Can Homosexuality Be Proved Wrong From Natural Law

[Laurie_Gibson]

It is really not possible to discuss with five or more people simultaneously particularly when we, understandably, get pulled off the subject of the thread. So let me restate it and explain why, despite all the interesting points made here nobody has answered it.

Natural Law Morality defines an unnatural act as one where part of the body is used in such a way that it frustrates the purpose of that part. Obviously, using that definition gay sex is unnatural. Natural Law morality now goes on to say that gay sex is therefore wrong.

It is the ‘therefore’ that we are looking at. Just why is an ‘unnatural in this sense’ act also wrong? If we use the term unnatural in other ways such when we say that working in an office is ‘unnatural’, the term does not imply wrong behaviour, so perhaps when we use it in the Natural Law sense it must need a justification too?

Let me look at some of the answers given so far:
1] Some just, in effect, thump the table and declare ‘well it is unnatural’ and give, sometimes graphic, explanations as to why. But that is not to the point. We agree that gay sex is unnatural, as defined above, but want to know why it is also wrong.
2] Other posts raise different and sometimes vast questions about the nature of right and wrong. Nobody has ever succeeded in giving an adequate account of these concepts. The subject is huge. Therefore I hope I might stick with using these terms in the way I have always used them successfully in everyday speech for 70 years.
3] The question at the head of the thread is misleading if taken literally. Natural Law Morality of course says that gay sex is wrong because it is unnatural. So strictly that is that. However, in effect, we are looking at the justification behind Natural Law Morality when we ask “OK it is unnatural and so Natural Law morality condemns it BUT WHY DOES ‘UNNATURAL’ => ‘WRONG’?” John, I think, is saying that it just does and every moral system has to start from somewhere and Natural Law Morality starts from here. [Is that correct John or do I misunderstand you?]

I will deal quickly with some of the points made but excuse me if I cannot answer all of them.

Portrait – You want me to give my account of Natural Law – but I do not acknowledge its validity and cannot until the question underlying this thread is answered.
John – I know that the concept of Natural Law came from the Stoics based in turn on Aristotle but we are discussing the Catholic take on the matter.
Catherina – Thanks for all your interesting points. How I wish I had the time to discuss them all. However, I must be stupid, but nowhere in them do I read the answer to my question, ‘Why if something is unnatural is it also wrong?” Could you enlighten me?
Djeter – I would rather discuss with you than the Professor. However he says:
A human person is a dynamic unity of body, mind, and spirit. Far from being a mere instrument of the person, the body is intrinsically part of the personal reality of the human being. Bodily union is thus personal union, and comprehensive personal union — marital union — is founded on bodily union.

I agree with him but cannot see why a gay couple cannot be so.

Best wishes to all

Laurie

 

[Abu]

The answer being evaded is the fact that mankind has been created with a human nature which HAS to be followed if we are to be in union with the Creator, God. Until a Being outside of ourselves is recognised as the originator of human nature, free-will, reason and conscience (unlike animals), then anything goes according to the particular person’s prejudices.

Thus, there is ample evidence of the fact of the natural moral law, and the fact that pagans, Ancient Egyptians, Roman philosopher Cicero (died 43 B.C.), Roman jurists, Sodom and Gomorrah, attest to it, and to the fact that it must be followed or the consequences must be paid, plus the simple steps that show the immorality of sodomy, the disorder of the homosexual, and the success of programs that enable many to lead a normal life.

Strange that the quoted insights of pagan philosophers backed by the insights of St Thomas Aquinas and other Catholic philosophers on the natural moral law are blissfully ignored. No wonder there is so much confusion. Even St Paul refers to this fact: “For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these having not the law [of Moses], are a law to themselves: who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them” (Romans 2:14, 15). This is precisely why pagans may achieve salvation, and know that sodomy and contraception are wrong. But confusion reigns supreme when prejudices are merely being rearranged (William James).

