Christianisme et Démocratie

by Jacques Maritain

Christianisme et démocratie pose les fondements d'une pensée politique qui vient réconcilier le christianisme et la démocratie. Car, selon Jacques Maritain, " liée au christianisme, la poussée démocratique a surgi dans l'histoire humaine comme une manifestation temporelle de l'inspiration évangélique " et " les chances de la liberté coïncident avec celles du message évangélique ".

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Theology, Religion, Christianity, Nonfiction, Classics

94 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

T. S. Eliot once called Jacques Maritain "the most conspicuous figure and probably the most powerful force in contemporary philosophy." His wife and devoted intellectual companion, Raissa Maritain, was of Jewish descent but joined the Catholic church with him in 1906. Maritain studied under Henri Bergson but was dissatisfied with his teacher's philosophy, eventually finding certainty in the system of St. Thomas Aquinas. He lectured widely in Europe and in North and South America, and lived and taught in New York during World War II. Appointed French ambassador to the Vatican in 1945, he resigned in 1948 to teach philosophy at Princeton University, where he remained until his retirement in 1953. He was prominent in the Catholic intellectual resurgence, with a keen perception of modern French literature. Although Maritain regarded metaphysics as central to civilization and metaphysically his position was Thomism, he took full measure of the intellectual currents of his time and articulated a resilient and vital Thomism, applying the principles of scholasticism to contemporary issues. In 1963, Maritain was honored by the French literary world with the national Grand Prize for letters. He learned of the award at his retreat in a small monastery near Toulouse where he had been living in ascetic retirement for some years. In 1967, the publication of "The Peasant of the Garonne" disturbed the French Roman Catholic world. In it, Maritain attacked the "neo-modernism" that he had seen developing in the church in recent decades, especially since the Second Vatican Council. According to Jaroslav Pelikan, writing in the Saturday Review of Literature, "He laments that in avant-garde Roman Catholic theology today he can 'read nothing about the redeeming sacrifice or the merits of the Passion.' In his interpretation, the whole of the Christian tradition has identified redemption with the sacrifice of the cross. But now, all of that is being discarded, along with the idea of hell, the doctrine of creation out of nothing, the infancy narratives of the Gospels, and belief in the immortality of the human soul." Maritain's wife, Raissa, also distinguished herself as a philosophical author and poet. The project of publishing Oeuvres Completes of Jacques and Raissa Maritain has been in progress since 1982, with seven volumes now in print.

Reviews

[Todd · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a bit disappointed by Christianity and Democracy, and even more so with the Rights of Man. Christianity and Democracy (C&D) makes for a very good critique of national socialism and fascism, but does a poor job of laying out an alternative. That it is Christian-centric is understandable, but Maritain is anachronistic in his approach (i.e., "This world was born of Christendom and owed its deepest living strength to the Christian tradition." p12) Had he said "Christ" in place of Christendom and Christian tradition I could have agreed with the statement, but by saying it is all due to Christianity runs against not only secular outlooks, but Maritain's own Thomistic approach. After all, Thomas Aquinas' major contribution to Christianity was incorporating Aristotle's (pagan, pre-Christian) philosophy into a tradition previously more familiar with Plato.

Maritain does lay down a good foundation in C&D, pointing out that "no lasting peace will be possible if the regimes in question do not imply approval of the essential bases of common life, respect for human dignity and the rights of the person." (p 19) However, he goes on to build a structure dependent entirely on transformation of all citizens into saintly Catholic Christians, a romantic, unrealistic, and unhelpful model except as an aspirational one. He does recognize the need for a substantive Christianity in place of an ornamental one, and does not spare historical associations of such ornamental Christianity with feudal or monarchical states. His romanticism smacks a little of G.K. Chesterton, but while the latter simply had a case of medieval romanticism, Maritain's seems to be (ironically) born of the (laicist) French revolution's "fraternity" and the influence of ROUSSEAU JEAN-JACQUES, even as Maritain rejects Rousseau. Unfortunately, Maritain's idea of Liberalism generally seems tied to Rousseau and Anarchism, rather than mainstream Liberal thinkers (Maritain could have remained within the French tradition and gained much by reviewing Benjamin Constant, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Frédéric Bastiat, none of whom he ever mentions.) This leads him to a baby-with-the-bathwater rejection of Liberalism and misplaced criticisms of it.

