The transmission theory of authority

Scholastic thinkers like Cardinal Cajetan, St. Robert Bellarmine, and Francisco Suárez developed what is sometimes called a “transmission theory” of governmental authority.  It holds that such authority ultimately comes from God, but is directly vested by him in the community as a whole, and then transmitted by it to some particular form of government (which may or may not be democratic).  Yves Simon offered an influential discussion of this theory in chapter 3 of his book Philosophy of Democratic Government.

The theory is best understood by way of contrast with other theories, including other theories discussed by Simon.  What Simon calls the “coach-driver theory” holds that government officials are analogous to the driver of a coach who simply follows the directives of the passengers in the coach.  The “divine right theory” proposed by some 16^th century thinkers holds that governmental authority is imparted to rulers directly from God. 

The transmission theory can be thought of as a kind of middle ground position between these two theories.  The coach-driver theory essentially takes political authority to begin and end in the community, with governmental officials functioning as mere instruments of the community’s will rather than having any true authority over it.  The divine right theory denies that the community plays any role at all where political authority is concerned, locating such authority only in the ruler and in God, who conveys it to the ruler.  The transmission theory attributes a greater role to the community than the divine right theory does, but a smaller role than the coach-driver theory does.  It holds, contra the divine right theory, that political authority really does reside in the community, and that it is only through the community that rulers get this authority from God.  But it holds, contra the coach-driver theory, that such authority does not originate in the community and does not remain there, insofar as it comes from God and is transferred to governmental officials.

Another illuminating contrast is with the way popes receive their authority.  It comes directly from God, rather than through the community.  Hence, papal authority is more like the authority the divine right theory attributes to kings, rather than the authority governmental officials have on the transmission theory.  To be sure, popes are chosen by human beings, namely the cardinal electors.  But the transmission theory distinguishes the cases by holding that while the cardinals designate the man to whom papal authority will be transmitted, they do not themselves transmit that authority.   Again, God does that. 

This distinction suggests yet another theory of secular political authority, known as the “designation theory.”  This holds that while the community designates the officials to whom political authority will be transmitted, it is God rather than the community who transmits it.  It’s like the divine right theory but allows some role to at least part of the community (again, to designate the recipient of authority, but still not to transmit authority).  The transmission theory takes even the designation theory to attribute too much to governmental authorities and too little to the community.  The designation theory essentially makes secular political authority analogous to papal authority.

It seems to me that another useful way to understand the transmission theory and its relations to other theories is by analogy with the different metaphysical theories of causality that were discussed by Scholastic writers.  (This analogy is mine rather than Simon’s.) 

The view defended by St. Thomas Aquinas is known as concurrentism.  It holds that created things are “secondary causes.”  This means, on the one hand, that they have genuine causal power (that’s the “causes” part); but on the other hand, it also holds that they have their power only in a borrowed way insofar as they cannot act at all apart from the divine first cause (that’s the “secondary” part).  Think of the stock example of the stick being used to push a stone.  The stick really does push the stone, but only insofar as some person uses the stick to push it.  The stick could not act without the person “concurring” with its operation.  In the same way, natural objects have real causal power – the sun really does melt ice, a bird really does built a nest, and so on – but only because God concurs with their operations by constantly imparting causal power to them.

This is a middle ground position between occasionalism and what commentators sometimes call mere conservationism.  According to occasionalism, there are no true secondary causes in the natural world.  God is the only true cause.  Hence, it isn’t really the sun that melts ice.  It is God who melts it, on the occasion when the sun is present.  It isn’t really the bird that brings the nest into being.  It is God who does so, on the occasion when the bird is present.  And so on.  Mere conservationism, by contrast, holds that while God conserves natural causes in existence, they are entirely capable of acting on their own without his concurrence.  It is the sun alone that melts the ice, the bird alone that builds the nest, and so on, with no need for God continually to impart causal power to them once they are created. 