Even Alfred North Whitehead, F.R.S., a Platonist, explained: “The greatest contribution of medievalism to the scientific movement [was] the inexpugnable belief that …there is a secret, a secret which can be unveiled. How has this conviction been so vividly implanted in the European mind?..It must come from the medieval insistence on the rationality of God, conceived with the personal energy of Jehovah and with the rationality of a Greek philosopher. Every detail was supervised and ordered: the search into nature could only result in the vindication of the faith in rationality.” [E.L. Jones, 1987; in *The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005, p 15].

Reason backed by Faith from the pagans through to today.

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

Abu - you miss- see the first post - the fact that we are trying to justify Natural Law morality to a non-believer.

Can you do that?

Good wishes

Laurie

 

[Portrait]

Dear Laurie,

Cordial greetings and a very good day to you old chap.

Well, I must say, I am very disappointed as I really did entertain some hope that you might inform us as to the basis of your own moral criteria. Forgive me but it rather does seem that you want to evade discussing this central issue as well as refusing to engage with the reasons that we have been giving for natural law morality. As I have said previously, it is not that we have not been giving reasons for natural law, but that you dissent from these reasons, an entirely different matter. All you do when people adduce reasons to support their position is to say “show me why its wrong”, when they have done their very utmost to do exactly that (John also has made the same point).

However, I am going to try another approach in an attempt to move the debate, hopefully, forward.

To begin I will assume that you do have some moral criterion with which you appraise and pass judgement upon certain behaviours which you deem to be wrong and improper. In other words you have some morals, at least, which you feel obligated to obey and which are binding upon your conscience but without any reference to religion. Am I correct in this assumption my dear fellow?

On a positive note, Christians and non-Christians can equally know that knowledge and friendship, for example, are things for which we really ought to strive for, and that cruelty, hostile attitudes and deceit are objectively wrong. However, my question is, which account, Christian or non-Christian, makes best sense of the moral rules that we all acknowledge?

Most of us, people of faith and people of none, can recognize that the life of someone like Mother Teresa is human nature operating in the right way; you do not need to be a theist to see that her life evinced “something beautiful” and admirable, but you do need to be a theist to see why. Theism explains that our response to this dear Christian’s life is, ultimately, our response to the call of our Creator to live the sort of life he intended us to live.

The only rationally acceptable answer to the question of the relation between God and morality is the biblical one: all morality is based on God’s eternal nature. Indeed, this is why morality is essentially immutable. Our obligation to be just, kind, honest, loving and righteous “goes all the way up”, so to speak, to ultimate reality, to the eternal nature of God, in fact to what God is. Now this is why morality has absolute and unchangeable binding force upon our conscience and why we know that “homosexuality can be proved wrong from natural law”.

Of course some men, like yourself old chap, contend that religion and morality are totally independent of one another. Kierkegaurd’s sharp contrast between “the ethical” and “the religious”, especially in Fear and Trembling, may lead to such an erroneous supposition. However, 1/ an amoral God, indifferent to morality, would not be a wholly good God, for one of the primary meanings of “good” involves the “moral” - just, loving, wise, righteous, holy, kind. 2/ such morality, not having a connection with God, the Absolute Being, would not have absolute reality or authority behind it.

Therefore the genesis of natural law morality is God Himself since all morality is derived from this divine Source, whether men care to acknowledge that fact or not. There really is no other adequate or satisying alternative. Please tell us if you believe there is.

Now if you are to refute all of this you will need to provide a very cogent theory indeed to explain the possible sources of moral obligation. For us as Catholics the authority of natural law lies in its source - God’s eternal nature.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

Hi Portrait,

I am sorry to disappoint you.

However let us remember what you are trying to do in this thread.

Natural Law Morality says that if something is not natural in the sense of frustrating the purpose of an organ then it is wrong. I have asked again and again for a justification of this deduction. And, remember, we agreed to do this for a non-believer.

You say that you have done so but I cannot find anywhere that you have. All you seem to have done is to show in graphic detail how gay sex is unnatural. But that is not in dispute.

Perhaps I am missing something, I can be dense at times, so please humour me with a brief and clear reason why if something is unnatural it is also wrong.

Perhaps too you will explain why a No 0 haircut is not very wrong because it clearly frustrates the purpose of hair. You will note that none of your co-religionist have even attempted this. Alas, my hair is growing longer!

