Natural Law

[Charlemagne_II]

The appeal of natural law morality is that it fits with common sense, a faculty much abused in today’s world. It should be not only natural law morality, but also common sense that we don’t kill our own children in the womb and we don’t marry people of our own sex. Above all it should be common sense that you don’t flaunt the existence of God as a childish myth when you haven’t got the slightest bit of proof that God does not exist.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

The appeal of natural law morality is that it fits with common sense, a faculty much abused in today’s world. It should be not only natural law morality, but also common sense that we don’t kill our own children in the womb and we don’t marry people of our own sex. Above all it should be common sense that you don’t flaunt the existence of God as a childish myth when you haven’t got the slightest bit of proof that God does not exist.

Yeah, and I don’t think it is black and white–either you believe in God or else you have no use of the natural light of reason at all. There are many people who fall very much in between, and strictly philosophical arguments and common nsense can reach them.

 

[anthony022071]

True many RCs do not know about the NL and it goes without saying that those outside the church need to be evangelized/catechized. And . . . .?

So people need to be made aware of natural law and in light of Church doctrine about creation.

My point was the CC already stresses that it is the guardian of the NL. One who does believe the Catholic faith must assent to this. So just who is your argument aimed at? What’s its purpose? To repeat a Catholic truism that is a matter of public record?

My argument is not aimed at anyone in particular.

Yes . . . an age old truism. Fides et Ratio: theology uses the results of philosophy without intrumentalizing it.

Theologians do use philososphical ways of thought instrumentally.

As you phrased this here, I completely agree. But the natural law from its inception in Greek and Roman thought has always been in a religious context (in the context of knowledge about God) and continued to be so in the Catholic Church.

The Greek and Roman philosophers did not always put natural law in a religious context.
And intellectuals from Grotius to the 18th century French deists and skeptics did not put it into a religious context,because they saw that Cicero and Seneca and the Stoics did not.

So again you are asserting the oft-repeated observation that with the breakup of the Catholic synthesis of faith and reason, nature and the supernatural, freedom and grace in the Enlightenment and the frequently resultant atheism, the life reason and its role in human affairs has suffered. Is there anybody here that doesn’t know this already?

I’m sure there are many people who are not aware of these things. And many of those who are aware do not have a problem with the compartmentalization of faith and reason,knowledge of nature and knowledge of the supernatural.

You have not addressed the issue of the rightful autonomy of the earthly sciences (Gaudem et Spes, 36) and the distinction in object and method between philosophy and theology (Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, 1; Fides et Ratio, 15, 45-49, and passim). Where are you with this?

The autonomy of the natural sciences does not mean that their naturalistic perspective is to be approved,or that relevant knowledge about God and his power in the world should not be brought to bear upon the study of natural things. The doctrines of creation and divine providence already do bear upon the natural world,so why not acknowledge this knowledge in the study of natural things?

“. . .it should be noted that the different ways of knowing (ratio cognoscibilis) give us different sciences. The astronomer and the natural philosopher both conclude that the world is round, but the astronomer does this through a mathematical middle that is abstracted from matter, whereas the natural philosopher considers a middle lodged in matter. Thus there is nothing to prevent another science from treating in the light of divine revelation what the philosophical disciplines treat as knowable in the light of human reason” (Summa theologiae, Ia, q. 1, a., ad 2).

 

[anthony022071]

As should be abundantly clear from my first response this is true for RCs, but often useless as an explicit premise in discussions with atheists, at least early on in an apologetic discussion. Later, maybe.

If you can’t persuade an atheist of the existence of God,you are not likely to persuade him of the existence of natural law either. Natural law is as invisible as God (even more so,since God reveals himself),and as a concept,it is metaphysical. As Pope Benedict wrote in one of his books,modern philosophers reject natural law because it reeks of metaphysics.

“Naturalistic thinking” can still be true in its limited domain.

The naturalistic perspective is false to begin with. God exists,and he is at work in the natural world. The naturalistic perspective leads to falsehoods wherever it leads people to attribute to natural causes the ability to do things that they logically cannot have the power to do: produce life,order,thought,and make physical things come into existence from nothingness.

