Abstract

Natural Law is rejected today not because other philosophies are deeper, better, or more correct, but because Natural Law will not let people do what is wrong.
Samuel A. Nigro
This means that the initial state of the universe must have been very carefully chosen indeed if the hot, big bang model was correct right back to the beginning of time. It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.
Stephen W. Hawking
The Law of Nature dictated by God himself is superior to any other. It is the binding over all the Globe, in all Countries, and at all Times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this, and such of them are as valid derive all of their force and all their authority mediately and immediately from this Original. Upon these two foundations, the Law of Nature and the Law of Revelation, depend all human laws. Human laws are declaratory of the act in subordination to Divine Law.
William Blackstone
Secular psychologists reject God because of their logic and their science, but because of the “correct” demands of their logic, they have no reason for believing their science either. They have nothing and from this position of leadership proclaim to the world that the most it can have is the knowledge that it has nothing.
Madeline Greenberg
According to vivid video and movie portrayals, the mind has the ability to do fantastic things with special extrasensory mind-over-matter powers. This is neither joke nor imagination. This is the contemporary way of recognizing that Heaven exists. But to acquire these powers, yon have to lead a good life according to Natural Law and then die in the state of Grace.
Samuel A. Nigro
Natural law is that part of eternal law which resides in human nature. Natural law places humanity at one with our animal origins and our roots in the planet as well as with the Image of God. According to St. Thomas. Natural Law is a subdivision of the Eternal Law which is God's will for governing the universe. Natural Law has three ultimate basic dimensions:
“Do good and avoid evil.”
The Truism Precepts
To persevere one's own being, i.e., conserve one's own life (“
To accept and exercise biological functions (“
To seek transcendentals according to ascending reason – to seek truth, oneness, good and beauty by virtuous living and following the Ten Commandments (“
Human laws which aim at prescribing particular acts which Natural Law imposes for the Common Good. These basically are precepts bridging the gap between deeds and A and B.
Natural Law relates to one basic question: As a person, are you entropy or anti-entropy? Transcendental, yes or no? Love, yes or no?
To reflect on the preceding brief description of Natural Law is to recognize the incontrovertable bias for
Basic Being Realism (Schema 1)
Basic being realism is sketched on Schema 1 (See page 268) as a depiction of Man as a Body-Soul Composite of Natural Law in Action or Roman Catholic Humanbeingness. Schema 1 is a metaphorical montage of human reality. It details the most elementary constructs of a total manifesto for life ranging from the physical to the spiritual. First, the physical world of the space-time continuum considers eight elemental categories in physics of event, spectrum, field, quantum, singularity, dimension, uncertainty and force (from Stephen Hawking 4 ). Another five constructs of spirit analogues follow. Second after the physical is the transcendental construct. Third is the mental succor construct of healthy interactional humanbeingness (All therapies are based on these variables). Fourth is the sacrament construct linking one to God by which the Statimuum is entered. Fifth is the humanness construct of social living by the community universals (from Donald DeMarco 5 ). Sixth is the virtue construct as the will seeks the transcendentals in salutary fulfillment of one's appetites. Reflecting on Schema 1 evokes a depth of understanding and potential for action worthy of repetition and persistence.
Schema 1 clarifies the body/soul composite. The body is the first column in the physical world. The soul is the other five columns of spirit. The soul consists of a transcendental spirit cone wrapping and enmeshing, sponge-like, the physical space-time cone of each person. Each created person's soul begins at conception as a transcendental “sponge” immersion and wrapping which is destroyed by sin and rejuvenated by the spirits of transcendentals, mental succor, sacraments, humanness and virtue. To suffer sin is to be fooled into entropic “fake fun” which destroys one's mind and soul. Each sin is a destructive ice pick thrust into one's soul, while spirit acts can rejuvenate. One's life is lived as a cone of space-time spiraling in a gradient, slower at first, with time flying more rapid at the end, until death. The end of life death point of the cone opening to infinity is a transition into the Statimuum with God of what is left of one's soul (from a crummy tattered shredded hole-filled “nothing” to a fluffy Holy Transcendental Tapestry of Love). Death is most efficiently transformed by a soul made and kept intact by spirit and Grace. The final resurrection will rejoin the soul and body in a metaspiritual metaphysical denouement – an outcome not surprising to or questionable by anyone familiar with the incredible interactional angelic dynamics of elementary physics.
