Trickle Up Power and Pour Down Participation

ONE OF THE CORE PRINCIPLES OF THE CHURCH'S social doctrine is the principle of subsidiarity, and with it, like the caboose behind the train, comes the necessary implication of subsidiarity: participation.

The principle of subsidiarity is a foundational principle of social philosophy that has two prongs. First, it holds that political, economic, and other social matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralized competent authority able to handle them. This preserves the vast and healthy network of relations in civil society, from the family on upwards. Second, it includes the concept that any higher authority, if and when it justifiably intervenes, should have at most a subsidiary, helping function (subsidium), performing only those tasks which cannot be performed adequately at a lower level, and only for such time as the lower level is unable adequately to handle them.* Any such necessary intervention "must not continue any longer than is absolutely necessary, since justification for such intervention is found only in the exceptional nature of the situation." (Compendium, No. 188)

The principle of subsidiarity means we ought to have a bias or presumption against centralization, and a bias or presumption in favor of de-centralization. "The principle of subsidiarity is opposed," therefore, "to certain forms of centralization, bureaucratization, and welfare assistance and to the unjustified and excessive presence of the State in public mechanisms." (Compendium, No. 187)

The principle of subsidiarity is not limited to government and political questions only. It covers all all civil society, and includes, for example, the economic realm. The principle of subsidiarity will therefore distrust concentrations of economic power in bureaucratic, powerful, often impersonal corporations. It abhors monopolies. It would rather see such economic resources and economic power distributed as low down as possible. Distributist in spirit,*** it prefers the mom-and-pop store over a Wal-Mart. It prefers a family farm over an big agribusiness. To a subsidiarist, small is beautiful in the world of economics as E. F. Schumacher put it in the title of his famous book on economics.

In short, power ought at best to "trickle up," and, conversely, participation ought to "pour down." Anyone who believes in the principle of subsidiarity will entertain a healthy horror grapheocratiae,** a horror of bureaucracy, an antipathy to big government and big business. He will see the serious injustice to persons and society involved by the arrogation of powers by an overweening, intermeddling state or corporate culture. He will view the intervention of the State as one of last resort. He will understand the great truth behind Ronald Regan's joke: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

The principle of subsidiarity stems directly from the dignity of the human person. It recognizes the truth that "every person, family, and intermediate group has something original to offer to the community," and that potential ought not be stymied by higher ups, since it tends to suppress or even destroy the "spirit of freedom and initiative." (Compendium, No. 187) "It is impossible," the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church therefore tells us, "to promote the dignity of the person without showing concern for the family, groups, associations, local territorial realities; in short, for that aggregate of economic, social, cultural, sport-oriented, recreational, professional, and political expressions to which people spontaneously give life and which make it possible for them to achieve effective social growth." (Compendium, No. 185)

"Subsidiarity, understood in the positive sense as economic, institutional, or juridical assistance offered to lesser social entities, entails a corresponding series of negative implications that require the State to refrain from anything that would de facto restrict the existential space of the smaller essential cells of society. Their initiative, freedom, and responsibility must not be supplanted." (Compendium, No. 186)

The principal of subsidiarity is a bulwark against abuse of power. It "protects people from abuses by higher-level social authority and calls on these same authorities to help individuals and intermediate groups to fulfill their duties." (Compendium, No. 187)

Concretely, the principle of subsidiarity, when put into effect, will result in the following:

1. "respect and effective promotion of the human person and family"
2. "ever greater appreciation of associations and intermediate organizations in their fundamental choices and in those that cannot be delegated to or exercised by others."
3. "the encouragement of private initiate so that ever social entity remains at the service of the common good, each with its own distinctive characteristics"
   
4. "the presence of pluralism in society and due representation of its vital components"
5. "safeguarding the rights of minorities"
6. "bringing about bureaucratic and administrative decentralization"
7. "striking a balance between the public and private spheres, with the resulting recognition of the social function of the private sphere"
8. "appropriate methods for making citizens more responsible in actively 'being a part' of the political and social reality of their country."
   

(Compendium, No. 187)

The flip-side of the principle of subsidiarity is participation. Participation is defined as "a series of activities by means of which the citizen, either as an individual or in association with others, whether directly or through representation, contributes to the cultural, economic, political, and social life of the civil community to which he belongs." (Compendium, No. 189) Participation is to be encouraged and fostered so that people exercise responsibility, participate in all areas of social life, and contribute to the common good.

Bureaucracy, monopoly, privilege, red-tape, excessive regulation are all enemies of participation. Cultural, legal, bureaucratic, attitudinal, and social obstacles to active participation of persons is something that ought to be removed through education or other means.

