I kind of hope that William - a frequent commenter here - see this post - at least the first part :).
A First Things newsletter directed me to a review article on Hegel, German philosopher of note and of no little controversy: "Hegel Vindicated" by David P. Goldman, March 2024. The book being reviewed is Hegel: The Philosopher of Freedom by klaus vieweg, stanford university, 488 pages, $40.
Goldman makes an observation that intrigues me no end because over the years on ADU commentary has been made - about this and that - that current proposition X is "against natural law."
"Hegel is first of all a philosopher of science, in which no theory is complete, for all theories will be superseded by better ones—Ptolemy by Kepler, Aristotle by Newton, Newton by Einstein. That fact also has moral implications: If our understanding of nature constantly changes through new discoveries, so must our understanding of natural law."
Well, either this is true or it is not true: that understanding of natural law must change as understanding of nature changes.
Thoughts?
It is not as though First Things is a journal which is a bastion of liberalism/progressivism!
My eye was also caught by something else this past week, a bon mot - two actually - offered by Chris Trotter - a superb (in my view) Kiwi political commentator, though not always an agreeable commentator ... and lately much disagreed with by some of those who normally fellow travel with him along leften pathways.
In a newsletter-article, "For the self-loathing Left, charity definitely does not begin at home," (Democracy Project), Chris, taking on George Galloway's by-election victory in Rochdale (UK), local NZ political parties sympathetic to GG's position on Palestine, the general leftist forgetfulness to attend to the politics of class rather than of identity, shrewdly makes the point that Hamas shares radical religious convictions with our own Destiny Party (and Destiny Church), yet no one on the left hereabouts would go into bat for Destiny.
Second bon mot a la Trotter: in another essay, "Unintended Consequences," arguing that as America becomes weak, Europe will rise to meet the Russian challenge, he opines,
"No, the greatness Trump seeks to restore is the greatness of White America. The America that looks right through Native Americans, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and all the other vibrant elements of the great American melting-pot – as if they don’t exist. The greatness of Christian America which, in spite of invoking “Jesus!” at every turn, conducts itself as though the New Testament does not exist." [my bold]
There, in the words I have emboldened, lies a great challenge, not only for so-called Christian America: how might we who call on the name of Jesus conduct ourselves, think out our views, in a manner which "conducts itself as though the New Testament does exist"?
In various ways, to be Christian is to understand the New Testament fully - to understand it as the covenant of grace and not of law - to allow it to be a "new" word of God in distinction to the "old" word, the word which fuels too much "Christian" talk of rules and regulations for governing/controlling society. Such talk is not confined to America. Nor to the Christian faith.
Thought-provoking, +Peter! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteLast year because of natural law comments at ADU I did try to learn something about it and came away with two impressions. (i) it *can* be used as a strict framework re right and wrong, at times seemingly very harsh and inflexible. (ii) it can also be used as common ground to facilitate discussion re morality involving diverse participants (without needing to defer to scripture which may offend some participants).
One particular website (NZ Catholic, The Nathaniel Centre/bioethics) is the most helpful resource I've found for my learner level. The article (John Kleinsman, 2005) provides a useful intro and then describes how "in the history of the Catholic tradition two interpretations of natural law have dominated." The explanation of these made me realise it's not just one way of thinking!
I've selected a paragraph to quote, the italics were in the source, to illustrate how there appears to be acceptance that change needs to be taken into account and this increases the level of difficulty:
Quote.
Commenting on the way in which natural law operates, Gerard S. Sloyan (1990, pp. 58-59) writes: "The natural law has sometimes wrongly been proposed as indicating how people must choose in facing quite specific moral dilemmas ... a certitude is assumed concerning the natural law that can only be provided by a long and deep reflection on the implications of the teachings of Jesus and the apostolic age." What this means, in terms of the Catholic-Christian moral tradition, is that natural law functions more as an approach to discovering moral value than as a body of established and specific content. One of the consequences of embracing a more dynamic understanding of 'nature' and 'natural' is that it does become more difficult to 'know' exactly what the natural law proposes.
Unquote.
Title: Christian Moral Argument and Natural Law "Faith and Reason" or "Faith vs. Reason"
http://www.nathaniel.org.nz/13-bioethical-issues/what-is-bioethics/128-christian-moral-argument-and-natural-law-qfaith-and-reasonq-or-qfaith-vs-reasonq