Context for natural moral law

Question 1

What is absolutism?

Answer 1

Absolutist theories hold that one form of morality holds in all places, at all times and for all people; it is universal

Question 2

What is relativism?

Answer 2

Claims whether something is good or bad depends on where it takes place, when it happens and who is involved

Question 3

What is cultural relativism?

Answer 3

States that rightness and wrongness are determined by the laws of a particular culture, hence morality is not universal

Question 4

What is legalism?

Answer 4

The idea that we should make decisions based on previously established laws

Question 5

What does legalism mean in the Christian sense?

Answer 5

An approach to morality where ‘not just the spirit but the letter of the law reigns

Question 6

What type theory is natural moral law?

Answer 6

Absolutist and legalistic

Question 7

Who is natural moral law most closely associated with?

Answer 7

The medieval Catholic theologian St Thomas Aquinas

Question 8

How did Aquinas formulate natural moral law?

Answer 8

By combining the pre-Christian thought of Aristotle with Biblical teaching

Question 9

How did Aquinas have access to Aristotle’s work?

Answer 9

It was preserved by Arabic scholars in the middle ages and gradually began to spread into Western Europe by the 12th century`

Question 10

What are the two twin pillars natural moral law is built upon?

Answer 10

Aristotle and the Bible

Question 11

Aquinas was a key figure in scholasticism. What was this movement?

Answer 11

A method of theology that developed between 1200-1500, motivated by the perceived need to systemise all Christian theology and prove that Christian theology and belief were rational. The use of reason was a defining feature and it was used to make decisions about exactly what church doctrine should be

Question 12

Define ‘telos’

Answer 12

A Greek term Aquinas adopted from Aristotle; means end or purpose

Question 13

What is teleology?

Answer 13

The study of ends and purposes

Question 14

What did Aristotle think the most important cause was?

Answer 14

The final cause/telos; the purpose for which a thing was created and the purpose it should rightly fill

Question 15

What did Aristotle think our final cause/telos was?

Answer 15

Eudaimonia; which can be roughly translated as good living or human flourishing

Question 16

What made Aristotle so attractive to Aquinas?

Answer 16

Because of his belief in a well-ordered, harmonious universe, where nature has a clear logic and creator

Question 17

Name the two Christian philosophers from the classical era that influenced Aquinas’ creation of natural moral law?

Answer 17

Boethius and Augustine of Hippo

Question 18

Which of Augustine’s philosophies influenced Aquinas’ development of natural moral law?

Answer 18

The idea that all creation in good and any evil is just a privation of this good

Question 19

What did Aquinas see good as?

Answer 19

Actuality; actually existing

Question 20

What did Aquinas see evil as?

Answer 20

The privation of good

Question 21

State Romans 1:20

Answer 21

‘For since the creation of of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse’

Question 22

What is the meaning of Romans 1:20?

Answer 22

St Paul is describing how God made himself known through the creation of the world and therefore people have no excuse not to follow God’s will, as it is evident all around us

Question 23

State Romans 2:14-16

Answer 23

Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law