The conception of a kingdom of ends in Augustine, Aquinas

Front matter

FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER

THE CONCEPTION OF A KINGDOM OF

ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS,

Table Of Contents

IAPTER

I. Introduction

II. Augustine and the "City op God" 3

Chapter I Introduction

Every age has its prophets of a new and better moral order. They are usually men of marked individuality, with a vision and message uniquely their own. This we do not deny in affirming that the vision, though seen in some lonely Patmos, and the message, though heard in the isolation of a monk's cell or of a philosopher's study, are social both in their origin and in their purpose. It is only because the prophet is keenly alive to social needs and interests that the defects of the existing order are so clearly perceived by him, and that he strives to find remedial measures.

The vision of a new and better moral order comes at a time when not only the moral theorist, but also the community to which he belongs, have become aware that the old order no longer serves its original purpose in securing the social welfare. Customs and laws once adequate are no longer so. Bonds that held society together are badly strained or perhaps broken, and in some departments of social life anarchy is imminent. This the common man may see, but the moral theorist perceives it much more clearly because he sees it in relation to its causes and to their removal. His is the vision without which the people perish.

It is at just such crises in the social order that the various conceptions of a kingdom of ends which we propose to study have been formulated. They have come as a response to specific needs in the social body, and for a time at least they have really met those needs.

We shall attempt no exact definition of the phrase " kingdom of ends." It usually refers to a community whose purpose is the completest possible moral development of its members. Its scope is wide enough to include all rational beings, no one of whom, not even its divine Founder, may treat another as a mere means.

It is quite conceivable that men should be regarded as members of a kingdom of ends though their period of development were regarded as limited to life in the present world. In fact some of the Stoics had just such a conception. They accepted with resignation the thought of cessation of existence at death, and made no further demands upon the universe. They have had successors in every age and still have them. This, however, is not the attitude of the philosophers whose works we shall treat. To them the thought that moral development may terminate with death is appalling. Man is regarded as an end in himself largely on account of his unlimited possibilities, and for this reason lower forms of life may be sacrificed for his welfare, and all higher beings are under bonds, as it were, to treat him with kindness and justice.

Means are just as necessary to the attainment of ends of infinite worth as in the case of the most commonplace ends. " Car dans le total les moyens font une partie de la fin," is the sentiment expressed by one of our authors. 1 In the description of means leading to the desired goal, given by each author more or less definitely, we shall find better than any formal definition can tell us what was really meant by a kingdom of ends and by the synonymous phrases "City of God" and " Kingdom of Grace."

The paper which follows is a study of the conception of a kingdom of ends as presented by Augustine, Aquinas, and Leibniz, and the relation of these conceptions to that of Kant. In the case of each author studied there will be an attempt to answer the following questions, the first of which is in the main historical, the second metaphysical, the third and fourth psychological and ethical, and the fifth ethical. They are:

i. What was the immediate situation which demanded a new statement of moral relations and thus led to this particular conception of a kingdom of ends ?

2. Does the author's general conception of the universe permit or favor such a kingdom of ends, and make it possible or probable that the ideal involved in it will ever be realized ?

3. Does he regard men as so constituted that they can become active and patriotic members of such a kingdom ?

4. What is the author's valuation of social institutions already existing with respect to such citizenship, and if their modification is necessary what direction should it take ?

5. What advance is noticeable in the conception beyond previous conceptions and what are its most striking defects ?

The writer acknowledges great obligation to Professor James H. Tufts, under whose supervision this work was prepared. Her gratitude is also due to Professor T. G. Duvall, of Ohio Wesleyan University, and to Professors A. W. Moore, G. H. Mead, J. R. Angell, and E. S. Ames, of the University of Chicago, for guidance in the devious paths of philosophy and psychology.

1 Gerhardt, Leibniz 1 Werke, I, 360.

Chapter II Augustine And The "city Of God"

I. GENERAL POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SITUATION IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE AGE OF AUGUSTINE

(i) Political situation. — The attitude of Augustine toward the political state, though often presented in an exaggerated light, was really in many respects striking. In order to judge him fairly in the matter a rather full statement of the political situation of his period seems advisable.

As we study the history of the period we are likely to infer that the citizens of the Roman empire must have lived in constant dread because the empire was so evidently tottering to its fall. The truth however is that they had become accustomed to ominous tremors and usually the distress felt was only local and temporary. In the hearts of some there existed a blind faith that the eternal city was destined to remain the center of an almost world-wide dominion. This faith was not coupled with ardent patriotism. There was but little interest in political affairs. In fact, the body politic wasted away so slowly and gradually that the hour of its death cannot be determined with certainty.

