 Human acts are directed to their true end by

LAW and law is applied by CONSCIENCE.

 Hence, law and conscience are the directives

or norms of human acts.
 St. Thomas defines law:

 An ordinance of reason, promulgated for the

common good by one who has charge of
society.
 A law is an ordinance.

 An active and authoritative ordering or

directing of human acts in reference to an
end to be attained by them.
• A law is an ordinance of REASON and not an
arbitrary or whimsical decree of the
legislator’s will.
• A law does, of course, come from the will of
the lawgiver, but from his reasonable will,
that is from his will illumined by
understanding of an end necessary or useful
to be attained, toward which the law serves
as a proper direction.
 Hence, law must be reasonable and this
means that:
 It must be just, honest, possible of fulfilment
(not exacting undue or extraordinary effort
on the part of those bound by it), useful and
in some degree permanent.
 A law is promulgated, i.e. made known to
those bound by it and these are called its
subjects. This is a requirement of law as
reasonable. By promulgation a law is put in
application as an authoritative ordinance.
 A law is promulgated for the common good.
This is the purpose of law. In this point, a law
is distinguished from a precept, which is an
ordinance issued by public or private
authority for the particular or private good of
one or several persons.
• Law is not meant to impose hardships or
needless restriction upon its subjects, but to
promote their good and hence to protect and
promote true liberty among them.
• When a law is truly a law, that is to say, when
it has all the requisite qualities of law and is
just, honest, possible, useful, relatively
permanent and duly promulgated- then is
inevitably acts as a liberating agency and not
as an enslaving one.
 True law tends to make men good, and tends
to liberate them from the perverse and
mistaken judgments that would lead them
astray in the quest of their ultimate end.
 A law is promulgated in a society. This is
evident from the fact that law is for the
common good and hence suppose a
commonality or community of subjects and a
community is a society.
 Law in the fullest sense can exist only in a
perfect society for such a society alone has
the full and the perfect right to legislate for
all subjects.
 The supreme and perfect society in the
natural order is the State; the supreme and
perfect society in the supernatural order is
the true church. In the fullest sense,
therefore, human laws can come only from
the Church and the State.
• A law is promulgated by one who has charge of a
society. By one is meant a person, whether this
be a single human being or a body of men united
to form the governing power (moral power).
• Here, we have indicated the author of the law,
that is the lawgiver or legislator. A legislator is
one who has the just authority of “saying what is
right”in the community and is empowered to
enact and promulgate true laws.
 Here, we have indicated the author of the
law, that is the lawgiver or legislator. A
legislator is one who has the just authority of
“saying what is right”in the community and is
empowered to enact and promulgate true
laws.
 Almighty God is the Supreme lawgiver

 And properly constituted human legislation

has its power and authority, directly or
indirectly from God.
 To insure observance the author of the law
establishes sanctions for laws i.e.
inducements (rewards and punishment)
sufficiently strong to lead reasonable men to
follow the prescriptions of the law.
• According to their immediate author, laws
are distinguished as divine laws, which come
directly from God and
• Human laws which are the enactments of
Church or State. Human laws enacted by the
Church are called ecclesiastical laws, while
human laws enacted by the State are called
civil laws.
 According to their duration, laws are
temporal or eternal. The Eternal law is God’s
plan and providence for this universe.

 All human laws are in themselves temporal,

although some of them give expression to
requirements of the Eternal law.
• According to the manner of their
promulgation, laws are distinguished as the
natural law and positive laws.
•
• The natural law in the widest sense is that
which directs creatures to their end in
accordance with their nature and so
understood, it coincides with the Eternal law.
 Usually, however, the laws that govern
irrational creatures in their being and
activities are called physical laws,
 While the moral law which is apprehended by
sound and matured human reason is called
the natural law.
 Positive laws are laws enacted by a positive
act of a legislator, and these fall under the
classification already made as divine and
human.
 According as they prescribe an act or forbid
it, laws are affirmative or negative. Negative
laws are also called prohibitory laws.
 According to the effect of their violation, laws
are distinguished as moral (violation of which
is fault or sin).
 Penal (violation of which is renders the
violator liable to an established penalty, but
does not infect him with sin.
 Mixed, (violation of which involves both fault
and penalty)
 ETERNAL LAW

 The Eternal Law is God’s eternal plan and

providence for the universe. God decreeing
from eternity to create the world for an end,
eternally plans and directs all things toward
that end.
• Thus there is from eternity a “a plan of Divine
wisdom as director of all acts and
movements- and this is Eternal law.”
• St. Augustine defines Eternal law as the
Divine reason and will commanding that the
natural order of things be preserved and
forbidding that it be disturbed.
•
• The Eternal law extends to all acts and
movements in the universe.
• Thus, bodies obey the tendencies of their
nature and follow the laws of cohesion,
gravity, inertia, etc.: plants grow; animals
follow the guidance of instinct; the earth
turns upon its axis; the heavenly spheres
swing through their mighty orbits.
• Of all bodily creation, man alone may refuse the
direction of the Eternal law in matters of free
choice.

• For the eternal law applies to all creatures and

directs them in a manner consonant with their
nature; and man’s nature, in its rational part, is
free.

•
• But in matters that lie under man’s free control-
in a word, in human acts- it may be perverse and
disobedient, refusing the direction of the Eternal
Law as known to him by his reason.

• Thus, the Eternal law governs all things except

human acts by necessity, that is allowing the
things governed no choice in the matter.
 Eternal law is unchangeable as the author
himself. As part of the Divine plan, eternal law
existed from all eternity in the mind of God
even before the creation of the universe.
 Eternal law is absolutely universal for it rules
all things and actions. There is no limit to the
breadth of its application to corporeal and
spiritual, to rational and irrational.
• NATURAL LAW
• The Natural law is the Eternal law as known to
man by his reason. It is in some sense , man’s
participation in the Eternal law.
• Man knows naturally, by the light of his
understanding, that there are some things evil in
themselves and some things which are
necessarily good. Thus, man knows that lies and
murder are evil and he knows that truthfulness
and respect for life and property are good.
 Our universe is composed of an infinite
variety of beautifully arranged things.
Indeed, nature shows a constant order which
is the result of a universal plan and immutable
laws.
 To these natural laws are subject all the
movements and energies of the world, the
behavior of atoms and molecules, the
majestic course of planets and stars.
 Man is included in this universal plan. As a
living organism he follows the natural laws.
As a rational and intelligent being he alone
recognizes the laws governing nature and
laws especially designed for him, which we
called the natural moral law.
 Natural law is the Eternal law known to man
by his reason. It is in some sense, man’s
participation in the Eternal law.

 Man knows naturally by reason that there are

some things evil in themselves and some
things which are necessarily good.
 The practical judgments by which man is
aware of his moral obligations are the actual
instruments by which God promulgates his
eternal law in men.
The natural law has its proper sanction. To
deny this fact would be to deny the wisdom
of the lawgiver; for surely the legislator who
frames a law wants the law fulfilled, else it is
an absurdity and a sanction fitted to the
nature of the law and of its subjects is the one
means of giving the law force.
 We may define a human positive law as an
ordinance of reason, derived from the natural
law or making a concrete and determinate
application of the natural law, promulgated
for the common good by a human agency in
charge of society.
 HUMAN POSITIVE LAW
Human positive law is enacted by Church or
State.
 When such a law is truly law-that is to say,
when it is just, honest, possible, useful and
duly promulgated-
 it derives its binding force from the natural
law and so ultimately from Eternal law from
God.
 It is universal. The natural law is the
reflection or promulgation of the eternal law
of God in human nature which is common to
all persons of all times and places.
 It is obligatory, for it imposes upon men the
moral obligation to follow it as a necessary
condition to attain the last end or happiness.
It declares to man his duty; it is a voice of
authority.
 It is recognizable, for it cannot fail to be
known and it cannot be forgotten by man; it
is impressed in his reason.

