This is a new English translation of St. Thomas Aquinas's Treatise
on Law, found in Questions 90-108 of the First Part of the Second
Part of the Summa Theologiae. In fact, it is the only free-standing
English translation of the entire Treatise, which includes both a
general account of law (Questions 90-92) and also specific
treatments of what St. Thomas identifies as the five kinds of law:
the eternal law (Question 93), the natural law (Question 94), human
law (Questions 95-97), the Old Law (Questions 98-105), and the New
Law (Questions 106-108). All other extant editions of Treatise on
Law stop with the human law, and are thus approximately one-third
the size of the full Treatise. St. Thomas's account of law is
firmly embedded within a general moral theory that begins with a
rich conception of human flourishing, i.e., the good for human
beings (Questions 1-5). This good consists, first and foremost, in
our ultimate and intimate union with the Persons of the Blessed
Trinity - a union that in our present state we can grasp
intellectively and pursue affectively only with God's supernatural
assistance. It is within this framework that we order our loves and
pursue the more proximate goals they open up to us as human beings
in this life. Given the appropriate goals, the next question is how
we can get from where we are, in the grips of the consequences of
Original Sin, to where we want to be. The answer is: by means of
(a) human actions that are good, i.e., rightly ordered toward our
ultimate end and (b) the habits that these actions either engender
or flow from. In analyzing human actions (Questions 6-21) and their
relation to the passions (Questions 22-48), St. Thomas gives a
general account of what he calls the 'intrinsic principles' of
human actions and their associated habits - both virtues (Questions
49-70) and vices (Questions 71-89). It is only then that he turns
to what he calls the 'extrinsic principles' of good human actions,
viz., law (Questions 90-108) and grace (Questions 109-114).
According to St. Thomas, law, far from supplanting virtue as a
basic principle of action, serves as an independent principle of
action that complements virtue and is itself capable of being
factored into practical deliberation. The reason is that all of
God's precepts, prohibitions, and punishments are aimed at
promoting the good of the whole universe and, more particularly,
the good for human beings, both individually and within the various
forms of social life. Because of this, law serves as both a
restraint on bad actions and a spur to good action, i.e., a
restraint on actions that take us away from virtue and genuine
human flourishing and a spur to actions that promote virtue and
flourishing. There are many benefits of having the whole treatise
rather than just the first few questions, as has been the standard
practice in previous editions of the Treatise on Law. To mention
just a few of these benefits, the question on the moral precepts of
the Old Law (question 100) helps to illuminate in many different
ways the earlier questions on natural law and human law (questions
94-97). Again, the questions on the ceremonial and judicial
precepts of the Old Law (questions 101-105) demon-strate in depth
the symbiotic relationship that St. Thomas takes to obtain between
the Old Testament and the New Testament. The questions on the New
Law provide an introduction to the Christian way of life that will
be described in incomparable detail in the Second Part of the
Second Part, the bulk of which is structured around the treatment
of the three theological virtues and the four cardinal virtues.
General
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