THE REST OF THE TREATISE: THOMAS AQUINAS ON THE BIBLE AND LAW
Abstract
Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Law is enjoying a resurgence of interest among legal scholars. It is excerpted in leading legal philosophy texts, assigned in jurisprudence courses, and even cited in law journal articles and legal monographs on a wide range of subjects. Although the Treatise consists of nineteen chapters (“questions”), the average student of legal philosophy is likely to have been exposed only to portions of the first eight and little, if any, of the last eleven.
The Treatise is not a short work, and most of the editorial decisions are both practically necessary and pedagogically understandable. Nevertheless, omitting the “rest” of the Treatise has had some unfortunate consequences. The omitted questions include the bulk of Thomas’s account of the relationship of theological revelation to human law, a subject of increasing importance to contemporary debates about religion and politics. The omissions tend to reinforce the impression that Thomas’s natural law system can be hived off from his religious and cultural context. To be sure, Thomas does claim that there are moral truths that all human beings must know merely by virtue of being human, but the deeper one goes into the Treatise, the clearer it becomes that this Thomas’s treatment of natural law is part of a complex and theologically-informed understanding of nature, reason, revelation and the unfolding story of God’s action in the world.
This article expounds and analyzes the role of theology (and especially the Bible) in Thomas’s account of legislation and judging, arguing that Thomas’s account of Scripture’s role leaves relatively little room for the Bible to influence human law directly. After explaining some key theological presuppositions that underpin Thomas’s account of law generally, the article shows how Thomas divides the laws found in the Bible into several overlapping categories, only one of which (the “moral law” found in the Old Testament) has any direct continuing relevance for the Thomistic jurist. Even here, the Bible serves mostly to confirm the moral truths that human beings (at least the “wise” ones) already know.
Nevertheless, it would be an overstatement to conclude that the Bible is completely irrelevant to the Thomistic jurist. The Treatise is part of a much larger work that provides an account of nature, the human person and ethics that is conditioned by Scripture, theology and other elements of the medieval synthesis. While these theological starting points will rarely make much difference in legal details, they do lead Thomas (and presumably his followers) to a vision of law that is famously at odds with many modern accounts.