In a less distressed intellectual environment than today when the general notion is that nothing exists unless it can be weighed and touched, one might plough straight into the methods of Aristotle and Thomas and enjoy the intellectual wonder of contemplating Creation and Reality. But where the very notion that the elementary consideration of Being or that in the ultimate sense, that created Being flows from the uncreated Being, is roundly ignored or even scoffed at, it is imperative that we consolidate our reasons, needs and means for progressing in scholastic philosophy.
I say again that the first reason for intellectual enquiry is not to primarily to refute falsehood but to discern truth and delight in it. It is for this reason that each fallacy disturbing sanity, must be seen for what it is, as one lights a child's room to calm his fright at some noise in the dark.
Many of the monsters produced in the twentieth century sleep of reason are imagined ones but some are very real and as good citizens we realise there is a duty to confront them. Nevertheless, I insist this is the secondary objective. And here the human intellect is least effective - for the best way to confront evil is by doing good and the greatest part of doing good is in petitioning God for His powerful intervention. Lose sight of this and our struggle to perfect our minds can dissolve into little more than complaining about the way of the world in defiance of St Paul.
Thus, I ask you to accept what refutations and constructions are set before us in a positive light. If some scientists misuse their function and presume to suggest that a created, mindless thing is a function of its own creating mechanism, it is enough that we learn by their mistakes; if social or political movements or enthusiasms throw up the most alarming nonsenses, it is good that we have the intellectual clarity to discern such errors and should, accordingly, feel re-invigorated to pursue sanity with ever greater effort.
That quite repugnant philosophies are vying for public acceptance today is beyond dispute, but it is also unarguable that there is more to these false ideas than poor reasoning. In other words, a foul philosophy is often nothing other than an attempt to justify some or other evil and will not be corrected by reasonable argument alone.
So once more I invite citizens to come upon these problems as a medical student might approach the dissection of a corpse to learn from death how better to preserve life. For example, anybody can see the death of Marxism and count the corpses around it after the event, (together with Nazism's victims assessed at over 150 million - not including soldiers who died directly through war) but philosophers pointed out many years ago that Hegel who actually conceived the philosophy supporting Marxism was following the bent path of the ancient Parmenides. Spinoza also went similarly astray. These followed what is called the school of exaggerated intellectualism which refused to acknowledge the notion of potentiality because by itself it is obscure. Nevertheless, by denying (or in the case of Parmenides failing to grasp) this notion, they were led to obviously false conclusions. For if everything which is, is wholly or pure act, either motion must be unreal (Parmenides) or contraries are identical (Hegel) and creatures must have the same nature as God (Pantheism).
It will do no harm immediately to state that Aristotle and Aquinas agreed that reason was best led by positing Potentiality and Act in things and that God, or the Pure Act is absolutely distinct from created things.
And so the complex but satisfying argument built up by Thomas, in his 'five ways' by which the reason is forced to acknowledge the presence of that Being "which commonly men know as God", not only sheds light upon trhe human reason but indicates a pathway to social sanity.
It can be shown that the reason is compelled to assent to the existence of God the Creator (Pure Act). Arguments can also prove the benignity and providential nature of this Creation to support the Revealed knowledge which we have from God Himself through the Church and sacred scripture.
But we are also now able to posit, not only the need for a code by which men may order their behaviour within Creation, but that, issuing from the Creator, this must also be known as a Law.
We can immediately discern that an attempt by men to prove natural law by limiting themselves to the logic of intermediate causes, is weak. In every sense this is tantamount to trying to pull one's self up by one's own bootlaces. By definition, a secondary, or intermediate cause, is that which itself requires cause. It is also obvious that sensible matter is limited in Act to its own nature. It may not be what it is not, either potentially or actually; so molten steel may become railroad lines but not water.
But as regards this limitation set by its nature on created matter and which precludes it formulating laws for rational beings to obey or disregard, there are some quite common-sense observations supporting that fact. One of these could be described as an axiom - most created things are closely controlled and directed within the environment where they exist. The exception, in a very important respect, is humankind which although bound in many ways by the laws of nature, so to speak, is so much beyond the control of such laws as to be capable of significantly manipulating and re-ordering them; seemingly to be above the "law".
Meanwhile we speak of the laws of nature, implying that all of nature is bound by certain laws, such as gravity, or osmosis or that water seeks its own level and so on. These laws are of another order of meaning, figures of speech or classifications for the observed activity of material phenomena.
Thus we may speak of scientific laws, such as Boyle's law or, say, the law of thermodynamics. But only an idiot would presume to suggest that Boyle had ever done anything other than observe and describe a natural imperative in the direction of natural phenomena. Sadly some fools are paid top dollar for suggesting exactly that at more than one great university today.
So what must we consider when speaking of what thus far we have named Natural Law? It might be best to begin at the end, at what is governed by a law. Matter without "law" or what I shall now call direction and control, is chaos - a condition which the mind cannot properly apprehend other than notionally. And inasmuch as our bodies and senses are material, we depend upon this control and direction. But as rational creatures we are observed also to have control and to be capable of directing certain actions. Thus while a rabbit, with a brain exactly proportionate to its immediate survival and procreative needs, will fail when removed from its natural habitat, a man may so direct and control his environment as to be able to break free from earth's gravity and take what air he requires for breathing to the moon. Considered in the light of metaphysics this simple fact would express important implications for it would indicate that our Nature, that which we are or may be, is in fact not entirely limited to material control.
G. K. Chesterton in his brilliant book, The Everlasting Man, hammers this idea home by describing man as the monster in the created order. But Chesterton was striving to make us aware of the quite astounding plane of being which man inhabits in comparison to rest of nature.
