Teleology and the Natural Law – Part II: Inclination, Intention, and Teleology as Law

The very first article of Aquinas’s consideration of the unchanging principles of human action in the Summa theologiae raises the question: “Whether law is something pertaining to reason?”¹ This question invokes a principle of vital significance for his subsequent legal discussions in general and for his natural law inquiries in particular. Aquinas begins his response by observing that the imperative nature of “law” necessitates its grounding in reason.² “Law is a rule and measure of acts, whereby man is induced to act or restrained from acting.” The necessary rational form of all law arises from the radical priority of the end as the first principle of all action: “every agent, of necessity, acts for an end.”³ The nature of law—ruling and measuring human acts—is rational because human acts are ordered to an end, and “it belongs to reason to direct to the end.”⁴ There is no agent or action without an end. Additionally, (practical) reason orders to an end.⁵ As an “end-less” being and an “end-less” action are per se unintelligible, so an authentically “end-less” order is per se unintelligible—true order is always ordered to something (the end). The end gives rise to and specifies authentic order. It belongs to reason to grasp or impart this order. Therefore, the ratio of law (as a principle of order) pertains to reason.

Aquinas explains that the ruling, measuring, and therefore ordering nature of law can exist in something in two ways.⁶ First, the principle of ruling and measuring can be found in the measurer or ruler (sicut in mensurante et regulante). Considered under this aspect, “law is in reason alone.” However, there is a second aspect of law: the principle of ruling and measuring can also reside in the recipient of the law, in that which is ruled and measured (sicut in regulato et mensurato). Here, Aquinas explains that this reception of ordering principles establishes inclination as law: “law is in all those things that are inclined [inclinatur] to something by reason of some law.”⁷ The law of inclination is thus a passive constitution in teleological order. Hence, while the law of inclination may be pre-cognitive and pre-deliberative vis-à-vis the passive subject (as in the case of natural beings), it is not non-cognitive simpliciter. If the law of inclination is truly inclinative—and therefore, reflects order to an end—then intelligence is present at least in the extrinsic source of the passively constituted teleological order of any real being. The law of inclination receives its (even purely natural) normativity from a teleological order that presupposes reason. All beings are inclined to—and (at least physically) intend—an end. Not all beings possess reason. However, the presence of true inclination presupposes and requires intelligence and cognition. Thus, technically speaking, the law of inclination is truly legal by way of analogy. Aquinas concludes: “any inclination [inclinatio] arising from a law may be called law, not essentially, but by participation as it were.”⁸ In his article examining the cause of law, Aquinas reemphasizes the participative nature of law in the recipient of the order imposed: “A law is in a person not only as in one that rules, but also by participation as in one that is ruled. In the latter way each one is a law to himself, in so far as he shares the direction that he receives from the one who rules him.”⁹ Again, this resonates with Weisheipl’s observation that while “end” or “aim” and “intentionality” “are primarily used in the context of human activity, the analogical use of these terms with regard to inanimate movement” is speculatively justified.¹⁰ Although Aquinas is formally speaking about the inclination of law pertaining to humans in STh I-II, q. 90, a. 1, ad 1, his reference to the intellectual foundations of real inclination is legitimately applicable to all instances of inclination (even to the inclination of non-cognitive natural beings). Intelligence is the foundation for all inclination—even if the intelligence is only the “Supreme Intelligence.”

