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How the Law of Nature is a Character in Decline

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Thomas Aquinas reads Romans as a decline narrative about idolatry in Abraham's time, which “arrests,” “ties up,” or “terminates” natural law. This chapter makes it difficult to cite Aquinas in court, because on his terms courts work after nature has been “destroyed” and restored by the Holy Spirit. As the Commentary on Romans makes clear, Aquinas's better-known defense of natural law in the Summa describes nature reformed by grace. Aquinas's portrayal of fallen natural law as lacking grace, as an awkward and pitiful figure, hangs on a central turn of Paul's plot: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven upon all impiety and unrighteousness of those human beings who detained ‘the Truth of God’ in unrighteousness” (1:18). That turn raises several questions that Aquinas's Commentary attempted to answer about the character here called “the Truth of God,” detained by human beings.

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