The Natural Law as the Path of Humanization of Person.

 

25 .The Natural Law as the Path of Humanization of Person. Necessity and Caution in its Historical Interpretation.

Introduction

Natural law istheprinciples of human conduct discoverable by reason, from basic lightings of human nature and that are absolute unchangeableand of universal validity of all time and spaces. Natural law is a basic of human nature. It is a norm of human conduct discoverable by experience and observation as prevalent and useful among different people. Natural law is a law of nature. Natural law is not human created rather it is inherent of nature. This law is not made by man it comes from naturally. Natural law is a theory of natural rights based on the supposed state of nature. It is a theory of natural rights. So, the natural law is an unformulated law exists in nature.

 

“The natural law is that moral order which arises from the nature of man and creation and which can be recognized by man’s reason. It is also called divine natural law, because its origin is directly traced back to the will of God who created nature and who therewith also willed the laws resulting from it.”

 

 

Natural Law

“The law of nature, or natural law, is the moral rule or standard of human actions discoverable in nature itself and consequently is known to all men. God has given every created thing a nature, or a principle of normal operation. An apple falls by the nature of being a heavy thing; animals eat and reproduce their kind, by following their nature as animals. Man too has a principle of orderly operation by which he acts rationally. His law of nature is a law of reason; it is also a moral law, since man is free to follow it or not.”

 

“The term naturallaw refers to those moral insights which man is able to know by means of his reason, indecently of the verbal revelation of God. The word “natural” in the term has the meaning of (1) not supernatural, i.e. not communicated in a supernatural way; (2) not positive, i.e. not the result of a command of a legislative authority, as in positive human of divine law; (3) found in and derived from the nature of man. These explanations show that the doctrine of natural law deals with the question of natural ethics as a whole. Natural law, the morality of nature, natural ethics and natural morality are synonyms.”

 

Relevance of Natural Law

Natural law doctrine is of fundamental relevance above all on two accounts. First, it is the basis of a moral order of universal character and constitutes a source of ethical wisdom which Christians share with all mankind, for it rests upon that reality which is shared by all men: their common humanity and existential conditions. Secondly, natural law is the only adequate safeguard against arbitrary exercise of political and legislative power. It is the final court of appeal against unjust, prejudiced laws of human authorities.”

 

So now we can say that, the natural law is an unformulated law exists in nature. It refers to those moral aspects which a person knows by reason. It has certain given order and principles. It is given by birth or inborn order or one gets by nature; it shows original moral sense; thus the very moral order comes from the very nature of human being and this moral sense functions as the path of humanization. 

 

Precepts of Natural Law

“In any human under taking there are certain statements so well-known and evident to those who hear the words that no statements, usually called “self-evident principles,” are so universally accepted that asking for a proof of them would be absurd. In morality the primary principle is, “Good is to be done and evil avoided.” Anyone hearing these words, once he knows the difference between good and evil, agrees that this principle is true. He may not agree with his neighbor that a particular act is good, but he will agree that, whatever good is it should be done, and whatever evil is, it should be avoided. This is the first precept of natural law, and the first function of natural law is the revelation of this principle.” It shows that a person who knows naturally the self-evident principle, he or she is in the process of humanization because it deals with what ought to do and what ought not to be done naturally.

 

The Essence of Natural Law

A first series of Church texts on the essence of natural law refers to its ontological foundations. In these the being, the very essence or nature of man as composed of body and spirit appears as a norm of moral behavior and of law. There is an objective order defined by natural law and this in the final issue is based upon “being”. The noetic aspect of natural law, the fact that it is written in the heart of man and therefore naturally evident to him, ensures that the most primitive peoples are capable of a moral order and a sufficient cultural development. This only serves to emphasize the necessity of fulfilling certain conditions in order that this law written in the heart (that is, the confrontation of reason and human being) can be subjectively internalized as knowledge.

