Posted on 09/02/2004 10:10:00 PM PDT by Choose Ye This Day
R&L: The concept of natural law underpins the analysis in your latest book What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide. What is the natural law?
Budziszewski: Our subject is called natural law because it has the qualities of all law. Law has rightly been defined as an ordinance of reason, for the common good, made by the one who has care of the community, and promulgated. Consider the natural law against murder. It is not an arbitrary whim, but a rule that the mind can grasp as right. It serves not some special interest, but the universal good. Its author has care of the universe, for he (God) created it. And it is not a secret rule, for God has so arranged his creation that every rational being knows about it.
Our subject is called natural law because it is built into the design of human nature and woven into the fabric of the normal human mind. Another reason for calling it natural is that we rightly take it to be about what really is—a rule like the prohibition of murder reflects not a mere illusion or projection, but genuine knowledge. It expresses the actual moral character of a certain kind of act.
R&L: Why is the natural law something that “we can’t not know?”
Budziszewski: Mainly because we have been endowed by God with conscience. I am referring to “deep conscience,” which used to be called synderesis—the interior witness to the foundational principles of morality. We must distinguish it from “surface conscience,” which used to be called conscientia—what we derive from the foundational principles, whether correctly or incorrectly, whether by means honest or dishonest. Deep conscience can be suppressed and denied, but it can never be erased. Surface conscience, unfortunately, can be erased and distorted in numerous ways—one of several reasons why moral education and discipline remain necessary.
In fact there are at least four ways in which we know the natural law. Deep conscience, the First Witness, is the one primarily responsible for “what we can’t not know.” The others concern “what we can’t help learning.” The Second Witness is our recognition of the designedness of things in general, which not only draws our attention to the Designer, but also assures us that the other witnesses are not meaningful. The Third Witness is the particulars of our own design—-for example, the interdependence and complementarity of the sexes. The Fourth Witness is the natural consequences of our behavior. All four work together.
R&L: What are the promises and perils of advancing a natural-law argument in the context of public policy disputes?
Budziszewski: The natural-law tradition maintains that the foundational principles of morality are “the same for all, both as to rectitude and as to knowledge”—-in other words, they are not only right for everyone, but at some level known to everyone. If this is true, then the task of debate about morality is not so much teaching people what they have no clue about, but bringing to the surface the latent moral knowledge or suppressed moral knowledge that they have already. There is an art to this; people often have strong motives not to allow that knowledge to come to the surface, and they may feel defensive. One has to get past evasions and self-deceptions, and it is more difficult to do this in the public square than in private conversation. Even so, certain basic moral knowledge is “down there,” and our public statements can make contact with it. When this is done well, the defensiveness of the listeners is disarmed, and they reflect, “Of course. I never thought of that before, but somehow I knew it all along.”
R&L: Do you agree that large sections of the evangelical Protestant community have rejected natural-law ethics? If so, why do you think they have rejected it?
Budziszewski: Evangelicals ought to believe in the natural law. Many are coming to realize this. However, some say that the only place to find moral truth is in the word of God, and that natural-law tradition denies this. They argue that the natural-law tradition puts much too much confidence in the capacity of fallen man to know the moral truth. They worry that the first people to use the expression “natural law” were the Stoics, who were pagans. Finally, they suspect that the God of natural law is not the God of the Bible, but the God of Deism—a distant Creator who designed the universe, wound it up, set it running, then went away. The answer to the first objection is that the Bible itself testifies to the reality of the natural law; though it does not use the term natural law, it alludes to all four of the Witnesses. The answer to the second objection is also biblical. The Apostle Paul did not blame the pagans for not having the truth about God and his moral requirements, but for suppressing and neglecting it. In the Proverbs, the main complaint about “fools” is not that they lack knowledge but that they despise it. As to the third objection, it is true that the first philosophers to use the term natural law were pagans, but the biblical testimony to its reality came earlier still. Besides, if God has made some things plain to all human beings through the Four Witnesses, should we not have expected some pagan thinkers to have admitted some of them? As to the fourth objection, the God of natural law is not different from the God of scripture—it is an incomplete picture of the same one. Nature proclaims its Creator; scripture tells us who he is. Nature shows us the results of his deeds in creation; scripture tells us the results of his deeds in history. Nature manifests to us his moral requirements; scripture tells us what to do about the fact that we do not measure up to them.
