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What Is Law? What Is its Origin?



Hello!

Your site addresses many of the issues I have been pursuing for years. Such info as on your site is hard to find.

1) Is there a way that I can download your entire site with the 100s of articles? Or, can I purchase a DVD with the entire site?

2) I've studied law for years, but yet am unable to find a satisfactory definition of what "law" actually is: (a) What is the law?, (b) Where does it come from?

The usual answer is that the law is culturally or historically relative, which is relativism. What is the essential "law"? If law is natural, then nature is on par with or superior to or existential to God. Law may be implied by nature, but not autonomous nature; rather, of a nature which is/was created by a personal living God Who is still in command.

American "law" may be naturalistic; my contrasting question might be, 1) What is American law?, and 2) Where does American law come from? American attorneys do not study the ultimate nature(s) of the subject of jurisprudence, but 95% in procedure, torts, etc.

Try these questions: 1) Is true law possible in popular government? 2) Is true law only to be found under monarchy?

3) I have tried to point out to my modernist friends that the Trinity has both hierarchy and equality. Americans of course have been taught to despise hierarchy, and so their concept of God as well as of themselves is necessarily defective. Where can I find an excellent article on the reality and importance of hierarchy, and how modernism and Americanism is hostile to this reality?

4) Do you know of a very efficient Latin reading course, one that won't simply fill the pockets of the teacher with my money?

Thank you very much!

     T.F.
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TIA responds:

Hello T.F.,

Thank you for the interest you show in our website. We will proceed to answer your questions in the order you placed them.
  1. Normally we do not authorize our readers to download our entire website. If you are interested in reading our articles, the right way to do so is to visit our site regularly. We have daily updates with links to related topics at the end of each article. If you follow the updates and read those topics, shortly you will be familiar with the different sections of our website and will be able to browse them with more benefit than having thousands of articles in your safe without knowing from where to begin to sort the contents.

  2. Law is a precept or norm of behavior that is followed or must be followed to achieve an end.
    1. In Creation the end pursued by its animate and inanimate elements is the conservation of order in the universe. In society the end is the attainment of the common good and the individual good. In the Church the end is the glorification of God and the salvation of souls.
    2. Laws come from God and from human authorities.
    3. There are three types of laws:
      1. The norms God imprinted in the universe to make it ordered are called eternal laws. When eternal laws are present in nature and in human society they are called natural laws.
      2. The laws made by men to rule men are called positive laws.
      3. The laws God gave by means of supernatural revelation are called Divine laws.
    4. All societies have positive laws issued by their due authorities, who indirectly represent God. Positive laws may be just or unjust insofar as they seek or obstruct the glory of God, natural law and the common good of society.

      American laws are positive laws. In principle American citizens should follow American laws. If there is a law that is iniquitous, the citizens have legal resources to block it and must use them. If the wicked law continues to be in force, a citizen can allege objection of conscience in order not to follow it. The permission for such exceptions should be issued by due juridical authority.
    5. Positive laws can be issued by due authorities in either republican or monarchical regimes in the democratic, aristocratic or monarchic ways of exercising the power.
    6. Mandatory positive laws are present also in all types of societies from the State down to the individual. These intermediary societies include the army, police, universities, hospitals, professional and artisan guilds, associations or unions, entertainment clubs and families. The members of these intermediary societies are obliged to follow their positive laws by contractual consent.

  3. We agree with you that the formation in the United States demonizes hierarchy. It is a bad fruit of two centuries of revolutionary propaganda working on the American mentality. This is bad because hierarchy is the best reflection of God in Creation. This harmful influence should be reversed by means of a good formation in the opposite direction, as you are trying to do.

    Good books to help you understand this evil and react against it include:
    1.  Revolution and Counter-Revolution by Plinio Corrêa de Olivieira, available online here.
    2. The Celestial Hierarchy & Terrestrial Hierarchy by St. Dionysius Aeropagite available online at page 110 here or here.

  4. No, we do not know a Latin reading course to which we can refer you. Perhaps some of our readers may have suggestions.
We hope these answers will help you to become a better counter-revolutionary and a better Catholic.

     Cordially,

     TIA correspondence desk

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Posted January 7, 2016

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