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Lorenzo Warby's avatar

No, the Church always thought law was human (see Aquinas, for example). It just that religious law was the human attempt to follow God’s rules as embedded in the universe (natural law) and via revelation. The retreat of canon law was about relative power and authority.

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Rather Curmudgeonly's avatar

I think we're more in agreement actually - since Aquinas was the 'modern' starting point for the natural [human] law that would ascend in importance for Western culture. Even the American expression of "endowed by their Creator with..." is maybe the last connective tissue of the divine and civil.

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