Abstract
SUMMARY The 1918 Code of Canon Law refers in various places to divine law. This term normally comprises both natural law and positive divine law. Both concepts are, in the Code, conceived as a totality of absolutely immutable norms, distinct from the mutable norms of positive ecclesiastical law. Adequate analysis of the canones referring to natural and positive divine law shows that the norms or institutions determined in this manner are not immutable in an absolute sense. They all reflect a development which cannot be determined once and for all, and which differs according to time and place. Again, the norms conceived as belonging to positive ecclesiastical law are invariably intended to promote values both naturally human and evangelical. As a result of this analysis the thesis is presented for discussion that the distinction between certain concrete norms assumed to belong exclusively to divine law (whether natural law or positive divine law), on the one hand, and certain other norms, on the other hand, supposed to belong to a merely human positive law, is unfounded. Natural law and positive divine law are, concretely speaking, found solely in historically determined and humanly concretized norms and institutions, which, for that reason, are liable to change; while positive law, if it is to be law and not arbritariness, concretely meets requirements which are imperative in view of the conservation and development of humanity and in the perspective of the appearance and sal- vific action of Christ in this world.
Published Version
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