Aquinas’s Defense of Antigone’s Kreon

“Oh, it is hard to give in! But it is worse to risk everything for stubborn pride.”

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In this paper, I will defend King Kreon’s decree in Sophocles’s Antigone using principles derived from Aquinas’s natural law theory. According to Aquinas, law is an exercise of public personage by a sovereign who cares for all people of his state. As an instance of divergence from positive and divine law particular to a case of treachery, Kreon’s law was protective of natural law’s end towards eudaimonia in its safekeeping of the newly reigned land and in vindication of the legal order of the state. Matters such as Kreon’s decree permeate our legal system today, and civilizations have long meditated on the question of when it is permissible to defy customs as a leader, and what inherent validity comes with the word of the sovereign. In this paper, I will prove that king Kreon’s command was in alignment with natural law theory by delineating his pursuit of the common good through his conservation of social order and his upholding of the role of the sovereign.

Antigone domnant la sépulture à Polynices; Norblin 1825

Firstly, in his decree to punish the traitor Polynices, Kreon preserved social order by necessitating legal cooperation under the positive law of Thebes. Natural law claims that there ought to be a framework of accountability founded in any regime in order to preserve general respect for legal regulation. Second to this, natural law theory iterates that “...each man, in all that he is and has, belongs to the community, just as a part, in all that it is, belongs to the whole; wherefore nature inflicts a loss on the part in order to save the whole, so that on this account such laws as these which impose proportionate burdens are just and binding in conscience and are legal laws,” or that any person perverse towards the law, so long as it is a just law in beginning, can and should be rightfully removed for the wellbeing of the state they are separated from (Aquinas p. 10). In his best-known work Summa Theologicae, Aquinas speaks on the right of the proper authority to commit such mandates, composing that “...this right belongs only to the one entrusted with the care of the whole community — just as a doctor may cut off an infected limb, since he has been entrusted with the care of the health of the whole body” (Aquinas ST, q. 64, a. 3). Therefore, it is in the role of the sovereign that citizens are held to legal directives so long as the end is towards common good, and by holding Polynices proper to this sanction, Kreon establishes a necessary step towards societal order. The overall well-being of the people is exemplified by the symbol of the state, and Kreon’s proceeding was defendant of the union in so much as it upheld legal standards and discouraged similar acts.

It might be objected that the sanction upheld by Kreon is not towards the chief end of common good, and I will address this counterargument by expanding on the necessity of an austerely upheld legal order. As stated by Aquinas, deviation from legality ought to exist only in the event of misalignment with the morality dependent on traditional natural law theory. This is not the case of Kreon’s decree, because

natural law theory states that the sovereign ought to protect the state by methods of injunction, and has the right to proceed even with punitive measures if necessary, and these authorities are granted to the sovereign ruler alone. Additionally, natural law theory emphasizes the charge of a leader to deviate from the law

alongside the prerogative to sanction individuals, so that “when it is expedient, he can change the law and

dispense from it according to time and place” (Aquinas p.11). By deferring to this position, Kreon

conducted the citizens of Thebes towards a common good by upholding the tenet that “lawgivers make men good by habituating them to good works” (Aquinas p.12). Thus, Kreon’s dismissal of Polynices is undeniably oriented towards the common good of Thebes in its attention to the imperative of carefully preserved legal decorum.

Secondly, Kreon’s practice abides by the natural law establishment of the role of the sovereign. The origins of Kreon’s decree comes from his defense of the sanctity of the state, which is his role as a sovereign in every capacity; this defense manifests as legislation and careful maintenance of a government’s jurisprudence. According to Aquinas, “law is given for the purpose of directing human acts; as far as human acts conduce to virtue, so far does law make men good,” and thus Kreon’s and any leader’s precedent is to establish a moral directive for their people. If natural law delineates that it is justifiable to sanction an individual in order to protect the safety, integrity, and unification of the state, then Kreon’s defense against threat to legal order must be in alignment with natural law, and his statute therefore must emanate from eternal law origins.

Some would argue that Kreon’s role as the sovereign entails a different responsibility towards divine law rather than orientation towards positive morality. I will address this counterpoint by emphasizing the difference in Kreon’s and Antigone’s engagement with divine and positive law, and the mediation of this contrast by the state. The divergence between Kreon and Antigone’s loyalties is a real conflict between real commitments; Antigone is driven by heroic obligation to disobey unjust positive law in order to reestablish alignment with the word of the Ancient Greek gods and faithfulness to her blood, whereas Kreon’s commitment lies in his fulfillment of the defense of the sanctity of the state by prioritizing the collective good of the land over personal sentiment or familial ties. While Antigone’s rationale is noble, the two, put simply, are different contracts. Kreon’s charge correlated to his primary role as king, and Antigone’s to hers as family. Thus, Kreon’s obligation to the state was separate from Antigone’s integrity towards familial bonds, and as king he is granted authority to avert from customs, and was positioned to exercise this responsibility. 

To conclude, Kreon’s ruling to prohibit the burial procession of Polynices is a judgement in alignment with natural law theory. This theme has been proven through the examination of Kreon’s role as a sovereign to prioritize the well-being of the state over allegiance to familial bonds, thus outlining that the devotedness of a ruler in Kreon’s position belongs foremost to the state.