Abstract

“Natural” and “law” form a particular symbol pertaining to one mode of discovering the order of goodness, this mode invented by the classical Greek philosophers. They relied on a number of basic experiences and symbolic concepts: a) the nous (mind, reason); something divine in man participating in the mind of divinity; b) the distinction between “being” as the immanent order of “things” and “being” as the divine transcendence; c) the realization that man, possessing language and moral discernment, has an order not merely as a “thing” but also as a participating partner of the transcendence. In modern times these concepts and underlying experiences have been lost. “Mind” and “rationality” to us mean the opposite of what they meant to the Greek philosophers. We have no longer a concept of “man” resembling theirs; the concept of “soul” has disappeared; all values are completely relativized. We cannot, therefore, bring back “natural law” simply by reading the classical texts. The awareness of the order of goodness must be regained, but we have to pay a price for that. It probably requires the kind of deeply shaking experiences that came to members of Soviet labor camps as described by Solzhenitsyn and his friends. It also would include jettisoning our Enlightenment concept of history. Short of such sacrifices we would do well to use the concept “natural law” reluctantly, if at all