Thomas Aquinas's Understanding of Natural Law as Law and as Good

This chapter offers a close reading of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae 1–2.94.2, challenging interpretations that overemphasize the association of natural law with human inclinations. The chapter argues that Aquinas’s focus is rather on natural law as law, rational and grounded upon the good. Drawing on Aristotle’s Metaphysics , Fr. Kevin Flannery clarifies that sound natural inclinations, for Aquinas, are those directed toward genuine human goods apprehended by reason. He critiques some modern translations which fail to correspond to the Latin original. He emphasises that, just as “being” is the basis of theoretical reason, “good” is the foundation of practical reason and the natural law. Ultimately, he maintains that Aquinas views the precepts of natural law not just as responses to natural tendencies, but as rationally grasped human goods that guide moral action through law.