1. Double Way of Understanding how Certain Things Belong to the Law of Nature

16. I say, then, to the question that things can be said to belong to the law of nature in two ways:

In one way [cf. n.25] as practical principles known from the terms, or as conclusions necessarily following from them. And these things are said to belong to the law of nature strictly.

17. And the reasons against the first opinion [nn.13-14] prove that in such things there cannot be dispensation (and these are contained in Gratian Decrees p.1 d.5, where it is said that “natural right begins from the beginning of the rational creature, nor does it change in time but remains immutable”) - this point I concede.

18. This is not so when speaking as a whole of the all the commandments of the second table of the decalogue, because it is of the idea of what is prescribed or prohibited there that the commandments are not simply necessary practical principles nor simply necessary conclusions. For there is in what is prescribed there no goodness necessary for the goodness of the ultimate end. Nor in what is prohibited there is there any malice necessarily turning away from the ultimate end such that, were the good not prescribed, the ultimate end could not be attained and loved. And if the evil in question were not prohibited, the acquisition of the ultimate end would remain consistent with it.

19. But it is otherwise with the commandments of the first table of the decalogue, for these regard God immediately as object.

20. The two first, indeed, if they are understood merely as negative (namely the first, “thou shalt not have strange gods,” and the second, “thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” that is, you will not be irreverent to God) - these belong to the law of nature in the strict way of taking the law of nature, because it necessarily follows that ‘if God is, he alone must be loved’, and likewise it follows that ‘nothing else is to be worshipped as God, nor should irreverence be shown to God’. Consequently God cannot give dispensation in these commands, so that one might be able to do the opposite of this or that prohibition. For this conclusion see the two authorities [from Augustine] in Richard of Middleton Sent. III d.37 princ. 1 q.5].Augustine Against Faustus 22 ch.27, “Eternal law is divine reason or the will of God bidding one to keep the natural order and forbidding one to disturb it.” 83 Questions q.53 n.2, “From this ineffable and sublime administration of things, which is done through divine providence, a natural law is as it were written in the rational soul.” ⁹

21. The third commandment of the first table, which is about keeping the sabbath, is affirmative as to giving some worship to God at a determinate time. But as to the determination of this or that time, this does not strictly speaking belong to the law of nature. Likewise neither does the other and negative part there included (whereby servile acts are prohibited) strictly belong, as to determinate acts, to the law of nature, excluding them from the worship to be then given to God. For such acts are not prohibited save because they impede the worship prescribed or withdraw one from it.

22. But whether the commandment about keeping the sabbath belongs strictly to the law of nature as to giving God worship at a determinate time, this is doubtful. For if it does not so belong then God could absolutely dispense man from ever having a good movement toward him for the entire time of his life, and this does not appear probable. For without some good willing of the ultimate end one cannot have any simply good willing of things that are for the end. Thus one would never be bound to any good willing simply, because the reason by which it would not follow from the law of nature, strictly speaking, that worship should be given to God at this time now, would be equally a reason for it not to follow either for that time then, and equally a reason for it not to follow for any determinate time. Therefore, strictly speaking, it does not seem how one could conclude that anyone is bound to give worship to God at any particular time; and by equal reason how he is bound to do so at some indistinct time or other. For one is not bound to any act for some indeterminate time which one is not bound to for some time marked out by some occurrent circumstances.

23. But if the commandment about keeping the sabbath does belong strictly to the law of nature, so that the command ‘God is not to be hated’ necessarily follows, or so that, from some other fact, ‘therefore God is to be loved’ necessarily follows (and that he is to be sometimes loved thus by an elicited act directed to him), then the argument ‘from singulars to the universal’ does not hold, but is a figure of speech, as in other cases is the move ‘from many indeterminate causes to some determinate one’.

24. However, if this third commandment does not strictly belong to the law of nature, then one must, to this extent, judge about it as about the commandments of the second table of the decalogue.

25. In another way [n.16] things can be said to belong to the law of nature because they are very consonant with it, though they do not necessarily follow from the practical first principles known from their terms and known necessarily by any intellect.

26. And in this way it is certain that all the commandments, even of the second table, belong to the law of nature, because their rightness is strongly consonant with the practical first principles that are known necessarily.a

a.a [Interpolation] In this way must the decree of Gratian Decrees be understood, p.1 d.6 ch.3, where it is said that “the moral precepts belong to natural right, and therefore show that they admit of no mutability.” Note the gloss that says “the law permits no change as to moral matters but it does as to ceremonial [and sacramental] matters.”

27. This distinction [nn.16, 25] can be made clear by an example. For on the supposition of this principle of positive right ‘one should live peaceably in a community or polity’, it does not necessarily follow therefrom that everyone should have distinctness of property, or possessions distinct from those of another; for peace could abide in a community or in people living together even if everything were common to them. Nor even on the supposition of weakness in those who live together is that consequence necessary. And yet the fact that there are distinct possessions for weak people is very consonant with peaceful living together. For the weak care more about goods proper to themselves than about common goods, and wish that common goods be appropriated to them rather than that they be shared with the community and with the guardians of good community; and so there would be strife and contention among them [sc. without distinct possessions].

28. And perhaps thus it is in the case of all positive rights, that though there be some single principle that is the foundation for laying down all laws or rights, yet positive laws do not follow necessarily from that principle, but rather they make it clear or explain it as to certain particulars, and these explanations are very consonant with the universal first principle.