Natural Law and Friendship with God

NEAR THE BEGINNING of book VII of the Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle says that the function (ergon) of the political art (politikēs) is the making of friendship (poiēsai philian).¹ Near the start of book VIII of the Nicomachean Ethics, he says, "It seems too that friendship holds cities together and that lawgivers (nomothetai) are more serious about it than about justice. For oneness of mind (homonoia) seems to resemble friendship, and lawgivers aim at this especially."² The legislator possessed of the political art and prudence to legislate well for the common good has the natural end, as legislator, of forming friendships amongst his citizens by ordering the polity in such a way as to make it fertile soil for the growth of oneness of mind and life characteristic of friends.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, devoted student of Aristotle that he was, argues that "every law aims [tendit] at establishing the friendship either of men with one another or of man with God."³ Aquinas articulates the end (finis) of law in various ways: the common good, communal happiness, virtue, and, as we have just seen, friendship.⁴ These various descriptions of the end of law add nuance to his treatment of law, and they are not unrelated to each other. I wish to suggest that friendship has a kind of governing role over the other descriptions of the end of law. The common good of a polity, its communal happiness in the life of virtue, is founded upon and culminates in the various forms of familial, utilitarian, civic, and virtuous friendships that excellent law makes possible and encourages.

Near the beginning of book I of De libero arbitrio, St. Augustine (through Evodius) distinguishes between the temporal, man-made law of a given polity and the eternal law upon which it is based.⁵ Aquinas, devoted student of St. Augustine that he was, clearly distinguishes human and divine law, and he correlates friendship amongst men with human law and friendship between man and God with divine law. "For just as the main intention [intentio principalis] of human law is to establish friendship of men with one another, so too the intention of divine law is mainly to establish man's friendship with God."⁶ Human law aims at the constitution of human friendship, and divine law aims at the constitution of friendship between human beings and God.

With this framework in place, we raise the question that we wish to discuss in this paper: In light of what has been said about human law and divine law, what can be said about the natural law? Does the natural law aim at friendship amongst men themselves or friendship between men and God?⁷ Developing an adequate answer to this question will require us to raise and respond to related philosophical questions and, in the final section of this paper, to go beyond philosophical thinking by reflecting theologically on human friendship with God in light of God's revelation.⁸

I. Natural Law as Divine Law

The first step in answering our question is to determine whether the natural law is a human law or a divine law. To this end, it is important to recall Aristotle's distinction between immanent and transitive actions and to see that legislating is a transitive action. Immanent actions, such as seeing and thinking, remain "within" the agent, while transitive actions, such as building and cutting, "stretch out" from the agent and terminate in something external to him. The activity of legislating originates with the active thinking and directing decisions of the legislator and terminates in the shaped thinking and directed actions of the citizens subject to him. As Aquinas says, law can exist in two ways: "In one way, as in the measurer and ruler. And since this is proper to reason, law in this sense is in reason alone. In another way, as in the ruled and measured. And this is how law exists in all the things that are inclined in any way by any kind of law."⁹ Although it...