Sacred Scripture lives for all time!

The natural law is written not only on the heart of man, but also in the Sacred Scriptures. The natural law can be known by any human person; however, in it's secondary precepts it is known "only by a few and with a great admixture of error" (St. Thomas Aquinas). But why is this so? The Catechism of the Catholic Church answers this question bluntly and directly: "Because of sin the natural law is not always perceived nor is it recognized by everyone with equal clarity and immediacy." For this reason, says St. Augustine, God, "wrote on the tablets of the law what men did not read in their hearts." How awesome our Father is! He always provides for his weak and struggling children. We fail to read what God put into our very nature as human beings, so God writes "a book" -- indeed a veritable library! -- for us. What God told the Hebrews many years ago is valid for the post-modern man of today; indeed it's valid for all time.

I answered, concealed in the storm cloud,
at the waters of Meriba I tested you.
Listen, my people, to my warning,
O Israel, if only you would heed!

Let there be no foreign god among you,
no worship of an alien god.
I am the Lord you God,
who brought you from the land of Egypt.
Open you mouth wide and I will fill it.

But my people did not heed my voice
and Israel would not obey,
so I left them in their stubbornness of heart
to follow their own designs.

O that my people would heed me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!
At once I would subdue their foes,
turn my hand against their enemies.

The Lord's enemies would cringe at their feet
and their subjection would last forever.
But Israel I would feed with finest wheat
and fill them with honey from the rock.

Let there be no foreign god among you, no worship of an alien god. Again and again in history, after a period of repentance and reform, Israel would lapse into foreign worship; they would adopt the ways and modes of worship of the nations. Yet many of the nations worshiped gods who demanded child-sacrifice. Thus Israel herself at times practiced the abominations of child sacrifice and adultery. These are well-documented historical facts, which we will demonstrate in a future posting on this blog. Whenever the First Commandment is broken in public on a large scale, the Sixth and Fifth Commandments follow. It's not my opinion--it's history.

Today, led by the United States of America, there is acceptance of abortion by the majority of the cultures and by the legal systems. There is also a popular acceptance of contraception, whether is it admitted to or not. This is child sacrifice. Preborn babies, children at the very beginning of life, are sacrificed the the gods of money, convenience, and political correctness. The sanctity of the marriage bed, which used to be open to transmission of human life as per the natural law and the Sixth Commandment, is sacrificed to the god of overpopulation propaganda and the god of popular opinion. We are no different from the ancient Israelites and the nations of pagan antiquity that surrounded them.

O that my people would heed me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!
At once I would subdue their foes,
turn my hand against their enemies.

The Lord's enemies would cringe at their feet
and their subjection would last forever.
But Israel I would feed with finest wheat
and fill them with honey from the rock.

Will we be rewarded for respecting life and protecting our brothers, especially the most vulnerable? On the other hand, will we be overrun by our enemies, both temporal and eternal? Only you and I can answer this question. We do this by the way we live our lives.

Written in the Heart of Man

Sophocles' character Antigone speaks of "the unwritten laws of heaven" that no man can change or override. She is referring to the eternal law. Eternal law is God's plan for all creation "to run" with each being living according to it's nature. The natural law is simply eternal law in the heart of the human person. Since he has reason, a human being can know what is good and what is bad (evil). That's why it's called "natural law", because it's based on reason, which is the basis of human nature. No other visible creature on earth is able to reason. Thus, man's reason telling him to choose what is good and avoid what is evil has come to be called "the natural law." Indeed, this is the first principle of the natural law: Do good and avoid evil. "This first principle of natural law: 'Do good and avoid evil.' is known to anyone who has the use of reason at all." (Austin Fagothey, Right and Reason Rockford, IL: Tan Books and Publishers, 1959, p.179). "My dear Sam," every hobbit--I mean--every human being has at least some use of reason. That is what makes him human. From these principles, other basic principles immediately follow. They are so simple that everyone has them.

There are other common or general principles based on the first principle, following from it with immediate inference, or with mediate inference so simple and easy that no normal mature person can fail to make it. (Ibid., p. 179)

Austin Fagothey's book Right and Reason gives these examples:

"Preserve your own being."
"Care for your offspring."
"Adore God."
"Do not murder."
"Treat others with fairness."
"Be faithful to your friends." (page 179)

No human person wants to die or get sick. We naturally abhor such painful experiences. And who doesn't like a cute little baby! And when the baby is your own you definitely want him or her to continue to live; parents are willing to give their very lives for their children. Everyone feels a need to worship and if one doesn't find the true God, he makes up his own god or accepts the god of his peers--whichever one happens to be popular at the time. It's obvious that religion cannot be eradicated from the human race. Everyone wants to be treated fairly, and everyone--especially children--has a sense of fair play. Finally, no man can exist totally alone; everyone needs a friend. This is so deep in man. It is in all our great literature, our tales, our stories--from Day One.

Enkidu, whom I loved dearly,
who went with me through all hardships,
He has gone to the lot of mankind,
Day and night I have wept over him.
For burial I did not want to give him up, thinking:
"My friend will rise after all at my lamentations!"
From: Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet X (Old Babylonian version), lines 2-11, in Heidel, Gilgamesh Epic, p. 69.

Antigone

Why not? It was not Zeus who gave the order.
And Justice living with the dead below
has never given men a law like this.
Nor did I think your pronouncements were
so powerful that mere man could override
the unwritten and unfailing laws of heaven.
These live, not for today and yesterday
but for all time.*
What is found in man's heart will inevitably come out in his literature, in his tales, in his "oral tradition". Now, we must give some important background for the above passage, just in case there exists someone reading this blog who has not yet had the pleasure of reading (or watching) "Antigone."
Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, goes to bury her brother, who has died in mortal combat. The new ruler, Creon, makes a law that forbids Antigone from burying her poor brother, because he was Creon's rival claimant to the throne. Antigone does her family duty and buries her brother anyway, knowing full well that Creon will exact the death penalty against her. So, what does she think of Creon's decree? Sophocles gives Antigone's answer in the profound passage quoted above.
So why this passage to open a blog on natural law? Because, in a way that touches the human heart, it conveys profound truths about the natural law: Natural law is based on eternal law (God's design for the universe, especially for the human person), it is unchangeable and universal (for human persons of every place and every time), and it cannot be overridden by any positive law, whether civil or ecclesiastical.
With laws that fail to protect completely the human life in the womb and proposed laws that would obliterate all legal protection against abortion (F.O.C.A.) and the legalization of "gay marriage" in some states, the primacy of the natural law over human positive law would seem to be a very pertinent topic for our day and age. But that's the topic for a future posting by this author--or perhaps one of you bloggers out there would like to "write in" about that.
*(Sophocles, Oedipus the King and Antigone, Peter Arnot, trans., New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1960, p.76)