I would suggest that on the transmission theory of authority, the community is a kind of “secondary cause.”  It plays a genuine causal role in imparting power to governing authorities, even if it does so only as the instrument of the divine first cause.  The divine right theory and designation theory, by contrast, are analogous to occasionalism in that they attribute no causal role at all to the community in transmitting power to governing authorities.  Only God transmits it (though the designation theory allows that the community plays another, non-transmitting role).  Meanwhile, the coach-driver theory is analogous to mere conservationism insofar as it makes the community all by itself the source of authority, rather than transmitting it from God.

I would suggest that these distinctions and analogies also illuminate the way the Scholastic natural law tradition differs from liberalism.  Liberal social contract theories are essentially variations on the coach-driver theory.  Political authority originates entirely from the people rather than from God.  This is true even in Locke’s version of the social contract, despite its theological component.  That there is a law of nature in the state of nature is, for Locke, due to God.  But there is no governmental authority in that state of nature.  Government is not a natural institution, and its power is thus not the kind that derives from the author of nature.  Rather, it is a product of human artifice, and its power derives from the human artificers who make it.  Moreover, while the “inconveniencies” of the state of nature make it prudent for us to leave it and set up governments, there is no strict obligation under natural law for us to do so.  Whatever authority governments have, then, is not transmitted to them by God through the people, but from the people alone.  Indeed, strictly speaking the people retain this power, which is why, for Locke, when the people decide to overthrow an oppressive government, it is the government rather than the people who are “rebelling.”  The government is like an insubordinate employee who has to be fired – or, to borrow Simon’s analogy, like a coach driver who suddenly takes the passengers somewhere other than where they paid him to go.

As Simon notes, a problem with the coach-driver theory is that, consistently pursued, it would entail anarchy.  A passenger in a coach has no obligation to go where the coach driver wants to drive him, even if the other passengers want to go there.  The dissident passenger has every right to get out of the coach rather than submit to the will of the driver or the majority of passengers.  Similarly, Simon points out, the coach-driver theory has no plausible way of explaining why members of the community who disagree with the majority should submit to that majority or to the government personnel who act on the majority’s behalf. 

Social contract theories have a similar problem.  They have no plausible way of explaining why people who object to the terms of the hypothetical liberal social contract (Lockean, Rawlsian, or whatever) should be expected to abide by it – or indeed, why a merely hypothetical contract should be binding on anyone in the first place.

My analogy with mere conservationism also suggests that it is no accident that liberal societies have, Locke’s theism notwithstanding, tended to become increasingly secularist over time.  One of the objections to mere conservationism is that, given its assumptions, it seems inevitably to collapse into deism or even atheism.  If natural objects can act or operate without God, then (given the Scholastic dictum that action follows being), it is hard to see why they could not also exist without him.  Similarly, if political authority in no way derives from God, it is not surprising that people should increasingly see theology as something that has no proper role in politics.

Finally, I would suggest that all of this also illuminates what it is, or can be, to be postliberal.  Many assume that postliberalism is bound to be authoritarian or despotic.  As I have argued elsewhere, that is simply not the case.  And the distinctions drawn here make clear why.  To be sure, one could reject liberalism in favor of a divine right theory or a designation theory of political authority, and it is easy to see why such theories might lend themselves to authoritarianism.  But one could instead reject liberalism in favor of the transmission theory of authority.  And while that theory is compatible with monarchy, it is also compatible with aristocracy, democracy, or some mixed constitution. 

Indeed, many liberals claim to see in Bellarmine and Suárez precursors to their own position.  They are quite wrong if they suppose there is anything in these Scholastics that is strictly liberal.  But they are right to hold that ideals such as the rule of law, constitutional limits on governmental power, and grounds for a polity with a strong democratic component are to be found in the Scholastic tradition.  What this shows is not that the Scholastics were proto-liberals, but rather that not all non-liberals fit the despotic caricature liberals like to paint of them.