The Influence of Christianity on Modern Democracy
-by Joseph M. de Torre
Democratic equality is not to be equated with the sameness of all human
beings, a concept in modern socialistic thought. Natural differences among
human beings and the corresponding diversity of functions find expression in
competition - a concept that is consistent with the common good as long as it
is informed by justice. Social harmony follows from the combination of unity
and diversity. While all humans have the same origin, nature, and destiny,
"each person is unique and unrepeatable."
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What Aristotle and the ancients meant by the term "democracy" is quite
distinct from what it now means in the Western world. With the coming of
Christianity, the concept of a radical equality of all persons made its
appearance. As St. Paul put it, "there is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither
slave nor freeman; there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in
Christ Jesus."1 A quiet but powerful revolution was thus set in motion at the
deepest level of human consciousness. Our fundamental relationship to the
transcendent God and to each other was spelled out in the Biblical injunction
to love God with our whole heart and our neighbor as ourselves. This is the
level of human experience that directly concerns Christianity, not
socioeconomic, political, and cultural development. While Jesus experienced
those temporal realities like the rest of us, he emphatically denied any direct
concern with them. "My Kingdom is not of this world."2 Jesus left those
matters to the personal and corporate responsibility of citizens (including lay
Christians) who would see their significance correctly once they understood
their more serious duties in the deeper moral and religious areas of life.
In the course of history, as the process of socioeconomic development and
the spread of education brought progress in peace and order, political
development was able to reach higher degrees of equality and democracy. This
gradual and often frustrating process of human liberation was hampered at
every turn by an inveterate bondage to moral evil—the real source of strife,
hatred, vindictiveness, cruelty, injustice, and oppression, and consequent
cultural, socioeconomic, and political dislocations.3 But periodic recoveries
also occurred as a by-product of evangelization.
In this way, Christianity wrought remarkable changes in the Greco-Roman
civilization within which it emerged. It is enough to compare the aristocratic,
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elitist premises of Plato and Aristotle with the Christian concept of human life
and the radical equality of all persons, as expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas and
Vitoria. In The Republic Plato had imagined a pure regime with absolute power
vested in an enlightened ruler aided by like-minded counsellors and supported
by a military elite. No effort was to be spared in assuring the absolutely best
solution to the problem of political order. Later, in The Laws, Plato tempered
this perfectionist vision, but not sufficiently to satisfy Aristotle, who vigorously
criticized the idea of tampering with nature's plan for marriage and property.
But Aristotle, too, went on to propose extreme solutions when he came up
against untoward consequences of human inequality in regard to population
control and the institution of slavery. The conception of human life we find in
the greatest of the pagan philosophers fell well below the Christian insistence
on the dignity of every human person, family, and community.
The Christian standard came to shape human institutions in a gradual way
through a process of moral education located primarily in the home and
extending to schools and the means of social communication. But the resulting
development of society and its institutions always had to contend with risks to
liberty proceeding from selfishness, laziness, and irresponsibility. By the time
we reach the full flowering of Christian civilization in medieval Europe,
Catholic teaching on the temporal realities had come to incorporate the explicit
forms of equality and humanity that we find documented by the modern popes
beginning with Leo XIII and by the Council Fathers at Vatican II. The positive
contributions of the 17th- and 18th-century liberal revolutions accorded well
with the Church's understanding of political authority and human rights.4
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The mature conception of democracy, as the life of a political community
which recognizes a fundamental equality of human rights and a diversity of
functions in the pursuit of the common good, is the political flowering of the
Gospel. As experience shows, this ideal has been sought through a variety of
constitutional frameworks in accord with particular circumstances of geography
and culture. As John XXIII expressed it in Pacem in Terris,5
It is impossible to determine, once and for all, what is the more suitable form
of government, or how civil authorities can most effectively fulfill their
respective functions. . . . In determining the structure and operation of
government which a State is to have, great weight has to be given to the
historical background and circumstances of given political communities. . . .
In keeping with the innate demands of human nature, the State should take
a form which embodies . . . not only the official functions of government but
also the mutual relations between citizens and public officials [as] set down
according to law, which in itself affords protection to the citizens both in the
enjoyment of their rights and in the fulfillment of their duties.
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Pope John Paul II has summarized this arrangement in the term,
"solidarity": "For the disciple of Christ, solidarity is a moral duty stemming
from the spiritual union of all human beings who share a common origin, a
common dignity, and a common destiny."6 This simple but eloquent
formulation of the Church's social teaching encompasses the threefold unity of
origin, nature, and destiny, which constitutes the fundamental equality of all
human beings, and hence the substance of our universal brotherhood under one
Father in heaven.
At the same time, diversity of functions and existential inequalities also
play a necessary role in the democratic experience. Democratic equality is not
to be confused with the equivalence of all human beings, an idea which appears
in modern socialist thought. While all have the same worth and the same basic
rights, due to unity of origin, nature, and destiny, all are not identical and
interchangeable. Equality is not to be concretized by attempting to make all of
us the same, for each person is unique and unrepeatable. Rather, real
differences of ability and a corresponding diversity of functions express
themselves in a democratic society by means of competition, which is not
inimical to the common good so long as it observes the rules of justice and fair
play. Social harmony results from the blending of unity and diversity, of social
obligations and individual rights.
The Church has been a consistent and prominent defender and promoter of
human rights within the context of solidarity. Perhaps the most eloquent recent
exposition of the Christian tradition occurs in Pacem in Terris: "Any human
society, if it is to be well ordered and productive, must lay down as a foundation
this principle, namely, that every human being is a person . . . [with] rights and
duties .. . which are universal, inviolable, and inalienable."7
They are universal—that is, not limited to certain classes, such as the
freemen of ancient democracies, or the nobles in medieval society, or the
property owners of early liberal societies, or the state bureaucrats in recent
regimes.
They are inviolable—that is, not restricted by certain policies to those
individuals or groups capable of defending themselves or who have the most
wealth.
And they are inalienable—that is, not subject to cancellation in certain times
and places by official pronouncements of who and what is to be considered
convenient or acceptable.
Notes
1. Gal. 328.
2. Jn. 18:36.
3. Cf. de Torre, Work, Culture, Liberation (Manila: Vera-Reyes, 1985), chap. 8.
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4. Cf. especially Pacem in Terris (1963) and Gaudium et Spes, The Vatican II
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (1965). See also John Paul II,
Centesimus Annus (1991), no. 44.
5. Midway through Part II.
6. Address on Social Justice, Detroit, Sept. 12, 1987, in English edition of
L'Osservatore Romano, Oct. 5, 1987, p. 7.
7. Introduction to Part II.
[This article is a condensed version, edited for the Review by John A. Gueguen, of a
paper Father de Torre delivered at the Annual Conference of the Society of Catholic
Social Scientists on Oct. 24, 1997.]
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