Scotus Academicus, Tomus sextus: De Legibus Divinis et Humanis

Although the terms Natural Law, Synderesis, and Conscience are sometimes used interchangeably for one and the same thing by the Holy Fathers, they nevertheless differ greatly from one another: for the Natural Law is that very ordination of the divine will impressed upon us by God inasmuch as He is the Author and Ruler of nature; Synderesis, however, is that very natural light of the intellect by which we know that divine ordination; but Conscience is the practical judgment of the intellect concerning something to be done or omitted in the particular. Synderesis is concerned with principles of action without any discursive reasoning: under synderesis no error can lie, nor any doubt, opinion, forgetfulness, ignorance, or inattention; for no one can or ever could deny, doubt, forget, or be ignorant that evil in general is to be fled, good to be embraced, etc. Conscience, however, brings forth its practical judgments only by a prior inference of reason, and therefore it lies open to doubt, forgetfulness, and error; whence arises so varied and manifold a diversity of conscience, and its division into right, erroneous, certain, doubtful, etc. This happens not only from the diversity of men, but also from the diversity of time with respect to the same man; for the same man, by reason of different cognitions, is dissolved into different and opposite judgments; hence we are often displeased with what had pleased us; often that smiles upon us which had been odious. The natural law, however, among all nations whatsoever, and at whatever time, always proclaims the same things, is ever self-consistent, and conforms to itself, unless it be impeded from elsewhere. Note 2. Rational nature can be regarded in two ways: in one way in itself, and inasmuch as by reason of such an essence as it has, certain things are convenient to it and others disconvenient; in the other way inasmuch as it has the power of judging about those things which are convenient or disconvenient to it, by means of the natural light of reason. Again, rational nature taken in the latter way, inasmuch as it is judge of what is convenient or disconvenient, can be considered in two ways; namely, either inasmuch as by that judgment it only indicates and shows what is to be done, or what is to be omitted; or inasmuch as it has joined to it a divine precept obliging man to execute what the native law itself indicates and demonstrates to him: so that this law is not only illative and ostensive, but also obligative and preceptive. Note 3. It is certain that the natural law is a divine gift descending from the Father of lights, and proceeds from God effectively; because God is the first cause of all natural goods, among which the greatest is the light of right reason and its use; and also because every manifestation of truth proceeds from God, as St. Paul expressly teaches in Romans 1, where, having said, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice; afterwards, opening up why he calls it the truth of God, he adds: because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them, namely by the natural light of reason, and by visible creatures, at whose aspect the invisible things of God can be known. It is evident, therefore, that God is the effector, and as it were the Teacher, of the natural law: but the difficulty to be solved remains, whether the native law itself proceeds from God not only effectively, and as from the first cause, but also preceptively, and as from a legislator commanding. These things having been premised, three things remain here to be determined: First, that the native law is not rational nature itself as an entity and essence. Second, that it is not likewise something existing in the mode of a habit. Third, finally, that it consists in the actual judgment and dictate of the intellect, not only ostensive, but also imperative. First Conclusion. — Natural right, in which the natural law is founded, is not rightly defined by the jurists with Justinian: that which nature taught all animals. This Conclusion is common not only among Theologians, but also among the more eminent Jurisconsults, who with unanimous consent confess that brute animals are destitute of right just as of reason. For where there is right, there must necessarily be reason, and the equitable and the good and justice, and law, and an ordered society: of all these, however, brute animals are incapable, as Lactantius teaches most excellently, book 1.

