Immortale Dei - Origin of The State

Origin of The State

According to Catholic teaching man is by nature a social animal, he naturally seeks the society of his fellows, and he cannot attain to his proper development except in society. As he is born and bred in the bosom of the family, from the necessities of his nature, so, in order to defend himself, in order to attain the full perfection of his bodily, mental, and spiritual faculties, families must join together and form higher and more powerful society, the State. Nature prescribes that the father should be the head of the family and to keep the peace between citizens, to secure to all their rights to punish the wrongdoer to foster the common good, nature imperiously demands that there should be a supreme authority in the State. As Leo XIII says in the Encyclical "Immortale Dei",

It is not difficult to determine what would be the form and character of the State were it governed according to the principles of Christian philosophy. Man's natural instinct moves him to live in civil society, for he cannot, if dwelling apart, provide himself with the necessary requirements of life, nor procure the means of developing his mental and moral faculties. Hence it is divinely ordained that he should lead his life, be it family, social, or civil, with his fellow-men, amongst whom alone his several wants can be adequately supplied. But as no society can hold together unless someone be over all, directing all to strive earnestly for the common good, every civilized community must have a ruling authority, and this authority, no less than sociery itself, has its source in nature, and has consequently God for its author. Hence it follows that all public power must proceed from God. For God alone is the true and supreme Lord of the world. Everything without exception must be subject to Him, and must serve Him, so that whosoever holds the right to govern, holds it from one sole and single source, namely God, the Sovereign Ruler of all. 'There is no power but from God.'

The state of civil society then is the state of nature; there never was, nor, man's nature being what it is, could there be a state in which men led a solitary life of freedom without the restraints and the advantages of civil society, such as was dreamed of by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. The authority of the state is derived not from a social compact, voluntarily entered into by men, but, like the authority of the father of a family, it is derived from nature herself, and from God, the Author and the Lord of nature. This Catholic doctrine concerning the Divine origin of civil authority, as it is inherent in society, rnust be carefully distinguished from the theory of the Divine right of kings which was popular in England among the High Church party in the seventeenth century. According to the theory of Divine right the king was the Divinely constituted vicegerent of Jesus Christ on earth; he was responsible to God alone for his acts; in the name of God he governed his subjects in both spiritual and temporal matters. The theory united the spiritual and the temporal power in one subject, and derived the combined authority from the direct and immediate delegation of God. It has not ineptly been called Caesaropapism. But though nature and God prescribe that there should be a supreme authority in the State, and that all citizens should conscientiously render due obedience to it, yet they do not determine the subject of the supreme civil authority. Whether a particular State be a monarchy, an oligarchy, or a democracy, or any combination of these forms of government, is a matter that depends on history and the character of the people. Provided that the government fulfils its function, its form in the eyes of the Catholic Church is of comparatively little importance. As Leo XIII says,

The right to rule is not necessarily bound up with any special mode of government. It may take this or that form, provided only that it be of a nature to ensure the general welfare. But whatever be the nature of the government, rulers must ever bear in mind that God is the paramount ruler of the world and must set Him before themselves as their exemplar and law in the administration of the State. (Encyclical, Immortale Dei) The same pope touches on this subject in his Encyclical (10 January 1890) on the chief duties of Christians as citizens. He writes: The Church, the guardian always of her own right and most observant of that of others, holds that it is not her province to decide which is the best among many different forms of government and the civil institutions of Christian states, and amid the various kinds of State rule she does not disapprove of any, provided the respect due to religion and the observance of good morals be upheld. He returned to the same point in his Encyclical of 16 February 1892, on allegiance to the republic in France:

Various political governments have succeeded one another in France during the last century, each having its own distinctive form: the Empire, the Monarch, and the Republic. By giving one's self up to abstractions one could at length conclude which is the best of these forms, considered in themselves; and in all truth it may be affirmed that each of them if good, provided it lead straight to the end—that is to say, to the common good, for which social authority is constituted—and finally, it may be added that from the relative point of view, such and such a form of government may be preferable because of being better adapted to the character and customs of such or such a nation. In this order of speculative ideas, Catholics, like all other citizens, are free to prefer one form of government to another, precisely because no one of these social forms is, in itself, opposed to the principles of sound reason or to the maxims of Christian doctrine.