In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

C H A P T E R 3 STRAND THREE Natural Law FROM EARLY IN THE HISTORY of the Western world until the present day, intellectuals and others have referred to the natural law. Greek poets and historians spoke of a natural law that is divine, universal, and known to all. Natural law has been discussed in a number of different contexts. Philosophers have proposed natural law as a law for how human persons should act morally. Theologians have also dealt with natural law in light of Paul’s Letter to the Romans 2:14: the Gentiles do by nature what the law requires and are a law unto themselves. Theologians discuss natural law in a twofold context. From a theological perspective, natural law has focused attention on the existence of sources of moral wisdom and knowledge that the Christian shares with all other people. There has been a long discussion in Christian ethics about the existence and extent of such sources of wisdom and knowledge, such as reason, that the Christian shares with all others. In addition, theologians have also shared with philosophers the ethical aspect of natural law as a law for determining how people should live their lives. Jurists and social theologians and philosophers have also contributed much to the understanding of natural law. Every society must have a civil law in order to exist. But then fundamental questions come to the fore. Are all the laws of a given society just? How do we determine if a law is just or not? What is the criterion? The natural law has been proposed as an answer to these questions. Civil law must be in accord with natural law and cannot be opposed to it. However, others have denied the existence and reality of natural law. Natural law partisans in the mid-twentieth century pointed out that as often as natural law appears to be dead, it comes back to life again. Writing from a Catholic perspective, A. P. d’Entrèves notes that since the 73 74 STRAND THREE nineteenth century natural law has been assailed from many sides as critically unsound and historically pernicious. Although the natural law has often been declared to be dead and never to rise again from its ashes, it has survived and still calls for discussion.1 In 1937, Thomas R. Hanley translated and made a revised edition of Heinrich A. Rommen’s book, which was titled in English The Natural Law. But the original German title referred to the eternal return of natural law.2 John Courtney Murray, an American Jesuit, explicitly referred to Rommen’s book when he devoted the second to last chapter of We Hold These Truths (1960) to the death of natural law and the last chapter to the eternal return of natural law.3 Thus, discussions about the natural law have occurred in the West for more than two thousand years. The Roman Catholic tradition has given great importance to the natural law, but the concept has also been discussed at length outside the Catholic tradition. This chapter first discusses the approach to natural law outside the Catholic tradition and then in the Catholic tradition itself, with emphasis on the work of Thomas Aquinas. NATURAL LAW OUTSIDE THE CATHOLIC TRADITION This section proves and defends the thesis that outside the Catholic tradition there does not exist the concept of natural law as a monolithic theory or method with an agreed-upon body of ethical content. Many thinkers have referred to natural law, but by no means have they always meant the same thing by it. In addition, they often came to different conclusions about what the natural law called for in human conduct. To prove this thesis it is only necessary to point out in different periods of history that authors have used the term natural law but have understood it in very different ways. Cicero (d. 43 BCE) based his understanding of natural law somewhat on the Greek Stoics. His approach to natural law greatly influenced subsequent discussions. Cicero described the natural law as the supreme reason implanted in nature, which commands what ought to be done and forbids the opposite. It is implanted in us by a kind of innate instinct. This right reason is a true law known to all people that calls to duty by its precepts and deters from evil by its prohibitions. Neither the Senate nor the people can loosen us from this law. There is not one...

Share