FUNDAMENTALS OF NATURAL LAW: Natural Law is Scientifically Provable

Enemies of liberty are enemies of God.  This is because they are lawless.  These enemies are fond of mocking God, His Word and His Law.  One of the ways they do this is by taunting believers.  They like to try to use Scripture by saying “God is love,” or “Jesus said love your enemies,” with the implication being that, if one believes in the Bible, then they are supposed to believe that these passages command them to accept whatever sinful behavior God’s enemies are advancing.   But this demonstrates their lawlessness.  God will not be mocked, and misquoting or misusing His Word will only cause it to be turned around and used against the offender.  In this case, the enemies of God totally miss the other aspect of God’s nature: God is perfect love, but He is also perfect justice.  This means God’s law is absolute, it will be enforced and He will judge absolutely — with perfect righteousness and fidelity to His Law.  Natural Law is one half of God’s Law.  By definition, this means it exists.  And as with all things that exist, it is scientifically provable — just as God’s revealed Word claims.  But more than this, the Atheist actually provides the witness that proves this to be true!

First, yes, Scripture says that God exists, and that, if you seek Him, you will find Him (Det 4:29, Jer 29:13).  Now, let’s apply a little logical deduction to this claim.  If we can find God, then God must exist.  If God exists, then it is reasonable to assume that His Law exists — both Natural Law (Romans 1-2) and Revealed Law (Deuteronomy and Leviticus).  Now, science says that, if something exists, we should be able to prove it.  Therefore, if God’s Natural Law exists, we should be able to prove it.  So let’s see if we can do so.

First, we need to understand what science really is.  It is not a means by which we can determine the absolute truth of anything.  It is only a systematic way to examine the world around us, to draw conclusions and to test those conclusions so as to determine whether or not they are supported by our testing.  Furthermore, science does not always have to deal with something we can directly observe.  It often deals with the observation of those things effected by the phenomenon we are actually studying.  Take the wind as an example.  We cannot directly observe the wind, but we know it is there and can learn about its nature by observing the effect it has on other objects we can see.  The study of atomic and sub-atomic particles are another example.  So science does not have to find Natural Law written on a stone tablet to prove it exists.

Next, science deals with what we observe in the real world.  From these observations, we use reason to construct theories about what forces are at work and how they function to cause whatever we are observing.  Again, take the wind as an example.  We make an observation that we feel something ‘blowing’ against our face.  So we think about what it is and how it is caused.  We construct a theory: this thing we call wind is caused by air moving against our face.  However, we do not know what could give motion to the air to case this ‘wind.”  So we conclude there is a giant fan somewhere, and the fan pushes the air around to cause wind.  We then design an experiment to test our theory.  In this case, we are going to search the entire planet until we find the fan.  After we finish searching and we fail to find the fan, we realize our conclusion was wrong and we need to come up with a new theory.  If we repeat this process long enough, eventually we should determine the best theory is that the wind is air moved by pressure differentials caused by the natural process of heating and cooling on the surface of the earth.

From this, it follows that Natural Law may not be something we can actually see or hold.  We consider gravity to be part of what we call ‘the laws of physics.’  Unfortunately, most people do not realize that these physical laws are part of Natural Law.  They govern the universe, the universe is ‘all things natural,’ therefore, the laws of physics govern the natural.  hence, they are part of Natural Law.  So what we need to do is see if we can demonstrate evidence — either direct or indirect — of a Natural Law governing the affairs of man.  This is actually very simple.

Let’s start with economics.  John Maynard Keynes was the economist most directly responsible for the economic theory which now governs the majority of the Western world, and much of the Communist world, as well.  We know that Keynes was a Socialist.  Socialists reject the notion of God and Natural Law.  They believe they can use ‘science’ to consciously direct the evolution of man and society. Keynes demonstrated this in his economic theory.  If I may simplify it a bit, Keynes believed the economy functioned similar to a machine.  therefore, if he could understand the process by which it operates, he could control it by pulling whatever ‘levers’ were necessary to make the economy do what he wanted.  Now let’s apply a little logical deduction to this.

