Chapter 3

Natural Law
Thomas Aquinas

– It has to be recognized, however, that this natural

law theory is part of a larger discussion, which is his
moral theory taken as a whole. This moral theory, in
turn, is part of a larger project, which is Aquinas’
vision of the Christian faith.
Thomas Aquinas
(1225 – 1274)
– Hailed As a doctor of the Roman Catholic Church,
Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican friar who was the
preeminent intellectual figure of his time.

– His Summa Theologiae, Aquinas’s magnum opus, is a

voluminous work that comprehensively discusses
many significant points in Christian theology. He was
canonized in 1323
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.
The Context of the Christian Story

– There are three parts to this voluminous work. In the first part, Aquinas speaks of
God, and although we acknowledge that our limited human intellect cannot fully
grasp Him, we nevertheless are able to say something concerning His goodness, His
might, and His creative power. Recognizing then that we are created by God, we
move on to the second part, which deals with man of the dynamic of human life.
This is characterized by our pursuit happiness, which we should realize rests
ultimately not on any particular good thing that is created by God, but in the highest
good which is God Himself. Our striving for this ultimate happiness, while important,
will not it itself bring us to this blessed state. In other words, salvation is only
possible through the presence of God’s grace and that grace has become perfectly
incarnate in the person of Jesus. Thus, the third part focuses on Jesus as our Savior.
The Context of Aquinas’s Ethics

– We might explore how emotions—”the passions”—are involved in this

process, and therefore require a proper order if they are to properly contribute
to a good life. We might explore how our actions are related to certain
dispositions (often referred to as “habits”) in a dynamic way since our actions
both arise from our habits and at the same time reinforce them.

– The Christian life, therefore, is about developing the capacities given to us by

God into a disposition of virtue inclined toward the good.
The Greek
Heritage
Neoplatonic Good

– God creates. This does not only means that He brings about beings, but it also
means that He cares for, and thus governs, the activity of the universe and of
every creature. 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, which had been put forward a thousand years
before Aquinas. He is credited for giving the subsequent history of philosophy in
one of its most compelling and enduring ideas: the notion of a supreme and
absolutely transcendent good.
Neoplatonic Good

– In other words, it can be said that Plato was trying to answer questions such as,
“Why should I bother trying to be good?” and “Why cannot ‘good’ be just
whatever I say it is?”

– Readers of The Republic have long been baffled by this enigmatic passage and
are still trying to figure out how exactly to interpret it. Rather than be
dismissed, this idea of the good—a good which is prior to all being and is even
the cause of all being—will become a source of fascination and inspiration to
later thinkers even to this day.
Neoplatonic Good

– In the next centuries after Plato’s time, some scholars turned to his texts and
tried to decipher the wealth of ideas contained there. Because they saw their
task as basically clarifying and elaborating on what the great thinker had
already written, these later scholars are often labeled as Neoplatonists.
Aristotelian being
and becoming
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—because
it is made up of this particular stuff. Yet, we also realize that this material takes on
a particular shape. The “shape” that makes a beinf a particular kind can be called
its form. Thus, each being also has a formal cause.
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. 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, 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.
Aristotelian being and becoming

– A new pair of principles is introduced by him, which we can refer to as potency

and act. A being may carry within itself certain potentials, but these require
being actualized.

– The process of becoming—or change—can thus be explained in this way.

Understanding beings, how they are and how they become or what they could
be, is the significant Aristotelian contribution to the picture which will be given
to us by Aquinas.
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.
– It must be noted, though, that this is not some mechanistic unthinking
process. It is God’s will and love that are the cause of all things; to every existing
thing, God wills some good. Creation therefore is the activity of the outpouring
or overflowing of God’s goodness. Since each being in this way participates in
God’s goodness, each being is in some sense good.
Synthesis

– God communicates to each being His perfection and goodness. Every creature
then strives to its own perfection; thus the divine goodness is the end of all
actions. All things come from God and are created by Him in order to return to
Him.
Synthesis

– This nature, as a participation in God’s goodness, is both good and imperfect at

the same time. Coming from God, it is good but in its limitations, it has yet to be
perfected.
– This perfection means fulfilling our nature the best we can, thus realizing what
God had intended for us to be.
Synthesis

– This applies not only to an individual human being, but also to all humankind.
But we should not forget how the whole community toward its end. Under the
governance of the Divine, beings are directed as to how their acts are to lead
them to their end, which is to return to Him.
The Essence and
Varieties of Law
Essence

– There are many possible desirable ends or goods, and we act in such ways as to
pursue them. However, just because we think that a certain end is good and is
therefore desirable does not necessarily mean it is indeed good. It is possible to
first suppose that something is good only to realize later that doing so was a
mistake.

– Acts are highly directed toward their ends by reason. But this does not simply
mean that through reason we can figure out how to pursue something that we
already had thoughtlessly supposed to be good for us.
Essence

– Since we belong to a community, we have to consider what is good for the

community as well as our own good. This can be called the common good.

