Institutes of Divine Jurisprudence, with Selections from Foundations of the Law of Nature and Nations. Christian Thomasius

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СКАЧАТЬ be clear from the division of divine law.

      §3. It is generally taught that divine law is moral or ceremonial or forensic. We have said elsewhere why we are dissatisfied with this division.¹⁷

      §4. We say that divine law is either natural or positive. The others say so, too, but in doing so they mean something different.

      §5. The paramount question here is, in what respects are these two kinds of divine law similar and in what are they different? The following points will elucidate our opinion.

      §6. (1) Divine positive law agrees with natural in that God is the author of each of the two, or, if we want to be more precise and speak of God in human terms, the divine will is its author.

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      §7. We do not accept the argument that natural law took its origin from the sanctity of God antecedently to his will while positive law did not. For everything that is in God exists there simultaneously.

      §8. Man is not permitted to form a conception of God since such a conception involves imperfection.

      §9. Thus we cannot speculate about God, mainly because of our imperfection, and it is therefore impossible to consider our ideas of God to be true or to acknowledge them as a foundation on which conclusions in a factual discipline, such as jurisprudence, should rest.

      §10. (2) Natural law and divine positive law converge with respect to the condition of man to which they apply. For each binds man in the state of innocence and after the fall.

      §11. For the first division of the state of humans is that between man in the state of innocence and man after original sin. It will not be fruitless to examine each of the two a little more carefully because the usefulness of this meditation will soon become apparent.

      §12. We will begin, however, with the state of innocence since it is prior in terms of chronological order and more excellent, if we are allowed to do so. For we need to beware of meddling in theology. We explain jurisprudence as a faculty [habitus] that is to be acquired by our natural powers, as we have said above. Whatever we know about the state of innocence, however, we know from Sacred Scripture.

      §13. Therefore, we either have to stop here or we must see how we can extricate ourselves from this difficulty. What if we said that this state of perfection was known to pagans, too? Indeed, there are countless testimonies of Greek and Latin philosophers and poets to this effect.

      §14. Yet I fear that this will not be enough. Pagans knew of the state of innocence but only had a very confused notion of it. They knew about

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      it, not from the dictate of reason, however, but from their contacts with the Jews.

      §15. Therefore, we need to try another approach. Perhaps we Christians are privileged over the pagans. They were not allowed to interfere in theology because they only taught jurisprudence. But we go further, for what we teach is Christian jurisprudence.

      §16. But here again the theologians guarding the borders of their discipline will tell us to retreat and not to climb over the fence that separates our discipline from theology. The term Christian jurisprudence will be suspect to them, because if by this we mean a discipline that borrows its principles of proof from theology, it will be vain for us to try to cover up our trespassing with a few slogans, especially as far as natural jurisprudence is concerned. But if we restrict our proofs to theological matters, our Christian jurisprudence will not deserve its name any more than, for example, arithmetic is a Christian arithmetic because its principles allow us to calculate how many measures of wine filled the vessels at Canaan.¹⁸

      §17. Therefore, we halt, especially as we know a way of avoiding this problem. For just as arithmetic, for example, does not encroach on theology, even though it applies its own principles to examples from sacred history, so we will not sin if we apply our principles to the state of innocence. It is one thing to borrow principles of demonstration from another discipline, another to apply these principles to an object taken from another discipline.

      §18. And this is especially true of history, which, whether it is sacred or profane, is used by all four faculties.

      §19. Thus, it is permitted to talk about man’s state of innocence, but only on the basis of sacred history, for the traditions of the pagans or the rabbis in that respect are mere trifles.

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      §20. This state of innocence was perfect since in it man was created in the image of God. Therefore, the miseries which accompany the corrupt state today were absent.

      §21. The human body was certainly endowed with the same members as a healthy person is today, and there was the same distinction of the sexes. And the members of the body would have been directed by the soul, immediately from creation in the case of Adam and immediately from birth in his children. We are not really concerned about the size of humans in the state of innocence since that adds nothing directly to human perfection.

      §22. Moreover, man would never have died or fallen ill. He would always have enjoyed the most wholesome food and drink. Digestion would have been excellent. Poison would not have harmed. Whether man would have eaten meat in that state is an idle rather than a useful question. I believe he could have but cannot imagine that he would have wanted to.

      §23. The sense organs were, as far as we can imagine, perfect and completely reliable. There would have been the pleasures of the senses, but subject to laws. Thus, there would have been the pleasure derived from touch in that it can be based on physical causes and anatomical principles, but not the kind of pleasure that causes man to lose self-control and is called lust. Humans would have enjoyed powers of locomotion immediately from birth, and these would not have been disturbed or impeded [by illness].

      §24. Concerning his intellect, man would not only have been so perceptive in natural matters that he would have recognized at first sight the natures, qualities, and forms of created beings, which today are concealed from us or are barely perceived even after the most laborious research. In moral matters, too, man would have possessed supreme prudence in understanding law and its significance for his actions. Thus we must criticize the belief, defended by Grotius and others,¹⁹ that the Protoplasts were

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      simple-minded and ignorant of vices rather than being endowed with the knowledge of virtue. This belief would also be an insult to God.

      §25. And I do not see any reason why I should think differently about infants. They would indeed have been able from birth to reason with their parents on any subject whatsoever and would only have required a very brief period of time to be informed of the meaning of words which had their meaning from the imposition of man, not from the nature of the thing itself.

      §26. The will enjoyed a great degree of liberty. Man could choose between sinning and not sinning but was more inclined to not sinning.

      §27. Moreover, man in the state of innocence was not for one moment outside a society, but was joined immediately in a society with God, which was unequal but in which there was greater love and trust than can today exist in any paternal society.

      §28. Man, however, by his nature desired something similar to himself, but did not find this similarity in God, because divine perfection was too distant from him, and thus it was not good that he was alone. Therefore God, in his supreme СКАЧАТЬ