only upon a nature that is free, and has for its subject-matter free acts alone, a point which we shall note below; accordingly, law cannot be more necessary than a rational or intellectual creature; and rational creatures are not characterized by an absolute necessity for their existence; therefore, neither is law itself characterized by this sort of necessity.
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The sole doubt that could occur in this connexion would be one relating to the eternal law, which we shall for the present assume to exist. For that law is God Himself; therefore, it is as immutable and eternal as He, and consequently, as necessary. However, I shall reply briefly that what constitutes eternal law is indeed absolutely necessary, as the argument proves, but that it does not possess this attribute in its character as law, since it embraces a connotation of freedom, a point that I shall demonstrate below.1
3. If the creation of a rational creature is assumed to have taken place, law has become useful, and absolutely necessary in the necessity of its purpose. Secondly, I make the following assertion: if the creation of rational creatures is assumed to have taken place, law, both absolutely and with a view to attaining the better state, has become necessary in the necessity of its purpose. This truth is (so to speak), in connexion with the subject under discussion, a self-evident principle.
Moreover, in so far as concerns the first part [of the assertion]—the part relating to absolute necessity—one may adduce the argument that an intellectual creature, by virtue of the very fact that he is a created being, has a superior to whose providence and control he is subject; while, for the very reason that he is intellectual, he is capable of being subjected to moral government, which is effected through command (imperium); and therefore, it is connatural to such a creature, and necessary to him, that he be made subject to some superior who will govern him through command, that is, through law.
Furthermore, this creature, because of the very fact that he has been made out of nothing, may be bent to good or to evil. This I assume, for the present, on the basis of the common opinion of the Fathers. Consequently, not only is he capable of being subjected to law, whereby he may be directed towards the good and held back from the evil, but furthermore, some such law is absolutely necessary for him, that he may live as becomes his nature. Or, we may argue also from the converse. For he who is subject to no law cannot sin; but a rational creature does possess the power to sin; and therefore, he is of necessity subject to law.
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Nor is it pertinent to argue that the said creature may, through grace or glory, become impeccable. For, in the first place, we are speaking here of natural necessity, asserting that from this standpoint, if one assumes the creation of rational nature, law is necessary. Moreover, the gift [of grace] through which such a nature becomes impeccable does not involve a removal of that nature’s subjection to law, in so far as concerns the acts which it is free to exercise, but on the contrary causes it to obey the law without fail.
The second part of our assertion—that which relates to utility—is clearly proved on the basis of the first part. For necessity pertaining to an end must include utility; and furthermore, these words (Psalms, xviii [, v. 8]) have been written with regard to laws: ‘The law of the Lord is unspotted, converting souls’, &c., as has also this passage from Proverbs (Chap. vi [, v. 23]): ‘The commandment is a lamp, and the law a light.’ And there are similar passages which we shall examine later, and which point out a great utility in law.
4. However, since this utility or necessity is not one and the same in the case of all laws, it will be worth while, for the purpose of presenting the attribute in question with clearness and accuracy, to distinguish among the various kinds of laws, and to explain the particular necessity or utility characteristic of each kind. For thus we shall clearly perceive, not only that law in general does exist, but also the number of particular species of which that whole is composed. This latter point must also be ascertained in order that we may fully define the question involved in the entire subject-matter of this treatise, namely, the question of whether or not law exists. For we have already pointed out that the said subject-matter embraces every species of law. Moreover, this procedure will be opportune for our understanding of the terms to be used throughout the entire treatise.
5. The division of law into its various categories. In the first place, then, we may assume that law is divided into four different categories, a division which was laid down by Plato, in the Timaeus [24 et seq.] and in the Phaedrus, as follows: divine law; celestial law; natural law, and human law. The second of these terms is rejected by the theologians, because it is either superfluous or else involves erroneous doctrine. For by ‘celestial
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law’ Plato meant fate, and a certain necessity of action proceeding from the ordered movement and influence of the heavenly bodies; and therefore, if he understood that celestial law was of such a nature that it was not subject to divine providence, or that it imposed a necessity upon all things, even upon men, with respect to operations proper to the soul, [his interpretation] involves a false and heretical conception, opposed to the divine government and to the freedom of the will. If, on the other hand, he referred in the expression ‘celestial law’, merely to Aristotle’s statement that this lower world is so conjoined with the heavenly spheres that it is governed thence, that is to say, governed through natural influences and vicissitudes dependent always upon God, affecting bodies, not souls—if this was what Plato had in mind—it was not necessary to set up this separate category of law; because, to the extent that it may be called law, it is comprised under the head of the natural law, as we shall prove. This second term therefore being omitted, the other three are in use even among the theologians, though in a slightly different sense from that understood by Plato.
6. The conception of ‘divine law’, in Plato; and the [two] ways in which the term is used. Thus divine law, according to Plato, is a rational principle existing in the mind of God, and governing the universe. This law is also recognized by the theologians, who, however, call it the eternal law. For the term ‘divine law’ may be used in two senses: in one sense, as dwelling within God Himself; in the other, as being decreed directly by God Himself, though existing outside of His Being. Plato gave to the term the first connotation, while the theologians, agreeing with Augustine, and for the purpose of distinguishing that form of law from the other, which God promulgates outside of His own Being, call the former ‘the eternal law’; and we, too, shall call it by this name. With respect to this thing which is called eternal law, it as certainly exists in God, as does His providence over the universe; for the term refers simply to the essential principle of this providence, a principle dwelling in God, or to some element of that providence.2 As to the question of whence it derives the name and nature
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of ‘eternal law’, however, that is a point which we shall explain in the first part of the next Book.
From the foregoing, one may easily understand what necessity and utility characterize the law in question, since it is identical with the law of divine providence. For just as it would be impossible for the universe to continue in existence apart from divine providence, so would it be impossible apart from this divine and eternal law; and furthermore, all utility and benefit flowing forth to this universe from divine providence should also be ascribed to this same divine law.
St. Thomas (I.–II, qu. 91, art. 1, ad 3) observes, however, that the utility of the said law consists, not in the fact that it is itself ordained to the end, but rather in the fact that it directs all other things to their own ends, by appropriate means. For the law itself cannot be ordained to an end, since it is God Himself, Who is the ultimate end of all things.
A first division of law: into temporal and eternal. Finally, from this first divine or eternal form of law, one may infer a first division of law into the eternal and the temporal. For we assume that there is nothing eternal outside of
