Ran across an interesting, to me, ontological argument yesterday. Thought you might have something to offer to my thinking about it.
The speaker was talking about sources of law. For the religious, it's easy -- law comes from God. But for the nonreligious, it's not so easy. If we make it up totally out of our brains, then every law is equally just, and Saddam's laws are every bit as just as US laws; since there is nothing to judge them against except personal opinion, there is no way to say that one is better than another.
So comes the concept of natural law. But where does natural law come from? If it isn't just to be another name for making it up as we go along, it has to have existed before and outside of the beginning of human thought, whether or not you accept the evolutionary or creationist theory of the beginning of human thought. But then, how did it originate? The argument becomes that God is that power which created natural law. But you can't have natural law without a creator of natural law.
Sort of a prime mover argument, but brought down to an area, the rule of law, in which the non-religious claim that they have legitimate beliefs. |
