On Martin Luther King and St. Thomas Aquinas Eternal Law
Repost from May 2nd, 1996
In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. responded to the public criticizing statement of a group of white clergymen in a Bermingham City Jail. In response to the blame on his and his followers’ breaking some laws, Dr. King cited St.Thomas Aquinas’ theory of eternal law, natural law, and human law.
As a member of the Catholic Church, Aquinas developed his theory from his belief: god created the universe and was omnificent, omnipotent, and omniscient. Aquinas thought that before god started to create anything, god had a model of the universe; then, he create the universe according to the model in his mind. However, the universe appears not exactly like his ideal model. The difference between god’s model and the real world is intolerable, because god is omniscient and only what he likes is right. Thus, everything has to work toward god’s ideal, and god’s ideal is the end of universe. God’s ideal is the rule for everything in the universe; it is the eternal law (Page 34, On Law, Morality, and Politics, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1988, Hackett Publishing Company. Other page numbers in this essay are also from this book except otherwise indicated). It is law, because it is a rule and measure: it is rule, because it is made by the ruler, god, and known to us more or less by its reflection, natural law (Page 36); it is measure, because it itself is the measure of things and ordains each single thing to the common good (Page 34, 35).
In Aquinas’s theory, natural law is the reflection of eternal law. Aquinas described two ways in which a thing may be known: in itself and in its effect. Aquinas wrote, “No one can know the eternal law as it is in itself except God and the blessed who see Him in His essence” (Page 36). Therefore, we have to know it through its effect, the natural law. Natural law applies to everything. For example, the distinct of animal is a kind of the natural law. The way human find the natural law is through his faculty of reasoning given by the god. Human should use his faculty of reason to perceive natural law’s self-evident principles, which are true by their very definition, and derive his own law from those principles.
How human perceives and derives his law from the self-evident principles is the key to human law, because at this point, god has finished his responsibility — He had set up the eternal law, implemented the natural law, and given us the tool to find them and use them — it is our responsibility to use the tool to understand and apply those principles. Since our perfect god did not create us perfectly, we cannot perceive and derive the natural law perfectly and consistently. First, we do not discover the principles consistently, for “some propositions are self-evident only to the wise who understand the meaning of the terms of such propositions” (Page 47). Second, we do not always explain the principles in the same way, for there are two ways to derive human law from the general principles: “by way of conclusion” and “by way of determination” (Page 59). By way of conclusion, people’s choice is more easily limited to one (if they all understand the meaning of the terms of self-evident principles); but by way of determination, people more often gets different idea. For example, it is very hard to say which way to punish one certain kind of evildoer (e.g., theft) is most correct (Page 59).
No matter how diverse human law can be derived, one thing we have to observe is that “All the inclinations of any parts whatsoever of human nature… are reduced to one first precept” (Page 48). This precept is that “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided” (Page 47). Therefore, all the laws are ordained to the good, at least what the law makers think of the good. Here, Aquinas also quoted Aristotle’s theory that the common good is the end of all. Aristotle concluded that the common good is prior to individual good, because if an individual is separated from the community, he can no longer exist; an individual is not self-sufficient; being in a community is by nature part of being a human being; and no individual language exist. Thus, that all the laws are ordained to the good should be revised to that all the laws are ordained to the common good. This statement about common good appears in Aquinas’ book repeatedly, because it is one element Aquinas set up for law’s definition: measure. Since “the divine intellect is the measure of things” (Page 35), god’s eternal law is itself the ordinance of reason for the common good, so the human laws ordained to common good are consonant with the eternal law and natural law. “All laws, insofar as they partake of right reason, are derived from the eternal law” (Page 37); the human laws that are not ordained to the common good deviate from reason, are called unjust law, and have the nature of violence, not of law (Page 38). The unjust law “is no longer a law but a perversion of law” (Page 59) and “do not bind in conscience, except perhaps in order to avoid scandal or disturbance” (Page 71).
Thus, in order to approve Dr. King’s disobeying segregation ordinances, we have to first examine the justice of segregation ordinances: are segregation ordinances ordained to the common good? From its definition, segregation ordinances separated Black people, often with force, from the general body of society. Segregation’s very definition conflicts with common good: no part can have its proper quality when it is isolated from the whole (Page 4, The Politics, Aristotle, Cambridge University Press). Furthermore, the African Americans are treated not only separated, but also inferiorly to the main body of society: they had to sit at the back of bus; their schools’ condition was bad; they were not allowed to enter the entertainment place; etc.. The segregation ordinances did not direct African Americans’ life to the good. “Whatever the good of a part can be directed to the good of the whole” (Page 152). Therefore, African Americans’ life should be directed to the good, and the segregation ordinances should be ignored.
Now, it is very clear that the segregation ordinances were not “ordinances of reason for the common good,” but should we break such an unjust law? Although the segregation ordinances were not the “measure”, but they were still rules, for they were established by those who had the care of the community. Aquinas stated, “Nevertheless, even an unjust law insofar as it retains some appearance of law through being framed by one who is in power, is derived from the eternal law, since all power is from the Lord God….” Aquinas was really afraid that the disobeying of an unjust law could encourage the disobeying of holy god’s law, the eternal law. As stated above, unjust laws “do not bind in conscience,” but “except in order to avoid scandal or disturbance.” It is very hard to assert that Dr. King did not cause any social disturbance: even if Dr. King did not break the segregation law, the disturbance existed, because the segregation law was so unjust that if “a thing is, of itself, contrary to natural right, the human will cannot make it just” (Page 139). Under this circumstance, the laws that are unjust through being opposed to the divine good (the common good) “must nowise be observed because… ‘we ought to obey God rather than men’” (Page 71).
Now, it is clear that obeying a law (or rather a rule) that contradict the divine good is itself encouraging the disobeying of holy god’s law, the eternal law. Thus, Dr. King should urge people to “disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.”
