Help understanding natural law on these issues

[Link0126]

If it can be reasonably demonstrated that humans are vegetarians by nature would it be contrary to Natural Law to eat meat?

If so, and Natural law is the ground for all positive law and in accord with Divine law (which maybe isn’t the case as I do not fully understand Natural Law) than how can there be a concession for eating meat in Christianity and our Soceity but not a concession for other issues contrary to Natural Law such as homosexuality and contraception?

 

[Khalid]

No - after the flood, man was given permission (or even commanded) to eat meat, and antagonism was set between man and beast. In Eden, carnivorous behavior was against the natural law, but, after the Fall, God killed beasts to make clothing for Adam and Eve, prefiguring the need for blood sacrifice (that’s what Jesus is, you know - a blood sacrifice. Jesus wouldn’t work in a vegan culture). For the time between the Fall and the flood, it seems that it was still wrong to eat meat, or do anything other than sacrifice it to God Most High. After the flood, as I mentioned above, antagonism was set between man and beast, and it is commanded that man will now have the beast of the earth as well as the grain of the field to eat for sustenance.

No amount of human reason can ever contradict Scripture. If the Bible said, “thou shalt contracept whenever thou goest into a woman”, our human reason could not abrogate a command of God. The Bible, however, does make clear statements on homosexuality, and abortion, and coitus interruptus: it makes no direct statement on hormonal contraception, so human reason must be used to discern the will of God.

In any case, humans are not naturally vegetarians - one only need look at the teeth (regardless of the mountains of other evidence, psychological, biological, medical, anthropological) to see that humans are omnivores. If we were herbivores, we’d have all molars, if we were carnivores, we’d have all incisors and canines.

Simply:

Carnivorous behavior is permitted by or commanded by God after the flood, prohibited before the flood. Veganism is condemned by both God’s word and natural law. No natural law argument can or does claim that eating meat is a moral wrong (and it was established even from the beginning of the earth: “dominion over the beasts of the field and the birds of the air”). Biologically, a human who does not eat meat is sickly and died before the advent of modern medicine and vitamins, etc. See also human teeth.

Homosexuality is clearly condemned in many Biblical passages. Natural law can be used to augment this understanding, but not to overturn it or abrogate it. Human reason can never be placed in a position of superiority to the words of God (much like the Magisterium can never teach something that contradicts the Bible, but can expand on it and explain it and elucidate it).

Abortion is condemned in the Bible. Ditto.

Coitus interruptus, the only known method of birth control to the ancients, is condemned. Ditto.

Other forms of birth control are not mentioned. This is the place for human reason and natural law, and analogy to the things that God has commanded - only to discern God’s will when an unambiguous command has not been left in his written word or his living tradition.

 

[po18guy]

We are given canine teeth. Why?

 

[Hadrianus]

I’ve never heard a doctor or biologist suggest that human beings are vegetarian by nature.Humans can choose to be vegetarians, but in fact we are omnivores. And as any strict vegetarian will tell you, they have to make allowances for the potential lack of necessary proteins and other vitamins found in animal products, fish etc.

Natural Law, in any case, refers in catholic theology to the participation of rational being in the divine eternal law.(Aquinas’ definition) . Natural Law is thus grounded in reason and does not mean simply whatever happens in the natural world. Natural Law also refers to a great deal more than simply sexual ethics. Murder, lying, theft are all against the natural law.

In fact most of the Ten Commandments are nothing but a codification of natural law precepts
According to Natural law principles it is a violation of reason to allow the bodily appetites to overcome the measured use of reason which gives us our ability to make ethical and practical judgements with regard to the natural virtues of Justice, Prudence, Temperance and Fortitude.

In the sexual sphere this means basically that the use of the reproductive organs should be ordered to their principal function, in the same way that the human digestive system is ordered towards the consumption of food and not methamphetamines. And from the Natural Law perspective, employing contraception so as to frustrate the generative organs from generation is somewhat comparable to consuming something which would deliberate block nutrients to the body when eating. Mutatis mutants, this argument is essentially Platonic and is one which I doubt the ancient world would have found controversial. The idea that the primary purpose of sex is recreation is a pretty modern idea.