You obviously want a debate about the foundations of morality and I am happy to oblige on another thread when this one is over. But there is a long way to go here I fear.

Regards and good wishes

Laurie

 

[djeter]

A human person is a dynamic unity of body, mind, and spirit. Far from being a mere instrument of the person, the body is intrinsically part of the personal reality of the human being. Bodily union is thus personal union, and comprehensive personal union — marital union — is founded on bodily union.

I agree with him but cannot see why a gay couple cannot be so.

Laurie

Of course homosexuals are human persons – the problem arises when they attempt to form bodily unions with same sex partners and claim that they have accomplished what the man/woman understanding of marriage has.

The human person is not created simply as an individual and we cannot exist humanly as isolated individuals. From the first moment of life we are social beings who can only be human in communion with others. To be human means to be-in-relation, to be-with. Our humanity is something always profoundly greater, even other, than we are.

Sexual differentiation highlights this, What and who our real “self” is, is a mystery which is constituted by the mystery of others. Each of us, male or female, must realize the fact that there is another mode and experience of being human which is different from, and not reducible to, one’s own. There is another way of being human which remains inaccessibly mysterious. This obviously does not occur between same-sex couples.

Therefore, no human being can claim to experience or understand the mystery of what it means to be human only from his or her humanity. The real humanity of each person, male or female, is something that points beyond itself to a real other. This is a paradox. Male and female are not simply accidental characteristics of human being; neither are they two different creatures. They are irreducibly different in one humanity. Something that gays (being of the same sex) can never be.

This, it seems to me, expresses something of the mystery of God and about our relationship with God. The mystery of the sexually other human is a symbol of the absolute mystery of God’s other-ness and of our relatedness to and transcendence towards God as our final personal wholeness and fulfillment.

**Those who deny the possibility of true bodily communion between the two sexes (the gay marriage argument is based on this), reduce marriage to the status of instrumental goods.**This denial presupposes a dualism of person (as conscious and desiring self), on the one hand, and body (as instrument of the conscious and desiring self), on the other hand, which is flatly incompatible with this unity.

None of this Christian (Catholic) Anthropology occurs when you reject this understanding of sex and marriage and say that “Love Makes a Family.” Arguments that true marriage is something other than or broader than the union of two sexually complementary spouses necessarily suppose that the value of sex must be instrumental either to procreation or to pleasure, considered as an end in itself or as a means of expressing affection, tender feelings, etc.

Thus, critics of traditional norms of marriage and sexuality like yourself say that homosexual sex acts, for example, are indistinguishable from heterosexual acts whenever the motivation for such acts is something other than procreation. That is to say, the sexual acts of same-sex partners are indistinguishable in motivation, meaning, value, and significance from the marital acts of spouses who know that at least one spouse is temporarily or permanently infertile. The argument is that the traditional understanding of marriage is guilty of unfairness in treating sterile persons of opposite sexes as capable of marrying while treating same-sex partners as ineligible to marry.

Hope that clears things up.

Once again these arguments are nonsense to a secular atheist audience, so I have not fulfilled your challenge here. I hope I have explained to you the Catholic position however.

Regards

dj

 

[Luke_K]

Perhaps too you will explain why a No 0 haircut is not very wrong because it clearly frustrates the purpose of hair. You will note that none of your co-religionist have even attempted this. Alas, my hair is growing longer!

You aren’t using the hair in a way that makes use of it while directly opposing the reason for its existence. If you somehow did something every day to make your hair grow just to make you look good and feel better yet at the same time make it so it made your head colder and your body unhealthy, then it would be somewhat analogous to sex that is not ordered towards procreation.

When we Catholics call something “unnatural” with respect to moral law we don’t simply mean technology or things that wouldn’t be they way they are unless we made them that way ourselves. Technology is a natural act for humans because it makes use of our God-given intellect. Using the nose to hold glasses up is natural and good because it restores something which should naturally be there, namely, 20/20 vision.

 

[Portrait]

Hi Portrait,

I am sorry to disappoint you.

