Natural Law qua Constitutive Law of the Human Personal Perpetual Entity

In canonical legal theory, a “constitutive law” is a law which specifies the essential elements of a juridic act or canonical institute. Constitutive laws are per se indispensable, because they pertain to the nature of the regulated act or entity as such.

If such a concept where applied to Natural Law theory, we could say that natural law is a constitutive law of human nature, for it pertains to the nature of man qua man. Natural law is therefore per se indispensable, for a dispensation from natural law would contradict the nature of the human person, who is the personal entity regulated by natural law.

 

There is also the canonical legal concept that juridic persons (akin to corporate entities in American law) are perpetual, unless legally extinguished, a decidedly difficult procedure. This, of course, resembles the physical persons (human beings), who are perpetual as legal subjects, until death, and who are by nature perpetual due to their immortal souls and the dogma of bodily resurrection. So it is not a difficult analogical prediction to call physical persons “perpetual” as well.

 

But it has already been shown that natural law is a constitutive law of the human person, and the human person is a perpetual personal entity. Wherefore natural law is per se unabrogable, for abrogation of a constitutive law of a perpetual personal entity would thereby extinguish such person, which is contrary to the nature of such person as a perpetual entity.

It’s often said that natural law is indispensable and unabrogable. Analogically predicating canonical concepts of natural law subject matter sheds some light on the reasonableness of such tenets.