Ms. Andrea Solomon, Ms. Mary Edsall
Colloquium F2003x
Assignment #3 – Thomas Aquinas
16 September 1999
Aquinas’s Types of Laws
In the Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas tries to reconcile texts which are all incredibly important to his 13th century society, yet which sometimes seem contradictory. Analyzing the writing of Aristotle, Augustine, and most importantly, the Old and New Testaments, he takes a range of subjects and addresses each by listing a series of inconsistencies or objections and then systematically explaining why there is no discrepancy. Failing that, his replies to the objections at least point out flaws with the objections themselves (which, of course, he wrote).
Aquinas delineates four major types of law: the eternal law, the natural law, the human law, and the divine law (which he further divides into the simpler Old Law of the Old Testament and the more sophisticated New Law of the New Testament). A final type he identifies is the law of temptation (‘fomes’) which he treats as original sin and does not include along with the other laws. The eternal law is the perfect example which exists in God, which is known to all, from which all other laws are derived, and to which everything is subject (except for things which are divine and eternal themselves, like Jesus and the Will of God). The natural law is the universal, constant set of logical or physical truths about the universe (logical truisms and scientific facts) as well as the inherent disposition of all living things. The divine laws are those which are written in the Bible. These laws come from God and, while some of them overlap with human laws, are ultimately executed divinely. Finally, the human laws are what is traditionally thought of as laws – the rules established and executed by governments in order for society to function. Human laws are changeable, immediately relevant to a society, and thus open to debate.
One example of the overlap and discrepancies among these types of laws is how they treat the crime of lust. Lust is a crime which cannot be punished by human laws because it is not possible or practical for people to identify the offenders. Because humans are not always virtuous, human laws must have a lower standard than natural laws. However, since God knows the thoughts of all people and holds us to a higher standard of virtue, it is possible for God to punish lust. Lust is a crime according to divine law, as is written in the ten commandments and elsewhere in the Bible. Lust may not even be a crime according to the natural law, except in as much as it is not appropriate behavior for rational humans. However, it certainly violates the perfect example set by God and the eternal law from which these others derive.