However let us remember what you are trying to do in this thread.

Natural Law Morality says that if something is not natural in the sense of frustrating the purpose of an organ then it is wrong. I have asked again and again for a justification of this deduction. And, remember, we agreed to do this for a non-believer.

You say that you have done so but I cannot find anywhere that you have. All you seem to have done is to show in graphic detail how gay sex is unnatural. But that is not in dispute.

Perhaps I am missing something, I can be dense at times, so please humour me with a brief and clear reason why if something is unnatural it is also wrong.

Perhaps too you will explain why a No 0 haircut is not very wrong because it clearly frustrates the purpose of hair. You will note that none of your co-religionist have even attempted this. Alas, my hair is growing longer!

You obviously want a debate about the foundations of morality and I am happy to oblige on another thread when this one is over. But there is a long way to go here I fear.

Regards and good wishes

Laurie

Dear Laurie,

Good evening and cordial greetings. Thankyou again for your posting.

If you re-read posts 6, 18, 47, 51, 56, 62, 68, 79, 82 you will find that I have expalined why homosexual deviant conduct is both unnatural and wrong according to the natural law, it is just that you do not concur with my explanations. Now of course you are at liberty to dissent from these explanations but please do not say that I have failed to give any.

However, in the previous thread, where we also discussed the same issue, you said that, “you have a feeling that certain things are right and others are wrong” and that you “see no reason to attribute this feeling to God”. Then to what do you ascribe it to?; what is the criterion that you use to appraise various behaviours and how authoritative is it?

You also state that you do not accept the authority of conscience “because there is no guarantee that mine or anyone’s is correct”. Does this mean that you do not even trust your own conscience to guide you? Does it also follow from this that you are a moral relativist who does not believe that there are any non-negotiable truths?

If you read my previous post you will see most clearly what I believe to be the basis of natural law morality and why I think that homosexual aberrant acts are at variance with that law. True, I have brought God into the argument, but rather than rebuke me for that, show me where my argument is fallacious and unsound.

Laurie, it would be really appreciated if you could comment upon that post, even if that entails a ruthless refutation, but comment anyway so that we can move the debate on.

I will probably reply Friday afternoon/evening, so stand by for my posting old chap.

Goodnight and pleasant dreams,

Portrait

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

Hi Portrait,

I have just completed the task of rereading all your posts. Here is a typical comment that you make:

Our reproductive organs are manifestly designed for certain functions and by light of reason alone one can tell that male and female organs are made for different purposes. Moreover, by light of reason alone we can also determine what these purposes are. Thus when someone uses their sexual organs for purposes other than those for which they were specifically designed, then those uses, or rather abuses, are disordered and wrong by natural law.

Now I agree with much of this because , ‘yes’ gay sex is using the sexual organs in a way that is not their purpose. WE AGREE ON THAT. Also, I agree that Natural Morality tells us that such an unnatural use is wrong. WE AGREE THAT THIS IS WHAT NATURAL LAW SAYS.

Now all your many and varied posts have all said just that - in a myriad different ways.
Let me repeat so that it is crystal clear.

1] I agree that gay sex is unnatural in the sense that a part of the body is being used in such a way as to frustrate its natural purpose.
2] I agree that Natural Law morality says that it is wrong to do such a thing.

3] But what you seem incapable of seeing is the further question. 'Why if something is unnatural is it also wrong?'

Now can you see that 1] and 2] above does not answer this question? 1] Just says that gay sex is not natural [on which we agree] 2] Says that Natural Law Ethics condemns such behaviour. [but we know that too]

That is why I keep asking you the question because you have never answered it so far as I can see. Please correct me if I am mistaken. You continue to produce 1] and 2] but never answer 3]. You seemed to understand this when you wrote the first post.

We are investigating the justification of the assumption behind Natural Law Ethics.

I look forward to your answer. Why not state your answer to 3] in a few simple words so that an obtuse old chap can understand them.

