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By Root 796 0

to be considered valid? After all, if the consequence of not obeying a law is imprisonment, then we will obey that law regardless of whether it is valid or not. The answer is because, like Khrushchev’s corn plan, every time the government’s commands flout the Natural Law, evil occurs, and we lose sight of the dream which our Founders enshrined for us in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We must hold the government accountable for its violations of our natural rights if we are ever to have liberty. As Jefferson once said, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” And as St. Augustine said and St. Thomas Aquinas taught, “An unjust law is no law at all.”1

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This Congress Hereby Declares Gravity to Be Illegal: It Is Too Much of a Downer

Before we can discuss what precisely the Natural Law encompasses, we must examine its basis in the Eternal Law. The Eternal Law can essentially be thought of as those laws which govern the functioning of the universe, such as the laws of physics, anatomy, chemistry, mathematics, and biology. These laws are imprinted into the very order and nature of things. As an example, molecules of water can only ever be comprised of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Change that composition, and you no longer have water. Moreover, the laws of chemistry also dictate that when water is cooled to below thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, its molecular structure shifts, and it turns into ice. Whether one thinks of these laws as scientific rules, or the product of the divine and infallible will of God, it cannot change the following: These “truths” are immutable, and the universe is and always will be subject to them.

Furthermore, these rules are self-evident, which is to say that although we may attempt to understand their workings, their truthfulness requires no explanation or proof. When humans study science, they are essentially trying to recognize and explain those rules to which we are subject, and thus be able to predict the future outcome of an interaction between two or more “things.” The field of medicine, for example, tries to understand how a bacterial infection will respond to a particular antibiotic. If we do so, then we can know when and under what circumstances a particular antibody should be prescribed to restore the body to its normal, healthy state. We are therefore operating within the Eternal Law; and as any scientist will tell you, scientific rules don’t change. Only man-made theories for what those rules are and how they operate may change.

However, without an explanation or understanding, those rules remain just as “true”: Penicillin will combat certain infections, and gravity will always pull things toward the center of the earth, regardless of whether or not we understand how. In other words, explanation and human understanding cannot make those truths more “true”: They rely on nothing human for their existence. If they did, then they would change along with all of the vagaries in taste and flaws in reasoning of the human mind. Thus, these laws transcend the temporal human mind and all of its imperfections. Although this may seem abstract now, it will make more sense when we explore other kinds of laws which do require an explanation for their truth, and a basis for their existence.

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Consider what would happen if, based upon legislative findings that gravity was causing too many injuries to falling senior citizens, Congress declared that henceforth all things shall fall at a slower speed. Clearly, this would not change the way that matter interacts with gravity, and thus the manner in which the universe functions. Rather, it would just distort other (man-made) calculations of the force of gravity: Although gravitational force would no doubt be calculated at lower numbers due to Congress’s laws, falling would hurt just as much. Consequently, we would sadly have just as many injured senior citizens as we did before, but we would have the illusion that Congress was doing something positive to protect seniors.

It would be equally ridiculous if Congress