page_title: Natural law
section_title: Catholic natural law jurisprudence
hierarchical_section_title: Natural law / History / Christianity / Catholic natural law jurisprudence
context_page_description: Natural law is law as seen as being independent of, and pre-existent to, the positive law of any given political order, society or nation-state. Such genesis is seen as determined by nature, and a notional law of nature treated as objective fact that is universally applicable; that is, it exists and is recognizable, without any dependence on human understanding, or on the positive law of any given state, political order, or legislature — and even of society at large. Historically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature in deducing binding rules of moral behavior, via accounts of observed and/or posited aspects of reality and of "the human condition". The concept of natural law was documented in ancient Greek philosophy, including Aristotle, and was referred to in ancient Roman philosophy by Cicero. References to it are also to be found in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, and were later expounded upon in the Middle Ages by Christian philosophers such as Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. The School of Salamanca made notable contributions during the Renaissance.
context_section_description: In the twelfth century, Gratian equated the natural law with divine law. Albertus Magnus would address the subject a century later, and his pupil, St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica I-II qq. 90–106, restored Natural Law to its independent state, asserting natural law as the rational creature's participation in the eternal law. Yet, since human reason could not fully comprehend the Eternal law, it needed to be supplemented by revealed Divine law. (See also Biblical law in Christianity.) Meanwhile, Aquinas taught that all human or positive laws were to be judged by their conformity to the natural law. An unjust law is not a law, in the full sense of the word. It retains merely the 'appearance' of law insofar as it is duly constituted and enforced in the same way a just law is, but is itself a 'perversion of law.' At this point, the natural law was not only used to pass judgment on the moral worth of various laws, but also to determine what those  laws meant in the first place. This principle laid the seed for possible societal tension with reference to tyrants.
  The Catholic Church holds the view of natural law introduced by Albertus Magnus and elaborated by Thomas Aquinas, particularly in his Summa Theologiae, and often as filtered through the School of Salamanca. This view is also shared by some Protestants, and was delineated by Anglican writer C. S. Lewis in his works Mere Christianity and The Abolition of Man.
  The Catholic Church understands human beings to consist of body and mind, the physical and the non-physical (or soul perhaps), and that the two are inextricably linked. Humans are capable of discerning the difference between good and evil because they have a conscience. There are many manifestations of the good that we can pursue. Some, like procreation, are common to other animals, while others, like the pursuit of truth, are inclinations peculiar to the capacities of human beings.
  To know what is right, one must use one's reason and apply it to Thomas Aquinas' precepts. This reason is believed to be embodied, in its most abstract form, in the concept of a primary precept: "Good is to be sought, evil avoided." St. Thomas explains that:
  
        
  there belongs to the natural law, first, certain most general precepts, that are known to all;
        and secondly, certain secondary and more detailed precepts, which are, as it were,
        conclusions following closely from first principles. As to those general principles, the
        natural law, in the abstract, can nowise be blotted out from men's hearts. But it is blotted
        out in the case of a particular action, insofar as reason is hindered from applying the
        general principle to a particular point of practice, on account of concupiscence or some
        other passion, as stated above (77, 2). But as to the other, i.e., the secondary precepts, the
        natural law can be blotted out from the human heart, either by evil persuasions, just as in
        speculative matters errors occur in respect of necessary conclusions; or by vicious customs
        and corrupt habits, as among some men, theft, and even unnatural vices, as the Apostle
        states (Rm. i), were not esteemed sinful.
  However, while the primary and immediate precepts cannot be "blotted out", the secondary precepts can be. Therefore, for a deontological ethical theory they are open to a surprisingly large amount of interpretation and flexibility. Any rule that helps humanity to live up to the primary or subsidiary precepts can be a secondary precept, for example:
  Drunkenness is wrong because it injures one's health, and worse, destroys one's ability to reason, which is fundamental to humans as rational animals (i.e., does not support self-preservation).
  Theft is wrong because it destroys social relations, and humans are by nature social animals (i.e., does not support the subsidiary precept of living in society).
  Natural moral law is concerned with both exterior and interior acts, also known as action and motive. Simply doing the right thing is not enough; to be truly moral one's motive must b
caption: Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274).
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