Maritain is overly fond of supporting the authority of rulers as being exercised by the consent of the governed, having its source in God, and the fact rulers are supposed to seek the common good. Of course, no ruler has the consent of all the governed, and he ignores the problems of minorities (by whatever criteria or standard) that Ludwig von Mises so conscientiously addresses in Liberalism: The Classical Tradition. And there is no such thing as a "common good," at least not as defined by the members of a society, as there are no end to disagreements about this, in lieu of any real consensus. Maritain seems to recognize problems to his model, "nothing is easier for political counterfeiters than to exploit good principles for purposes of deception, and nothing is more disastrous than good principles badly applied." (p 39), but he offers no constructive way to deal with it other than to ensure all men are angels.

In terms of the Rights of Man (RM), Maritain sets himself up in hopeless contradictions, to be solved by some creative way out that Maritain leaves up to others. While he rejects the subordination of the individual to society as such, he insists on the independent existence in and of itself and separate from an amalgamation of individuals (I say, show me a "society" without showing me individuals!). He rejects such an individual-centric approach owing to his hostility to a Rousseau-colored view of Liberalism: "Let us not say that the aim of society is the individual good or the mere aggregate of the individual good of each of the persons who constitute it...thereby enabling the strong freely to oppress the weak." (p 69) Instead, "The aim of society is its own common good, the good of the social body." (italics in original, p 69) So in the first instance, Maritain's condescending criticism of "exploitation" shows his subjective disagreement with choices freely made by others (even if made under the duress of material want and necessity, but still presumably the best of choices available to such). Meanwhile, his claim of seeking a non-existent (or at least non-agreed-upon) common good makes for an unattainable goal, and his creation of a society (vice people) seeking its own good leaves open a large door for the very type of totalitarian abuses Maritain elsewhere denounces. He even tries to specifically rule out such abuses, but provides the reader with no principle that can be applied in the abstract to separate such goats on the one side and sheep on the other. Rather, a society seeking its own good at the potential expense of the individual is right in doing so as long as it meets whatever subjective criteria Maritain applies, that is to say, his idea of proper Catholic Christian living.

It is even more alarming that Maritain states the "first essential characteristic of the common good: it implies a redistribution, it must be redistributed among the persons and it must aid their development." (p 70) The very term "redistribution" implies the initial instance of distribution, which could not be further from the truth. Wealth was not distributed as manna falling from Heaven, some lucky enough to have collected more, some unlucky enough to have collected little or none. Wealth is created, value is added, through a combination of labor and genius. Any arbitrary seizure of it (by whom and according to what criteria, one might also ask?) and redistribution of it to others inevitably causes damage to the process whereby it is created in the first instance; if this sanctioned plunder should reach great enough levels, it inevitably destroys the very process that creates it (see especially Isabel Paterson's The God Of The Machinefor a more in-depth look).

Maritain's misconception is further illustrated by his statement that "Thus, a mathematician has learned mathematics thanks to the educational institutions which social life has made possible...and the community is entitled to expect the mathematician to serve the social group by teaching mathematics." (p 75) In the first instance, the first mathematician had no one to teach him, but had to discover it on his own. One would think Maritain, being a Thomist, would be familiar with first-mover arguments and would have realized this, had he bothered to think it through. Therefore, while "society" does pass things along to each of us, it is not so simple a quid pro quo as Maritain characterizes it. The even more problematic part is the "entitled" word, as now those of us who have in some way benefited from "society" (that is, from other individuals, who either gave to us of their free will or according to voluntary arrangements as made) can be obligated to perform services in return (and in addition to the arrangements that have already been fulfilled along the way). Who gets to decide the obligation? And who gets to decide at what rate? While Maritain speaks in no uncertain terms against slavery throughout this work, he has unthinkingly just reintroduced the worst form of slavery ever.