Human behavior hasn’t changed all that much down through the millennia; but it seems that in earlier times, those too obsessed with sex were seen rather the way smokers or alcoholics are today. Of all the arguments against Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, the one that objects to the Christian sexual ethic, is peculiarly recent.

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[Link0126]

But it seems that we are vegetarian by nature (see link below for info on this) and so we are allowed to violate this portion of natural law b/c of Divine law which contradicts it and which contradicts btw the first Divine dietary law (gen. 1:29).

So, my question than becomes is it possible for Divine Law to contradict Natural Law since it seems that Natural Law would be given to us from God who created nature.

michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html

 

[po18guy]

But it seems that we are vegetarian by nature (see link below for info on this) and so we are allowed to violate this portion of natural law b/c of Divine law which contradicts it and which contradicts btw the first Divine dietary law (gen. 1:29).

So, my question than becomes is it possible for Divine Law to contradict Natural Law since it seems that Natural Law would be given to us from God who created nature.

michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html

Your source is far from scientific and obviously quite biased. As to human nature, how is it that we savor meat, have teeth to cut it, and the given enzymes to digest it if we are vegetarian by natural law? Would not meat be unacceptable to the taste and smell?

I hope you are not raising animals to the human moral plane. Lets then raise vegetables there, as well. Now what?

 

[vsedriver]

But it seems that we are vegetarian by nature (see link below for info on this) and so we are allowed to violate this portion of natural law b/c of Divine law which contradicts it and which contradicts btw the first Divine dietary law (gen. 1:29).

So, my question than becomes is it possible for Divine Law to contradict Natural Law since it seems that Natural Law would be given to us from God who created nature.

michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html

yet many anthropologists think it is when man began to eat meat that his brain really began to grow.

berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/99legacy/6-14-1999a.html

npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128849908

I’d argue that real humans ate meat.

 

[fred_conty]

Don’t we need to know first what the list of natural laws are?
Do we have a complete list?

Just a thought.

 

[Nate13]

Don’t we need to know first what the list of natural laws are?
Do we have a complete list?

Just a thought.

lol your question makes no sense. Read this and see if you still have the same question:

scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c3a1.htm

The natural law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin . . . But this command of human reason would not have the force of law if it were not the voice and interpreter of a higher reason to which our spirit and our freedom must be submitted.5

There is one natural law/one right reason and then its applications.

 

[Nate13]

If it can be reasonably demonstrated that humans are vegetarians by nature would it be contrary to Natural Law to eat meat?

If so, and Natural law is the ground for all positive law and in accord with Divine law (which maybe isn’t the case as I do not fully understand Natural Law) than how can there be a concession for eating meat in Christianity and our Soceity but not a concession for other issues contrary to Natural Law such as homosexuality and contraception?

Gen 1:26
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Here is a hint from divine revelation as to what the answer is. If man is making use of an animal, not wasting it, and being a good steward they are perfectly in line with natural law.

 

[Link0126]

There is no way you’re going to convince me that eating animals is natural when everything about our biology says otherwise. You guys are hilarious. We do not have the teeth to eat meat, and we have to cook it otherwise we are very likely to get sick from eating it. You can’t just say the source is far from scientific and move on without offering why it is such.

Anyway, the question I’m asking is dependent on the idea that we are vegetarian by nature and design, and considering Gen. 1:29 (which is not negated by Gen. 1:26 btw, which does not speak of eating animals and genesis says were created to be our “helpers”) and our own biology, not to mention the fact that all major western diseases are at least in part spurred on by meat eating, it seems self evident that we are, but without acknowledgement of that fact the real question I was asking becomes irrelevant.

Thanks anyway, have a good one.

 

[John21652]

There is no way you’re going to convince me that eating animals is natural when everything about our biology says otherwise. You guys are hilarious. We do not have the teeth to eat meat, and we have to cook it otherwise we are very likely to get sick from eating it. You can’t just say the source is far from scientific and move on without offering why it is such.

You obviously don’t know much about biology, or else you wouldn’t write such drivel.

