The Natural Law of Thomas Aquinas as the Principle of Practical Reason and Second Scholastic

Abstract

The theory of natural law suffers a transformation in Second Scholasticism (16th-17th centuries), which can be understood as an answer to an experience of crisis. In this case, it is not only a comparison between Christian worldview and Aristotelian ethics that stays at issue, but also the relationship between that synthesis and the traditions of those peoples recently discovered. This situation reinforces the debate on a binding moral basis to be found in nature itself and with universal validity. In order to have an orientation about these issues the authors of the 16th and 17th centuries turned very much to Aquinas. But Scotus’s account of natural law plays also a significant role in this context. His theory of natural law, with a particular emphasis on the role of divine will and authority to make manifest the (as such rational) content of natural law lato sensu and also an emphasis on the concept of “consonance”, must be highlighted in order to understand the new aspects of the theory of natural law in Second Scholasticism.