{"id":6780,"date":"2012-10-17T20:02:59","date_gmt":"2012-10-18T01:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?p=6780"},"modified":"2012-10-17T20:58:38","modified_gmt":"2012-10-18T01:58:38","slug":"6780","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2012\/10\/6780.html","title":{"rendered":"What is Natural Law?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Atheist blogger Bob Seidensticker<\/a> claims that there is no such thing as an objective morality. He\u2019s picking a fight with C.S.Lewis who argued in Mere Christianity <\/em>that \u00a0the idea of \u00a0natural law is the cornerstone argument for the existence of God. \u201cIf there\u2019s a law there\u2019s a lawgiver\u201d. Lewis said that there are some basic rights and wrongs that everybody everywhere accepts. \u201cIf you step on my toe on purpose. That\u2019s wrong.\u201d Everybody agrees.<\/p>\n

Except Bob. He writes:<\/p>\n

To the person who insists that objective morality exists, I say: show me. Take a vexing moral issue\u2014abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, capital punishment, sex before marriage, torture, and so on\u2014and show us the objectively true moral position. If you want to say that objective morality exists but it\u2019s not reliably accessible, then what good is it? This kind of objective morality that\u00a0looks<\/em>\u00a0nonexistent might as well be.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The problem here is that Bob has read C.S.Lewis, but I don\u2019t think he\u2019s gone further, and to be fair, as I remember Lewis\u2019 argument, he also didn\u2019t take the argument back far enough. We must remember that\u00a0Mere Christianity<\/em> was Lewis\u2019 attempt to translate the Christian argument for a wide and basically educated audience.<\/p>\n

Also\u2013Lewis wasn\u2019t a Catholic. His argument only goes so far. I would grant Bob\u2019s point that morality is very complex and there is very little agreement on what might be \u2018right\u2019 or \u2018wrong\u2019 in issues like abortion and euthanasia, capital punishment, sex before marriage etc.<\/p>\n

Bob\u2019s argument seems to be, \u201cSee, everybody disagrees about these particular issues, therefore there is no agreed morality, therefore there is no such thing as natural law, therefore there is no great objective morality.\u201d I\u2019m afraid this is rather sophomoric.<\/p>\n

Natural Law is not simply some sort of arbitrary morality that is imposed by the great lawgiver who sits on a cloud and give Moses the Ten Commandments in order to prove his existence. Instead, natural law is derived from the nature and person of God himself. Aquinas teaches that God is simple. This means his Being and Essence are one. This Being and Essence are the foundation of all existence. To put it simply\u2013all that is relies on the One who IS. The concept of Natural Law is therefore based in the sheer fact of existence. We begin, therefore, with the premise that the fact that something exists is better than that something does not exist. That something does not exist is nothing. It is a void. It is an emptiness. Against this all should be able to agree that existence is something. It is a positive, not a negative. It is a reality, not a void.<\/p>\n

It is this \u201cExistence versus non-existence\u201d from which we derive the concept of Natural Law. We deem a thing to be \u2018good\u2019 if it exists. It is interesting, therefore in the Hebrew creation myth that God creates the world\u00a0ex nihilo <\/em>\u201cout of nothing\u201d. This is an important and profound philosophical statement. Furthermore, after he creates something in the creation myth we are told that God declares, \u201cThat\u2019s Good.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concept of \u201cGood\u201d therefore is primary and derived naturally from the fact of existence. Then what is evil? Evil is nothing positive. The devil cannot create anything. All he can do is twist and distort or destroy that which is good. Therefore truly Christian moral theology is not dualistic. Good and Evil are not equal forces. Instead, evil is derivative. Evil is anything which distorts, corrupts or destroys that which is good, and if \u201cGood\u201d is that which exists or lives or is being brought into existence as something positive, then evil is that which destroys, distorts or corrupts that which is positive and which exists\u2013or which is Good.<\/p>\n

If readers will excuse the abstruse explanation, this is the foundation of natural law, that we all understand that at the root of it all there is such a thing as \u201cGood\u201d and such a thing as \u201cEvil\u201d and that \u201cGood\u201d is what exists, and is positive and natural and full of life. \u201cEvil\u201d is anything which destroys, distorts or corrupts the good. On this all people should be able to agree, and this is the foundation of all the rest of what we call \u201cNatural Law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, when we get into the particulars things get complicated. Nobody\u2019s arguing that.<\/p>\n

However, I believe the argument still stands that there is such a thing as Natural Law, and this is based in the mere fact of anything existing at all, and if it exists, then it is more positive than if it did not exist, and this we define as \u201cGood.\u201d Whether the sheer fact that anything exists demands a divinity is the subject for a different debate on something called the Ontological Argument.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Atheist blogger Bob Seidensticker claims that there is no such thing as an objective morality. He\u2019s picking a fight with C.S.Lewis who argued in Mere Christianity that \u00a0the idea of \u00a0natural law is the cornerstone argument for the existence of God. \u201cIf there\u2019s a law there\u2019s a lawgiver\u201d. Lewis said that there are some basic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat is Natural Law?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Atheist blogger Bob Seidensticker claims that there is no such thing as an objective morality. 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