A while back we
got into a rather pointless argument — with a lawyer, no less — about whether
the natural law is discerned by faith, or by reason. Despite what you might think, it was the
lawyer who argued for a faith-based understanding of natural law! (And he was supposed to be an expert on
constitutional law, too, oy weh.)
Believe it or
not, the Catholic Church says that the natural law not only can be discerned by
reason, it insists that it is and it must be.
The rationale is that if (as the Catholic Church claims) the natural law
is written in the heart of every human being, then it necessarily follows that
it must be “knowable” by every human being, whether Catholic or Protestant, Jew
or Muslim, pagan, atheist, or agnostic.
It doesn’t make
any difference. If you’re human, you’re
expected to know right from wrong — the fundamental precept of the natural law
— by the time you reach the “age of reason.”
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| Pope Leo XIII |
This brings us to
what is called a “paradox.” That is the
startling conclusion (startling, at least, to those who want to base everything
on faith and reject reason) that good faith, which cannot be empirically
verified, requires a solid basis in proven
fact, that can, indeed, has been empirically verified. (Leo XIII, Æterni Patris (“On the Restoration of
Christian Philosophy”), 1879, § 27.)
Facts can only be
proved by reason, whether logical argument or empirical evidence. We can never
justify doing what we will simply because that is what we want, or because we
have something we call “faith,” regardless how strong it may be, if it in any
way contradicts reason.
We cannot,
therefore, justify circumventing or denying reason because of faith. Instead, we must confirm faith by supporting
it with reason. Anything less is
unreasonable, and is therefore contrary to human nature.
Thus, just as
building a foundation “limits” where (and how) you can afterwards place a
house, reason “limits” that in which you can put your faith. As G.K. Chesterton
pointed out,
Anarchism adjures us to be bold creative artists, and
care for no laws or limits. But it is impossible to be an artist and not care
for laws and limits. Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the
frame. If, in your bold creative way, you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe
with a short neck, you will really find that you are not free to draw a
giraffe. The moment you step into the world of facts, you step into a world of
limits. You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the
laws of their own nature. (Chesterton, Orthodoxy,
1908.)
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| G.K. Chesterton |
Those who would
eliminate reason and overcome facts with faith would thereby destroy all
boundaries and limits. The will might triumph, but such a Pyrrhic victory leads
inevitably to “the suicide of thought,” that is, to madness.
Faith without
boundaries is not faith or enlightenment. It is instead a worship of one’s
personal will, that is, of one’s own self. It should come as no surprise that
worship of anything on the basis of a personal conviction of one’s own self or
some “inner light” is (at least according to Chesterton) the worst form of
insanity:
Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is
what these people [the unselfish egotists] call the Inner Light. Of all
horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within. Any one
who knows any body knows how it would work; any one who knows any one from the
Higher Thought Centre [A theosophical or “New Age” organization in London] knows
how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out
ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or
moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or
crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within. (Chesterton,
Orthodoxy, op. cit.)
#30#