Article I. On Natural Law

122. • Natural law is the divine will, manifested by the natural light, commanding those things which are necessary for preserving right order.

Hence natural law is nothing other than the eternal law intimated to rational nature through the natural light, whether habitually through right reason, or actually through its dictate.

The object of natural law is everything which so agrees with, or disagrees with, rational nature, that it is necessary that it be commanded or forbidden by the Author of that nature; that is, it embraces all those things which are conformable to the eternal law ¹. - Hence the law of nature is concerned

¹ A twofold object of the natural law can be distinguished, material and formal. The material object includes all principles of honesty, whether primary or secondary, which are deduced from the primary principles proximately or remotely; yet these, as to a supreme principle, are reduced to this: Good is to be done, evil is to be fled. Yet good and evil are not the object of natural law in the same way. For whatever is evil of itself and independently of positive law is prohibited by natural law; but, conversely, not whatever is good is commanded, but only those good acts are commanded which the condition of man necessarily demands according to the threefold relation which he has, namely to God, to himself, and to his neighbor.

But the formal object of natural law must not be placed in agreement with rational nature, nor in a perfection due to that same nature, which therefore is to be sought, nor in some necessity or agreement with the happy state of human nature, whether in individuals or in society; but in the nature of a precept imposed by God upon men; so that the dictate of reason must be held as the promulgation of the divine ordinance, or as a sign of the divine will either commanding or forbidding. Whence that saying of St. Anselm: Whoever goes against the natural law does not keep the will of God. Wherefore natural law could neatly and properly be defined: A judgment of the intellect concerning the will of God as supreme governor of nature, forbidding evils and commanding goods.

1. with the first principles of morals, for example: good is to be done; evil is to be avoided; do not do to another what you do not wish to be done to you; 2. with the secondary principles of morals, or immediate conclusions from the first principles, such as most precepts of the Decalogue are; 3. with mediate conclusions, or those more remote.

123. Questions. - QUESTION 1. Whether the object of the law of nature can sometimes be unknown?

I answer: 1. The primary principles of morals can be unknown to no one. - 2. Likewise the proximate conclusions, so that in these invincible ignorance cannot be given, except either rarely, or for a short time in the rude and in children. Thus commonly. - 3. But remote conclusions can be unknown and often are unknown. Hence so many controversies concerning them are still agitated among Doctors. - St. Lig., no. 170 and following; On Conscience, no. 8.

QUESTION 2. Whether invincible ignorance can be given concerning the malice of depraved desires in one who knows the malice of the act?

I answer: No, at least as regards efficacious desires. The reason is that to will what is formally evil, and indeed known as such, is to will what is known to displease God, and consequently is to will to displease Him. But it is difficult for the malice of an act to be unknown by which one knows that he displeases God. - St. Lig., On Conscience, no. 9, etc. ².

² ** St. Alphonsus (l. c.) attributes the opposite doctrine to Sanchez and Cardenas, indeed also to Granado and Croix, as the editions of 1748 and 1757 have it. - But in reality the question which St. Alphonsus discusses is one thing, and that which the cited authors treat is another.

The question is put by the Holy Doctor (book 1, no. 9): Whether an invincibly erroneous conscience can be given in one who desires to perpetrate some evil, for example fornication, judging through error that the mere desire of fornicating is not mortal if fornication does not in fact follow. And he adds: Sanchez and Cardenas affirm this as more probable, (in other editions) Granad. and Croix.

But those authors put only the hypothetical question, whether he would sin who invincibly was ignorant that his desire was illicit, etc. Thus Sanchez (On the Decalogue, book 1, ch. 16, nos. 16, 17) asks, Whether one invincibly ignorant that an internal act is a sin, yet knowing that the external act is a sin, is excused from fault, admitting only the internal act; as if a rustic had heard from a man esteemed learned and pious that fornication and theft externally are sins, but that the desire of fornicating or stealing is licit.

And Croix (book 1, no. 34): Question 6, Whether he sins mortally who invincibly thinks an internal act is not evil, and yet knows that the object of such an act is evil?

Therefore Sanchez and the others do not ask whether invincible error is given concerning the malice of that depraved desire (which is the question proposed by St. Alphonsus), but whether, supposing such ignorance, the rustic sins materially or formally. Indeed La Croix (ibid. no. 35) had expressly warned that the dispute is only hypothetical, and that the hypothesis is scarcely about a possible thing. Thus he: I speak from the supposition, if such a case were given; for perhaps it is impossible.

But what will seem somewhat strange: St. Alphonsus in the editions of the year 1748 and 1757 had proposed the question in nearly the same way as Sanchez and Croix, thus: It is asked whether he sins formally who desires to commit some evil, namely fornication, thinking through error that the mere desire of fornicating without effect is not a sin. Nevertheless, 1. in proposing the question he omits that word invincibly, which the authors whom he attacks have; 2. even here, omitting the hypothetical question about which those authors were treating, he fights against them as though they were disputing absolutely about the possibility of the hypothesis.

QUESTION 3. Whether natural law is mutable?

I answer: No. For since it commands or prohibits that which by its nature is good or evil, it plainly follows that natural law cannot be changed not only by creatures, but not even by the Author of nature Himself ³.

³ Since the object of natural law can become neither harmful nor useless, either in whole or in part, which are the two causes why a law must either be entirely abrogated or derogated from in part; hence no change properly so called can be found in natural law, since it is concerned with those things which are intrinsically good or evil.

Nor should you say, 1. that God has several times changed the natural law, for example, by permitting polygamy to the Patriarchs, theft and divorce to the Hebrews, etc. For in the aforesaid examples the natural law was not changed, but only the circumstance of the matter; whence it happened that that which of itself was opposed to right order, on account of new circumstances was now no longer opposed to it.

Nor should you say, 2. that there are certain matters which undergo change, for example carnal intercourse, which is opposed to natural right among the unmarried, but not among those joined by lawful matrimony; for natural right prohibits intercourse outside matrimony for the reason that its lawful end is then lacking.

Yet some distinguish strict natural law, or law wholly immutable, as, for example, that which prohibits blasphemy, and another broad law, which can be changed when circumstances are changed, as, for example, that which prohibits killing one's neighbor. Thus Voit, no. 534. But others reject this distinction. Whatever be the case, it is certain that that distinction falls at least upon the matter of natural law, which is subject to the dominion of God, and which consequently can be changed according to various circumstances ⁴.

⁴ A twofold order of things must be distinguished. One of them is founded in the very natures of things in such a way that not even God can change it, unless He could be said to be able to deny Himself. Of this sort, for example, is the subjection of the creature to the Creator, and therefore the debt of servitude; consequently blasphemy, perjury, etc., cannot fail to be evil, and God would deny Himself if He inverted this order. But the other order is one which, by reason of the dominion which belongs to God over all creatures, is subject to divine power; and therefore, since it is not absolutely necessary, God can change it. Hence, since God is Lord both of the life and rights of man and of all creatures which He has granted to men to use, therefore God can dispose of the life, rights, and goods of men by taking away, transferring, etc., as it pleases Him; therefore any malice will cease in taking away the life or goods of someone, if God has made this right and power to another. And this indeed is what some say, that by the will of God it happens that matter is withdrawn from the natural law.