JPI 962
Revelation, Practical Reason, and Natural Law
Natural law has been the traditional cornerstone of Catholic moral thought, particularly in supporting Church teaching concerning "moral absolutes" in, for example, sexual ethics. But the concept of natural law has raised at least as many questions as it has answered. In particular, there are two fundamental issues, each revolving around the content of "natural." First, "natural" is often taken to bespeak the difference between the natural and revealed orders. The significance of this difference invites a debate over the relationship between philosophy and theology or creation and redemption as well as the nature of human participation in eternal law. Second, "natural" is traditionally taken to indicate that natural law is in some manner rooted in human nature. But this invites debate over the precise content of human nature, the extent and precise meaning of this rootedness, and the concomitant questions of the relationships between speculative and practical reason, between reason, inclination, and the body as "sign," and whether the whole enterprise of natural law should be abandoned as naïvely based on the naturalistic fallacy. Do these two debates simply entail two different discourses, or are they energized by similar assumptions? The seminar will focus this question in terms of the concept of "unnatural acts." Readings will be drawn from Aristotle, St. Thomas, F. Suarez, H. Jonas, A. MacIntyre, G. Grisez, H. Veatch, R. McInerny, A. Lisska, M. Rhonheimer, E. Schockenhoff, R. Spaemann, J. Porter, H. de Lubac, H. U. Balthasar, J. Ratzinger, John Paul II, G. McAleer.