Finally, any human item, activity or thought, including all religions, can be punctuated on this Schema exhaustively encompassing the universe. Soul and body are presented as an angelic totum embracing the physical and spiritual world excluding the non-being demonics of the world which exist only as feigned “forms” of non-being (“evil” if “chosen”). First Things are discovered and freedom from the secondary ones is made possible. Such True Freedom bodes well for genuine Eternal Freedom awaiting us. Such is Schema 1.
Man: Body/Soul Composite Natural Law in Action, Roman Catholic Human Beingness
Male/Female Differences in Natural Law 6 (Schema 2)
The perfection of God's Love as Father becomes personified as the Son whose perfection of God's Love as Son with Love as Father becomes personified as the Holy Spirit. Love, as Father, love as Son, and love as Holy Spirit is Trinitarian Love! The anti-entropic perfect overflow of love between all Three creates the universe which is in image of God's Transcendence (matter/ identity/ truth/ oneness/ goodness/ beauty) and freedom, God's perfection requires His sharing Love with His creatures which is why man and why Jesus (For you physicists, love is the “missing” mass in the universe). And since gender exists, male/female differences count because they reveal God's love.
Schema 2 is a metaphysical montage of male/female differences which are no more irrelevant than gender in the animal kingdom or how forests and lakes are treated. To be in tune with the universe, the planet and the animal kingdom, man (male and female) must understand male/female differences.
The male transcendentals (Tm) are res, vemm, and bonum (matter, truth and good) which define the masculine aspect of being (Res is the matter organizing, procreative, fathering corporeal principle. Verum is the truth enhancing, social orienting, reality principle. Bonum is the good promoting, work mode, choice principle). The male transcendentals are outward tending and their particular object is matter. They give centrifugal force to outerspace. The male dimension is good-promoting, truthenhancing, and matter-organizing, and together these transcendentals involve sacrifice.
The female transcendentals (Tf) are aliquid, unum, and bella (identity, oneness and beauty) which define the female aspects of being (Aliquid is the identity/essence forming, activating, mothering principle. Unum is the oneness keeping, desirables unifying, family orienting relational principle. Bella is the beauty creating, beyond human elevating, ascendent principle). The female transcendentals are inward tending and their particular object is form. They give centripetal force to innerspace. The female dimension is beauty-creating, oneness-keeping, and identity-forming and together these transcendentals (immanentals) create life.
All beings have all the transcendentals of matter, truth, and good (these 3 male transcendentals are specifically called “transcendentals” or “Tm”). All beings have identity, oneness and beauty (these 3 female transcendentals are specifically called “immanentals” or “Tf”). The males will transcendentalize the immanentals; the females will immanentalize the transcendentals. The resulting complimentarity renders understandable the distinct natural gender contributions to being by each being, all subordinate to total being.
Schema 2 alludes to the “gender” aspects of God also understandable as “transcendental” in that God can be conceptualized as a “marriage” of Tm and Tf. That is, if man is created in the Image of God, then the union of the sexes reveals a God-like creation of love (which is the opposite of the wasteful excretory “sex” so prominent in a sinful world). The marriage of male and female transcendentals reflects the union of Christ and the Church as reflected in the Divine Mystery emphasized in Ephesians 5:22–33. Man (male or female) is a creature that can love as God's love by, in and with the Three Persons of the Trinity. The communion of the male/female transcendentals reveals Father as matter and identity, the Son as truth and oneness, and Holy Spirit as good and beauty. The earthly Son of God's body is given by Holy Communion in a continuous sanctification of matter. The gift of the Body of Christ in union with the Church reveals another communion which mirrors the marriage of male and female creatures (body and soul of two persons in one being) which is life offering and transcendental creating by reproduction and unition. Matrimony, reflecting Christ and the Church, has a man and woman meeting as two persons in one being, mutually giving each's body in a communion with Jesus through the Church compatible with the flow of life by transcendental-based reproduction and/or unition providing the most favorable and complete unit for the continuation of the species embodying love, freedom and the Image of God. That is how it is supposed to be! Male/female relations are distinct but complimentary including that of genuine sexuality, now revealed as reflecting the heavenly and holy reality of God and not excretory sex which is lust (a denial of authentic love and a deformation of the transcendental confluence of man and woman). Excretory sex is extramarital sex.