Though historians hesitate to fix an exact date for the death of the empire they generally agree that long before its demise extreme political and social confusion prevailed. The empire nominally one was practically two, and the people of the East and West were rapidly becoming alienated from each other. In the West, Ravenna not Rome was usually the seat of imperial power. There were revolts in Britain, Gaul, Spain, and Africa. Ostrogoths and Visigoths, Suevi and Alans, Huns and Alamanni, Vandals and Moors pressed in upon the empire, sometimes content with plundering the outskirts, sometimes penetrating to its very center. The sack of Rome by Alaric in 410 aroused unusual excitement and terror. It was the event which gave the pagans an opportunity to assert that Rome could not survive without her guardian gods and to plead for the restoration of the old religion, as well as to declare that the precepts of Christianity were not consistent with Roman citizenship. These objections brought Augustine's problem to vivid consciousness but by no means furnished its whole content. The treatise De Civitate Dei deals with these charges.

Most of the barbarian invaders sought a home rather than plunder. A hundred thousand of them were admitted Sisfoederati in 376 but two years later, provoked by injustice, they revolted, and the eastern emperor met defeat and death at their hands. Often large numbers of barbarians entered the army, coming in from captivity, or as mercenary soldiers, or as foederati. Some of them soon won their way to the highest military offices, even to the consulship itself. Without these barbarian troops many Roman victories would have been impossible, for the native born Romans had lost their former military zeal, but, on the other hand, troops trained to fight with the legions knew well how to fight against them. In the households of the wealthy innumerable Gothic and Scythian slaves were found, and many of the tillers of the soil were German. If all of Rome's rulers had been just, and her administrators of government honest it may well be questioned whether it would have been possible to bind together in a living unity so many races scattered over so vast a range of territory, without a representative system and means of intercommunication unknown at that day. With the existing government it was clearly impossible.

(2) Economic conditions. — It is generally conceded that the empire suffered more from internal maladies than from the enemy on the borderland. The former left her helpless against the latter. A bureaucratic system at the head of which was the emperor as the sole source of law had crushed out the earlier political life. Taxation, necessarily heavy in order to support imperial courts and large armies, was rendered especially burdensome by unscientific methods of assessment and collection. Its weight fell upon the curiales, the middle class upon whose strength the very life of the nation depended. The law not only oppressed this class but it made it the oppressor of the classes beneath it. In many directions the curiales sought escape from their unhappy condition. Some entered the army, others the clergy, a few of the wealthier obtained senatorial rank, some voluntarily sank to the level of coloni and slaves, and still others surrendered their land to their richer neighbors and received it again under a sort of feudal tenure. Soon severe laws were enacted to prevent the curiales escaping from their burdens. Everywhere there was a marked tendency to transform class into caste and to bind the son to the occupation of the father. In the larger cities the free "bread and circus" of Juvenal's time were still furnished to the populace at the expense of the state, or of great public officials, thus perpetuating economic parasitism and paralyzing the primitive virtues, but these two " indispensables " were no longer sufficient. Free wine and oil had been added.

At times the emperors saw and deplored the miseries of the common people, and the fact that the rich were becoming richer while the poor were becoming poorer. The character and frequency of the imperial "thou shalt not's" reveal the deplorable lack of a sense of duty in the administrators of government. Imperial efforts to change conditions however proved ineffective, and the emperors were unable to control the vast bureaucratic machine which they themselves had set in motion. The aristocratic classes though deprived of direct political power, by means of social influence, bribes, and terror really controlled the administration. Under such conditions the old Roman resistance to foreign foes could scarcely be expected.

(3) Religious conditions. — By no means all of the people of the empire had accepted Christianity. Many loved the old religion and struggled hard to retain its public rites. These were celebrated in the city of Rome up to and at times during the last decade of the fourth century, but not without interruption and legal limitation. Outside of the city they were maintained even longer, and many thought their suppression would destroy the foundations of the empire, not clearly perceiving that its political and economic foundations were already crumbling, or, if they perceived it, they thought it could avail nothing to discuss it. In the higher ranks of pagan society there existed a sort of patriotism but its eye was turned to the golden past rather than to the future. The oratory of the earlier period was much admired and imitated so far as could be done in an entirely different situation. Men tried in vain to catch the vigor of thought and expression of the classic period. No doubt in some cases this devotion to the classics served to refine and purify social life, and to make men nobler in all their social relations, but in general the higher classes had no deeper interest in the welfare of the lower, and were conspicuous for greed, luxury, and cruel oppression of the poor.