It is empirically observed also that unless this creature agrees to abide by certain rules, he becomes truly monstrous in the Bram Stoker sense. Who can deny that if we consider the bloodlust predations of evil men like Stalin or Hitler? In the smallest detail a choice of action can affect others so that some scholars propose that every act is a moral act. In short, it is not only apparent that man's true environer must be transcendant, but that man is incomplete as to his nature unless he obeys rules proper to that nature. And this need to obey is the crux; it is at once the description and fate of man that he may say yes or say no even if to do either must bring destruction upon him. He is free even to invite catastrophe!
All nature generally is constrained to obey fixed "laws" directing and controlling it and has no choice in the matter. As a creature, man is apparently subject to direction and control but this is observably exterior to himself and even this, it seems, is within his power to neglect or deny.
This law, under which man must serve in order to realise his true nature, men have known from ancient times as Natural Law. It is not to be considered as we understand the physical sciences (sciences from secondary causes) but rather in the light of our knowledge of the dependency of our Being upon the Creator directly. But this knowledge is arrived at by our consideration of those causes to which our reason is compelled to assent. We have certain knowledge of such causes and their necessary First Cause and, this being science in the highest respect, we may proceed confidently to prove the existence and necessity of Natural Law.
In the matter of Natural Law it is useful then to consider what we have proved by natural means (which includes the proof of the existence and control of the Creator) also by the light of Revelation. Although properly we are moving into the sphere of Theology, nevertheless, the logical ordering of man's reason and the motion of matter in which he dwells, is so excellently lit by Revelation that nature and man's rigorous scientific descriptions of it reflect back the validity of that Revelation.
None of what follows is excluded from what is available to any nation or social grouping although it is expressed and collated superbly in the context of the Christian deposit of faith.
Natural Law, therefore, is known completely as the Natural Moral Law and is understood fully in the context of the Moral Law which may be stated thus:
Law is a rule of conduct enacted by competent authority for the sake of the common good. The moral law presupposes the rational order, established among creatures for their good and to serve their final end, by the power, wisdom and goodness of the Creator. All law finds its first and ultimate truth in the eternal law. Law is declared and established by reason as a participation in the providence of the living God, Creator and Redeemer of all. "Such an ordinance of reason is what one calls law," Aquinas said.
Tertulian in the early centuries of Christendom wrote: "Alone among all animate beings, man can boast of having been counted worthy to receive a law from God; as an animal endowed with reason, capable of understanding and discernment, he is to govern his conduct by using his freedom and reason, in obedience to the One who has entrusted everything to him."
There are different expressions of the moral law, all of them interrelated: eternal law - the source, in God, of all law; natural law; revealed law, comprising the Old and the New Law, or Law of the Gospel; finally ecclesiastical and civil laws.
The moral law finds its fullness and its unity in Christ. Jesus Christ is in person the way of perfection. He is the end of the law, for only He teaches and bestows the justice of God: "For Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified." Rom 10:4.
The Natural law expresses the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth and the lie:
"The Natural Law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin...But this command of human reason would not have the force of law if it were not the voice and interpreter of a higher reason to which our spirit and freedom must be submitted."
One wonders what the wilder sort of Liberal, for whom unconstrained freedom has been given idolatrous rights, would make of those cautionary words from Leo XIII as Europe was being plunged into the first terrible horrors of this age.
The Divine and Natural Law shows man the way to follow so as to practice good and achieve his end. The Natural Law states the first and essential precepts which govern the moral life. It hinges upon the desire for God and submission to Him who is the source and judge of all that is good, as well as upon the sense that the other (one's fellow man) is as one's equal.
Its principal precepts are expressed in the Decalogue. This law is called natural, not in reference to the nature of irrational beings, but because reason which decrees it belongs to human nature:
St Thomas put it thus: "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."
The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties:
Cicero wrote this before the coming of Christ:
"For there is a true law: right reason in agreement with nature; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, though neither have any effect on the wicked. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible t abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for he is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly called punishment . . ."
Application of the natural law varies greatly; it can demand reflection that takes account of various conditions in life according to places, times, and circumstances. Nevertheless, in the diversity of cultures, the natural law remains as a rule that binds men among themselves and imposes on them, beyond the inevitable differences, common principles.
The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history; it subsists in the flux of ideas and customs and supports their progress. The rules that express it remain substantially valid. Even when it is rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in the life of individuals and societies:
"Theft surely is punished by your law, O Lord, and by the law that is written in the human heart, the law that iniquity itself does not efface." St Augustine.
The Natural Law, the Creator's very good work, provides the solid foundation on which man can build the structure of moral rules to guide his choices. It also provides the indispensable moral foundation for building the human community. Finally, it provides the necessary basis for the civil law with which it is connected, whether by a reflection which draws conclusions from its principles, or by additions of a positive and juridical nature.
The precepts of natural law are not perceived by everyone clearly and immediately. In the present situation sinful man needs grace and revelation so that moral and religious truths may be known "by everyone with facility, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error." Humani generis: DS 3876;cf.
The Natural Law provides revealed law and grace with a foundation prepared by God and in accordance with the work of the Spirit.
On another page Professor Johnson's superb article regrets the failure of senior jurists to "come clean" on the real implications of natural law as he gave witness to the great nations slipping into moral nihilism as they made up "laws" based upon no external or abiding reality. The great "Sez Who?" as the good professor named this idol.
If nothing else we must all help to raise the right reason of man above crude bench-mark of the limited physical sciences, trace that reason to the higher reason which is its fountainhead and end, and restor philosophy to its true place as the scientific instrument par excellence for reasons gain in wonder and love.