Suffering – The Awareness of Entropy and Non-Being (Schema 3)
Schema 3 portrays the gender aspects of the transcendentals in the role of suffering in Natural Law and Nature. Matter vibrates with the Love of God (The latest word in physics for it is “strings”). Matter may even organize itself to return to God after reaching the level of thinking, choice, C 2 (conscious of consciousness) and love by man who can experience love and bring matter back to God, if willing to follow the transcendentals taught by God's Church. This return to God in love is the most cogent expression of creation from a loving God perfect in His love. But, in a perfect creating, there must be suffering. A God of transcendentally based love, necessarily perfect in His creating, will require matter, when capable of choosing, to be able to choose to return to God by transcendental love, of course! Contrariwise, perfection in creating, wherein matter can choose (in freedom by man), requires ultimate “wrong” choices to be as possible as ultimate “right” choices (otherwise “freedom” would not be perfectly complete). Thus, there must be, in a perfect creating, a freedom to choose between the alternatives of pure transcendentals to pure evil. The creating of being with transcendental perfection must contain the ultimate opposite choice which, in a perfect creating, would be non-being personified by Satan. Perfect creating must include both the freedom to love and the dysfreedom not to love. Indeed, love without freedom is meaningless; and freedom without suffering is meaningless also because there must be consequences to choosing or experiencing entropy and non-being. As love has its rewards, so dysfreedom has its consequences, even punishments. It is called suffering.
Suffering comes in two types: sin and pain. Sin is intrinsic to the deformation of Tms (male: matter/truth/good by willful entropy). Pain is intrinsic to the deformation of Tfs (female: identity/oneness/beauty by random entropy). That men tend to sin more and women tend to have more pain would appear to be an existential confirmation of male/female differences. Since Original Sin, the transcendentals (male and female) can be deformed willfully by the capacity to choose freely against the natural flow of life and randomly by “acts of God” in nature. Freedom in creation 7 , infra, can be confounded with “wrong” choices by humans and random crises in nature resulting respectively in suffering of either sin or pain (Obviously, both are usually intermingled). A metaphor may help: War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death have long been known as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. To them must be added, The Four Horsewomen: Noise, Promiscuity. Pollution and Power. Both quartets are interchangeable and miscible as nag and mare and as sin and pain.
Sin is willful entropy i.e., the willful negation of transcendentals for which Jesus died and suffered for us. Pain is unwilled entropy imposed by Original Sin and the free flow of matter but, if properly processed, may be salvific as it puts one on the Cross with Jesus. Thus Natural Law defines evil as the willful creation of suffering by increasing entropy and deforming the transcendentals to non-being, all of which is a negation of being, which is known, when recognized by man, as suffering of sin and pain respectively male and female. However, suffering also is “a participation in the saving work of Jesus” (Catholic Catechism 1521) by sin for which Jesus died and by pain which can be offered up. By Jesus, sins can be forgiven and pain can be sanctified. Gender counts not merely because it is nature but because it is the Image of God when being is created and when diminished.
The universe sings of God. Matter vibrates with the love of God the Father as Creator, the love of God the Son as Redeemer and the love of the Holy Spirit as Consecration. The tendencies toward entropy and non-being can be thwarted, defeated, and rescued! Suffering is necessary from God's love because it means that the opposite exists too – a perfect creation must have it all.
Logical Reasoning 8 – Fallacies, Feelings, Suggestibility and Freedom
Natural Law requires logic as a basis for understanding and as a sine qua non of all rational thinking. Without knowledge of logical fallacies, feelings, suggestibility and freedom, one can be duped into almost anything. Only a thinking person aware of the logical fallacies, dealing with feelings appropriately, and defeating the suggestibility imposed by today's communication and academic tyrants, can acquire true freedom.