Social life within the church did not present a wholly pleasing picture. The spotless morality of the earlier periods, with unceasing protest against every pagan vice, was not marked in many later converts whose acceptance of the Christian faith was largely a matter of following the crowd. To such the new religion like the old was mainly a matter of external observances. A recent theologian claims that Constantine, seeing that Rome had lost its distinctly Roman character and ceased to be a national state, in the hope of establishing a universal religious state accepted and legalized the Christian religion because he saw that it was superior to any institution in his realm in its organization and unity.

6 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNEZ

However this may be it is evident that after emperors began to grant to the church the aid of the secular power less emphasis was placed on the use of Pauline weapons. The deep reflection and weighing of values which preceded an acceptance of the Christian faith in times of persecution, and the resultant moral strength could not be expected in those who followed the multitude in entering the church. In some cases they were quite as ready to follow it to the circus and gladiatorial combat, the corrupters of public morals.

To overcome this tendency to laxity of morals on the part of some of its members it was in many places the custom to exclude all who were guilty of grosser vices from the most sacred rites of the church. Over against moral laxity on the part of some, severe asceticism on the part of others manifested itself. Concentration of attention upon the negation of natural instincts sometimes resulted in their affirmation. Many, however, who put themselves under monastic restrictions really kept their vows and were splendidly efficient in the service of their fellow-men. Much emphasis was placed on works of charity, a virtue which certainly needed cultivation in this period.

(4) The educational outlook. — At first sight it might appear that the schools of the empire in Augustine's day gave promise of help to the nation. Never had they been more flourishing in respect to number and to the provision made for their support. But educational effort was directed rather toward a glorification of the past than to such direction of the activities of the Roman people as the needs of the time demanded. The rhetorical schools were falling far short of their ideal, the production of the orator who must also be a good man, if by goodness efficiency in serving his fellows is meant. They gave excellent instructions as to form but could furnish their students with no vital message. The school of philosophy at Athens was still in existence but its influence was very small. "The present subjects of controversy are the heresies within the church" says Augustine in a letter to Dioscurus describing the condition of philosophy in the empire, "and the Greek philosophers are neglected."

(5) Augustine's statement of conditions, and a summary of problems. — We have seen why the social and the political life of Augustine's time may have appeared very unsatisfactory to him. Scattered through his works there may be found direct or indirect statements showing that in many respects they really were so. He says that the liberties of the republic were lost when Augustus assumed the imperial office, but social discord had rendered them valueless long before this. Love of domination had vitiated the Roman love of liberty, and as a result people of many races were forced together in a union which though not wholly bad was a very doubtful good. The very extent of the empire, made possible at a terrible cost of blood and slaughter, produced wars of a yet more obnoxious description — social and civil — and the end of miseries had not yet come. The ideal republic where perfect justice was administered to all never had existed and never could exist in perfect form on earth though among Christians it might approximately be realized, and x n early Rome it had been much more nearly realized than at present, for her citizens possessed virtues such as industry, frugality, and temperance in striking contrast with the idleness, luxury, and lust of later Rome. Her statesmen too had possessed virtues which although not worthy to be called virtues under the Christian standard were yet splendid faults which crushed out baser faults and served to bring about a common good in the earthly state. The Gracchi were right in attempting to divide the lands among the people, but the nobles had so long possessed them wrongfully that the abuse could not be corrected, and an attempt to do so only brought destruction to those who made it. The pagan religion undermined the virtues necessary for wholesome social life. The pagan philosophers afforded no sufficient remedy. Epicureanism led to further degradation. Stoicism was powerless to reach the masses and in its protests against emotion denied an element essential to human life. Academic skepticism was of negative value as combating the materialism of Epicurean and Stoic but could itself afford no positive relief since its advocates could not present their own spiritualistic views with a voice of authority to the people until the minds of the latter could be brought to a level where they could understand. Of the neo-Platonists some had laid aside minor inconsistencies, and recognized in Christ the impersonation of that essential Truth and Wisdom which they sought. Others had been corrupted by curious inquiries into magic. Christianity alone could afford a living bond of unity to the people, furnish proper motivation for the moral life, and give an outlook into the future life.

Summing up, we find that the problem which Augustine had to face was the breaking down of the old moral order which had been so largely state-centered that it could not survive the disintegration of the empire and the downfall of the pagan religion. This he felt must be replaced by a new moral order based on the Christian religion and centered in a state with indestructible foundations. It was the task of convincing the world that the Christian religion, regarded by many as local and temporal in its significance, was really beyond all temporal and spatial limitations.

