Religion & Liberty:
The concept of natural law underpins the analysis in your latest book What We Can't Not Know: A Guide. What is the natural law?
Professor J. Budziszewski:
Our subject is called natural law because it has the qualities of all law. Law has rightly been defined as an ordinance of reason, for the common good, made by the one who has care of the community, and promulgated. Consider the natural law against murder. It is not an arbitrary whim, but a rule that the mind can grasp as right. It serves not some special interest, but the universal good. Its author has care of the universe, for he (God) created it. And it is not a secret rule, for God has so arranged his creation that every rational being knows about it.
Our subject is called natural law because it is built into the design of human nature and woven into the fabric of the normal human mind. Another reason for calling it natural is that we rightly take it to be about what really is-a rule like the prohibition of murder reflects not a mere illusion or projection, but genuine knowledge. It expresses the actual moral character of a certain kind of act.
Religion & Liberty:
Why is the natural law something that "we can't not know?"
Professor J. Budziszewski:
Mainly because we have been endowed by god with conscience. I am referring to "deep conscience," which used to be called synderesis-the interior witness to the foundational principles of morality. We must distinguish it from "surface conscience," which used to be called conscientia-what we derive from the foundational principles, whether correctly or incorrectly, whether by means honest or dishonest. Deep conscience can be suppressed and denied, but it can never be erased. Surface conscience, unfortunately, can be erased and distorted in numerous ways-one of several reasons why moral education and discipline remain necessary.
In fact there are at least four ways in which we know the natural law. Deep conscience, the First Witness, is the one primarily responsible for "what we can't not know." The others concern "what we can't help learning." The Second Witness is our recognition of the designedness of things in general, which not only draws our attention to the Designer, but also assures us that the other witnesses are not meaningful. The Third Witness is the particulars of our own design-for example, the interdependence and complementarily of the sexes. The Fourth Witness is the natural consequences of our behavior. All four work together.
Religion & Liberty:
What are the promises and perils of advancing a natural-law argument in the context of public policy disputes?
Professor J. Budziszewski:
The natural-law tradition maintains that the foundational principles of morality are "the same for all, both as to rectitude and as to knowledge"-in other words, they are not only right for everyone, but also at some level known to everyone. If t his is true, then the task of debate about morality is not so much teaching people what they have no clue about, but bringing to the surface the latent moral knowledge or suppressed moral knowledge that they have already. There is an art to this; people often have strong motives not to allow that knowledge to come to the surface, and they may feel defensive. One has to get past evasions and self-deceptions, and it is more difficult to do this in the public square than in private conversation. Even so, certain basic moral knowledge is "down there," and our public statements can make contact with it. When this is done well, the defensiveness of the listeners is disarmed, and they reflect, "Of course. I never thought of that before, but somehow I knew it all along."
Religion & Liberty:
Do you agree that large sections of the evangelical Protestant community have rejected natural-law ethics? If so, why do you think they have rejected it?
Professor J. Budziszewski:
Evangelicals ought to believe in the natural law. Many are coming to realize this. However, some say that the only place to find moral truth is in the word of God, and that natural-law tradition denies this. They argue that the natural-law tradition puts much too much confidence in the capacity of fallen man to know the moral truth. They worry that the first people to use the expression "natural law" were the Stoics, who were pagans. Finally, they suspect that the God of natural law is not the God of the Bible, but the God of Deism-a distant Creator who designed the universe, wound it up, set it running, then went away. The answer to the first objection is that the Bible itself testifies to the reality of the natural law; though it does not use the term natural law, it alludes to all four of the Witnesses. The answer to the second objection is also biblical. The apostle Paul did not blame the pagans for not having the truth about God and his moral requirements, but for suppressing and neglecting it.
In the Proverbs, the main complain about "fools" is not that they lack knowledge but that they despise it. As to the third objection it is true that the first philosophers to use the term natural law were pagans, but the biblical testimony to its reality came earlier still. Besides, if God has made some thing plain to all human beings through the Four Witnesses, should we not have expected some pagan thinkers to have admitted some of them? As to the fourth objection, the God of natural law is not different from the God of scripture-it is an incomplete picture of the same one. Nature proclaims its Creator; scripture tells us who he is. Nature shows us the results of his deeds in creation; scripture tells us the results of his deeds in history. Nature manifests to us his moral requirements; scripture tells us what to do about the fact that we do not measure up to them.
Religion & Liberty:
What theological concerns do you have, if any, with respect to an ethic that ostensibly relies quite heavily on reasons as its foundation?
Professor J. Budziszewski:
I wish you had not put it that way! Too many people think that acknowledging the claims of reason means denying the claims of revelation. I do not see it that way at all. Think of the matter like this: God has made some things known to all human beings; these are general revelation. He has also made additional things known to the community of faith; these are special revelation. Natural law is about general revelation, not special revelation. However, a Christian natural-law thinker will make use of special revelation to illuminate general revelation - and will use God-given reasoning powers to understand them both.