Fallacies
In college. I took a logic course, I minutely wrote all the fallacies on a 3 x 5 card which I carried and referred to over and over for 40 years until, tearfully. I watched it crumble apart. The following list can be reduced and photocopied and put into your billfold, to be pulled out whenever you want to know what the fallacy is when you are puzzled by nonsense.
argumentum ad rem: arguing to the point. This is the way one is supposed to argue. This is not a fallacy.
argumentum ad hominem: arguing to the man. “How can you believe anybody like that?“
argumentum ad ignorantiam: arguing to the ignorance. “Since no one knows, listen to me.”
argumentum ad populum: arguing to the people. Let's vote to determine what is true.
argumentum ad captandum vulgus: arguing to the emotions of the crowd. “Who cares? Crucify him!”
argumentum ad individuum: arguing to the prejudice. “No white gal can teach black studies.”
argumentum ad misericordiam: arguing to sympathy. “Because they were victims, they are always right.”
argumentum ad hirsutiam: arguing to the beard. “There are so many hairs to split, it must be the way I say it is.”
argumentum ad pulvinar: arguing to the couch. “I can read his mind – this is what he was thinking.”
argumentum ad auctoriate: arguing to the power. “Force makes it true.”
argumentum ad verecundiam: arguing to the hiding. “Well, so and so said this…”
argumentum ad conquistador: arguing to the cruel. “Since you hurt my feelings, you brute, this is how it is.”
argumentum ad magnum: arguing to the bigger. “The bigger, the better” or “let the state do it!”
argumentum ad judex: arguing to the judges. Government of the judges, by the judges and for the judges.
argumentum ad legis: arguing to the law. “It is right if the law allows it; and it need not be done if the law does not specifically tell to do it.”
Reductio ad absurdum: extending analogies to absurdity.
Petitio principii: begging the question – conclusion is already in the opening premise.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc: after this, therefore because of this.
Ipsedixit: “I have spoken!” Dogma without proof.
Shifting the burden of proof: “I assert this so prove me wrong.”
Chronological snobbery: “It is old, therefore it is wrong.”
Theological snobbery: “The Koran cannot be analyzed.” “God says ‘no’.”
Cliche thinking: confuses distinctions.
False antithesis: all or none… no “in between” the extremes.
Hypothesis as fact.
Special pleading: stack the deck with what is favorable only.
Straw man: misrepresent the opponent's position; put words in his mouth and beat him up for what he never said.
Sweeping generalizations: “everyone knows”
The end justifies any means: “It must be done regardless!”
Non-sequitur: that which does not follow – all fallacies are these.
Feelings
Feelings are unworthy of following unless sacramentally linked to the Last Words of Jesus and synthesized into Natural Law (Schema 1):
by being baptized into a dignity event and giving faith – “Woman behold thy son”;
by being confessed into a unity spectrum giving hope – “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”;
by being holy communioned into an integrity field giving charity – “Oh my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”;
by being confirmed into an identity quantum giving prudence – “Into thine hands, I commend my spirit;”
by being extreme unctioned as a spirit singularity giving justice – “It is finished;”
by being holy ordered into dimensions giving courage – “This day thou shalt be with me in paradise;” and
by being matrimonied into the uncertainty for liberty giving temperance – “I thirst”.
By sacramentalized feelings in light of the Last Words of Jesus the Christ, mental succor themes are enhanced in human interaction, and grace is obtained with the pursuing transcendental force of holiness (Haydn's “Earthquake” i.e., the “Eighth Word” of his oratorio, The Seven Last Words of Christ) making one free of all less than grace filled, Sacramentalized feelings give the full use of one's soul. Neither feelings nor perhaps anything else should be given any power except by sacramental linkage of the Eight Last Words of Our Savior on the Cross.
