The Principle of Natural Law by Thomas Aquinas - Essay Example

In the reality of everyday experience, such a statement reflects the truth in man’s thoughts and actions which depict how each human being performs or executes oneself in order to achieve better ends that fulfill one’s general objective of yielding to quality life and character. A man typically behaves in accordance with the nature that leads to the good or what is ideal as convened or sought after by the majority of members of the society. By natural law, this setting enables men to compete with each other exhibiting skills that are subject to desired recognition but the problem emerges when, in an effort to improve, an individual tends to consider deceitful schemes to outwit others and succeed thereafter.  

To Aquinas, anything good is within precepts or dictates of the human intellect over which natural law governs. By knowing what is good for us as humans with the power of will and intellect, we allow nature to direct our capacities to the attainment of such good and Aquinas further claims that our knowledge of the good comes with our knowledge of the opposite so that the natural law automatically guides our path of thinking and action in discord with the bad or evil. Though this principle can possibly arrive at the full realization and in time should make better human beings, still, we ask, why do crimes prevail and humans often end up hurting each other in the process of personal development?

Analyzing based on the grasp of the human intellect, we begin to understand that since there is no way we can fully comprehend God’s design by participating to obtain the perfective object within the realm of divine instructions, we are disposed to compensate by seeking guidance through man-made laws. These laws have correspondingly established norms that are agreed upon by the majority but not by all. So that those who commit misdeeds to the extent of crime in the society are considered the deviants whose weakness at grasping the moral law as a manifestation of the eternal law renders them to depart from the original precepts of good.

Besides crimes or acts of the injustice of one man against the other, society may be observed with people who continue to live dissatisfied or emotionally complicated lives. On the basis of a concrete experience of human trouble, say of the state of depression or feeling empty despite the presence of material wealth and quality of intelligence, we examine what could have gone wrong as natural law facilitates human’s inclination toward the good or ideal accomplishments described within its scope. Then gradually, we discover that the satisfaction or happiness aimed for is subject to what a human being uniquely treats as a concept of perfection and desire; and because humans are distinct from each other in several ways, we may not readily guarantee or acknowledge that a common good end applies to everyone under the same sun.

Hence, if for instance, I were a human being with a broken heart, my highest priority would be to acquire relief from such condition of broken-heartedness and it would bear no relevance for me to strive to achieve perfection in other fields even if this is where the larger part of the ethical society is headed at. As Aquinas proposed, the human mind is limited and most of us are consumed by the worries of the world in the manner cited due to this limitation which prevents men from resolving to eradicate the consequence of weakness made by it.
Moreover, the contemporary society in which we live may be perceived as full of material entities everywhere and this real scenario forms a strong ground that could justify our significant departure from the wisdom of the past where immaterial philosophies were of pure essence.

Nowadays, I suppose that Aquinas’ theory on natural law in relation to eternal law is valid yet only up to a certain degree because the industrial revolution and technological advancements of the modern period have altogether altered man’s old traditional view of good. While for Aquinas the highest object of the highest human power, that is intellect, ought to be a ‘cognitive-affective union’, to us who have quite figured the ultimate goodness of physical pleasures derived via things that immediately appeal to the senses, there seems no hope of understanding how Aquinas’ immaterial good may find a suitable connection to the extremely material good of the present age. No wonder why the notion of ‘common good’ becomes hardly existent in our time because the great barrier that separates man’s discernment of natural law by spiritual or metaphysical doctrine and man’s comprehension of the current reality is filled with practicalities of the need to gain and the need to survive a highly corporeal world.

Eventually, we would critique Aquinas’ proposition of the precepts where he assumes man’s nature as inclined to do good and equivalently predisposed to avoid anything contrary to it. For if this chiefly holds truth in human deeds and thoughts heretofore, we must have long been relieved of the sufferings caused by the lack of freedom, violation of human rights, poverty, social inequality, and crimes in our society at present.