

































80

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THERE IS NO SUCH FINIS ULTIMUS
LIBERAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND CHURCH-
STATE  
RELATIONS CONSIDERED

MICHAEL ELLISON

 In this paper, I will describe the philosophical anthropology 
presupposed by the liberal tradition and demonstrate how that 
anthropology influences liberal conceptions of the relationship between 
Church and state. My analysis will draw from the works of Thomas 
Hobbes, John Locke, and John Rawls. I will also offer a critique of 
liberal anthropology and an alternative view of the relationship between 
Church and state based on the Thomistic tradition of Aquinas and Pope 
Leo XIII.

 Despite the diversity and variety of the liberal tradition, the three 
liberal thinkers mentioned above are united by common threads. One 
such thread is that all three of them are social contract theorists. Hobbes’ 
Leviathan and Locke’s Second Treatise of Government are explicitly 
social contract works. Rawls’ system, outlined in A Theory of Justice 
and Justice as Fairness, is slightly different, involving not a contract that 
charters a government but an agreement on certain principles adopted 
by citizens in a hypothetical “original position” characterized by being 



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under a “veil of ignorance.”1 Rawls states that his theory “generalizes 
the familiar idea of the social contract,” but modifies it by “making 
the object of agreement the first principles of justice… rather than a 
particular form of government.”2 Thus, despite his modifications, Rawls 
identifies himself with the social contract tradition of Hobbes and Locke 
and clarifies that his system shares its basic structure.

 However, the most significant commonality between the liberal 
thinkers is the philosophical anthropology they share and presuppose 
in their political theories. Here, there is distinct congruence between all 
three authors: despite the various conclusions they draw about the ideal 
system of government and how to structure it, they all hold a common 
understanding of human nature and the human person. This liberal 
anthropology views man as having no determinate good toward which 
he is naturally inclined but instead as defining his own conception of the 
good and being primarily governed by the passions.

 This view of man results from the liberal rejection or bracketing 
of teleology. In Hobbes’ Leviathan for example, he explicitly rejects the 
teleological notion of man having a highest end or good to which he is 
compelled by nature. He states:

[W]e are to consider that the felicity of this life consisteth not in the 
repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no such Finis ultimus (utmost aim) 
nor Summum Bonum (greatest good) as is spoken of in the books of the 
old moral philosophers.3

 Here, Hobbes asserts that man has no end or good to which he 
is inclined. Instead, Hobbes argues that man’s happiness is driven by “a 
continual progress of the desire, from one object to another, the attaining 
of the former being still but the way to the latter.”4 It is continual because 
“the object of man’s desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one instant 
of time, but to assure forever the way of his future desire.”5 Importantly, 
Hobbes leaves the object of man’s desires undefined because he believes 
that man’s desires are simply whatever he is inclined to at any particular 
moment. Thus, man has no ultimate good that he desires, which leaves 

1  See John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, ed. Erin Kelly 
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), Pt. I, §6.2-3, p. 15-16. 

2  Ibid., §6.3, p. 16.
3  Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley (Indianapolis: Hackett 

Publishing Co., Inc., 1994), Pt. I, ch. xi, par. 1, p. 57.
4  Ibid.
5  Ibid.



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him free to define the good for himself. Hobbes substitutes for the 
teleological conception of the human good a private notion of the good 
based on each person’s appetites and desires.

 Locke also rejects a teleological notion of man’s ultimate 
good and adopts the notion that each person can define the good for 
themselves. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he writes, 

The Mind has a different relish, as well as the Palate; and you will as fruitlesly 
endeavor to delight all Men with Riches or Glory… as you would to satisfy 
all Men’s Hunger with Cheese or Lobsters…. Hence it was, I think, that 
the Philosophers of old did in vain enquire, whether Summum bonum 
consisted in Riches, or bodily Delights, or Virtue, or Contemplation: And 
they might have as reasonably disputed, whether the best Relish were to be 
found in Apple, Plumbs, or Nuts…6 

Once again, we see the rejection of an objective human good in favor 
of the good being reduced to personal preference. Locke’s comparison 
of debates regarding the good to arguments about preferred foods and 
his use of “relish” and “palate” vividly illustrate that man’s good comes 
down to personal taste. He says, “What has an aptness to produce 
Pleasure in us, is that we call Good…”7 Locke clarifies that people define 
their conception of the good based on what they find pleasurable. Haig 
Patapan and Jeffery Sikkenga connect this to Locke’s concept of the 
“pursuit of happiness,” writing, “Locke argues that…. [w]e define what 
is good by what gives us ‘Happiness,’ which Locke defines as ‘the utmost 
Pleasure we are capable of.’”8 This, in turn, results in “[t]he person’s 
pursuit of a ‘greatest good’ for him as a human being transform[ing] 
into the person’s ‘pursuit of happiness’ for him as an individual.”9 Thus, 
for Locke as well as Hobbes, human happiness depends on the private 
conception of the good a person has.