Suggestibility
Suggestibility, in a way, is Original Sin, i.e., we forget the truth as well as all the other transcendentals and fill the void with whatever else seen or heard. That man is suggestible gees without saying. Advertising and glibness prove that we can be convinced to buy anything from junk things to junk ideas. We can be talked into almost anything from running around naked and to killing each other wantonly. Also, an ability to be a minority of one is required to overcome suggestibility. A minority of one is when you alone stand firm against all others pressing you to be as suggestible as they are. During these troubling moments, one uses the logical fallacies and sacramentalized feelings (the Last Words of Jesus) saying forthrightly and repetitively: “I do not care if everybody says it, the fallacy is x and I feel the correct answer is y” (memorize that!) Intense psychological pressure requires standing firm and speaking up with the Last Words. Maintaining firmness in one's own belief by speaking up avoids suggestibility and prevents peer pressure from making you merely one of the crowd. Standing up forthrightly also helps the crowd not go along when they hear you out.
True Freedom
“choice” –St. Thomas Aquinas says it best:
Choice results from the decision or judgment which is, as it were, the conclusion of a practical syllogism. Hence, that which is the conclusion of a practical syllogism, is the matter of choice. Now, in practical things, the end just stands in a position of principle, not of conclusion…Whereforce, the end, as such, is not a matter of choice.
In other words, we will the end but choose our means. The end will be there whether we will or choose it or not. The awareness of this is elaborated further by Peter Kreft:
God, our final end, is not avoidable, not an “option” like a movie or meal, not something for religious people (whoever they are) but “the only show in town” or, as C.S. Lewis puts it, “The only fruit (good) this universe can grow – the only fruit any possible universe can grow.”
We cannot choose our final end, but only the means to get there.
True freedom is a function of the act (A) of whatever nature. That act may be given a quantitative value on a scale of life significance (S) (digging a hole has lesser significance than delivering a baby). This significant act (A) is multiplied by number of choices (C) available (the greater the number of choices available, the greater the freedom for the act. Freedom is reduced by the conditioned reflexes (Cr) promoting the act further reduced by the physiological reflexes (Pr) impelling the act, and reduced moreso by social pressures (Sp) conditioning the act. The entire freedom calculation has been taken to the power of the number of transcendentals intended (Ti) in outcome of the act (The more the transcendentals intended, the greater the freedom. This can be represented as a mathematical equation. See this author's “Attainment of Pyschological Freedom,” Social Justice Review, November/December, 2002, 176–79). 9
True and salutary freedom comes from logical reasoning because fallacies are known and used; feelings are sacramentalized; and suggestibility is defeated.
Natural Law as the Ten Commandments
In the final analysis. Natural Law as the Ten Commandments enables a state, nation, community, family or person, to meet compelling interests in the health and safety of the planet and all creatures therein.
The Ten Commandments
Thus a concept of “liberty” cannot be entertained if it allows human behavior to be inconsistent with Nature. A concept of “rights” cannot be accepted which disdains subsidiarity and the realities of sin and pain. A concept of “privacy” (except in social manners) cannot be sustained because the ecosystem includes most of what we do, including sexuality (Dysphoria and dysfunction are the incontrovertible result of allowing absolute license, rights, or privacy to rule).
If the environment is to be respected, reason must be followed. If individuals of a species are to be protected, feelings and reason must conform. If reproductive diversity is promoted, gene integrity must be fulfilled and maintained. If forests are to be respected, then so must social units of the animal kingdom including the human family. If condor embryos are to be nurtured, so must human embryos. If the rain forest is to be protected, then so must species maintaining common good mating behavior. If the ocean is to be kept clean, then pregnancies must be allowed to proceed. If evolution is believed, there can be no abortion, contraception, cloning, embryo cannibalism or other anti-life activities. If sound environment is of concern, then truth, oneness, good and beauty must define personal liberty. If nature defines gender patterns, humans must comply. If the atmosphere is to be clean, then so, too, must human behavior and both must be in conformity with the planet.
Mature does not forget its reasons nor does it forgive abuses. The universe is not indifferent to what we do; as Sir Francis Bacon said: “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.” The Ten Commandments are the most ecologically sound natural principles ever available.