Maritain also notes that "The common good is the foundation of authority" (p 70) and "Justice and moral righteousness are thus essential to the common good." (p 71) Maritain's inability to lead us to the common good or to show that there is a complete consensus on this topic already existing, except, of course, by people all adhering to Maritain's own conception of ideal Catholic Christianity, make these statements unhelpful at best and dangerous at worst.

At least Maritain does lay out his concept of the fundamental rights of people (worth quoting at length):

To sum up, the fundamental rights, like the right to existence and life; the right to personal freedom or to conduct one's own life as master of oneself and of one's acts, responsible for them before God and the law of the community; the right to the pursuit of the perfection of moral and rational human life; the right to the pursuit of eternal good (without this pursuit there is no true pursuit of happiness); the right to keep one's body whole; the right to private ownership of material goods, which is a safeguard of the liberties of the individual; the right to marry according to one's choice and to raise a family which will be assured of the liberties due it; the right of association, the respect for human dignity in each individual, whether or not he represents an economic value for society--all these rights are rooted in the vocation of the person (a spiritual and free agent) to the order of absolute values and to a destiny superior to time. (p 116)

Maritain does not actually defend freedom of speech and expression but rather of "investigation" and "discussion," while retaining state authority to prohibit and dissolve speech, association, etc., according to the "public good" so long as it is not "arbitrary." (p 122) Given Maritain was especially writing to confront Nazism, did he forget the Nazis were legitimately elected and that most of their horrors were conducting according to the "due process" as they established and for the "public good" insofar as most Germans defined it at the time?

Maritain maintains a person's "right to a just wage," (p 125) which is to say a person has a right, an entitlement to another person's property. This goes against Maritain's own defense of the right of private property, not to mention liberty generally. Once one person has a right to another's property, the latter becomes the slave of the former. Worse, at least in previous modes of slavery, the slave owners needed to provide for his or her slaves' basic needs to keep them working. According to entitlement slavery, no recompense or sustenance whatsoever need be offered in order to collect on an "entitlement." He even goes so far to mention a "right to work," (p 135) which can only be understood to mean a right to expect employment of another (nobody will prevent a person from exerting energy and doing "work" in the most literal sense). Therefore, entitlement slavery now entitles a person who is taking no risks to force another to take all the risks on his behalf and to expect to share in the benefit.

This leads to one of Maritain's few fuzzy prescriptions for how to make things better. In fact, his prescriptions generally are for a Catholic Christian Fascism or Syndacalism, for "a system of joint ownership and of joint management" replacing the wage system (p 126). As has been experienced in the real world time and again, putting workers in charge of enterprises forces them to choose between what they thought were their own narrow, short-term best interest (higher wages and benefits, etc.), and the survival and competitiveness of the enterprise, which requires cost-cutting, research and development, recapitalization, expansion, etc. As happened in post-revolutionary Mexico, union bosses were only too happy to rid themselves of such responsibility and go back to the relatively easy task of agitating for workers without having to be responsible (or at least feel responsible) for the health of the enterprise from which they hope to extract such benefits. Or the early (and quickly dropped) experiments in Syndicalism in Fascist Italy.

Maritain goes off the deep end when he claims "Emancipation of human life from physical suffering corresponds to other rights of the human person which the multiple forms of social service and old age security are destined to guarantee" (p 135). Christ came not to abolish suffering but to sanctify it; He assured us that the poor would always be with us during his Passion. We can hope to be spared from suffering and work to ameliorate it where and when we can; but how can it be considered a "right?" Who will be punished for the suffering that comes with being born naked and starving into a world of limited resources? Who will do the punishing? (Presumably, they will be clever enough never to punish themselves or those close to them.) And to think any government entitlement program "guarantees" anything?! Look at what those "guarantees" are worth in Venezuela, Zimbabwe, the Soviet Union (where?), and in countless other places that once made such "guarantees." Even in the United States, the Social Security Board of Trustees, by their own (very rosy, optimistic) projections, Social Security will be completely bankrupt no later than 2034. So much for all the money I've contributed toward my "guarantee!" There are no guarantees in this life but death and taxes, and there are those who evade taxes...

