Commands as the source of obligations

Suárez holds a voluntarist conception of obligation, in so far as he takes obligation to depend essentially on the will of a superior, and, in the case of the natural law, on the will of God. He distinguishes two generally recognized elements of the natural law: (1) One consists in ‘intrinsic’ natural facts and properties – those that belong to nature in its own right, independently of God's legislative will. (2) The other depends on the exercise of God's legislative will in the issuing of commands. Theorists dispute about whether different features of the natural law are intrinsic natural facts or products of divine legislation.

Suárez accepts a voluntarist thesis about law. In his view, the character of a law consists partly in a command, and the natural law is a genuine law, measured by this criterion. According to Suárez, a law is ‘a common precept, just and stable, sufficiently promulgated’. A precept implies a command expressing the will of a superior.