To present it in this doubly universal light there was none so well fitted by virtue of general philosophic knowledge, wide acquaintance with the most cultured thought of the day, rhetorical training, and intense moral earnestness as Augustine, bishop of Hippo.

II. "CIVrTAS DEl" AND KINDRED CONCEPTIONS

(i) The early and later Jewish conception. — The phrase "City of God" had an interesting history long before Augustine used it. It was employed by both the Hebrews and Greeks and also by the Romans, but with considerable variation in meaning. In fact within the literature of each of these peoples the concept varied greatly, both in extension and intension, becoming much richer in later days. To these earlier conceptions no doubt Augustine owed much, yet his own has unique elements and was destined to have a larger influence in directing future events than any preceding conception.

As employed in its narrowest sense, and presumably in the earliest period of its use, the phrase " City of God" meant to the Jew the actual city of Jerusalem viewed as the center of political power, and as especially sacred to the God of Israel. It is the city "whither the tribes go up" 1 and within whose walls the Lord of hosts deigns to dwell in his holy tabernacle, commanding the observance of justice and brotherly kindness within the nation, and defending his people against external foes. Though Jehovah is represented as controlling nature forces and as Lord of the whole earth Jerusalem is not pictured by early seers as the center of a universal kingdom. It is enough that it should be secure against foreign foes. The negative relation to foreign peoples is only slightly modified, so as to secure for the peaceful stranger who came within the gates hospitable treatment.

It is quite probable that even in pre-exilic times the Jewish conception of the city of God and its place among the nations broadened. It most certainly did so, and in a very striking way, after the exile. To the Jew, Jerusalem even though fallen was great. It was the home land to which he longed to return, and to which, when the sins of the people should be atoned for, he hoped to be restored. 3 Jehovah would surely bring his ransomed people back to Mt. Zion and establish his throne among them. 3 But his kingdom was not to be of the same isolated character as before, though Jerusalem was still to be the city of the God of Jacob. Other nations should bring their treasures into it, and men

3 Isa., chap. 6i. 3 Isa., chaps. 51, 52 f.

were to come from distant lands to worship in its temple, now a place of prayer for all peoples. 1 Out of Zion the law should go forth, and judgment should be given between distant peoples until the nations should cease to learn war and everlasting peace should prevail. 2

The development which caused the city of God to appear as the great center of a world religion is no more striking than that which took place with respect to the kind of service demanded by Jehovah. Sacrifice and ceremony still have a place but it is a secondary one. Obedience is declared to be better than sacrifice; the true fast is to cease from sin; to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before God are the essential things. Jerusalem is to become a city of righteousness; lying, deceit, and every form of vice are to be laid aside. The law is to be no longer external but within men's hearts, and the dwelling-place of God not in builded houses but in the contrite soul. Hereditary penalties shall no longer exist. Only the soul that sins shall die, and this is not for the pleasure of Jehovah, whose wish is that the sinner may turn from his sin and live. 3

(2) The early Christian conception. — When we pass to the New Testament the development still goes on. The earthly Jerusalem was still civitas magni regis 4 in a sense, but it refused to receive the place of leadership in a spiritual kingdom and rejected those who proclaimed it. The messengers of this inner kingdom of which the prophets had spoken went forth from the traditional religious center, in some cases forced forth by violence, to proclaim the gospel of salvation to all nations, organizing men in a society which should bind them together in universal brotherhood on earth, and should bring them into organic relation with a yet more universal society. Thus their attention was turned toward another city "the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly of the church of the firstborn whose names are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all the earth, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant." 5 This now became the true "city with foundations" for which all the ages had looked, the city prepared for the saints. 6 In Augustine's native tongue it was the sancta civitas of the apocalyptic vision, open to men of every race and class for an eternal

1 Zech., chap. 8. 2 Isa., chaps. 55, 56; Mia, chap. 4.

IO A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ

dwelling-place, provided only that they were free from moral defilement. 1 Here alone fulness of life is to be found. This conception Augustine adopts as his own, elaborating it greatly however, and bringing in some elements from the Greek and Roman conceptions of the city of Zeus or universal state.

(3) The Greek and Roman conception of the city of Zeus. — Among the Greeks we find Plato holding that a conception of an ideal city has power to transform and mold the life of him who beholds the heavenly vision. 3 This thought of transformation of moral character through vision or contemplation receives very great emphasis in the Christian conception of the city of God.

The Cynics had a conception of a world citizenship, a phrase often used later as equivalent to citizenship in the city of Zeus. Their conception was largely negative, standing mainly for independence of the existing social and political order, for these no longer commanded respect.

