importance of natural law

[athena]

Izzy, are you saying the down side of Locke is socialism?

We can apply natural law to this subject, and perhaps get the thread back on track.

Can you be more specific about what Locke said about the government having the right to seize land? So far it seems Locke is saying the government doesn't have this right, and the individual has the right to defend what is his, because defending what is his complies with natural law. But I have read only a little bit of Locke.

[NameRemoved]

Athena wrote:
"You do know the church persecuted Galileo right? The church did not always support science."


You don`t know that the church supported science before Galileo came along right? obviously you assume it..wow Athena what a glaring mistake to make.

Where can it be said that the church can do any better? Athena`s criticism for the persecution of Galileo is no more justified than criticism of mechanistic atheism is for deluding 40 years worth of university anthropology with assurances of the authenticity of the Piltdown Man or the results of the Stalinist atheistic state or Liberte, Egalitie, Fraternitie for that matter.

Aquinas was right about natural law being a natural moral law..inherent in all. To fudge as Athena has thus far proceeded to do, with comparisons of catholics religion to Lockes two treaties is disingenuous to say the least. Considering Locke was opposing Monarch rule in favor of People Governance.

The entire reason the Catholic Church exists is overlooked by Athena, and needs to be remembered. The Catholic Church is here to represent God and his beliefs, not to adapt to modernism and curry favor with media or politicians

[athena]

Athena wrote:
"You do know the church persecuted Galileo right? The church did not always support science."


You don`t know that the church supported science before Galileo came along right? obviously you assume it..wow Athena what a glaring mistake to make.

Where can it be said that the church can do any better? Athena`s criticism for the persecution of Galileo is no more justified than criticism of mechanistic atheism is for deluding 40 years worth of university anthropology with assurances of the authenticity of the Piltdown Man or the results of the Stalinist atheistic state or Liberte, Egalitie, Fraternitie for that matter.

Aquinas was right about natural law being a natural moral law..inherent in all. To fudge as Athena has thus far proceeded to do, with comparisons of catholics religion to Lockes two treaties is disingenuous to say the least. Considering Locke was opposing Monarch rule in favor of People Governance.

The entire reason the Catholic Church exists is overlooked by Athena, and needs to be remembered. The Catholic Church is here to represent God and his beliefs, not to adapt to modernism and curry favor with media or politicians

Natural Law is a pre Christian Greek concept that was at first a part of the church and then rejected by the church for several centuries when Rome made Christianity the national religion and the priority purpose of the church was to survive and define what is Christian from what is not Christian. Centuries later Aquinas revived the teachings of Aristotle and Plato and this became the foundation of dogmatic Scholastic education. This is hugely important, because the foundation of natural law is the study of nature, and the study of nature goes against believing the mythical stories of the bible. For this reason, Christianity has repeatedly had a difficult time with science. More recently, the Catholic church has rationalized the bible was never meant to be a scientifically or historically correct book, but was always about theology, with the worldly matters are unimportant. This is a close as the church can come to being agreeable with science and not completely destroying the foundation of the religion, which is the myth of Adam and Ev, and therefore, explanation of why we must saved by Jesus, and therefore, the justification of the church's existence.

What evidence do you have that the church supported science at any time before the 21 century? The church refused to look through Galileo's telescope, and see for themselves that the orbs in the sky were not perfect orbs, but had caters and other differences.

Gregor Johann Mendel, a Catholic priest never enjoyed his fame as a genetic scientist. The church forbid his studies and he had to keep the them a secret. Just as the church forbid Chardin from publishing his argument that evolution is God's plan.

Forbidding people to speak and publish, and persecuting them, and killing them for being heretics, is a whole lot different from teaching wrong information when that information is believed to be true.

You have completely ignored the conflict between Catholics and Protestants and that King James took land from Protestants and gave it to Catholics, and when Protestants returned to power, the land was taken from Catholics and returned to Protestants, making a huge issue out of the king's right, if it is divine or correctly given by the consent of the people. And making a huge issue out of property rights. This is the subject of the thread, as it is Locke's argument of natural law opposing the notion that kings have divine authority and can do whatever they please, regardless of public opinion.

Speaking of property rights, would you please explain why you said Locke argued the government could take people's land for any reason at all. This would violate natural law as Locke understood it, and I think you made a mistake.

