Universal Ethic-Convergences 5-Sacred Scripture

1.3. The teaching of Sacred Scripture

22. The gift of the Law at Sinai, the center of which is the "Ten Words" or Decalogue, is an essential element of the religious experience of Israel. This Law of the covenant is composed of fundamental ethical precepts. These define the manner in which the elect people should respond by sanctity of life in accordance with the will of God: "It speaks to all the Israelite community telling them: "Be holy, for I, the Lord your God am holy." (Lev. 19:2). But these moral behaviors have value also for other peoples, inasmuch as God takes account of foreign nations that violate justice and right.(20). In fact, God had already established in the person of Noah a covenant with all the human race that involved particularly respect for life.(21). (Gen. 9) More fundamentally, creation itself appears as an act in which God designs the structure of the universe giving it a law. "They [the stars] praise the name of the Lord, because to His command they were created. He made them stable for ever; He fixed a decree that will not pass." (Ps. 148:5-6) Such obedience of the creatures to the law of God is a model for human beings.


23. Together with the texts that address themselves to the story of salvation, with the greater theological theme of the election, of the promise, of the Law and of the covenant, the Bible contains also a literature of wisdom that does not deal directly with the story of the nation of Israel, but interests itself in man’s place in the world. It develops the conviction that there is correct way--"wisdom"--of how to do things, and how to conduct one’s life. The human being should pledge to seek wisdom, and then force himself to put it into practice. This wisdom is not found in history, or in nature, or in everyday life.(22) In such literature, Wisdom is often presented as a divine perfection, sometimes personalized (hypostasisized). She shows herself in surprising ways in creation, of which she is "the creator." (Wis. 7,21). The harmony that reigns between creatures renders her witness. Man participates in diverse ways in such wisdom which comes from God. This participation is a gift of God, one which is necessary to ask for in prayer: "I prayed and I was lavished with prudence; I implored and there came to me the spirit of wisdom." (Wis. 7:7) She is presented as the fruit of obedience to revealed Law. In fact, the Torah is, as it were, the incarnation of Wisdom. "If you desire wisdom, observe the commandments and the Lord will vouchsafe such to you. The fear of the Lord is wisdom and instruction." (Sir. 1:26-27). But wisdom is also the result of a wise observation of nature and of human custom with the end of discovering their inherent intelligibility and their exemplary value.(23)


24. In the fullness of the time, Jesus Christ preached the coming of the Kingdom as a manifestation of the merciful love of God, a love which makes itself present to men personally and asks of them them a conversion and a free response of love. This preaching is not without consequence to ethics, to the way to build the world and human relations. In its moral teaching, of which the Sermon on the Mount is an admirable synthesis, Jesus teaches again for his part the golden rule: "All that you want men to do to you, you also do to them: this in fact is the Law and the Prophets." (Matt. 7:12) (24) This positive precept completes the negative formulation of the same rule in the Old Testament: "Do not do unto others that which you do not want done unto you."(25) (Tob. 4:15)


25. In the beginning of the Letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul, with the intent of demonstrating the universal necessity of the salvation brought by Christ, describes the religious and moral situation common to all mankind. He affirms the possibility of a natural knowledge of God: “Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made.”(26) (Rom 1:19-20) But this knowledge is perverted in idolatry. Putting on the same plane both Jew and Gentile, St. Paul affirms the existence of an unwritten moral law, one that is inscribed in their hearts.(27) This law is able to discern good from evil. “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them." (Rom. 2:14-15) Knowledge of the law alone, however, is not enough to lead a righteous life.(28) These texts of St. Paul have had a decisive influence on the Christian reflection relative to the natural law.

(20) Cf. Amos 1-2.

(21) Rabbinical Judaism refers to seven moral imperatives that God gave to Noah on behalf of all men. They are enumerated in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 56): (1) you will not fashion idols; (2) you shall not kill; (3) you shall not steal; (4) you shall not commit adultery; (5) you shall not swear; (6) you shall not eat the meat a live animal; (7) you shall establish tribunals of justice to enforce respect the six previous commandments. While the 613 mitzot of the written Torah and their interpretation in the oral Torah apply only to the Jews, the laws of Noah apply to all men.