In all animals, he says, that lack wisdom, we see nature to be the conciliator of their own kind. For they call others to them that they may profit them: for they know not that to harm is evil. Man, however, because he has the knowledge of good and evil, abstained from harming even to his own inconvenience. The same had been taught before by Hesiod, writing: For to humankind a law is given by Jupiter Supreme / Since beasts, fishes, and the tribe of high-flying birds / Turn themselves into mutual food, destitute of right. / But to us Justice has been granted, in whom it best resides. Whence Aristotle, book 5 of the Ethics, chapter 1, and Cicero, book 1 De Officiis, pronounce expressly that of horses and lions we do not speak of justice. And Plutarch, in the life of Cato the elder: by law and justice we employ nature against men only. Hence Polybius, giving the reason why men bear with difficulty injuries done to parents and benefactors, writes in book 6: For since humankind differs from the other animals in this, that it uses mind and reason, it is not at all credible that an act so alien to their nature would be concealed by them, as in the other animals: but that what has been done will be recalled to the soul with a signification of offense. — From these things it is manifest that brute animals are not capable of right, and consequently that natural right is not rightly described as that which is proper to men equally with beasts, nor is it true what Justinian says: that right is not the property of humankind alone, but common to all animals which are born on the earth, which in the sea, and of birds also. You will say 1: Those which are bound to undergo the same punishment with man on account of violated natural right are bound to and subject to the same obligation of natural right: but such is the case with brute animals: since Genesis 9 attests that God will avenge homicide both in beasts and in men; I will require, he says, the blood of your lives at the hand of every beast, and at the hand of man. And Exodus, XXI, v. 28: if an ox gore a man or a woman, and they die, he shall be stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten. Therefore etc. — I answer, these things were sanctioned and prescribed divinely for this reason, not that brute animals were to be held guilty of any crime, and that violated natural right were demanded of them: but for the greater detestation of the shedding of human blood and of homicide. For ancient is the opinion of the Hebrews, that by those words is denoted and restrained human slaughter committed by a brute at the instigation of a man, because, as Salomon Iarchius relates on the aforesaid words of Genesis: among men who lived before the flood, through impiety the custom had prevailed of nourishing most noxious beasts, that namely by their aid they might more conveniently domineer, evidently so that, no regard being had to justice, they would let them loose upon those who opposed themselves; which savagery, that God might turn away from men after the flood, He declares that He will take vengeance for human slaughter, not only perpetrated by man himself by his own act, but also for the slaughter which would be wrought by a beast at the instigation of man. — Another exposition Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel administers in the Dirush Tora, namely that by those words of Genesis God declared that He would by no means suffer the unjust shedding of human blood to go unavenged. So that, he says, if there should be lacking a man to avenge the blood, I will require it at the hand of every beast, or of every beast, as of a beast that would tear in pieces a homicide. And thus I shall pursue the same sense. Wheresoever a man shall be, I will require at his hand the blood of the slain, or the vengeance of so great a crime. — Similarly, as to the text of Exodus I say with Selden, book 1 De Iure naturali, chapter 4, that the ox which had killed a man was commanded to be stoned for this reason, not on account of violated natural right, but, either lest anything further should be done by it on account of a man…… or that its owner might be punished in his own thing, because he had kept it negligently, as Maimonides teaches aptly in the more Nevochim, third part, chapter 12, in these words: when a beast was to be killed because it was killing a man, this was not done for the sake of a penalty to be exacted from it, which would be inflicted upon its owner. And hence it was that the use of the flesh of such an ox was forbidden, namely that even the owners of oxen might show greater diligence in keeping them. — By a like reason the cities guilty of apostasy, not only the inhabitants, as apostates, were to be punished with the sword for the crime committed, but also the beasts of burden, Deuteronomy 13. 16. and 16. and the cattle likewise to be destroyed with the sword, and the other goods to be burned, just as also the graven images of the Chanaanites and the groves dedicated to the gods of the nations, and this not on account of any fault committed by the beasts of burden or the cattle, much less by the goods, graven images and groves, but so that, turned away from apostasy and also from the love of goods, for the sake of posterity the citizens of other cities might be deterred the more, and the crime might be deprived both of its memory and of an occasion of renewing it, as far as possible. Hence we read in Demosthenes, in the oration against Aristocrates, and Pausanias and Eliacus, that by the laws of the Athenians the stone, the wood, the axe, and other things of this kind, whenever they had been instruments of homicide, were brought to trial in the Prytaneum as if in punishment, which nevertheless no sane man would properly say they underwent. And the statue of Theagenes, by the judgment of the Thasians according to the law of Draco, was cast into the sea, because it had been projected on account of a slaughter committed by its own accident, not in punishment of the statue, but out of hatred of homicide. You insist: Beasts fulfill all those things which are derived from and instilled by natural right itself: therefore they are capable of it. The antecedent is proved first indeed by the authority of St. Ambrose, who in books 5 and 6 of the Hexameron proves by very many examples that beasts and birds follow the rights of nature, since either they abhor unions forbidden between diverse species and with those from whom they take their origin, or they practice hospitality, and the care of parents and vengeance upon malefactors, and he concludes that from their example the morals of men ought to be formed and reformed. To him subscribes St. Jerome in his commentary on chapter 5 of the epistle to the Ephesians, where he says: That which in animals and beasts is prescribed by the very right of nature, that the pregnant should not couple until the birth, this in men is known to have been left to free choice, that the reward might be that abstinence from pleasures. Aristotle writes, book 9 of the History of Animals, chapter 47, that camels flee the intercourse of their mothers. Avicenna adds, book 9 De Natura Animalium, that a camel which had coupled with its mother, the keeper of the herd having used a covering so that it might not recognize her, when the covering was removed and it had recognized its mother, killed that camel-keeper with a bite.

