When I was 25 years old, I proudly served on the USS Virginia as a Junior Officer. Looking back now, 50 years later, it was one of the best years of my life. I qualified as Officer of The Day Underway, I was taught to sail by Master Chief Fred Wright, and probably most importantly, I was sent four books to read while “out to sea” by my father—Anna Karinina, War and Peace, Tale of Two Cities, and Man of La Macha. Tolstoy, Dickens, and Cervantes. Does it get any better than that?
As I have revisited those old friends over the past 50 years, meanings of words, phrases and paragraphs, have changed, but the message of the themes remains constant. Great ideas are about great truths, and they talk to all of our experiences throughout all the ages.
Let me give one example about how the meaning of words changed with experiences that may be familiar to most people from my age. In the movie Dr. Zhivago as the good doctor is coming home from the “Western front” his wagon is confronted by a group of blood thirsty Bolshevick’s. They want to detain and maybe kill the occupants of the wagon. The driver shouts “the doctor is a gentleman” which when I was 25, I assumed to mean the doctor was a “good guy”. Today I now know those words to mean the “doctor is the enemy”—he was an aristocrat and enemy of the State.
I read ANNA again several months ago. I was reminded of the connection between Levin’s, the protagonist in the novel whose life in my opinion may have reflected the author’s. Not unlike the Apostle Paul’s, St. Thomas Aquianas’s, or John Locke’s ideas about the NATURAL LAW—paraphrasing Locke—A law imprinted in the hears of all men made known through the faculties of reason (and most importantly—jl) revelation.
The thoughts about “The Natural Law and Biblical Truths was reflected in The Wall Street Journal on August 15th by Mr. Garry Saul Morson, a professor in Slavic studies at Northwestern. I will attempt to paraphrase and consolidate his words to align them with the other great men and Saints mentioned above. Thanks to my newfound friend PERPLEXITY.
“Tolstoy challenges us to consider why someone would need a “general principle” to decide something as instinctive as how to hold a child. Levin struggles because, like many intellectuals, he sees truth as a theory to be applied to specific situations. This works in math, but ethics and meaning require wisdom gained from reflecting on individual cases and trusting experience.
Levin’s insight comes when a peasant explains why he won’t rent land: because exploiting workers is wrong, as one must live for the soul and for God. Levin realizes that fundamental knowledge of right and wrong is not derived from reason or theory but is simply “given” and undeniable.
Goodness has no causes or effects—its truth stands regardless of explanations, such as evolutionary benefits or rewards. Seeking rewards reduces goodness to a mere transaction, which misses its essence. Levin finally sees that the miracle he sought was always present, surrounding him unnoticed. Finding “goodness and truth” requires both deductive and inductive reasoning.
He understands that meaning is not taught through theory but sensed by living rightly, something Tolstoy’s novels reveal by example rather than argument. That precisely reflects the ideas of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia who believed—that the natural law reflects the importance of objective moral standards that transcend human laws. These standards are derived from human nature (“reason and revelation”—jml) and are believed to be universal and immutable. By anchoring legal interpretation in these fundamental truths, Scalia argued that judges could reach more just and stable decisions that align with the natural order. Scalia more than any other modern day Supreme Court Justice believed those truths were grounded in the Biblical Truths and The Natural Law that was reflected in our Founding Documents and the writings of our Founding Fathers.
Throughout all the ages, and in all locals, the Natural Law has been known and has been always operative. When I hear Mr. Trump make us of the term “COMMON SENSE” I believe in more than a few cases the term NATURAL LAW can be substituted.
The behavior and the ideas of many on the left are in my opinion contradictory to NATURAL LAW PRINCIPLES.
Murder, stealing, looting, land taking, transfer payments with politicians interceding as agents between government (principle) and object, (citizen) is always wrong though in some cases the act may be legal—an inconsistency that would certainly concern Judge Scalia.
Natural Law and Biblical Law has always been operative and will always remain operative. So, say all the great thinkers throughout all of history. From Moses—to Jesus—to Aquinas—to Magna Carta—to Jefferson—to Reegan—to Scalia—to Trump—PS put Tolstoy in there also.
“As it was in the beginning, it is now, and ever shall be…”