Maritain even calls for "emancipation from all servitude" (location 360). Since when do Christians seek to avoid service? Maritain's utopia depends upon everyone being a perfect, saintly Catholic Christian, yet he seeks to have this same society people with self-satisfied, slothful folk who need not lift a finger to meet their own needs, much less do anything in the service of another. A puzzle indeed.

Maritain caps this breathtaking work of enthusiastic ignorance with the statement, "The right to have a part, free of charge, depending on the possibilities of the community, in the elementary goods, both material and spiritual, of civilization." (p 138) So in the first instance, no one works, because each may take his or her claim of what he/she is entitled to, the basics, which are enough. Except there won't be any, because no one will be working, and there will be no one to plunder. Second, these expectations and entitlements are set to grow as a particular community increases in wealth and advancement. If you want a "living wage," consider what our earliest human ancestors had for their wage: their bare hands, any rocks or sticks they could find or pick up, any caves or other already-formed shelter they could find, and as much food or potable water as they could come by through the application of their uncapitalized labor and genius. That they did live on this wage, we are all the evidence of. But now that folks have television, refrigeration, modern medicine, internet, smart phones, etc., the "living wage" must surely include all these and much more, no? Incredible!

I'm not a hater. I fully expected to enjoy these works and stand disappointed by them. If I rated them separately, I'd have given C&D three stars and RM two. His criticism of totalitarianism is pretty solid. I do think Maritain is usually worthwhile, I'd recommend Man and the State.

[Alex Tupper · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very topical book even though it was written in the 1940's. Well worth the read no matter what political party you might follow.

[Mike Horne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first time I have read a Catholic political philosopher. He rejects “individualistic liberalism” which I take as John Locke. he does not seem very happy with capitalism or money. I am not convinced, but perhap I dont understand him. However, he is closer to John Winthrop than most moderns. We do need community.

[John]

In his preface, Maritain writes: "This little book will perhaps seem too optimistic to readers of quick judgment." Perhaps I am of quick judgment, but I found Martian to be both optimistic and dangerously naïve. This may be forgivable; Maritain wrote these books towards the end of World War II, when a devastated world was searching for a new hope. These books constitute an aspirational political philosophy; they are not grounded in firm reality but rather in evanescent hopes for a utopian future. Jacques Maritain believes that humanity is marching towards a democratic future that will uphold the rights and dignity of man. He believes that democracy is a necessary consequence of the Gospel. As Jesus preached the equality and liberty of all men, so much governments respect equality and liberty by granting universal suffrage. Maritain also believes that the natural law, from which all rights flow, ultimately (though not immediately) requires democracy.

I admire Maritain's fervor. He is an excellent Christian and Thomist. He gives superb explanations of the philosophical origins of rights and man's relationship with the State. But throughout these works, Maritain did not once mention original sin. He seems to have forgotten that as human goodness and morality progress, so do sin and error. Moreover, he is far too trusting of the morality of the 'common man'. Perhaps this review is too harsh. Maritain was part of a generation of faithful Catholics that believed in the United Nations and the European Union. They thought that charters of 'rights' would shed Gospel light on this world. Could they see what these rights now entail, they might regret their earlier optimism. Christians should and must be optimists, but not about the affairs of this world.