 John Rawls takes a slightly different approach to the question of 
the human good. Like Hobbes and Locke, he affirms that human beings 
can define their own conception of the good. He states, “Citizens are free 

6  John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. 
Nidditch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), Bk. II, ch. xxi, §55, p. 
269, ln. 11-14, 18-22.

7  Ibid., §42, p. 259, ln. 2-3.
8  Haig Patapan and Jeffery Sikkenga, “John Locke’s ‘Unease’: The 

Theoretical Foundation of the Modern Separation of Church and State,” 
Political Theory 52, no. 5 (2024): 822.

9  Ibid., 824 (citations removed).



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in that they conceive of themselves… as having the moral power to have 
a conception of the good.… [T]hey are seen as capable of revising and 
changing this conception on reasonable and rational grounds…”10 Rawls 
even says the ability to do this is a fundamental liberty.11 However, 
unlike Hobbes and Locke, Rawls does not say that this ability to define 
a conception of the good for oneself is because there is no objective 
human good to begin with. Rawls does not even provide an argument 
against this teleological conception of the human good. Instead, Rawls 
simply brackets the issue entirely and states that “reasonable pluralism,” 
the presence of many competing conceptions of the good in the public 
sphere, is a fact of life. Objective conceptions of the human good are

not… excluded by deductive argument…. Instead, they are ruled out by 
the historical conditions and the public culture of democracy that set out 
the requirements for… a modern constitutional regime. Among those 
historical conditions is the fact of reasonable pluralism…12 

In response to those who would say that “the religiously true, or the 
philosophically true, overrides the politically reasonable,” Rawls asserts 
that there is no place in public reason to investigate such claims: “We 
simply say that such a doctrine is politically unreasonable. Within 
political liberalism nothing more need be said.”13 Rawls states that 
the “fact” of reasonable pluralism requires society to structure itself to 
incorporate many different conceptions of the good, despite religious 
and philosophical arguments that there is an objective good that human 
nature inclines people toward. In a sense, he assumes what needs to be 
proved—that human nature does not incline man toward an objective 
good, or that this fact is unknowable to reason.14 

 Whatever the deficiencies in Rawls’ refusal to provide an 
argument against an objective human good, one can see that rejecting a 
teleological conception of the human good, which humans are directed 
to by nature, is a common thread in liberal anthropology. It also leads to 
the second common feature of liberal anthropology, the characterization 
of human beings as driven primarily by their passions. Since the 

10  Rawls, Justice as Fairness, Pt. I, §7.4, p. 21.
11  See ibid., Pt. III, §32.4, p. 113.
12  Ibid., Pt. I, §8.2, p. 25.
13  John Rawls, Political Liberalism, expanded ed. (New York: Columbia 

University Press, 1993), Pt. 4, p. 488.
14  This is Allan Bloom’s primary criticism of Rawls’ system. See Allan 

Bloom, “Justice: John Rawls Vs. The Tradition of Political Philosophy,” 
The American Political Science Review 69, no. 2 (1975): 648-662.



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liberal tradition holds that there is no objective conception of the good 
determined by human nature, liberal thinkers must explain what the 
primary determining factor is in a person’s private conception of the 
good. As seen above, Hobbes, Locke, and Rawls all say that a person 
seeks whatever they find brings them enjoyment or pleasure. Hobbes 
clarifies this by adding that enjoyment “ariseth… from the diversity of 
passions.”15 