[NameRemoved]

Athena I am fully aware of the greeks origin on natural law, I was speaking about the latter WEST as you should have been able to differentiate that Aquinas [ie Thomistic philosophy]was much more prolific in natural moral law [not to be confused with natural scientific law..which is why I asked why is this on the science board] and its influence to western thinking. The west being mostly in that day christian not greek. deary me, you appear to be splitting hairs again.
anyway the following article may make clearer where i am coming from. [as for asking for me to produce evidence you have produced little evidence to back your claims]

The Nature of Natural Law
by Mortimer J. Adler, Ph.D.



Most people are confused by the use of the term "natural law." They understand what the laws of nature are -- we learn these when we study the natural sciences. But some writers use the term "natural law" in the singular as if it had something to do with matters of right and wrong, almost as if it were the voice of conscience. It is hard for most to understand how a natural law has anything to do with moral matters.

Let us first be clear that by "natural law" we mean principles of human conduct, not the laws of nature discovered by the physical sciences. Many thinkers who espouse natural law see it at work in both the human and nonhuman realms, but their main interest is in its special application to man. According to these thinkers, the natural law as applied to physical things or animals is inviolable; stars and atoms never disobey the laws of their nature. But man often violates the moral rules which constitute the law of his specifically human nature.

The idea of a natural right order to which all things, including human beings, should conform is one of the most ancient and universal notions. It is a major principle in the religious and philosophic systems of ancient India and China, as well as in classical Greek philosophy. Plato calls it "justice" and applies it to the human soul and human conduct.

In Western society, especially from the Roman jurists and the theologians of the Middle Age on, we find the doctrine of the natural moral law for man. It is the source of moral standards, the basis of moral judgments, and the measure of justice in the man-made laws of the state. If the law of the state runs counter to the precepts of the natural law, it is held to be unjust.

The first precept of natural law is to seek the good and avoid evil. It is often put as follows: "Do good unto others, injure no one, render to every man his own." Now, of course, such a general principle is useless for organized society unless we can use it to specify various types of rights and wrongs. That is precisely what man-made, or positive, law tries to do.

Thus, the natural law tells us only that stealing is wrong because it inflicts injury, but the positive law of larceny defines the various kinds and degrees of theft and prescribes the punishments therefor.

Such particular determinations may differ in various times and places without affecting the principles of natural law. Neither Aquinas nor Aristotle thinks that particular rules of laws should be the same in different times, places, and conditions.

You may ask how the natural law is known. Through human reason and conscience, answer the natural-law thinkers. The natural-law doctrine usually assumes that man has a specific nature which involves certain natural needs, and the power of reason to recognize what is really good for man in terms of these needs.

Christian thinkers, such as Aquinas and John Locke, think the natural law is of divine origin. God, in creating each thing, implanted in it the law of its nature. The phrase about "the laws of nature and of nature's God" in our Declaration of Independence derives from this type of natural-law doctrine. However, this particular theological viewpoint is not always found in writers who uphold the natural law, for these include such pre-Christian thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, and such modern secular philosophers as Kant and Hegel.

There has been much opposition to natural-law philosophy from the very beginning. Indeed, one might say the opposition came first, for the idea of natural right or justice was developed in ancient Greece to counter the views of the Sophists, who were "conventionalists." These men believe that law and justice are simply man-made conventions. No action is right or wrong unless a particular community, through its positive laws or customs, decrees that it is right or wrong. Then it is right or wrong in that particular place and time -- not universally. By nature, the Sophists say, fire burns in Greece as it does in Persia, but the laws of Persia and of Greece, being matters of convention, are not the same. The "conventionalist" or "positivist" doctrine of law has come down all the way from the ancient Sophists to many of our modern law-school professors.

You ask whether natural law is relevant to modern conditions. My answer is that if justice is still relevant, then natural law is. Indeed, interest in natural law has increased especially during the past half century, with its experience of the kind of positive laws which have been imposed by totalitarian regimes. On what grounds could a decent German citizen in Nazi times justify his opposition to the laws of the land? On private sentiments or merely personal opinion? Even purely inner resistance to iniquity must be rooted in firmer grounds. "A law which is not just is a law in name only," says Augustine. And Aquinas adds: "Every human law has just so much of the nature of law as it is derived from the law of nature. But if in any point it departs from the law of nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of the law."

