Saint Thomas Aquinas

On Law, Morality, and Politics (ed. Baumgarth and Regan)

Reading Guide

1st Level

Background

This anthology primarily provides key sections from Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae (though a

couple of other texts are briefly excerpted). The Summa Theologiae is Aquinas’ best known and

most revered text, even though it was left unfinished. Given the interest here in law, morality,

and politics, the first two sections of ST, which deal with human action and virtue, both

generally and in particular detail, are the focus.

Aquinas’ method might strike a reader new to him as unusual and it can be potentially confusing.

In brief, Aquinas organizes his work into a number of Questions, which are in turn divided into

Articles. The Articles develop the lines of investigation into the Questions being considered.

This dialogic style reflects the way in which academic discussions and debates proceeded in the

13th Century. Once the question is posed, Aquinas will begin with the positions he will

ultimately argue against. In other words, the first positions are offered are not ones Aquinas

endorses. They are those he will reject. He thought it was important to understand differing

positions as well as one’s own, since all labor toward the truth and aid in understanding.

For example, the first question this guide will examine is that which appears first in the Hackett

text (p. 1): Question 79: Of the Intellectual Powers. The specific Article is the Twelfth, “Is

Synderesis a Special Power of the Soul?” Aquinas first lays out objections to the position he will

take (Obj. 1, 2, and 3). He then offers his own position following the phrase “On the contrary.”

“On the contrary” will always serve as a marker that we are now entering into the terrain of

Aquinas’ position. After giving his own thoughts on the article, and sometimes citing “the

Philosopher,” which is Aristotle (no other philosopher deserves that definite article for Aquinas)

he replies to each specific Objection (Reply Obj. 1, 2, and 3).

Chapter 1: Conscience

1. Aquinas begins by considering whether synderesis, a Greek term that often is rendered as a

spark of conscience, is a special power of the soul.1

Question: Aquinas disagrees that synderesis is a power and argues that it is instead a

habit. What is the difference between a power and a habit? Why does he consider it

a special, natural habit? Toward what does it incline us?

2. Aquinas wonders next whether conscience is a power.

1 The term synderesis (a transliteration of syndērēsis or syntērēsis) is a matter of some debate. It appears in Jerome’s commentary on Ezekiel (415 CE), but it is not clear whether this is a corrupted reading of the Greek term syneidēsis. It is hear in Aquinas that a distinction between synderesis and conscience appears.

Question: What is the difference between a power, a habit, and an act?

Question: How should we understand ‘conscience’? Origen claims that it is “a

correcting and guiding spirit accompanying the soul, by which it is led away from

evil and made to cling to good” (pp. 2-3). Why is conscience specifically attached to

a movement away from evil and toward good? Does this help us to understand

Aquinas’ claim that conscience is an act?

Question: Aquinas resolves conscience into cum alio scientia or “knowledge applied

to an individual case” (p. 3). How is conscience related to the application of

knowledge? What do we know when our conscience is active?

Question: What is the relation between conscience and synderesis and how does this

connect to the relation between act and habit?

3. Question 19 takes up goodness and malice in relation to the will. Here Aquinas will

investigate both the good and evil will. The Fifth Article asks: “Is the Will Evil When It Is at

Variance with Erring Reason?” (p.4)

Question: What is the relation between reason and the will being assumed in the

objections? How does reason govern the will?

Question: Aquinas’ claim that willing against reason is sinful depends in large part

on his notion that conscience is a dictate of reason. What are the three kinds of action

which conscience or reason can direct us toward? How can conscience or reason err

when it comes to matters that are morally indifferent?

Question: How is it possible for something that is of its nature good to receive the

character of something evil, and for something which is of its nature evil to receive

the character of something good? How does answering this question help Aquinas

resolve the question of whether willing at variance to reason, even erring reason, is

evil?

4. The Sixth Article follows naturally from the Fifth and asks if the will is good when it abides

by erring reason. In the previous article Aquinas views the question as asking whether an

erring conscience binds; here he sees the question as asking whether an erring conscience

excuses (p. 8).