First, we should realize that Keynes admitted to the existence of Natural Law in the foundation of his economic model.  If the economy functions according to a process or system that can be learned and manipulated, then that system is as much a natural law as the ones governing gravity and motion. Furthermore, the economy only exists in relation to human actions.  Without two or more people doing business together, there can be no such thing as an economy.  It cannot exist.  therefore, the laws which govern it would have to be laws governing the proper conduct of human behavior.  If a rose is still a rose by any other name, then the laws governing human conduct are still called morality, no matter what name we apply.  Keynes believed the laws of economics were eternal and universal, just like those of gravity and motion.  therefore, the laws governing morality must be eternal and universal, as well.  Now. let’s go a step further.

It is possible that Keynes was wrong: maybe economics isn’t governed by fixed, universal laws after all.  Maybe they are subject to the conscious control of man.  We will test this by looking to see if we can find any evidence — direct or indirect —  that such a fixed law of economics actually exists.  Let’s look at money printing: the practice of making money up by simply printing more.  Every time this has been done in the history of man, it leads to inflation — many times to hyper-inflation.  There is our evidence.  Logic tells us that we only need one example that we can observe and support to conclude that something can exist.  So it is possible that fixed laws of economics do exist.  Now, the more laws we can find, the more confident we can be that Keynes was correct: there is a set of fixed laws in nature which govern economics.  We could easily add the laws of supply and demand and many others.  So we can conclude with a great deal of certainty that the laws of economics are real, and that they are fixed and eternal.  Now we need to take one last step.

Keynes, a person who rejected God and any possibility of God’s Natural Law, has already testified that Natural Law does exist, and that it is fixed and eternal.  We have also concluded that economics, as a function of human interaction, can be connected to the notion of morality.  Now let’s see what Keynes has to say about a possible connection between economics and universal morality.  But first, we need a simple working definition of morality.  Essentially, morality is a measure of right and wrong as it pertains to human activity.  Since economics is a function of human activity, economics would be connected to morality.  But how is the question?

Keynes was trying to figure out how economics works so that he could help his native homeland, Britain, deal with its massive debt.  But why would he care?  If there is no natural law, why worry about debt?  Keynes worried about national debt because he realized it is part of the laws of economics.  If his nation became too far in debt, it would harm the nation and the people.  Now, we do not need to worry about what type of harm, or how it would be caused.  All we need to know is that Keynes believed in something philosophers call the ‘ought.’  In short, the ‘ought’ is what should be done, not what could be or is actually being done.  The point is the ‘ought’ is a value judgment, and the existence of a value judgment implies the existence of right and wrong.  If this ‘ought’ is part of the fixed and eternal laws of economics, then there is a fixed and eternal law of right and wrong, or morality.  Well, as it happens, national and personal debt are two more of those things we can observe in the real world, and they are always connected to destructive results for nations and individuals.  So we can conclude with a high degree of certainty that there is not only a set of fixed and eternal laws governing economics, but also a fixed and eternal set of laws governing right and wrong in human interaction.  That, my dear reader, is called a universal moral law.

Now for the part that Keynes would definitely deny: it is a matter of logic that humans cannot construct a universal moral law: not a law with real power over human activity.  This is because logic has limits.  Yet, we just demonstrated that an Atheist proved there is such a thing as universal moral law.  So how is it possible to have universal laws with tangible authority over human activity?  Well, if there is a law-giver who has authority over logic and reason, He could create and define such a law.  What’s more, if He built them into His creation, they would be as much a part of ‘nature’ as any other law of physics.  There would be nothing ‘super-natural’ about them.  Which means we have just used the scientific method to demonstrate the existence of God’s Natural law using indirect evidence of its effects on human activity.  That, my friend, is God blowing against your face!

Incidentally, Keynesian economics do not work.  We know this through nearly one hundred years of actual observation.  This is yet another affirmation of the existence of both universal economic and moral law, which then affirms the existence of God and His Natural Law.