God’s Eternal Law

Abstract

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PROVINCE oF ST. JosEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C. VoL. XXIII OCTOBER, 1960 No.4 GOD'S ETERNAL LAW AFTER St. Thomas lays down his definition of law in general , he proceeds to discuss the various kinds of law in particular. Chief among these, as their source and origin, is the eternal law of God. First he shows that the eternal law exists and then he investigates its nature. His proof that there has existed a law in the mind of God from all eternity is rather different from what we might expect. If it exists, it is evident that we cannot have intuitive knowledge of its existence, for no one can see what is in the mind of God but God Himself and the blessed in heaven, who enjoy the face to face vision of the divine nature.1 In this life, we can only reason to its existence from the things that we see around us, just as we reason to God's existence from the visible things around us. In fact, the final proof that St. Thomas gives for the existence of God, ex gubernatione rerum,2 is, as we shall see later, also a proof for the existence of the eternal law. 1 I-II, q. 98, a. ~- • Ibid., I, q. !t, a. 2. 497 498 JOSEPH COLLINS This is not the approach to the eternal law that we might have expected. We might have thought, for instance, that he would argue from the existence of human law to the divine law or that he would have argued from the existence of the natural law to the existence in the mind of God of a transcendent law which is the origin and explanation of all other laws. We might have expected him to adopt that line of argument because he teaches that natural law is a participation in the eternal law and positive laws, civil and ecclesiastical, are valid as laws only insofar as they are derived from the eternal law. When we examine the position a little more closely, we can see why he did not adopt that line of argument. It would have been tantamount to assuming what he wished to prove. That would certainly be so if he had argued from the natural law. For, the natural law is not really different as law from the eternal law. It is the eternal law as received in us. He approaches the problem from another angle altogether. He starts from something that is self-evident 3 and which is itself an effect of the eternal law, namely, God's government of the world. That the universe is governed by God, we gather from the wonderful order and harmony that reign, not only amongst things, but also amongst the multitudinous and vastly complex activity of things. The lower orders of being serve the higher, and all in their proper place and in their various ways conspire to promote the good of the whole universe. To direct and guide the works of creation towards this goal demands, as St. Thomas points out elsewhere,• a supervising intelligence and governing hand, which is the mind and hand of God. That is particularly so, when we consider that a large portion of the total universe is without reason and of itself cannot see the goal towards which it unconsciously moves. The alternative is to say that the unity and harmony of the universe are altogether due to chance, and such an explanation is ruled out by its own intrinsic impossibility. • Self-evident on the supposition that God exists. • Op. cit., I, q. lOS, a. 1. GOD's ETERNAL LAW 499 God's government of the universe, however, is only the execution in time of what his providence ordained from all eternity. His argument, then, is this: if there existed from all eternity in the mind of God a detailed scheme for bringing each individual creature to the goal for which it was created, that presupposes a still more comprehensive plan in the mind of God for bringing the whole of creation...