Among the Stoics the positive side receives more emphasis. Zeno said that men should not live in cities and demes distinguished by different codes but should regard all men as fellow-citizens and demesmen. Seneca spoke of the world as his native city; its governor as the gods. 3 Epictetus found the political state too small a sphere for the wise man. He is the minister of Zeus and cannot condescend to talk about revenues and supplies, peace and war. Man by virtue of his reason is a citizen of the world and a son of God. 4 To Marcus Aurelius the world is the "lovely city of Zeus." The end of rational animals is to follow reason, the law of the most ancient city. Elsewhere he speaks of the highest city, the great state, the political community to which the whole human race belongs. 5

Neo-Platonism, too, had its city of God, its beloved fatherland to which the soul must flee, and for which the only means of flight was in becoming like God.

To both Greeks and Romans who talked of the city of Zeus the political state and much of the existing social order was felt to be but an imperfect and incomplete expression of man's nature, and in some respects a positive hindrance to a higher type of life. An internal bond of unity was sought, one removed as far as possible from temporal and spatial limitations and capable of binding man to his fellow-man uni-

* Epictetus, Discourses, I, 9; III, 22.

s Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, III, 11; IV, 4, 19; XI, 7; XII, 27.

AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD II

versally. This was found to consist in the possession of a common rational nature.

(4) Augustine's "Civitas Dei et Terrena Civitas." — In many of Augustine's treatises he makes a very free use of the conception of the city of God, and one epoch-making work is devoted exclusively to its consideration. Augustine defines a state or civitas as an assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by a common agreement as to the object of their love. 1 Hence the bond of agreement in the city of God will be the love of God. The exact significance of the phrase Civitas Dei must however be gathered from the context in which it occurs. Sometimes it refers to a city-state neither in this world nor of it, yet vitally related to it. This may be called the heavenly Jerusalem. At other times a city on earth is meant, a pilgrim city whose members are destined to come into perfect citizenship in the'heavenly city when their pilgrimage is ended. A third meaning includes both of the above, the church militant and the church triumphant. A fourth is that of the historic visible church on earth, not all of whose members can attain heavenly citizenship for some do the things which exclude entrance into it. It is notable that Augustine, except in so far as his adoption of the Hebrew history makes it necessary, does not represent any city on earth as peculiarly the city of God or center of the church. Jerusalem is always essentially "a city that is built as a state," i.e., as built of living stones — a community of persons. 2

One cannot understand Augustine's conception of the city of God or appreciate the dualism with which he struggled without a glimpse at another city which he places in strong contrast with it. Terrena civitas in its broadest sense refers to the whole society of human beings whose hearts are centered on love of self or of earthly things. Taken together with the wicked spirits under whose domination these earth lovers live they constitute Babylon, city of confusion and of souls who are captives of sin. The spiritual Babylon will cease to be a city when the final judgment is pronounced against it, but its citizens are doomed as individuals to suffer everlasting punishment or eternal dying. In a narrower sense terrena civitas may refer to some particular group of the earthloving society, bound together in civic relation of some form, such as the city of Cain, or ancient Babylon, or "Rome as it were another Babylon in the West." In this sense it may include members of the heavenly city who, though having much in common with its members, are distinguished by higher interests, and are not truly of it.

1 The City of God, XIX, 24. 2 Expositions on the Psalms, 122.

III. GENERAL PURPOSE OF THE UNIVERSE AND THE ORIGIN OF THE

TWO CITIES

(i) Why the world was created. — The general purpose of the whole created universe, including angels, men, and the sub-human world, was that good works might be done by an infinitely righteous Supreme Being, whose existence is eternal. The divine plan is that all rational beings must realize some good. This is not contradicted by any penalty placed upon the wicked for just punishment is good. Elsewhere Augustine speaks less positively concerning the divine purpose. Of his own goodness God made man, the first without sin, all others under sin, for the purpose of his own profound thoughts. This last sentence may suggest that self-realization is not the goal of man, and that he merely exists for the pleasure of the divine being, but Augustine's general view forbids such an interpretation, and in one of his treatises he deals specifically with this problem. ' 'Does God use us or enjoy us ?" If he enjoys us, that would imply he is in need of good from us, hence it must be that he uses us, but he uses us not after the sense of our using. "The use which he makes of us has no reference to his own advantage but to ours only." 1 In the sense then that man cannot be used as a mere means to some other end, he is an end in himself. Yet in another sense it is the very quintessence of evil for a man to regard himself as an end in himself, for he can attain self-realization only in and through God. Self-sufficiency is the original sin, and this Augustine ceases not to emphasize.