Question: How does the reason for the error pertain to excusing the will? What is the

difference between an error because of negligence and one that arises from

ignorance?

Question: Can eternal law err? Can human reason? Is it possible for human reason

to always be in accord with eternal law?

Question: Does all ignorance excuse the evil that results in the will? What does

Aquinas mean by ignorance that is “vincible and voluntary” (p. 9)?

Chapter 2: Law

Aquinas’ understanding of law is among his most influential contributions to the history of ideas

as well as to jurisprudence. Question 90 importantly wonders about the nature or essence of law.

After having considered intrinsic or internal principles of acts, namely synderesis, the

conscience, and the will, Aquinas turns to extrinsic or external principles of acts. As a Christian

thinker, Aquinas views the devil as the extrinsic principle inciting one toward evil and God as

the extrinsic principle moving one toward the good. God’s law serves as a means of instruction

and must be examined.

Essence of Law

5. The First Article questions whether la is something pertaining to reason. Aquinas is again

drawing on relations between willing and the reason. “It belongs to the law to command and

forbid. But it belongs to reason to command, as above. Therefore, law is something

pertaining to reason” (p. 12).

Question: What is Law? Why is it binding? What, ultimately, is the first principle as

well as the rule and measure of human acts?

Question: In his Reply Obj. 2 Aquinas invokes a distinction between speculative

reason and practical reason. How is this distinction helpful here? How does it

connect to the way in which practical reason holds with regard to operations?

Finally, how does Aquinas characterize universal propositions of the practical

intellect?

Question: Can there be law that is not in accord with reason? How does this resolve

the quandary over the claim that “Whatever pleases the ruler has the force of law”

(p.12)?

6. The Second Article inquires if the law is always directed toward the common good.

Question: What is the difference between the common good and individual or private

good? What does law direct? Is it possible for a law directed toward a private good to

deserve the name law?

Question: What is the first principle of all human actions in practical matters? What

is the relation of the single individual to the community? How are particular actions

and matters referred to the common good?

7. The next article, the Third Article, asks if any person has reason competent to make laws.

Question: Who is competent to make laws? What might it mean to be a person who

has the care of the whole people?

Question: Why does Aquinas argue that a private person cannot effectively lead

another person to virtue? Why do the commands or ordinances made within a family

lack the nature of law?

8. The Fourth Article asks if promulgation, or explicit proclamation, is essential to law. In

short, it wonders whether one can make a law in secret or if this conflicts with the very

nature of law.

Question: Can a law that is not promulgated have any binding force? How are lawas

promulgated?

Question: What is Aquinas’ definition of law as concluded in this section?

Kinds of Law

9. Question 91 shifts directions from the essence and nature of law the different kinds of law.

The first four articles will detail the four kinds of law: eternal, natural, human, and divine.

The First Article asks if there is an eternal law.

Question: What is the relation between ‘supreme reason’ and the unchangeable and

eternal nature of law? Who is the ruler making eternal law?

Question: What is the end of divine government?

10. The Second Article examines whether there is law natural within us.

Question: Toward what end doe natural law guide human beings? What is the

relation between natural law and eternal law? What is the relation between reason

and the natural law?

11. The Third Article addresses human law.

Question: How does reason provide the ground of human laws? Why does Aquinas

call human laws “particular determinations” of the laws? In other words, why are

these laws particular rather than general or universal? Does this help us to understand

the relation between human law and natural law?

12. The Fourth Article asks if there is a need for divine law.

Question: If there is already an eternal, natural, and human law, why is there a need

for a divine law? What is the end toward which divine law, in conjunction with the

other types, guides human beings? How does it aid human judgment, which is by its

nature fallible and uncertain? What kinds of deeds might it forbid which would not

be properly forbidden by human law?

13. The Fifth Article examines whether there is only one divine law.

Question: Why does Aquinas argue that there is more than one divine law? Aquinas

claims “divine law directs man also in certain particular matters” (p. 26). How does

this help us to understand the argument that divine law must be twofold?

