Saint Thomas Aquinas and the True Notion of “Common Good”

Aquinas was a believer in a "mixed polity": king and corporations. There is no way to make him a liberal without doing violence to his writings!

From One Peter Five

By Robert Lazu Kmita, PhD

"A multitude of free men is ordered by the ruler towards the common good."

When I found out that Michael Novak had tried to turn the Angelic Doctor into a precursor of Liberalism,[1] I was deeply astonished. Fortunately, such a misguided attempt received (at least) two solid replies: one from Dr. Kenneth R. Craycraft, Jr.,[2] and another from the French historian Pierre Manent.[3] Although both are perfectly clear, the latter was even radical, stating categorically that it is impossible to turn Saint Thomas into a “proto-liberal.”

On the other hand, remembering that even modern Thomists like Jacques Maritain and Yves R. Simon have wandered from the straight path of the texts, I calmed down somewhat. Although such exotic ideas (to put it delicately) can scandalize any connoisseur of the texts, they nonetheless prove the harmful nature of Modernism: even the minds of the most brilliant theoreticians are severely tested by the legion of errors and heresies of our times.

The episode got me thinking. What can such a grave deviation—similar to today’s attempt by “Catholic” liberals and progressives to appropriate Saint Cardinal John Henry Newman—tell us about the genuine, authentic meaning of the texts of Saint Thomas Aquinas? How can authors like Maritain, Simon and Novak become apostles of Liberalism while ignoring the fact that there is not a single classical Patristic or Scholastic author who, strictly speaking, was not a monarchist? What could be the causes behind such striking deviations in authors who have shown undeniable intellectual qualities?

At this point, I wish to emphasize a very important aspect of the perspective I take when raising such questions. It has nothing to do with the political philosophies under discussion today, but with a symbolic-analogical cosmological vision that inspired both Saint Thomas and the vast majority of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. This is why I believe that all attempts to find any form of communication between their thought and that of political Liberalism, for example, is as absurd as trying to reconcile the theological-metaphysical anthropology of saints Augustine, Athanasius the Great and Thomas Aquinas with the doctrines of those schools of psychology and medicine today that deny the existence of the immortal soul. Before continuing this discussion, I will summarize, as briefly and clearly as possible, the essential teachings of the Angelic Doctor regarding the ideal political regime.

First of all, Saint Thomas considers the ultimate end of the human being and of the social community. His thought is rigorously guided by the teleological principle that defines means in relation to the ultimate goal. For man, this goal – implanted in the souls of all rational beings – is happiness, which is the reward of virtue:

It is implanted in the minds of all who have the use of reason that the reward of virtue is happiness. The virtue of anything whatsoever is explained to be that which makes its possessor good and renders his deed good. Moreover, everyone strives by working well to attain that which is most deeply implanted in desire, namely, to be happy. This, no one is able not to wish. It is therefore fitting to expect as a reward for virtue that which makes man happy (De Regno, Book I, chapter 9, art. 63).[4]

This is the deep conviction of the great Greco-Latin pre-Christian thinkers, and it is also shared by Christian authors: happiness without virtue is not possible. Here we already encounter a problem, because modern culture and civilization deny this axiom. Most of today’s politicians pursue objectives that offer citizens a pseudo-happiness, excluding virtue. To be convinced of this, one need only observe those human “laws” (like those who permit divorce, abortion and euthanasia) that, by opposing God’s laws, claim to offer happiness without any recourse to virtue.

Regarding the human social and political community, its purpose – derived from the happiness of the individuals who compose it – is the common good:

Now it happens in certain things which are, ordained towards an end that one may proceed in a right way and also in a wrong way. So, too, in the government of a multitude there is a distinction between right and wrong. A thing is rightly directed when it is led towards a befitting end; wrongly when it is led towards an unbefitting end. (…) If, therefore, a multitude of free men is ordered by the ruler towards the common good of the multitude, that rulership will be right and just, as is suitable to free men (De Regno, Book I, chapter 2, art. 10).