Refers also Varro, book 2, chapter 1, De re rustica, that the horse of the king of the Cretans, admitted to intercourse with its mother by the same art, as soon as it recognized her, threw itself over a precipice. Relates also William of Auxerre, bishop of Paris, in the first part De Universo, chapter 5.: In my time, he says, a stork, as it were convicted of adultery by the smell of its mate, a multitude of storks having gathered, I know not how, its male accusing or disclosing its crime, was plucked of its feathers and torn in pieces by that whole multitude, as if by the counsel or judgment of all it had been adjudged of adultery. It is related with variation of a horse which had ignorantly committed debauchery with its mother, that after it perceived this, it cut off its own genitals with its own teeth, as it were taking vengeance upon itself for the incest which it seemed to itself to have committed, though in ignorance, because its mother had been hidden from it by a covering while it knew her. Pliny also writes, book 10, that an asp was seen which killed with its own fang its own young, because he had killed the son of a guest. Many other examples similar to these are brought forward by authors, from which appear the signs of natural right observed by beasts. — Why, even Plutarch in the book De Fortuna Romanorum, and Pliny, book 29 of the Natural History, relate that dogs undergo punishment every year and are fastened alive to a fork, because by their nocturnal silence the Capitol would have been captured by the Gauls, unless the geese had aroused the Romans to defend it by the clatter of their wings. Whence an annual honor was rendered to them on account of the citadel preserved. — I answer first, that most of the examples adduced are fictitious and invented for arguing against and correcting more effectively the depraved morals of men, the argument being drawn from brute animals, namely that those who perpetrated those crimes would be worse, and more alien from reason than the very beasts, by which indeed alone, by the instinct of nature alone, they were averse from those criminal actions. But that beasts truly do not abstain from commixture and intercourse with their parents is evident from the fact that Myrrha, inflamed with incestuous love of her father, sings in Ovid, Metamorphoses 10:

animals couple with no Other fault: nor is it held a shame for heifers To bear their father on the back; the horse's daughter becomes his mate And the goat enters the flocks he begot; and the very bird conceived of his Seed conceives from him. I answer second, that brute animals perform many things from natural instinct which men are accustomed to accomplish by the guidance of reason: for in them, as we said, as it were little sparks and certain vestiges of reason shine forth: so likewise in them appear certain seeds and vestiges of virtue and prudence. Wherefore Sacred Scripture sometimes sends men away to them as to a school and academy: thus Solomon, Proverbs 6.: go to the ant, O sluggard, and consider her ways, and learn wisdom: which, although it have no guide, nor master, nor prince, prepares food for itself in the summer, and gathers in the harvest what it may eat in the winter. Thus also Christ the Lord admonishes his disciples, Matthew 10, to be prudent as serpents and simple as doves. — As to the punishment inflicted upon the dogs by the Romans every year, I answer that in this scheme, as it were in a certain apologue, they wished to signify to the citizens every year, especially the younger ones, in what manner the vigilant guardians and defenders of the Republic ought to be rewarded with prizes; but the dull and the slothful to be mulcted with punishment. Second Conclusion. — The natural law does not consist in rational nature itself regarded in itself, inasmuch as certain actions are morally convenient and honest to it; others, however, repugnant and dishonest. It is proved 1. Major: the natural law is truly and properly called a law: but rational nature itself, precisely taken, cannot be a law properly so called: therefore the natural law cannot consist in it. The major is evident from the common opinion of Theologians and Philosophers, who speak of it as of a law truly and properly so called. The minor is proved: a law properly so called is the ordination and constitution of some superior, decreeing and commanding something by his right: but rational nature precisely taken is not an ordination: since ordination is a second act of the intellect and of the will; but nature itself is a first act; and therefore it cannot be held to be an ordination. Further, the effects of a law are to direct, to illuminate, to oblige, and to be the rule of human actions: but these cannot fall immediately upon rational nature: for they proceed from the dictate of reason and the command of the will: therefore not in rational nature itself, but rather in that dictate of reason and command of the will, the essence of the natural law is to be placed. The consequence is evident, for in that the law consists essentially, from which the effects of the law chiefly proceed. But the minor is proved: for before the dictate of reason, by which something is indicated or shown to be good or evil, man is not morally obliged, nor are his operations directed or regulated to the end due to him; nor consequently do they have the reason of morality, as is evident in those who lack the use of reason, etc. Finally, from the natural law human actions have that they are good or evil: but actions which independently of every positive law are good or evil, because indeed they fight against the law of nature, cannot be such from rational nature itself; and therefore this cannot be called the natural law. The major is evident. The minor is proved: diverse reasons in acts cannot be derived from the same term, under the same formal reason: therefore goodness and malice, which are diverse reasons of human acts, cannot proceed from the same rational nature, unless there be diverse reasons in that nature, by which it assigns malice to one act, goodness to another: but those diverse reasons cannot be assigned on the part of that rational nature: for there is no reason why it should refer goodness to one act rather than to another, unless because in that act there is some reason why it is capable of that goodness rather than of malice: and therefore independently of that conveniency with rational nature, such an act already of itself has that it can be called good and honest. The Conclusion is confirmed by assailing the foundation of the adversaries. For this reason Vasquez and those who think with him affirm that the essence of the natural law is to be constituted in rational nature itself, because, they say, rational nature itself is the foundation and measure of the natural law and of its honesty, inasmuch as whatsoever the natural law commands or forbids, of itself befits or unbefits rational nature: but this reason is null. It is proved; because whatsoever is the foundation and measure of a law or of honesty, is not on that account a law; since public peace and felicity is the measure and foundation of human laws, and yet on that account they are not themselves human laws. Similarly, the greater or lesser indigence of a poor man is the foundation or measure of a law or precept of giving a greater or lesser alms; and yet that indigence itself is not held to be a law of giving alms. Likewise, the end is the rule and measure of the means; and yet the end is not said to have the reason of a law. Equally, the object is the rule and measure of acts; and yet on that account it is not held to be a law. Therefore by equal right, although rational nature be the foundation of honesty and the rule of the objective rectitude of moral human acts, on that account it cannot be called a law. I add with Suarez, book 2, chapter 4, n. 7, that if rational nature were the law of our acts, because they befit it; it would follow in like manner that the divine nature is the law of free divine acts, because such acts likewise befit it: but there is none of the Holy Fathers and Theologians who has taught and proved this consequence: therefore neither ought there to be any who teach the antecedent. You will say: Rational nature existing, the natural law cannot not exist, but it can be not that ordination of God; because since it is free, God can posit it or not posit it: therefore the natural law is not that ordination of God itself; but rather it is rational nature itself, inasmuch as it is the foundation of the conveniency and honesty, or disconveniency and dishonesty of human actions. — I distinguish the minor: It can not be the divine ordination by which a rational creature is directed to its end, on the hypothesis that rational nature itself exist. I deny absolutely; I concede on the hypothesis: for although the divine operation ad extra be absolutely free; nevertheless on the supposition that the divine will has decreed to create rational nature with sufficient cognition for operating good and evil, and with sufficient concurrence on the part of God, and also with the free faculty of the creature itself for operating either, it implies that God does not ordain that creature to the attainment of its end by convenient acts: and therefore it equally implies that God does not will to forbid such a creature intrinsically evil acts, and to command honest acts naturally necessary: for as God cannot lie, because He is supreme truth, so also He cannot not forbid those things which are opposed to honesty, because He is supreme goodness, and the rule of rectitude and honesty: therefore for the same reason, God, the will of revealing something being posited, is necessitated to reveal the true, because He cannot lie, since He is supreme truth: so on the hypothesis that He has instituted a rational creature to be ordained to an end, He cannot not command it good and honest acts and not forbid it evil and dishonest acts, because He is supreme equity and rectitude. You insist: It is absurd to assert that God by a necessary will obliges his subjects, since this obligation, being moral, ought to proceed from a free moral agent, and one commanding freely: for which reason no Prince can oblige himself by a vow or promise, or by any other precept and command, unless this obligation arise from full liberty: for things which are done by force and coercion have no force of obliging: but an obligation freely made could have not been made: therefore God could not impose that obligation upon rational nature from the beginning of its formation; nay, He can even revoke that obligation once imposed: and thereupon rational nature can exist without such an obligation prescribed to it: but it cannot exist without the natural law: therefore the natural law is not to be constituted in the obligation superadded, but in rational nature itself. —