After his preliminary analysis of inclination under the ratio of law, Aquinas offers a summary of the different kinds of laws. The first and foundational type of law he describes is the eternal law.¹¹ Aquinas maintains the critical importance and foundational relevance of the eternal law to all further speculative inquiries.¹² The eternal law is the common denominator of all theological considerations of created being. The reason for this is simple: the eternal law is itself the ontological “dictate” (dictamen) flowing from God’s divine knowledge and providence.¹³ All things are subject to his providence.¹⁴ Providence is nothing other than the “reason of order” (ratio ordinis); and the execution of reasoned order is government (gubernatio). The former is eternal, the latter temporal.¹⁵ Thus, the eternal law is God’s reason, his divine knowledge: his “eternal idea” of reality.¹⁶ Put otherwise, the eternal law is nothing less than how God knows the world to be.¹⁷ Aquinas explains: “just as in every artificer there pre-exists a type [ratio] of the things that are made by his art, so too in every governor there must pre-exist the type [ratio] of the order of those things that are to be done by those who are subject to his government.”¹⁸ This rational type preexisting in the one who governs “bears the character of law [rationem legis obtinet].”¹⁹ God as creator stands in relation to the things he creates “as the artificer to the products of his art.”²⁰ Moreover, God “governs all the acts and movements that are to be found in each single creature.”²¹ Thus, the ratio of the divine wisdom (ratio divine sapientiae) has a two-fold nature: “inasmuch as by it all things are created, [the ratio] has the character of art, exemplar, or idea… so as moving all things to their due ends, [the ratio] bears the character of law.” Aquinas therefore concludes: “the eternal law is nothing else than the type of divine wisdom, as directing all actions and movements.”²²

The providential, governmental order that flows from the eternal wisdom of God is deeply integrated into the very nature of contingent being. “God imprints [imprimit] on the whole of nature the principles of its proper actions. And so, in this way, God is said to command the whole of nature.”²³ Contingent being and the order proper to it are, by nature, created. This universal impress of the ratio of divine wisdom on all being (in appropriate proportion) is how the eternal law is duly promulgated: “the impression of an inward active principle is to natural things, what the promulgation of law is to men.”²⁴ Moreover creation and its contingent order are concurrent realities. Every creature, rational and not, is subject to the teleological order imprinted by the divine wisdom. “Irrational creatures are subject to the eternal law, through being moved by divine providence; but not, as rational creatures are, through understanding the divine commandment.”²⁵ The eternal law thus affords the theologian the ratio explaining why a created, contingent being is what it is and is not what it is not; and, concurrently, its due (and, derivatively, its undue) order. The eternal law assures the theologian that all (and every) created being is the recipient of a natural, intrinsic order that flows from the divine knowledge of contingent being.²⁶ In short: a being is as God knows it to be, and, subsequently, it is ordered to the end to which he knows it to be ordered. “The law denotes a kind of plan [ratio] directing acts towards an end.”²⁷ The ordering ratio of law is per se teleological. Additionally, while one can recognize by reason alone this teleological law of inclination proper to natural beings, it assumes deeper meaning when considered under the light of faith. The law of inclination becomes more pellucid the more one becomes aware of its per se relation to the “Supreme Intelligence, Measurer, and Ruler” that constitutes the teleological order. The consideration of the law of inclination moves from a formally philosophical analysis into that of a formally theological analysis when the law of inclination is considered vis-à-vis a divinely revealed Law Giver. Aquinas considers the eternal and the natural law under this properly theological aspect in the Summa theologiae.²⁸

Aquinas’s understanding of the eternal law informs his teaching on the natural law. Because of their shared foundation in the law of inclination, there is profound harmony between the eternal law and the natural law.²⁹ In fact, Aquinas himself concedes (slightly) to those who object that there is no need for the natural law because “man is sufficiently governed” by the eternal law.³⁰ He admits that the governance of the eternal law is indeed sufficient in and of itself. However, Aquinas reminds his interlocutor that the natural law is nothing other than a rational participation in this same eternal law, because “the first direction of our acts to their end [by way of reason and will] must needs be in virtue of the natural law.”³¹ He offers the following explanation:

Hence, since all things which are subject to divine providence are ruled and measured by the eternal law… it is manifest that all things participate in some way [aliqualiter] in the eternal law insofar, namely, as they have from its impression inclinations to proper acts and ends [ex impressione eius habent inclinationes in proprios actus et fines]. Among the other creatures, however, the rational creature is subject to divine providence in a more excellent mode, insofar as he becomes a participant in providence, providing for himself and for others. Wherefore he also participates in the eternal reason [ratio aeterna] itself, through which he has a natural inclination to his due act and end [per quam habet naturalem inclinationem ad debitum actum et finem]. And such a participation of the eternal law in a rational creature is called the natural law.³²