(22) Wisdom literature interests itself above all in history insofar as there appears in it certain constants relative to the way in which man ought to conduct himself before God. Wise men do not despise the lessons of history and their value in divine revelation (cf. Sir 44-51), but have a conscience alert to the connection between events that are contingent, and those that are not dependent upon historical contingencies. In order to derive the immutable within the mutable, and to act in a responsible way in regard to this effort, wisdom searches for structural principles and laws, rather than particular historical perspectives. By doing this, wisdom literature concentrates on the prototype or protologue, that is to say, on the initial creation and what that implies. In fact the prototype or protologue tends toward describing the coherence that is found behind historical events. It is an a priori condition that strives to give order to all of the possible historical events. Wisdom literature therefore searches to evaluate the conditions that render possible everyday life. History portrays these elements in successive manner, and wisdom goes to the other side of history towards an atemporal description of what constitutes reality at the time of creation, "in the beginning,” when human beings had been created in the image of God.

(23) Cf. Prov. 6:6-9: "Go to the ant, O sluggard, study her ways and learn wisdom; for though she has no chief, no commander or ruler, she procures her food in the summer, stores up her provisions in the harvest. How long, O sluggard, will you rest? when will you rise from your sleep?”

(24) Cf. also Luke 6:31: "Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

(25) Italian translation of the French version of the Bible. Cf. St. Bonaventure, Commentarius in Evangelium Lucae, c. 6, n. 76 ("Opera omnia, VII", ed. Quaracchi, p. 156): “In hoc mandato [Lc. 6:31] est consummatio legis naturalis, cuius una pars negativa ponitur Tobiae quarto et implicatur hic: ‘Quod ab alio oderis tibi fieri, vide ne tu aliquando alteri facias’” [In this commandment (Luke 6:31), the natural law is summarized, which from a negative point of view is stated in the fourth chapter of Tobit and is implied here: ‘Do not do to others what you do not want done to you.’”; (Pseudo-)Bonaventure, Expositio in Psalterium, Ps 57:2 ("Opera omnia, IX", ed. Vivès, p. 227); "Duo sunt mandata naturalia: unum prohibitivum, unde hoc “Quod tibi non vis fieri, alteri ne feceris”; aliud affirmativum, unde in Evangelio “Omnia quaecumque vultis ut faciant vobis homines, eadem facite illis”. Primum de malis removendis, secundum de bonis adipiscendis” [The natural commandments are two: one is prohibitive, ‘That which you do not want done to you, do not do to others’; the other is positive, where in the Gospel it states, ‘Everything that you want that men do unto you, do unto them.’ The first is for removing evil; the second is for increasing good.”]

(26) Cf. Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius, c. 2. cf. also Acts 14:16-17: "In past generations he allowed all Gentiles to go their own ways; yet, in bestowing his goodness, he did not leave himself without witness, for he gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filled you with nourishment and gladness for your hearts.”

(27) In Philo of Alexandria one may find the idea according to which Abraham, without the written law, conducts himself already “in accordance with nature” in a life in conformity with the Law. Cf. Philo of Alexandria, De Abrahamo, § 275-276 (Introduction, translation and notes of J. Gorez, “Les œuvres de Philon d’Alexandrie, 20,” Paris, 1966, 132-135): “Moses said: This man fulfilled the divine law, and all the commandments of God (Gen. 26:5), not having been taught to do so by written books, but in accordance with the unwritten law of his nature, being anxious to obey all healthful and salutary impulses.”

(28) Cf. Rom. 7:22-23: “For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind (to nomo tou noos mou) taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”

The Way of the Edomite, the Ammonite, the Moabite, and the Ishmaelite

THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS of the children of Noah, the sheva mitsvot benei Noah (שבע מצוות בני נח‎), are considered by the Talmud to be laws binding upon all mankind. Also referred to as the Noahide Laws, they are listed by the Tosefta and the Talmud as follows:

(1) the requirement to establish a judicial system in society (דינים, dinim);
(2) the prohibition of blasphemy (ברכת השם, birkat ha-shem);
(3) the prohibition of idolatry (עבודה זרה, avodah zarah);
(4) the prohibition of wanton destruction of human life (שפיחת דמים, shefikhut damim);
(5) the prohibition of adultery, incest, homsexuality, and bestiality (גילוי עריות, gillui arayot);
(6) the prohibition of robbery (גזל, gezel); and
(7) the prohibition of eating a limb torn from a living animal (עבר מו החי, ever min ha-hai)

(See David Novak, Natural Law in Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 149) (citing T. Avodah Zarah 8.4; B. Sanhedrin 56a).



