What is Natural Law?  I was reading a post written in reply to my argument that there can be no liberty without religion.  The author uses my post to ‘demonstrate’ how I contradict myself and to show I have no understanding of Natural Law, logic or reason.  Sadly, this person firmly believes they are correct — as much so as I do.  This creates an apparent impasse from which there might appear no escape save who can use force to ‘beat’ the other one down.  Fortunately, this is not the case: there is a way out of this confrontation — for those who seek the truth, anyway.  The essence of the problem here is one of fundamental misunderstand over the definition of Natural Law.  Whether this misunderstanding is since or intentionally allowed, I do not know, nor am I qualified to pass judgment on that matter.  Either way, asserting a false definition is lawlessness.  The correct definition is known and can be learned, so when it is misused by someone claiming their perversion is the truth, it can be set straight by those whose true allegiance is not to personal or political desire, but to the truth.  That is what I propose we do now: to set this matter straight by clarifying the definition of Natural Law.

Let’s start with the definition of Natural Law:

:  a body of law or a specific principle held to be derived from nature and binding upon human society in the absence of or in addition to positive law.

Now, to those who understand logic and the English language, the meaning of this definition would seem self-evident: Natural Law is an inherent part of this universe which governs the behavior of humans living in a society.  But there are those who balk at any suggestion of God or God’s hand in setting these laws.  They will accept the ‘Natural Laws’ of physics, but not those of morality.  Therefore, they seek to restrict the set of possibilities before entering into any debate over this matter, and the possibility of anything outside the material world is always excluded.  This is fallacious reasoning, and I will write a post about it in the near future.  But — for now — I accept their false assertions.  Now let me show that I can still make my case — even when I am forced to play according to their rules.

By definition, anything that exists as a part of or which functions in this universe would be ‘Natural.’  In other words, is ‘naturally’ occurs as an inherent part of the universe’s existence.  Now, whether the materialist likes it or not, there is much more to this universe than just matter.  Therefore, it naturally follows that there are more than one set of laws in this universe.  The laws governing physics apply to matter and even to energy and waves, but they do not govern mathematics and logic.  In fact, mathematics and logic are on a higher level than the laws of physics.  They are over the laws of physics.  But the laws governing mathematics and logic exist as a natural part of this universe, therefore, there are Natural Laws governing mathematics and logic.  The same applies to language and even economics.

Now, if there are Natural Laws governing mathematics, language, logic and physics, might it also follow that there are Natural Laws governing biological life?  I think the Materialists admit to a ‘law of Nature.’  Is this not the Natural Law of biological life by another name?  I submit it is.  Now, are humans biological life?  Again, I hope this is self-evident.  So there is a Natural Law governing human life.  And there is a Natural Law governing economics.  But here is where we have to demonstrate that we actually understand these laws and can properly apply them.  This is the point where the Materialist goes astray.

What is economics?  Essentially, economics is a ‘science’ (application of logic) concerned with the rules which govern the way goods and services are produced, sold and bought.  But what is production, selling and purchasing?  It is human activity.  Now, why don’t animals produce economics?  What is it that makes humans different from all other known life forms?  Well, what does the existence of a law of economics suggest?  As with all law, it suggests there is a right and a wrong.  Now, at this point, I do not care about what that right and wrong is.  It does not matter.  What matters is that we can deduce that, because economics exists, then ‘right and wrong’ exists — at least in some form.

Now, when it is placed in connection with human activity, the notion of right and wrong is defined as morality.  That is the definition, and we just showed that morality exists as a Natural and inherent part of this universe.  We have also shown that there is a Natural Law governing economics.  Therefore, everyone who knows and understands the Natural Law of logic knows that it Naturally follows that there must be a Natural Law of morality.  In fact, economics would be a sub-set of that Natural Law of morality. And, as an added bonus, we just discovered the difference between humans and animals: humans are subject to the laws of morality.  In other words, they are moral agents whereas animals are not.

We have just shown that there is a Natural Law of Morality and that it exists as an inherent part of the universe.  We even did it under the restrictive conditions placed upon me by those who wish to define the conditions of the discussion so that they must win the argument.  But what follows next is the part that really bothers the Materialist.  If this Natural Law governing morality is inherent as a Natural part of the universe, then that — by definition – makes morality a universal law.  And if morality is a universal law, then it applies to all humans — even those who place themselves above it by denying God and putting themselves on His thrown.

You see, that is what this is really all about: it is not about whether or not Natural Law exists.  Romans 1 and 2 clearly says we are all born with an innate sense of right and wrong.  In other words, we are born knowing this moral law.  It isn’t even about whether or not I know and understand the rules of logic.  I just demonstrated that I do.  No, what this is really all about is a rebellion against the Law Giver.  Those who want to be the ones making the law simply cannot stand those of us who acknowledge and obey the Law Giver and His laws.  They want to be the law giver.  This is why they assert that the only law is positive law — or man-made law.  But the moment they make that assertion — and they all do — they admit that they have renounced the use of reason and embraced the use of force.  You see, logic alone is incapable of defining a universal set of moral laws, so the only way to enforce a positive law is with force. Positive law denies the existence of universal morality.  It only recognizes the law of force.  So to embrace positive law is to renounce the use of reason and embrace the use of force.

Now, I ask you, why would you listen to someone who is openly declaring to you that they are willing to renounce the use of reason in favor of the use of force?  If you doubt this is what they are doing, go read the blog post and comments that motivated this post.  Then ask yourself: am I as insulting to them as they are to me?  Do I accuse them of wanting to kill me?  These are called ad hominem attacks and they are all fallacious assertions.  Fallacies are mistakes in the use of logic.  So they are demonstrating they do not care about logic right there.  How many times and how many ways do they have to show — through their actions — that they do not care about reason, only force?  And what does force have to do with the truth?  Doesn’t the truth stand for itself and on its own?  Have I not just demonstrated that, and plying by their rules, no less?

I’ll leave it to you to decide, but choose wisely, please.  One position is in line with Natural Law; the other is utter and complete lawlessness.  One can allow for peaceful coexistence with others; the other demands the extermination of any and all who disagree.  Look to the history of the 20th Century and ask who it was that murdered 150+ MILLION souls: those who believe in God, or those who deny God or His law exists?  then decide where you stand.

I am a formally trained philosopher, and hold a degree in philosophy.  Now, I do not say this to boast, but to explain why what follows is difficult to accept and harder to admit.  As a student of philosophy, logic is our primary tool, and one of the foundational building blocks of logic are definitions.  Therefore, it is with a great deal of embarrassment and more than a little humility that I must accept the correction of a reader by the name Veracious Poet.  He pointed out that I have been miss-using the term ‘Humanist.’  I would like to apologize to the board, and to thank Veracious Poet for his correction.  I humbly accept it, and have made some corrections to previous posts in response.  It has also prompted this post, as a great many of our problems in understanding this world and each other can actually be found in our miss-understanding of the way we use words.  Words are only symbols for a concept or idea, and if we are going to properly communicate our ideas and understand those of others, we must learn to use those definitions properly and with as much accuracy as we use mathematics or any other scientific principle.  Inherent in this is the assumption that we try to make the definitions we intend clear and well known.  So, to that end, let me address the role of definitions in Natural Law.

First of all, we need to understand that words do not define a thing, the nature of that thing, concept or idea is what defines it.  I write about this in ‘Form and Function Define.’  This is true by definition, but then, we need to understand what a definition is and how it is connected to fact.

Next, we need to understand that Natural Law is much more inclusive than most of us believe.  For example, logic is a part of Natural Law.  In fact, it is one of the Natural Laws.  It governs many things, including reason, language, mathematics and even the scientific method.  Language is just a specialized form of reason: a narrow application of the rules of logic that allows us to communicate.  The same applies to mathematics, which is just another form of language.  We use language to communicate through the use of symbols.  These symbols can be in the form of sounds, or they can be expressed in the form of pictures.  Some pictures have specific uses, and we give them their own names to indicate this specialized use.  For example, a number and a letter are nothing more than specialized pictures.  They are specialized because they have a set, universal form and meaning that does not change.

However, the Natural Laws governing logic are of a different form than those governing physics.  The laws of physics can be broken, but we do not think of them that way as they penalty for breaking them is immediate.  If you jump off a building because you think you can fly, you are going to have a bad day.  This is because the penalty for violating the laws governing gravity are enforced without delay.  The same cannot be said for the Natural Laws governing things such as morality, economics and logic.  However, there are still penalties for violating these laws, and those penalties are real and do assert themselves in time.  In the case of violations of the laws governing logic: there is a special name for violating these laws.  We call it a fallacy.  One of the most common fallacies is that of equivocation.

Equivocation occurs when a person uses the same word to discuss two or more different meanings.  It is often done with the intention to deceive, but it also happens quite often by accident, without conscious understanding of what is being done.  This latter example most often happens when a person uses a word without having a clear understanding of the definition — as I did with the term ‘Humanism.’  So I will use ‘Humanism’ to explain equivocation.

I was trying to find a single term I could use to represent all forms of belief that deny the existence of God and to show how these people have replaced god with man (see my previous post).  Secular Humanism is one of the specific forms of this belief, but so is Atheism and so forth.  I chose the term ‘Humanism,’ but I tried to apply my own definition to it.  Now, I did define this definition as I intended it to be understood, so — technically — I did not equivocate.  However, this does not excuse the fact that I inadvertently confused the discussion.  As Veracious Poet pointed out, I would have been better off using a more accurate term; a term that the leaders of this general belief assigned to themselves.  For this reason, I now use the term ‘Materialist.’

