In thinking about Natural Law, I have come to the conclusion that most everyone accepts it as a reality. We don’t talk about the words ‘Natural Law’, but we do act and think in terms of it. How many people have heard the expression, “What comes around, goes around”? How about the phrase, “Cosmic Justice”? Innately, people seem to understand right and wrong. In how many cultures is theft from one’s neighbor condoned? How many people believe in punishment without an offense?
Cicero, a Roman consul, wrote extensively on Natural Law and what he called ‘right reason’. This is the reasoning that is consistent with that of the ‘Creator’. Throughout history, people have been trying to explain Nature and the laws that she follows. The myth of Persephone was an attempt to explain the seasons. As we have learned more about biology, chemistry, and physics, we have developed a greater understanding of those laws. We have developed mathematical equations to help us determine the result of these natural laws. By the same token, humans naturally understand the concept of Justice. Cicero said, “…surely there comes nothing more valuable than the realization that we are born for Justice, and the right is based, not on men’s opinions, but upon Nature. " This is the concept of Natural Law.
Most all major philosophies and religions agree on a few main points. The first is the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” As a corollary to the Golden Rule, you do what you have agreed to do. Whatever laws of man are consistent with Natural Law are valid. Those that are not are invalid. And one party is not above another in terms of Nature or of Natural Law. Hence, “[w]e hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." All men, regardless of position, station, ability, mental acuity, are endowed with these rights. These rights do not come from the government.
The English recognized these inalienable rights when they forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, guaranteeing their rights. The idea of natural rights were assumed and passed onto the American Colonists. The Founders were not rabble-rousers intent on destroying the King’s Peace. They just wanted the rights to which they were born, and to which, the King, himself, was subject. When the King ignored their petitions, they justified their separation by acknowledging “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them”.
Societies and individuals may try to curtail the natural rights, but they will meet with the consequences of those actions. In the same manner, one may try to avoid the law of gravity, but at some point, you cannot repeal or modify that law. Cicero said, “True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting….It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people, and 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 all times…” Jefferson, who studied Cicero, stated, “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.”
There are essentially two forms of government. One form is where all rights are derived from the government itself. The people are subject to the whims of those in power. When another takes over, the laws can be completely changed. There is no firm basis for those laws. The other form is one that is based on Natural Law. The laws are consistent because they must adhere to the tenets of Natural Law. In addition, the people have rights that cannot be removed by those in power, because those rights do not come from government. Our Constitution guarantees these rights, and provides for only explicit governmental powers that are derived, as the Declaration says, “from the consent of the governed”. The government has no rights or powers except those that are delegated to it from the people.
For thousands of years of human history, government operated under the philosophy that “might makes right”. Only through our understanding of Natural Law can we maintain those rights granted to us at our creation and not from the divine right of kings or the will of the majority. "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?" (Thomas Jefferson) Without understanding that our liberties come from Natural Law, they are arbitrary and subject to the will of those in power. It is only through obedience to Natural Law that our liberties can be preserved.
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