The naturalists, as that name indicates, affirm the existence of natural justice, of natural and unalienable rights, of the natural moral law, and of valid prescriptive oughts that elicit our assent, both independently of and prior to the existence of positive law. The positivists deny all this and affirm the opposite. For them, the positive law -- the man-made law of the state -- provides the only prescriptive oughts that human beings are compelled to obey. According to them, nothing is just or unjust until it has been declared so by a command or prohibition of positive law.

If this is a fundamentally erroneous view, as I think it is, its ultimate roots lie very deep. They rise from the most profound mistake that can be made in our thinking about good and evil. It is the mistake made by those who embrace an unattenuated subjectivism and relativism with respect to what is good and bad, right and wrong.

Neglecting or rejecting the distinction between real and apparent goods, together with that between natural needs and acquired wants, the positivists can find no basis for the distinction between what "ought" to be desired or done and what is desired or done. From that flows the further consequence that there is no natural moral law, no natural rights, no natural justice, ending up with the conclusion that man-made law alone determines what is just and unjust, right and wrong.

This positivist view is as ancient as the despotisms that existed in antiquity. It was first eloquently expressed in the opening book of Plato's "Republic" where Thrasymachus, responding to Socrates' mention of the view that justice consists in rendering what is due, declared and defended the opposite view -- that justice is the interest of the stronger. Spelled out, this means that what is just or unjust is determined solely by whoever has the power to lay down the law of the land.

The positivist view is recurrent in later centuries with the recurrence of later despotisms. It was expressed by the Roman jurisconsult, Ulpian, who, defending the absolutism of the Caesars, declared that whatever pleases the prince has the force of law. Still later, in the sixteenth century, the same view was set forth by another defender of absolute government, Thomas Hobbes, in "The Leviathan"; and later, in the nineteenth century, by John Austin, in his "Analytical Jurisprudence."

Neither Austin nor the twentieth-century legal positivists who follow him regard themselves as defenders of absolute government or despotism. That is what they are, however -- perhaps not as explicitly as their predecessors, but by implication at least. The denial of natural rights, the natural moral law, and natural justice leads not only to the positivist conclusion that man made law alone determines what is just and unjust. It also leads to a corollary which inexorably attaches itself to that conclusion -- "that might makes right" -- this is the very essence of absolute or despotic government.

http://www.radicalacademy.com/adlernaturallaw.htm











Thomistic Philosophy
http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/natlaw.html

Aquinus

St. Thomas Aquinas was the greatest medieval philosopher. He tried to show the harmony between faith and reason, and between Christianity and philosophy. Aquinas's views have been very influential, especially in Catholic thought.
These summaries and problems deal with Aquinas's Summa Theologica: questions 91 (articles 2 and 4) and 94 (articles 2, 4, and 5) of part I-II (Prima Secundae). These summaries and problems are copyrighted (c) 1998 by Harry J. Gensler but may be distributed freely.



Law in general

Aquinas uses the term "natural law" to refer to morality, or the moral law. He sees law as a rational attempt to guide action. A law is a prescription that we act or not act; it may also exist in us as an inclination to act in certain ways. A law must be made and promulgated by those in charge of the community.
Laws must be directed to the common good -- to the happiness that is the goal of human actions. Prescriptions that aren't for the common good are unjust. A so-called "unjust law" isn't properly a "law" at all.

"Happiness" in Aquinas refers both to (1) temporal happiness (living a good life on earth), and (2) supernatural happiness (eternal happiness with God in heaven). Our final goal is happiness in both senses, but particularly the second.



There are four kinds of law

1. Eternal law. God governs the universe through physical laws, moral laws, and revealed religious laws. Eternal law includes all of these.
2. Natural law (moral law). This is the part of the eternal law that applies to human choices and can be known by our natural reason.

3. Human law (civil law). We create our own laws, in order to apply the natural law to the specific circumstances of our society.

4. Divine law (biblical law). In the Bible, God reveals a special law to guide us to our supernatural end of eternal happiness with Him.



