Research On The Theory Of Natural Law In Summa Theologica Of Thomas Aquinas

At recent more and more people start to care about the medieval philosophy. Inthat ‘dark’ time there are plenty of great work and lots of outstanding philosophers andtheologians. Theologians who belong to Christianity took responsibility of developmentof philosophy. Among them St Thomas Aquinas is the most famous one who is asimportant in theology as in philosophy. He used to study Ancient Greece Philosophyand Ancient Rome Law very deeply. His theory of natural law plays a very influentialrole in the history of natural law. But very few studies about Aquinas and his work hasbeen found in Chinese until now. We can just find only one complete translation workof Summa Theologica from Taiwan. Theory of natural law from Thomas Aquinasderives from Aristotle of Ancient Greece and Cicero of Ancient Rome. We can findAquinas’s study on natural law in Summa Theologica where he talk about eternal law,natural law and human law. He not only prescribed the theory of natural law with Godbut also prove it with human nature which is pretty meaningful to ones later, such asGrotius and Locke. As the period of enlightenment thought, theory of natural law wasvery popular. Because the philosophers at that time found that natural law is a verygood topic to emphasize the importance of human nature. Aquinas underlined thecapability of human being and tried to clarify that natural law is meaningful because ofreason and nature of human. At present theory of natural law from Thomas Aquinas isalso the topic of debate between Thomists and their opponents. Whatever supporters oropponents, they all fill the theory of natural law with fresh energy in this ancient andmeaningful theory.