This passage from the Summa theologiae is speculatively rich and entails many implications on the level of nature as well as on the level of grace. All creatures have received the law of inclination through the impress of the ratio of God’s wisdom. In this way, all creatures participate in the very ratio of God. However, non-rational and rational creatures have received this impress in a way proper to their natures. In human creatures, the impressio of the divine eternal law results in the rationally informed inclinations proper to the human person. This rationally qualified participation in the divine reason is the specific difference between the eternal and the natural law (and between the participation of natural beings and rational beings in the teleological law of inclination). Aquinas accentuates this point in his response to a later objection when he states that “even irrational animals participate in the eternal reason according to their own mode, just as the rational creature.” However, “the rational creature participates in it intellectually and rationally,” and thus “the participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is properly called a law.”³³

The order proper to law in both its passive and active aspects is most fully reflected in those who, themselves, can grasp the principle of order. While all beings passively participate in the teleological law of inclination, only rational beings can formally participate in this law as law. This is clearly the case because only rational creatures can receive the ratio of the divine wisdom in a properly rational manner and under a rational aspect. The human creature’s unique participation in the eternal law is rational because the human creature can formally (albeit, partially) comprehend the ratio of the divine wisdom. Intelligence—and its power to discern and impart order to an end—is the prerequisite of law. While natural beings only participate in the ordering intelligence passively through physical inclination, rational beings are able to participate in this ordering intelligence both passively (the universal law of inclination) and actively (through intellect and will). (Of course, this claim does not exclude non-rational animals nor their higher—though still non-rational—participation in the eternal law.) “To the natural law belongs those things to which a man is inclined naturally: and among these it is proper to man to be inclined to act according to reason.”³⁴

Essential to Aquinas’s theology in general—and to his natural law doctrine in particular—is the fact that the active participation of rational creatures in the eternal law presupposes and is built upon the creature’s passive participation in the eternal law. It is only because of a creature’s constitutional reception of the teleological order of God’s eternal ratio (aeterna ratio) that it is able to participate rationally in this same ordering. As we observed earlier: the end is a prerequisite for teleological cognition and deliberation, philosophical or theological. However, the teleological cognition and deliberation of the rational creature are emphatically not a prerequisite for the actual existence of authentic teleological order. The law of inclination to an end is first, simpliciter et universaliter. All creatures—natural and rational—participate in the eternal law’s inclinative ordering. This is an essential point within Aquinas’s theological doctrine regarding the natural law: teleology—whether it be considered under philosophical or theological aspects—does not per se follow the recipient’s subjective cognition and deliberation. Indeed, the rational creature’s participation (as rational) in the eternal law requires the pre-cognitional and pre-deliberative establishment of the teleological law of inclination.³⁵ By definition, all beings possess a nature per se ordered to an end. There are no end-less beings, rational or otherwise.

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1. STh I-II q. 90, a. 1.↩︎

2. See STh I-II q. 90, a. 1, sed contra.↩︎

3. STh I-II q. 1, a. 2.↩︎

4. STh I-II, q. 90, a. 1.↩︎

5. “Rationis enim est ordinare ad finem” (STh I-II q. 90, a. 1). See STh I-II q. 91, a. 1: “a law is nothing else but a dictate of practical reason emanating from the ruler who governs a perfect community” (emphasis added).↩︎

6. STh I-II q. 90, a. 1, ad 1.↩︎

7. Ibid.↩︎

8. “Et sic lex est in omnibus quae inclinantur in aliquid ex aliqua lege, ita quod quaelibet inclinatio proveniens ex aliqua lege, potest dici lex, non essentialiter, sed quasi participative” (ibid.).↩︎

9. STh I-II, q. 90, a. 3, ad 1. This participative aspect of the legal order of God is explicitly connected to the eternal law: “every knowledge of truth is a kind of reflection and participation of the eternal law, which is the unchangeable truth” (STh I-II, q. 93, a. 2).↩︎

10. Weisheipl, Nature and Motion, 22 fn. 95.↩︎

11. STh I-II q. 91, a. 1; STh I-II q. 93.↩︎

12. See STh I-II q. 93, a. 2.↩︎

13. See STh q. 91, a. 3, ad 1. For another interpretation of the eternal law in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, see John Rziha, Perfecting Human Actions: St. Thomas Aquinas on Human Participation in Eternal Law (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2009).↩︎

