I Natural Law and Methodological Atheism

Janine Marie Idziak has recently argued that natural law morality (hereafter NLM) is guilty of “methodological atheism.”Footnote ¹ According to Idziak, NLM assumes an autonomous realm of ethics that needs no appeal to the divine. Since NLM argues that human nature provides the normative basis for ethics, God can only play a relatively minor role. For a theist this certainly seems a counter-intuitive way to do ethics. Thus, the approach is dubbed “methodological atheism.” In her critique of NLM Idziak appeals to the earlier and more detailed work of Edward Vacek, who more fully articulates the case against NLM.

In his essay “Divine-Command, Natural-Law and Mutual-Love Ethics,” Vacek weighs the relative merits of divine command theory (DCT) and NLM against his own theory of mutual love ethics.Footnote ² Vacek believes that DCT places an appropriate emphasis upon the Christian themes of the sovereignty of God, human obedience and a fundamentally theocentric moral theory. However, DCTsuffers from at least two defects. First, it fails to appreciate the theological significance of the creation and human nature as morally relevant categories. Second, DCT neglects human affectivity in moral matters. When questioned as to why I should love my neighbor, the advocate of DCT can only respond with, “Because God commanded it and I must obey.” Loving, or any other moral activity for that matter, is not genuine if it proceeds solely from obedience. Vacek echoes Jacques Leclerq's observation that, “To love out of obedience is not to love at all.”Footnote ³

In contrast to DCT, NLM seems more intuitively appealing since it corresponds to our most basic moral intuitions. It contends that there is a universally accessible moral code that does not vary in its essential characteristics. One need not be a Christian in order to know the most basic principles of human morality. Yet, if NLM can be treated as an autonomous approach to ethics, then God has little or no place. If this is the case then Vacek's objections to NLM seem justified.

But Vacek sees another problem here. His contention is that the human agent, in deciding that God can never command the morally horrific (e.g., the torture of innocent children for its own sake), has elevated her own reason above that of the divine. In so doing, she proceeds to make moral judgments upon God's moral directives and unintentionally substitutes an anthropocentric for a theocentric morality. Vacek quotes from Kai Nielsen who asks, “Is it really hubris or arrogance or sin on our part to wish for a life where we make our own decisions, where we follow the rules we do because we see the point of them and where we need not crucify our intellects?”Footnote ⁴ The demand for God to give an explanation for why some actions are commanded and others prohibited is apparently an act of impiety on Vacek's view.

This substitution of an anthropocentric morality for a theocentric one seems to be a kind of moral hubris wherein NLM ignores the role that God should assume in any specifically Christian ethic. Vacek criticizes the Thomistic approach to NLM by charging that “When Aquinas wrote, in an oft cited line, ‘We do not offend God except by doing something contrary to our own good,’ he himself opened the possibility of making our relationship with God superfluous for doing ethics.”Footnote ⁵ He contends that the issue of “offending God” is dependent on the “prior moral question of ‘our own good.’”Footnote ⁶ If this is the case, then any moral question can be decided upon without the explicit appeal to God. Vacek concludes by arguing,

Even though this characterization of NLM may be true for some contemporary thinkers, it is not the view held by Aquinas himself.Footnote ⁸ God plays a much greater role in Aquinas' account of NLM than Vacek admits. Aquinas' metaphysics of participation is sufficient to refute Vacek's charges of “methodological atheism” for two reasons. First, since NLM is a participation in the eternal law, there is a Christo-centric basis for NLM. Second, human knowledge of NLM is fundamentally a function of the imago dei and therefore we find a continuity between human reason's ability to grasp the good, on the one hand, and God's establishment of the good in creation, on the other. As a result one need not fear the charge of moral hubris.