Aquinas was speaking in generalities about reason in much the same way one could speak about sense experience. Indeed there are those who dispute both, but not all non-Catholic’s do. Recourse to the natural light of reason can and has been a useful tool to reach common ground or expose falsehoods especially when held accountable in public forums. This is what Aquinas as a scholastic thinker teaching in a university and engaging in public disputations had in mind. He did not mean that every last individual is deterministically bound to assent to the voice of reason.

If that’s what he meant,there’s a big difference between the need for men to assent to reason and whether or not they do assent to it.

So:
(1) If you are simply repeating the standard RC doctrine that the RCC is the guardian of the NL, I agree.
(2) If you are simply asserting the oft-repeated observation that with the breakup of the Catholic synthesis the life reason and its role in human affairs including the NL has suffered, I agree.
(3) If you affirm the rightful autonomy of the earthly sciences (Gaudem et Spes, 36) and the distinction in object and method between philosophy and theology (Aquinas, *Summa Theologica *, I, 1; Fides et Ratio, 15, 45-49, and passim; as well as Gilson, Maritain, Pieper, etc.), I agree.

But if so, why not just say up front that you want to reaffirm what we orthodox RCs have always believed???

I stated my position clearly in the first post. I wrote,“My position is that natural law exists,that it is created by God and is constituted into man’s conscience,human nature and body,and that it can be discerned through reason. But since it is given by God,it ought to be understood in light of what we know about God and man through Catholic doctrine.”

 

[John21652]

If you can’t persuade an atheist of the existence of God,you are not likely to persuade him of the existence of natural law either. Natural law is as invisible as God (even more so,since God reveals himself),and as a concept,it is metaphysical. As Pope Benedict wrote in one of his books,modern philosophers reject natural law because it reeks of metaphysics.

Anthony, you are still not getting it. Natural Law is not invisible. It is observable, discernable and in case you are not aware of it, Cultural Anthropology is examining what we call Natural Law, but what they would describe as a unified theory of what constitutes human nature, those universal attributes which the Catholic says are written on the hearts of men and the Cultural Anthropologists would say are discernable across cultures that are very different. You fall for the trap of necessarily equating God with Natural Law. The atheist simply says “God doesn’t exist” and your debate is finished, right there at that point.

As for the Pope saying Natural Law is rejected because of some metaphysical association, to a point he is right, or should I say was right. The scientific method, the Positivist approach, was adopted by all those examining what constitutes human nature. However, it has now been admitted that all the positivist information in the world does nothing to help arrive at a unified theory of human nature, of what constitutes man’s nature. The metaphysical is being explored once again and the different anthropological approaches, which diverged because of the positivist approach, are once again unifying.

The naturalistic perspective is false to begin with. God exists,and he is at work in the natural world. The naturalistic perspective leads to falsehoods wherever it leads people to attribute to natural causes the ability to do things that they logically cannot have the power to do: produce life,order,thought,and make physical things come into existence from nothingness.

There is a massive assumption in this paragraph of yours here. You are assuming that God is determining what the world is and how it operates at every moment in time. Are you sure about that? What do you mean by saying people do not have the power to produce life? God gave us that power and the free will to decide whether or not we use that power. Are are right when you say we can’t make things come into existence from nothingness? What do you mean by nothingness?

If that’s what he meant,there’s a big difference between the need for men to assent to reason and whether or not they do assent to it.

Have you ever heard of unreasonableness? Have you ever heard of the term illogical? Perhaps it is the case that men have to be taught to reason correctly. If that were not the case, surely much of the world’s problems would already be solved?!

I stated my position clearly in the first post. I wrote,“My position is that natural law exists,that it is created by God and is constituted into man’s conscience,human nature and body,and that it can be discerned through reason. But since it is given by God,it ought to be understood in light of what we know about God and man through Catholic doctrine.”

