How is purpose found out in Natural Law?

[ynotzap]

So reason is not the final arbiter of what you call objective “natural law” but rather some sort of subjective feeling that tells us we are right and sincere intelligent persons who see things differently are wrong?
I think this argument is built on sand.

If we want a moral code that is based on truth and produces social order, harmony, justice, love and ultimately happiness we need an ultimate arbiter. Letting billions of people who share a common humanity, dependency, limitations in knowledge and human weakness and fallibilitly determine our moral code is inviting chaos. eg, Iraq’s social code is not based on inalienable rights, killing of innocent people and each other is the social answer to their problems. There is a basic principle that determines the rightness and wrongness of our moral acts. Whatever is objectively conducive to the well being of society is good and right, and what ever is not is bad and wrong. the emphasis is on “objectivity”, reality apart and absolute from ourselves and subjectivity(subject to our own minds) There is overwhellming evidence that this is not the case. eg. situation ethics-subjectivity. Our rational nature gives us a sense of good and evil and of a higher authority, even primitive cultures have this. For Christians, this arbiter is Jesus Christ, God-man, who determines our moral code and guarantees it, because He is the source of truth and reality. A moral code without an anchor is like a ship without a rudder, being blown about by the winds of opinions. As I stated in a post, there is in every human some natural knowledge of guiding principles of actions provided by reason.
Blue Horizon:

All humans seek the good is certainly self evident principle but is meaningless when making a concrete moral decision.
Me and my brother have the same parent is also self evident.
But meaningless because it doesn’t help me know if that guy over there is actually my father’s son does it. That is a different sort of truth which requires empirical data - eg a dna test.

We have to consider in a moral decision, one of principles, that we could get the truth from your parents as well, depending on their integrity. A certain bond of trust between humans, we do it all the time, without a dna test because we are sociable creatures, and we don’t have to prove everything we say, But you are right, to be objectively sure, an empirical test would do it even though we could use the argumentum ad hominum. And another thing, in the case as you put it, it seems self-evident, and normally it would be, but if your brother wasn’t your brother, you were deceived, self-evidence in not self-evidence to some not because of the principle but because of ignorance.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

What is your understanding of “natural law”, or do you believe their is no natural law? And you seem convinced that my understanding of nature law is subjective, how?

The medieval formulation of Natural Law has been contaminated since the Enlightenment and confused with secular ideas from “Laws of Nature”.

That is not to say the pure medieval formulation is without limitations too.

I have yet to hear a take on “Natural Law” that has credibly got beyond the above two limitations. For me yours does not quite cut the mustard either sorry. I have stated the reasons, just reflect more on what I said if you missed it.

 

[Yeoman]

On Natural Law, if you want to read a fascinating legal decision discussing it in a surprising context, given the result, look for the old U.S. Supreme Court case “The Antelope”.

It’s deflating in the sense that not only is the result not the one you’d wish, in light of the discussion on Natural Law, it also points out how much more intellectual the Court apparently was at that time, or at least in what they were looking at. Would that a similar amount of thought gone into the majority opinion of Obegefell, even if they also persisted in acting wrongly.

 

[Michael19682]

Not sure why you don’t understand…what do you think I am saying?

I’m sure you and ynotzap have worked through my concerns, but in retrospect it looks like you were pointing out a groundless solipsism in the act of defining something solely upon another definition, which itself depends on the theoretical second definition. But really I was asking then, what is the mere assertion, literally?
The second part of your response to ynotzap makes total sense to me. There is no “absolute” societal organization? Am I correct?
My response was to engage greater disclosure for myself. To assist me in understanding. At this juncture I cannot refute nor can I support save with the naiveté of a child in this particular discussion.

 

[Michael19682]

Law in the proper sense is a rule and measure of acts directing them to their proper end a physical law imposing physical necessity, and a moral law imposing moral necessity. Moral law direct free beings to act towards their end by imposing obligation on free will. Disobedience to physical laws are impossible, not so with moral laws. We observe temporal effects in creatures, grounded in nature, this is what is meant by natural law

It is natural for animals to be moved to act by instinct and physical influences and their effects eg. chemicals, hormones etc. This does not involve rational choice, but there is physical necessity. In humans, they can act, motivated by physical influences contrary to their rational nature, same sex contrary to reason for sex, which is propagation, and contrary to the reason for the use or purpose of the organs. The means (pleasure) to the right and proper end (propagation and love) has become the purpose or end in itself. And this proves to be contrary to human nature. So it an act against natural law, and moral law, Same sex in humans is not a "natural act,’ consistent with human nature a rational one.