In the above passage, found near the beginning of the treatise, it is clearly stated that the function of the ruler of a human community is to direct it—like a helmsman steering a ship—toward the common good. Such a statement also gives us the criterion by which we can immediately identify a bad ruler: one who, against the common good, is concerned only with his own personal, i.e. private good. I hardly need to stress how often we see nowadays that politicians are guided strictly by personal interests, with no concern for the common good of the entire community.

For modern thinkers, the most controversial subject is, without a doubt, that of the possible types of political governance. In any case, for him the system usually considered by the moderns (Maritain and Novak included) the best of all, democracy, is the worst possible. Through his teachings, Saint Thomas casts a very powerful shadow over the current ideas not only of the so-called “philosophers of political thought,” but also of all those Catholics who think that a synthesis between Aquinas’ way of thinking and modern conception is possible. Actually, it is not. Let’s see, briefly, what are his main “political” ideas.

Discussing the possible types of government, Saint Thomas follows the classification of the main types of political system used by Aristotle in Πολιτικά (Politics). The first type of government is that of a single individual—the king. If the king is corrupt and comes to ignore the common good, pursuing only his personal interests and whims, he becomes a tyrant, resulting in the worst form of government: tyranny (or, in modern terms, dictatorship). As for kingship (monarchy), the Angelic Doctor has no hesitation: he explicitly and categorically says that “monarchy is the best government” (De Regno, Book I, chapter 4, art. 22). Period. I raise here a rhetorical question: how often have you heard modern popes and theologians firmly declare this and try to convey it to our contemporaries?

The second type of government is that of “a few men of virtue,” called aristocracy. This word, so poorly understood today, means “noble governance, or governance by noble men, who for this reason are called the Optimates” (De Regno, Book I, chapter 2, art. 12). To be perfectly clear, Saint Thomas says it is the rule of the virtuous. If this form of government becomes corrupt, it turns into oligarchy. Sometimes, in our dark and turbulent times, the bodies of certain political parties or broader institutions seem to become exactly like oligarchies: communities (or “cliques”) of those who pursue their own interests at the expense of those they govern.

Finally, the last form of government is that of a certain multitude and is called politia. There is no adequate modern-language translation for this term. In the Romanian translation, it is retained as-is. In English, it is translated as “polity”—thus a linguistic borrowing from the original Latin term. The perversion of this form of government is called democracy by St. Thomas. His description of it is – simultaneously – brilliant and shocking:

If, finally, the bad government is carried on by the multitude, it is called a democracy, i.e. control by the populace, which comes about when the plebeian people by force of numbers oppress the rich. In this way the whole people will be as one tyrant.

I believe I can say that in the modern era—especially during the revolutions, beginning with the French Revolution—it became clearer than ever in history what the tyranny of the many truly means. Likewise, political trends and movements that aim to impose “laws” against God’s commandments are manifestations of the same kind of tyranny. The fact that Saint Thomas uses the term “democracy” in this way requires serious discussion and thorough explanation—especially in an era when even certain Catholic authors, such as Jacques Maritain, have wrongly leaned toward supporting democracy as the superior form of government.

That being said, the time has come to clarify why Saint Thomas holds—as does the vast majority of the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church—that monarchy is the best possible system of government. As I announced in the first part of my essay, this is based on a symbolic-analogical cosmological interpretation of the entire created world. In this interpretation, as Dr. Sebastian Morello would say,[5] the material world is only an “icon” (i.e., an imitation) of the superior world, which is unseen, spiritual, and eternal. That is the incorruptible and true world, so to speak. Our ephemeral world can only ever be a pale imitation of that world.

