Lex Aeterna, Lex Divina, Lex naturalis, Lex humana
The subjects discussed below deals with different religious, theological, anthropological, jurisprudential and social 'genres'. Notwithstanding such diversities (or ironically and radically' in spite of them) Lex Aeterna (per Aquinas), Nibbanic Buddhism (per Melford Spiro), an aspect of radical feminist critique re male constructs are available to or discernible only by a minority of men and women. That is the surmise that this writer derives through reading the works of a theologian from the 13th ,century and the writings and discourses in the 20th and early 21th century of an anthropologist and a few radical feminists.
According to Aquinas there are four categories of law:
i. Lex Aeterna
ii. Lex divino(divine law or law derivable from the Christian scriptures)
iii. Lex naturalis(natural law)
iv. Lex humana(human law)
i. Lex Aeterna;
ii. Lex divine
Lex Divina(divine law) is the law that can be seen or discerned in the Christian scriptures mainly, perhaps not exclusively, from the New and Old Testaments. Again, this writer is not sure whether Aquinas and the Thomist scholars throughout the centuries would consider Aquinas' own extensive writings touching upon law matters mainly but not exclusively in the Summa Theologica to have formed part of Lex Divina, albeit at what can be termed the penumbra.
The legalistic commands or statements in the Old and New Testaments would form the 'core' of Divine law. What is virtually certain is that the Thomist Lex Divina would not have contained or accommodated say The Analects of Confucius and (albeit Aquinas was quite familiar with Islamic theology) the laws laid down in Holy Quran
Who coined term Lex Divina?
Ambrose, St. Augustine, and Hilary of Poitiers used the terms Lectio Divina and Lectio Sacra to refer to the reading of Scripture.
According to Jean Leclerc, OSB, the founders of the medieval tradition of Lectio Divina were Saint Benedict and Pope Gregory I.
iii. Lex naturalis
A body of unchanging moral principles regarded as a basis for all human conduct.
Lex naturalis (natural law) is the laws of nature that are discernible through the reasoning of men(and arguable and in all likelihood Aquinas would have considered only men to have the facility or the gift to discern natural law). Perhaps the doors of cognition for men to discern the contents of what is natural law would be more widely open to them than those of the eternal law. Eternal law of God would only be available to the 'Elect' few men touched by the Grace of God.
iv. Lex humana(human law)
Notwithstanding the presence of the above three categories of law(s) the learned doctor(Aquinas) stipulated that human beings tend to act selfishly and for men to curb their selfishness and passion's human laws made by humans(perhaps mainly through legislation and perhaps customary laws as well) are necessary. Therefore human laws would also have to constitute the corpus of (laws) for 'men' (and perhaps in this instance for women although the early 21st century radical feminists would have considered most Lex humana be 'male' constructs.
Lex Humana is an art installation about the relationship between Humans and Nature. More tries specifically, the way in which Man tries to control Nature and how Man places himself above the Law of Nature.