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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Friday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
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Gospel text (Lk 12:54-59): Jesus said to the crowds, “(...) You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time? “Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? (...)”

"Positivism" and "Natural Law"

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, it’s easier to predict the weather than it is to discern what is just. The growth in judicial positivism (what is just is what is permitted by the law), has marginalized the classical “Natural Law” as being a doctrine typical of Catholicism.

“Positivism” considers nature as a set of objective data connected together by cause and effect. Based on this concept which is purely functional (from the natural sciences), one cannot establish a bridge between our nature (existence) and ethics (what should be); only functional explanations can be derived. At the same time, what is not verifiable cannot be part of the realm of reason. In this way morality and religion would become entirely subjective (outside of the realm of strictly reason), forming a subculture. But, can man really be reduced to mere mechanical functions?

— Positive reason, which only perceives functionality, in some way has parallels with buildings of solid concrete without windows in which we can manage our own light and climate without wanting to receive these same things from God's big wide world.