TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background of Study
1.2 Statement of Problems
1.3 Research Objectives
1.4 Research Question
1.5 Research Hypothesis
1.6 Scope of Study
1.7 Significance of study
1.8 Limitation of study
1.9 Definition of terms
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 Literature Review
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 Research methodology
3.1 Research Design
3.2 Population of study
3.3 Sampling Design and Procedure
3.4 Data Collection Instrument
3.5 Administration of Data Collection Instrument
3.6 Methods of data analysis
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 Data Presentation and Analysis
4.1 Data Presentation
4.2 Test of Hypothesis
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 Summary, Conclusion and Recommendation
5.1 Summary
5.2 Conclusion
5.3 Recommendation
References
Questionnaire
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
The concept of natural law occupies a central position in the moral theory of Thomas Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas’ treatise on natural law is contained in the first part of the second part of his Summa Theologica where he treated Law. To be precise, he dedicated question ninety-four of the said book to it (the natural law). The Ethics of Thomas Aquinas closely followed the eudamonological ethics of Aristotle; Aquinas built upon Aristotle’s theory. Just like Aristotle, Thomas sees morality as a quest for happiness. He argued that happiness is closely connected with a person’s end or purpose. He further maintained that human nature has both its source and ultimate end in God. For Thomas, God who created man provides him with the means of arriving at his end. This means, through which man arrives at his end, is what Thomas calls Natural Law.
For Thomas Aquinas, natural law is that law which the ultimate efficient cause (GOD) infused in man commanding him to do good and avoid evil in order that he (man) may attain his end. Natural law appeals to reason that naturally has the capacity of discovering it. Natural law, Thomas maintains, is based on the rationality of human nature. Thomas holds that the natural law has such properties as: knowability, universality, immutability, indelibility and indispensability.
However, in spite of these properties of the natural law, it still lacks coercion, i.e., the physical force of law. As a result it is not always obeyed by all. To this effect, natural law needs to be supplemented by human positive law. This is due to the differences inherent in human nature. Consequently, human positive law is needed to ensure an ordered society. Human law lucidly defines and coercively guides social interactions among men. Hence, it greatly contributes to the achievement of common good.
It is an indubitable fact that every law should seek to protect the common good of the people. It is also a well-established truth that morality has to do with the good of the people. Consequently, law and morality are always seen as two sides of a coin. Unfortunately, certain human laws are not based on moral standards. That is to say that there are some human laws that do not consider the common good. For instance, certain governments enact tyrannical laws. Some others enact laws that are immoral. In this kind of situation, the purpose of law, which is to ensure common good and happiness, is not realized.
It is in the light of the above that this excursus will examine the nature and properties of Aquinas Natural Law as well as the nature of human positive law. This will lead us into seeing the natural law as the standard with which human positive law is measured. This is because, as has been mentioned earlier that there are some human positive laws that deviate from the principles of the natural law at the expense of morality. In presenting the natural law as the standard for human positive law, I shall discuss such issues as just and unjust human positive laws, the justification of civil disobedience, distinction between morality and legality of law. This is to know to what extent the natural law in Aquinas is the standard of all human positive laws.
1.1 A Brief Profile of Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas was born in the castle of Roccasecca near Naples at the end of 1224 or the beginning of 1225, his father being the count of Aquino. When he was five, he was placed by his parents in the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino as an oblate. He stayed in the monastery from 1230 to 1239 when the Emperor Frederick II expelled the monks. Thomas returned to his family and stayed for some months and later went to the University of Naples in the autumn of the same year. Later Thomas was attracted to the life of Dominican friars that made him enter the Order in the course of 1244. His joining the Dominican friar was not acceptable to his family, instead they wished him to enter the abbey of Monte Cassino, as a step to ecclesiastical preferment, and it may be as a result of this family opposition that the Dominican General decided to take Thomas with him to Bologna, where he himself was going for a General Chapter from where he would send him to the University of Paris. Thomas was however kidnapped by his brothers and was put in prison at Aquino for about a year. Due to his determination to remain steadfast to his Order he later made his way to Paris in the autumn of 1245.
Thomas was probably at Paris from 1245 until the summer of 1248, when he accompanied St Albert the Great to Cologne, where the later was to find a house of studies (Studium generale) for the Dominican Order, remaining there until 1252. In 1252 Thomas returned from Cologne to Paris and went on with his studies, lecturing in Scriptures as Baccalaureus Biblicus (1252-4) and in Sentences of Peter Lombard as Baccalaurus Sententiarius (1254-6), at the conclusion of which he received his Licentiate, the license or permission to teach in the faculty of theology.