The Accessibility of God's Law and the Concept of Natural Law

Friends, in our first reading from the book of Deuteronomy this week, Moses says to the people, “For this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you. . . . No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.” This is a master text for what we call in the Catholic tradition “the natural law.” It means that there is within us a kind of deep moral intuition by which we know the right thing to do; there are intuitions of value that give us a sense of meaning, purpose, and direction in life.