page_title: Canon law of the Catholic Church
section_title: Philosophy, theology, and fundamental theory of canon law
hierarchical_section_title: Canon law of the Catholic Church / Philosophy, theology, and fundamental theory of canon law
context_page_description: The canon law of the Catholic Church is the system of laws and legal principles made and enforced by the hierarchical authorities of the Catholic Church to regulate its external organization and government and to order and direct the activities of Catholics toward the mission of the Church. It was the first modern Western legal system and is the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the West, while the unique traditions of Oriental canon law govern the 23 Eastern Catholic particular churches sui iuris.
  Positive ecclesiastical laws, based directly or indirectly upon immutable divine law or natural law, derive formal authority in the case of universal laws from promulgation by the supreme legislator—the supreme pontiff, who possesses the totality of legislative, executive, and judicial power in his person, or by the College of Bishops acting in communion with the pope—while particular laws derive formal authority from promulgation by a legislator inferior to the supreme legislator, whether an ordinary or a delegated legislator. The actual subject material of the canons is not just doctrinal or moral in nature, but all-encompassing of the human condition.
context_section_description: Although canonical jurisprudential theory generally follows the principles of Aristotelian-Thomistic legal philosophy, Thomas Aquinas never explicitly discusses the place of canon law in his Treatise on Law However, Aquinas himself was influenced by canon law. While many canonists apply the Thomistic definition of law (lex) to canon law without objection, some authors dispute the applicability of the Thomistic definition to canon law, arguing that its application would impoverish ecclesiology and corrupt the very supernatural end of canon law.
  In the decades following the Second Vatican Council, many canonists called for a more theological, rather than philosophical, conception of canon law, acknowledging the "triple relationship between theology, philosophy, and canon law". Some authors conceive of canon law as essentially theological and the discipline of canon law as a theological subdiscipline, but Msgr. Carlos José Errázuriz contends that "in a certain sense, all postconciliar canonical scholarship has shown a theological concern in the widest sense, that is, a tendency to determine more clearly the place of the juridical in the mystery of the Church."
  The fundamental theory of canon law is a discipline covering the basis of canon law in the very nature of the church. Fundamental theory is a newer discipline that takes as is object "the existence and nature of what is juridical in the Church of Jesus Christ." The discipline seeks to better explain the nature of law in the church and engages in theological discussions in post-conciliar Catholicism and seeks to combat "postconciliar antijuridicism".
caption: Summa theologica, Pars secunda, prima pars. (copy by Peter Schöffer, 1471)
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