Article — Marc, Institutiones Morales
Article I: On Eternal Law
- DEFINITION. Eternal law, in a broad sense, is defined by the Angelic Doctor (1.2, q. 91, a. 1): "The reason of the order of things to the end." By this word order is comprehended every order which is had in the world, namely physical and moral, natural and supernatural.
But in a stricter sense, eternal law is defined by St. Augustine (Contr. Faust., l. 22, c. 27): "The divine reason or the will of God, commanding that the natural order be preserved and forbidding that it be disturbed."
- PRINCIPLES. I. There is in God eternal law. It is evident 1. From Sacred Scripture, especially Prov. 8:23: From eternity I was ordained, etc.; where those things which are said of wisdom, according to the interpretation of doctors, are to be understood of eternal law, which rules and moderates all things. It is proved 2. From reason; for this teaches that there exists in the world a certain natural, or essential, order, which arises from the very natures of things, for example, that between God and man there intervenes the relation of Creator to creature, of Lord to servant, etc. Now God, who cannot deny himself, necessarily wills that an order of this kind constituted by him not be disturbed, but be preserved. But this most ordered and immutable will of God most rightly receives the name ETERNAL LAW (Suarez, de Leg., l. 2, c. 3).
- II. Eternal law, as such, is not law properly so called, but is the reason and source of all laws.
We say 1. It is not law properly so called; as not having been proclaimed to subjects, who did not exist from eternity. Hence St. Alphonsus with Sylvius (I, n. 71): "Eternal law," he says, "was from eternity law materially, not formally, or under the notion of law actually obliging."
In another place (I, n. 70; ed. G., I, p. 41) the Holy Doctor says: "Eternal law, with respect to men, is not proper law." For proper law, as to them, is natural law.
- It is the reason and source of all laws. For every law, whether divine or human, receives the force of obliging from the fact that order, or eternal law, demands that subjects obey Superiors prescribing just things.
Nor does it stand in the way that positive laws, especially human laws, are mutable; for eternal law itself establishes that, according to the changed conditions of times, places, and persons, these laws are changed.
- III. All human things, although in a diverse way, are subject to eternal law. For eternal law is the reason of divine governance: therefore whatever things are subjected to divine governance are also subjected to eternal law; accordingly all things are subjected to this law. But this subjection happens in a twofold way: in one way insofar as eternal law is participated by knowledge, by which a certain rule, which is a principle of acting, is impressed on the mind; in the other way insofar as it is participated by the natural inclination implanted in creatures, by which they are moved by divine providence. In this latter way irrational creatures are subjected, but rational creatures are subject in both ways. For in these there is both a certain notion of eternal law and a natural inclination to that which is consonant with this law.
Yet there is a distinction between the good and the wicked. In the wicked, the natural inclination to virtue is depraved through vicious habit, and the natural cognition itself of good in them is darkened through passions and habits of sins. Therefore the manner of subjection in the wicked is imperfect. But in the good a more perfect subjection is found, because both above the natural cognition of good there is superadded to them the cognition of faith and wisdom, and above the natural inclination to good there is superadded to them an interior motive of grace and virtue. Yet among the wicked, as much as is lacking on the part of action is supplied on the part of passion; namely insofar as they suffer what eternal law dictates concerning them, insofar as they fail to do what agrees with eternal law. Therefore whoever does not hold order, is held by order. Cf. St. Thomas, 1.2, q. 93, a. 6.
- Note. Eternal law is the remote rule of morality, whether of our intellect or of our will. For through it, or through its light, we judge all things; but we cannot judge it, because it is infinite and incomprehensible, nor can any created intellect reach so far as to contemplate perfectly and from every side what the order of things is toward God. Hence, since sin turns aside from this order, we can never perfectly inspect its intrinsic and total malice.