II Aquinas on Natural Law

Aquinas says, in an oft-quoted text, that natural law is the “rational creature's participation in the eternal law.”Footnote ⁹ Initially this means the human person is able to act freely and to direct herself to goods appropriate to her nature. Unlike the rest of creation, which is governed by physical laws and instinct, humans are self directed to their proper ends. Aquinas says that, “Among all others, the rational creature is subject to divine providence in a more excellent manner, in so far as it itself participates in providence in providing for itself and for others. Thus, it participates in the eternal reason whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end” (italics added for emphasis, IaIIae.91.2). This inclination Aquinas refers to is the human good and the natural law dictates that “the good should be done and pursued and evil avoided.”Footnote ¹⁰

Because the precepts of NLM are based upon human nature, it follows that in addition to the goods humans share with other life forms, they will also have unique goods of their own. However, the most important of these unique goods will be the goods of reason.

From the different kinds of inclinations Aquinas derives specific precepts of the natural law. Yet, it is important to note that the inclinations themselves are not per se moral. That is, they are necessary conditions of morality but in themselves are not sufficient. The inclinations require the regulation of reason in order to have moral implications. Stephen Pope says that Aquinas' appeal to natural inclinations “did not lead him to encourage a simple imitation of animal behaviour but to recognize that humans, like other animals, experience the divine governance through the promptings of certain natural inclinations as well as through the exigencies of reason. Essential human inclinations are to be both fulfilled and transformed in light of human intelligence.”Footnote ¹¹ Thus, there is no canine morality since dogs do not have the capacity to regulate their behaviour according to reason.

Since there is a natural inclination to self-preservation, Aquinas believes that there is an obligation to avoid suicide. From the inclination towards procreation, there is an obligation to monogamy and nurturing the young. Yet, humans also possess reason and this power has two functions.

First, reason has the capacity to regulate our biological impulses. We can choose how we respond to various emotions, sexual temptations and the needs of our children. Our capacity to choose is due to the rational appetite, the will. However, reason also grasps that there are goods of its own that are appropriate to humans qua human.

Humans do more than merely regulate their biological appetites and choose among competing desires. Since humans are rational, they possess an intellectual appetite. Aquinas says, “By the intellectual appetite we may desire the immaterial good, which is not apprehended by sense, such as knowledge, virtue, and the like” (Ia.80.2, ad2). Reason's normative capacity, which it has by nature, enables it to know the goods that are appropriate to it as an active power in the life of the human person.

Since God is the immaterial good, and end of all rational agents, it follows that God is the object of the intellectual appetite. Therefore, the desire for the truth about God is an indemonstrable first principle of Aquinas' NLM. A first attempt at rebutting Vacek's argument is by observing that God functions, at least minimally, as the ultimate telos of human activity.

The desire to know the truth about God is a basic desire for all rational creatures and so it follows that a first principle of the natural law is based upon that desire: viz., humans should pursue the truth concerning God. This desire for God is not merely an addendum to an already complete moral philosophy but an integral part of Aquinas' ethics. Even though one simply cannot know the complete truth about God apart from revelation, all people possess this basic drive to know God. Considered as an essence (i.e. a formal nature) a human person has as an end a natural desire to know the truth about God. As such, this desire can no more be separated from an account from human nature than any other good which contributes to human flourishing. Furthermore, this desire obviously refers to the human search for first causes, which takes one back to an understanding of the eternal law—i.e. the source of human nature.

But Aquinas makes an interesting observation that not only is there a natural desire to know the truth about God, there is a natural love for God found in all humans. He says

Aquinas argues that love (amor) is a human capacity established by God in creation. Yet, it is important to point out that Aquinas says that “All desire and charity is love but not the converse.”Footnote ¹² In creation itself God implants the desire for God which can only be completely achieved by means of grace and charity. Sin does not destroy this natural love but it cannot achieve its end apart from God's help through grace. Nature is a teleological principle, albeit in need of further assistance, that directs humans to their appropriate ends. However, these ends may, and do, exceed the natural abilities of humans on their own. Karl Rahner has said

Nature and nature's agent, reason, act cooperatively in the moral life. Nature needs grace to attain the end that reason sees but cannot achieve, while grace needs nature to build upon and perfect.

