Gregory of Rimini

Though modern historians classify them as voluntarists, Scotus and Ockham say that natural law in the strict sense, or ‘‘non-positive morality,’’ is independent of God’s will. According to Scotus, propositions which ‘‘are true by reason of their terms... would be true even if, to assume the impossible, no act of willing existed’’ (Wolter 1986:275). Gregory of Rimini went further and said that the necessary truths of morality are independent also of God’s intellect - if human beings existed but God did not, adultery would still be wrong. To the question why he says that sin is against right reason, rather than against divine reason, Gregory answers that he says this lest it be thought that sin is precisely against divine reason and not against any right reason..and lest it be thought that something is sin not because it is against divine reason as being right, but because it is against it as being divine. For if, to assume the impossible, the divine reason or God himself did not exist, or his reason was in error, still, if someone acted against angelic or human right reason or any other (if there be any), he would sin. And if there existed no right reason at all, still, if someone acted against what some right reason, if it existed, would say should be done, he would sin (Gregory 1980:235).

Many things are sins of themselves and not just because they have been prohibited; even if no divine command were ever given, a person could know and judge that such things are not to be done. ‘‘If anyone acts solely against the natural law or against the right judgment of reason, certainly he would sin, though, if he were to have with this a superadded precept, he would sin further” (Gregory 1980:238, emphasis added). Since God forbids what is already wrong, there is a double sin.

In the seventeenth century, Gabriel Vasquez held a similar position (see St. Leger 1962:131-134). According to Suarez, the term natural law implies the command of a superior, namely God, but it commands or forbids what is right or wrong intrinsically, apart from any divine command: God’s command imposes a moral obligation additional to the ‘‘ (so to speak) natural’’ evil the act has in itself (Suarez, vi.12, vol. 3 p. 94ff). There are echoes of Gregory, Vasquez and/or Suarez in Grotius (De iure, Prol. 11, and lib. I.1.10), and Samuel Clarke (Raphael, vol. 1, pp. 212-214). According to all these authors, rightness and wrongness are intrinsic to actions of certain kinds, and God commands right action and forbids wrongdoing.

Medieval natural law theories belong to the genus of theories that suppose that morality is ‘‘objective,’’ that is, that moral standards are independent of the opinions of any human individual or social group. Specifically, natural law theories (1) undertake to derive the standards from basic principles per se nota, and (2) claim that the standards are laws sanctioned by God. However, medieval writers failed to present the self-evident basic principles clearly enough to make it possible to judge whether they really are per se nota, and they failed to show in detail how other precepts of the natural law can be demonstrated from the basic principles. The rational derivation of morality remained merely a project lightly sketched out.

See also: > Albert the Great > Alexander of Hales

Bonaventure > Canon Law > Civil (Roman) Law > Ethics > Gregory of Rimini > Jesuit

Political Thought > John Duns Scotus > Natural Rights