14. See STh I, q. 22, a. 2.↩︎

15. STh I, q. 22, a. 1, ad 2.↩︎

16. See STh I-II q. 91, a. 1.↩︎

17. Romanus Cessario, O.P., expresses it thus: “Eternal law represents how God knows the world to be, how he effectively conceives the ordering of everything that exists within creation” (Introduction to Moral Theology, 57-60). See also: Brown, Natural Rectitude and Divine Law in Aquinas, 1-12.↩︎

18. STh, I-II, q. 93, a. 1.↩︎

19. Ibid.↩︎

20. Ibid. See STh I, q. 14, a. 8.↩︎

21. Ibid. See STh I, q. 103, a. 5.↩︎

22. Ibid.↩︎

23. STh I-II, q. 93, a. 5.↩︎

24. STh I-II, q. 90, a. 5.↩︎

25. Ibid. Emphasis added.↩︎

26. Aquinas also offers a significant account of how the ratio of the divine wisdom is different from the ratio of human knowledge of created being: “The types [ratio] of the divine intellect do not stand in the same relation to things, as the types of the human intellect. For the human intellect is measured by things, so that a human concept is not true by reason of itself, but by reason of its being consonant with things, since ‘an opinion is true or false according as it answers to the reality.’ But the divine intellect is the measure of things: since each thing has so far truth in it, as it represents the divine intellect, as was stated in the STh I, q. 16, a. 1. Consequently the divine intellect is true in itself; and its type is truth itself” (STh, I-II, q. 93, a. 1, ad 3). While the ratio of the divine intellect stands as active principle towards the things created—as measuring principle—the ratio of the human intellect stands as passive principle towards the essences God creates. The ratio of the human intellect is formally measured by the ratio of the human intellect.↩︎

27. STh I-II, q. 93, a. 3.↩︎

28. See Cessario, “Why Aquinas Locates the Natural Law within the Sacra Doctrina,” 79-93; Fulvio Di Blasi, God and the Natural Law: A Rereading of Thomas Aquinas, trans. by David Thunder (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2006).↩︎

29. Matthew Levering states the point this way: “[The natural law is] not a rationalistic rulebook, but the eternal law imprinted in the spiritual-bodily human person, who participates rationally in God’s teleological ordering of the human beings to their fulfillment” (Biblical Natural Law: A Theocentric and Teleological Approach [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008], 21).↩︎

30. STh I-II q. 91, a. 2, obj. 1.↩︎

31. STh I-II q. 91, a. 2, ad 2.↩︎

32. “Unde cum omnia quae divinae providentiae subduntur, a lege aeterna regulentur et mensurentur, ut ex dictis patet; manifestum est quod omnia participant aliqualiter legem aeternam, inquantum scilicet ex impressione eius habent inclinationes in proprios actus et fines. Inter cetera autem rationalis creatura excellentiori quodam modo divinae providentiae subiacet, inquantum et ipsa fit providentiae particeps, sibi ipsi et aliis providens. Unde et in ipsa participatur ratio aeterna, per quam habet naturalem inclinationem ad debitum actum et finem. Et talis participatio legis aeternae in rationali creatura lex naturalis dicitur” (STh I-II q. 91, a. 2).↩︎

33. “Ad tertium dicendum quod etiam animalia irrationalia participant rationem aeternam suo modo, sicut et rationalis creatura. Sed quia rationalis creatura participat eam intellectualiter et rationaliter, ideo participatio legis aeternae in creatura rationali proprie lex vocatur ” (STh I-II q. 91, a. 2, ad 3).↩︎

34. STh I-II q. 94, a. 4.↩︎

35. Steven A. Long summarizes this point with helpful precision: “The creature’s passive participation in the eternal law is the precondition for the active, rational, and preceptive participation that is the natural law, as well as the condition for the specific obediential potency for grace” (“Speculative Foundations of Moral Theology and the Causality of Grace,” Studies in Christian Ethics 23, no. 4 [2010]: 397-414 at 413).↩︎