3.1 God's Laws
The Characteristics of Natural Law
Natural law is the law of God.
It is the only law truly necessary for happiness, because it shows what must be done and what must be avoided. Whenever human beings depart from it, they bring suffering upon themselves.
God’s law is eternal and unchanging, just as God is eternal and unchanging. It does not pass from age to age through correction or improvement. Human laws are altered because human beings are imperfect and must revise what they have made. Divine law, by contrast, is perfect from the beginning.
The harmony of the material universe and the moral universe rests on laws established forever. Nothing in creation exists outside this order.
The Scope of Divine Law
Divine law includes all the laws of nature, because God is the source of all things.
Some laws govern inert matter, its movements, and its properties. These are physical laws, and their study belongs to science.
Others concern human beings more directly: their relation to God, their relation to one another, and the conduct of bodily and spiritual life. These are moral laws.
Divine law is therefore broader than moral conduct alone, though morality is among its highest expressions. The same wisdom that orders matter also governs conscience, duty, and the life of the soul.
Those who study nature seek the laws of matter. Those who seek moral truth learn and practice the laws of the soul. Both belong to one universal order.
Human Progress in Understanding Law
Human beings are capable of understanding both physical and moral laws, yet a single existence is not enough to know them fully.
The distance between a primitive condition and a civilized one already shows how limited one lifetime is for so great a task. Even a long life would not suffice to acquire all that belongs to a perfected being, and many lives end before ordinary development is complete.
Understanding unfolds gradually. Knowledge of the world and knowledge of moral truth are gained little by little, through continued progress.
Divine Laws and Different Worlds
Divine laws are universal in their origin, yet their application is suited to the nature of each world.
Reason shows that they must be proportioned to the degree of advancement of the beings who inhabit them. The same divine order governs all worlds, while the conditions of life, the level of development, and the form of experience vary according to each realm.
What remains constant is the source of the law. It is always divine, always wise, and always directed toward order, progress, and the good.
The Origin and Knowledge of Natural Law
God has given every human being the means of knowing the divine law.
All can know it, though not all understand it equally. Those who are morally sincere and who truly wish to examine it understand it best. Yet this understanding is not reserved forever to a few. In time, everyone comes to understand, because such knowledge is necessary for progress.
This helps explain the justice of multiple incarnations. Across successive lives, intelligence develops, and with that development comes a clearer grasp of good and evil. If everything had to be accomplished in a single earthly existence, countless human beings would be condemned by circumstances beyond their control—by ignorance, harsh conditions, or lack of opportunity for enlightenment. Repeated lives allow the law to be gradually recognized and freely embraced.
Before union with the body, the soul perceives God’s law according to its degree of perfection. After incarnation, it retains an intuitive memory of that law, but this memory is often obscured. Human beings do not lose the law completely; rather, they forget it under the pressure of lower instincts and material influences.
God’s law is written in the conscience.
For that reason, the deepest moral truth is not something foreign imposed from outside. It is inwardly present. Yet conscience can be ignored, dulled, or distorted. Human beings have often forgotten or neglected what they carry within themselves, and so they need to be reminded of what they already bear in principle.
The Need for Revelation
Although divine law is inscribed in conscience, revelation still has a necessary role. Human beings do not always listen to conscience clearly, nor do they always interpret it rightly. God therefore wills that they be recalled to the law through instruction.
In every age, certain individuals have received the mission of revealing the divine law. These are elevated spirits who incarnate in order to help humanity advance. Their task is not to invent truth, but to make it clearer, restore what has been obscured, and call people back to what is just.
Not everyone who claims such a mission truly possesses it. Many have led others astray, whether through ambition, self-deception, or attachment to false principles. Some have assumed divine authority for themselves when they were not genuinely inspired. Even so, truth has often appeared amid their errors, because remarkable minds may perceive important fragments of reality without possessing the whole.
True prophets can be recognized by their moral character, their words, and their deeds. A genuine messenger of God does not teach truth through falsehood. The moral quality of the person matters. One who is ruled by deceit cannot be a trustworthy bearer of divine law.
Natural Law Before Jesus
Divine law and natural law were not unknown before the coming of Jesus.
They are written everywhere. From the earliest times, those who seriously reflected on wisdom were able to perceive and teach them. Their teachings were often incomplete, but they prepared minds to receive fuller understanding later. Because divine law is inscribed in the book of nature, human beings can discover it whenever they sincerely seek to understand.
For this reason, the principles of moral law have appeared among noble souls in every age. Elements of that law can be found in the moral teachings of all cultures that have risen above barbarism, even when those elements were mixed with superstition, ignorance, or error. Truth has often appeared in partial and veiled forms before being expressed more clearly.