First principles

The first principles of natural law are self-evident truths. In this they resemble the first principles of speculative reason (such as the law of noncontradiction).
Law requires that we act in accord with reason. The first principles of the natural law are "Good is what all things seek after" and "Good is to be done and promoted, and evil is to be avoided." So whatever practical reason naturally apprehends as our good (or evil) is to be done (or avoided).

The first principles of the natural law are the same for everyone and are known to all; these principles cannot change and cannot be abolished from the human heart. The secondary (derivative) principles depend on circumstances and can change. They are less certain, and often are not known to all. Human and divine law can add to these secondary principles.




Aquinas's style

Aquinas followed a special pattern in his writing. He gives a question ("Is there a God?"), then objections to his own view ("It seems that there is no God, because..."), then an inspiring quotation ("On the contrary, the Bible says..."), then his answer ("I answer that, God's existence can be proved in five ways..."), and finally his response to the initial objections.

www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/ms/aquina00.htm -

Therefore Athena you have confused what Natural Law and Natural Moral law actually means from Aristotle to Aquinas and then fudge it to mean it connects with Locke and his antithesis to religion? Locke was a Christian..so yourm premise is flailing badly..if not concocted by you! Locke was opposing A Despotic Monarch rule not christianity..how could he? He wanted people governance but his ideals failed because his bias introduced the very thing he sought not to make..A might is right doctrines! with man made laws such as vaccines we see today having detrimental effects and yet might is right the government and science insist people take them, the same with flu jabs..the same with inflation..taxing us and then VAT adding much more than the EUC say and tax us again..high through the roof taxes on purchases in UK..the people have little say on where Government use their hard earned taxed cash..and mostly today it is abusing the rights of own people in favor of importation of foreigners to work whom have no interest in reinvesting here..Medicine is allowed to introduce drugs each year without the proper time periods to test these drugs actually do what they say they do and are suitable to women aswell as men!! hence the reason they are withdrawn within a year or so of being released ..Thalidomide is a good example..without a natural moral law and order why should the people entrust governance on those they elect whom then do not carry out their promise to serve them as they should? it is not as easy as chipping into one era in history and blaming an entire for centuries religion when we see it is not religion leading people today..but Governments..the Government of Ethiopia that allows their own people to starve when the world sends aid and food supply is evident that your idea of natural law is despotism. In other words, in your ideal, who monitors the monitors?

[athena]

It is hard for most to understand how a natural law has anything to do with moral matters.

Not if you are arguing human nature verses the divine right of kings, or if believing in witches is rational, given what we can know scientifically. These arguments are science verses superstition arguments, and they involve politics and ideas of justice, and that is why I posted in science. The importance of concern with natural law, is avoiding the evils of ignorance and superstition.

However, it is even more than this. A moral is a matter of cause and effect. Therefore, we use science to make moral decisions.

“True law is right reason in agreement with Nature...it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting.... we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and for all times, and there will be one master and one rule, that is, God, over us all, for He is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge.” Cicero

What is my confusion? Cicero predates Jesus. The God of which he speaks is not the Christian God, but a God of nature. The laws regarding witch hunts were not a matter of true law because the reasoning was not in agreement with nature. Laws giving kings absolute power, is not true law because the reason was not in agreement with nature. This idea of law and nature is very important.

Locke is about rule by reason, not might makes right. Reason that is agreeable with nature. Democracy starting with ancient Athens, is rule by reason.

I must say you say some very insulting things. Why do you do that?

[NameRemoved]

Athena wrote:

I must say you say some very insulting things. Why do you do that?

I am sorry you appear offended by the facts displayed. It is certainly not my intent to offend you only to present the error in your thinking here. We will just have to agree to disagree. I see this as a Lawand possibly a political question you see it as a science one, or so you now assert but originally you were insulting the entire Catholic church.
Divinity of Kings has nothing to do with science either..even if it was a belief held all over the world by all faiths at one point in time. This does not mean I will allow you chip and chop and slant things to suit your argument. Its good to debate and could be a learning curve.

Izzy
Campaign for an English Parliament
http://www.thecep.org.uk/wordpress/

[athena]

Facts do not offend me. It is your disparaging comments that are offensive.

