Catholicism and the Natural Law: A Response to Four Misunderstandings

Francis J. Beckwith

doi:10.3390/rel12060379

Abstract

This article responds to four criticisms of the Catholic view of natural law: (1) it commits the naturalistic fallacy, (2) it makes divine revelation unnecessary, (3) it implausibly claims to establish a shared universal set of moral beliefs, and (4) it disregards the noetic effects of sin. Relying largely on the Church’s most important theologian on the natural law, St. Thomas Aquinas, the author argues that each criticism rests on a misunderstanding of the Catholic view. To accomplish this end, the author first introduces the reader to the natural law by way of an illustration he calls the “the ten (bogus) rules.” He then presents Aquinas’ primary precepts of the natural law and shows how our rejection of the ten bogus rules ultimately relies on these precepts (and inferences from them). In the second half of the article, he responds directly to each of the four criticisms.

Highlights

This article responds to four criticisms of the Catholic view of natural law: (1) it commits the naturalistic fallacy, (2) it makes divine revelation unnecessary, (3) it implausibly claims to establish a shared universal set of moral beliefs, and (4) it disregards the noetic effects of sin
I move on and offer replies to four criticisms of the natural law that I argue rest on misunderstandings: (1) the natural law commits the so-called “naturalistic fallacy,” (2) the natural law makes Scripture superfluous, (3) the natural law mistakenly claims that there is a universally shared body of moral beliefs, and (4) the natural law ignores the noetic effects of sin
It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties.”. This means that morality is real, that it is natural and not a mere human artifice or construction, that all human beings can know it when we exercise our reason, and that it is the measure by which we judge how we should treat others as well as ourselves. This is the moral law to which Martin Luther King, Jr. was referring in his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail (King 1963): “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God

Summary

The Natural Law

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2000, 1956), “The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. As we shall see in the fourth primary precept, because we are rational and social beings that are ordered toward the shunning of ignorance, knowing the truth about God, and living with others in peace, we can infer from the natural law’s primary precepts more precise precepts about the extent to which we are permitted to kill (“You may kill in self-defense so that your life may not be unjustly taken by someone who does not want to live at peace with others”) or not avoid death (“Your duty to God, which is your highest duty, may require that you die for your faith if denying it is the only way to avoid death.”) your rejection of bogus rule 3 is based on a secondary precept of the natural law: one should not intentionally kill the innocent. I will have more to say about each in Section 2, since some of the misunderstandings to which I will respond are often the result of natural law’s critics ignoring one or more of these other types of law

Four Misunderstandings

The Natural Law Commits the So-Called “Naturalistic Fallacy”

Conclusions