The Preliminary Study Of Aquinas’ S Philosophy Of Law

Aquinas’ s philosophy of law is a comprehensive system of ancient Greek philosophy,Roman theory of law and Christian theology,forming a great tradition.Aristotle’s philosophy and ethics deeply influenced Aquinas.By rejecting Platonism,Aristotle laid the metaphysical foundation of later legal theories.The ideas of "common good" and "justice" in Aristotelian ethics were completely inherited by Aquinas.Stoics and Cicero provided the common human and rational basis for the birth of Roman law.The theory of jus gentium in Roman law and the tradition of empiricism deeply influenced Aquinas,especially in his discussion of human law.For the first time,Augustine combined Christian theology with classical legal theory and created theological jurisprudence.His treatises on lex aeterna and lex naturalis moralis provide a basic framework for Aquinas’ thoughts of legal classification.The legal theory of early scholastics,especially some of its basic ideas and concepts,constitutes the direct source of Aquinas’ philosophy of law.As the epitome of the legal theory of the high middle ages,Aquinas integrated the achievements of his historical precursors.He put forward his theory of legal philosophy systematically and created the great tradition of intellectualism legal theory.The first step to understand Aquinas’ s philosophy of law is making a detailed interpretation of the part of "De Lege" in Aquinas’ s representative work "Summa Theologica".The "De Lege" section is placed in Prima Secundae,preceded by "De Peccata" and followed by "De Gratia".The place of law lies between sin and grace."God guides us by law and supports us by grace." The relationship between law and grace is actually a reflection of the relationship between reason and revelation.The discussion on the essence of law laid the metaphysical foundation of the legal system established by Aquinas.In Aquinas’ s view,law is nought else than an ordinance of reason for the common good made by the authority who has care of the community and promulgated.Eternal law-the paradigm of god’s divine wisdom is considered tobe the source of all other laws.Through the distinction between practical reason and speculative reason,Aquinas believed that good is the first thing to be grasped by practical reason,so the first principle of natural law is "that good is to be sought and done,evil to be avoided".Secondary natural law is a set of conclusions derived from first principles.Human law is a supplement to natural law,derived from natural law in two ways.Human law does not forbid all evil,but only those which do the greatest harm to the common good.Aquinas divided the divine law into old law and new law,which correspond to the themes of redemption and grace respectively,and thus apply to different historical stages.The divine law embodies the function of god’s revelation,which makes up for the deficiency of human’s natural rational ability.For man has a supernatural purpose-the pursuit of bliss.In this complete legal system,the natural law has shared eternal law on the top,derived from the human law,playing a role of intermediate bridge.In addition,the legal system also embodies Aquinas’ perfect harmony between reason and revelation.Finally,Aquinas believed that the effect of law was to make people obey and being good.God,by his laws,leads to the good,and god himself is the supreme good.The man who obeys the law is the man of virtue,who not only realizes his present imperfect happiness,but prepares himself for beatitude.As for the binding force of law,Aquinas chose a unique position of "bad law is illegal",he thought that only the just law has binding force.After Aquinas,Ockham embarked on a path of will theory of law which was totally different from Aquinas’,and had a great impact on Aquinas’ s philosophy of law.The late Spanish scholasticism philosopher Suárez,inherited the legacies of Aquinas’ legal theory and chose a comprehensive path between the "theory of reason" and the "theory of will".Suárez went further and more firmly,especially on the questions concerning the nature of law and natural law.In modern times,the severe social crisis gave birth to the revival of Aquinas’ philosophy of law,especially in the revival of the theory of natural law.The new natural law theory is typical among them.His representatives,Finnis and Grisez,inherited and reformed Aquinas’ theory of natural law,trying to endue it with new vitality and persuasiveness in the contemporary context.The new natural law theory distinguishes the pre-moral fieldand moral field of natural law,responds to value pluralism and liberalism,and makes Aquinas’ legal theory applicable to contemporary society.