Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1991
Publication Information
82 Soc. Just. Rev.39 (1991)
Abstract
The Church's claim to define the applications of the natural law can be understood only in the context of God's plan of creation. God created us, in the words of the Baltimore Catechism, "to know, love and serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next." The world is not a product of chance. Rather it was created by a loving God whose existence and attributes we can demonstrate and who has ordered his creation in accord with his design. God, the Creator, has a plan for the world. A "universal rational orderliness" is "characteristic of the whole universe." The "whole community of the universe is governed by Divine Reason. Wherefore the very idea of the government of things in God the Rule of the universe, has then the nature of a law." This law, "the Divine Reason's conception of things," is called by St. Thomas the eternal law.
Recommended Citation
Charles E. Rice,
The Pope as Interpreter of Natural Law,
82 Soc. Just. Rev.39 (1991).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/1732
Comments
Abstract taken from introduction.