Readers of this blog know (or come to know) that natural law is an important topic. As a topic, it belongs to the wider context of law. Law and its interpretation and enforcement comes to human culture in many forms, including…
- Natural Law
- Positive Law
- Common Law
- Constitutional Law
- Legal Instrumentalism (termed by progressives as "Legal Realism")
- Legal Formalism
- Strict Constructionism
And there are others, many others, due to the breakdown of public philosophy into opposing/competing views. These topics refer to what we may call, in the broadest sense, civil law. There is also Canon Law, which refers to the system of laws that govern the operation of the Roman Catholic Church and the participation of its members in the life of the Church. There is also, and believers in an omnipotent God who is concerned with human beings will acknowledge, Divine Law.
There are at least two views of Natural Law and its relationship to Divine Law.…
But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [Jeremiah 31:33]
Thus, one view of Natural Law is that it is the part of Divine Law that is written within the heart of man. This implies that everyone with a working conscience intuitively knows that, for example, killing the innocent is evil.