14. The Sixth Article asks if there is a law of concupiscence, a term that means ‘desire’ but tends

to refer to bodily or worldly desires within a theological context.

Question: Why does an inclination toward sensuality have the nature of law in

creatures lacking reason, i.e. non-human animals, but not in humans? Further, why

does Aquinas argue that “in man it has not the nature of law in this way; rather is it a

deviation from the law of reason” (p. 28)? What is the difference between sensuality,

which is subject to reason, and concupiscence, which strays from reason?

Effects of Law

15. Question 92 inquires into the effects of law. The First Article asks whether it is an effect of

law to make men good.

Question: What is the ‘proper effect’ of law? What is necessary for a community to

flourish? How does Aquinas treat tyrannical law? What is its relation to the effect of

making its citizens good?

16. The Second Article asks if the acts of law are suitably assigned.

Question: Aquinas is wondering whether it is fitting that law: command, prohibit,

permit, and punish. The worry, here, is regarding law’s activity and consequences.

Why does Aquinas think that all four of these activities are proper to law? How does

an activity such as punishing lead one toward one’s own good?

Eternal Law

17. Question 93 begins Aquinas’ consideration of each of the four types of law: eternal, natural,

human, and divine, which is further divided into the Old Law and the New Law or the Law

of the Gospel. Aquinas first takes up the eternal law and elaborates its essence and extent.

Question: Aquinas draws an analogy between an artificer and the pre-existing idea of

the artifice he creates (e.g., a pen maker has first the idea of a pen before bringing the

particular pen into being) and a governor in whom there pre-exists the type of order

which his government is to bring into being (p. 34). How does this analogy help

Aquinas argue that eternal law exists within God?

Question: If law must be promulgated, how can eternal law still be law?

18. The Second Article asks if all know the eternal law and Aquinas begins his own argument

with a quote from Augustine: “knowledge of the eternal law is imprinted on us” (p. 35).

Question: in what way do all human beings know the eternal law? What does

Aquinas suggest by his metaphor of the sun and its rays? How doe we know eternal

law as a reflection? How should we understand his claim that we can know eternal

law without comprehending it? Can a human being judge the eternal law?

19. The Third Article asks if every law derives from eternal law.

Question: The problem being elucidated here is whether such things as the law of

concupiscence or unjust laws can stem from eternal law. How does Aquinas handle

this problem?

Question: Aquinas claims that “all laws, insofar as they partake of right reason, are

derived from eternal law” (p. 37). If law does not partake in right reason, is it unjust?

Are unjust laws deserving of the name law? What is the relation between an unjust

law and violence? Does an unjust law have any law-like characteristics?

20. The Fourth Article turns to the scope of eternal law by asking whether necessary and eternal

things are subject to eternal law.

Question: A theological worry is lurking here: is God’s will subject to eternal law?

If God’s will is, then it would seem that God is not autonomous. Aquinas will argue

that God’s will is not subject to the eternal law, but the same thing as it (p. 39). How

does this reply to the first objection exclude God from being governed by eternal law?

Are necessary things governed by eternal law?

21. The Fifth Article asks whether natural contingents are subject to eternal law.

Question: The natural world is not imbued with reason, as are human beings. The

question is, then, whether it is subject to the law. Aquinas makes his answer clear:

“...God imprints on the whole of nature the principles of its proper actions. And so,

in this way, God is said to command the whole of nature...” (p. 41). Irrational

creatures (think here of non-human animals) are likewise directed by divine

providence, though not in the way humans are. How, then, might this law be

promulgated? In what way are irrational creatures moved by God? What of seeming

defects in natural contingents?

22. The Sixth Article concludes Aquinas’ examination of the scope of eternal law by asking

whether all human affairs are subject to eternal law.

Question: Whereas irrational creatures are motivated by eternal law via an inward

principle, rational creatures are subject to the eternal law by way of knowledge as

well as by an inward principle. How so? In what ways can one know the eternal

law? What occurs if one is imperfectly subject to the eternal law?

