113. The reason there must be a “ natural law” morality
113. THE REASON THERE MUST BE A “NATURAL LAW” MORALITY
Since it is God Who created and designed man for virtue, and since the ultimate end of virtue is God—being God—like in this life and united with Him in the next—why do we say moral virtue is “natural” rather than “supernatural”? Why “natural moral law?” Why not just “moral law” Most Muslims and Jews, and even many Protestants, are suspicious of “natural law”.
Augustine says: Every vice, simply because it is a vice, is contrary to nature. . . .
(For) vice is contrary to virtue. Now the virtue of a thing consists in its being well disposed in a manner befitting its nature. . . . Hence the vice of any thing consists in its being disposed in a manner not befitting its nature. . . .
Now man derives his species (essential nature) from his rational soul; and consequently whatever is contrary to the order of reason is, properly speaking, contrary to the nature of man as man, while whatever is in accord with reason is in accord with the nature of man. . . (I-II,71,2).
What is contrary to God’s will is a vice. God willed nature, and human nature, in creating it. There—fore what is contrary to human nature is contrary to God’s will.
God’s will is expressed not merely in His direct commands, but also in His creating nature, and human nature, with natural ends. The reason there is a natural law is because all nature is teleological, i.e., purposive, designed to move toward natural ends. Puppies grow into dogs, not cats; acorns grow into oaks, not tulips. Birds fly and fish swim. Avalanches fall and fire rises, not vice versa. Eyes are obviously for seeing, hands for grasping, and sex for reproduction (unless you’ve been brainwashed by modern sex “education”). It’s called “the reproductive system”! The denial of a natural moral law and the denial of teleology always go hand in hand.
All the virtues—the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues, and all the less important virtues too—make us more perfect, more perfectly like what God designed us to be. All vices deface that design, and deface our very nature. An unjust, unwise, out-of-control, cowardly, faithless, despairing, uncharitable man is less of a man, less human, than a saint. He is defacing his own human nature.
St. Thomas mentions reason as the criterion of all the virtues: “whatever is contrary to the order of reason is . . . contrary to the nature of man.” Reason and capacity for virtue are coextensive: all persons have both, all impersonal things (mere animals, vegetables, or minerals) have neither.
Notice that St. Thomas says not just “reason” but “the order of reason”. Reason discovers teleology, purposive order, order toward natural ends. This is “reason” in its original, whole—human sense, not “reason” in its truncated, modern, computerlike sense of mere cleverness and calculation, which omits the first and biggest thing of all: understanding the nature of things, seeing what is there. Thus the typically modern denial of design in nature and in human nature, the denial of teleology, is irrational, even when it is done in order to be more “scientific”. Science does not need to deny the existence of teleology and to assume materialism (i.e., the philosophy that there exist only material and efficient causes, no formal and final causes) any more than it needs to deny religion and assume atheism. It is illogical to assume that the rightful focus on only two of the four causes in science requires us to deny the other two in philosophy. That is as illogical as assuming that biology’s focusing on hormones requires psychology to deny romance, or that cybernetics’ focusing on brains requires philosophy to deny minds, or that anthropology’s focusing on man requires theology to deny God.
So the habitual modern denial or ignoring of teleology is an intellectual vice. It is contrary to reason, and therefore contrary to the nature of man, and therefore contrary to natural virtue. To become a good man you must know the nature of man and the end of man (your formal and final cause). You cannot become a saint without the natural law.