NATURAL LAW

GE 8 SS ETHICS
INSTRUCTOR: APRIL DAWNN G. BAHAGUE
 In October 2016,
newspapers reported that
Pantaleon Alvarez, Speaker of
the House of Representatives,
was intending to draft a bill
which would amend the
country’s Family code, thereby
allowing for the legalization of
SAME-SEX MARRIAGE same-sex unions.

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What do words natural and unnatural mean?

The word natural The word is used The word natural The word natural Given these
seems to be used to try to justify a is used as an used to refer to varied meanings
to refer to some certain way of appeal to what seems of the term
kind of intuition behaving by something common to them “natural,” we need
seeing its instinctual given their to find a more
likeness without it being particular solid and nuanced
somewhere in directed by environment. way to understand
the natural reason. the term.
world. Your Logo or Name Here 3
Thomas Aquinas

Hailed as a Thomas Aquinas Contributed to

doctor of the was a Dominican the doctrine of
Roman Catholic friar who was the faith more
Church the preeminent than any figure
intellectual of his time
figure of the
scholastic period
of the Middle
Ages 1225-1274
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 THE CONTEXT OF THE
CHRISTIAN STORY
• The fundamental truth
maintained and elaborated by
Aquinas in all his works is the
promise right at the center of the
Christian faith: that we are
created by God in order to
ultimately return to Him.
• The structure of his magnum
opus Summa Theologiae follows
the trajectory of this story. There
are three parts to this voluminous
work.
• There are three parts to this
voluminous work. The first part,
Aquinas speaks of God – we are
able to say something concerning
His goodness, His might, and His
creative power.
• Second part, which deals with
man or the dynamic of human life.
This is characterized by our pursuit
of happiness, which we should
realize rest ultimately not on any
particular good thing that is created
by God, but in the highest good
which is God himself.
• The third part focuses on Jesus
as our Savior.Your Logo or Name Here
THE CONTEXT OF AQUINAS’S ETHICS

• Such as how, in our pursuit of happiness

A full consideration we direct our actions towards specific
of Aquinas’s ethics ends; how “passions” are involve in the
would require us to process; how actions are related to certain
explore his dispositions; good dispositions lead to
discussion of other making moral choices
matters
• The Christian life, therefore, is about
developing the capacities given to us by
God into a disposition of virtue inclined
toward the good.

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 THE GREEK
HERITAGE
NEOPLATONIC GOOD
ARISTOTELIAN BEING AND BECOMING
SYNTHESIS

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 • This central belief of the Christian
faith, while inspired by divine
revelation, has been shaped and
defined by an idea stated in the
work of the ancient Greek
philosopher Plato. He is credited for
giving the subsequent history of
NEOPLATONIC GOOD philosophy in one of its most
God creates. This does not only compelling and enduring ideas: the
means that He brings about beings, notion of a supreme and absolutely
but it also means that He cares for, transcendent good.
and thus governs, the activity of the
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universe and of every creature.
NEOPLATONIC GOOD
There is an opportunity for success

In his work The Republic, it is often supposed that Plato

is trying to envision the ideal society. But that plan is only a
part of a more fundamental concern that animates the text,
which is to provide an object basis and standard for the
striving to be moral. In other words, it can be said that Plato
was trying to Fortify
answer question De-Marginalize
such as, “Why should Research I bother
trying to be good?”and “Why
Lorem ipsum dolor sit
can’t ‘good’ be Lorem
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I
say it is?” amet,
His answer,
consectetuer
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amet, consectetuer
adipiscing elit mouth of the
adipiscing elit main
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character Socrates, is that the good is real and not something

that one can pretend to make up or ignore.
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ARISTOTELIAN BEING AND BECOMING
In Aristotle’s exploration of how to discuss beings, he proposes
four concepts which provide a way of understanding any particular
being under consideration. Any being, according to Aristotle, can be
said to have four causes.
First, we recognize that any being we can see around is corporeal,
possessed of a certain materiality or physical “stuff”. We can refer to
this as the material cause. A being is individuated- it becomes the
unique, individual being that it is- beacause it is made up of this
particular stuff. Yet, we also realize that this material takes on a
particular shape: so a bird is different from a cat, which is different from
a man. The “shape” that makes a being a particular kind can be called
its form. Thus, each being also has a formal cause.
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ARISTOTELIAN BEING AND BECOMING
One can also realize that a being does not simply “pop up” from
nothing, but comes from another being which is prior to it. Parents
beget a child. A mango tree is used to be a seed that itself came from
an older tree. A chair is built as the product of a carpenter. Thus, there
is something which brings about the presence of another being. This
can be referred to as the efficient cause.
Also, since a being has an apparent end or goal, a chair to be sat
on, a pen for writing, a seed to become a tree, or a child to become an
adult, one can speak of the final cause of each being. Identifying these
four causes – material, formal, efficient, and final – gives a way to
understand any being.
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 SYNTHESIS
The idea of a transcendent good prior to all being resurfaces in Aquinas in the form of the
good and loving God, who is Himself the fullness of being and of goodness; as Aquinas
puts it, God is that which essentially is and is essentially good. So, we recognize that all
beings are only possible as participating in the first being, which is God Himself.
God’s act, like an emanation of light, is the creation of beings.
However, while beings are good because they are created by God, the goodness
possessed by being remains imperfect.” For Aquinas, only God in the fullness of his being
and goodness is perfect; all other beings are participating in this goodness, and are good
to that extent, but are imperfect since they are limited in their participation.” But, once
again, God did not create us to simply be imperfect and to stay that way as He leaves us
alone. Instead, God, in His infinite wisdom, directs how we are to arrive at our perfection.
The notion of divine providence refers to how beings are properly ordered and even
guided toward their proper end; this end, which is for them to reach their highest good,
is to return to the divine goodness itself.
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