– We should recognize the proper measure or the limits in our actions that would
allow us to direct our acts in such a way that we can pursue ends, both our own
and also that of others, together.
Essence

– A law therefore, is concerned with the common good. In a way, making a law belongs
either to the whole people or to a public person who has care for the common good or
is tasked with the concern for the good of the community or to the whole people.

– It is also necessary for rules or laws to be communicated to the people involved in order
to enforce them and to better ensure compliance. This is referred to as promulgation. In
an ideal sense, without considering the reality that sometimes rules are not properly
thought out or seem to favor select persons or groups rather than common good, we
can speak of law as a form of restriction and direction of human actions in such a way
that the common good is promoted.
Varieties

– Eternal Law refers to what God wills for creation, how each participant in it is
intended to return to Him. Given our limitations, we cannot grasp the fullness of the
eternal law. Nevertheless, it is not completely opaque to us. We must recognize that
first, we are part of the eternal law, and second, we participate in it in a special way.
– Therefore, irrational creatures (e.g., plants and animals) are participating in the
eternal law. Although we could hardly say that they are in any way “conscious” of this
law. Aquinas notes that we cannot speak of them as obeying the law, except by way
of similitude, which is to say that they do not think of the law or chose to obey it, but
are simply, through the instinctual following of their nature, complying with the law
that God has for them.
Varieties

– The human being, as rational, participates more fully and perfectly in the law
given the capacity for reason. The unique imprint upon us, upon our human
nature by God, is the capacity to think about what is good and what is evil, and
to choose and direct ourselves appropriately.
Varieties

– Aquinas points out that while reflecting on our human nature will provide us the
precepts of the natural law, these are quire general and would have to be made
more specific, and at the same time more concrete in the actual operation of
human acts. For this reason there is also human law.

– Human law refers to all instances wherein human beings construct and enforce
laws in their communities.
– Insofar as a human law goes against what nature inclines us toward, it is not
properly speaking a law—in the ideal sense of directing us to the common good—
but instead is unjust and can be called a matter of violence.
Varieties

– Finally, Aquinas asks us to recall that there is a certain form of happiness that is
proportionate to our human nature, which we can obtain by means of our
natural principles. However, there also is another, more complete, happiness
that surpasses human’s nature, a supernatural happiness that can be obtained
through the power of God alone. To direct us toward our supernatural end, we
had been given further instructions in the form of divine law.
 The Natural Law
Summa Theologiae 1-2, Question 94, Article 2
Thomas Aquinas

Since, however, good has the nature of an end, and evil, the nature of a contrary, hence it is
all those things to which man has a natural inclination, are naturally apprehended by reason
as being good, and consequently as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil, and
objects of avoidance. Wherefore according to the order of natural inclinations, is the order of
the precepts of the natural law. Because in man there is first of all an inclination to good in
accordance with the nature which he has in common with all substances: inasmuch as every
substance seeks the preservation of its own being, according to its nature: and by reason of
this inclination, whatever is a means of preserving human life, and of warding off its
obstacles, belongs to the natural law.

Secondly, there is in man an inclination to things that pertain to him more specially,
according to that nature which he has in common with other animals: and in virtue of this
inclination, those things are said to belong to the natural law, “which nature has taught to all
animals,” such as sexual intercourse, education of offspring and so forth. Thirdly, there is in
man an inclination to good, according to the nature of his reason, which nature is proper to
him: thus man has a natural inclination to know the truth about God, and to live in society:
and this respect, whatever pertains to this inclination belongs to the natural law; for
instance, to shun ignorance, to avoid offending those among whom one has to live, and
other such things regarding the above inclination
Natural Law – In common with other
beings
– In reading Aquinas, we have to consider how we, human beings, are both unique
and at the same time participating in the community of the rest of creation. Our
presence in the rest of creation does not only mean that we interact with
creatures that are not human, but that there is also in our nature something that
shares in the nature of other beings.

– Similarly, human beings have that natural inclination to preserve their being. For
this reason, Aquinas tells us that it is according to the natural law to preserve
human life. We can thus say that it would be a violation of the natural law, and
therefore unethical to take the life of another.
In Common with Other Animals

– Aquinas then goes on to say that there is in our human nature, common with
other animals, a desire that has to do with sexual intercourse and the care of
one’s offspring. As a matter of fact, animals periodically engage in sexual
intercourse at a specific time of “heat,” and this could result in offspring. In
human beings, too, that natural inclination to engage in the sexual act and to
reproduce exists.
Uniquely Human

– After the two inclinations, Aquinas presents a third reason which states that we
have an inclination to good according to the nature of our reason. With this,
we have a natural inclination to know the truth about God and to live in a
society. It is of interest that this is followed by matters of both an epistemic and
a social concern. These examples given to us of what would be in line with this
inclination are to shun ignorance and to avoid offending those people with
whom one lives.
Uniquely Human

– In fact, a characteristic of the text which may be frustrating to anyone trying to

read Aquinas is that he does not go into great detail here enumerating what
specific acts would be clearly ethical or unethical. Instead, he gave certain
general guideposts: the epistemic concern, which is that we know we pursue
the truth, and the social concern, which is that we know we live in relation to
others.