Why Further Teaching Is Given
If Jesus taught the law of God, further spiritual teaching still has value.
Much of what Jesus taught was expressed through allegory and parable, in a form suited to the people, place, and time in which he spoke. The truth must later be made more intelligible to broader humanity. Divine law therefore requires fuller explanation and development, not because it changes, but because human understanding advances.
There are always many who do not understand, and even fewer who put the law into practice. Clearer teaching serves to awaken those who are asleep in pride or self-deception. It strips away hypocrisy, especially in those who display religion outwardly while concealing corruption within.
Spiritual teaching must therefore be clear enough that no one can excuse wrongdoing by claiming ignorance. It must also be open to examination, so that each person may judge it with reason rather than blind submission. The purpose is not to create arbitrary authority, but to prevent the law of God from being bent to suit human passions. Divine law is wholly founded on love and charity, and it must not be distorted into a tool of domination.
Why Truth Appears Gradually
Truth has not always been accessible in the same degree.
Everything comes in its proper time. Truth resembles light: the eye must become accustomed to it gradually, or else it is dazzled. Humanity receives according to its stage of development.
In ancient times, only a small number possessed what they regarded as sacred knowledge, and they often kept it hidden from those they considered unprepared. The communications they received were usually fragmentary and clothed in symbolism. As a result, ancient philosophies, traditions, and religions often preserved genuine insights, but these were mixed with ambiguity, embellishment, and misunderstanding.
Even so, they should not be dismissed. Each contains seeds of great truths. Though they may seem contradictory on the surface, many become more understandable when read in light of a broader spiritual understanding. What once appeared unreasonable may later be recognized as a distorted or partial expression of realities now more clearly known.
For that reason, ancient systems of thought deserve study. They are rich in instruction and can contribute greatly to human education. Beneath their symbolic language and inherited forms, they often preserve fragments of the same natural law that conscience, reason, and higher revelation all affirm.
Conscience, Progress, and Moral Awakening
Natural law is at once inwardly present and gradually unveiled.
It lives in conscience, survives in the soul as an intuitive memory, appears in nature, and speaks through wise and moral teachers. Yet human beings do not grasp it all at once. Knowledge of the law unfolds with moral growth, intellectual development, and repeated opportunities for learning.
No one is excluded forever from this understanding. Some perceive it sooner because they seek it more sincerely and live more uprightly. Others resist it, obscure it, or misuse it. But progress continues, and the law remains the same: a law of love, charity, and the steady elevation of the soul toward what is good.
Good and Evil
Morality is the rule of good conduct. It is the ability to distinguish between good and evil.
Its foundation lies in obedience to God’s law. Human beings act rightly when they work for the good of all, because in doing so they follow that law.
Good is everything that accords with God’s law. Evil is everything that departs from it.
To do good is to act in harmony with that law. To do evil is to violate it.
Human beings are not left without guidance in making this distinction. They possess within themselves the means to discern good from evil, provided they turn sincerely toward God and truly wish to know what is right. Intelligence has been given to them for this very purpose.
Even so, human judgment can be clouded by error, self-interest, or passion. A sure rule remains: do unto others what you would want them to do unto you. In this principle of reciprocity and solidarity lies a reliable summary of moral duty. Whoever follows it faithfully will not go astray.
Natural Law and the Measure of Need
Moral guidance does not apply only to relations with others. Natural law also provides a rule for a person’s conduct toward self.
Excess carries its own correction. When someone eats beyond what is needed, the body suffers. In that suffering is a warning that the proper limit has been crossed. The same principle applies more broadly. Natural law sets a measure for human needs, and whenever that measure is exceeded, pain follows.
Much of human suffering arises from refusing to listen to the inward warning that says, enough. If that voice were more often obeyed, many ills wrongly blamed on nature would be avoided.
Why Moral Evil Exists
Moral evil does not exist because human beings were created incapable of good. Spirits are created simple and ignorant, and they advance through freedom and experience.
Each person must choose a path. If the wrong one is taken, the journey becomes longer and more painful. Yet this possibility is inseparable from growth. Without obstacles, there would be no real understanding of effort, ascent, resistance, or victory. The spirit must learn through experience, and for that reason it comes to know both good and evil while united with a body.
One Law, Different Conditions
Human situations vary. Social positions, times, places, and circumstances create different conditions of life and therefore different needs.
This diversity does not abolish the unity of natural law. The law remains one in principle and applies to all. Differences of condition belong to the order of progress itself.