And what do you mean

Divinity of Kings has nothing to do with science either..even if it was a belief held all over the world by all faiths at one point in time.

This is exactly what the issue of this is thread. Reason based on a study of nature, put an end to the superstitious notion of kings being divine, and justified government by consent. That is the whole point.

[NameRemoved]

Facts do not offend me. It is your disparaging comments that are offensive.

Divinity of Kings has nothing to do with science either..even if it was a belief held all over the world by all faiths at one point in time.

This is exactly what the issue of this is thread. Reason based on a study of nature, put an end to the superstitious notion of kings being divine, and justified government by consent. That is the whole point.

You have confused Lockes politics with his science. Natural Law was about morality and LAW not science and was pointed out by my post on this thread by Mortimer J Adler "The Nature of Natural Law" about natural Moral law not to be confused with scientific natural law of which we all know about. Even divine Kings ..as you put it..knew of the natural laws in science. Lets be clear on it that the sciences natural laws change often. Newtons law of gravity is one example of how changes came about in the Natural sciences of Lockes day. Today sicence has to deal with cellular memory and quantum physics ..its "Natural" consistent laws as you pertain are quite the opposite. Changing and inconsistent. Darwins natural selection is proven moot in the sciences today.

ps.You would need to show my disparaging comments when it is clear you made many toward myself even laughing at them at one point

Izzy
Campaign for an English Parliament
http://www.thecep.org.uk/wordpress/

[athena]

Facts do not offend me. It is your disparaging comments that are offensive.


This is exactly what the issue of this is thread. Reason based on a study of nature, put an end to the superstitious notion of kings being divine, and justified government by consent. That is the whole point.

You have confused Lockes politics with his science. Natural Law was about morality and LAW not science and was pointed out by my post on this thread by Mortimer J Adler "The Nature of Natural Law" about natural Moral law not to be confused with scientific natural law of which we all know about. Even divine Kings ..as you put it..knew of the natural laws in science. Lets be clear on it that the sciences natural laws change often. Newtons law of gravity is one example of how changes came about in the Natural sciences of Lockes day. Today sicence has to deal with cellular memory and quantum physics ..its "Natural" consistent laws as you pertain are quite the opposite. Changing and inconsistent. Darwins natural selection is proven moot in the sciences today.

ps.You would need to show my disparaging comments when it is clear you made many toward myself even laughing at them at one point

Izzy
Campaign for an English Parliament
http://www.thecep.org.uk/wordpress/

Democracy is about rule by reason, and was inspired by math, the study of nature, and philosophical debates. Moral meant to know the law, and that means what Christians would call knowing God, only the way these people came to know of God was through the study of nature, and debates, not the study of a holy book.

[NameRemoved]

you still confused Lockes politics with science

and that means what Christians would call knowing God, only the way these people came to know of God was through the study of nature, and debates, not the study of a holy book.

It astounds me how you think christians confuse the study of nature with their holy books? one only has to read Saint Francis of Assisi..to realise he studied nature indepth away from any books holy or otherwise or
Locke whom you accolade here was in fact a christian..one only has to read bacon or newton to know they were scientists when they did science they were christians when they did faith..or knowing... One only has to know that You seem fixated nay even obsessed with christians as being somehow stupid and uninformed..and here lies the mark of your bias and irrationality.
The bible may be missing a lot..it was meant to guide man not dictate to him..it is also history,,Jesus was no tooth fairy he really existed..
let me tell you many who became Christian ie Jesus believers and Gospel believers did not read a bible..until after they became it..its so easy for people like you Athena to dismiss the obvious..using your logic would be like saying a man one works with everyday becomes a husband outside of his work and this makes him a phony

Democracy is about rule by reason, and was inspired by math, the study of nature, and philosophical debates

its time you athena backed your claims..please illustrate with links and evidence your assertions.

[athena]

you still confused Lockes politics with science

and that means what Christians would call knowing God, only the way these people came to know of God was through the study of nature, and debates, not the study of a holy book.