 

The natural law is determined by the destination and nature of man; it exists because of “laws written into the nature of beings” which are ontologically rooted in human nature. The clear meaning of all this is even more evident in such anthropomorphic phrases as: nature admonishes and commands; that natural law is the voice of nature or that the rights of nations are dictated by nature. The natural law itself is divine. Divine law is to be understood as positive divine law whereas the law of nature exists independently of any positive historical intervention by God. Nothing else is meant by the distinction between the law of nature and the law found in Holy Scripture than this: the natural law exists without the Bible. The natural law is the law corresponding to this nature which is valid independently of the supernatural, of Redemption, Christianity, Revelation and Holy Scripture.

Universality and Immutability of Natural Law and its Necessity

“In spite of the uncertainties of most moral situations, mankind has certain inclinations which never change. Men are all inclined to the good, whatever they think the good to be. They all think and reason and are capable of freedom of choice. They all require companionship. It is on the basis of such inclinations that the precepts of natural law are founded. Insofar as these inclinations are found in all men, and do not change from generation to generation, it may be said that the principles of natural law are universal and immutable. It is always an everywhere wrong to choose the evil where the good is known. It is thus equally wrong to violate the basic features of man’s nature by controlling his thought and inhibiting his freedom of choice. Only insofar as lesser moral precepts can be reduced and immutable. Man’s basic nature as a “rational animal” or his important description as “the image of God” will never change. But reason and freedom take many forms, and this essential variety in human nature must not be overlooked. St. Thomas concluded his tract on natural law with the statement that the universal principles of natural law can never be completely erased from the human heart. No matter how much disagreement or dispute there remains over a particular moral situation, there always remains the basic tendency to do the good; and the law based on this tendency can never be abolished.”

 

The Natural Inclinations

In the natural inclinations good has the nature of enhance. In man the first inclination is --to good. In accordance of the nature of man “to good” is the inclination of human beings. By reason man is good. By nature man inclines to do the good. By nature man should avoid evil. In his general discussion of natural law Aquinas asserts that “to the natural law belongs those things to which a man is inclined naturally: and among these it is proper to man to be inclined to act according to reason.”

 

Human beings are social beings. They live lives in society. They search for the truth.  Natural fit between human nature and law. Law is not alienated from human nature rather they are always tailored. By keeping law human beings ensured their own happiness. For our happiness there is a law and that is natural law. Keeping this law which makes us happy is ethics of our happiness. Human being naturally seeks happiness and there is species of happiness. The law of God is the best way to achieve happiness. Thomas Aquinas says, to good means knowing the good Human being can know the good. Human beings have the natural affinity with good. Human being cannot avoid this. Natural law follows natural inclinations.

 

Effects of Natural Law

“Among the principal effects of the natural law are its obligation and its sanction. The obligation of natural law arises from two sources: (1) primarily, the ordering wisdom of God; (2) secondarily, the essential order of things as naturally measuring the human reason, which reason is then fitted to be the mea-sure of human acts. Of all creatures, man alone is endowed with a moral law and with reason to discern its obligations. He is aware that it is precisely this ingrained moral law that distinguishes him from the lower animals. It is the badge of his natural nobility. To obey the dictates of this moral law is to be true to his own nature. To play false to his nature, on the other hand, is to fall lower than brute animals, who, although devoid of rationality and a sense of obligation, follow instinctively the laws of their nature.”

 

 

 

Properties of Natural Law

 

a) Universality of Natural Law

The natural law is universal, it applies to the entire human race, and its percepts are always the same in all times and among the peoples. It binds every man at all times and in all places, for it its basis is the very nature of men. In its essential characteristics it is common to all or universal by nature. All are called to attain the same final goal and to respect the same existential ends in essentially the same way, even if this way presents a varied picture in the details of its realization.

 

No one is free from its obligation of fulfilling this duty; no one is superior to its guideline which show the way to it; no one is beyond good and evil. In its essential characteristics natural law is common to all.

 

b) Immutability and Dynamics of Natural Law

The natural law is immutable. The essence remains unchangeable but change takes place in external, physical (outward) and formative level (inward) but not fundamental level and value. It is unchangeable and eternal; that is, in so far as human nature does not change. In Gaudium et Spes it is said; “The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history;it subsists under 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”.

 

c) Indispensability of Natural Law

This law cannot be dispensed. No one can dispense this law. This law is dispensable because it is identified with reason and man's rational nature. Person obliges to follow the law. The law is given by not human but supreme being.