[W. Littlejohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

All in all, a pretty irksome book. The man is doped up on liberalism, and is convinced that a basically liberal political arrangement can somehow be conveniently married with a Christian society in such a way that the state fosters Christian values and encourages the Church in its pursuit of spiritual matters, which exist on a higher plane beyond the reach of the socio-political sphere. There is no hint of recognition that the Church in itself might exist in the socio-politico sphere, that spiritual matters are in fact social matters, and that the Church is, in certain respects, a "political" body.

His wholesale embrace of rights-language, which, as the O'Donovans have shown, is hopelessly intertwined with modernity and impossible to satisfactorily place in a Christian framework, taints the whole book, as one might imagine from the title.

Also irritating is his politician-like tendency to substitute grand, optimistic-sounding words for concrete arguments to prove his point. I swear that there are whole pages that do little more than repeat over and over, "liberty," "justice," "freedom," "human fulfillment," "progress," "friendship," "peace." It gets very tiresome, even though the text is only 61 pages.

Nevertheless, I generously give it three stars, because it's such an important book.

[Aaron Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Democracy

“…an advance toward justice and law and toward the liberation of the human being.”

“Not only does the democratic state of mind stem from the inspiration of the Gospel, it cannot exist without it.”

“…in defense of the rights of the human person, just as in defense of liberty, we must be ready to give our lives.”

“…there will always exist a certain tension between the person and society.”


Natural Law

“…in the flesh and bones of man there lives a soul which is a spirit and which has a greater value than the whole physical universe.”

“…through love [man] can give himself freely to beings who are, as it were, other selves to him.”

“The worth of the person, his liberty, his rights arise from the order of the naturally sacred things which bear upon them the imprint of the Father of Being…”

“…there are in me gifts, rights and values which exist neither by the State nor for the State and which are outside the sphere of the State.”

“The notion of right and the notion of moral obligation are correlative.”

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

An early Catholic attempt to reckon with the realities of the Second World War and the need for a democratic post-war settlement. Some of the added material seems aimed at making Maritain look like a proto-Reaganite, although you get a different picture from his texts. Tough-talking Christian Democracy certainly became the official ideology of many conservative parties but Maritain seems more interested in a new unity based in dignity. What I found interesting was the careful balance of historical lessons in a way fully compatible with Catholic tradition but with no fear of disagreeing with popular notions when Maritain finds it appropriate. That is, it's not just a simplistic fusion of Christianity with historical liberal thought, he finds clever ways of relating the two through the Gospel.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of the books that I found, by an author I had not read anything from, about a topic that was kind of interesting, but in the end brought me nothing. Maritain was a democrat, and thus could not get himself to condemn everything Communism stands for. He praises communism for getting rid of the Capitalists, but more so he says that the thing Communism lacked (and therefore communism could never be) was Christian leaders(as communism is atheistic to the core). So, in this short book, he uses a lot of words to express himself but says very little that has any profound meaning. He understood democracy as being something with Christian roots, and he defended a democratic society on that point. He does good, however, by condemning nazism and Hitler. That gives the extra star.

[MayflowerDescendant]

I thought the book was an excellent introduction to Thomistic political thought and its history.
Jacques Maritain was a French Thomist who wrote tracts against Nazism prior to Hitler's rise to power and Hitler swore to execute Jacques Maritain when he captured him. Jacques fled to the United States to avoid getting murdered by Hitler.
It is definitely a good book for students to start out with.

[Paul Womack · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot recall where came the suggestion to read Maritain, but am appreciative the guidance came to me. This brief volume, some 80 years old, remains contemporary in this period of challenge to human dignity and the democratic state. It invites this reader to go back into philosohical study of the natural law and is role in a post-modern world.

[Erik]

Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 13, as one of Nine Books on Natural Law.

[Maximilian Nightingale · Rating 3 out of 5]

More rhetorical than philosophical. He has little to say that pertains to the radical movements that exist in our own time.

[Simone · Rating 1 out of 5]

Confusion. I looked for a book full of rational lessons, rather than one dominated by prejudice and rhetoric. No good solution was provided. Lack of erudition and knowledge. Lack of fine judgement.