Laurie

 

[catharina]

Hi Portrait,

I have just completed the task of rereading all your posts. Here is a typical comment that you make:

Our reproductive organs are manifestly designed for certain functions and by light of reason alone one can tell that male and female organs are made for different purposes. Moreover, by light of reason alone we can also determine what these purposes are. Thus when someone uses their sexual organs for purposes other than those for which they were specifically designed, then those uses, or rather abuses, are disordered and wrong by natural law.

Now I agree with much of this because , ‘yes’ gay sex is using the sexual organs in a way that is not their purpose. WE AGREE ON THAT. Also, I agree that Natural Morality tells us that such an unnatural use is wrong. WE AGREE THAT THIS IS WHAT NATURAL LAW SAYS.

Now all your many and varied posts have all said just that - in a myriad different ways.
Let me repeat so that it is crystal clear.

1] I agree that gay sex is unnatural in the sense that a part of the body is being used in such a way as to frustrate its natural purpose.
2] I agree that Natural Law morality says that it is wrong to do such a thing.

3] But what you seem incapable of seeing is the further question. 'Why if something is unnatural is it also wrong?'

Now can you see that 1] and 2] above does not answer this question? 1] Just says that gay sex is not natural [on which we agree] 2] Says that Natural Law Ethics condemns such behaviour. [but we know that too]

That is why I keep asking you the question because you have never answered it so far as I can see. Please correct me if I am mistaken. You continue to produce 1] and 2] but never answer 3]. You seemed to understand this when you wrote the first post.

I look forward to your answer. Why not state your answer to 3] in a few simple words so that an obtuse old chap can understand them.

Laurie

You continue to ignore the fact that humanity must continue as a goal of sexual union.
No male/female relationships, no offspring.

You counter-argument is “the numbers of SSA couples” are low.
What if the numbers grow? Especially if society “blesses” the unions?

My argument still holds.
SSA couples are worng since such violates the contiunation of the species.
That’s about as wrong as one can imagine. Unnatural and in the end, wrong.

Your counter-argument? An exercise in futility.

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

You aren’t using the hair in a way that makes use of it while directly opposing the reason for its existence. If you somehow did something every day to make your hair grow just to make you look good and feel better yet at the same time make it so it made your head colder and your body unhealthy, then it would be somewhat analogous to sex that is not ordered towards procreation.

When we Catholics call something “unnatural” with respect to moral law we don’t simply mean technology or things that wouldn’t be they way they are unless we made them that way ourselves. Technology is a natural act for humans because it makes use of our God-given intellect. Using the nose to hold glasses up is natural and good because it restores something which should naturally be there, namely, 20/20 vision.

The function of my hair is to keep my head warm. It evolved for that purpose. You would say that God gave us hair for that very purpose. If I cut it off I clearly frustrate that purpose so it seems to be against Natural Law to do such a thing. Excuse a violent illustration but surely it would be wrong to castrate myself? Why because it would stop me ever reproducing.
So it seems that by cutting my hair off completly I am ‘using’ it in a way that goes right against the purpose of hair.

Of course No 0 haircuts are not wrong - therefore Natural Law Morality seems to be mistaken because it seems to say they are

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

Djeter,
Thanks for your long and interesting post. Lots of it, at base, consists of the assertion that a gay partnership can never match that of a straight marriage.

However this argument is refuted by the facts. My daughter has been in a relationship with her gay partner for over 20 years. In every respect their partnership is as good and wonderful and flourishing as any marriage. Read Volente in this thread.

So this shows that your long and rather abstract argument MUST be defective somewhere. No matter how persuasive no argument can show that black is white.

Regards

Laurie

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

Catherina,

Most people are not gay nor are they going to be.So populations will continue to reproduce.
So what the minority of people who are gay do not matter here.

However, if there were a problem, then we had better encourage gay people to have children by AID then the problem would be solved.

So population worries cannot be the reason why gay sex is wrong.

Regards

Laurie

 

[catharina]

Djeter,
Thanks for your long and interesting post. Lots of it, at base, consists of the assertion that a gay partnership can never match that of a straight marriage.

However this argument is refuted by the facts. My daughter has been in a relationship with her gay partner for over 20 years. In every respect their partnership is as good and wonderful and flourishing as any marriage. Read Volente in this thread.