To act against the rule of reason then is to act contrary to one's own substantial nature. This is so because God has endowed humanity with reason and demands that we act in accordance with its dictates. God clearly plays an important causal role in human morality, both with respect to the dictates of natural law and its teleological character—and Vacek even admits this to a certain degree. However, I believe that there are at least two other avenues of criticism that render his attack on NLM ineffectual.

III Aquinas on Eternal Law and Participation

Aquinas' claim that the “natural law is the rational creature's participation in the eternal law” expresses an often-overlooked aspect of his moral epistemology andontology wherein the Verbum Dei serves the dual role as creative architect of human nature and epistemic source of natural law. The natural light of reason, which is itself a participation in the eternal law, enables the agent to know substantial forms in creation, including the substantial form of humanity as well as the moral precepts that contribute to its flourishing. This participation in the eternal law provides both an ontological and epistemological dimension to Aquinas' account of NLM. Eleonore Stump writes,

Stump's comment serves to point in the direction of participation metaphysics in his theory of natural law but she never develops the idea further. Yet, participation language clearly appeals to a specific relationship between creature and Creator as well as the specific person of the Trinity responsible for creation itself. Yet, we can ask how is this relationship discovered by the human intellect?

Since the virtue of wisdom is a habit that the natural law prescribes, it follows that the good person will desire to know the first causes of things. In the pursuit of the first cause of the natural law, the wise person will discover God to be the cause of human nature and human morality. But it is not simply any divine cause Aquinas claims is the architect of the natural law, but the second person of the Trinity.

Aquinas uses the terms “divine wisdom,” exemplar,”“Word,” and “eternal law” with reference to the creative activity of the pre-incarnate Christ. Jean Porter observes, “Aquinas appropriates the eternal law to the Second Person of the Trinity, in virtue of the fact that this is the reason, or Word, by which the universe is created and governed.”Footnote ¹⁵ He says, “The Son is not subject to the divine providence or to the eternal law, but rather is Himself the eternal law” (IaIIae.93.4, ad2). That is, the Word of God is identified with the eternal law. He clarifies this further by appealing to the “word metaphor” as an explanation of the Trinity.

If we look closely at this passage we see Aquinas making the bold claim that the Word expresses the ideas conceived by the Father's intellect. The essences of all things in creation are known in the Father and expressed through the creative activity of the Word.Footnote ¹⁶ Since the eternal law is identified with the Verbum Dei, what does it mean to say that the natural law is the “rational creature's participation” in it?

Although the notion of participation has been the topic of many discussions concerning Aquinas' metaphysics it has often been neglected in discussions of his theory of natural law.Footnote ¹⁷ According to W. Norris Clark, this idea is basic to Aquinas' metaphysics.

In questions concerning the relation of creatures to God, participation has an ontological dimension. All created beings owe their existence, goodness, unity and specific characteristics to the creative activity of God. According to Aquinas, “To participate is to receive as it were a part; and therefore, when anything receives in a particular manner that which belongs to another in a universal [or total] manner, it is said to participate it.”Footnote ¹⁹ Obviously, humans receive their nature from God and “participate” in God's creative activity.

Clarke lists three essential elements in any participation structure: “(1) a source which possesses the perfection in question in a total and unrestricted manner; (2) a participant subject which possesses the same perfection in some partial or restricted way; and (3) which has received this perfection in some way from, or in dependence on, the higher source.”Footnote ²⁰

The relation of the natural to the eternal law certainly exhibits these three characteristics. First, the eternal law possesses the perfection of law as it is the “divine reason.” Since law is a dictate of reason, and the Word is the expressivum et operativum of the Father, it follows that God, by means of the Verbum Dei, establishes the natural law in human nature (Ia.34.3).

The second requirement for participation is that there must be a participant subject that in some partial way possesses the perfection. Clearly, each and every human possesses the natural law in as much as all humans know the primary precepts of natural law through the natural light of reason. Although humans, as finite creatures, do not possess the image in its fullness or perfection they do retain the capacity to reason and govern their own activities.

