My dear Parishioners,
Peace! The first article of the Apostle’s Creed is: I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth. There are forty “in brief” statements in The Catechism of the Catholic Church which treat this article of our saving faith. What follows is a reflection on article 354.
As followers of Jesus Christ we are not ‘antinomians’ (those who are against laws). Laws are ‘ordinance of reason’ (cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae, I-II, Q. 90, A. 1). There are civil laws (tax laws, traffic laws…). There are ecclesiastical laws (holy days of obligation, regarding Holy Marriage and the other Sacraments…). The Catechism here, however, is focusing in on the Natural Law and the laws of nature. Inertia and gravity (Isaac Newton, 1642-1727) are two very commonly appreciated such laws: an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless met with equal or greater contrary force; bodies tend toward the center of the Earth or any other physical body having mass. The Ten Commandments are a revealed expression of the Natural Law which can be known similarly without the aid of grace or revelation (hence it is called ‘natural’). The Catechism has an entire section treating the Commandments of God and of the Church. The Lord did not come to destroy but rather to fulfill the Law (Matthew 5:17). Our Savior even respects the smallest parts of the Law (Matthew 5:18). Jesus summarizes the Law and the Prophets in what is known as the ‘Golden Rule’ to do unto others as we would have them do to us. The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) uses this as the basis of his ‘categorical imperative.’ In another summary of the Law and the Prophets Jesus calls us to love God, neighbor and self (Matthew 22:36-40).
That as living beings we need so much food and water and oxygen shows that there is a certain relationship between us as beings-in-the-world and other things in creation. If I eat peas I will normally be healthy. If I eat poisonous berries I may get sick and die prematurely. There have been some thinkers who have denied ‘causality’ (David Hume, 1711-1776 ) but so much (all!) of our modern scientific medicine actually presuppose the regularity of nature and the nature of things.
Others reputedly deny that things have natures. That we have human nature, being rational animals, is not only a classical philosophical truism but likewise part of the deposit of faith in so far as God is the Creator of Heaven and Earth, all that is seen and unseen. We see each other, we recognize our human nature even if it is part of the unseen creation.
We are called to see beyond the appearances of things. Recognizing the laws of nature and the Natural Law and the Primary Author of both, Almighty God, makes us wise beyond our years or training. It is one thing for us to recognize what good we should do and what evil we should avoid and another for us to act accordingly. Thankfully our Creator God gives us the grace to do both.
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr