Divine law
“Wherefore the law was our pedagogue in Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Gal 3:24).The moral, ceremonial and judicial precepts of the old law were in themselves powerless to redeem the human race from the sin of Adam. The infinite offence of his disobedience to God required a new covenant with the Son of God Himself, contracted “neither by the blood of goats or of calves, but by his own blood” (Heb 9:12). The new law, unlike the old law, is not primarily a question of exterior observances but of an interior law of grace, perpetuated throughout the Christian era through the gospel of Christ and the laws of the Church.
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Course Content
FURTHER READING
St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
1a 2ae, Q. 91, a. 5 “Whether there is but one divine law”
1a 2ae Q. 98, a. 1 “Whether the Old Law was good”
1a 2ae, Q. 100, a. 8: “Whether the precepts of the Decalogue are dispensable”,
1a 2ae, Q. 100, a. 11: “Whether it is right to distinguish other moral precepts of the law besides the decalogue?”
1a 2ae, Q. 108, a. 1: “Whether the New Law ought to prescribe or to forbid any outward works”
St Augustine of Hippo
On the Spirit and the Letter, chapters 28–36 (XVI–XXI)
Cf. extract of St Augustin, Retractions, book II, chapter 37
Against Faustus, book VI
Pope Leo XIII
Tametsi futura, 1900
Pope John Paul II
Veritatis splendor, 1993, § 27
Evangelium vitae, 1995, § 57, 61–62
International Theological Commission
The Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church, 2014, nos. 61-64
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