Posts
We can now refer to this as plural: “The Books.”
The Search for Liberty
Here I explore why the Natural Law ethic must be the basis, the foundation, for a society that wishes to move toward and maintain something approaching liberty. The non-aggression principle is not sufficient.
· Chapter One: Metaphysics and the Four Causes
· Chapter One.one: Aristotle’s God
· Chapter Two: The Form of the Good
· Chapter Three: An Overview of Natural Law
· Chapter Four: Philosophy and Theology
· Chapter Five: Thomistic Metaphysics
· Chapter Six: Thomas and Natural Law
· Chapter Eight: The Catholic View
· Chapter Nine: Compare and Contrast
· Chapter Ten: The Natural Law of C.S. Lewis
· Chapter Eleven: On Ethical Absolutism
· Chapter Twelve: Libertarian Natural Law
· Chapter Thirteen: Libertarian Natural Rights
· Chapter Fourteen: Natural Law: the Complication
· Chapter Fifteen: Crime and Punishment
· Chapter Sixteen: The Continuum
· Chapter Seventeen: Ergo Summatim
· Appendix: The Form of the Good Made Manifest
Natural Law and the Meaning Crisis
Here I explore why the Natural Law ethic is the only solution to the meaning crisis faced in the West.
· Nature, According to our Purpose
· The Answer is in C. S. Lewis
· In the Beginning Was the Word
· The Doctrine of Objective Value
· The Destruction of the Society Without Meaning
· Love as Man’s Highest Purpose
· Either / Or
Natural law and natural theology are a fraud. It's the "fallacy of definition" in which you change the meaning of words in mid-argument. The Bible teaches natural revelation vs. special revelation and that's it. Natural revelation, including a darkened conscience, is limited, but sufficient to drive us to special revelation for the details, so we are without excuse. If you try to demonstrate or prove the existence of God, or the need for redemption, like Anselm apart from the Bible, then you just elevated the authority of that rational argument above the authority of Scripture.
ReplyDeleteThat's why Jesus would never respond to the demand for a sign to prove his authority. Don't put God on trial with natural law/natural theology arguments. There is no common ground with an unbeliever on the basis of logically derived natural law. When Cotton Mather tried to use Newton's science to "prove" a Creator God, he ended up elevating the authority of Science above God's revelation. It led to nothing but the triumph of unbelief in the following century that plagues us to the present day. Same with Thomas Aquinas, who finally realized it at the end of his life.
God never says, "Return O my people to natural law!" That's the argument Satan used on Eve - "hath God said?" Stop doing it. Jesus used His miracles to put the unbeliever on trial, not God. He responded to the Pharisees request for a sign: "You have my miracles, why don't you believe them?"
Thomas Jefferson used natural law to conclude that "all men are created equal." Darwin used natural law to conclude that, "all men are created unequal and only the fittest survive." You can make it say whatever you want it to say. Yes, we have to start telling people, "the reason you don't accept the Bible is because you are in rebellion against God, just like Eve." Natural law is a quixotic ideal that has gotten us nowhere.
"Natural law and natural theology are a fraud."
DeleteI will stick to the "natural law" part of this statement.
Let's start with the purpose of man. Do you agree that man was created with a purpose, a telos? If not, how to explain the summing of the law by Jesus: love God, love your neighbor?
Accept this as man's purpose, and quickly one can begin to deduce natural law. Of course, there is more - all Biblical:
https://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2020/08/natural-law-sola-scriptura.html
Ever read: https://www.sainthermanmonastery.com/category-s/1823.htm (Christ the Eternal Tao) ?
ReplyDelete