I’ve always found natural law fascinating. From nearly every corner of the world, in all civilizations, the same basic set of laws to guide human behavior was recorded. Without any contact with other people in the world they all had done the same thing. I see this as one of those many evidences that there must be a God. These identical doctrines came because natural law is in every person, planted there by God so we can live in community.
Lewis starts Mere Christianity with natural law. I see this as a good place for him to start for several reasons. For one, every person regardless of religion has this moral law inside them. It’s a starting point; we have this moral law, why should we obey it? Second, it’s interesting. This phenomenon is a great opener and attention getter. It interests the reader to continue the book. Finally, Lewis was an apologist and in order to defend anything facts are needed as well as good argumentative skills. I’ve worked for the R&D dept. of a factory this past summer, and without data you can’t convince anyone of your point. Arguments need to be data driven. Natural law is an irrefutable point proven by fact. Lewis’ reader sees that he’s being logical and proving with fact. To argue well you have to win your audience over right away and starting with natural law does that.
Going in depth on natural law, Lewis uses an example of a man screaming for help and our reaction. We have two impulses, one to go and help him (herd instinct) and one to stay safe (self-preservation). I would have thought that the instinct to help the man is natural law. In actuality, natural law is the conscience telling us that we should choose to help the man because it’s the right thing to do. That is the lesser of our instincts according to the article as we have a stronger instinct to protect ourselves. Lewis says that natural law often leads us to our weaker instinct. I see that helping the man obeys the commandment “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Without natural law we wouldn’t obey this, we wouldn’t obey God. I see it as an intricate aspect of creation that even if we have never heard of God we know to obey him, even if it’s not the logical choice.
To add one last point, I see natural law also as a clear counterargument to evolutionism. Darwin’s theory that man evolved from ape would seems implausible if no natural law is present in apes. It would be strange for man to all of a sudden gain moral law at a certain point in evolution. I don’t think that any animals exhibit moral law. They are all more concerned with Darwin’s survival and reproduction.
while it is truth that animals don't show the near the same level of moral law that we do, many of them are able to show simple emotions. Another thing that is interesting is early man was shown to bury their dead and this is definitely a human quality of moral law became in more cultures respect for the dead is a common theme. So this brings up the question were we given moral law or did it develop over time?
ReplyDeleteI think the idea of Moral Law and animals is an interesting one. Although I don't think it is a support to evolutionism, your comment made me start thinking about if animals do have a Moral Law. In the sense that they make decisions based on what they believe to be good or right, than no I don't think they have a moral law. However, animals also have to choose between conflicting instincts. For example they have to choose between saving their young or saving themselves from a predator.
ReplyDelete