Now, for the sake of fully explain the necessity of understanding the meaning of words, I would like to quote Veracious Poet’s comment to me.  However, before I do so, I want to make it known that I am not trying to single him out.  I have already admitted my mistake and taken action to correct it.  Now I want to show how we can all have an equal hand in the same mistake because we do not fully understand the meaning of a word, either.  So, with that said, Veracious Poet commented:

“Humanists are different from Atheists. Humanists, generally, believe in morality whereas most atheists don’t. Cooperative Humanism permeates all religions and in fact it contributes to making the world a better place.  Jesus was deeply concerned about the welfare of humanity. Therefore, in a way, he was a humanist. I don’t know how you define humanism.”

Veracious Poet is correct: Atheists do deny all morality whereas Humanists — according to Veracious Poet — do not.  The problem with this is they do.  If, as Veracious Poet claims, the Humanist defines morality without God, then the Humanist is doing nothing more than claiming the throne of God.  This then places the Humanist within the definition of the way I was using the word: as a collective term to define all beliefs that replace God with man.

We see this belief that man is a god in the rest of Veracious Poet’s comment.  However, I cannot stress this strongly enough, it is possible Veracious Poet does not understand he did so.  he may even deny it.  But this does not change the fact that he has asserted a concern for humanity, not the individuals.  The collective is not real.  It is just a symbol.  Therefore, if we focus on the thing, we have created an idol, and idols are part of pagan worship.  Jesus did not have a concern for humanity in this sense.  Christ sees every one of us as an individual, and seeks a personal, one-on-one relationship with us.  That is not ‘humanity’ in the sense Veracious Poet is using the word.  In truth, Veracious Poet is using the words ‘Humanist’ much closer to the way I defined it than he realizes.  the only part of his definition I excluded is that he allows for a man-made moral code whereas the “Materialist’ does not.

Hopefully you can see the many levels of confusion that were created because I did not use a more accurate word in my original post.  I correctly defined the way I was using the term “Humanism,’ so I did not equivocate.  However, I used a term that, by the common definition, does allow for a moral code — an aspect I left out of my definition.  So I did open the door to confusion on the part of those who know the dictionary definition but do not read or accept the definition I created.  At the same time, Veracious Poet did not acknowledge the primary point of my argument in my original post: that those who think they can do whatever they please actually worship themselves.  They are making themselves into their own god.  In this sense, it can be argued that ‘Humanists’ should be included in the term ‘Materialist.’  They are denying God, just not morality.  But then, denying God is denying morality, they are just replacing it with their own — which is something Materialists deny, yet do anyway.

The problems associated with not having a clear understanding of what the words we use mean can get very complicated.  Even if we do have a clear understanding, we can still create confusion — as I hope I just illustrated.  Still, we cannot ignore this problem because it permeates every level of every aspect of our lives.  Maybe a few additional examples will help me make the point.

In America, we think of Democrats being on the political Left and Republicans being on the political Right.  However, in America, Left and Right mean something almost opposite as they do in Europe.  Here, the far Left is total government, and the far Right is Anarchy — no government.  The Parties do not represent this, as shown by their actions and policies.  Both Parties are to the Left of center on this spectrum.  Worse, you can have different degrees of belief within the Parties.  A ‘conservative’ Democrat could be closer to the Right than an average Republican, while a Progressive republican could be as far Left as is possible to get.

Diversity and tolerance are two more issues where we have lost our understanding of what the words mean.  We talk about diversity, but we try to stamp out any opinion that disagrees with our own.  This is not only a problem of equivocation, it is also a contradiction between our words and our actions.  The same applies to tolerance, where we use the word, but act as though it means acceptance.  It does not.  Then there is the issue of bullying.  We claim to be and campaign against it — by bullying those who do not agree with or accept our opinions.  This compounds the problems created by equivocation and contradiction.

Given all the trouble I caused by using a word in an incorrect way, is it any wonder why we have so much trouble getting along in a world where people have actually embraced the blatant miss-use of words?  In the end, at the very foundation of this whole mess, the problem is lawlessness.  Language is governed by Natural laws — the laws of logic.  Definitions are the building blocks of those laws.  We cannot break them without suffering the consequences and, in this case, the consequences are evident all around us.  We live in a society that can no longer communicate, and as a result, it is turning against and eating itself.

You see, we can break the laws, but — sooner or later — Natural Law will assert itself and we will pay the price.  It is unavoidable, which is how we know Natural Law is real, and what those laws are.