Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; Naturrecht - Offenbarung, Neues Testament

Kurzinhalt: The law of nature is a declaration of the will of God. It is "the voice of God" in man ... What he did stands in striking contrast to what he said.

Textausschnitt: 202a At first glance Locke seems to reject altogether Hobbes's notion of natural law and to follow the traditional teaching. He certainly speaks of man's natural rights as if they were derivative from the law of nature, and he accordingly speaks of the law of nature as if it were a law in the strict sense of the term. The law of nature imposes perfect duties on man as man, regardless of whether he lives in the state of nature or in civil society. "The law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men," for it is "plain and intelligible to all rational creatures." It is identical with "the law of reason." It is "knowable by the light of nature; that is, without the help of positive revelation." Locke considers it entirely possible for the law of nature or the moral law to be raised to the rank of a demonstrative science. That science would make out "from self-evident propositions, by necessary consequences ... the measures of right and wrong." Man would thus become able to elaborate "a body of ethics, proved to be the law of nature, from principles of reason, and teaching all the duties of life," or "the entire body of the 'law of nature,'" or "complete morality," or a "code" which gives us the law of nature "entire." That code would contain, among other things, the natural penal law.1 Yet Locke never made a serious effort to elaborate that code. His failure to embark on this great enterprise was due to the problem posed by theology.2 (Fs)

202b The law of nature is a declaration of the will of God. It is "the voice of God" in man. It can therefore be called the "law of God" or "divine law" or even the "eternal law"; it is "the highest law." It is the law of God not only in fact. It must be known to be the law of God in order to be law. Without such knowledge man cannot act morally. For "the true ground of morality ... can only be the will and law of a God." The law of nature can be demonstrated because the existence and the attributes of God can be demonstrated. This divine law is promulgated, not only in or by reason, but by revelation as well. In fact, it first became known to man in its entirety by revelation, but reason confirms this divine law thus revealed. This does not mean that God did not reveal to man some laws which are purely positive: the distinction between the law of reason, which obliges man as man, and the law revealed in the-gospel, which obliges Christians, is preserved by Locke.3 (Fs)

203a One may wonder whether what Locke says about the relation between the law of nature and the revealed law is free from difficulties. However this may be, his teaching is exposed to a more fundamental and more obvious difficulty, to a difficulty which seems to endanger the very notion of a law of nature. He says, on the one hand, that, in order to be a law, the law of nature must not only have been given by God and be known to have been given by God, but it must in addition have as its sanctions divine "rewards and punishments, of infinite weight and duration, in another life." On the other hand, however, he says that reason cannot demonstrate that there is another life. Only through revelation do we know of the sanctions for the law of nature or of "the only true touchstone of moral rectitude." Natural reason is therefore unable to know the law of nature as a law.4 This would mean that there does not exist a law of nature in the strict sense. (Fs)

204a This difficulty is apparently overcome by the fact that "the veracity of God is a demonstration of the truth of what he has revealed."5 That is to say, natural reason is indeed unable to demonstrate that the souls of men shall live forever. But natural reason is able to demonstrate that the New Testament is the perfect document of revelation. And since the New Testament teaches that the souls of men shall live forever, natural reason is able to demonstrate the true ground of morality and therewith to establish the dignity of the law of nature as a true law. (Fs)

204b By demonstrating that the New Testament is a document of revelation, one demonstrates that the law promulgated by Jesus is a law in the proper sense of the term. This divine law proves to be in full conformity with reason; it proves to be the absolutely comprehensive and perfect formulation of the law of nature. One is thus led to see that unassisted reason would have been unable to discover the law of nature in its entirety, but that the reason which has learned from revelation can recognize the thoroughly reasonable character of the law revealed in the New Testament. A comparison of the New Testament teaching with all other moral teachings shows that the entire law of nature is available in the New Testament, and only in the New Testament. The entire law of nature is available only in the New Testament, and it is there available in perfect clarity and plainness.6 (Fs)

205a If "the surest, the safest and most effectual way of teaching" the entire law of nature, and hence any part of it, is supplied by "the inspired books"; the complete and perfectly clear natural law teaching concerning government in particular would consist of properly arranged quotations from Scripture and especially from the New Testament. Accordingly, one would expect that Locke would have written a "Politique three des propres paroles de l'Ecriture Sainte." But, in fact, he wrote his Two Treatises of Government. What he did stands in striking contrast to what he said. He himself "always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts."7 If we apply this rule to what was perhaps his greatest action, we are forced to suspect that he encountered some hidden obstacles on his way toward a strictly scriptural natural law teaching regarding government. He might have become aware of difficulties obstructing either the demonstration of the revealed character of Scripture or the equation of the New Testament law with the law of nature or both. (Fs)