Natural Law - Ten Commandments Part 1

Natural Law – The Commandments (Part 1)

            When I first began to be acquainted with the natural law, I found myself frustrated by the lack of concrete contend and definitions associated with it.   Almost everything simply mentioned it as being the basis of some teaching or other but without going into what this law is or it related to the particular teaching at hand.  In short, the natural law seemed to be taken for granted.

            I expressed this frustration to my priest who replied simply that the Ten Commandments provided a good guide to the content and application of the natural law.  This in turn raised other questions.  “How are the Ten Commandments related to the natural law?”  “Why did we need to receive them via revelation if they are knowable by reason alone?”  “How is that the first three commandments, ‘Honor the Lord thy God, Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain,’ and ‘Keep holy the Sabbath’ can be considered part of the natural law at all?

            During the next portion of this series of essays, we’ll attempt to resolve these questions.  We’ll begin with the theistic commandments which directly concern man’s relationship to God.  Then we will move onto the other seven, or the social commandments which deal most directly with man’s relationship to his fellow men.

The First Three Commandments

As there are three commandments there are at least three ways of looking at them in a natural law light.  We’ll call them the subjective, the philosophical objective and the Judeo-Christian objective. 

The subjective is simply based on the experience of all men and focuses on certain qualities and patterns of behavior that we cannot get away from.

The philosophical objective is the outlook of the intelligent and seeking agnostic, or that of the ancient Greek philosophers.  These are men who through their reason come to realize that there is some sort of ultimate god-being and who also are genuinely trying to learn more about him.

The Judeo-Christian objective of course is that which sees the Decalogue as it really is, a catalogue of the most basic behaviors needed to maintain a good life, handed down by God to direct our lives toward Himself, and because we so frequently need to be reminded of the basics.

            The First Commandment:  “I am the Lord thy God,  Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

            How do we understand this commandment in the subjective sense?  The clearest answer is that we all have some sort of god in our lives.  Whether that be the God, or Brahman, CNN, Glen Beck, Barak Obama, football, or a prize music collection, we all have something or someone in our lives that we consider to be the most important thing in the world, something that our lives revolve around.  This is true even if the center of your universe is yourself.  It is logical that whatever this subjective god is, that we treat it as such.  If a person says that football is the most important thing in his life then one would expect that he would build his schedule around the game on Sunday, even that he would save money every year to go see at least one game in person, a sort of pilgrimage.  You would not expect this person to decide to go shopping instead of watching the big game, all the while maintaining that football is more important to him.  Anyone would accuse such a person of hypocrisy. 

            It is important to point out that a person could violate this principle and actually be right in the objective sense.  For example, if a workaholic were to refuse overtime to spend time with his aging parents.  The job may be important to him, but objectively he is doing right by spending time with his parents. 

            The second, or philosophical objective sense was articulated by St. Paul.  St. Paul, in one if his letters noted that all creation points to the existence of God, leaving pagans, who worship many gods without a valid excuse for their idolatry. 

            St. Thomas elaborated on this in his proofs for the existence of God, most of which can be boiled down to the simple fact that matter does not move by itself.  A rock will not suddenly fly through the air unless someone picks it up and throws it.  It would fall again except for the forces of friction caused by the surrounding air and the gravity caused by the mass of the earth.  Follow this chain of cause and effect back far enough and one finds the first bit of matter, hanging motionless in the void, or rather the primordial universe, just sitting there waiting for the Big Bang.  But what made it go bang?  If there was no matter outside of the embryonic universe, what acted on it?  Or if there were other matter, what caused it start moving and so come into contact with our little universe?  For that matter, where did this tiny universe come from?  After all, matter does not create itself. 

  The only answer is that there must have been some sort of immaterial being outside of the universe to bring it into being, or as Peter Kreeft puts it, “someone had to bang out the Big Bang.”  Incidentally, this happy correlation of scientific theory and Thomistic philosophy is why the Church enthusiastically embraced the Big Bang and di so unusually quickly.

  It is also important to recognize here that others, long before Christ figured this out.  Aristotle (whom Aquinas draws on heavily) called this first being the Prime Mover and before him Plato called it the Form of the Good, that form from which all other things proceed.  And they both regarded the contemplation of this first and highest Being as the greatest good that men could aspire too.  It is true that they certainly were not proto-Christians, but they were certainly on the right track.

  This brings us to the Judeo-Christian objective sense.  Naturally, this is to be considered the true sense of the Commandment, that the one true personal God is to be worshiped and Him alone.  Not football, not sex, not some abstract philosophical ideal but God the Father (for the Jews), the Son and the Holy Spirit (for Christians).  But how does this relate to the natural law?  As Charles Rice points out in his book, 50 Questions on the Natural Law, it matters where the natural law comes from because this affects how we interpret both the content and authority of this law.  For example, if it is simply the natural emanation, or rather how material beings best respond to the far off existence of a prime mover there is little reason that we should care to trust of follow it.  After all, is this unmovable being does not care about us, why should we care about contemplating it?  However, if the law is the result of a personal God who loves us, there is a much greater incentive to respond with love in return. 

The Second and Third Commandments – “Thou shalt not use the Lord’ name in vain,” and “Keep Holy the Sabbath.’

  Following the same pattern, it should be easy to see how these two commandments can be applied in a strictly natural sense.  Concerning the second commandment, it is logical that one does not speak of that which is most important in a flippant or disrespectful manner.  This holds true if you look at things subjectively or in either of our two objective senses.  That is, if you worship your iPad, the Form of the Good, or the Triune God.

  For the third commandment, it is again logical that a person should set aside time for the gaining of wisdom concerning that which is of greatest importance.  So, following the sports analogy, the devoted basketball fan makes time to watch his favorite team on the court.  He will also follow the players’ careers, who the team is likely to pick during the draft, what are coach’s favorite plays, etc.  The philosopher will in turn ensure that he has time every week for the contemplation of the nature of the universe, hoping to arrive at a deeper knowledge of the first being.  The Jew will hear the Scripture and pray in a community on Saturday to draw closer to God and the Christian do the same on Sunday.

  An interesting and perplexing fact is brought out by this discussion.  For the subjective applications of these first three commandments, there would seem to be little difficulty in following them.  Yet, as we move up the ladder to their true end, that is to direct us towards the one true God, obedience becomes far more difficult.  Why is this?  After all, isn’t God real?  Hasn’t He created us?  Hasn’t he placed a desire on our hearts that only He can satisfy?  Why then is it so difficult for so many to make to Mass for an hour on Sunday morning but so easy to watch the Lions lose for three hours on Sunday afternoon?

  The ultimate answer of course has its roots in original sin.  As such, similar temptations have always existed but this does not answer why such things are so much more prevalent today. 

  These are all weighty questions and we shall do our best to answer them soon.  Next time however, we will continue our survey of the Ten Commandments as guides in understanding the natural law.