Today at Acton University, Fr. Michael Butler gave an engaging lecture on the subject of Orthodoxy and natural law. Despite the contemporary ambivalence among many Orthodox (if not hostility) toward natural law, Fr. Michael argues that it is present in the Eastern Tradition from the ancient to the medieval and modern periods, focusing especially on the thought of the seventh century Byzantine Saint Maximus the Confessor.
A few months ago, I observed,
While it may be that there are important differences between a Thomist understanding of natural law and an Orthodox understanding of natural law, the historic difference is most assuredly not that Thomists accept it while the Orthodox do not.
Fr. Michael’s research further strengthens this statement and helpfully highlighted some of the similarities and differences between natural law in St. Maximus and that in Aquinas. The audio of his lecture will be available on Ancient Faith Radio in the coming weeks, but in the meantime I will briefly share some of Fr. Michael’s insights here. It’s a little heady, but worth consideration.
For St. Maximus, the natural law, written law, and the spiritual law or law of grace are all revelations of the Logos of God, Jesus Christ. The natural law teaches the Golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do to you. The written law teaches to love your neighbor as yourself. And the law of grace teaches to love your neighbor more than yourself.
The natural law is given in creation, the written law in the Scriptures, and the spiritual law in Christ himself, who is the Logos of God incarnate. The natural law is rooted in the self differentiation of the Logos (the divine Reason by which the world was made) as many logoi (or ordering principles) in all created things by which they take their form and are guided to their purpose.
This brings up one distinction. Rather than divine ideas located in God, the natural law is rooted in the self-differentiations of the Logos, who remains one in himself, in creation. This is a rather technical philosophical and theological difference, though not for that unimportant. However, it does not impede the great similarities between St. Maximus and Aquinas in both theory and practice.
Fr. Michael gave a list of seven overlapping convictions about natural law, which I will reproduce here from his course notes:
Th Aq: Natural law is the rational creature’s participation in the eternal law.
Max Conf: Natural law is participation in the Logos via the logoi.Th Aq: All men know truth to a certain extent.
Max Conf: Natural law is evident to all without instruction.Th Aq: Principles of natural law pertain to practical reason.
Max Conf: Principles of natural law pertain to natural reason [which is the same as practical for him].Th Aq: First principle of natural law is “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.”
Max Conf: First principle of natural law is the Golden Rule.Th Aq: Natural law includes pursuing knowledge and living in society.
Max Conf: Natural law includes pursuing knowledge and living in society.Th Aq: Virtue is natural to man and natural law is the same for everyone.
Max Conf: Virtue is natural to man and exists in everyone equally [presumably in potentia].Th Aq: There is some variance in [human] laws derived from the general natural laws.
Max Aq: Failure to discern the logoi in creation turns the natural law into the law of the flesh or of sin.
Fr. Michael helpfully pointed to natural law in later Orthodox writers as well, such as St. John of Damascus (eighth century), St. Elias the Presbyter (twelfth century), St. Gregory Palamas (fourteenth century), Vladimir Solovyov (nineteenth century), Stanley Harakas (present day) and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow (present day), among others.
The inclusion of St. Gregory Palamas on this list might be surprising to some, but Fr. Michael pointed to his teaching on conscience in this context. This makes sense, however, given St. John Chrysostom’s teaching on the subject: “when God formed man, he implanted within him from the beginning a natural law.” He goes on:
And what then was this natural law? He gave utterance to conscience within us; and made the knowledge of good things, and of those which are the contrary, to be self-taught.
The teachings of natural law, known through the conscience, are furthermore connected with the basic teachings of the Ten Commandments in yet another parallel to the Thomist tradition. Thus, since at least St. John Chrysostom, if not St. Paul (see Romans 2:15), natural law has been connected with the witness of conscience and the commands of the Decalogue in the Orthodox Tradition. When later writers, such as St. Gregory Palamas, comment on the conscience we should not be surprised to find once again a testimony to an Eastern affirmation of natural law.
Much more can be said on such an important and involved topic, but for now I would commend my readers to stay tuned to Ancient Faith Radio for the audio of Fr. Michael’s lecture.