Everything about the survival and development of the human race proves beyond a shadow of doubt that our success as a species could not have occured without meat forming a large part of our diet. Study some history, archeology and paleoanthropology to know and understand this simple fact.

Man must eat to survive and provided he doesn’t resort to cannibalism, he can eat whatever provides him with nourishment, in keeping with the very first principle of Natural Law.

You admit to not understanding Natural Law, which is the same as admitting ignorance about the very basis of the faith you profess to be a part of. You then, after a few posts are made in good faith, thumb your nose at the very thought of Natural Law arguments. That is hypocritical. And rude.

You are also very ethically challenged, to put it nicely, thinking you can ask a moral question and then thumb your nose at the answers when you so wrongly think they don’t quite prove your leading question to be fallacious. Not really a Catholic, are you?

Anyway, the question I’m asking is dependent on the idea that we are vegetarian by nature and design, and considering Gen. 1:29 (which is not negated by Gen. 1:26 btw, which does not speak of eating animals and genesis says were created to be our “helpers”) and our own biology, not to mention the fact that all major western diseases are at least in part spurred on by meat eating, it seems self evident that we are, but without acknowledgement of that fact the real question I was asking becomes irrelevant.

Thanks anyway, have a good one.

More piffle.

Is Malaria spurred on from eating meat? Is Measles from eating meat? What about Plague? I suppose we get that from eating rats?!!

Oh please. do enlighten us with some more of your ‘alternative science’.

I can hardly wait.

 

[fred_conty]

lol your question makes no sense. Read this and see if you still have the same question:

scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c3a1.htm

There is one natural law/one right reason and then its applications.

Nate13,
Thanks for the site explaining natural law, it was helpful.
The following is what I thought was the cornel of natural law.

1978 The natural law is a participation in God’s wisdom and goodness by man formed in the image of his Creator. It expresses the dignity of the human person and forms the basis of his fundamental rights and duties.

It sounds to me almost like the American Constitution, freedoms, rights, human dignity, and so forth.

The big problem with natural law is that the interpretation of it varies from individual to individual especially when the person is not religiously connected, or where there is no divine law. So in this question of man being legitimately carnivious, we have the divine law to guide us which incorporates the natural law. But then someone who does not have this, must be guided by the natural law, interpreted by his judgemental reason called conscience. And if two consciences have a difference of opinion about the natural law, then ??? And the prime example of this would be the question of carnivorous eating in this thread.

So would there be a way to identify natural laws just as we identify divine laws?

Just asking. What do you think?

 

[John21652]

Nate13,
Thanks for the site explaining natural law, it was helpful.
The following is what I thought was the cornel of natural law.

1978 The natural law is a participation in God’s wisdom and goodness by man formed in the image of his Creator. It expresses the dignity of the human person and forms the basis of his fundamental rights and duties.

It sounds to me almost like the American Constitution, freedoms, rights, human dignity, and so forth.

The big problem with natural law is that the interpretation of it varies from individual to individual especially when the person is not religiously connected, or where there is no divine law. So in this question of man being legitimately carnivious, we have the divine law to guide us which incorporates the natural law. But then someone who does not have this, must be guided by the natural law, interpreted by his judgemental reason called conscience. And if two consciences have a difference of opinion about the natural law, then ??? And the prime example of this would be the question of carnivorous eating in this thread.

So would there be a way to identify natural laws just as we identify divine laws?

Just asking. What do you think?

Indeed there is.

First, turn to Aquinas.

It was he who told us that the way to discern the Natural Law is through the use of Reason. Aquinas proclaimed the ability of man’s reason to understand and arrive at physical and ethical laws of the natural order. He actually set man’s reason free from Theology. Other theologians have agreed with him. One famous one was the Dutch Protestant Philosopher and Theologian, Hugo Grotius. He wrote De Iure Belli ac Pacis in 1625. He wrote this about mankind being able to discern the morality of the Natural Law -

What we have been saying would have a degree of validity even if we should concede that which cannot be conceded without the utmost wickedness, that there is no God.

Another was the famed Jesuit Fransciscus Saurez, who wrote along the same lines.