 Locke echoes this sentiment in the comments cited above about 
taste and palate, but he also argues that one particular passion is behind 
our actions: unease. Patapan and Sikkenga outline Locke’s definition of 
unease as “‘[a]ll pain of the body whatsoever and disquiet of the mind.’ 
Purely bodily pains are those such as hunger and thirst, and other natural 
desires…. Disquiet of the mind is caused by ideas…”16 Locke argues 
that unease compels humans to seek what they believe to be the good. 
After all, no one wants the pain, disquiet, and discontentedness that 
comes from feeling unease, so one seeks what they think will quell their 
unease and views whatever that is as good for doing so.17 Lest anyone 
construe Locke’s idea of unease like Augustine’s restlessness, Patapan 
and Sikkenga explain how Locke’s unease is not tied to any notion of an 
objective good: 

[Locke’s unease] allows him to abandon finally the last vestiges of the 
“old Philosophers” and scholastics who argued… that we are by nature 
drawn toward a summum bonum. Consequently, Locke’s unease is not like 
Augustine’s inquietum and Pascal’s inquiètude, a feeling of lacking some 
profound good in our lives, which makes us unhappy and thereby gives rise 
to a longing for that greater good. Rather, unease is based on physical and 
mental pain and need not necessarily point to or disclose our neediness for 
the divine.18 

Since Locke’s unease is based on physical and mental pain, it is clear 
that his account of human action is based on seeking what one believes 
to be the good in response to the pleasures and pains one is confronted 
with. Of course, it is the passions that govern pleasures and pains, 
which means that human action is motivated at the root by the passions, 
according to Locke. As seen above, this is Hobbes’ position as well, but 
Patapan and Sikkenga argue that Locke’s concept of unease represents 
15  Hobbes, Leviathan, Pt. I, ch. xi, par. 1, p. 57.
16  Patapan and Sikkenga, “John Locke’s ‘Unease’,” 824 (citations and 

footnotes removed). 
17  Cf. Locke, Essay, Bk. II, ch. xxi, §31.
18  Patapan and Sikkenga, “John Locke’s ‘Unease’” 827.



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a break with Hobbes’ passions. However, they fail to demonstrate any 
fundamental disagreement between Hobbes’ passions and Locke’s 
unease; instead, they only show how Locke’s concept of unease leads 
him to a different model of government than Hobbes’ Leviathan. Thus, 
I argue that while Hobbes and Locke may differ on the implications that 
their theories have on governmental structure, the role of the passions in 
human action that they presuppose is essentially the same.19

 Regarding the role of the passions, Rawls is more nuanced. 
He does not say that the passions are the primary driving force behind 
a person’s actions. Instead, he says that a person defines their private 
conception of the good based on any number of “comprehensive 
doctrines” or worldviews. Whichever one a person deems as resulting in 
“a fully worthwhile life” is what defines their conception of the good.20 
Rawls names both “the fulfillment of… (rational) preferences” and the 
fulfillment of “desires (as in a utilitarian view)” as among what people 
consider to be a happy and worthwhile life,21 so he clearly makes a place 
in his system of models of human action that place desire as the primary 
motivator, even if he differs from other liberal thinkers by not explicitly 
affirming such a model himself.

 Thus, one can see that the liberal tradition presupposes a 
common anthropology that denies an objective conception of the good 
determined by human nature. Instead, it posits no teleological good or 
end for human beings and argues that without this, people are free to 
define their own private conception of the good. This conception is, in 
turn, heavily influenced by the pleasures and pains that people encounter 
in their lives, which elevates the passions to a place of prominence in 
the realm of human action, since it is the passions that govern pleasure 
or pain and, therefore, incline one to seek or not seek certain things 
inasmuch as one perceives them as good or bad. Having explored the 
liberal anthropology, its effects on liberal conceptions of church-state 
relations can now be analyzed.

 As mentioned above, Hobbes, Locke, and Rawls all adopt a 
form of social contract in constructing their political systems. A closer 
look reveals that the government set up under the social contract secures 
the conditions necessary for people to pursue their private conception 
of the good for each of these thinkers. These thinkers only differ as to 

19  See Patapan and Sikkenga, “John Locke’s ‘Unease’,” 827-829.
20  Rawls, Justice as Fairness, Pt. I, §7.1, p. 19.
21  Ibid., Pt. II, §17.3, p. 60.



