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The Nature of Nature: Concerning the Efficacy of Natural Law Reasoning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Thomas V Gourlay Open the ORCID record for Thomas V Gourlay [Opens in a new window]
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Abstract

Recourse to natural law reasoning has long been a part of how Catholics and Christians engage in debates about issues of public and private morality with people and communities of people who do not share the Catholic/Christian faith. But with the rise of modernity, the scientific revolution, and the relative success of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, many Catholics have begun to question traditional natural law reasoning. Some, including theorists like Germain Grisez, and John Finnis have sought to modify traditional natural law reasoning and continue to employ it within debates concerning public and private ethics, while others, acknowledging the radically altered conception of nature that followed the scientific revolution have thought to look for alternative modes of engagement. The following paper will seek to develop an argument against proponents of this altered version of natural law theory, what has come to be called New Natural Law theory, on the basis of the altered understanding of nature in the contemporary West, and the New Natural Law propensity to sideline the question of nature itself. The paper will then go on to advocate for an alternative and more confessional mode of engagement in public debate.

Keywords

Natural LawPublic EthicsNatureNature and GraceRatzinger
Type
Original Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 100 , Issue 1089 , September 2019 , pp. 597 - 606
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Ratzinger, Joseph, Values in a Time of Upheaval: Meeting the Challenges of the Future, trans. McNeil, Brian (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 38Google Scholar.

2 The natural law would be binding on all “even if there were no God (etsi Deus non daretur)”’ ‘This expression finds its origin in Hugo Grotius, De jure belli et pacis, Prolegomena: “Haec quidem quae iam diximus locum aliquem haberent, etsi daremus, quod sine summo scelere dari nequit, non esse Deum”.’ See, the 2009 document of the International Theological Commission ‘In Search of a Universal Ethic: A New Look at the Natural Law’, in J. Berkman and W.C. Mattison, eds., Searching for a Universal Ethic: Multidisciplinary, Ecumenical, and Interfaith Responses to the Catholic Natural Law Tradition (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014), 25-92, at 48.

3 Cf. Gilson, Etienne, From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species, and Evolution, trans. Lyon, John (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

4 Weber, Max, “Science as a Vocation,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. Gerth, H.H. and Mills, C.W. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946)Google Scholar.

5 By way of corroboration, this view of reality is echoed in the writing of American pragmatist and educationalist John Dewey, who wrote that things should be understood as merely ‘what they can do and what can be done with them.’ See Dewey, John, Reconstruction in Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920), 115CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Aquinas provides the most comprehensive treatment of human nature in the first part of the Summa theologiae, commonly referred to as his treatise on human nature, Summa Theologiae 1a 75-89.

7 Tollefsen, Christopher, “The New Natural Law Theory,” LYCEUM X, no. 1 (2008), 2Google Scholar.

8 Ibid.

9 This point is somewhat contentious. More traditional Thomistic thinkers argue that these theorists have adopted this modern Kantian and Humean position that one cannot determine an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’, although Finnis argues that this error is not found in his writings, see Finnis, John, “Natural Law and the ”Is" - “Ought” Question: An Invitation to Professor Veatch," Catholic Lawyer 26, no. 4 (1981)Google Scholar.

10 Rowland, Tracey, Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II, Radical Orothodoxy (London: Routledge, 2003), 137CrossRefGoogle Scholar; citing MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 57Google Scholar.

11 Again, this is a contested point, see note 9 above. Also, Robert George asserts that nature has not been abandoned in the reasoning of new natural law theorists. See, George, Robert P., In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford;New York;: Clarendon Press, 1999), 85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 See Black, Rufus, “Is the New Natural Law Theory Christian?,” in The Revival of Natural Law: Philosophical, Theological and Ethical Responses to the Finnis-Grisez School, ed. Biggar, Nigel and Black, Rufus (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2000)Google Scholar.

13 See Di Blasi, Fulvio, “The Role of God in the New Natural Law Theory,” The National Bioethics Quarterly 2013, no. Spring (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and also Rowland, chapter 7.

14 Finnis, John, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Second Edition) (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 48-49Google Scholar.

15 See particularly Rowland, chapter 7. See also “The Role of Natural Law and Natural Right in the Search for a Universal Ethic,” in Searching for a Universal Ethic: Multidisciplinary, Ecumenical, and Interfaith Responses to the Catholic Natural Law Tradition, ed. J. Berkman and W.C. Mattison (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014). See also Di Blasi. Finnis himself freely admits that an account of nature is decidedly absent from his own presentation of natural law theory. He thinks that ‘natural law’ itself is an “unhappy term”. See Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Second Edition), 374.

16 Girgis, Sherif, Anderson, Ryan T., and George, Robert P., What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense (New York: Encounter Books, 2012)Google Scholar.

17 For evidence of the failure of this line of argumentation, a simple glance at the twitter feed of one Ryan T. Anderson, suffices. Instead of thoughtful engagement with his argument, Anderson is subjected to unfair ad hominem attacks, made to be the subject of ridicule, and branded a bigot and a homophobe. His use of new natural law reasoning, implying that his view of marriage is ‘self-evident’ to those who are able to employ a little bit of their reasoning skills is received as arrogant by those who would think otherwise.

18 International Theological Commission ‘In Search of a Universal Ethic: A New Look at the Natural Law’, in Berkman and Mattison, 25-92, n. 33.

19 See chapter 7 of Rowland, Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II.

20 “The Role of Natural Law and Natural Right in the Search for a Universal Ethic.”, 161.