What you quoted from 1978 is the connection between the philosophical and the theological. Once the discernment of the Natural Law is done, the logical step for any rational person is to wonder about its genesis and hence, to make the philosophical-theological connection. However, Aquinas, Grotius, Saurez and even Aristotle understood the need for rational discernment.

If two consciences then someone has made an error in the intellectual enquiry and has not taken the reasoning back to first principles.

So, what are those first principles?

They are nothing more than those necessary acts that a man must do to flourish as an individual and in a society with out a government decreeing how it should be. In other words, those principles that are an inherent part of human nature. The Catechism gives a lead as to where to start.

At 1956 it states -

The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties:

For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature, is diffused among all men, and is immutable and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its prohibitions turn away from offense . . . . To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely.

The Catechism tells us at 1962 that God gave us the Ten Commandments because men had forgotten what was 'written on their hearts". One of those commandments is love thy neighbour as thyself. It points us first to self love. That is, we should respect our own person and then others. Isn’t it the case that it is intrinsic to man’s nature to want to survive and thrive? from this certain natural rights emanate. Isn’t it intrinsic to man’s nature to want to live in a society? Reason shows us how and also shows us the right way. Those aspects of human nature which cause mankind to want to flourish and to flourish in society are said to be inalienable. That means they are part of our human nature. Those inalienable ‘rights’ are written into the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It forms a part of the Constitution of my country, Australia and they are the basis of the Magna Carter. They are thus said to be ‘Natural Law documents’.

Theologically, God gave us reason and the laws written on our hearts. Philosophically, in the absence of God, Reason still operates and we have innate human characteristics which form the basis of our enquiry and discernment of the Natural Law.

Yet another well known Jesuit, Frederick Copleston, who only passed away a few years back, wrote a book simply titled" Aquinas" in 1954. In it he wrote the following on the subject of just how mankind was to come to an understanding of the Natural Law -

Yet, how can he know it? He cannot read, as it were, the mind of God… he can discern the fundamental tendencies and needs of his nature, and by reflecting on them he can come to a knowledge of the natural moral law…. Every man possesses … the light of reason whereby he can reflect … and promulgate to himself the natural law, which is the totality of the universal precepts or dictates of right reason concerning the good which is to be pursued and the evil which is to be shunned

 

[Texas_Roofer]

Link0126

I am confused why you think any of this is a Natural Law issue? There are two different concepts in Natural Law. One component is the right to life activities, the fight to live aspect. The other component is the Moral or Devine aspect. So what does the choice to eat meat have in these issues?

 

[Khalid]

There is no way you’re going to convince me that eating animals is natural when everything about our biology says otherwise. You guys are hilarious. We do not have the teeth to eat meat, and we have to cook it otherwise we are very likely to get sick from eating it. You can’t just say the source is far from scientific and move on without offering why it is such.

Anyway, the question I’m asking is dependent on the idea that we are vegetarian by nature and design, and considering Gen. 1:29 (which is not negated by Gen. 1:26 btw, which does not speak of eating animals and genesis says were created to be our “helpers”) and our own biology, not to mention the fact that all major western diseases are at least in part spurred on by meat eating, it seems self evident that we are, but without acknowledgement of that fact the real question I was asking becomes irrelevant.

Thanks anyway, have a good one.

Everything about human biology demands that we be omnivorous. A man who does not eat meat grows sick and dies, if he does not have modern medicine to supply him with the nutrients missing in vegetables alone. We can digest meat, but we can not digest vegetables. Our digestive system is very, very poorly designed if we were designed to eat vegetables, everything from out stomachs, intestines, mouths, and enzymes present therein, and the liver as well.

A cow is a good example of an animal that has been designed to not eat meat. A cat is a good example of an animal that has been designed to eat nothing but meat. A human has a cross between the digestive features of pure carnivores and pure herbivores, thus we are omnivores. With unanimous voice (which is very rare in academia), those in the relevant disciplines agree on this fact, as do all published studies of it.