Agreed, Yes sex is made pleasurable for good reason, but never to be disassociated from reason in humans, but to be associated in love and responsibility (man is naturally sociable) God willed procreation absolutely, because the existence of a person, a soul and body destined to eternal life (purpose) is superior to any faults or irrationallities of that human nature.

That men are sociable beings naturally is brought out by the following characteristics of human nature. Man can not take care of himself alone. The child must be cared for, brought up by parents, educated and prepared for adulthood. A solitary man can not supply these things that make up for a decent life befitting man.
His nature abhors loneliness and craves for companionship. Some solitude is good, too much can cause psychological problems and mental illness (notice all the killings going on with those having mental illness) (God said “It is not good for man to be alone”)
there is language to consider-communication with one’s fellow man. Unless man were to live a social life, speech would have no purpose
Intellectual and moral development requires communication of ideas, an exchange only possible in a society.
Even though men are fallible, and all do not possess right reason, we do possess some truth, and right reason. And by following the natural tendency to be sociable those that have can share with those that don’t have.

@Blue Horizon also,

Sartre called this dilemma something akin to “bad faith” because it is action based on the notion that “I” have no possibility of being a change agent and must act according to societal pressure. Freedom must mean free. Sometimes we learn from error. Even the horrendous errors of the so-called mentally ill, to be discouraged and condemned certainly, will ultimately lead to a consequence for the offender. Many of those people are at risk of self destruction: and aside from the fact that society puts them in that very position to begin with through persecution, harassment, and unreasonable demands, unlawful confinement and with a general air of assumed superiority part and parcel of “the throw away culture” so eloquently and insightfully labelled (as such) by the Holy Father for purposes known to he and the Spirit but understood by all men and women:

this self destructive tendency
is also understood as imbibed or internalized by the ill, to the end that they have no recourse for help. Society’s response is to turn up voltage and amperage in horrific and satanic egging; and thus, by responding with silent violence, i.e., the therapy session, the unnecessarily enormous cocktails of meds, prolonged confinement in institutions that are essentially abusive, the “natural law message” these people get is that violence is “the how” of self correction. Enjoin that message to a bad faith mindset and we wonder at the response? How foolish is this notion of mine? We create the notion that violence is the gateway to health?
The response of the behaviorists, who most readily adhere to natural laws and claim the supremacy of the machine body, is “We don’t have the technology to be cordial, kind, and nice to people in manifest suffering. And at any rate, decency and kindness never helps people.” Wordsmyth it short temperedly and how you like, using cognates from other cultures and tongues, the twinkling edifice of a natural philosophy based on natural law is unstable not at base, but at observation deck. Too much refinement and complexity of code, and it will topple despite the efforts of the best social engineers.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

@Blue Horizon also,

Sartre called this dilemma something akin to “bad faith” because it is action based on the notion that “I” have no possibility of being a change agent and must act according to societal pressure. Freedom must mean free. Sometimes we learn from error. Even the horrendous errors of the so-called mentally ill, to be discouraged and condemned certainly, will ultimately lead to a consequence for the offender. Many of those people are at risk of self destruction: and aside from the fact that society puts them in that very position to begin with through persecution, harassment, and unreasonable demands, unlawful confinement and with a general air of assumed superiority part and parcel of “the throw away culture” so eloquently and insightfully labelled (as such) by the Holy Father for purposes known to he and the Spirit but understood by all men and women:

this self destructive tendency
is also understood as imbibed or internalized by the ill, to the end that they have no recourse for help. Society’s response is to turn up voltage and amperage in horrific and satanic egging; and thus, by responding with silent violence, i.e., the therapy session, the unnecessarily enormous cocktails of meds, prolonged confinement in institutions that are essentially abusive, the “natural law message” these people get is that violence is “the how” of self correction. Enjoin that message to a bad faith mindset and we wonder at the response? How foolish is this notion of mine? We create the notion that violence is the gateway to health?
The response of the behaviorists, who most readily adhere to natural laws and claim the supremacy of the machine body, is “We don’t have the technology to be cordial, kind, and nice to people in manifest suffering. And at any rate, decency and kindness never helps people.” Wordsmyth it short temperedly and how you like, using cognates from other cultures and tongues, the twinkling edifice of a natural philosophy based on natural law is unstable not at base, but at observation deck. Too much refinement and complexity of code, and it will topple despite the efforts of the best social engineers.

“The twinkling edifice of a natural philosophy based on natural law is unstable not at base, but at observation deck…”

I like that phrase - probably sums up succinctly the medieval weakness I alluded to.
In the end our morality derives from faith in a community.

