Is natural law basically a Catholic thing? I'm thinking about Thomism. I saw a video in which a Calvinist pastor contrasted his own biblicism (i.e. "obey the Bible") with the Thomism of Catholics. I guess Orthodox Jews are closer to Calvinists in this respect too?
I'm a fairly recent convert to Orthodox Christianity, but I've never heard anyone talk about "natural law". I think we're more biblicist too, although it's Scripture + Tradition in our case.
I think biblicism has its own set of problems too, though, in the area of obeying rules purely for the sake of obedience, without there being any rationale behind them. Muslims seem particularly prone to this.
There is nothing in Thomas (or Aristotle) that says natural law does not change. In fact, it is part of natural law properly understood that the law changes depending on circumstance that affect the teleological nature of the act. The idea that natural law outcomes do not change and so the only alternatives become exceptions to an unchanging rule is essentialism and first found in Suarez. In any case, humans as to their nature, have not changed within historical time, even if social and scientific contexts have.
Thanks for this. You've articulated why so much contemporary natural law discourse feels wrong to me, in the way it often take facile evo psyche reasoning and then gives it moral weight.
Is natural law basically a Catholic thing? I'm thinking about Thomism. I saw a video in which a Calvinist pastor contrasted his own biblicism (i.e. "obey the Bible") with the Thomism of Catholics. I guess Orthodox Jews are closer to Calvinists in this respect too?
I'm a fairly recent convert to Orthodox Christianity, but I've never heard anyone talk about "natural law". I think we're more biblicist too, although it's Scripture + Tradition in our case.
I think biblicism has its own set of problems too, though, in the area of obeying rules purely for the sake of obedience, without there being any rationale behind them. Muslims seem particularly prone to this.
There is nothing in Thomas (or Aristotle) that says natural law does not change. In fact, it is part of natural law properly understood that the law changes depending on circumstance that affect the teleological nature of the act. The idea that natural law outcomes do not change and so the only alternatives become exceptions to an unchanging rule is essentialism and first found in Suarez. In any case, humans as to their nature, have not changed within historical time, even if social and scientific contexts have.
Thanks for this. You've articulated why so much contemporary natural law discourse feels wrong to me, in the way it often take facile evo psyche reasoning and then gives it moral weight.