 

 

 

 

 

Necessity of Natural Law in Historical Interpretation

 

“The concept of natural law has a history stretching far back into antiquity. In Rome as well as in Greece, the concept of the law of nature was a central feature of morality and justice.” “Although natural law has always been perceived in its basic content by human beings, its concept has been formalized, elaborated, articulated, and systematized only with the growth and development of philosophy. The historical evolution of this doctrine may be conveniently traced through six periods: (1) the pagan period, corresponding to that of the Greco-Roman world and ex-tending from HERACLITUS to St. Paul; (2) the Catholic and scholastic period, extending from St. Paul to Hugo GROTIUS; (3) the Protestant and post-scholastic period, extending from Grotius and S. von Pufendorf (1632–94)to J. Bentham; (4) the period of decline, corresponding to the rise of positivism and extending from BENTHAM and D. HUME to F. Gény (1861–1959) and R. Stammler (1856–1938); (5) the contemporary period of revival, ex-tending from Gény and Stammler to the mid-1960s; and(6) the debates of the late 20th century.”

 

Stoics

“To the Greeks, the world in which they lived was a cosmos, an ordered and harmonious whole. The Stoics, by assuming imminent logos in nature and in man, identified the principle of reason in every individual man with the cosmic order of the universe.” Their concept of natural is similar with the concept of the laws regulating the physical order of the universe. Stoics found God in reason. Rational being can know this natural law. Natural law identified with God. Only rational being can know this law and can apply.

 

Cicero

According to Cicero, natural law is the guide of life and teacher of the duties. “Cicero offers one of the most eloquent expositions of natural law found in Western moral writing: “There is in fact a true law - namely, right reason - which is in accordance with nature, applies to all men, and is unchangeable and eternal. By it commands this law summons men to the performance of their duties; by its prohibitions it restrains them from doing wrong”.”

 

Roman Jurists

“Roman jurists noted certain common elements which they found among the wide variety of laws and customs of the different peoples and nations that came under the control of the ever expanding Roman Empire. These common elements, acknowledged to be the work of human reason, they referred to as the “law of nations” (iusgentium) and thus used it as a unifying and integrating force in the Empire. However, ultimately they would accept the Hellenistic basis of the natural law (ius natural) and equate it with that law which governs animals and human beings apart from any intervention of human reason. Such a concept, as proposed by the famed Roman jurist Ulpian, for all practical purposes identified natural law with brute natural tendency.”

 

Early Christianity

“Early Christianity adopted the term “natural law” from the Greeks and Romans, but transformed the idea.” Early Christianity was also well aware of the necessity and existence of a standard of human behavior independent of divine revelation. St. Paul mentions the fact that “the Gentiles, who have no law do by nature what the law prescribes” (Romans 2:14). St. Augustine (354-430) refers to it in his Confessions: “the law written in the hearts of men, which iniquity itself effaces not.” So, the early Christianity holds the view of natural law and its necessity upon human being.

“The early Christian interpretation of “natural law” is clearly concerned more with what is specifically human than with what belongs to the physical and animal world.”

 

 

The Fathers of the Church

A survey of the Fathers of the Church indicates their interest in natural law and its necessity. Some opinions of the Fathers of the Church which show the necessity of natural law are discussed here:

 

Justine Martyr

“Justine Martyr recognizes that in some cases both Christians and pagan philosophers teach the same truth, because of the “seeds of truth” present in the human capacity for reason and contemplation. These “seeds” are made manifest in human reason (logos) through its participation in the pre-existent Logos (reason, word), Jesus Christ.”

 

 

 

 

 

St. Augustine

St. Augustine did not fashioned natural law. According to his there is a law written in heart already. He talks of people living accordance with the truth they find within themselves. There is some truth found in human being. This truth is natural law. He linked the Greek concept of an imminent principle of order (logos), which was virtually mechanical, with the Christian belief of a personal God creating through his eternal word, as found in the Johannine “Prologue”.

