1. Exposition of the Opinion

8. An answer given here is that yes, [the whole decalogue does belong to the natural law - Aquinas, Richard of Middleton].

9. The manner posited is as follows: the law of nature is a law that derives from the primary known principles in matters doable. Such principles are practical first principles, known from the terms, and are themselves the first seeds of truth. To the truth of them the intellect is, from the terms, naturally inclined, and to assent to their command the will is naturally inclined. Everything in the decalogue follows from these principles, whether mediately or immediately. For all things there prescribed have a formal goodness by which they are in themselves ordered to the ultimate end, so that through them man might be turned toward that end. All things too that are prohibited there have a formal malice turning away from the ultimate end. Consequently, the things prescribed there are not good only because they are prescribed, but conversely, they are prescribed because they are good; and the things prohibited there are not bad only because they are prohibited, but they are prohibited because they are bad.

10. And then it would, as a consequence, seem necessary to say to the first argument [n.2] that God cannot simply dispense in such matters. For what is illicit of itself does not seem it could become licit by any will. For example: if killing, on the grounds that it is an act that concerns such and such a matter (as one’s neighbor), is a bad act, then, while the same grounds hold, it will always be a bad act. Thus no act of willing that goes against the idea of those terms [sc. killing, neighbor] can make the act good.

11. But then the authorities that seem to say that God did dispense in these matters [n.6] need special interpretation.

One way of interpreting them is as follows, that although a dispensation could be given for the act in the category of act, yet not for it insofar as it is, in being prohibited, against the intention of the lawgiver, and so there is no dispensation for it against the prohibition.

12. Another way would be to say that an act cannot be made ordered while it remains disordered; but an act is disordered to the extent it is against the prohibition. Therefore, God cannot give dispensation for it insofar as it is against the prohibition.