For that reason, it is important to distinguish between real needs and fictitious or conventional ones. What is truly necessary may differ according to circumstance, but the moral law governing the use of those necessities does not change.
The Absoluteness of Good and Evil and the Relativity of Responsibility
Good is always good, and evil is always evil, regardless of rank, culture, or social condition.
What changes is not the moral nature of the act, but the degree of responsibility involved in it. Evil depends especially on the will that consents to it. The more clearly a person understands what ought to be done, the greater the responsibility for doing otherwise.
Circumstances therefore affect guilt without changing the essential distinction between right and wrong. A person acting from primitive instinct may be less blameworthy than an enlightened person who commits a smaller injustice with full awareness. The act remains wrong in both cases, but responsibility is greater where understanding is greater.
Even when evil seems bound up with necessity, it does not cease to be evil. Necessity lessens as the soul is purified across successive lives. As understanding grows, accountability deepens. An act once committed in ignorance becomes more serious when repeated with clearer knowledge.
Shared Responsibility for Evil
Responsibility does not rest only on the one who directly performs a wrongful act.
Whoever causes another to do evil bears responsibility for having led that person into it. The one induced into wrongdoing may be less culpable than the one who created the situation, pressure, or temptation. Yet both remain accountable. No one suffers only for the evil personally committed, but also for the evil caused in others.
The same principle applies to those who profit from wrong without having carried it out themselves. To take advantage of evil is to participate in it. Even if a person would have shrunk from the act itself, approval is shown by accepting its fruits. In that approval lies moral complicity.
Desire, Resistance, and Omission
The mere desire for evil is not judged in every case in the same way.
When a person sincerely resists a wrongful desire, especially when there is an opportunity to satisfy it, that resistance has moral value. There is virtue in the struggle itself. But if the desire remains unfulfilled only because the occasion never arose, guilt still remains, since the will had already consented.
Moral duty does not end with refraining from wrong. It is not enough simply to avoid evil.
Each person must also do good to the extent possible. Human beings are answerable not only for the evil they commit, but also for the good they fail to do. Neglected duty has consequences. Harm may arise not merely from malicious action, but from useful action withheld.
No one is completely deprived of the possibility of doing good. Only selfishness makes it seem so. Wherever there is contact with others, there is opportunity to be useful. Doing good includes charity, but it is not limited to charity. It also means becoming as helpful as possible whenever help is needed.
Vice, Temptation, and Moral Strength
Harmful surroundings do exert influence. Many are drawn into vice and crime by the atmosphere in which they live.
Yet such influence is never absolutely irresistible. Temptation may be powerful, but freedom is not destroyed. Even in corrupt surroundings, great virtue can appear. Some spirits possess the strength to resist and, at the same time, the mission of exerting a beneficial influence on those around them.
Difficult circumstances may therefore become a trial through which resistance acquires merit. A spirit may even have chosen such a test before earthly life, precisely in order to face temptation and gain the value of overcoming it.
Degrees of Merit in Doing Good
Not every good deed has the same moral worth.
Its merit depends largely on the difficulty involved, on the sacrifice it requires, and on the self-denial it expresses. When doing good costs nothing, its merit is smaller. When it asks for renunciation, courage, or personal loss, it is greater.
For that reason, a poor person who shares the only piece of bread may show more true generosity than a rich person who gives merely from abundance. What matters is not the outward size of the gift, but the inward cost and sincerity of the act.
God weighs the heart, the effort, and the love behind the deed.
The Divisions of Natural Law
Natural law embraces the whole of human life.
Love of one’s neighbor expresses human duties toward others in a powerful and essential way, but it does not by itself set out every application of those duties. People need more than a general principle. They need guidance that reaches the many situations of life, because broad and undefined precepts can be interpreted too loosely and easily neglected.
For that reason, natural law may be divided into distinct parts. Such a division helps make its requirements clearer in practice.
A traditional division presents natural law in ten parts:
- Worship
- Labor
- Reproduction
- Preservation
- Destruction
- Society
- Progress
- Equality
- Liberty
- Justice, Love, and Charity
This arrangement covers the circumstances of life in a useful and comprehensive way. Its value lies in its ability to gather the demands of moral life into an ordered whole.
No classification of this kind is absolute. Every system of division depends to some degree on the point of view from which the subject is considered. The order and grouping may vary, yet the law itself remains one.
Among these ten parts, the law of justice, love, and charity stands highest in importance. Through it, human beings can advance farthest in spiritual life, because it gathers up and fulfills all the others.
Justice gives each person what is due. Love widens the heart beyond self-interest. Charity turns goodwill into active care for others. When these are lived together, the rest of natural law finds its truest expression.