I distinguish the minor: That an obligation freely made could have not been made, absolutely, I concede; hypothetically, I deny. I confess indeed that God by his liberty could have abstained from forming rational creatures, and constituting them in a connatural state; and consequently not obliging them by the natural law; but on the hypothesis that He created them, and constituted them in such a state, He was bound of necessity, by a consequent necessity, to rule and care for those intellectual creatures created by Himself that they might live conformably to their nature, and to oblige them thereto by his authority: which authority, however it be interposed, induces a moral obligation; moral, I say, not from the fact that it was freely imposed, so that it could not be prescribed; since on the hypothesis this obligation is necessarily prescribed: but this obligation is called moral from the fact that it leads to moral and imputable acts, so that they cannot be omitted without sin. Nor does it matter that this obligation follows from the necessary and natural ordination of rational nature itself, for some moral obligation can arise from a necessary and natural principle; since the obligation of honoring parents arises from the natural generation received from them.

You will say 2. There are some actions so intrinsically evil from their nature, e. g. hatred of God, that their malice depends in no way upon the dictate of the intellect, or upon an extrinsic prohibition and the divine will: conversely some are so intrinsically good from their nature, e. g. to worship God; that they depend in no way upon an extrinsic cause for this: but they cannot have that malice or goodness from elsewhere, except inasmuch as they are convenient or disconvenient to rational nature: therefore rational nature itself has the reason of a law. —

I answer, that in intrinsically good or intrinsically evil acts, a double goodness and malice can be regarded; one indeed in the being of nature, the other in the being of morality. The first is not derived from the order to any law, but from the conveniency or inconveniency to rational nature, inasmuch as it is understood to have an inclination to the good, considered in the being of nature antecedently to every law. The second, however, is taken proximately indeed from the order to the dictate of natural reason, but remotely from the order to the eternal law, namely inasmuch as the dictate of natural reason is a certain participation of the eternal law, and has the reason of the natural law in order to those very acts.

Third Conclusion. — The formal reason of the innate law is not constituted adequately in that habitual and natural light itself regarded in the first act, and inasmuch as it is the power of discerning the honest and the base, the licit and the illicit.

It is proved: Every law properly so called is an ordination, as we said above: but the natural light taken habitually is not an ordination, but only a power of understanding: therefore neither is the formal reason of the natural law to be placed in it. Further, God has a light connatural to Himself by which He knows most perfectly whatsoever things are honest and base: but God cannot be said to have a natural law: therefore the natural law is not to be placed in that habitual light itself. Finally, as is proved in the following Conclusion, every law is the command or prohibition of some superior: but that habitual natural light itself is neither a command nor a prohibition of a superior: therefore neither is it the natural law.