 It is immutable and unchangeable, for it

shares in the immutability of the eternal law
 Human law should be in accord with the
divine law.
 Human law should be in accord with natural
law
 Human law must promote the common
good.
 Human law must have a universal character.
 Human laws require promulgation in an
official publications.
 Human laws should inculcate not only justice
but also self-discipline and upright living
under the providence of God who is the
source and the end of law.
 Human law can be fallible and prone to error.
 Conscience is the practical judgment of
reason upon an individual act as good to
be performed or as evil to be avoided.
 It is a judgment of reason, that is, it is a
reasoned conclusion.
 Although the term conscience is also used to
designate the act of reasoning out the right
and wrong of a situation before choosing
what to do, it is more properly employed as in
our definition to signify the judgment which
is the conclusion of that act of reasoning.
 Now, an act of reasoning requires a principle
or set of principles from which the process of
reasoning proceeds. By principles we mean
things known with certainty with which we
may compare new facts or proposed actions
and so discover new truths-new applications
of the principles.
 We acquire these principles-many of them –
in early life and when we have a workable
grasp of them, we become responsible for
our conduct, we cease to be infants and we
are said to have “come to the use of reason”
 Now this acquired equipment of moral
principles is called syntheresis. Synteresis is
the starting point of the reasoning process
which ends in the judgment of conscience.
 Before action, conscience judges an act as
good to be performed (i.e. as something
obligatory, advisable or permissible) or as evil
and to be omitted. After action, conscience is
a judgment or approval or disapproval.
 Conscience is a practical judgment. This
means that it has reference to something to
be done, i.e either the performance or the
omission of an act. It is obvious that
conscience is a practical judgment. It is a
judgment that commands, forbids, allows or
advises according as it declares an individual
act obligatory, prohibited, permissible or
prudent.
 Correct or True Conscience: judges what is
good as good and what is evil as evil.
 Erroneous or False Conscience: judges that
what is evil is good and good is evil.
Causes:
Mistake in inferential thinking
Ignorance of the Law
Ignorance of the fact and circumstances
Ignorance of future consequences
 Certain conscience: is a subjective assurance
of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of a certain
act.
 Doubtful conscience is a vacillating
conscience, unable to make a definite
judgment on a certain action.
 Scrupulous conscience: is a rigorous
conscience extremely afraid of committing
evil.
 Lax conscience: is one which refuses to be
bothered about the distinction of good and
evil.
 In certain cases, we are mixed up because of
the confusion between conscience and the
built-in policeman in us called the super-ego.
Why do I feel confused, restless and ashamed
about doing this act?
 This is so precisely because the inner voice of
the super-ego can be mistaken for God’s
voice. What adds much to our confusion is
the fact that conscience and super-ego have
 Functions which are strikingly similar. Both
command and prohibit certain actions in a
given situation and accuse the offender when
he or she fails to obey.
 Super-ego is made up of mental attitudes and
rules of parents and those in authority that
have been internalized in us along with
prohibitions of society and which have
influenced us from early childhood.
 As time goes on these external restrictions
are consciously processed in our mental
mechanism and become part of us.
 The psychological process is known as
introjection.
 Later on, these mentally processed external
restrictions become an inner authority which
functions in terms of prohibitions and
commands.
 These guilt feelings can be traced to
childhood fears enforced by parents and
authority figures. This is the fear of losing
their love and approval
 The superego is not concerned with the inner
goodness and badness of any moral act.
There is no sense of moral obligation
whatsoever. The law comes from the
pressure of authority and society.
 On the other hand, conscience is the call to
love God precisely in others. Hence, its main
concern is the love in moral acts which we
feel impelled to do from the moral
impulse/obligation: to do what is right/good
and avoid what is evil.
 Thus conscience and moral law are not
pressures from without, but something from
within.
CONSCIENCE
•Other-oriented

SUPER-EGO
•Selfish
CONSCIENCE
• Dynamic;ables to deal with new
situations

SUPER-EGO
• Static; does not grow and develop
CONSCIENCE
• Looks forward in order to improve the
present
SUPER-EGO
• Always looks backward with guilt
feelings
CONSCIENCE
•Value-oriented,

SUPER-EGO
•Authority-oriented
CONSCIENCE
• Acts with prudence based on
reason and light of faith

SUPER-EGO
• Tends to act independently
 Making a moral decision in complicated
matters is both a challenge and anguish. In
such cases, the problem requires information,
reflection, and prayer.
 Since the rightness and the wrongness of the
moral choice depends in large measure on
acts, it is important to properly informed
about them. It is necessary, therefore that we
consult others. This gives me the chance, to
see the problem from different angles.
 Every decision-making requires a reflection on the
act itself. First of all, I must analyze the nature of
the act. What is it that I am about to do?
 Second, I must ask myself, what is my intention in
doing the action.

 Thirdly, what are the circumstances that surround

the action.
 After, gathering information about the act, the what
follows is to make a judgment.
 For any Christian who is trying to do the right
thing from a specifically Christian
perspective, we need to ask: What does Jesus
want me to do? Prayer is the powerful way to
get God’s help in searching out his will for us.
 If there is no interior peace and when I think I
will later regret my decision, I should review
the process, including more prayer, for
further discernment and change of decision if
necessary.
 Conscience is at work in us three ways, that is
before we act, while we are doing the action
and after we have performed it.
 1. Before the action:

 Antecedent conscience helps us to sort out the

data and examine the morality of an act before we
perform it. This operation of conscience refers to
the whole process of making moral judgement
before the moral act.
 2. During the action

 Concomitant conscience refers to my actual

awareness of being morally responsible for
the goodness and the badness of the
particular act while I am doing it.
 3. After the action
 Consequent conscience is the process of looking
back at our past moral acts. It serves to review
and evaluate the morality of what we have done.
 This reflection deepens our sense of responsibility
which is manifested in our feelings of guilt when
we have violated something or satisfaction when
it judges we, when we have obeyed a moral
imperative.