The Natural Law Part II

The Natural Law Part II November 4, 2009


What is the Natural Law? Again, according to Webster, the definition is, “rules of conduct supposedly inherent in the relations between human beings and discoverable by reason; law based upon man’s innate moral sense”. This is our ‘owner’s operating manual’ which was spoken of in the previous essay.

How do we know that humanity has known this from the beginning? Beyond the knowledge of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle writing about the Natural Law there are certain elements of all society and all cultures that adhere to this ‘Natural Law’. Through reason, again, we know that for everything created, there is a creator. Through man’s experience and reason we also know that everything created has a purpose and a function. That function can either work properly or not depending on the adherence to our ‘owner’s manual’, the Natural Law.

Within the past couple of decades or so several new and never seen before societies were discovered in both South America and in the Pacific (This harks back to that Stan Freeberg gag about Columbus showing up on the beach, meeting an Indian chief and telling the chief that he, Christopher Columbus, had discovered him. The chief, a little indignant retorted, ‘what you mean you discover us?…we discover you. ‘How’s that Chief? asked Columbus. ‘….well, we discovered you on beach here. It’s all how you look at it.). These small villages of people were living by a code. Surprising to the sociologists and anthropologists was the factor that each of these small communities were living by what we would consider a moral set of rules, a sort of universal code including the ‘commandment’ of no murder, no stealing, and interestingly enough a contract of marriage. None of these peoples had had any contact previously with the outside world.

What does this mean? That there is a ‘code’ that is somehow imprinted in our very being, that dictates to us, unlike anything in the remainder of the animal kingdom, a sense of ‘rightness’ and ‘wrongness’? Do we now have an implosion going on where society can no longer recognize this ‘moral code’, a confusion of what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’ within community? Is there no longer an objective understanding of what is truth? Are we somehow today different then times past and suffering under the yoke of ‘moral relativism? And if so where did this philosophy and process come from and is it correct? What has happened to society, the world’s as well as ours, and why?

The breakdown of handing on morality from one generation to the next in regards to the modern era really had its beginnings in the Enlightenment Period of world history. We can trace the beginnings of relativism, secularism and individualism from the end of that period or the 18th century.

Secularism is that ‘ism’ which states there is no Creator, no God, no eternal being or ‘first cause’ according to Aquinas. Going back to the original essay in this series, every effect has a cause. This is self evident. I have encountered people who have argued that there was a time of absolute ‘nothingness’ in space and time. The response to that, through reason, is if there was a time of absolutely nothing then there could never be anything. Something cannot come from nothing.

Relativism purports that all things are relative; that you can’t know anything positively, that there is no objective truth or at least no way to come to objective truth. From there we come to, and more to our point, the concept of legal positivism which states since no one can know what objectively or ultimately is right or wrong then any law which is enacted is valid. Based on this assumption Hans Kelsen put forth the idea that then justice is an irrational ideal. It’s irrational because, according to him, justice cannot be known objectively. In other words, there is no ‘objective truth’. With this concept every two bit dictator, fascist, or group or law making body is correct in whatever law he, she or they put on the books and therefore the pseudo validity and the rise of Nazi Germany, Pol Pot, Stalin, Lenin, the Politburo, Il Duce, Nancy Pelosi, etc.

The “ism” that is probably at the apex of the three or at least equal to the other two, in regards to the current generation, is Individualism. There is and has been a social philosophy, and in some ways a political philosophy, which makes the statement, mythical though it is, that the state of nature of all individuals is isolation, autonomous. Ultimately these individuals magically, somehow, come together to form a/the state. But in his/her very essence the human being is by nature, singular. Both Locke and Hobbes, in support of this philosophy, adhere to that by forming the concept that the state derives its authority horizontally, i.e. from individuals coming together and agreeing that they have the power as individuals to form a state. The problem that arises is obvious. What happens if one of the individuals does not agree to that state at some time or place? Doesn’t agree to the state’s principles? Wants out? Does he or she go form another state just as valid? Marriage, in this case, is a microcosm of that political state. If he doesn’t put the cap back on the toothpaste in the morning, is there validity enough for her to separate and go back to her original state of being—of that a singular entity? So the individual, with all power being derived from that individual, has no relationship other than what he/she “consents to” and therefore any relationship can be ended at the whims of the individual. The individual becomes his/her own god. Contrast that to Christ’s statement to Pilate, “…you have no authority, other than what has been given you….” The authority is vertical now and with many different consequences and implications.