R&L: What theological concerns do you have, if any, with respect to an ethic that ostensibly relies quite heavily on reason as its foundation?
Budziszewski: I wish you had not put it that way! Too many people think that acknowledging the claims of reason means denying the claims of revelation. I do not see it that way at all. Think of the matter like this. God has made some things known to all human beings; these are general revelation. He has also made additional things known to the community of faith; these are special revelation. Natural law is about general revelation, not special revelation. However, a Christian natural-law thinker will make use of special revelation to illuminate general revelation—and will use God-given reasoning powers to understand them both.
R&L: What should business executives know about natural law? How does or should the natural law affect the day-to-day routine of the average business executive?
Budziszewski: Natural law is moral reality. It affects the day-to-day routine of the average business executive the same way that it affects everyone else. Like others, then, business executives need to know that if they say “I am doing the best I can, but everything is shades of gray,” they are lying to themselves. Most of the time the right thing to do is quite plain. Like others, they also need to face up to the fact that some moral rules hold without exception. Figuring out a way to outwit or outrun the usual bad consequences does not make a basic wrong right.
R&L: What do you consider to be the top threats to engaging in ethical business practices?
Budziszewski: The moment lying is accepted instead of condemned, it has to be required. Once it comes to be viewed as just another way to win, then in refusing to lie for the party, the company, or the cause, a person is not doing his or her job. Dishonoring truth is perversely regarded as a kind of duty.
R&L: Are these threats more significant than the threats facing past generations? Why or why not?
Budziszewski: Yes, I think so. We are passing through an eerie phase of history in which the things that everyone really knows are treated as unheard-of doctrines, a time in which the elements of common decency are themselves attacked as indecent. Nothing quite like this has ever happened before. Although our civilization has passed through quite a few troughs of immorality, never before has vice held the high moral ground.
R&L: What role, if any, does natural law play in determining the substance of the laws that govern a particular society? What happens if natural law is banished from the legal process?
Budziszewski: Try to think of a law that is not based on a moral idea; you will not be able to do it. The law requiring taxes is based on the moral idea that people should be made to pay for the benefits that they receive. The law punishing violations of contract is based on the moral idea that people should keep their promises. The law punishing murder is based on the moral ideas that innocent blood should not be shed, that private individuals should not take the law into their own hands, and that individuals should be held responsible for their deeds. If we refuse to allow discussion of morality when making laws, laws will still be based on moral ideas, but they will be more likely to be based on false ones.
R&L: How does individual liberty function under the natural law?
Budziszewski: Natural law and natural rights work together. I have a duty not to murder you; you have a right to your life. I have a duty not to steal from you; you have a right to use the property that results from the productive use of your gifts. If we all have a duty to seek God, then we must all have the liberty to seek him.
The correlation of liberties and duties may seem nothing more than common sense, but that is what natural law is: Common moral sense, cleansed of evasions, elevated and brought into systematic order. Unfortunately, the contemporary way of thinking about liberty denies common moral sense. For example in 1992, when the United States Supreme Court declared that “[a]t the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life,” it was propounding a universal moral right not to recognize the universal moral laws on which all rights depend. Such so-called liberty has infinite breadth but zero depth. A right is a power to make a moral claim upon me. If I could “define” your claims into nonexistence—as the Court said I could “define” the unborn child’s—that power would be destroyed, and true liberty would be destroyed along with it.
R&L: You begin What We Can’t Not Know with an explicit statement that your point of view is Christian. Why do you explicitly alert the reader to this?