 

[severus68]

No - after the flood, man was given permission (or even commanded) to eat meat, and antagonism was set between man and beast. In Eden, carnivorous behavior was against the natural law, but, after the Fall, God killed beasts to make clothing for Adam and Eve, prefiguring the need for blood sacrifice (that’s what Jesus is, you know - a blood sacrifice. Jesus wouldn’t work in a vegan culture). For the time between the Fall and the flood, it seems that it was still wrong to eat meat, or do anything other than sacrifice it to God Most High. After the flood, as I mentioned above, antagonism was set between man and beast, and it is commanded that man will now have the beast of the earth as well as the grain of the field to eat for sustenance.

No amount of human reason can ever contradict Scripture. If the Bible said, “thou shalt contracept whenever thou goest into a woman”, our human reason could not abrogate a command of God. The Bible, however, does make clear statements on homosexuality, and abortion, and coitus interruptus: it makes no direct statement on hormonal contraception, so human reason must be used to discern the will of God.

In any case, humans are not naturally vegetarians - **one only need look at the teeth **(regardless of the mountains of other evidence, psychological, biological, medical, anthropological) to see that humans are omnivores. If we were herbivores, we’d have all molars, if we were carnivores, we’d have all incisors and canines.

Simply:

Carnivorous behavior is permitted by or commanded by God after the flood, prohibited before the flood.**** N Veganism is condemned by both God’s word and natural law.No natural law argument can or does claim that eating meat is a moral wrong (**
**

Homosexuality is clearly condemned in many Biblical passages. Natural law can be used to augment this understanding, but not to overturn it or abrogate it. Human reason can never be placed in a position of superiority to the words of God (much like the Magisterium can never teach something that contradicts the Bible, but can expand on it and explain it and elucidate it).

Abortion is condemned in the Bible. Ditto.

Coitus interruptus, the only known method of birth control to the ancients, is condemned. Ditto.

Other forms of birth control are not mentioned. This is the place for human reason and natural law, and analogy to the things that God has commanded - only to discern God’s will when an unambiguous command has not been left in his written word or his living tradition.

I will just respond to those words of yours that I have bolded.

Jesus works well in a vegan culture or rather some vegans are happy to follow Christ. We even have a group “Catholic Vegans and Vegetarians” on CAF.

Our canine teeth are not like those of carnivores or even like the bear, an omnivore. Veganism has not been condemned by God.

 

[vsedriver]

There is no way you’re going to convince me that eating animals is natural when everything about our biology says otherwise. You guys are hilarious. We do not have the teeth to eat meat, and we have to cook it otherwise we are very likely to get sick from eating it. You can’t just say the source is far from scientific and move on without offering why it is such.

 

[po18guy]

Pay no attention to the evolutionist behind the curtain! As a Catholic, OP apparently believes in creation history. We are as we have been since the fall in the garden. Now, we might have been intended to eat only of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but our very nature has been altered. Scripture is replete with evidence that God has even commanded man to eat meat. Certainly in the Mosaic covenant He did. But, look also in Acts 10, where Peter is shown a vision of all animals. A voice from heaven said “Kill and eat”. Now, this specific instruction applied only to Peter, but in principle applies to each of us, since not one of the Apostles was instructed to teach abstinence from meat. Neither are we required to eat meat, and those of us who do may abstain as a discipline. It is morally neutral, and a matter of prudential judgment. The choice is ours to make.

 

[severus68]

Pay no attention to the evolutionist behind the curtain! As a Catholic, OP apparently believes in creation history. We are as we have been since the fall in the garden. Now, we might have been intended to eat only of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but our very nature has been altered. Scripture is replete with evidence that God has even commanded man to eat meat. Certainly in the Mosaic covenant He did. But, look also in Acts 10, where Peter is shown a vision of all animals. A voice from heaven said “Kill and eat”. Now, this specific instruction applied only to Peter, but in principle applies to each of us, since not one of the Apostles was instructed to teach abstinence from meat. Neither are we required to eat meat, and those of us who do may abstain as a discipline. It is morally neutral, and a matter of prudential judgment. The choice is ours to make.

Actually that vision was in respect of Peter’s reluctance to mix ith Gentiles and to tell him to do so and preach to all. If you read further and the Bible notes?