 

St. John Chrysostom

St.John Chrysostom “saw the “law of nature” as he called it, being general, eternal and immortal. It is the moral teacher of the human race. “God placed in man the inborn law, to serve as does the captain over a ship, or the charioteer over the horse”. He points out its relational and social character when he refers to the natural moral commandments as necessities which hold together our lives”.” Thus, he mentions very clearly the necessity of natural law and its relevance in the life of human being.

 

St. Thomas Aquinas

Aquinas says “Law is an order of reason regarding the common good and promulgated by the one who has the care of the community.” St. Thomas Aquinas says, the function of the natural law “is to discern what is good and what is evil”. Natural Law is “the participation of a rational creature in the eternal law”. It is a personal participation in God’s plan, his providence and wisdom, for the eternal law is God himself as the source of moral law and obligation in our world. Eternal law is God under the aspect of law-giver, while natural law is human nature under the aspect of inherent obligations. The term natural law refers to those moral insights which man is able to know by means of his reason, independently of the verbal revelation of God.

 

“In his great synthesis on law in the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas adopts a personal perspective. While the Stoic had identified law with cosmic order, for St. Thomas the eternal law is the same as God’s wisdom and providence. Man, unlike irrational beings, participate in this eternal law through reason. “The light of natural reason which enables us to distinguish between good and evil - which belongs to the natural law - is nothing but an imprint of the divine light in us”.”

 

“Natural law, according to St. Thomas, consists in certain fundamental moral judgments acquired intuitively and not by deductive reason. These self-evident principles of the moral order can be reduced to “Good is to be done, and evil is to be avoided.” Only these first principles are absolutely universal. Other general laws, derived from these, may perhaps admit of exceptions because of accidental circumstances.”

 

 

 

Hobbes and Locke’s view on Natural Law and its Necessity

“The great divergence among the various adherents of the law of nature school may be seen by comparing the views of T. HOBBES with those of J. LOCKE. Hobbes saw the state of nature as a state of war of all against all, in which the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. The basic norm is self-preservation, springing from natural law, which is a dictate of right reason regarding things to be done or omitted for the preservation of life and limb. The first fundamental law of nature is that peace be sought, and all other natural laws are derived from this. Morality is rooted, therefore, in peace; this is the reason why agreements must be kept (Leviathan 13).

 

According to Hobbes, the law of nature prescribes that man should form the civil state in order to preserve the fundamental right to life. In establishing the state, however, man surrendered his freedom, equality, and the right to everything he had enjoyed in the state of nature, physical survival alone excepted. This was done by a covenant. The will of the resulting omnipotent state is based on the fundamental principle that agreements must be kept. Man may not morally resist the state because its enactments are natural law. Indeed the state, as the authoritative interpreter of both natural and supernatural law, was transformed into a mortal god in a literal sense. If there is a conflict between a command of the state and the private moral judgment of the individual, Hobbes advises the latter to go to Christ by martyrdom (ibid. 18).

 

But for Locke, contrary to Hobbes, the historical state of nature was a condition of peace, goodwill, and mutual cooperation. Man enjoyed the right of freedom and equality, as well as the right to work and own property. The law of nature dictated justice, but the authority of civil society was necessary to enforce it. Politically organized society resulted from a SOCIAL CONTRACT, but the continuing obligation of obedience on the part of the people depends on the proper observance of that contract by the sovereign (Second Treatise on Civil Government 19).

 

For Locke man is not, in the strict sense, under any obligation of law prior to the convening of the state, nor is man obligated to convene such a state. Rather, Locke sees natural law as a dictate of practical common sense a nominalistic symbol for the rights of the individual, reflecting his self-interest. These rights do not emanate from the natural law by intrinsic necessity; rather, they limit the political sovereign and should be en-forced by human positive law (ibid. 9).”

 

Renaissance and Enlightenment

“Since the Renaissance in the fourteenth century, modern philosophy has consistently moved away from the idea of an absolute, objective, and eternal law. There arose instead the concept of the autonomous individual, rejecting any norm of morality other than the prompting of one’s own conscience. Liberalism, as a philosophic movement, was by definition subjective. It rejected any need for authoritarian guidance and “taught us that the only danger confronting us is being closed to the emergent, the new, the manifestations of progress.” The Enlightenment which it spawned sought to dethrone every authority hostile to reason as the highest principle in political life.”