Natural Law

23. Question 94 continues Aquinas’ consideration of each of the four types of law, here

examining natural law, beginning with whether it is a habit.

Question: The First Article determines that the natural law not properly or essentially

a habit, especially since it is that by which we act and is to be found in individuals

who cannot act in accord with it (viz. infants and the damned). Is the natural law,

though held habitually? How so?

24. The Second Article wonders whether the natural law contains one or many precepts.

Question: Aquinas uses here, as elsewhere, an analogy between the precepts of

natural law and their relation to practical reason and the self-evident principles (such

as, the principle of non-contradiction) and their relation to speculative reason. Both,

he claims, are self-evident. Aquinas claims that in speculative reason, or in

metaphysics, “being” falls first under the apprehension. What is it in practical

reason? What does Aquinas mean when he claims that “good has the nature of an

end” (p. 47)?

Question: What are the three inclinations proper to natural law (in his answer on p.

48)? How do these all flow from one first precept?

25. The Third Article asks if all acts of virtue are prescribed, or ordained, by the natural law. The

sphere of natural law includes “everything to which a man is inclined according to his

nature” (p. 49). Since man has the natural inclination to act in accord with reason, man also

has the natural inclination to act in accord with virtue. In this sense, Aquinas argues, all acts

of virtue are dictated via the natural law.

Question: What is the link between reason and virtue? In what sense does natural

law not prescribe all acts of virtue? Why is it important that this argument considers

act in themselves?

26. The Fourth Article inquires into whether the natural law is the same in all men.

Question: A problem of relativism emerges in the objections. First, not all men obey

the Gospel. Second, standards of justice vary and nothing deemed just is exempt

from change. Finally, different men have different inclinations. Aquinas counters

this by claiming that natural law is the same to all not in terms of detail but only as to

the general principles, principles which are determined via reason. Is his reply

satisfactory? Is reason foundational to his understanding of universal, natural law?

27. The Fifth Article wonders if natural law can be changed.

Question: In what way can natural law be changed? Is this a fundamental change? In

what way is natural law immutable (unable to be changed)? What is the relation

between human laws and natural law here?

28. The Sixth Article asks if the law of nature can be abolished from the heart of man.

Question: The natural law contains both universally known precepts, such as to

preserve one’s own self, and more detailed ones. Which is the kind of precept which

can be effaced and which cannot?

Question: Aquinas claims that reason can fail to apply the general principle properly

to a particular point. Is this error vicious?

Human Law

29. Like Question 94, Question 95 continues Aquinas’ consideration of each of the four types of

law, here examining human law, starting with whether it is useful for laws to be framed by

men. The question here is whether it is better for human beings not to have laws at all but be

directed by their own reason.

Question: Aquinas argues for the importance of law by claiming that man’s natural

aptitude for virtue needs training for the perfection of virtue to be acquired. How do

human laws provide this training? How do they aid the development of a young

person? What is the role of judges here?

30. The Second Article connects human law to the natural law by wondering whether human law

derives from natural law. The objections to the notion that human law derives from natural

law include: human law covers matters of indifference, it does not flow from general

principles, is not the same for all or valid everywhere (i.e., laws differ from one political

community to the next), and does not always admit of a reason.

Question: Aquinas, following Augustine, clearly states that unjust laws are not laws

at all. This is to say that any ordinance that is not in accord with the rule of reason is

not properly a law. “But if, in any point, it deflects from the law of nature, it is no

longer a law but a perversion of law” (p. 59). Are human laws necessarily

subordinate to the natural law? How are human laws derived from natural law? In

what way? How does Aquinas account for the diversity of positive laws (i.e., the

human laws enacted in political communities)?

31. The Third Article takes up Isidore’s description of the quality of positive law. Isidore

describes the necessary qualities of positive law: “Law shall be virtuous, just, possible,

according to nature, in agreement with the customs of the country, suitable to place and time,

necessary, useful, clearly expressed lest by its obscurity it lead to misunderstanding, framed

for no private benefit but for the common good” (p. 60).

