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four tiers of law and precepts (natural law) - Coggle Diagram
four tiers of law and precepts (natural law)
four tiers of law
1. eternal law
the principles by which God made and controls the universe and which are only fully known
4. human law
the laws of nations
human law is the lowest tier of law and can be broken if higher forms of law conflict with it
2. divine law
the law of God revealed in the Bible, particularly in the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount
3. natural law
the moral law of God within human nature that is discoverable through the use of reason
God uses natural law to make eternal law accessible to people - NL is universal
precepts
key precepts
do good and avoid evil
five primary precep
ts
preservation of life
ordering society
worship of God
education of children
reproduction
secondary precepts
smaller, relativist actions that we can do to achieve the primary precepts
faced with a moral choice, they must use reasoning to work out whether or not their action will uphold the primary precept
prudence
Aquinas
we do not know by a kind of intuition what we should do
intrinsic to human nature is that we are rational creatures, capable of directing our behaviour through a process of thinking
general precepts of natural law are invariable but their application is not
necessary process of reasoning to be gone through in particular cases - cannot be resolved by gut feeling
use of reason does not end at the formulation of the general precepts
we need to go much further, looking at each application of those presets in a rational way
the need to be rational matters in each situation
natural law has to be understood situationally