YOUCAT Question n. 333 – Part II. Is there a natural law that everyone can know?
(Youcat answer - repeated) If people
are to do good and avoid evil, certainty about what is good or evil must be
inscribed within them. In fact there is such a moral law that is, so to speak, “natural”
to men and can be known in principle by every person by reason.
A
deepening through CCC
(CCC 1951) Law is a rule of conduct enacted
by competent authority for the sake of the common good. The moral law
presupposes the rational order, established among creatures for their good and
to serve their final end, by the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator.
All law finds its first and ultimate truth in the eternal law. Law is declared
and established by reason as a participation in the providence of the living
God, Creator and Redeemer of all. "Such an ordinance of reason is what one
calls law" (Leo XIII, Libertas
praestantissimum: AAS 20 (1887/88), 597; cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I-II, 90, 1). Alone among all
animate beings, man can boast of having been counted worthy to receive a law
from God: as an animal endowed with reason, capable of understanding and
discernment, he is to govern his conduct by using his freedom and reason, in
obedience to the One who has entrusted everything to him (Cf. Tertullian, Adv. Marc, 2, 4: PL 2, 288-289).
Reflecting
and meditating
(Youcat comment) The natural
moral law is valid for everyone. It tells men what fundamental rights and
duties they have and thus forms the real foundation for life together in the
family, in society, and in the State. Because our natural knowledge is often
troubled by sin and human weakness, a person needs God’s help and his
Revelation in order to stay on the right path.
(CCC
Comment)
(CCC 1952) There are different expressions
of the moral law, all of them interrelated: eternal law - the source, in God,
of all law; natural law; revealed law, comprising the Old Law and the New Law,
or Law of the Gospel; finally, civil and ecclesiastical laws.
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