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what those necessary conditions are. For Hobbes, human beings have 
“a perpetual and restless desire for power after power, that ceaseth only 
in death” because they want the means to attain and secure the objects 
they desire.22 However, because all people desire the same scarce goods 
and nature has made people relatively equal in their physical and mental 
faculties for securing these, this results in a state of constant competition 
where no one is secure in achieving their private conception of the good. 
This is what Hobbes calls the “war… of every man against every man.”23 
From this, Hobbes argues that all people desire peace and security 
because it alone guarantees them the ability to pursue their private 
conceptions of the good without the threat of others.24 Since the state 
is constituted so as to ensure peace and security, the direct purpose of 
the state is to secure the conditions under which people can pursue their 
conceptions of the good.25

 Similarly, Locke says that the state is instituted to preserve 
people’s civil interests, which he says are “Life, Liberty, Health, and 
Indolency of Body; and the Possession of outward things.”26 However, 
Locke makes clear that liberty is simply the means “whereby [men] may 
acquire what they… want” and that the reason for securing it, along 
with the other civil interests, is that they “contribute to the Comfort 
and Happiness of this Life.”27 As demonstrated above, the pursuit of 
“happiness of this life” for Locke is nothing other than the pursuit of 
one’s private conception of the good. Thus, the civil interests that the 
state is instituted to protect are simply the conditions under which one 
can pursue their private conception of the good. Therefore, for Hobbes 
and Locke, securing the conditions necessary to pursue one’s private 
conception of the good is the purpose and mission of the state.

 Rawls’ system is not much different. Having assumed the 
“fact” of reasonable pluralism, Rawls argues that despite their differing 
conceptions of the good, no person can achieve their conception of the 
good without human society and the resources and security it gives 
them. Thus, people must cooperate in society despite their different 
ideas of the good so that all can achieve their conceptions of the good. 
This is what Rawls means by his definition of society as a “fair system 
22  Hobbes, Leviathan, Pt. I, ch. xi, par. 2, p. 58.
23  Ibid., ch. xiii, par. 8, p. 76; see also par. 1-4. 
24  Cf. ibid., ch. xiv, par. 4, p. 80.
25  See ibid. Pt. II, ch. xvii, par. 13, p. 109.
26  John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. James H. Tully 

(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., Inc., 1983), p. 26.
27  Ibid., 47.



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of social cooperation.”28 But, as in any system of cooperation, there must 
be “publicly recognized rules and procedures” that govern conduct and 
cooperation.29 Only with these in place can the conditions under which 
people can secure their conceptions of the good be realized. For Rawls, 
these conditions end up being none other than his two principles of 
justice, which serve to guarantee people the rights and goods requisite to 
pursuing any conception of the good and to mitigating social inequalities 
that may arise in society.30 Once again, Rawls clarifies the point that 
the liberal state exists to protect and secure the conditions under which 
people can pursue their conceptions of the good.

 The fact that the liberal state exists to secure people’s ability to 
define and pursue the good as they see it has direct consequences on the 
relationship between the Church and the state in liberal thought. In each 
case, there is either an explicit or implicit subordination of the Church 
to the state and severe limitations placed on it, inasmuch as it threatens 
the liberal state’s ability to secure the conditions under which people can 
pursue their private conceptions of the good. In Hobbes, this is explicit: 
Hobbes views the Church and its ecclesial hierarchy as embodying a 
rival sovereign to the state.31 The presence of a rival sovereign that can 
command its subjects undermines the monopoly of power that the state 
sovereign is given in the social contract to preserve peace, which is 
the condition under which people can define and pursue the good for 
themselves.32 Thus, the Church must be completely subordinate to the 
state to preserve this condition. Hobbes says the rights of judging what 
doctrines are true, preaching, and even administering sacraments are 
“annexed to the sovereignty” for “the preserving of peace and security,” 
which is to say for preserving the ability to define and pursue one’s 
private conception of the good.33 As Hobbes summarizes, “[The civil 
sovereign] hath the supreme power in all causes, as well ecclesiastical 
as civil…”34

28  Rawls, Justice as Fairness, Pt. I, §2.1, p. 5.
29  Ibid., §2.2, p. 6.
30  See ibid. §2.3; Pt. II, §13.1, 3; §17.1-2.  
31  Since Hobbes indiscriminately defines the church as any group gathered 

together to profess the Christian religion, his comments on the relationship 
between the Church and the state extend indiscriminately to the Anglican 
Church, the Roman Catholic Church (against which much of the later 
parts of Leviathan is directed) or any church denomination.. See Hobbes, 
Leviathan, Pt. III, ch. xxix.