While some posit the Noahide laws as being laws governing relationship of non-Jews living within a Jewish community (analogous to the Roman ius gentium), the Noahide laws are more plausibly considered as a Jewish statement of the Natural Law. Novak, 149-51. The Noahide "laws" are really more a "system of principles" than an "actual body of rules." Novak, 151. For this reason, the Seven Noahide Laws are frequently said to include as many as thirty separate commandments. E.g., Menahem Azariah of Fano in his Asarah Maamarot lists 30 commandments.

The acceptance of the Noahide Laws would seem to be a sort of preambulae fidei, or a preambulae legibus, in that accepting them is a prerequisite to being able to accept God's revelation in the Torah. In the rabbinic text Sifre: Devarim, no. 343, there is midrash on Deuteronomy 33:2. In the midrash, God is said to have proferred the Torah not only to Israel, but to all nations. Some of the immoral habits of the other nations, however, prevented them from being open to the gift of the Torah. Thus, the Edomites refused the Torah when they learned of its prohibition against murder. The Ammonites and Moabites refused it when confronted with the prohibition against incest. The Ishmaelites would not accept the Torah because it prohibited theft. It was these groups' failure to abide by the Noahide laws that led them to reject the Torah. (Novak, 161-62.)

Novak concludes:

The rejection of natural law by a community means that its law and culture are fundamentally unworthy of the human persons to whom they are addressed. Such a community is fundamentally flawed and it suffers accordingly. Being in violation of natural law, that suffering is akin to the suffering of any natural entity denied the basic conditions it requires for living well or living at all.

Novak, 162.

In his Mishneh Torah (Hilchot Melachim, 9:4), the great Jewish medieval scholar Moses Maimonides explicitly equates the killing of a fetus in his mother's womb with the Noahide prohibition against murder.

In light of our Nation's adoption of abortion as a national policy, and the increased acceptance of homosexual "marriage"--both repudiations of the Noahide law and the Natural Law--one wonders, in the words of Novak, whether our "law and culture are fundamentally unworthy of the human persons to whom they are addressed." One wonders whether our community is "fundamentally flawed" when it denies the "basic conditions it requires for living well or living at all."

On wonders why we have chosen the ways of the Edomite, the Ammonite, the Moabite, and the Ishmaelite.

The New Social Contract

IN HIS BOOK, NATURAL LAW IN JUDAISM, David Novak, a Jewish scholar and ordained Rabbi who teaches at the University of Toronto, addresses the issue of the "democratic conversation" that must occur in the "secular space" of the "secular polity." Such a "secular polity" is the only manner in which a country of such plural religious traditions as ours can function. With such lack of religious homogeneity, there are some decided advantages that come with such a secular polity, which "brackets all cosmic questions" in the area of social relations, and, in Christ's words, renders to Caesar those things that are Caesar's and to God those things that are God's. (Matthew 22:21.)

However, Novak distinguishes a secular polity from a secularist polity, which is where the United States appears to find itself currently. A secularist polity is one based upon secularism. Secularism is an ideology that arrogates to itself ultimate meaning, (e.g., National Socialism) or attempts to repress it altogether (e.g., Communism). When secularism captures the "secular space," the secular society is thus absolutized, is made the "primary locus of one's association." (In religious terms, the secular society is idolized.)

The believer--whether he be Jew, Muslim, or Christian--does not, indeed, cannot, absolutize the secular polity. He does not see in the secular polity any absolute value. He will view it under the auspices of eternity (sub specie aeternitatis). For this reason the homo religiosus, the religious man, places greater significance in the association he has with his specific religious community, the source of the traditions which give his life meaning and join him to God. In a secularist polity, however, where the civil life is absolutized and God is removed from the public square, the "democratic conversation" becomes one from which religious communities are barred unless a member "speak[s] as if he or she were an atheist." For a member of a traditional religious community, this is simply too high a price to pay. (Using religious terms, it would be to lose his soul.) This is essentially where religious believers find themselves today in the secularist politics in the United States.