If the Catholic Church passes on the ethical character of the God-man Jesus that is probably as good as it gets.

 

[ynotzap]

"The twinkling edifice of a natural philosophy based on natural law is unstable not at base, but at observation deck

This base, derived from the right reasoning of men based on contact with objective reality is what I was referring to when I stated that God did not abandon men, leaving them no chance of knowing the truth in order to find Him, even if it didn’t involve conversion. I also mentioned some of the obstacles that hindered this knowledge, ignorance, passion. Even though they err, man still knows some essential truths on a natural basis. So the base is not unstable, but man’s interpretation that is unstable, affirming the Church’s teaching about the effect of sin, ignorance of the truth, and weakness of will. Man is the observation deck.
BlueHorizon:

I like that phrase - probably sums up succinctly the medieval weakness I alluded to.
In the end our morality derives from faith in a community

This weakness is present in all ages not only the medieval. In the end our faith does not derive from faith in a community, for the community can not give the “Faith”, it shares in the truths of the faith, pointing in the direction of the source, it is only an instrument.
BlueHorizon:

If the Catholic Church passes on the ethical character of the God-man Jesus that is probably as good as it gets.

It is not by passing on the ethical character of God-man Jesus, but by leading man to an “encounter with the God-man Jesus” Faith in God-man Jesus is a supernatural gift, not a natural one, but absolutely needed by mankind if it is to respond to the natural and supernatural law of morality.
Quotes from John Paul ll, and St.Paul, Apostles to the Gentiles, summarized by Pope Paul VI: " The encounter will not take place unless the Gospel is proclaimed by witness. NEVERTHELESS this is always insufficient because the finest witness will prove ineffective if not explained and justified and made explicit by clear unequivocal proclamation of the Lord, Jesus Christ by word. There is no evangelization if the Name, teachings, life, promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus, the Son of God are not proclaimed."
Until then, humanity will continue to be frustrated in understanding the rational incongruities of man’s behavior to find real peace with himself and each other, and with his God.

 

[Michael19682]

This base, derived from the right reasoning of men based on contact with objective reality is what I was referring to when I stated that God did not abandon men, leaving them no chance of knowing the truth in order to find Him, even if it didn’t involve conversion. I also mentioned some of the obstacles that hindered this knowledge, ignorance, passion. Even though they err, man still knows some essential truths on a natural basis. So the base is not unstable, but man’s interpretation that is unstable, affirming the Church’s teaching about the effect of sin, ignorance of the truth, and weakness of will. Man is the observation deck.

This weakness is present in all ages not only the medieval. In the end our faith does not derive from faith in a community, for the community can not give the “Faith”, it shares in the truths of the faith, pointing in the direction of the source, it is only an instrument.

It is not by passing on the ethical character of God-man Jesus, but by leading man to an “encounter with the God-man Jesus” Faith in God-man Jesus is a supernatural gift, not a natural one, but absolutely needed by mankind if it is to respond to the natural and supernatural law of morality.
Quotes from John Paul ll, and St.Paul, Apostles to the Gentiles, summarized by Pope Paul VI: " The encounter will not take place unless the Gospel is proclaimed by witness. NEVERTHELESS this is always insufficient because the finest witness will prove ineffective if not explained and justified and made explicit by clear unequivocal proclamation of the Lord, Jesus Christ by word. There is no evangelization if the Name, teachings, life, promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus, the Son of God are not proclaimed."
Until then, humanity will continue to be frustrated in understanding the rational incongruities of man’s behavior to find real peace with himself and each other, and with his God.

Is what you say in essence: Faith forms like this, “Look down Catechumen son from where we are at the observation deck – how did you get here? You used your legs to climb stable stairs, right? Therefore your legs are your faith and the stairs are the Christian religion!” Is purpose “found out” where essentially there appears no purpose? Is an observation deck necessary to observe things? Why create the potential for instability by building such an edifice in the first place? Who will caution the true men to not climb beyond their level of comfort with doctrine, rules, and explanations that sometimes do nothing but zap strength?
The very last quote you offer is sociology and not really religion. The world is never a homogeneous place where everyone strives for faith in Jesus. Some people are content with no faith. Yet these same people want to observe from the observation deck, and say from the rooftops what they will. (I’m not going to say much more, because sometimes I feel like I’m one of them. But then again, these same people say that the natural law doctrine “chokes the interior” of men with notions of guilt and shame which we have all felt but admittedly need therewith to contextualize to help us with not forming despair instead of what should be the result, Faith…)