32  Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan, Pt. II, ch. xix, par. 3, p. 119.
33  Ibid., ch. xviii, par. 8-9, p. 113; see also Pt. III, ch. xlii, par. 71-72, p. 368-

369.
34  Ibid. Pt. III, ch. xlii, par. 80, p. 373; see also ch. xxxix, par. 5, p. 316.



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 Rawls and Locke are less explicit in their subordination of the 
Church to the state. Each supports the separation of Church and state35 or 
claims to have a system that is neutral or indifferent to all “comprehensive 
doctrines of the good.”36 However, in their discussions of tolerance in a 
pluralistic society, they make several statements which imply a non-neutral 
position. Locke, for example, states in his Letter Concerning Toleration that 
the state is not to extend religious toleration to sects that promote doctrines 
that would “arrogate to themselves… some peculiar Prerogative… in effect 
opposite to the Civil Right of the Community.”37 Because such a practice 
is “contrary to… the preservation of Civil Society,” these groups are not 
to be tolerated.38 However, recall that the preservation of civil society for 
Locke is essentially the preservation of the ability to pursue one’s private 
conception of the good since this is the purpose for which society is 
instituted. Thus, by not extending toleration to such groups, Locke says 
that any group that promotes opinions that give them authority over the 
state should not be tolerated because they will impose that authority on 
others and jeopardize people’s ability to pursue the good as they see it. 
Significantly, he names several Roman Catholic teachings, such as the right 
of the Church to depose apostate kings, as among these adverse opinions, 
thus explicitly denying toleration in this case.39

 Similarly, Rawls states that a group that sees its conception of the 
good as the true one and seeks to structure society accordingly is not to be 
tolerated if it has a realistic chance of overturning the Rawlsian system. 
This is because he views the group’s acceptance of the Rawlsian system, 
structured around the two principles of justice, as only conditional, based on 
the fact that they are a minority who cannot restructure society according to 
the conception of the good they hold to be objectively true. Thus, he says, 
such doctrines are “a threat to democratic institutions, since it is impossible 
for them to abide by a constitutional regime except as a modus vivendi.”40 
The “democratic institutions” and “constitutional regime” Rawls refers 
to are nothing less than the Rawlsian system and its two principles of 
justice. Since these, as outlined above, are instituted to preserve people’s 
right to define the good for themselves, Rawls is making the same point as 
Locke, that groups who infringe upon others’ ability to define the good for 
themselves by promoting an objective good are not to be tolerated. He says 

35  See Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, 26.
36  Cf. ibid, 26-27; Rawls, Political Liberalism, Pt. 2, Lect. V, §1.1, p. 175.
37  Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, 49.
38  Ibid.
39  Ibid., 49-50.
40  Rawls, Political Liberalism, Pt. 4, p. 489.



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such groups ought to be “curbed,” which, though sounding mundane, 
leaves the door open for any variety of state actions against such groups 
in a Rawlsian polity.41

 Thus, the liberal anthropology, with its view that there is no 
objective good for man and that he is free to define and pursue the good 
as he sees fit, directly affects the relationship between the Church and 
state that each of the liberal thinkers envisions. In each case, it results 
in explicit subordination of the Church to the state or severe limitations 
being placed on the freedom and toleration granted to the Church by the 
state since the Church’s promotion of an objective human good directly 
confronts the purpose of the liberal state, which is to protect people’s 
right to pursue whatever they imagine the good to be. With all of this in 
mind, I will now give a Thomistic critique of the liberal anthropology 
and explore how the Thomistic tradition has understood the relationship 
between the Church and the state.

 To begin, Aquinas explicitly denies the fundamental premise 
of liberal anthropology, that there is no objective, final good for man. 
Aquinas argues that human nature inclines humans to an objective 
good that is in accordance with their nature.42 Since man is by nature 
a rational being, the objective good that nature inclines him toward is 
living according to reason, or virtuous living.43 Now, it is important 
to note that Aquinas does not believe these principles are believed 
solely by faith. Rather, Aquinas believes that this is philosophically 
demonstrable because it follows from God’s governance of the universe 
through divine providence, in which God “direct[s] nature towards 
good as an end.”44 Since Aquinas believes that divine providence is 
rationally demonstrable,45 then it follows that man’s objective end is also 
demonstrable and knowable to human reason. This is a direct rebuttal to 
the liberal anthropological claim that man either has no objective good 
to which he is directed, or such a good is not knowable to human reason. 
In particular, it undermines Rawls’ reliance on the “fact” of reasonable 
pluralism, for if man has the determinate end of virtuous living, which is 
knowable to human reason, then one cannot simply assume reasonable 

41  Cf. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 
1971), Pt. 2, ch. IV, §35, p. 220. 

42  Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologiae [ST], trans. Fathers of the 
English Dominican Province, online edition, accessed November 11, 2024, 
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/, I-II.1.1.

