On natural law in Thomas Aquinas

Abstract

The doctrine of natural law in the philosophical and iusphilosophical thin- king of st. thomas aquinas is examined in this article. the author is aware of the difficulty entailed in doing so, given above all the abundance and divergence of interpretations of the aquinas doctrine. the most important of these will be taken into account and the thesis of st. thomas aquinas will be compared, in particular, to those of the nominalist philosophers in an effort to sort out the most appropriate meaning or significance of both doctrines of natural law, based on their similarities and dissimilarities. thus, the endeavor made in this article adds to the various attempts to interpret the classical doctrine of natural law, and chiefly that of st. tho- mas aquinas, as revealed in his writings.