It astounds me how you think christians confuse the study of nature with their holy books? one only has to read Saint Francis of Assisi..to realise he studied nature indepth away from any books holy or otherwise or
Locke whom you accolade here was in fact a christian..one only has to read bacon or newton to know they were scientists when they did science they were christians when they did faith..or knowing... One only has to know that You seem fixated nay even obsessed with christians as being somehow stupid and uninformed..and here lies the mark of your bias and irrationality.
The bible may be missing a lot..it was meant to guide man not dictate to him..it is also history,,Jesus was no tooth fairy he really existed..
let me tell you many who became Christian ie Jesus believers and Gospel believers did not read a bible..until after they became it..its so easy for people like you Athena to dismiss the obvious..using your logic would be like saying a man one works with everyday becomes a husband outside of his work and this makes him a phony

Democracy is about rule by reason, and was inspired by math, the study of nature, and philosophical debates

its time you athena backed your claims..please illustrate with links and evidence your assertions.

I never said Christians can not be will informed of science and think scientifically. I said Locke argued against the notion that kings are divine, and he did so, because Catholic kings took land from Protestants and gave the land to Catholics, and Protestant kings took the land back. And some people thought kings had the divine right to do whatever they pleased, and the bible can be used to make the argument, while a study of nature is used to against humans being divine. Or, that one human is not more divine than another, because we can argue, our ability to think makes us as the gods. But then this becomes a theological argument, and not simple saying Locke used a study of nature to argue against the notion that kings are divine.

It seems to me you keep trying to turn this into a theological argument. In my point of view, it is a good thing when Christians include science in their thinking. But let us be real, the bible is not a science book, and does lead people to believe myth explains reality, to have superstitious notions, such as kings are more divine than the rest of humanity.

Just last week a TV preacher said God promises to provide us with leaders. Oh really? a God does things like this? Do you think people are born leaders, or do they learn how to be leaders? The bible tells us one thing, but our observation of life tells us another.

[NameRemoved]

Athena I recommend you read the following book


Not just for Catholics: why the Catholic Church was the "indispensable builder" of Western civilization


How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
by Thomas Woods, Jr.

Ask a college student today what he knows about the Catholic Church, and his answer might come down to one word: "corruption." But according to Thomas E. Woods, Jr., that one word should be "civilization." In How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Professor Woods shows how the Catholic Church has shaped our civilization to a far greater degree than most people -- Catholics included -- have been taught. "To be sure, most people recognize the influence of the Church in music, art, and architecture," writes Woods (author of the New York Times bestseller The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History). But her influence goes far beyond that. In fact, he reveals, the Church's imprint can be found on every major achievement and institution of the West -- from science and economics, to international law and "just war" theory, to the university system and organized charity.

And, because Woods focuses primarily on the pre-Reformation medieval period, Protestants no less than Catholics should be cheered by this vigorous defense of their common patrimony.

In How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, you'll learn:

How, far from inhibiting the development of science, the Church played an indispensable role in fostering it

How the idea of a rational, orderly universe -- fundamental to the Catholic worldview, but absent in non-Christian cultures -- made possible the flowering of science in West

How it was in "Dark Age" Europe that the university system, a gift of Western civilization to the world, was developed by the Catholic Church under the patronage of the papacy

How the early universities' commitment to rigorous and rational debate provided the framework for the Scientific Revolution, which was unique to Western civilization

How the Catholic contribution to science went well beyond ideas to accomplished practicing scientists, many of whom were priests -- including the "fathers" of geology, modern atomic theory, seismology, and other sciences

How the Catholic Church's contributions to astronomy exceed that of any other institution from the recovery of ancient learning during the late Middle Ages into the Enlightenment

How 16th-century Catholic theologians in Spain -- and not Adam Smith two centuries later -- were the real founders of modern economics. How they set forth accurate theories of value, price, government intervention, monopoly, entrepreneurship, and money and banking -- while avoiding Smith's errors, such as his mistaken labor theory of value

How the Western idea of international law, though often attributed to Enlightenment thinkers, comes from 16th-century Catholic theologians, and was rooted in the Christian conception of the fundamental unity of the human race

Why Western law itself is very largely a gift of the Church -- derived from Canon Law, the first modern legal system in Europe

How Catholic churchmen introduced rational trial procedures and sophisticated legal concepts in place of the superstition-based trials by ordeal that had characterized the Germanic legal order

How the idea of universal human "rights" comes not from John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, but from Catholic canon law
"Just War" theory: how this indispensable tool of moral analysis originates with the Church