 

Protestantism

“On the whole, Protestantism rejected the concept of natural law. Protestant theologians very often look upon “nature” as describing the original state of humanity unspoiled by sin. Because of their view that sin has brought about the total corruption of everything human, reason can no longer serve as a source of ethical knowledge. “Protestantism has spontaneously started with faith, Scripture, and the word of God, and has been somewhat suspicious and critical of the human and of reason. In its view these belong to a different order than that of faith and may even be antagonistic to it.”  Nevertheless, in some Anglican circles the natural law theory has survived under the concept of “created orders,” and “God-given or natural intentions.” Lutherans, too, talk about “orders of creation,” but shy away from the term “natural law”.”

 

Natural Law as the Path of Humanization and its Necessity in the Light of CCC

 

The teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) shows us the Church’s view on natural law and its necessity and impact upon human being. It teaches very beautifully about natural law as the path of humanization. We find these teaching in the nos. 1954-1959 in the CCC.

 

Natural law is the participation in God’s wisdom and goodness by human being formed in the image of his Creator. Natural law expresses the dignity of human person and form the basis of his fundamental rights and duties (CCC. 1954). It states the necessity of natural law on the life of human beings. The natural law is written in the soul of each and every man which directs him to do good and avoid evil (CCC. 1955).

 

The natural law is present in the heart of each human being. It also established by reason. It is universal in its precepts and it extends to all man. It expresses the dignity of the human beings as well as fix the basis for human being’s fundamental rights and duties (CCC. 1956).

 

Natural law is immutable, permanent throughout history. It cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in the life of the human being as well as in the societies (CCC. 1958).

 

Natural law is the God’s work which is good to man. It provides the solid foundation on that foundation man can build their moral rules and thus they can be guided in the society. It also helps to structure the civil law (CCC 1959).

 

Thus, we find the necessity of natural law in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its impact upon human beings. The teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church very nicely portrays and exposes why natural law is very important in the life of human beings and why it is very much necessary. It is very clear from the teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church the necessity of natural law and its influence upon human beings and how natural law works as the path of humanization of a person. 

 

Foundation of Natural Law in the Bible

“It is vain to look for a systematic formulation of the natural law doctrine in the Bible. Even the term is nowhere to be found. Still, there are several indications of its substance.

 

Most of the ethical teaching of the Old Testament is derived from the ancient wisdom of the peoples bordering Israel, although it has been assumed into the perspective of the Yahwistic faith and the bond of the covenant. This is true especially of the Decalogue, which represents the principle demand of God on His covenanted people. The Wisdom literature is drawn from the instruction of the sages on life and conduct, although it is given a new religious purpose by the biblical writers.”

 

“Christ brought a radical newness to man. But this does not mean that the purpose of God for ma has altered. “Is the God of our redemption the same the God of creation? The inevitable answer is that He is the same God. Whenever He confronts mankind, from the moment when through His word man was created, God always confronts him in the charity which was finally disclosed in God’s self-sacrifice.”

 

With reference to clean and unclean food, Jesus hints at the distinction between Jewish ritual regulations, which cease to bind in the new covenant, and the permanent law written in the very heart of man hence continuing to retain its validity (Mk 7:14-23).

In condemning divorce Jesus appeals to the established order of creation. “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Mt. 19:8). The “beginning” here refers to God’s original plan. The very nature of man rightly understood points to the ideal of permanent monogamy.

 

Paul’s exposition of sin and redemption presupposes a law known from the reality of creation by virtue of human reason (Rom. 1:19 ff). Though the Gentiles are without the positive guidance of the Torah, the embodiment of the positive will of God, they are guilty of acting against the dictates of their reason. Their basic fault of not acknowledge God leads them to “dishonorable passions” or “unnatural vices” (1”26). Jews and Gentiles alike are under judgment, the former because of the injunctions of the Torah, the latter because of the law imprinted in their heart. “When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the lawrequires, they are a law to themselves........... They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness” (2:14-15).”

