Aquinas's Natural Law Isn't Only About Human Beings

John Milbank, University of Nottingham, at Church Life Journal.

"For Aquinas, law was an analogical concept. Law as such concerns the unity of the way things actually are with the way they should be, since they fall under divine government. Every created thing is governed by law because it participates in the eternal law that God the Father utters in his Son or Logos and which is identical with that eternal Word. In this respect the Angelic Doctor shares in a medieval fluidity of the notions of order, rule and law which could extend all the way from medical regimen and psychological self-control, through knightly codes, feudal obligations and monastic life and liturgy, to the Canon Law governing the Church itself and to laws governing whole cities, territories and empires.." [footnotes omitted]

See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, in Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952) volumes 19-20, and Great Books of the Western World (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volumes 17-18.