Understanding the Context of the “Natural Inclinations” and the Natural Law: Thomas Aquinas’s Use of Cicero’s De officiis in Summa theologiae I-II, Q. 94, A. 2

Abstract: The thesis of this article is that, in his famous discussion of the natural law in ST I-II, q. 94, a. 2, Thomas borrowed the three “inclinations” he mentions there from Cicero’s De officiis 1.4.11-13. I argue that Thomas uses them as a structuring device to catalogue and distinguish different levels or kinds of natural law. This is his version of the lists of the different kinds or levels of ius naturale that were ubiquitous in the works of the canon lawyers in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Reading Thomas’s text in the context of Cicero’s discussion in book 1 of De officiis and in the context of the discussions of ius naturale among the decretists of the twelfth century and theologians of the thirteenth helps us to understand his concern to establish the proper sense of “nature” appropriate to any proper understanding of human natural law. It also helps us understand why it is wrong to try to turn the natural law into a separate moral system apart from consideration of grace, the cardinal and theological virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.