Budziszewski: I am writing not only for Christians, but also for Jews, and not only for Jews, but for all sorts of theists and would-be theists. Why then do I explicitly declare that my point of view is Christian? Because it is; I do it for honesty. Even when we speak about the things shared by all, we do so from within traditions that are not shared by all. This fact does not mean that we cannot talk together; it would be more accurate to say that recognizing it is a prerequisite for talking together. So in remarking that the book is Christian I do not mean to exclude non-Christians from the discussion, but to invite them in.
A conceit of contemporary liberal thought is that we have no business raising our voices in the public square unless we abstract ourselves from our traditions, suspend judgment about whether there is a God, and adopt a posture of neutrality among competing ideas of what is good for human beings. This is a facade—a concealed authoritarianism. Neutralism is a method of ramming a particular moral judgment into law without having to go to the trouble of justifying it, all by pretending that it is not a moral judgment.
R&L: Is being Christian a necessary prerequisite to accepting the natural-law argument? Can a secularist ever truly understand the natural law?
Budziszewski: As I remarked earlier, the foundational principles of the natural law are not only right for all, but at some level known to all. This means that non-Christians know them too—even atheists. It does not follow from this that belief in God has nothing to do with the matter. The atheist has a conscience; atheists know as well as theists do that they ought not steal, ought not murder, and so on. The problem is that they cling to a worldview that cannot make sense of this conscience. If there is no moral Lawgiver, how can there be a moral Law? Worse yet, if it is really true that humans are the result of a meaningless and purposeless process that did not have them in mind, then how can our conscience be a Witness at all? It is just an accident; we might just as well have turned out like the guppies, which eat their young. For this and other reasons, I do not think we can be good without God.
R&L: In What We Can’t Not Know, you allude to the fact that you did not always subscribe to the natural law or believe in Christianity. What happened to change your mind?
Budziszewski: That is correct; I denied Christianity, denied God, denied even the distinction between good and evil. What happened to me was what the Gospel of John calls the conviction of sin. I began to experience horror about myself: Not a feeling of guilt or shame or inadequacy—just an overpowering true intuition that my condition was objectively evil. I could not have told why my condition was horrible; I only perceived that it was. It was as though a man were to notice one afternoon that the sky had always been blue, though for years he had considered it red. Augustine argued that although evil is real, it is derivative; the concept of a “pure” evil makes no sense, because the only way to get a bad thing is to take a good thing and ruin it. I had always considered this a neat piece of reasoning with a defective premise. Yes, granted the horrible, there had to exist a wonderful of which the horrible was the perversion—but I did not grant the horrible. Now all that had changed. I had to grant the horrible, because it was right behind my eyes. But as Augustine had perceived, if there was evil then there must also be good. In letting this thought through, my mental censors blundered. I began to realize, not only that my errors had been total, but that they had not been honest errors at all, merely self-deceptions. Anything might be true, even the claims of Jesus Christ, which I had rejected some ten or twelve years earlier. A period of intense reading and searching followed. I cannot recall a moment at which I began to believe, but there came a moment of realization that I had believed for some time, without noticing.
read later
That whole "truths to be self-evident" thing...
Natural law is certainly a concept the Angelican Church retained after it split from Rome. But I think perhaps you should review a couple of pieces before deciding the Founders were these great theistic philosphers:
A Catholic Response to Certain Myths of Civic Americanism (1997) Is the individual all-important? Is civil society an invention of human convenience? Are all men created equal? Is freedom the great political objective, and tyranny the thing to be feared most in life? Is religious liberty really a good idea? Is America a Christian nation? Was the French Revolution that different from our own? We answer these and other questions in a way you’ve perhaps never seen before. More importantly, we trust that we answer them correctly.
http://www.charlesdenunzio.com/myths.html
Which is actually just a chapter from the larger work:
Variations on a Theme, Op. 45 (1998) The situation of the Catholic Church in the United States we see today is a product of not only these last forty years, but rather has its genesis in the attitudes of English and American churchmen predating even Archbishop John Carroll — attitudes that permitted American Catholics to uncritically accept a cultural outlook that in theory always was, and now in practice has shown itself to be, vitiating and even destructive of their Faith. [The link leads to the main portal page for this manuscript, which was the eventual result of The Catholic Church & American Culture Project, the endeavor that inspired the very existence of this journal itself.
http://www.charlesdenunzio.com/op45/
The philsophical underpinings of the Constitution and Declaration are more in keeping with the dominant Protestant and Deist thought of the time, connected by the work of Hobbes and Locke.