43  Cf. ibid. I-II.1.3, 93.5. 
44  Ibid. I.103.1 co.
45  See ibid. I.22.1 for Aquinas’s demonstration of divine providence.



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pluralism as Rawls does since it is equally reasonable that all people could 
come to know this end through the exercise of their rationality. In addition, 
Aquinas’s argument that man is inclined to live according to reason and not 
according to passion further undermines the aspects of liberal anthropology 
that follow from its denial of an objective end for man, that man is primarily 
driven by the passions.46

 Regarding the origins and purpose of the state, Aquinas states 
that “man is by nature a social and political animal,”47 and people form 
political communities to “live well in a way that would not be possible for 
each of them living singly.”48 Thus, Aquinas believes that the state should 
promote the good of man by promoting virtuous living. However, Aquinas 
notes that man’s final end does not consist solely in living a virtuous life 
in society: it has a further spiritual dimension to it since “through virtuous 
living” man “attain[s] to the enjoyment of the Divine”—the Beatific Vision, 
which is his ultimate and final end.49 The state, being concerned merely 
with temporal living, cannot safely direct man to the transcendent, spiritual 
aspect of his end which is the Beatific Vision.50 Thus, Aquinas says man 
“has need of another, spiritual, care by which he is guided towards the 
harbour of eternal salvation. And this is… the Church of Christ.”51 From 
this, Aquinas concludes that both the Church and the state are necessary for 
man to achieve his good and live well. The Church is needed to govern and 
provide “those things which pertain to the salvation of the soul,” while the 
state is necessary to govern and provide “those things which pertain to the 
civil good.”52 

 These two entities must work together and cooperate to fulfill 
Aquinas’s vision of both of them governing and directing man to his 
good. However, the practicalities of how the Church and the state work 
together to make this happen are not entirely clear in Aquinas’s thought. 

46  See also ibid. I-II.2.6, where Aquinas demonstrates that bodily pleasures 
toward which the passions incline people cannot constitute true happiness and 
the fulfillment of man’s nature.

47  Thomas Aquinas, De regime principum, Bk. I, ch. I, in Thomas Aquinas, 
Political Writings [APW], ed. and trans. R.W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press, 2002), p. 5-6.

48  Ibid., ch. xv, 40 (emphasis mine).
49  Ibid., 41. See also Thomas Aquinas, On the Truth of the Catholic Faith 

[Summa Contra Gentiles], trans. Anton C. Pegis et al., online edition, accessed 
April 6, 2025, https://isidore.co/aquinas/ContraGentiles.htm, bk. 3, ch. 25.

50  Cf. ibid. 39-40.
51  Ibid. 40.
52  Thomas Aquinas, Scripta super libros sententiarum II, Dist. 44, quaest. 3, in 

APW, 278.



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He certainly makes clear that both are needed to direct man to his 
good and that the spiritual power is ultimately superior since it guides 
man to his higher, transcendent end.53 Still, he does not specify the 
constitutions or governmental structures most conducive to Church-
state relations. However, Pope Leo XIII, a disciple of Aquinas, provides 
one way it could take shape: the confessional state. In his encyclical 
Immortale Dei, Leo states that the close cooperation of Church and state 
produces “benefits… manifold and great” in civil society.54 Drawing 
on Thomistic anthropology and divine providence, Leo says that the 
state arises naturally from man’s desire to live well, both morally and 
intellectually, and argues that since the state “has its source in nature,” it 
has, “consequently, God for its Author.”55 In light of these demonstrable 
facts, Leo says the state has a natural obligation to publicly recognize its 
origin in God and give thanks to Him by professing true religion.56

