Is following your own conscience "natural law"?

[Tamsulosin]

I have a friend that is a practicing Catholic in many ways, including communion almost
every Sunday.An intelligent, accomplished person. But she does not believe the Church 's directives in certain important topics:contraception and abortion(“there is famine , suffering and pollution in this world,we do not need more people”) Regarding the dispersion of ashes after cremation,she intends to do just that .She does not believe anybody can dictate to you what to do with your ashes.She follows what her mind and conscience tells her.She plans to scatter hers in sacred grounds somewhere.
Is this “natural law” acceptable?We are accepting natural law principles in other areas.
We use our conscience as a tool at confession time.God provides us with a mind to think.Should we disregard it and follow Catholic rules?
I know in advance your answer, but you must admit that it is a tricky subject.

I thank God that I agree wholeheartily with the Church’s teachings on abortion.My mind tells me it is the right thing.Life is precious .Babies bring hope and joy.

But I see my friend’s dilemma for her mind tells her otherwise,
when she sees pictures of thousands of suffering, dying children without food,
which her donations cannot solve.

 

[Brenda_V]

No. Since knowledge is necessary to have a well formed conscience then it goes without saying that natural law and conscience are not equal. One may help the other as in we all know that murder is wrong, stealing is wrong etc. but to fine tune things we need our conscience which must be formed - educated if you will, to know the difference between a killing out of self defense and one just because you didn’t like the way someone smiled at you.

Now having answered this question I believe it really belongs in a different forum. Perhaps moral theology under apologetics. OP if you ask nice someone can move it for you. I honestly think you will get more answers there than here in Traditional Catholicism .

Brenda V.

 

[EasterJoy]

Natural law is how the Holy Spirit guides and forms the conscience in the absence of more explicit moral law, whether the absence is due to simple or invincible ignorance of explicit moral law. (Remember that the term invincible ignorance applies to those who are honestly open to follow any true teaching they hear, who seek the truth, but who, through no fault of their own, do not preceive the truth of what they have heard.)

Those who follow natural law do so not out of hard-heartedness towards explicit moral law, but by how they sense moral law without being taught it, because grace allows them obedience to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

A person following the natural law, then, will reject abortion (as, for instance, the Greek Hippocrates did hundreds of years before Christ) and share her worldly goods with the poor, not because the Gospel teaches her to do so, but because the Holy Spirit has spoken directly to her heart.

A person who does not reject abortion does so because her heart is in moral darkness. There are reasons for which a person might not be culpable for this, such as invincible ignorance towards both explicit moral law and natural law, but the act of procuring an abortion is still objectively wrong, nonetheless. The truth doesn’t change by our blindnesses towards it.

As for confession, it is always assumed that when we examine our conscience, we do so with a conscience that we have bothered to form and keep awakened to the Holy Spirit. A surgeon cannot excuse a bad surgery by saying, “Well, I used the scapel I had!” when he had the opportunity but did not bother to make certain the scapel was sharpened and sterilized before he started.

It could be argued that the proper disposal of ashes is a little different than abortion in an absolute sense–for instance, there was a time when Catholics were not allowed to opt for cremation at all–but the truth is that your friend is choosing her own way, not natural law, over the teachings of the Church.

 

[Sarah44]

Those who have studied these topics in depth say that conscience has both deep conscience, which is Natural Law or “the law written on man’s heart.” The other part of conscience is shallow conscience, which can become perverted by the world. If you think about it, this makes sense because the corporate media are constantly bombarding us with emotionally-laden messages about the poor woman who really really needs to (kill her baby - is not how they put it) “end the pregnancy.” etc. It sounds like this is what is happening with your friend, the cafeteria “Catholic” who picks and chooses what feels the most comfortable to fit in to the world system. What do you think?
Sarah

 

[lilred5]

First of all, let me apologize because my response is going to be very teen related.
But this is a website I just heard about that I think has good analogies and explanations afterwards (and it won’t take up all of your time).
youngcatholicminute.com/video.html
Watch the videos “Why Can’t I Follow my Own Conscience?” and “Isn’t Truth Relative?”
I don’t think this is what you’re really looking for but I lack all of the fancy science and intense study on this subject.