Living under the Leviathan [Matthew M. Anger, 2002]: The extreme individualism of Hobbes and Locke (undergirding classical civic Americanism) has given way to the extreme egalitarianism of Rousseau (exemplified in Political Correctness), and no wonder: both strains of thought have crucial fundamentals in common. [Replaces “The Legacy of Hobbes and Locke,” posted here in 1996.]
http://www.charlesdenunzio.com/hobbes.html
This is what's missing, I think, in the discussions of why does our society keep sliding towards more and more collectivist organizations. It's also key to understanding moral relativism, which is of course the antithesis of natural law theory.
Understanding that the roots of Marx lie in the work of Locke, Hobbes and Protestantism is crucial. American "conservatives" that tout a return to the "vision of the founders" miss the whole point that what we have now is a natural outgrowth of their vision.
A key modern document of the Church, in refutation of relativism and affirmation of the natural law is Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth - Regarding Certain Fundamental Question of the Church's Moral Teaching) August 6, 1993
You can find it here:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor_en.html
This is an extensive document that the scholar should study at length, I'll only quote the stated purpose given for it's promulgation by John Paul II:
The purpose of the present Encyclical
4. At all times, but particularly in the last two centuries, the Popes, whether individually or together with the College of Bishops, have developed and proposed a moral teaching regarding the many different spheres of human life. In Christ's name and with his authority they have exhorted, passed judgment and explained. In their efforts on behalf of humanity, in fidelity to their mission, they have confirmed, supported and consoled. With the guarantee of assistance from the Spirit of truth they have contributed to a better understanding of moral demands in the areas of human sexuality, the family, and social, economic and political life. In the tradition of the Church and in the history of humanity, their teaching represents a constant deepening of knowledge with regard to morality.8
Today, however, it seems necessary to reflect on the whole of the Church's moral teaching, with the precise goal of recalling certain fundamental truths of Catholic doctrine which, in the present circumstances, risk being distorted or denied. In fact, a new situation has come about within the Christian community itself, which has experienced the spread of numerous doubts and objections of a human and psychological, social and cultural, religious and even properly theological nature, with regard to the Church's moral teachings. It is no longer a matter of limited and occasional dissent, but of an overall and systematic calling into question of traditional moral doctrine, on the basis of certain anthropological and ethical presuppositions. At the root of these presuppositions is the more or less obvious influence of currents of thought which end by detaching human freedom from its essential and constitutive relationship to truth. Thus the traditional doctrine regarding the natural law, and the universality and the permanent validity of its precepts, is rejected; certain of the Church's moral teachings are found simply unacceptable; and the Magisterium itself is considered capable of intervening in matters of morality only in order to "exhort consciences" and to "propose values", in the light of which each individual will independently make his or her decisions and life choices.
We essentially find ourselves in an age where many, perhaps even the majority, take the position of Pontious Pilate when he cynically asks Christ "What is truth?"
The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges every one, and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions; for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker; all the servants of one sovereign Master, sent into the world by His order and about his business; they are His property, whose workmanship they are made to last during His, not one another's pleasure. And, being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of Nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us that may authorise us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another's uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for ours. Every one as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he as much as he can to preserve the rest of mankind, and not unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another. (Two Treatises on Civil Government)
In his 1998 encyclical “Faith and Reason” JP2 affirms the (Roman) Church’s relationship with reason:
“The Church remains profoundly convinced that faith and reason "mutually support each other"; (122) each influences the other, as they offer to each other a purifying critique and a stimulus to pursue the search for deeper understanding.”
