1. Natural Law is the study of the rights and duties that are derived from the law of conscience. -- Law (jus) in its widest meaning is in the moral order all that is conformed to law. So considered, it is divided into moral obligation and moral power; because the law in permitting or imposing an action gives the power to take means to do the action. Moral obligation is called duty, and moral power right. If the term "law" just defined, be taken in its widest meaning, and the term of the definition in its most restricted sense, natural law, the science that considers human actions in the concrete, includes not only the rights but also the duties that are derived from the law of conscience.
2. Natural law is divided into Individual Law, Social law, and the Common Law of Nations. -- The rights and duties of man are derived simply from his nature, or they arise from society, where man is no longer considered alone, but as united with his fellow-men in the pursuit of a common end. Individual Law treats of rights and duties under the first aspect; Social Law and the Common Law of Nations consider them from the second point of view.
3. The rights and duties pertaining to individual law refer to God, to our neighbor, and to ourselves. -- Man in his own regard, and apart from society, has moral relations with God, with himself, and even with his fellow-men, inasmuch as they are united to him by a likeness of specific nature. Hence the three kinds of right and duty for man outside his social life.
4. Natural Law obliges man to acknowledge his Dependence on God as the Supreme Being, Sovereign Truth and Goodness, and to express by external actions this interior and voluntary acknowledgment of his dependence. -- The sum of the duties by which man acknowledges interiorly his dependence on his Creator and expresses this dependence in external actions is called Religion.
5. Man depending on God as Necessary Being owes him adoration. -- Man is a contingent being, and therefore depends by nature on God, who is Necessary Being. And since this dependence is natural, man should acknowledge it by adoration, which consists in attributing excellence of Being to God.
6. It is morally evil either to refuse to adore God, or to adore him in an unfitting manner, or to adore another being. -- To refuse to adore God is impiety; to adore Him in a manner that expresses false relations between God and man is superstition; to adore false gods is idolatry. Impiety, superstition, and idolatry are not only moral disorders, but are based on metaphysical absurdities; for it is intrinsically absurd that there be no Supreme Being, or that the Supreme Being be without the attributes proper to such a being, or that there be more than one Supreme Being.
7. Man depending on God as absolute Truth owes him the homage of faith. -- Man as an intelligent being is bound by his nature to adhere to the known truth and to tend to a fuller possession of that which is but imperfectly known. When, therefore, God, who is truth itself, speaks, man owes Him faith, that is, he should assent to God's word. So, too, if man, though aware that a divine revelation has been made, yet does not know the truths revealed, he is bound to make the necessary efforts to attain this knowledge.
8. The assertion of some philosophers that revelation is impossible is intrinsically absurd. -- Some philosophers pretend that God cannot speak to us; others, that so to do would be contrary to His dignity; some declare that He cannot reveal mysteries to us; others, that He cannot deny us the right to examine what He reveals; others, again, that if He makes a revelation He ought to make it in this or that way. All these pretensions are as absurd as they are impious. For why should God, the Almighty, be unable to do what a child can do, that is, manifest its ideas? How would He debase Himself by enlightening our minds, since He it was who moulded the clay of which our bodies were formed? And since our intellect is so limited that besides the mysteries of nature that meet us at every step, all is mystery in the supernatural order, why cannot God reveal to us these truths called mysteries, which although in themselves incomprehensible to us, yet enrich and elevate our intellect? But to say that if God reveals mysteries, we have the right to examine them by our reason, -- is not this admitting the absurdity that truth can be erroneous? Lastly, if God wills to speak to man, is it not unreasonable to assign Him this or that means of revelation, and to pretend, for instance, that He ought to speak to all directly and not to most men indirectly through others? All these pretensions of rationalistic philosophers are manifestly absurd, even from the standpoint of reason.
9. The assertion of some philosophers that revelation is useless is belied both by experience and by reason. -- Besides the truths which the human intellect can know naturally, there are others to which it cannot of itself attain. Since man has been raised to a supernatural state, it was necessary that God reveal supernatural truths. But it was also fitting that He should reveal even certain natural truths; for otherwise but few men would have become acquainted with them, the greater portion of mankind being prevented by their wants, their occupations, and particularly by their lack of intellectual aptitude. And even the privileged few would attain to a knowledge of these truths only with a great admixture of doubt and error, and after long and difficult studies. Moreover, history shows into what moral and religious darkness those nations, and even great geniuses, fell who were either deprived of the light of revelation or had rejected it.{1}
10. Man, depending on God as absolute Goodness, owes Him love. -- The good is amiable; but God is sovereignly good; therefore He is amiable above all other good. Besides, all other good is referred to God as the supreme good; therefore man should refer to God all other good that he loves. Lastly, man's happiness and perfection proceed from God as the supreme good; but man should seek his own perfection and happiness; therefore man should love God. If he loves God as supremely good in Himself, his love is perfect; but if he loves Him chiefly as the source of his own perfection and happiness, his love is imperfect.{2}{3}
11. Man owes God both internal and external worship. -- Man is composed of body and soul; therefore, to the interior homage of his soul he should add the exterior homage of his body. This exterior homage is a necessity because of man's twofold nature; hence at all times this external worship has been paid by all people. In the second place, man has received from God his body as well as his soul, therefore he should do homage for both. Lastly, the external actions favor the accomplishment of the internal actions which they intensify; therefore we should perform them as a help and stimulus to internal worship. Some philosophers have said that God being a pure spirit demands the homage of the heart only; but they have not reflected that the necessity of external worship is founded in the inviolable order of nature, the maintenance of which God must necessarily require. In other words, it is a necessity not for God, who is self-existent, but for man, who is essentially dependent.{4}
12. Public worship is due to God. -- Society, or the union of men for a common good, must necessarily be directed to the sovereign good. But to labor together for the acquisition of the sovereign good, men must so act that all the members of society seek to possess it. For this end it must be made known to them and revered by them; to make known the supreme good is to praise it; to have it revered is to have all depend on it, subjecting all things to it, and sacrificing to it all sensible good. Therefore a public worship consisting chiefly in praise and sacrifice is due to God from society. Besides, as without external worship internal homage soon fails for want of support, so without public worship religion fast disappears from society and its constituent members. Since, then, society cannot subsist without religion, public worship is a duty no less from the stand-point of social order than from that of our relations with God.
{1} The objection that the revelation of mysteries to be believed impedes the progress of the human intellect must be categorically denied. Since the object of the intellect is truth, the progress of the human intellect must be measured by the fulness and perfection in which it possesses the truth. Though the nature of mysteries is beyond man's comprehension, yet the facts or truths so revealed often throw much light upon truths of the merely natural order.
{2} Kant affirms that God is transcendental being, meaning thereby to insinuate that He is beyond the reach of human reason whence he infers that man cannot possibly love God. But he fails to digtinguish between comprehensive or adequate love and adhesive or inadequate love. Cf. Zigliara, M., 33, viii.
{3} The love that man owes to God does not impose on him an obligation of always actually thinking of Him, but only of acting in virtue of that first intention that has God and eternal happiness in view.
{4} The Manichees rejected external worship, on the ground that the human body proceeds from a supreme principle of evil. A like opposition to external worship has been manifested by some members of the Eclectic French school, and is consistent with the principles of German Transcendentalism. Cf. Zigliara, M., 34, iii.