Human law and its legal implications in light of Saint Thomas Aquinas’s treatise on law

Resumo

This article examines the legal implications of human law as theorized by Aquinas in the Treatise on Law. The central problem is the structural tension between the generality of the juridical norm and the irreducible demand for justice in particular cases: to what extent does the Thomistic framework supply normative grounds for a legal practice capable of surpassing formalism without lapsing into arbitrariness. The general objective is to analyze the mechanisms through which lex, directed toward the common good, bears upon concrete juridical practice. The specific objectives are: to examine the distinction between lex and ius; to analyze equity and interpretation as instruments of normative adaptation; to investigate dispensation as a subsidiary mode of adjudication; to elucidate the judicial function in light of prudence and virtue; and to identify custom (consuetudo) as an autonomous source of ius. The article proceeds from the thesis that the final cause of lex, namely the common good and the realization of justice, takes precedence over its formal cause, legitimating adaptive applications of the norm in particular circumstances. The method is hypothetical-deductive, grounded in a theoretical-bibliographic approach combining exegetical reading of primary sources with systematic engagement with secondary literature. The findings indicate that the Thomistic framework grounds legal practice in virtue, prudence, and the pursuit of the objectively just, without reducing it to formalism or dissolving it into arbitrariness.