 While our main focus will be on the status of the natural law as constituting the principles of practical rationality, we should consider for a moment at least the importance within Aquinas’s view of the claim that the natural law is an aspect of divine providence. The fundamental thesis affirmed here by Aquinas is that the natural law is a participation in the eternal law (ST IaIIae 91, 2). The eternal law, for Aquinas, is that rational plan by which all creation is ordered (ST IaIIae 91, 1); the natural law is the way that the human being “participates” in the eternal law  (ST IaIIae 91, 2). While nonrational beings have a share in the eternal law only by being determined by it — their action nonfreely results from their determinate natures, natures the existence of which results from God’s will in accordance with God’s eternal plan — rational beings like us are able to grasp our share in the eternal law and freely act on it  (ST IaIIae 91, 2). It is this feature of the natural law that justifies, on Aquinas’s view, our calling the natural law ‘law.’  For law, as Aquinas defines it (ST IaIIae 90, 4), is a rule of action put into place by one who has care of the community; and as God has care of the entire universe, God’s choosing to bring into existence beings who can act freely and in accordance with principles of reason is enough to justify our thinking of those principles of reason as law.