Regarding the recent Daily Post column by Gary Beatty, I find it bordering on the absurd, that anyone can continue to be an apologist for “natural law” theory or theology in this day and age. And while religious traditions hold to this vain idea in the attempt to maintain a view of human nature and imago Dei, those assumptions are fast unraveling and look more and more like the emperor’s new clothes.
Natural Law has left the human condition in considerable deficit in terms of ethical, moral and spiritual understanding. And now with issues so pressing, so urgent, so grave and divisive the world can barely discuss them, let alone address and resolve them: A despoiled land, sea, air and even space, possible environmental collapse, a divided nation, a new arms race and a Doomsday Clock with barely a minute to midnight. So where does progress come from?
While many ponder whether our species can evolve to make the changes necessary to discover a sustainable future, I have to doubt that our species, bound to Natural Law, even has that potential. Unfortunately the world has usually preferred the soft, the easy and more convenient ways of intellectual vanity, political correctness and spiritual confectionery than the honesty, critical self-scrutiny and courage to confront human nature itself.
If I were G-d, I would think that mankind is well overdue for a new moral compass or at least a correction to the old one. And that would be religion I would willingly embrace.
Robert Landbeck
Dedham, ME