Sex, Natural Law and Intellectual Corruption
Every time the hierarchy takes a stand on anything related to sexuality (e.g., the ban on artificial contraception, the ban on IVF, the attitude towards gays, the issue now manifesting in Wash DC with the withdrawal of adoption services from Catholic Charities), the term “natural law” pops up. Yet the logical relationship between natural law and the particular stand in question is never made clear.
My understanding of natural law is as follows:
It’s natural for existing, living things to flourish and grow and the measure of this growth and flourishing is what we call goodness. So the primary natural law, upon which all other laws must be based, is that good be done (i.e., flourishing occur) and evil avoided.
Natural law is supposed to be founded in our nature and revealed to us by our reason. It should, then, by it’s very nature be *understandable.* Yet it seems that whenever it’s trotted out by the hierarchy as the rationale for a stand, it is the endpoint of the argument, not the beginning. It is garbed in this gnostic, magical aura which we are all just supposed to accept (e.g., revealed, esoteric knowledge necessary for salvation, etc.).
I would love to see some of our more learned friends take apart these alleged natural law claims, since the whole point of natural law is that it is in fact understandable and thereby debatable via reason. The foundation of so many of the hierarchy’s stands about things sexual are intellectually corrupt, it would be a blessed relief to see them lanced once and for all.
The Church has not gotten its stand on sexual matters wrong, the hierarchy has. This is because the hierarchy has not taken account of the ‘sense of the faithful’ (e.g., starting the whole recent mess was Paul VI’s removal of the topic of birth control from the agenda of Vatican II so the bishops – never mind the rest of us – could not weigh in on it). The faithful have steadfastly refused to accept the hierarchy’s point of view.
The hierarchy’s stands about things sexual fail the test of reason not because the arguments don’t hold up but because they aren’t made at all; they are intellectually bogus because they end with natural law rather than begin with it. Also, they fail the test of the fullness of evidence. Look at the footnotes in the latest USCCB letter on marriage — all previous papal documents — like that’s the only reality that needs to be looked at. And look at the difference in the scope of evidence in the Commission on Birth Control’s Majority vs. Minority report. Finally, and most importantly, they fail the test of compassion.
Is natural law another one of those things, like canon law, that progressives blow off because it’s not progressive enough? I was quite surprised to read in Ladislas Orsy’s Receiving the Council that just like the Council failed to create any serious ongoing structures for collegiality, it seems the progressives pretty much blew off the whole domain of canon law. “Opus Dei, on the other hand, fostered the cultivation of this discipline; the University of Navarre became the seedbed for a school of canonists, and from the very moment of the creation of the Committee on the Revision of Canon Law, Opus Dei took an active role in it.” (p. 86)
Tags: intellectual freedom, natural law