Question: What do you make of this description? How does Aquinas respond to the

objections that many of the additions regarding law’s qualities are superfluous?

32. The Fourth Article examines Isidore’s division of human laws.

Question: What is the difference between a “right among nations” and a civil right?

How should we understand the notion of a right in this context? How is the law of

nations distinct from the natural law?

The Power of Human Law

33. Question 96 considers the power of human law and begins, in the First Article, with whether

human law should be framed for the community or the individual.

Question: Given that Aquinas’ definition of law includes that it is aimed at the

common good, it is unsurprising that he argues that human laws must be framed for

the community. How does Aquinas understand the legal (see Reply Obj, 1

especially)? Since human affairs are contingent, will certainty be possible? How will

this effect human laws?

34. The Second Article asks if it is proper that human law repress all vices. Aquinas argues that

“human laws do not forbid all vices from which the virtuous abstain but only the more

grievous vices from which it is possible for the majority to abstain and chiefly those that are

to the hurt of others...” (p. 67).

Question: Why does Aquinas argue that “human laws do not forbid all vices from

which the virtuous abstain but only the more grievous vices from which it is possible

for the majority to abstain and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others...” (p. 67)?

What sort of vices and actions does Aquinas have in mind here? What kind of

problems would arrive from laws repressing all vices?

35. The Third Article asks if it is proper that human law prescribe acts of all the virtues.

Question: Why does human law only ordain those virtues that are in accord with

promoting the common good? What does Aquinas mean when he claims that “There

is no virtue whose act is not ordainable to the common good, as stated above, either

mediately or immediately?” (p. 69)

36. The Fourth Article asks whether human law binds a man in conscience.

Question: How does the justice of a law figure into Aquinas’ answer? Why does an

unjust law not bind one’s conscience? Is any binding of one’s conscience

coincidental?

37. The Fifth Article investigates whether all are subject to the law.

Question: What are the two ways in which a man might be subject to law? What

does Aquinas mean by subjection by way of coercion? What is the coercive power of

law and how are all subject to it? How is a ruler subject to law?

38. The Sixth Article looks at the actions of those who are under the law and whether thy may

act in ways other than the letter of the law.

Question: Aquinas focuses on the importance of the motive of the lawgiver. What is

the motive behind law? How should this guide one’s actions? What role does risk or

peril in determining whether to act beside the letter of the law?

Change in Law

39. Question 97 considers the possibility and necessity of change within human laws. That is, it

investigates whether law changes, when it should change for the better, when it should be

abolished, and whether the application should change.

Question: The First Article asks if human law should be changed and Aquinas

follows Augustine on this: “A temporal law, however just, may be justly changed in

course of time” (p. 76). How does justice guide change? How does the changing

condition of man necessitate changes in law? Does natural law ever change? Might

it (natural law) be used as a guide to determine the best changes to human law?

40. The Second Article asks if human law should be changed whenever something better occurs.

Question: The risk Aquinas sees in changing human laws is that it begins to weaken

their binding force. Laws derive their force from custom; if they change too

frequently that force diminishes. Do you agree with Aquinas’ worry? What of his

claim that only for the sake of great urgency or great benefit should a law be

changed?

41. The Third Article asks if custom can obtain force of law. Aquinas will argue that “custom

has the force of law, abolishes law, and is the interpreter of law” (p. 80).

Question: Why can’t custom prevail over divine or natural laws? Why can it prevail

over human law? From where do customs arise? What guides them? How can

whole people make laws?

42. The Fourth Article asks whether rulers of the people can dispense from human laws.

Aquinas’ argument rests on his notion of dispensation, namely “a measuring out to

individuals of some good” (p. 82).

Question: What is the charge of a ruler of a community? What ought that ruler to

dispense? What kind of latitude does Aquinas give the ruler to accommodate shifting

situations and the dispensation of justice to individuals within the community? What

grants a ruler this special power?