How, inspired by Christ, the Church's commitment to the poor -- both its spirit and sheer scope -- constituted something new in the Western world and represented a dramatic improvement over the standards of classical antiquity

How English drama -- the greatest since the ancient Greeks -- grew out of the tropes, the liturgical dramas that originated in the context of the Catholic Mass

How, when the Roman Empire gave way to a hodgepodge of barbarian kingdoms, the Church rebuilt the West out of the ruins, and preserved what was best from classical antiquity

The monks: everyone knows they copied books and preserved literacy, but how many people know they taught medieval Europeans agriculture, metallurgy, the brewing of beer -- and much more besides?

Why one historian goes so far as to declare: "Saint Benedict [the architect of Western monasticism] was the Father of Europe. The Benedictines, his children, were the Fathers of European civilization"

How recent scholarship has definitively revised in the Church's favor some historical episodes traditionally cited as evidence of the Church's benightedness or wickedness -- including the Inquisition and the Galileo affair

How the Church humanized the West by insisting on the sacredness of all human life, overturning such morally repugnant aspects of the ancient world as infanticide and gladiatorial combats

"Engaging and engrossing, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization is a mine of information and a stimulus for reflection on the debt we owe to Catholic life and thought." -- Michael P. Foley, Ph.D., assistant professor of Patristics, Great Texts Program, Baylor University
"Dr. Woods's book is a superb and scholarly refutation of the widespread and deeply rooted prejudice that the supernatural outlook of the Roman Catholic Church disqualifies Her to make any valuable contribution to the 'progress' of humanity. This book is a magnificent illustration of Christ's saying: 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice; the rest will be added unto.' Whether we turn to science, legal questions, economics, education, scholarship, fine arts, Dr. Woods shows convincingly the fecundity of a supernatural approach to life. This book is highly recommended." -- Dr. Alice von Hildebrand, professor emeritus, the City University of New York

"Professor Thomas Woods has put the Catholic Church squarely back where it should be: at the center of the development of the values, ideas, science, laws, and institutions which constitute what we call Western civilization. I recommend Professor Woods's book not only to anyone interested in the history of the Catholic Church, but also to any student of the history and development of Western civilization." -- Dr. Paul Legutko, Stanford University

www.nrbookservice.com/products/BookPage.asp?prod_c d=c6664 -

http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods40.html

www.catholicchurchbook.com/ -

Athena wrote:

because Catholic kings took land from Protestants and gave the land to Catholics, and Protestant kings took the land back

From what little I know of Irish history that was the other way around. Scottish protestants took from Irish catholics ..Again where is your evidence?

[athena]

I would be glad to read:
How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
by Thomas Woods, Jr.

This month we are reading Locke's Two Treatises of Government.

You might put your defense of the church in the religion forum, and create a thread for defending the church. This thread was about Locke's use of natural law to argue in favor of government by consent. I thought it was interesting that this came up because of the conflict between
Catholics and Protestants and the kings taking people's land and giving the land to the people of their religion. I don't think this is the same as your interest.

Before reading the book you suggest, I could say a lot about the church and education, because I have a book on the history of education, and education is my favorite subject.

[NameRemoved]

Athenas first post

King James was was Catholic when Protestantism was popular in England, and Catholics were as feared, as we feared communist.

First Athena never backed her claims with evidence..secondly ..I am not defending the church, I am outlining the fact that the catholic church introduced Natural Law..

You might put your defense of the church in the religion forum

Where am I defending the church? /I am in fact showing my evidence that you have shown none is the point..Athena you might put this post by you on the religious forum as your attack on an entire religion ie the religion of Catholics who introduced the NATURAL LAW you favor to the WEST

I was only showing you the ineptitude of your argument and that John Lockes was about Politics being governed by people not Monarchy. Johnn Lockes Natural Law argument was introduced not by him but by Catholics.

You made an outright attack on faith not the role in governing people.

If education is really your subject no wonder children today fail in their exams..you can`t even get your arguments right? first its about Natural Law..and Lockes science..then its Monarchy thinking they are divine and YOU decided to blame Catholics for it..then its about Locke allowing the people not royalty to decide politics

make you mind up what you are arguing?