The final element of participation structure is that the participant must have received the perfection from the source in question. In the case of the natural law, the perfection is reason's capacity to know and to love. That participation enables the agent to act freely and to govern her activities in accordance with reason. The intellectual and volitional powers of the human creature are a result of being created in the imago Dei, to which we now turn our attention.

IV The Imago Dei, Participation and Natural Law

The imago Dei for Aquinas bridges the ontological and epistemological gap that separates the human and the divine. He says that, “A person is called the image of God, not because one is essentially an image, but because the image of God is impressed upon one's mind; as a coin is the image of the king, as having the image of the king” (Ia.93.6, ad1).Footnote ²¹ This image is such that humans imitate God by acting on the basis of knowledge and with freedom. He says, “That the human is made to the image of God … implies that the human agent is intelligent and free to choose and govern oneself” (IaIIae. Prologus). There is a sense in which humans imitate God—in their own finite capacity—by being responsible for their own behavior. Freedom and knowledge provide the sine qua non for responsible action. Since humans participate in divine reason by being created to God's image, they are also thereby enabled to understand why God gives the commands God gives and to see the essential rationality of the natural law.

The divine image in humanity is seen most clearly in the human capacity to reason. This is what distinguishes human life from all other forms of organic life. Although these other forms also participate in the eternal law, the human creature does so in a more excellent way. By means of reason, we know, we deliberate, we choose and we engage in purposive activities. All of this is accomplished by the natural light of reason bestowed in creation.

The natural light of reason is the capacity to know the formal nature of any created being. This capacity extends to various elementary truths about God as well as the natural law. This basic human capacity is fundamental to knowledge of the natural law as well. Although explicit knowledge of God is not required to understand the precepts of natural law, God makes that knowledge possible by creating humans ad imagine Dei. Aquinas reiterates this when he says that, “Every knowing of truth is an irradiation and participation in the eternal law” (IaIIae.93.2).

Since the divine Word (i.e. the pre-incarnate Christ) created all things, it follows that the creation of humans and the moral laws that govern them are also dependent upon Christ. It is for this reason that Aquinas says that natural law is the rational creature's participation in the eternal law.

There is yet another element of the image of God that deserves some attention. According to Aquinas “As the uncreated Trinity is distinguished according to the procession of the Word from the One speaking, and of Love from them both … so we may say that in rational creatures, in which is found the procession of the word in the intellect, and the procession of love from the will, there is an image of the uncreated Trinity by a certain representation of the species” (Ia.93.7). The human creature is made in the image of God due to the creative activities of the intellect and the will. A human person's mind is capable of forming a word and speaking it. But more than this, the human capacity to love. Michael Dauphinais says that

In more general terms we could say that the image of God in humanity refers to the dynamic relationship of the Trinity. God is the exemplar of Speaker, Spoken Word and Loving response. That is, in God the perichoretic interplay of intelligence, communication and mutual love provides a model by which we can understand that image in the human creature. In God, the Word is the expressivum et operativum of the Father while the Spirit is the manifestation of the love of God (Ia.37.1). The relationship of the Trinity is not merely one of knowing one another but of loving one another. Human relationships, at their best, imitate this Trinitarianism by a knowledge that issues forth in love. Aquinas says that our own intellectual and volitional operations imitate that of the Trinity, “From the knowledge which we have in thinking we form an inner word, and from this we burst forth in love” (Ia.93.7).

It may seem odd that Aquinas sees a progression from a spoken word to the “bursting forth” of love. Yet, as a word is the first act in cognition, “love is the first movement of the will and of every appetitive faculty” (Ia.20.1). All human activity, therefore, involves the intellectual apprehension of the good and the volitional desire of the good. The more perfectly we act in accordance with that which is true and good the closer we come to being conformed to the image of God.

Since the pre-incarnate Christ (i.e. the Word) is the eternal law, it follows that every act of cognition of the eternal law and the natural law is a participation in the creative power of God.Footnote ²³ Seen in this light, it is impossible to consider Aquinas' account of NLM as an instance of “methodological atheism.” What Aquinas provides is an intelligible rendering of the basic moral precepts all people know to be true that have their raison d'etre in the divine mind. But we still have to consider the charge that it is hubris for humans to make judgments on what God can and cannot do. In effect, on whether what God does is good or not.

