Aquinas addresses four kinds of law in Summa Theologiae, in Question 91: eternal law, natural law, human law, and divine law.
According to Aquinas, eternal law is the law and structure of the universe, given that "the rational governance of everything on the part of God ... has the quality of law. And since the divine reason's conception of things is not subject to time ... this kind of law must be called the eternal law." Essentially, eternal law is how everything is ordered on a universal scale.
Therefore, natural law is derived from eternal law; natural law is what "natural inclination" humankind has to its "proper actions and ends." In this way, natural law is the total part of eternal law that is accessible by human reason, which is similarly universal to all humans. As Aquinas puts this, "such participation in the eternal law by rational creatures is called the natural law."
Human law is similarly one step down from natural law in the sense that human law is whatever government/rulers set as the written law; human law is natural law as codified by humans. However, Aquinas argues that human law must conform to natural law, and "if it disagrees in some respect from the natural law, it is no longer a law but a corruption of law." Here, Aquinas references Saint Augustine and points to his assessment of unjust law.
Divine law, according to Aquinas, is God's law, when God speaks to man and dictates law as in the Old and New Testaments. This is really the only point where Aquinas draws from material that we had previous addressed in CC, touching on Christian religious law.
Aquinas' assessment of the law is really unique, at least at this point in our readings, because he delineates laws as coming from a higher power, or something universal to all humankind (through eternal and natural law). Looking back after reading Locke and his discussion of natural law and rights to life, liberty and property, I can definitely see echoes of Aquinas' structure of law in his writing. Although Locke doesn't deal so much with what comes from God in a religious sense, the idea that natural law is universal and human law must derive from natural law spans between both Aquinas and Locke.
I agree with you that Aquina's laws are certainly echoed in later texts. I think it's interesting to see how Locke uses natural law, and it seems to delineate from Aquinas but he has shifted the definition. He doesn't discuss God as much but I wonder if he still thinks that there is eternal law or if natural law is the top tier of law.
ReplyDelete