 

“According to Paul, therefore the distinction between good and evil is founded in the nature of things. The Decalogue does not establish the distinction between moral good and evil but declares what is already so. The law of God was imprinted in the heart of man by the very fact of creation. This imprinting in the heart does not mean that the law is ready-made and has only to be read off. It only means that man has the radical capacity to reflect on his being and thereby discern how he should act in particular areas of life and in particular situations.”

 

Natural Law according to Gaudium et Spes

Gaudium et spes (n. 16) says, “Deep within their consciences men and women discover a law which they have not laid upon themselves and which they must obey. Its voice, ever calling them to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, tells them inwardly at the right moment: do this, shun that. For they have in their hearts a law inscribed by God. Their dignity rests in observing this law, and by it they will be judged. [9] Their conscience is people’s most secret core, and their sanctuary. There they are alone with God whose voice echoes in their depths. [10] By conscience, in a wonderful way, that law is made known which is fulfilled in the love of God and of one’s neighbor.

 

The Theological Controversy over Natural Law

“Traditional natural law theory encounters various criticisms and objections. It is argued that its claim to universal validity is defeated by the widely divergent moral codes of different peoples and times. Further natural law does not do justice to the historical character of the moral norm. It is too legalistic and unable to respond to the personal claims of God’s grace and of love. It lacks eschatological orientation. It draws conclusions from the existing facts of reality to what man should do; but from what actually is one cannot conclude to what morally ought to be.

 

The first three objections will find their answers in the expositions on the three properties of natural law. The concerns of the third objection will be given additional attention in the study of situation ethics. The other two objections will be answered in the discussion of the existence of natural law. There is however still a further objection, and this shall be answered here. It is of theological nature and therefore usually only raised in theological quarters.

 

Protestant theologians often turn energetically and sometimes sharply against Catholic natural law. Their objections are different and varied. But one of the basic reasons for their dissatisfaction with Catholic natural law is the way Catholic theology relates it to the law of Christ or the law of the supernatural order of grace. According to Catholic moral theology there is the ethic of natural law, derived from a nature nor exalted by grace, which obliges all mankind, pagans and Christians alike, in an equal way. To these general moral laws other obligations are added on a second level, binding for Christians only, which result from their supernatural life. Behind this concept is the Catholic doctrine on nature and grace, in which nature appears as the fundamental condition of man, to which grace is added in a second instances and more or less as an accident.”

 

Attacks on Natural Law

“In the last centuries or so, western civilization has experienced a number of intellectual events which summarily constituted a substantial attack upon the notion of natural law. Not just an attack upon some particular theory of natural law; rather a much more thorough going attack upon the idea of the human person and of human nature that underlies all such theories. Perhaps these attacks were a necessary reaction to the excesses of the Enlightenment, with its naive optimism about the human race. Perhaps they were the inevitable concomitant of the scientific advances of this era. But whatever the explanation, the simple fact is that natural law was rather completely discredited. And this occurred as a result of attacks upon our freedom or our intelligence or both.

 

Three attacks in particular should be noted. And they are associated with three major figures in modern thought: Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Karl Marx (1818-1883), and Charles Darwin (1807-1882). Each of these men was, of course, brilliant in his own way; and we do not wish to denigrate their importance. But whether appropriately or not, their contribution did function as sources for a popular rejection of natural law and human nature. This should not be overlooked.”

 

Sigmund Freud

“Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the founder of modern psychiatry, viewed sexual love as the greatest human pleasure fulfilling our longing for love and happiness. For him God was an illusion, a Father-figure born out of our sense of insecurity, and the human psyche itself was in some sense bestial, sexual, and animal. Thus modern times have given birth to a number of disparate systems, whose conflicting mass of opinions are united only in their rejection of the idea an absolute, objective, and eternal law written in human act.”

 

Karl Marx

According to Karl Marx, religion is like opium. He was against religion and in favour of classless society. He denounce the theory of natural law as he was against the religious views of the people and in his famous book ‘Das Cpital’ he denouse the religion and existence of God. So, he was against the natural law theory.

 

“In the Marxist vision the human person is similarly unfree. But here the source of the unfreedom is not the depths of the inner person but the forces of surrounding society. Because of ideology, we see life not as it is but as we wish it to be. We are betrayed by our situation, deceived by its shared and supported untruths. Thus, even though we may pretend to rule our life by intelligence and reason (because it suits our purposes to so pretend), in reality we are victims to the core.”

