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On the De Regno of St. Thomas Aquinas

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On the De Regno of St. Thomas Aquinas Copyright by William Alvin McCormick II 2013 The Dissertation Committee for William Alvin McCormick II Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: On the De Regno of St. Thomas Aquinas Committee: J. Budziszewski, Supervisor Benjamin Gregg Russell Hittinger Robert Koons Devin Stauffer ON THE DE REGNO OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS by William Alvin McCormick II, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2013 Acknowledgements This work grew out of ideas shared and debated among a circle of friends at the University of Cambridge. I am grateful to Mike Breidenbach, Ben Britton, Martin Fuller, Apu Khatiwada, Brickey LeQuire, Jeff Miley, Paul Rogers, Kenny Taubenslag, Nic Teh, J.P. Toste and above all Tom D’Andrea for their witness to fides, spes and caritas throughout that wonderful year. I hope we all meet again at Dojo’s very soon. I owe thanks to my supervisor, J. Budziszewski, who not only sent me to Cambridge but put up with me and with the wild ideas I came back with. The other members of my dissertation committee, Ben Gregg, Russ Hittinger, Rob Koons, and Devin Stauffer, could not have been more supportive and challenging. And I cannot thank sufficiently Zoltan Barany, Catherine Boone and Rob Moser for helping me see it through. In my dissertation work I was supported by the Earhart Foundation, the ISI and the Acton Institute, and I particularly owe thanks to Mark Henrie and Robert P. George. I would not have gone to graduate school had it not been for the encouragement and advice of Nathan Tarcov and Patricia Nordeen, who are not responsible, no doubt to their relief, for any of my subsequent work. A better preparation for the life of the mind than being an undergraduate at Chicago cannot be had, and I cannot thank enough Danielle Allen, Constantine Fasolt, Julia Kindt, Ralph Lerner, Jacob Levy, John McCormick, Emily Nacol, David Newstone, Patricia Nordeen, Jacob Schiff and Nathan Tarcov for their patience and intellectual generosity, all truly testaments to the gratuity of being. And all I need say to Karen Gentry was printed on a t-shirt ten years ago. iv Other friends far and wide have kept me mentally and spiritually balanced, dragging me from the cave of excess introspection and into the sunlight, including: Huseyin Alptekin, Serena Arancibia, Stephanie Barr, Matt and Elodie Buehler, Ben Fahey Burke, Cody, Cat and Cecilia Carter, Louis Chen, Kody and Dee Cooper, Rob de Luca, Jake Dizard, Emma Deputy, Connor Ewing, Peter Harris, Austin and Laura Hart, Patrick Hickey, Jennie Ikuta, J.J. Kinkel, Karl LaFavre, Ryan Lloyd, Min Lu, Alex and Victoria Moore, Ladybug Moslem, Joey and Erin Nichols, Shoshi Osiatynski, Jerod and Sarah Patterson, Luke Perez, Steve Pittz, Laura Rabinowitz (and Puddin’), Anthony Romo, Nate Seif, Christian Sorace, Kevin Stuart (and George), Mine Tafolar, Mark and Mijke Verbitsky, Danny Wasserman, Sam West, Allison White and Matthew Wright. Despite having seen precious little of my work (perhaps because of it), Father Jim Schall has figured as a constant inspiration to me as a scholar and as a Christian, and I can only hope that this work brings me a bit closer to imitation of him. I have never been far from a Roman collar as I worked on this project, and I am particularly grateful to have had Fathers Pat Rugen, Paul Deutsch, Marvin Kitten, Alban McCoy, Paul Diaper, Ron Gonzalez and above all the late Mike Yakaitis guiding me throughout this experience. I also thank all my brothers in the Society of Jesus for their prayers as I begin the transition to my new life, or rather my life renewed, with them. My parents and siblings brought me up in love and down in laughter; I would not be here without them, nor would I want to. Cousins, aunts, uncles, whether McCormick, Whittle, Schmidt, Futch, Puariea, Kridler, Beatty, Bond, Vivian, Boling, Calloway, Lewis, Sitzman, or Crewes (I’ve missed a few), have formed me more than I can know, and I pray our far-flung clan will always remember the center of love and piety that sent v us forth into this world. In a special way I remember my grandfathers, A.F. McCormick and Charles B. Whittle, and my dear grandmother Frances McCormick, and thank God that Mama is still with the living. Years from now my time on the Colville Indian Reservation will stand out as the beginning of a life I had only begun to live, a life in which killing rattle snakes, making fry bread, spirit-dancing and singing show tunes in Montana somehow all fit within an ordered whole. I hope Cecilia de Vera, Fathers Jake Morton and Bob Smith and everyone at Paschal Sherman and in Omak – from Kateri/Karita to the altarman – will accept my thanks. As a would-be political scientist, it is only fitting that I dedicate this work to those from whom I have learned the most about community and God’s plans for us through it: Allison Beyer, Katy Dotson and Kaitlin Shorrock. God knows why. vi On the De Regno of St. Thomas Aquinas Publication No._____________ William Alvin McCormick II, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2013 Supervisor: J. Budziszewski Can explicitly Christian principles be invoked and put into practice in political life without thereby rendering that politics fideistic, exclusionary and immoderate? Could such principles in fact strengthen the rule of reason in politics? Many secular and Christian thinkers agree that the answers to these questions must be no, only parting ways on their practical conclusions. But Aquinas’ much-neglected De Regno suggests the matter is not so simple. In his careful pedagogical structuring of De Regno, Aquinas opens up the possibility of a kind of dialogue between convention, reason and revelation, one that permits him to propose and reformulate his political teachings according to diverse but convergent principles. I aim to develop an account of Aquinas’ political teaching that reveals itself as indebted to revelation for its principles but grounded in and open to reason, and thus neither irrational, exclusionary nor immoderate. I will focus particularly on his treatment of the natural law. vii Table of Contents Introduction..............................................................................................................1 Chapter One ...........................................................................................................16 PROOEMIUM ..............................................................................................17 CHAPTER I..................................................................................................22 CHAPTER II.................................................................................................35 CHAPTER III ...............................................................................................43 CHAPTER IV ...............................................................................................50 CHAPTER V ................................................................................................56 CHAPTER VI ...............................................................................................62 CONCLUSION.............................................................................................67 Chapter Two...........................................................................................................73 CHAPTER VII..............................................................................................73 CHAPTER VIII ............................................................................................84 CHAPTER IX ...............................................................................................93 CHAPTER X ................................................................................................99 CHAPTER XI .............................................................................................111 CHAPTER XII............................................................................................117 CONCLUSION...........................................................................................126 Chapter Three.......................................................................................................131 CHAPTER I................................................................................................132 CHAPTER II...............................................................................................138 CHAPTER III .............................................................................................147 CHAPTER IV .............................................................................................166 CONCLUSION...........................................................................................177 Chapter Four ........................................................................................................190 WHAT IS NATURAL LAW?....................................................................193 viii NATURAL LAW AND DE REGNO.........................................................205 WHITHER NATURAL LAW? ..................................................................224 CONCLUSION...........................................................................................236 Chapter Five.........................................................................................................241 CLASSICAL REGIME ANALYSIS..........................................................242
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