He admits the relationship between faith and reason had strayed, and hence the encyclical to encourage theologians, priests, teachers and scientists to rekindle and encourage the study of philosophy with theology.
Bookmarked for reading tomorrow.
I know I agree with the premise. Truth is truth, regardless of one's religion or lack of it or whether a person "believes" in truth or not. God is the Father of all living beings whether they acknowledge Him or not, or call Him by one name or another.
Moral absolutes are basically the same in not only every monotheist religion (which includes Hinduism, in its foundational scriptures, the Vedas) and even non-monotheist philosophies such as Buddhism and Taoism. Moral absolutes are the very foundation of human civilization and are not sectarian.
This looks very familiar to anyone who has visited the Claremont Institute's website. Claremont is perhaps the closest organization we get in our time to unapologetic defences of Americanism. They do use a lot of natural rights arguments. Its site can be accessed through this:
http://www.claremont.org
Oh, please!!! Thomas Aquinas was an Anglican?
The Greek word—yuxikoj—for natural man is used six times in the New Testament.
In I Corinthians 15:44, 46 reference is made to a psuchikos body, an organism adapted to the soul, in contrast to a pneumatikos body, an organism adapted to the spirit.
In 1Corinthians 2:14, James 3:15, and Jude 1:19 the whole self is in view or the 'natural man’ limitations are indicated by means of this terminology.
One of the designations used by Paul for the unregenerate indeed is to be found in this term (1 Cor. 2:14). They are described accordingly as unchanged from their original fallen and depraved state.
Distinctions must be drawn between the natural man and the spiritual as well as between the natural and the carnal. (See Flesh.)---Vol 7 Systematic Theology
IMHO, some additional distinction arises historically in discerning between the laws created by man for the governance of all men, regenerate and unregenerate, and the laws of the Church, applying to the regenerate. The natural law was more focused in the 15th through 19th centuries on discerning between these different groups of governed bodies.
Lord Acton also provided some letters to the Queen of England which alludes to this discernment in describing the meaning of the 'Separation of Church and State' many decades before such political enunciations in the colonies.
Law is a term used about 200 times in the Bible, meaning a rule which regulates human conduct. Six subdivisions of the Bible doctrine of law follow:
1. NATURAL, INHERENT, OR INTRINSIC. That which God requires of every creature because of His own character, as it is written: “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44; 1 Pet. 1: 16). This law was binding upon all, from Adam to Moses (cf. Gen. 26:5; Rom. 2:14-15; 5: 12-14).
2. PRESCRIBED BY MAN
3. By MOSES
4. REVEALED WILL OF GOD IN ANY FORM
5. MESSIANIC RULE OF LIFE FOR THE KINGDOM
6. OF CHRIST
I'm not sure what this dissertation on "Natural Man" has to do with Natural Law. Could you elaborate, since it is less than obvious to me?
With all due respects to the founding fathers, just because they may have thought Natural Law existed doesn't make it so. For many years the church also taught and believed that the world was flat using scriptures (wrongly I might add) to prove their case. They had to make some adjustments to their theology once it was proven that wasn't the case.
Thanks for the ping.
I believe that when God created the universe he included in the mix Natural Law, I believe all codified law comes from Natural law which gives stability to all things.
It is in effect our conscience, which if we let it, will aloow us to do the right thing.
Conscience cannot stand alone, because of original sin people tend towards evil acts, we will mis-use our gift of reason to rationalize and justify evil. A mal-formed conscience is worse than none at all for a man will follow it to Hell and all the while believe he is doing the right thing.
1783 Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.
Right there lies the error of Protestantism
The prohibition of the taking of innocent life is but one example of a principle of natural law.
My point is without some clear guidance, our moral compass is skewed.
