Larkin31 (#281)
natural law does not exist
False.
Man is capable by his own activity of acquiring what is lacking and developing what is already possessed to fulfill his nature. So man can know his incompleteness; he can see what he is now and discover the direction of fulfillment by scrutiny of his own nature in body, mind and spirit – to achieve himself fully. As a free agent, he has an obligation to achieve himself fully, and this bond of obligation is the natural law. All that is knowable about man through psychology, history or any of the sciences is relevant to the natural law, is part of the natural law. The natural law is outside of man’s control because created by God in man’s nature.
[See Fr Paul M Quay, S.J., in *Why Humanae Vitae Was Right, Ignatius 1993, p 21-4]
The Natural Law is “a law that is in principle accessible to human reason and not dependent on (though entirely compatible with and, indeed, illumined by) divine revelation.” (
The Clash of Orthodoxies, Professor Robert P George (Princeton), ISI Books, 2001, p 169). So that’s where you have to start – with reason, and the effects of acting against reason and the natural moral law.
John Finnis writes: “for Aquinas, the way to discover what is morally right (virtue) and wrong (vice) is to ask, not what is in accordance with human nature, but what is reasonable.” So, then, human good is in accord with reason and human evil lies outside the order of reasonableness: “So human virtue, which makes good both the human person and his work, is in accordance with human nature just in so far as it is in accordance with reason; and vice is contrary to human nature just in so far as it is contrary to the order of reasonableness.” (Aquinas, Summa, I-II, qu. 71, art. 2, resp.).
“To ascertain the reasonableness of something, one must examine cause-and-effect relationships, a process that calls for scientific research and study.”
[See *Christians For Freedom, Chafuen, Ignatius 1996, p 29-30].