St. Thomas Aquinas' teaching on natural law and its relation to human law
has had an enormous influence, but it isn't always easy for us to understand it unless
we grasp the deep roots it has in his wider thought, centered on God.
In a previous video, we saw that the eternal law is the highest kind of law.
Aquinas says that it is the eternal plan of order in the mind of God for the whole universe,
and further, that this plan is, in a certain way, in the creatures that God creates so
that they have an inclination or tendency to their own proper acts and ends according
to where they fit in this vast and beautiful divine plan.
This eternal law, this plan of God, is imprinted in rational creatures, like human beings,
in a special way.
And Aquinas calls this the natural law.
He says that the natural law is the rational creature's participation in the eternal law.
What does that mean?
We are capable of understanding the world around us, grasping with our minds what is
good for us to do and moving ourselves to do it according to this rational desire, which
we call our will.
That means that we have a higher participation in God's providential plan than other creatures
do, because we can understand it and become willing agents in bringing it to completion
for ourselves, for others, and for our communities.
Let's unpack this.
Like other lower creatures, we have certain inclinations or tendencies that are natural
to us.
They're a part of our natures, features of the kind of creatures we are.
The natures of inanimate things, of plants, of animals, entirely determine their movements.
A stone goes down.
A tree flowers in the spring.
A cow eats grass.
These actions are natural to these kinds of things.
Human beings are like these things in a certain way.
We're creatures with material bodies, and so, like other animals, we have an inclination
to remain in being, to seek food and self preservation, to reproduce and to raise offspring.
Yet, unlike these creatures, we are endowed with the power of reason, which means that
we're not simply moved by brute force or instinct.
We have something higher, a spiritual soul, which gives our nature a spiritual dimension.
Now, on this point, there's often a very deep misunderstanding.
Our spiritual nature is the basis for our ability to understand and to make free choices.
It gives us a higher perspective on our lower or bodily inclinations and desires, so that,
for example, we can decide at a particular moment that we will not eat right now, even
though we're hungry.
But here is the key point.
Our spiritual nature is not opposed to our natural inclinations.
In fact, it also has its own natural inclinations.
And these inclinations, which belong to us because of the spiritual dimension of the
human person, don't determine our movements and actions, but rather they're the source
and the cause of them.
Our spiritual nature lies at the root of our freedom and gives it its vital energy.
Consider what we mean when we say, "I'm thirsting for the truth."
We're using an analogy.
We all know what it's like to be thirsty.
A biological inclination like this sometimes directs our appetite in a very compelling
way.
But is thirst contrary to our freedom?
No.
It's an eating and drinking that we have the physical strength to do all the other things
that we do.
Is our thirst for the truth an obstacle or limit to our freedom?
Well, obviously not.
What we're trying to express is actually the root of our free desire to know the truth.
And anyone who's ever been drawn to a particular subject and who thirsts to know more about
it, realizes that this thirst, this love for the subject, doesn't decrease freedom, but
actually is the root of our free activity by which we learn more and more about what
we love.
In other words, our spiritual inclinations are real.
They're really a part of our spiritual nature and they're not blind determinations that
limit our freedom, rather, they're its very source and they spur it on.
Let's now return to the idea of the eternal law.
Aquinas teaches that God has imprinted in creatures their inclinations to their proper
acts and ends in accordance with God's eternal plan.
And likewise, that He's imprinted these inclinations in human beings in a higher way, we have inclinations
that belong to us in virtue of our spiritual nature.
We're now in a better position to understand what Aquinas means by his famous
claim that the precepts of the natural law follow the order of our natural inclinations.
He means that as we understand the inclinations of our spiritual nature, we come to grasp
what God made a human being to be and what human life is ordered to.
And so, we come to know what a human being ought to do and avoid.
St. Thomas lists five principle natural inclinations.
The inclination to the good, that is, to what perfects us.
The inclination to self-preservation, for example, to seek food, shelter, clothing,
to avoid threats to our life.
The inclination to sexual union and the upbringing of offspring.
The inclination to knowing the truth.
And the inclination to living in society, which includes the inclination to friendship
and to justice and fairness towards others.
Of course, some people might sometimes act contrary to one or another of these inclinations,
and there's always the possibility that, due to sin, our desires will become distorted.
But Aquinas thinks that these five inclinations really are features of the kind of beings
that we are, and that they give us a fundamental orientation towards what will make us increasingly
happy and increasingly free.
It's important to see that for Saint Thomas, natural law is thus not imposed on us by some
alien will that commands us from above.
It's rather, the very design of our being.
As we come to know this with our minds, we're then able to participate intentionally
and freely in this plan.
We order ourselves, our actions, beings lower than us and even our communities, according
to this plan, by the use of our freedom.
This is, in an important sense, the very purpose of our freedom, that we would be the creatures
that order ourselves freely and knowingly to God, according to His plan.
Let's conclude with some brief remarks on the relation between natural law
and human law.
Aquinas thinks that a human law is only just when it's in accord with a natural law.
And that laws that conflict with the natural law are not morally binding.
The natural law is most clear with respect to certain general and negative precepts.
For example, the precepts of the Ten Commandments.
Theft, murder, lying, adultery and other sexual sins, suicide, these are wrong always and
everywhere, because they're contrary to what the natural law teaches us is the good for
human beings.
Self-preservation, sexual union and the raising of children, truth, life together in society.
Positive precepts are a different case because they're harder to apply.
We might all agree with the precepts be brave, be just, but there are many ways we can do
these things and some of them might be better than others.
That's why Aquinas thinks the negative precepts of the natural law are more easily known and
apply always and everywhere, while the positive precepts don't necessarily apply in every
circumstance.
Aquinas thinks that an important part of the job of human lawmakers is to specify
and apply the general precepts of the natural law in a particular context and for a particular
community.
Then, always respecting what the natural law demands in it's negative precepts, human lawmakers
should write laws that order their community towards its common good.
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