Thomas Aquinas Research Paper

Thomas Aquinas-- in his Treatise on Law, Article 3 Question 91-- considers whether or not human laws exist. Law for Aquinas is the essence of God, who rules the Universe (624). Human law in particular is “is a dictate of practical reason” (627). Practical reason must be preceded by theoretical reason (627). Theoretical reason moves from intelligibles to the world of scientific objects (627). Practical reason moves the world of natural scientific objects to the world of particular action (627). That is what he means when he says, “these laws originally sprang from nature. Then things became customs because of their rational benefit” (627). The natural law, from which human law springs “is simply rational creature's’ participation in the eternal.”
These processes are similar because, according to Aquinas, they “both proceed from principles to conclusions” (627). This is because knowing must precede acting. They are, however, differentiated because they emerge from different principles.
For Aquinas, theoretical reason must precede practical reason. Theoretical reason is grounded in, what Aquinas calls, “indemonstrable first principles” (627). Indemonstrable first principles are the laws of logic, such as mathematics, which exist in the mind prior to the acquisition of content (***). It is by exercising reason that the human moves from the principles of logic to “conclusions not implanted in us by nature” (627). It is the scientific knowledge of objects that is the conclusion of theoretical reason.
Practical reason begins where theoretical knowledge left off: in the realm of scientific knowledge. Aquinas states that practical reason moves from its principals, “the precepts of the natural law”, to it’s conclusion, “matters that are to be more particularly regulated” (627). The precepts of the natural law is the eternal law of God as it is discovered by human rationality, that is to say theoretical scientific
Aquinas claims that we are called into participation in the law, which is first imparted upon us (626). Aquinas, in this claim, expands the agency of the human to participate in the eternal law. The eternal law comes from God, but it is “inscribed upon us” (626). This does not diminish the divinity of the law, as the law continues to exist apart from human participation. But, it remains the human's responsibility to participate.
Aquinas’ position marks a shift from the position of Augustine. For Augustine, the mind of the human, whose human essence is thinking itself, belongs with the divine mind (625). In contrast, for Aquinas, the human mind belongs properly in the world, wherein, it actively realizes within itself that which agent intellect as imprinted upon it (626). For, Aquinas actualizing requires not an upward, but a turn, instead, to the