Though participation is important in any society, it plays a particularly significant role and enjoys a notable vibrant color in democratic societies since by definition,"every democracy must be participative." Participation is, as the Compendium puts it, "one of the pillars of all democratic orders and one of the major guarantees of the permanence of the democratic system." (Compendium, No. 190)

On the other hand, totalitarian or dictatorial regimes de jure deny the public the right to participate in public life outside the confines, supervision, or control of the State since they view a free people as a threat to their power. Somewhere between democracy and totalitarianism is that form of government we see entirely too often in the modern world: one that stifles participation through the heavy bureaucratic machinery and regulations which can sap the citizenry of its creativity and result in de facto or practical denial of the right to participation.
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*The word "subsidarity" in fact comes from the Latin term subsidium, when means help, aid, or assistance.
**Grapheocratia is modern Latin for bureaucracy. See Walter Redmond's Glossarium Anglico-Latinum (s.v. "burocracy" [sic])
***Distributism is an economic philosophy that was formulated and promoted by such Catholic thinkers as G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc as an effort to apply the principles of Catholic social teaching articulated by the Catholic Church, in particular in Pope Leo XIII's social encyclical Rerum Novarum and Pope Pius XI's social encyclical Quadragesimo Anno. Distributism advocates that the ownership of the means of production ought to be distributed as widely as possible among the population, and that it ought not be centralized either under the control of the state (which yields State Socialism) nor under the control of a few large businesses or wealthy men (e.g., laissez-faire capitalism). Distributism, however, is for free markets and private property. It wishes as many as possible to participate in the economic life and the means of production. Perhaps the best summary of distributism can be found in Chesterton's quip: "Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists." G. K. Chesterton, The Superstition of Divorce (New York: John Lane Company, 1920), 47.

Natural Law's Modern Cousin Germain: St. Thomas and Eternal Law

FINNIS'S PENULTIMATE CHAPTER in his Natural Law and Natural Rights purports to "provide summary elucidation of that famous phrase" of St. Thomas in his Summa Theologiae, which defined the natural law as the participatio legis aeternae in rationali creatura, the participation by the rational creature in the eternal law. (S.T. IaIIae, q. 91, art. 2, c.)

Perhaps the operative word in St. Thomas's conceptual formula is the term "participation" or (in Latin) participatio. The term participatio is a Latin word that incorporates several Greek concepts used by Plato and Aristotle, namely (and especially) methexis (μέθεξις), but also metalepsis (μετάληψις).* But Aquinas did not particularly focused on the Platonic or Aristotelian usage when he uses the term participatio. For Aquinas (according to Finnis), "the word participatio focally signifies two conjoined concepts, causality and similarity (or imitation)." NLNR, 399. The causal sense and similarity are related since the Thomistic notion of participation means that the quality of one entity or state of affairs was caused by a similar quality which some other entity or state of affairs has or includes (relative to the first entity or state of affairs) in a more central, intrinsic, and perhaps independent way. NLNR, 399.

St. Thomas Aquinas

The notion of participation is, as we have seen, particularly important to Aristotle's notion of nous.* It does not take much reflection to come to the conclusion that human rational thought seems to exceed its material "substratum," that mind is something that seems to be beyond and above the brain. "The power of human understanding far exceeds (or rather is incommensurable with) what we would expect to be the intrinsic capacity of the brain-material, however complex . . . ." NLNR, 399. In regard to mind, Aristotle could easily conceive as a postulate or speculative possibility "an intelligence that would far exceed human intelligence," one that was not as encumbered as ours is with the material accouterments and their weight--images, figures, symbols, concepts, abstractions, loss of memory, slowness in learning, etc. To the extent our mind seems to exceed the capacity of our material brains, the Greeks and St. Thomas postulated a "'separate intellect' which has the power of understanding without imperfection, and which causes in us our individual intelligences--somewhat as a source of light activates in us our power of sight." NLNR, 400. Our mind (nous) therefore participated (metalepsis) in the divine Nous. St. Thomas--with the benefit of Revelation--identified that divine Nous as God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses, of Jesus Christ. St. Thomas concludes, therefore, that "it is from God that the human mind shares in [participat] intellectual light: as Psalm 4 verse 7 puts it, 'The light of they countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us.'"** NLNR, 400. This is the Christianized version of the Aristotelian insight.

The same Psalm that St. Thomas used to tie human nous or intellect to the divine Nous or intellect is referred to by St. Thomas in the area of law and the participation of the natural law in the eternal law. For the light of the Lord's countenance shines on man not only in the speculative intellect, but also in the practical intellect. So the Lord's intellect shines on man in the areas of truth as well as the area of good. Man participates in the Lord's light in both mind and law. Therefore a human being's grasp of the natural law, and his participation thereby in the Eternal Law, is nothing miraculous or supernatural; rather, "there is noting extraordinary about man's grasp of the natural law" and participation in the Eternal Law, as this grasp is something that is within man's ordinary, natural abilities. NLNR, 400. Though ordinary in this sense, however, it is a reflection of man's dignity, a dignity which is shown in his ability to reason, and this reason that gives man his dignity relative to the animals includes both the speculative and the practical intellect, leading him to the true and to the good.

Although the entirety of the creation participates in the Eternal Law, man's participation through reason is the basis of his nobility. The brute creation participate in the Eternal Law aliqualiter, "somehow," in only a metaphorical way since they do not participate knowingly and freely, but by a sort of instinctual compulsion.

Human beings . . . provide for themselves (and for others); so we can say that man is not only subject to God's providence, but is actually a participant (particeps) in it. In brief, animals (and the rest of 'lower creation') are not subject to natural [moral] law. And their nature is not a basis for inference about the principles of human reasonableness.

