Question — Merkelbach, Summa Theologiae Moralis
Third Question: On the Effects of Law
St. Thomas, I-II, q. 92.
231. Effects of law in subjects:
- The mediate effect, as much as is from the force of law, is to make those to whom it is given good, either simply and in every way, as the law of charity does, or in a certain respect and in a certain matter, as other particular laws do. Thus natural or divine law tends to this, that men be made good by moral virtues proportioned to nature or by supernatural virtues; civil or ecclesiastical law tends to this, that, at least according to exterior acts, they be good citizens or good Christians.
- Yet all further tend to charity, insofar as charity is the end of every virtue and thus of every law. For the acts of the other virtues are ordered to charity as to the end (II Sent. d. 38, q. 1, a. 1 and 2; Contra Gentiles III, c. 115, 116, 117), and therefore it is the end of the law (III Sent. d. 27, q. 2, a. 4, q. 3).
- The immediate effect, however, is obligation passively regarded, or to be obligated.
232. Proper acts of law or immediate effects in the legislator:
Four are enumerated, not because they are elicited and produced by law, but because law is, as it were, made integral from them.
For law concerns human acts, because it induces men to this, that it be obeyed by them with respect to certain acts: 1) with respect to acts good from their genus, it has to prescribe or command; 2) with respect to those evil from their genus, to prohibit or forbid; 3) with respect to indifferent acts, and for human law with respect to slightly good or evil acts, to permit; and thus according to these three it has directive force; 4) but that by which it induces to this, that it be obeyed, is fear of penalty, and therefore to punish is posited, and thus law also has coercive force. Nor among these acts is to obligate numbered, which is an act necessarily following from the four aforesaid: from precept or prohibition follows the obligation of acting or avoiding; from permission in some things arises an obligation of not impeding; from punishment there arises in the judge the obligation of inflicting the penalty and in subjects the obligation of undergoing it. Nor are counseling and rewarding numbered, because they are not proper to law but can also pertain to a private person.