Natural Law Scholars

Question 1

Dawkins and Darwin on Natural Law

Answer 1

Evolution shows that there is not just one state that nature always follows as it is in a constant state of change, so you cannot derive eternal laws from it..

Question 2

Sigmund Freud

Answer 2

• Society has caused ethical practices to change during history so that there is no way to claim that humans simply know what to do innately as it is constantly changing
• People’s actions/perception of the law is also conditioned by their upbringing/environment.
• This goes against St Paul’s teaching in Romans 2:15 ‘God’s law is written on their hearts’ and that Natural Law is universal and can be known intuitively through reason

Question 3

Kai Neilso

Answer 3

-The idea of cultural relativism, we know what is right and wrong due to the society around us, not an innate knowledge

Question 4

St Augustine, Karl Barth and Calvin

Answer 4

• Human nature is not as positive as Aquinas believes and is instead far more negative than Aquinas
• “Total Depravity”

Question 5

David Hume

Answer 5

• Thought that just because things are the way they are doesn’t mean that is the way they should be
• The “is-ought gap”

Question 6

Hoose and Vardy

Answer 6

-Support the principle of Natural Law as an unmovable set of guidelines but favour proportionalism, if something is unusual and important enough it can override these laws.

Question 7

William of Ockham

Answer 7

• Supported Natural Law as he believed that if God created something then it must be good. therefore it is possible to extract truth from the world around us.
• “The conclusion that makes the least unwarranted presuppositions is normally the right one”

Question 8

Pope Benedict

Answer 8

-NL provides an antithesis to the materialistic and consequentialist society we have today.

Question 9

Jack Donnelly and Cristobal Orrego

Answer 9

all human rights such as freedom to work , move, express opinion, have a family.

Question 10

John Finnis

Answer 10

based strongly on Aristotelian principles on what Finnish calls ‘basic forms of human flourishing’- natural rights e.g. not to be tortured logically follow on from the theory

Question 11

Karl Barth

Answer 11

“Human reason is too corrupt”

Question 12

John Calvin

Answer 12

NL is ultimately unbiblical- Calvin looks to scripture as the word of God as the principle source of moral teaching.