 2 Pet 1: 17.

(103) Wis 10: 10.

(104) Jn 15: 4-5.

(105) Jn 15: 15.

(106) 1 Cor 1: 9.

(107) Jn 1: 3.

(108) Mt 11: 28.

(109) Speaking about the present life St. Augustine says: `Although people may possess this life in such a way that they refer its use to its end, which they love most ardently and hope most faithfully, they can without absurdity be called `blessed' relative TO THEIR HOPE RATHER THAN TO THIS PRESENT LIFE' (The City of God, 19: 20).

(110) The City of God, 19: 23.

(111) Jn 20: 17.

(112) Jn 17: 19-23; 10: 16. `One Church throughout the whole world in many different members' (St. Cyprian, d. 258 AD, Letter 52).

(113) Acts 2: [33].

(114) `Come to me, all of you' (Mt 11: 28; 28: 18-20).

(115) St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 110 AD) already speaks of kaJolikh ekklhsia (Letter to the Church of Smyrna, c. 8).

(116) SP, 235-282.

(117) Hence Bellarmine on the Church militant: `The Church is a society of human beings, not of angels, and not of souls. But it cannot be called a society of human beings if it is not set up with visible signs. There is no society which cannot be recognised by those who are its members, and the Church cannot be recognised by human beings if the bonds of the society are not visible and external. - St. Augustine says: "Human beings cannot be brought together in the name of any religion, true or false, unless they are under the banner of visible signs, that is, sacraments" (Contra Faustum, bk. 19, c. 2)' (De Ecclesia Militante, bk. 3, c. 12).

Chapter 02

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