Overview
The Christian Structure of Politics, the first full-length monograph on Thomas Aquinas's De Regno in decades, offers an authoritative interpretation of De Regno as a contribution to our understanding of Aquinas's politics, particularly on the relationship between Church and State. William McCormick argues that Aquinas takes up a via media between Augustine and Aristotle in De Regno, invoking human nature to ground politics as rational, but also Christian principles to limit politics because of both sin and the supernatural end of man beyond politics. Where others have seen disjoined sections on the best regime, tyranny, and the reward of the king, McCormick identifies a dialogical structure to the text - one not unlike the disputed question format - whereby Aquinas both tempers expectations for the best government and offers a spiritual diagnosis of tyranny, culminating in a sharp critique of civil religion and political theology. McCormick draws upon historical research on Aquinas' context, especially that of Anthony Black, Cary Nederman and Francis Oakley, from which he develops three themes: the medieval preponderance of kingship and royal ideology; the relationship between Church and State; and the intersection of Latin Christianity and Greco-Roman antiquity. While age-old concerns, recent research in these areas has allowed us to move beyond simplistic platitudes. For scholars of political theory and the history of political thought, De Regno will prove fascinating for the interplay of Aristotelian and Augustinian elements, undercutting the conventional wisdom that Aquinas was simply an Aristotelian. De Regno also includes an extended treatment of civil religion, one of Aquinas' most historically-oriented discussions of politics.
Full Product Details
Author: William McCormick
Publisher: The Catholic University of America Press
Imprint: The Catholic University of America Press
Dimensions:
Width: 14.00cm
, Height: 1.70cm
, Length: 21.60cm
Weight: 0.169kg
ISBN: 9780813237091
ISBN 10: 0813237092
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 31 July 2023
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
"A sustained study of De Regno holds out the possibility of yielding rich rewards. McCormick's study aims to do just that by exploring its responses to the problem of the relation of the politics to the transcendent. On the most essential level, McCormick reads Aquinas's text as an elegant synthesis of Aristotelian naturalism and Augustinian theology.""—VoegelinView"
Author Information
William McCormick, SJ, is assistant professor of political science at St. Louis University.