This, of course, depends on all (or a majority of) people converting and accepting the divine revelation given to us by Our Lord Jesus Christ. In such a fortunate case, the form of government that best reflects God’s supreme monarchy is, naturally, monarchy. How else? But that implies that the monarch fully accepts and embraces the Law of God and makes it the rule of his earthly kingdom. It was for this type of Christian monarch that Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote his treatise De Regno.[6]

In fact, to give the full picture of his political “philosophy,” the true monarch in this world is the head of the militant Church: the Pope. He alone can legitimize secular monarchs—through the anointing he bestows—who are nothing more than the earthly/secular extension of the divine-right power the Supreme Pontiff possesses. This conception was shared both by the Byzantine Emperors in the Eastern Church and by the Latin Kings in the Western Church. To say that the teachings of Saint Thomas have as their axis vision based on the hierarchical harmony between the Pope – the superior – and the King(s) – the inferior(s) – would not be wrong. However, in no way can he be considered a “proto-liberal” for the sake of legitimizing today’s political cosmetic chaos.

It is worth asking ourselves: what would Saint Thomas do in our world? I fear he would do exactly what the wise Yoda did in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back: hide on the swamp planet Dagobah. I am also sure that he would not follow the paths of Maritain and Novak. In fact, all the Catholics I know who love Tradition are Thomists and Roman monarchists—just as the vast majority of Liberals I know are relativist democrats and globalists. I do not think we have any reason to be surprised.

A special note must be made regarding the key notion of the “common good.” Without it, the political thought of Saint Thomas cannot be understood. Yet without a strictly religious perspective on this common good—as representing the sum of the conditions in this life that support attaining the eternal life of the world to come—this notion cannot be understood correctly.

Why must I strongly emphasize this? Because I have heard Catholic theologians and philosophers, as well as secular thinkers, daring to invoke Saint Thomas and to apply his notion of the “common good” to today’s political communities. Such a thing is absolutely wrong and false. For today’s politicians, “common good” almost without exception means only the earthly and bodily well-being of the members of the political community (without any relationship to the otherworld)—a “good” which even includes the “freedom” to sin and to institutionalize sin. This, of course, would have appeared to Saint Thomas as an aberration and abomination.

Therefore, I insist: let us be very careful in using the notion of the “common good.” For Saint Thomas, it represents the sum of the conditions of social life that facilitate and support, directly or indirectly, the attainment of salvation. Why? Because only salvation—that is, entering the eternal Kingdom—can offer the perfect and perpetual happiness that people seek. Otherwise, when someone proposes happiness in strictly earthly and bodily terms without virtue and without the Divine Law, that—according to Saint Thomas and all the great Christian authors—is nothing but illusion and deception. So let us not be surprised, then, when we see what most politicians today are “selling.”

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[1] See, for example, Michael Novak, “The Return of the Catholic Whig,” on the First Things website: https://firstthings.com/the-return-of-the-catholic-whig/ [Accessed: 08 August 2025].

[2] Entitled “Was Aquinas a Whig? St. Thomas on Regime,” Dr. Kenneth R. Craycraft’s article was published in Faith & Reason: the Journal of Christendom College, Fall 1994, Vol. XX, No. 3: https://media.christendom.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Kenneth-R.-Craycraft-Jr.-Was-Aquinas-a-Whig.pdf [Accessed: 08 August 2025].

[3] “Michael Novak on Liberalism,” in Liberty/Liberté: The French and American Experiences, Washington, D.C.: The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, p. 209, apud Joseph G. Trabbic, “Thomism and Political Liberalism, Part 1:” https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2019/07/31/thomism-and-political-liberalism-part-1/#sdendnote14sym [Accessed: 08 August 2025].

[4] The quotations are from the translation by Gerald B. Phelan, revised by I. Th. Eschmann, O.P.: https://isidore.co/aquinas/DeRegno.htm [Accessed: 08 August 2025].

[5] Dr. Morello wrote and published an excellent book entitled The World as God’s Icon: Creator and Creation in the Platonic Thought of Thomas Aquinas, New York: Angelico Press, 2020. VoegelinView graciously published a long review dedicated by me to Dr. Morello’s monograph: https://voegelinview.com/the-thought-of-saint-thomas-aquinas-more-than-plato-and-aristotle/ [Accessed: 08 August 2025].

[6] Concretely, the monarch to whom Saint Thomas dedicated his treatise was Hugh II (c.1252–1267), King of Cyprus and Regent of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.