NLNR, 401.

St. Thomas specifies that the eternal reason is participated in us "through our 'natural inclination to the due [debitum] act and due end.'" NLNR, 401.† This natural inclination includes, most significantly, the inclination to act reasonably, that is secundum rationem, according to reason.†† However, it also incorporates the inclination we have towards our last end, our finnis ultimus, which, in our natural faculties, is a desire for happiness which results when we obtain an understanding of something, in this particular instance the causes of all causes, God. In its fullness, however, as a result of unmerited gift, the participation in the finis ultimus goes beyond nature, as God has conditionally promised man a supernatural beatitude arising from participation by grace in God's very own life. (It is conditioned because it requires man to exercise his freedom: it requires him to exercise his freedom in embracing, even if only implicitly, Christ and His Church.) But this perfection of nature by grace is beyond the competency of the natural law, though without the natural law that nature could never be perfected by that grace.

In St. Thomas's view, human participation in the divine practical reason is what allows us to grasp the basic forms of good and therefore allows us to grasps the basic precept and principles of natural law.

[T]he data for this act of understanding include the desires and inclinations which we experience, but like all understanding, this act of understanding goes beyond the data as experience, to concepts accessible or available not to experience but only to understanding. . . . [this] 'light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is bad (which is hat natural law concerns), is simply the impress in us of the divine light.'"

NLNR, 402 (quoting S. T. IaIIae, 91, art. 2, c.)

This participation through the natural law in the eternal law is not however something supernatural or mystical. It incorporates only the ideas of causality and similarity in that causality, and the divine role is simply unfelt as something extraordinary. NLNR, 402. In short, this participation is something directly related to the Uncaused Cause, a "theorem in the general explanation of all states of affairs by reference, ultimately, to creative uncaused causality." NLNR, 402.

St. Thomas, therefore, shares with both Plato and Aristotle a sort of bottom-up notion of God in the moral life of man:

The account of the source of natural law [in St. Thomas] focuses first on the experienced dynamisms of our nature, and then on intelligible principles which outline the aspects of human flourishing, the basic values grasped by human understanding. A few pages later Aquinas formulates one of the fundamental theoretical principles of his account of the content of natural law: 'all those things to which man has a natural inclination, one's reason naturally understands as good (and thus "to be pursued") and their contraries as bad (as as "to be avoided").

NLNR, 403.

The clear "parallelism, this fit, this convenientia of felt inclinations with valuable aspects of human well-being" can only be there for one reason and one reason alone: a creative and providential God, who through his act of creation and his providential governance, is intimately concerned with our well-being.
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*Metalepsis is a term meaning participation, and it is used to express the reality in Platonic philosophy of divine/human participation. Methexis also meaning participation is used to describe the manner in which something's "form" participates in matter so as to make a thing (and things like it) what it is (what they are).
**See Natural Law's Modern Cousin Germain: Seeds of Eternal Law in Aristotle.
***S. T. I, q. 79, art. 4, c. (Unde ab ipso anima humana lumen intellectuale participat, secundum illud Psalmi IV, signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui, domine.)
S.T. IaIIae, q. 91, art. 2, c. "[I]t is evident that all things partake somewhat of the eternal law, in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted on them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to Divine providence in the most excellent way, in so far as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident both for itself and for others. Wherefore it has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law. Hence the Psalmist after saying (Psalm 4:6): "Offer up the sacrifice of justice," as though someone asked what the works of justice are, adds: "Many say, Who showeth us good things?" in answer to which question he says: "The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us": thus implying that the light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function of the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine light [N.B. this is a reference to Psalm 4:7]. It is therefore evident that the natural law is nothing else than the rational creature's participation of the eternal law. (manifestum est quod omnia participant aliqualiter legem aeternam, inquantum scilicet ex impressione eius habent inclinationes in proprios actus et fines. Inter cetera autem rationalis creatura excellentiori quodam modo divinae providentiae subiacet, inquantum et ipsa fit providentiae particeps, sibi ipsi et aliis providens. Unde et in ipsa participatur ratio aeterna, per quam habet naturalem inclinationem ad debitum actum et finem. Et talis participatio legis aeternae in rationali creatura lex naturalis dicitur. Unde cum Psalmista dixisset, sacrificate sacrificium iustitiae, quasi quibusdam quaerentibus quae sunt iustitiae opera, subiungit, multi dicunt, quis ostendit nobis bona? Cui quaestioni respondens, dicit, signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui, domine, quasi lumen rationis naturalis, quo discernimus quid sit bonum et malum, quod pertinet ad naturalem legem, nihil aliud sit quam impressio divini luminis in nobis. Unde patet quod lex naturalis nihil aliud est quam participatio legis aeternae in rationali creatura.)
†S. T. IaIIae, q. 93, art. 1 c. (ita ratio divinae sapientiae moventis omnia ad debitum finem, obtinet rationem legis); q. 93, art. 5, c., art. 6, c.
††S. T. IaIIae, q. 94, art. 3, c.