Secular Pluralism and the Natural Law

Today, especially in advent of the coming election in November, many Americans hold the pluralistic view that whatever is right for each individual should constitute what principles our government should build from. If you believe that is right, fine. I, personally, don’t, but that’s my opinion. This type of thinking leads to a lot of problems in the formation and operation of government. If there cannot be a common truth or a common principle, from what will government, or our American democracy, take its root? On the flip side, as a Catholic, how does this pluralism restrict the search for truth? When my belief, which is rooted very deeply in my character, calls for the search for what is true and good runs into conflict with the view of a relativist who believes that each has his or her own opinion of what is true and good, I want to know if there can be any sort of communication at all, especially in politics. Obviously our worldviews are in conflict, but there must to be some sort of common ground. If there is no common ground, human life issues, such as abortion, poverty, etc. cannot even be discussed until such a commonality is reached. Without such, communication is deemed ineffective and you end up with two frustrated parties. What has already been proposed in contradiction with secular pluralism is that each human being, having an intrinsic law written within the very fabric of their being, has dignity.

In searching for articles or documents relating to the life of a believer in the role of politics, I ran across a document entitled The Participation of Catholics in Political Life, published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Perfect! Upon reading it, an interesting section, important enough to be mentioned, was brought to light concerning relativism in our day. It reads:

A kind of cultural relativism exists today, evident in the conceptualization and defence of an ethical pluralism, which sanctions the decadence and disintegration of reason and the principles of the natural moral law. Furthermore, it is not unusual to hear the opinion expressed in the public sphere that such ethical pluralism is the very condition for democracy.^[12] As a result, citizens claim complete autonomy with regard to their moral choices, and lawmakers maintain that they are respecting this freedom of choice by enacting laws which ignore the principles of natural ethics and yield to ephemeral cultural and moral trends,^[13] as if every possible outlook on life were of equal value. At the same time, the value of tolerance is disingenuously invoked when a large number of citizens, Catholics among them, are asked not to base their contribution to society and political life – through the legitimate means available to everyone in a democracy – on their particular understanding of the human person and the common good. The history of the twentieth century demonstrates that those citizens were right who recognized the falsehood of relativism, and with it, the notion that there is no moral law rooted in the nature of the human person, which must govern our understanding of man, the common good and the state.

Such relativism, of course, has nothing to do with the legitimate freedom of Catholic citizens to choose among the various political opinions that are compatible with faith and the natural moral law, and to select, according to their own criteria, what best corresponds to the needs of the common good. Political freedom is not – and cannot be – based upon the relativistic idea that all conceptions of the human person’s good have the same value and truth, but rather, on the fact that politics are concerned with very concrete realizations of the true human and social good in given historical, geographic, economic, technological and cultural contexts. From the specificity of the task at hand and the variety of circumstances, a plurality of morally acceptable policies and solutions arises. It is not the Church’s task to set forth specific political solutions – and even less to propose a single solution as the acceptable one – to temporal questions that God has left to the free and responsible judgment of each person. It is, however, the Church’s right and duty to provide a moral judgment on temporal matters when this is required by faith or the moral law.^[14] If Christians must «recognize the legitimacy of differing points of view about the organization of worldly affairs«,^[15] they are also called to reject, as injurious to democratic life, a conception of pluralism that reflects moral relativism. Democracy must be based on the true and solid foundation of non-negotiable ethical principles, which are the underpinning of life in society.

The full document can be found at http://benedettoxvi.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20021124_politica_en.html.

The part I found to be most interesting was that democracy has to be founded on “non-negotiable principles”. Without these, debates are a waste because each person has his or her own view of the good. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that natural law is “established by reason” (CCC 1956) and is “immutable and permanent throughout the variations in history” (CCC 1958). This means that people should be able to have discussion about the dignity of life and a human being’s rights without necessarily having a religious background. One just needs reason. Relativism, most specifically moral relativism, goes against the natural law and even denies the human nature. This needs to be challenged and recognized by our leaders today. This is not just a religious claim, but a human claim.

All of the candidates running for office have mentioned in their campaigns the role of faith with regards to politics. Mitt Romney back in December 2007, when speaking about Mormonism and politics, has even mentioned the thought that secularists have presently developed their own religion in society because of their strong stance against religion. This is a very interesting thought. A president most needed for today’s society is one who recognizes the secularism that has entrenched itself in the current thought and how dangerous the implications of secularism really are. If it is gotten to the point in our society where we cannot even have a discussion about the dignity of life and fundamental rights of human beings, how can we build a society built upon protecting any individual? Is than any other principle upon which we can build democracy?