You will say 1. St. Paul, Romans 2, calls a law the natural conscience, namely dictating what is to be done or fled according to natural reason; for having said, the Gentiles who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law: these, having not the law, are a law to themselves: as it were declaring in what way they are a law to themselves, and what that law is, he adds: who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them: he holds, therefore, that the natural law of which he speaks is the natural dictate of right reason, by reason of which man is a law to himself. Further, the Holy Fathers in like manner affirm that the natural law was naturally implanted in us by God and written in our hearts, and that God is its author, inasmuch as He is the author and founder of our nature. Thus St. Ambrose, book 1, Epistle 71. That law, he says, is not inscribed, but inborn: nor is it perceived by anyone through reading, but it is brought forth from a certain fountain of nature and expressed in each one. And St. Maximus, in the Centuries, chapter 13. The law of nature, he says, is natural reason which holds captive the sense, for the destruction of the irrational power. Finally Tullius in the book De Legibus, with supreme eloquence and an almost divine voice, as Lactantius says, book 6 De vero cultu, chapter 8, describing the natural law, says: Indeed true law is right reason, congruent with nature, diffused among all, constant, eternal, which calls to duty by commanding, and deters from fraud by forbidding. It is evident, therefore, from these that the natural law is posited in the light of reason itself: not indeed actual, otherwise, when we do nothing, the natural law would not remain in us: therefore it is to be placed in that habitual light itself. —

I answer, that the aforesaid authorities prove nothing else than that the natural law is sometimes taken for conscience and synderesis, namely inasmuch as it dictates what is to be done or omitted, as conscience does. Nevertheless, as we have already observed in the first Notable, the natural law differs from conscience in many respects: for law signifies a rule generally constituted concerning things to be done: but conscience signifies a practical dictate in the particular; whence conscience extends more widely than the natural law, because it applies not only the natural law, but also any other whatsoever, whether divine or human. Further, conscience is accustomed not only to apply the true law, but also the supposed one; hence sometimes there is given an erroneous conscience: but an erroneous law cannot be given: for by that very fact it would not be a law, which is especially true of the natural law which has God for its author. Finally, law properly bears upon things to be done; but conscience is concerned with those things which have already been done; and therefore to it is attributed not only to bind and oblige, but also to accuse, to bear witness, to condemn, and to torment.

You will object 2. Whatsoever is in our souls is either a power, or a passion, or an act, or a habit: but the natural law is neither a power of the soul, nor a passion, nor an act; otherwise, when we do nothing, the natural law would not remain in us: therefore it is a habit. —

I answer, to the minor, that the natural law is not a power or a passion, but is an act; because it is a prescription, or dictation of right reason. To what is subjoined, that if it were an act, since we do nothing at all times it would not remain in us: I answer by denying that consequence: for an act is not said to exist as though it always existed actually, but because either it exists in act, or it is an act naturally apt to exist; and such a dictation remains virtually, and thus it is an act of reason, existing either in reality or in virtuality.

You will object 3. The natural law remains in children and the insane: yet in them there is no act of reason, nor a faculty ready for reasoning: therefore it must be that the natural law itself is a habitual light, and natural, considered in first act. —

I distinguish the major: that the natural law remains in children and the insane in second act, this I deny; in first act, I concede: for although they judge by some exercise of reason about things to be done, they do not nevertheless judge with that perfect cognition which has annexed to it the character of command, and of a rule, or norm conformed to right reason; moreover such a judgment is necessary for the natural law: whence the natural law remains in them only after the manner of a habit improperly so called, just as there remains in them the habit of the first principles, which we call intelligence. — To these words I add that the habitual natural light itself, as also conscience and synderesis, can truly be called the natural law; not indeed adequately, but inadequately; for the adequate reason of the natural law must be placed not only in the very dictation of reason concerning those things which are to be done, or omitted, but chiefly in the divine precept itself, or prohibition proceeding from the will of God, as from the author and rector of nature, as he will show.

