Toward A Reformulation of Natural Law by Anthony Battaglia

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 461 efforts at particularization must face public debate and probably subsequent revision; in the meantime he will have labored hard to translate into realistic civil law the moral principles which are more nearly unchanging. Those who read McCormick will wisely begin at the beginning, allowing him to spin out his general moral principles, and only subsequently move with him into the more conditioned considerations of what constitutes wise public policy and law in our day. Univers-ity of Dallas Irving, Texas WILLIAM J. FINAN, O.P. Toward A Reformulation of Natural Law. By ANTHONY BATTAGLIA. New York: The Seabury Press, 1981. Pp. ix + 150. $14.95. Anthony Battaglia has written an attractive, erudite essay which basically proposes the natural law doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas and finds it valid for guiding us in the field of morality today. He does have his reservations about an all-out endorsement of Aquinas, but in the end he comes rather close to one. In his introduction, the author sets forth his purpose " to rescue the chief insights of the natural law tradition from this limbo to which it has recently been relegated" (p. 1). After giving three reasons for the reexamination of the natural law theory, Battaglia describes himself as· presenting " a revisionist understanding of Thomas Aquinas" (p. 4). Four chapters constitute the bulk of the book with a brief concluding chapter. The first chapter is mainly concerned with defending the very treating of natural law in an age inclined to dismiss it, and probably morality itself, as old hat and not relevant to our times. The writer succeeds in capturing the good will of the reader by his engaging presentation and arouses one's interest by hinting at the exploration to come. The second chapter is explicitly on St. Thomas and his teaching on the natural law. Actually the whole book is on Aquinas, as anyone just glancing at the footnotes could discover. Of the 160 notes almost half refer to St. Thomas's writings. However, the second chapter is the ex professo treatment of natural law as found in Thomas's Commentary on the Sentences and the Summa. Also, since the author relates the analogy of law to that found in truth, he has occasion to draw from De Veritate. All of this is done clearly and with considerable creative and original insights. Chapters three and four develop an essential claim the author makes throughout the work for establishing the validity of natural law, namely, 462 BOOK REVIEWS that "moral reason is trustworthy because it is in touch with reality" (p. 5). In these chapters Battaglia brings in other authors than St. Thomas. He wants to gain support from some recent writers for his thesis that natural law still has a role to play for guiding us in moral decisions. He successfully integrates these modern comments into the ever-present doctrine of St. Thomas. As a result he is able to achieve what he set out to do. Early in the book he had written: "Reformulating means, in its commonsense usage, to say the same thing in a different way " (p. 29). Hence, we conclude with the natural law theory of St. Thomas Aquinas said in a different way, more congenial perhaps to our contemporaries, although a bit watered down by the author's concern for the role of historicity (cf. pp. 13 sq.) as a determining factor for change in morals, especially in the area of sexual morality. But then the human family is always looking for something like that. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D.C. RAYMOND SMITH, O.P. The Being of God: Theology and the Experience of Truth. By ROBERT ScHARLEMANN. New York: The Seabury Press, 1981. Robert Scharlemann has contributed a significant and provocative addition to the debate on the nature of truth and the way in which truth is experienced. His work will undoubtedly arouse discussion and interest among theologians for some time to come. The author's intention is not to engage in a debate about the theoretical nature of truth but rather to focus discussion on how truth is experienced. This distinction allows the author to contend that the theme will...