St. Aquinas Research Paper

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Recommended: The role of Law in Society

Religion vs. Politics, human law vs. divine law, and good government vs. bad government, are all things that hold strong influence over the people in society, and determines their behavior towards one another. Whether it be good or bad. To maintain order amongst the people, laws must be created, and therefore, should be reflective to everyone as a whole, is one widely held popular view. Another is that those who cause trouble should only be subjected to the law. And lastly, law is suppose to protect the good people from those who do badly. Law holds so much power, yet many people still break it. In this paper, I will explore the religious, philosophical, and political views of St. Thomas Aquinas in relation to the law in society, through his following works: The Doctrine of Necessary Being, the Halfway State of Being, the Weakness of …show more content…

Aquinas believes that all things were caused by God, whether they were contingent or necessary. A contingent being is an object that cannot exists without a necessary being causing its existence. In contrast, a necessary being arises from the necessitation of a being to exist for all of the contingent beings to exist (Brown 80). Therefore, the necessary being can be no other than God. Accordingly, Aquinas states that to create is a sole function of God, and whatever can be caused only by creation, all those things which are not to generent and corruption (Brown 80). Even though both beings come to exists a long time ago, they are not subjected to everlastingly existence like God, who is the most highest. He also posited that everything in the natural world is contingent rather yet, a necessary being is one which cannot possibly exist; or that any being which is necessary must be perfect. He then goes on to define a necessary being as one which cannot come into existence via contingent, construction, or (re) forms, and which cannot pass out of existence via detention, destruction, or defamation

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