I take it you mean guidance clearer than human reasoning. I and most natural law theorists agree with this. Natural law is not a substitute for revelation, though with God's grace it can point the way to revelation. Both Budsizewski and another natural law theorist named Alisdair MacIntyre were lead to Christianity in part from their revulsion at the amoralism of Nietszche and Marxism, respectively. Their attempts at accounting for that revulsion led them to the Christian natural law tradition.
The cultural differences is apparent. How do you know the "civilized" folks are much more in tune to their Natural Law then the pirate folks? Just because you happen to agree with the civilized folks doesn't mean your Natural Law self isn't skewed as well.
Your skeptic pose is tiring me. Are you really willing to say that there is no rational basis for distinguishing between civilization and pirates? Are we really to be neutral between the fire brigade and the fire? If so, we'll have to say without qualification "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." And my "agreement with the civilized folks" is no mere happenstance, it's come out of a lot of contemplation and prayer. Pirates don't do much of either.
As for how I know if my natural law reasoning is skewed, God so deigned to give us a couple of error-checkers in addition to my individual human reason: the thought of other men wiser than I, and the church, and the bishop of Rome. Thought, like salvation, has communal as well as individual aspects.
The Gnostic might have been right had not God given us His word.
It's strange you should say that. I would say the Gnostic might have been right had God really been the wicked demiurge they believed him to be.
While Moses was up on Mount Sinai and God was writing the tablets, the children of Israel (Aaron included who should have known better) was making golden calves, breaking the laws even as God was writing them-Ex 32. They didn't exhibit any Natural Law so why would you think we are any better then they and have an innate sense of Natural Law? God could have just said, "follow your conscience".
Why are you so sure the Israelites didn't have an innate sense of the natural law? Their sinfulness doesn't require ignorance. A man may have knowledge of mathematical laws, yet break them through a lapse of the mind or maliciousness of heart. This is not to say that the moral law is knowledge at the level of mathematical certainty, but the analogy holds.
This isn't about a Natural Law that mankind can and should aspire to. The law Paul talks about does not justify, it condemns.
Natural law is not about salvation, it's about knowledge. And knowledge in itself doesn't save. It's enough for me that St. Paul speaks of a law known even to the gentiles. As for other possible references to the natural law in St. Paul, I myself suspect that St. Paul's line in Ephesians 5 "For who hates his own flesh?" is a rhetorical question acknowledging the self-evident goodness of the body of oneself and one's spouse and the communion of those two bodies--in other words to a sort of natural law principle which can be reasoned from.
If there was Natural Law Paul would say "you who preach that one shall not steal, listen to your inner self."
Look, you are attacking a straw man of your own construction. St. Paul taught that one's "inner self" was fallen and had to be formed by God working through His church, body mind and soul. That's just what Christian natural law theorists believe.
I DID NOT SAY THAT.
sheesh...you make one statement and a world of fools mixes it up and tries to say you meant something else.
I said nothing about Thomas Aquinas. I said that my church, the Anglican Catholic Church appears to agree with the statement I singled out. Where the heck did you get that I was referring to Thomas Aquinas?! I suggest you look up the history of the Catholic Church in England. You might start here.
Touche...and glad to hear it. So does the Original Province of the Anglican Catholic Church.
I'm glad you bring it up, I'm not going to play the game of dueling atrocities but the anti-Catholic laws of England from the 16th Century onward are irrefutable, as it the reigns of terror of Elizabeth I, James I, Oliver Cromwell and others.
The Anglican hereasy has much to answer for spreading error around the globe
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01498a.htm
Explain William the Conqueror before you send me on a wild goose chose of the 'Anglican heresies.' As far as I am concerned the ACC is the true catholic church.
The church never taught that the world was flat. The center of the universe, yes,(with qualification) but never flat. See The Myth of the Flat Earth
Thanks for the correction. This was indeed interesting. I wasn't sure if this might have been a little revisionist history but after looking through various sites it seems to confirm this. The atheists try to excuse early Greek (non-church) writings that said the earth was round in order to make it seem people believed the earth was flat. That's what I get for watching all those "B" rated Christopher Columbus movies.
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