TheRealIssue
Issue#1, Mar 2004
What We Can't Not Know: A Guide
Book
by J. Budziszewski
Government and Philosophy
University of Texas, Austin
Review by Phillip Johnson
Emeritus Professor of Law
Universityof California, Berkeley
Although relativists may scoff at the concept of natural law, in the end even they have to rely on some moral principle that they claim to be self-evident, even if it is only that “you have no right to impose your beliefs on me.” Why not?
Jay Budziszewski, professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas, has written the best book on natural law since C.S. Lewis’s classic “The Abolition of Man.” He explains in plain language how there can be basic moral principles that we can’t avoid knowing even if we are not always consciously aware of them or have constructed elaborate mechanisms of evasion and denial to avoid facing the enormity of our guilt.
An outstanding feature of “What We Can’t Not Know” is that it unites the natural law with the law revealed in Scripture. The Ten Commandments and the two-part summary of the law revealed by Jesus in both Matthew 22 and Luke 10 provide the intersection where the natural and the revealed law meet.
At a deep level we all know that we ought to love our creator unreservedly and our neighbors as we do ourselves. This two-part summary is amplified in the Ten Commandments.
The first three or four of the commandments outline our duties to God, and the remainder or “Second Tablet” points to the duties we owe to our neighbors. Thus the basic elements of the revealed law reflect and confirm what the apostle Paul described as the law written on the hearts of believers and unbelievers alike.
Budziszewski explains movingly how the law is known to us through the operation of deep conscience and our observation of consequences, in the context of the knowledge we have that we and our world are designed by a creator who loves us and wishes to provide for our common good.
The bottom line is that this is the book to read whether you love the natural law or don’t believe it exists. I wish every college student could take a course in this subject from this teacher.
