Natural Law

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andyklein

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Correct me if I’m wrong, but Thomist natural law states that man creates laws to govern his society toward a teleological end, which is to get closer to God. His reason is inherently based on God’s will. Thus, man’s laws naturally codify God’s will into the framing of society through established legal codes. This theory also suggests that the laws gradually get more just as God’s will becomes more apparent. The ends of the man, and therefore the law, are to find God.

I am new to this theory, so I need some clarifying. My issue is that I don’t see how the law realizes man’s ultimate ends when the secular world is distinct from the divine world, where man sees his hopeful ends. Man’s law is nothing compared to God’s will.

This implies that the laws man creates are not naturally inspired and designed for his ends, but are formed only for his self-preservation, what is called the “minimum content of natural law” (legaltheoryandjurisprudence.blogspot.com/2008/08/hla-hart-laws-and-morals-and-minimum.html?m=1).

This does not shoot down the theory of natural law, but just revises it by proposing a different view of human nature and his use for the law. God still drives our lives but we make our laws based on our minimum requirements for survival, since we have free will and cannot make a heaven out of the earth.

What do you think?
 
Natural law is based on the ten commandments. Laws that are natural to the nature of God. Like promotion of life, respect for family, goodness of God, respect for fellow man. All because God is the creator of life so it is in Gods nature to create life. And if we follow those commands/laws we can be led to the Creator, if we don’t, we are moving away from the truths of the Creator or life, liberty and happiness.

Jesus sums up the commandments into two. Love God and Love one another but never abolished the Law, but Christ fulfills the spirit of the Law… And one doesn’t even have to believe in God to know these laws are natural for us to follow. We know we shouldn’t steal, we should be life giving, etc.

And these natural laws were written into the declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

So laws should be in line with natural law of our Creator (laws of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) or can summed up as the natural law of God. If they aren’t followed that we move away from the truth than we are not staying in the direction of God maker of Creation so it affects our rights to be with Our Creator or our life, liberty and happiness. God is the source of all truths.

Free will is our ability to make Choices. Gods will is that we be reunited with Him in heaven however pathway that may be set for us, that’s Gods will for us. So the free will of man could get in the way of Gods will for us if we allow it to be or the government oversteps its boundries and imposes on the will of God.
 
Fantastic OP! I have a B.A. in philosophy. I will be back,but I have to take time to ponder.
I am not Catholic. However, I have been drawn to such a world view because it respects philosophy. Protestantism is very legalistic (rules and regulations) and misses the point of Christ’s message,love!
I am a hybrid! My mom’s side of the family are Catholic farmers. My dad’s side are Harvard educated intellectuals. So far, I have spent my life trying to reconcile the differences.
 
“I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.” - Heb 8:10

Romans 2:11-15

“All who sin outside the law will also perish without reference to it, and all who sin under the law will be judged in accordance with it. For it is not those who hear the law who are just in the sight of God; rather, those who observe the law will be justified. For when the Gentiles who do not have the law by nature observe the prescriptions of the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law. They show that the demands of the law are written in their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even defend them on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge people’s hidden works through Christ Jesus.”

Thomas Aquinas

“Where then are these rules written, if not in the book of that light we call the truth? In it is written every just law; from it the law passes into the heart of the man who does justice, not that it migrates into it, but that it places its imprint on it, like a seal on a ring that passes onto wax, without leaving the ring. The natural law is nothing other than the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God has given this light or law at the creation.” ST 1-II q. 91-94
 
andyklein said:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Thomist natural law states that man creates laws to govern his society toward a teleological end, which is to get closer to God. His reason is inherently based on God’s will. Thus, man’s laws naturally codify God’s will into the framing of society through established legal codes. This theory also suggests that the laws gradually get more just as God’s will becomes more apparent. The ends of the man, and therefore the law, are to find God.

I am new to this theory, so I need some clarifying. My issue is that I don’t see how the law realizes man’s ultimate ends when the secular world is distinct from the divine world, where man sees his hopeful ends. Man’s law is nothing compared to God’s will.

This implies that the laws man creates are not naturally inspired and designed for his ends, but are formed only for his self-preservation, what is called the “minimum content of natural law” (legaltheoryandjurisprudence.blogspot.com/2008/08/hla-hart-laws-and-morals-and-minimum.html?m=1).

This does not shoot down the theory of natural law, but just revises it by proposing a different view of human nature and his use for the law. God still drives our lives but we make our laws based on our minimum requirements for survival, since we have free will and cannot make a heaven out of the earth.

What do you think?
Click to expand...
The International Theological Commission (under the CDF) produced a text called In Search of a Universal Ethic: A New Look at the Natural Law. I highly recommend it.
 
Hi adnyklein;

God doesn’t ‘create’ natural law, as though it were something independent of human reason. There would be no natural law without human reason. In his treatise on Law, Thomas explains that law—all human law, both positive and natural law—is a ‘participation’ in the Divine law. (Thomas’ treatise on law begins with question 90 in the 2nd of the 2nd part of the Summa).

Human, positive law, even things like speed limits and paying taxes, participate in the eternal law in so far as all legitimate government is a participation in the authority of God. Natural law is practical reason’s guide: ie, reason’s understanding of how one ought to act in regards to moral matters. The key thing about natural law is that it is a bridge between natural virtue (obeying legitimate positive law) and infused virtues (which are meritorious, pointing to eternal beatitude). Both natural law and positive law participate in the divine law. Hence, the doctrine of participation is key to understanding Thomas’ notion of law. Hence all law is teleological insofar as it is a participation in the divine law.

An in-depth discussion of natural law can be found in Martin Rhonheimer, Natural Law & Practical Reason.
 
Wow the other explanations were hard to understand at least for me. I was going with what I understood as natural law. They’re written in the ten commandments, The ten commandments themselves encompassing many other sub commandments within each one. And I knew I saw sites on them.

ewtn.com/expert/answers/ten_commandments.htm

catholicity.com/catechism/the_moral_law.html

From that link.

Expressed in the Ten Commandments (1955)

This “divine and natural” law and is expressed in the Ten Commandments. The law is “natural” because reason (which decrees it) belongs to human nature. “These rules are written in the book of that light which we call truth and are imprinted on the heart of man as a seal upon wax” (St. Augustine). “Natural law is the light of understanding placed in us by God through which we know what we must do and what we must avoid” (St. Augustine).

I mean, I think most of us have the ten commandments written on our hearts. Summarized by Jesus into two Love God and Love one another.

Jesus also said he didn’t come to abolish but to fulfill so that leaves the ten commandments intact.
 
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