Fourth conclusion. — The natural law does not consist formally in the dictation and judgment merely demonstrative and indicative of good and evil: but also in that which is preceptive and imperative and obliging to those things which are prescribed by such a law. This conclusion is held in common with the Seraphic Doctor in book 2, dist. 35, doubt 4, and with Gerson, Tract. De vita spirituali, lib. 2, Corol. 5, where he defines the natural law thus: The natural law is a preceptive sign impressed upon every man not unskilled in the use of reason, and declarative of the divine will, which wills that rational human creature be bound to do or not do something in order to attain its natural end.

Proof: The natural law is truly and properly called a law, as all Philosophers and Theologians confess: but a law properly so called is truly preceptive: therefore, etc. The minor is proved: Both because it belongs to the reason of a law truly and properly so called that it be preceptive; inasmuch as law is an act of prudence, which consists formally in an act of command, and is consequently preceptive: And because the natural law is properly called the rule and measure of the goodness or malice of a human act: but a judgment indicative and demonstrative of good and evil cannot be such a rule and measure of the goodness or malice of a human act; inasmuch as it presupposes that goodness or malice, and only judges it; whereas a rule and measure of anything regulated and measured does not presuppose its rectitude or obliquity; inasmuch as this is not known except by application to the rule: therefore, etc.

Further, God has a demonstrative judgment concerning those things which befit or misbefit his divine nature, against which judgment he himself cannot act; and yet he has no law properly so called; and consequently the natural law, since it is truly and properly called a law, cannot formally consist in the mere dictation and judgment merely demonstrative of good and evil.

Finally, whatever is done against the prescription of the natural law is truly sin: but every sin is a transgression and violation of some precept: therefore the natural law must be prescriptive. The major is proved from the Apostle to the Romans 1, where he teaches that the Gentiles were inexcusable, and guilty of great sin, from the fact that by the natural law they knew what was to be done, and what to be omitted; yet they fulfilled neither the one nor the other prescription of that law. The minor is proved from St. Ambrose, lib. De Paradiso, cap. 8, where he defines sin generally thus: Sin is the transgression of the divine law, and disobedience to the heavenly commandments. Likewise from St. Augustine, who in lib. 2 contra Faustum, cap. 27, defines sin to be a word, deed, or desire against the eternal law: and he adds that the eternal law is the reason, or will of God. He holds, therefore, that it belongs to the reason of sin that it be against the proper law of some superior. Which indeed he indicates more clearly in lib. 2, De peccat. meritis, et remiss., cap. 1, where he says: how is it forgiven by the mercy of God if it is not sin, or how is it not punished by the justice of God if it is sin? By which he signifies that it is no less repugnant that something be sin and not prohibited by God, than that it need forgiveness and have not been sin. — The same the Doctor teaches in book 1, dist. 50, num. 1, where he says: Whatever sin is sin for this reason, because it is against the divine precept.

You will say. If the natural law were preceptive, it would be chiefly either the precept of a man to another, or to himself, or of God to men: but neither can be affirmed: therefore neither can it be asserted to be preceptive. The major stands by a sufficient enumeration of the parts. The minor is manifest as to the first and second part; because the precept of a man to another pertains to human law; moreover the command of a man over himself with respect to his own actions cannot have the true reason of law; since law is the ordination of a superior to a subject; but no one is superior to himself. The same minor is evident also as to the third part: both because the precept by which God commands something to men pertains to the divine law; but the divine law differs from the natural: and because, setting aside any precept of God whatsoever, the dictation of natural reason sufficiently dictates what is good, and what evil: therefore the natural law is by no means preceptive. —

I deny the minor as to the third part: and to its first proof I say that the natural law is also called divine; for, says St. Damascene, lib. 1, De Fide, cap. 23: The law of God, kindling our mind, draws him to itself, and illumines our conscience, which is itself likewise called the law of our mind. And so he judges the natural law to be equally the law of God, inasmuch namely as it is a certain participation, and application of the eternal law. To the second proof I deny the antecedent; for since the dictation by which God commands men good works, and forbids evil works, is derived from the law of God eternal, and is, as we just now said, a certain participation, and application of it: the consequence follows that, setting aside the eternal law of God and its prescription, there would be no dictation of natural reason indicating and declaring to men what is good or evil.