The Natural Law According to Aquinas and Suárez

By Walter Farrell, O.P. | Edited by Cajetan Cuddy, O.P.

The Natural Law According to Aquinas and Suárez (originally published in 1930 as The Natural Moral Law According to St. Thomas and Suárez) outlines the profound teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas on the natural law. The book also considers the writings of Francisco Suárez, engaging the Suarezian understanding of the natural law in the light of Thomas and the later Thomists. In his Introduction, the author shares his literary motivation: “The aim of this work is not to create, expose or defend a new theory; it is rather to dig out the explanation of St. Thomas from the mass of commentaries and interpretations that are threatening to smother it, to set forth the explanation of St. Thomas, as given by Thomas, and, as far as possible, in the words of the Angelic Doctor” on law, the Eternal Law and the Natural Moral Law.

The third volume in the Thomist Tradition book series, edited and intro­duced by Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., The Natural Law According to Aquinas and Suárez remains a significant account of Thomistic natural law theory from one of its most popular, twentieth-century expositors.

To the natural law belongs those things to which a man is inclined naturally. –St. Thomas Aquinas

Walter Raphael Farrell, O.P., (1902–1951) was a Dominican priest and scholar. He was the founder of the speculative quarterly The Thomist and was a frequent contributor to numerous scholarly and spiritual periodicals. Among his many publications is the bestselling, four-volume Companion to the Summa, which was instrumental in the popularization of the Summa Theologiae.

Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., serves as the general editor of Cluny Media’s Thomist Tradition book series. He is the co-author (with Romanus Cessario, O.P.) of Thomas and the Thomists: The Achievement of Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters (Fortress, 2017).

Paperback: 232pp.

ISBN: 978-1949899467