So this shows that your long and rather abstract argument MUST be defective somewhere. No matter how persuasive no argument can show that black is white.

Regards

Laurie

Laurie, are you aware that you continue to mention your daughter, over and over,
even though anecdotal “evidence” proves nothing at all?

 

[catharina]

Catherina,

Most people are not gay nor are they going to be.So populations will continue to reproduce.
So what the minority of people who are gay do not matter here.

However, if there were a problem, then we had better encourage gay people to have children by AID then the problem would be solved.

So population worries cannot be the reason why gay sex is wrong.

Regards

Laurie

Encourage homosexual couples, at all times and everywhere.
Knock down reporoductive technology, at all times and everywhere.

You are left with no births.

Natural Law will say: wrong in its very outcome.
Laurie says: everything’s just fine, really peachy-keen.

 

[Luke_K]

The function of my hair is to keep my head warm. It evolved for that purpose. You would say that God gave us hair for that very purpose. If I cut it off I clearly frustrate that purpose so it seems to be against Natural Law to do such a thing. Excuse a violent illustration but surely it would be wrong to castrate myself? Why because it would stop me ever reproducing.
So it seems that by cutting my hair off completly I am ‘using’ it in a way that goes right against the purpose of hair.

Of course No 0 haircuts are not wrong - therefore Natural Law Morality seems to be mistaken because it seems to say they are

No, you are not using your hair to act against its own purpose. You are simply cutting it shorter with a razor. With gay sex you are using the actual organs to simulate the union of genitals which evolved for procreation, yet at the same time in a manner that is entirely ordered against procreation.

If there were some legitimate health reason for you to castrate yourself, such as cancer, it would be okay. However, it would be wrong to castrate yourself in order to sterilize your sexual relations because then you would have altered your genitals so you could them against the purpose for which they owe their existence.

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

Hi Luke,
You say

However, it would be wrong to castrate yourself in order to sterilize your sexual relations because then you would have altered your genitals so you could them against the purpose for which they owe their existence.

But when I completely shave off my hair, then I have altered my head so that my hair cannot fulfill its function for a while -or if I keep cutting it, for ever.

I am not seeing the difference here.

Laurie

 

[Laurie_Gibson]

Hi Catherina,

Nice to hear from you.

Re my daughter – no anecdote just a wonderful 20 year relationship. My point in mentioning her – to show that no argument can alter a fact.

You say:
Encourage homosexual couples, at all times and everywhere.
Knock down reproductive technology, at all times and everywhere.

You are left with no births.

I do not understand this. Nobody is encouraging everyone to be gay or knockdown reproductive technology. The population of the world shows no sign of decreasing. How are recognising the minority of gay couples who have faithful happy relationships going to alter that? If they gave up their relationships they would not get married and have children anyway, so I do not see your point here. Your worries seem to have no basis.Try to explain it more slowly and calmly so I can understand please.

With good wishes to you.

Laurie

 

[Luke_K]

Hi Luke,
You say

However, it would be wrong to castrate yourself in order to sterilize your sexual relations because then you would have altered your genitals so you could them against the purpose for which they owe their existence.

But when I completely shave off my hair, then I have altered my head so that my hair cannot fulfill its function for a while -or if I keep cutting it, for ever.

I am not seeing the difference here.

Laurie

You don’t “use” your hair except passively. It’s just something that grows unrestrained unless you cut it every now and then. Contraceptive sex involves using the genitals in a way that brings the pleasure designed to motivate us to fertile intercourse but is decidedly ordered against fertile intercourse.

Let me put it another way: It is wrong to use your body in a way that is designed for a specific purpose but is at the same time against that purpose. It is a contradiction.

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

Hi Portrait,

I have just completed the task of rereading all your posts. Here is a typical comment that you make:

Our reproductive organs are manifestly designed for certain functions and by light of reason alone one can tell that male and female organs are made for different purposes. Moreover, by light of reason alone we can also determine what these purposes are. Thus when someone uses their sexual organs for purposes other than those for which they were specifically designed, then those uses, or rather abuses, are disordered and wrong by natural law.

