Outline the key features of law and autority

Law is the system of rules that a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and may enforce by the imposition of penalties. Law consists of the rules that govern human relationships ion a civilised society. Laws are made and enforced by the state to enable people to live together in freedom, safety and order. They protect the weak from the oppression of the strong and reward the good and punish the bad; therefore, laws are made by the state and enforced through the courts.

Human law regulates human behaviour in society and is exercised through the state and government, as an extension of natural and divine law. Aquinas identified four kinds of law; eternal law is God’s will and wisdom, and rational ordering of the universe. This is then revealed in divine law, given in scripture and through the church and guides human beings to happiness in heaven; it is made known in natural law, the source of fulfilment on earth and then from this, human law (also known as positive law) is derived. Aquinas made several assumptions about these kinds of laws. He argues that all people seek to worship God as God created the universe and the moral law within it. He also said that God created each individual with a particular purpose in life and so all humans should obey moral laws as they come from God.

Are these laws offering absolutes that are universal? Is there an absolute duty to obey the law? Ancient religious scholars, such as Thomas Aquinas, argued that there are absolute universal laws built into the design and telos of creation (natural laws). Religious traditions assert that God has revealed divine commands that humans should follow, for example, the Ten Commandments. Aquinas also believed that law and justice are intrinsically linked and that if a law is not just, then the people are under no duty to obey it. For Aquinas, laws are artificial pronouncements that are devised and imposed by the state; they are not