{"id":9731,"date":"2015-05-31T12:33:52","date_gmt":"2015-05-31T16:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=9731"},"modified":"2015-05-31T12:33:52","modified_gmt":"2015-05-31T16:33:52","slug":"a-clarification-on-my-you-dont-have-to-grok-natural-law-shtik","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2015\/05\/a-clarification-on-my-you-dont-have-to-grok-natural-law-shtik.html","title":{"rendered":"A Clarification on My “You Don’t Have to Grok Natural Law” Shtik"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

(I\u2019ll take any excuse to jam both \u201cgrok\u201d and \u201cshtik\u201d into the same headline.)<\/p>\n

Now and then I find myself saying that you can accept Catholic teaching on [whatever, usually about gay stuff somehow] without being persuaded by or caring much about natural law theory. E.g. in the book I say, \u201cThis book is not a theological treatise defending the Catholic Church\u2019s teaching on sexuality. I admittedly don\u2019t always understand that teaching, and I don\u2019t think you need to understand every single element of a Church teaching in order to assent to its authority in your life. And you certainly don\u2019t need to accept any one school of theology\u2013such as natural law\u2013in order to accept and live by the Catholic ideal of chastity<\/em>. If you do want to explore the reasoning and scriptural interpretation that shape the Church\u2019s teaching, I\u2019ve included some reading recommendations in appendix one, but you really don\u2019t have to spend a lot of time on this stuff if you don\u2019t want to.\u201d (emphasis added)<\/p>\n

A couple people have been confused by this, and that\u2019s my fault. A helpful person on Twitter pointed out that the Catechism uses the term \u201cnatural law\u201d to mean something inherent in all people, not a specific theological school. So my using this example is really confusing. Let me clarify here.<\/p>\n

When I\u2019ve been using the term \u201cnatural law\u201d I\u2019ve been using it to designate a school or style of philosophical\/theological argument based on reasoning from first-principle goods to specific moral or political outcomes, in ways which attempt to be accessible to non-Christians.<\/p>\n

So think of the sentence, \u201cIn this article, Robert P. George offers a natural-law argument against same-sex marriage.\u201d That distinguishes George\u2019s school of argument from e.g. a theology of the body argument. I\u2019d expect George to talk about the purposes of sex and the sex organs, but not to rely on Scripture, whereas I\u2019d expect a theology of the body argument for the same conclusion to invoke Genesis and discuss the \u201cnuptial meaning of the body.\u201d<\/p>\n

As you can see, this is different from the Catechism\u2019s use of the term, which is much broader. I completely forgot that the Catechism uses \u201cnatural law\u201d (e.g. here<\/a>) to mean something more like \u201cour desire for God and our recognition that other people are equal to ourselves, which culture can obscure but which nonetheless remain written on our hearts.\u201d In this sense the natural law is real and beautiful: It\u2019s what allows the Spartan, however fleetingly, to recognize himself in the face of the helot\u2013or the American to see the unborn child as someone like herself. It\u2019s what makes humility possible even in cultures that despise humility.<\/p>\n

If I\u2019d remembered this I would have used a completely different example\u2013I would have said, e.g., \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be an adherent of the theology of the body to accept [Church teaching on marriage, or whatever].\u201d<\/p>\n

My sole point in talking about natural law in this way has been to say that you don\u2019t need to be persuaded by any<\/em> specific school of theology in order to accept the Church\u2019s teaching. So if George\u2019s arguments leave you cold (they leave me icy), that\u2019s fine; you don\u2019t need to reject Church teaching<\/em> because you haven\u2019t been persuaded by any of the specific arguments you\u2019ve heard for it so far.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a point I think is important to make because there\u2019s an undercurrent in contemporary thought which makes people feel that it\u2019s immoral<\/em> to accept an ethical claim that you can\u2019t defend or reason to yourself. We live not in a relativistic age but in an intensely moral one<\/a>, and part of the moral code of our culture is that it\u2019s wrong to accept restrictions on your life (maybe especially your sex life) based on trust of an authority. We\u2019re intensely aware of all the ways trust and authority can be abused, and I obviously think that\u2019s an important thing to remember; but we have no way of talking about the need<\/em> for trust in the ethical life. (See here<\/a> and here<\/a> for more.) And so we end up acting, subconsciously, as if every single person should be able to understand every single issue in the ethical life, from start to finish, and if we can\u2019t reason our own way to an ethical claim it must be wrong. This places unrealistic demands on even the most intelligent person\u2019s intellect.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Moreover, because man is mortal and we only have so much time to spend on ethical claims we dislike even when they\u2019re proposed by authorities we would like to trust, we\u2019ll often hear one okayish argument for an ethical claim and realize that either a) it relies on first principles we\u2019ve already rejected or b) it relies on first principles which are incommensurate with other first principles we hold dear. (This is the After Virtue<\/em> problem.) And so we not only reject the argument but reject the ethical claim, and feel good about it because we are following our moral code, which tells us we should reject any ethical claim we can\u2019t support by our own reasoning.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
This is related to my point in \u201cBeyond Critical Thinking<\/a>,\u201d that we teach people how to poke holes in arguments or spot contradictions but not when to accept paradox and tension, or when it\u2019s okay to take something on trust. We even make it hard for people to take some time to live in tension; we pressure people to figure out whether they say \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d to a specific Church teaching, rather than a) suggesting that this checklist approach is not really Catholic and also b) you know, people need time to sort out how Church teaching relates to their particular lives and struggles.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So when I say \u201cYou don\u2019t have to grok natural law\u201d I could really sub in any specific theological school. But I hadn\u2019t realized that using this example was really confusing, and again, that confusion is my fault.<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(I\u2019ll take any excuse to jam both \u201cgrok\u201d and \u201cshtik\u201d into the same headline.) Now and then I find myself saying that you can accept Catholic teaching on [whatever, usually about gay stuff somehow] without being persuaded by or caring much about natural law theory. E.g. in the book I say, \u201cThis book is not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[164,30,137,60],"class_list":["post-9731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mackerel-snapping","tag-its-the-luck-of-the-draw-its-the-natural-law-its-a-joke-its-a-crime","tag-mackerel-snapping-2","tag-reason-cannot-withstand-the-fall-of-god","tag-way-the-hell-off-duty"],"yoast_head":"\nA Clarification on My "You Don't Have to Grok Natural Law" Shtik<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"(I'll take any excuse to jam both "grok" and "shtik" into the same headline.) 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