 

Charles Darwin’s View

“Charles Darwin’s (1809-1882) theory of evolution saw human beings as evolving from lower animals and concluded we were not created in the image and likeness of God and are not bound by the moral law as traditionally understood.”

 

“Charles Darwin’s discoveries likewise contributed to a disinterest in natural law. But in this case the reason for the disinterest was the simple realization that we are not only like the animals (as Ulpian might assert), we are animals. The continuity of human evolution with animal evolution is so thoroughgoing that the correct categories with which to understand and deal with the human person are the categories of zoology and related sciences. The Darwinian thesis, of course, offers a felicitous basis for the psychological theories of B. F. Skinnner and other behaviourists. A common theme of their writings is that our illusion of freedom and dignity must be recognised and accepted. We are beings who can be trained but not truly educates; we are beings who can be manipulated but not respected. We use each other, nor because of nastiness but simply because there is no alternative. The admirable human creature envisioned by even the most conservative of natural law theorists does not exist. And there is no use pretending it does.

 

Thus the doubtlessly correct scientific discoveries of these men and their followers led, by immediate implication, to the undermining of one or another of the premises of natural law. They either denied our ability to know and understand ourselves or they rejected the reality of that freedom which alone can justify the call to ethical responsibility.”

 

Awareness of Natural Law

“It has already been stated that our inceptive knowledge of the natural law proceeds not merely by book learning or custom, but from natural awareness of the ordering of human nature itself. Its primary precept of pursuing good and avoiding evil and its immediate conclusions are in demonstrable; yet they are self-evident principles of the practical reason. Thus it is not merely or primarily by logical or empirical reasoning that the first precepts of the natural law are known, but by the natural habitus called ‘‘synderesis.’’ Synderesis is a habit of the reason; it is not an all-purpose moral intuitionism along the lines of G. E. Moore, but rather a habitus of moral light through whose act nature inclines to good and warns from evil. Its act presupposes that knowledge required for the intelligibility of the precepts involved. Conscience, on the other hand, is the act that applies this general knowledge to a particular situation. If, for instance, a person sees a little child crawling into a well, he sees immediately that it is his duty to hold the child back and save its life, no matter whose child it may happen to be. This awareness is the working of con-science. If, moreover, one fails to rescue the child and it is drowned in the well, he feels remorse. This, too, is the working of conscience, which, having given the command in the first instance, applies its sanction for failure to carry it out.

 

Synderesis is the natural habit whereby we are disposed to know the law, and conscience is the act of its application to particular cases. Since the elementary principles of the natural law are innate in human nature, evidences of it appear even in primitive law. Yet there is a growth in the content of natural law with the progress of civilization. As the human mind becomes more and more enlightened, it becomes capable of devising new and more effective methods of ascertaining the truth and implementing the natural law.

 

Similarly, the human heart, refined by the developments of arts and letters, grows in sensitivity to new values and needs of humanity; as a consequence, it prompts legislators and judges to draw new conclusions from the first principles of the natural law. In this way, our awareness of naturally just claims has been enhanced in the course of history, as the justice of these claims is recognized but not made by human law. One example is the development of moral consensus regarding the evil of the institution of chattel slavery. Another is the growing moral aware-ness of the evils that may ensue upon the new technology of biological cloning technologies that applied to man deny the dignity of the human person.”

 

 

Conclusion

At last we can say that natural law is very important for the humanization of the human being. Throughout the history, especially, in the domain of Christianity, we find the necessity of natural law. God, as nature, contains in Himself, like a model, the universal order as intelligence, He knows that order, as a creative and governing will, He puts that order into effect and imposes it. In him therefore we must seek the primary basis of each order.

 

Man, as far as his nature is concerned, receives in himself the imprint of divine nature insofar as it regards him and his individual and social life. Concerning his reason, man participates in the knowledge that God has of human nature, of its requirements, and of its constitutional finality, with regard to his will, man can act uniformly with the divine ordinances or can even break them. The natural order embraces life from the threefold relationship of man to God, to himself, and towards others.