In Novak's view, the exclusion of believers from the "democratic conversation" arises from a "questionable assumption." That "questionable assumption" is that "democracy itself must be both one's society and one's community." The exclusion of religious believers from the "democractic conversation" also is based upon an "erroneous notion" that "democracy must create its own culture," rather than draw from the wisdom of more fundamental or "primary" cultures, of which the communities that rely on revealed truth are significant. The secularist effort at creating a culture has not been successful; the culture it promotes is (in Clifford Geertz's words which Novak uses) "thin." Modern culture is insipid, banal, lukewarm, vapid; a "mass culture" with no depth, conducive only to mediocrity. It is also highly impoverishing, and ultimately undignifying, since by definition it excludes any notion of a personal God and any notion of an eternal destiny for man. Ortega y Gasset, Gabriel Marcel, Georges Bernanos, T. S. Eliot, are just some of many who have addressed the problem with a secularist world without God.

Novak insists that room must be made for the religious believer in the "democratic conversation." This conversation must include the notion of the "natural law," even though that natural law may be based upon a religious predicate, i.e., the existence of God the Creator and his Revelation. It is patent that the "elaborate fiction" of the social contract, and of "human rights" without any basis in God are based upon "circular" arguments, ultimately falsehoods. One cannot ground human social relations upon a "fiction." Men never have come out from a "state of nature" or "original position" one by one--without history, without homes, without culture--and entered into a social contract. To build a civil polity upon such base has been folly.

A social contract, however, can be envisioned between communities. Although society may not be formed by a social contract between individuals, it may plausibly be "founded when members of various communities have come together in order to live in justice and peace." But that secular polity ought to be limited, finite. As Novak explains:

That society is best worked out when demands for totality are not placed upon it, but when the members of the respective communities can affirm the finite value of the social arrangement they have contracted, and are always allowed to affirm the homeland from which they come and to which they must ever return.

(p. 23)

The limited scope of the "secular space" allows the believer to "postpone discussions of their ontological/theistic/cosmic concerns when dealing with moral issues that arise in secular space." He can do so without denial of his God. But this concession demands a similar limitation on the part of the secularist:

[A]dherents of traditions thought to be nonreligious [must] postpone discussion of their non-ontological/atheistic/acosmic concerns here too. . . . For many liberals, this will mean that they can no longer insist that these cosmic concerns, which turn out to be the concerns of most natural law advocates, most of whom are religious, be denied ab initio as the price of admission to the democratic conversation. They will have to admit that these concerns could be valid. They will have to admit that these concerns are not insane illusions. And they will have to admit that these concerns are probably better satisifed by historical religions of revelation rather than by modern ideologies that construct for themselves historical metanarratives. And that would be the case whether or not any liberal cares to recognize such concerns in his or her own life, and whether or not he or she attempts to satisfy them through these religions accordingly. Moreover, they will have to be aware of the fact that all too often, when these concerns are repressed, various modern ideologies, which despise both revelation and reason, rush in to violently fill the aching vacuum.

In terms of political disccusion, liberal adherents of human rights in the modern world will have to admit the possibility at least that these cosmic concerns of those who are usually thought to be conservatives, the most immediate being the concern with natural law, could intend an external relaity and not just be hypothetical. Liberalism will, then, have to admit the possibility that human rights might lead into natural law. And since natural law thinking today is almost always being done by adherents of religions of revelation, that will include admission of the possibility of the religious background of natural law as well. But none of these requirements, I think, should be regarded by liberals as excessive, let alone outrageous, inasmuch as none of them is a requirement for conversion of any kind.

(p. 24-25)

These sorts of concessions would open up the public life to authentic human values, and would redound to the common good. It would be like opening up a window to let in air into a political process which very obviously suffocates believers. It calls for an aggiornamento by the secularist state to the values of religion and tradition. True, it might mean that the State would have less to do with re-casting marriage to satisfy the claims of an unreasonable constiuency. It might mean that the State will have less of a role, and the parents and Churches more of a role, in educating children. It may mean that the State will have less to do with funding Art. It may mean that the State would have to leave off its promotion of contraception, abortion, embryonic stem cell research. It may mean that that other "legal fiction," that supposed constitutional "wall of separation" between Church and State, will, like the Berlin wall, have to be torn down. It may mean that the Federal Government will have to begin dismantling its prodigious bureaucracy, and start implementing the principal of subsidiarity. It may mean that the believer will be freed from his secularist government's soft chains of tyranny. It may mean that religious life will flourish, and that we will become more virtuous, and less addicted to vice.

I won't hold my breath for liberals to make these kinds of concessions any time soon.