Aquinas on Law: The Open World of Grace

The pagan cosmos is a closed world: the city is never truly self-sufficient, requiring natural slaves and war; regimes rise and fall cyclically; the regime's justice is never true justice. In the Treatise on Law (ST I-II, Q.90-108), St. Thomas Aquinas presents a different vision: the open world of grace. God orders the world through the eternal law; rational creatures participate in providence through human law; divine law is necessary to bring man to his final end. In this episode of the Politics of Paganism, Alex Denley and Dr. Andrew Jones discuss how St. Thomas' vision of law answers the closed world of the pagans.