Yes and it was your first post that got people worked up. If you make that statement to an atheist, he will shrug his shoulders and walk away. Once you tie Natural Law into a theological debate, you lose that argument, because every secular scientific forum will consign you to the bin of archaic discourse and the idea of a natural law founded on reason and rational inquiry is virtually lost. You need to obtain for yorself a book called Jurisprudence: Men and Ideas of the Law (Brooklyn: Foundation Press, 1953, by a Professor Patterson. He defines Natural Law as

Principles of human conduct that are discoverable by “reason” from the basic inclinations of human nature, and that are absolute, immutable and of universal validity for all times and places. This is the basic conception of scholastic natural law … and most natural law philosophers.

Now that quote is over fifty years old and only recently have the cultural sciences who derided the theological and metaphysical arguments in favour of Natural Law arrived at the conclusion that what this quote is saying holds true. That the positivist approach has failed. You firstly need to convince people of the veracity of Patterson’s definition of Natural Law. Then and only then, can you evince an argument in favour of a theological foundation for the existence of Natural Law. If that were not the case, the whole world would be Catholic already.

 

[anthony022071]

Anthony, you are still not getting it. Natural Law is not invisible. It is observable, discernable and in case you are not aware of it, Cultural Anthropology is examining what we call Natural Law, but what they would describe as a unified theory of what constitutes human nature, those universal attributes which the Catholic says are written on the hearts of men and the Cultural Anthropologists would say are discernable across cultures that are very different.

Natural Law is not visible in itself. It is only discerned though conscience and behavior.
Cultural anthropologists take the naturalistic view that scientists do,and so they are inclined to explain natural law as a product of human evolution. They are certainly not going to say that it is a creation of God.

You fall for the trap of necessarily equating God with Natural Law. The atheist simply says “God doesn’t exist” and your debate is finished, right there at that point.

The debate doesn’t end just because an atheist claims that God doesn’t exist,unless he refuses to debate the existence of God. It is not as if atheists can never be brought to belief,or that believers must give up the debate when confronted with other people’s disbelief. Let the atheists try to justify their disbelief. They can only argue from the naturalistic perspective,which is unjustifiable to begin with.

As for the Pope saying Natural Law is rejected because of some metaphysical association, to a point he is right, or should I say was right. The scientific method, the Positivist approach, was adopted by all those examining what constitutes human nature. However, it has now been admitted that all the positivist information in the world does nothing to help arrive at a unified theory of human nature, of what constitutes man’s nature. The metaphysical is being explored once again and the different anthropological approaches, which diverged because of the positivist approach, are once again unifying.

I don’t see that happening,except among philosophers. It is still the naturalistic explanations that are binding upon scientists and anthropologists. Naturalism is their common ground.

There is a massive assumption in this paragraph of yours here. You are assuming that God is determining what the world is and how it operates at every moment in time. Are you sure about that?

God excercizes his omnipotence over the natural world,while still allowing for natural causation. Only he has the power to create life and order and existence.

What do you mean by saying people do not have the power to produce life?
God gave us that power and the free will to decide whether or not we use that power.

Our reproductive capacity is entirely dependent upon God. It is the Spirit of God that gives life to humans. We don’t have that power on our own.

Are are right when you say we can’t make things come into existence from nothingness? What do you mean by nothingness?

We don’t have the power to create physical matter come into existence.
I mean by nothingness is the absence of any physical matter.

Have you ever heard of unreasonableness? Have you ever heard of the term illogical? Perhaps it is the case that men have to be taught to reason correctly. If that were not the case, surely much of the world’s problems would already be solved?!

I was only disagreeing with Aquinas’ choice of words.

Yes and it was your first post that got people worked up. If you make that statement to an atheist, he will shrug his shoulders and walk away.

If you argue for the existence of natural law,he will likely think that you are trying to convert him to belief in Judeo-Christian morality. He may think that his own and other people’s conscience is a sufficient guide to moral behavior,and that moral standards are a product of evolution.

Once you tie Natural Law into a theological debate, you lose that argument, because every secular scientific forum will consign you to the bin of archaic discourse and the idea of a natural law founded on reason and rational inquiry is virtually lost.

What good is natural law based on reason alone when reasonable men disagree about what is reasonable,when morality is thought to be evolved and changeable,and when mere opinions,for lack of the power to punish transgressions,have no binding authority over men’s consciences.