Now I agree with much of this because , ‘yes’ gay sex is using the sexual organs in a way that is not their purpose. WE AGREE ON THAT. Also, I agree that Natural Morality tells us that such an unnatural use is wrong. WE AGREE THAT THIS IS WHAT NATURAL LAW SAYS.

Now all your many and varied posts have all said just that - in a myriad different ways.
Let me repeat so that it is crystal clear.

1] I agree that gay sex is unnatural in the sense that a part of the body is being used in such a way as to frustrate its natural purpose.
2] I agree that Natural Law morality says that it is wrong to do such a thing.

3] But what you seem incapable of seeing is the further question. 'Why if something is unnatural is it also wrong?'

Now can you see that 1] and 2] above does not answer this question? 1] Just says that gay sex is not natural [on which we agree] 2] Says that Natural Law Ethics condemns such behaviour. [but we know that too]

That is why I keep asking you the question because you have never answered it so far as I can see. Please correct me if I am mistaken. You continue to produce 1] and 2] but never answer 3]. You seemed to understand this when you wrote the first post.

We are investigating the justification of the assumption behind Natural Law Ethics.

I look forward to your answer. Why not state your answer to 3] in a few simple words so that an obtuse old chap can understand them.

Laurie

Using St. Thomas Aquinas to answer why something unnatural is wrong:

Natural law is the creatures (us) participation in the eternal law, as stated in the Summa I-II, 92, A. 2.

It is therefore evident that the natural law is nothing else than the rational creature’s participation of the eternal law.

newadvent.org/summa/2091.htm#article2

This eternal law is of course God’s Law, as stated by St. Thomas:

As stated above (90, 1, ad 2; A3,4), a law is nothing else but a dictate of practical reason emanating from the ruler who governs a perfect community. Now it is evident, granted that the world is ruled by Divine Providence, as was stated in the I, 22, A1,2, that the whole community of the universe is governed by Divine Reason. Wherefore the very Idea of the government of things in God the Ruler of the universe, has the nature of a law. And since the Divine Reason’s conception of things is not subject to time but is eternal, according to Proverbs 8:23, therefore it is that this kind of law must be called eternal.

newadvent.org/summa/2091.htm#article1

All human affairs are subject to the eternal law:

But since the rational nature, together with that which it has in common with all creatures, has something proper to itself inasmuch as it is rational, consequently it is subject to the eternal law… [T]he good are perfectly subject to the eternal law, as always acting according to it: whereas the wicked are subject to the eternal law, imperfectly as to their actions, indeed, since both their knowledge of good, and their inclination thereto, are imperfect; but this imperfection on the part of action is supplied on the part of passion, in so far as they suffer what the eternal law decrees concerning them, according as they fail to act in harmony with that law.

newadvent.org/summa/2093.htm#article6

Unnatural lust is against this Eternal Law of God:

Article 12. Whether the unnatural vice is the greatest sin among the species of lust?

Objection 1. It would seem that the unnatural vice is not the greatest sin among the species of lust. For the more a sin is contrary to charity the graver it is. Now adultery, seduction and rape which are injurious to our neighbor are seemingly more contrary to the love of our neighbor, than unnatural sins, by which no other person is injured. Therefore the unnatural sin is not the greatest among the species of lust. …Reply to Objection 1. Just as the ordering of right reason proceeds from man, so the order of nature is from God Himself: wherefore in sins contrary to nature, whereby the very order of nature is violated, an injury is done to God, the Author of nature. Hence Augustine says (Confess. iii, 8): “Those foul offenses that are against nature should be everywhere and at all times detested and punished, such as were those of the people of Sodom, which should all nations commit, they should all stand guilty of the same crime, by the law of God which hath not so made men that they should so abuse one another. For even that very intercourse which should be between God and us is violated, when that same nature, of which He is the Author, is polluted by the perversity of lust.”

It is reasonable to conclude from this that unnatural acts are wrong. As for the unbeliever lost in their sin to be convinced… one can only propose and leave it to prayer, as you can only lead a horse to water, you can’t make it drink.