As Alasdair MacIntyre has observed, only a just God is owed obedience. Therefore, we must distinguish between the true God (i.e. the omnibenevolent God who is worthy of worship) and those that are pretenders (e.g., the ancient Roman's Jupiter or William Blake's Nobodaddy). In order to do this, we must possess at least a preliminary knowledge of the good before we can judge which God ought to be obeyed.Footnote ²⁴ But how is this possible? Aquinas believes that all humans, by virtue of the natural light of reason, apprehend the good. This apprehension is made possible by the fact that humans are made ad imagine Dei. Yet, this apprehension of the good is not an exhaustive knowledge of the good, but a basic conception that has its basis in God.

In question 2 of the prima pars, Aquinas presents the famous “Five Ways.” The “Fourth Way,” the proof for God's existence from the degree of perfections, appeals to precisely this idea of the continuity between human and divine conceptions of goodness. Aquinas says,

Here we see the natural light of reason at work, moving from the lower degrees of perfection found in created beings to the uncreated “maximal” perfection of goodness found in God. If there wasn't this continuity then no knowledge of God, or of the good, would be possible. Humans seem to be created with a capacity to apprehend the good that enables them to perceive the different degrees of perfection in various creatures and to posit a divine source of all that is good. Lawrence Dewan argues,

Since humans are created in the imago Dei there is a basic continuity between what we can know by means of the creative work of the Verbum Dei and the redemptive work of the Incarnate Word.

Our conception of goodness determines the manner in which God can meaningfully said to be “good.” An alternative to Vacek's interpretation of NLM is one that sees our conception of goodness, not as a product of our own hubris, but one of reflection on the nature that God has created and that is available to all who consult it. There is thus continuity between our ideas of goodness, as creatures made in the image of God, and the commands that God gives.

Just as Aquinas sees continuity between the natural and divine laws, there is also a developmental approach to how humans participate in the image of God. He contends that

The image of God manifests itself in the human creature's capacity to understand and love, and this power is a participation in God. However, there is a further participation in the divine beyond the natural capacity to reason and love that grace bestows on the individual.

For Aquinas, not only is the natural law a participation in God, charity itself is the highest participation in the divine a human creature can have in this life, which can only come through grace. Accordingly, “The gift of grace surpasses every capacity of created nature, since it is nothing other than a certain participation in the divine nature” (IaIIae.112.1, emphasis added). Charity is the completion of the natural law's mandate to pursue the good. The highest pursuit of the good in this terrestrial life is charity. Aquinas says that, “The charity by which we formally love our neighbor is a participation in divine charity”(IIaIIae.23,2, ad1). This participation takes us beyond merely pursuing the good and avoiding evil. The natural law directs us to God, but the virtue of charity unites us to God (IIaIIae.24.4). Furthermore, this charity is given by God in addition to the natural powers we have by virtue of creation. Aquinas says, “We are not capable of possessing charity naturally or by acquisition but through the infusion of the Holy Spirit who is the love of the Father and the Son; our participation in this love is creaturely charity” (IIaIIae.24.2). What we see here is that charity is a more complete participation in God than the natural law affords us.

The image of God, like the natural law, operates in all humans by virtue of creation. Simply being created in the image of God enables humans to understand and love God, in an imperfect manner. The natural law seems to be the practical apprehension of the moral norms that guide humans initially to the love and knowledge of God. And just as the image of God does not cease to operate as one experiences the infused virtues of grace, so too the natural law does not cease to operate as an epistemic guide to human morality. Aquinas' oft-cited perspective that “Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it” applies to both the image of God and the natural law.

The difficulty Aquinas sees in humans is not one of moral knowledge but of the disorder of the will. Moral knowledge comes to humans by means of both natural and special revelation. As he says, “A person cannot even know truth without divine help … And yet, human nature is more corrupted by sin in regard to the desire for the good, than in regard to the knowledge of the truth”(IaIIae.109.3, ad3).