KELLY OCONNELL SHOW: Gorsuch Got Game

Neil Gorsuch, dodging bullets on Capitol Hill like an old pro, appears to have this thing in the bag. His Natural Law understanding of US law and it’s roots is a comfort when so much chaos exists across the land. So, how many more conservative judges can Trump bring onto the court?

According to St Thomas the natural law is "nothing else than the rational creature's participation in the eternal law" (I-II.94). The eternal law is God's wisdom, inasmuch as it is the directive norm of all movement and action. When God willed to give existence to creatures, He willed to ordain and direct them to an end. In the case of inanimate things, this Divine direction is provided for in the nature which God has given to each; in them determinism reigns. Like all the rest of creation, man is destined by God to an end, and receives from Him a direction towards this end. This ordination is of a character in harmony with his free intelligent nature. In virtue of his intelligence and free will, man is master of his conduct. Unlike the things of the mere material world he can vary his action, act, or abstain from action, as he pleases. Yet he is not a lawless being in an ordered universe. In the very constitution of his nature, he too has a law laid down for him, reflecting that ordination and direction of all things, which is the eternal law. The rule, then, which God has prescribed for our conduct, is found in our nature itself. Those actions which conform with its tendencies, lead to our destined end, and are thereby constituted right and morally good; those at variance with our nature are wrong and immoral.

Throughout the work of both Finnis and Grisez, the new theory of natural law is presented as a theory of practical reasonableness. The main aim of this theory is to provide principles (in the sense of principia 'starting-points') that guide our reasoning on moral matters.