 With this principle in mind, Leo outlines his vision for the 
confessional state. Roman Catholicism is recognized as the true religion 
and privileged by the state, giving the Church ample freedom to fulfill 
her divine mission. Leo says such an arrangement will bring about the 
benefits he speaks of in the opening section. By giving the Church the 
freedom to promote the gospel and teach virtue, Leo says the result will 
be a strong foundation for human rights, unifying beliefs in society, laws 
that are informed by truth and justice, reverence toward the authority of 
the state, and citizens who treat each other with charity and virtue.57 All 
this, Leo says, is a result of the confessional state actively promoting 
true religion instead of relegating religious truth to a matter of personal 
opinion, like in a liberal society. In fact, Leo says that the privatization 
of religion and ignorance of the common good for the sake of the private 
good, characteristic of the liberal tradition, leads to societal degradation. 
This is because exiling religion to the private sphere casts aside the 
innumerable, valuable benefits that healthy Church-state cooperation can 
bring. Leo warns that such individualism is “not in itself an advantage 
over which society can wisely rejoice.”58

53  See Aquinas, De regime principum, Bk. I, ch. xv, 41.
54  Leo XIII, Immortale Dei [ID], §1, Vatican trans., https://www.vatican.

va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_01111885_
immortale-dei.html. 

55  Ibid., §3.
56  Cf. ibid., §6.
57  See ibid., §17-19.
58  Ibid., §32.



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 Despite the strong opposition of the Thomistic tradition to core 
aspects of liberal political theory, Aquinas and Leo both note that, in Leo’s 
words,

[N]o one of the several forms of government is in itself condemned, inasmuch 
as none of them contains anything contrary to Catholic doctrine, and all of 
them are capable, if wisely and justly managed, to insure the welfare of the 
State.59 

This is to say that the confessional state model is not the only way in 
which flourishing Church-state relations can be achieved, and society can 
be governed for the good of man. Instead, the Thomistic tradition allows 
that even a government structured according to a social contract model, 
such as Hobbes, Locke, and Rawls’ systems, could, in theory, accomplish 
this. However, the obstacles would be significant. Firstly, as seen above, 
the liberal anthropology that is directly opposed by the Thomistic tradition 
plays an indispensable role in setting up the political systems envisioned 
by the liberal thinkers, as the goal of their state is to protect people’s ability 
to define the good for themselves. Rawls and the other liberal thinkers see 
this as a way people are equal in society, that all are equally capable of 
defining the good for themselves. However, as Paul Weithman points out, 
Aquinas’s defense of an objective good that is common to all men makes 
him understand equality differently than the liberal tradition: 

[I]n Aquinas’s view, members of society are coparticipants in its common 
good…. He argues that realizing the common good depends upon 
harmonizing… differences so that each compensates for what others lack, 
and differences work for the good of all. He thinks that in a well-functioning 
political society, members complete or complement one another. Aquinas 
therefore endorses what might be called the complementarity view of political 
membership.60

Because of this fundamental understanding of human beings as having 
an objective good shared by all of them, a common good that they must 
work together in society to achieve, Weithman concludes that a complete 
synthesis between Thomistic political principles and democratic liberal 
political theory would be nearly impossible. As Weithman concludes, 

Since Aquinas held the complementarity view rather than the egalitarian 
view about political membership, he did not hold a democratic conception 

59  Ibid. §36.
60  Paul J. Weithman, “Complementarity and Equality in the Political Thought of 

Thomas Aquinas,” Theological Studies 59, no. 2 (1998): 280-281.



93Issue XII  Spring 2025

There is No Such Finis Ultimus

of political equality. And since complementarity is central to his social 
as well as his political thought, framing a democratic Thomism would 
require significant revisions in Aquinas’s position.61

I have now shown how the liberal tradition shares a common anthropology 
that denies an objective good that man is by nature guided toward and 
argues that all people are equally capable of defining their own private 
conception of the good. I have also demonstrated how this anthropology 
not only dictates how the liberal state is constituted, as it exists to ensure 
people’s ability to define the good for themselves but also how this 
anthropology directly influences the liberal conception of Church-state 
relations, creating a society in which the Church must be “curbed” since 
it promotes an objective good. Lastly, I have also shown how Aquinas 
would attack the central premises of the liberal anthropology, arguing 
that an objective human good is rationally demonstrable through divine 
providence, and outlined how the Thomistic tradition has envisioned 
societies such as the confessional state where the Church and state work 
together to promote the common good of man.

61  Ibid., 281-282, emphasis mine.



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