Schema 4: A “Bullet of Love” or – A Roman Catholic Person –A Space-Time-Spirit Cone in the Image of God
Natural law states that the universe was created from God's overflowing love between the Trinity and naturally vibrates anti-entropically achieving C 2 and transcendental freedom by matter itself through man as “bullets of love.”
As a “bullet of love” each Roman Catholic person is a human DNA individual of a matter/identity/sacrament axis (a “geoanthrotheoaxis”) enmeshed with the Keys of the Kingdom (Truth, Oneness, Good and Beauty) engaged in mental succor, gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Eight Last Words, personhood, humanness, virtues, maleness/femaleness, logical reasoning, and the Ten Commandments, all promoted by the Roman Catholic Church around the Sign of the Cross, living as a space-time-spirit cone following Natural Law to rejoin God who, as ultimate love, established creation to reflect His Love and Freedom wherein matter itself chooses to return to God by Love from Transcendental Living (William Blake wrote, “Energy is eternal delight” to which must be added… “and when love, is divine”) Personhood is established by potential and actual C 2 (conscious of consciousness) which gives rationality promoting dignity, unity, integrity, individuality, and spirituality (without which, one is not a “person”). The famous formula E= MC 2 , is applicable here. That is, eternity E occurs as matter M (meaning “man”) meets C 2 (conscious of consciousness), the latter bringing Natural Law. The space-time-spirit cone after Extreme Unction, undergoes the transition from the space-time continuum into the Statimuum where the Beatific Vision received depends upon the intactness of the cone of transcendence brought at the transition point of death. Each human space-time-cone is a “child of God” when sanctified by Jesus capable of bringing matter by love back to God or in God whose universe was created for the purpose of love, i.e., to give matter spiritual capability, to taste aware existence, to live freely and to love enjoying God's presence. As human “bullets of love,” man brings Love-creation to God as God designed this fantastic universe in the perfection of beginning and ending in Him.
Closing Remarks
If one embraces fully the Roman Catholic life, i.e., the amazing, bewildering, quaint, simple, playful, prayerful Church following the classical style and ignoring the self-conscious silliness of it all – thereby occurs an amazing rebellion against the seductive contagious evils of this age and any age. Resulting will be a childlike joy which is as free as one can ever get; a oneness with humanity and the planet which is as close to nature as one can ever get; and a transcending beyond constricting material components thereby enabling a supernaturalness which is as unearthly as one can ever get. You will laugh more and love faithfully. You will produce more. You will be less bothered by anything. These are the psychological benefits… and you get to Heaven. You will not find it to be simple silliness at all, but the strange effectiveness of genuine ancient secrets. Religious vocations will be seen as transcendental bubbles of sanity in an ocean of chaos. Religious poverty will be for Life as the Father with sacrifice for the good of others. Religious chastity will be for genuine Liberty as Jesus the Son giving uplifting strength maintaining natural oneness. Religious obedience will be for the faithful Pursuit of Transcendentals wherein the Holy Spirit promotes 2000-year-old truths always ahead of one's time and always rebellious of the craziness of the age but in concert with the Church as founded by Christ.
Actually, one is pollution oneself if not in concert with Natural Law, Catholic means that one is linked to all being – totally catholic – because God is in all being at least as Creator. Only the Natural Law deals with being as such unfettered by anything less than Catholicity. Solidarity with life, the planet, the universe and God is only by Natural Law with consciousness of consciousness (C 2 ) embracing Basic Being Realism (Schema 1); maleness and femaleness (Schema 2); suffering having value (Schema 3); logical reasoning (fallacies, feelings, suggestibility, and freedom); and the Ten Commandments, all potentially enabling a salutary outcome ever since suffering (sin and pain) has been forgiven and sanctified by Jesus. Thus the answer to a secular universe is to crucify Jesus the Christ by the “bullets of love” (Schema 4) of being following the Church He founded. Guilt and its consequences, including annihilatory punishment, will be the deserved earnings of not following Natural Law when it can answer everything.
All the preceding makes God, Heaven and Hell believable. More importantly, all the preceding makes man deserving of God and Heaven.
