Philosophies of Nature

by Phillip Campbell
One of the tragedies of modernity is that not only has Christian culture been displaced, but even the
very vocabulary of our Christian heritage has been jettisoned or redefined. A classic example is the
concept of "free will", which in Catholic Tradition means man's capacity to act of his own volition
without internal coercion. In the mind of the modern post-Christian, however, free will usually is
the belief that human beings are morally free to engage in any behavior they wish, so long as they
are "following their heart". Thus, all sorts of behaviors seen as sins in Catholic Tradition become
expressions of man's "free will" in the secularist's view. The traditional term is redefined to mean
something completely different from the classical understanding. In this essay, we will examine
what nature means in the Catholic Tradition and how contemporary society has utterly redefined
what it means to "act in accord with nature."
What is Nature?
A similar fate has befallen the terms 'nature' and 'natural.' This is of no mere academic interest, for
what is or is not "natural", and what that implies, is extremely pertinent in the moral debates of our
day. For example, when two homosexuals attempting to contract marriage suggest that their love is
"natural", what does this mean, and how is a Catholic to respond? Or when evolutionarysociologists say that man is not monogamous "by nature", how is his usage of the term "nature"
different than the Catholic usage? These distinctions are important in the moral and cultural
controversies of our age.
There have been many different definitions of nature, each nuanced depending on whether one
consults the Eastern or Western Fathers, the pagan Roman moralists or the Greek philosophers. But
setting aside these various regional distinctions, a generally agreed upon definition would be
that nature is that which causes a thing to be what it is. Understood such, it is an ontologicalmetaphysical concept, not a scientific one; you cannot isolate "nature" under a microscope. Nature
is an organizing principle that gives a particular form to a being. In Aristotelean terms, nature is
related to form. The world is made up of an undifferentiated mass of matter; it is the form which
gives organization and cohesion to matter, making it this particular being and not something other.
As such, it is innate in things - something they are born with. Hence the word, nature, derived from
the Latin nasci and natus, to be born).
However, though nature is something innate in us, we must not confuse it with the mass of
appetites and instincts that come with any creature. Our working definition of nature is that which
causes a thing to be what it is. In Scholastic terminology, this is sometimes called
thesubstance or essence of a thing. So when looking at human nature, for example, we are not simply
asking "What characteristics are humans born with?", but "What characteristics are part of the
essence of humanity? What is the unique characteristic feature of human beings that differentiates
them from other creatures?" Therefore, while human beings are born with the need for sleep, this is
not, properly speaking, the essence of being human, simply because humans share sleep in common

with all other animals. If we are looking for a definition of human nature, we must look at that
which makes us what we are; i.e., what is distinctively human?
In the classical tradition, what sets humans apart from other animals is the rational intellect. Hence
the classical definition of man as a "rational animal." Man possesses many other faculties in
common with the other animals - mobility, reproduction, communication, sexual desire, etc. - but
his reason is unique to him. Therefore, the most appropriate characteristic of human nature is the
possession and use of reason. This is why Aristotle and the Thomists said that the soul is the form
of the body; it is because of the rational soul that a human being is human; in other words, that he is
what he is.
To Act in Accord with Nature
From a moral perspective then, what does it mean to 'act in accord with nature'? In the traditional
view, acting in accord with nature means exercising right reason in our moral conduct and our
intellectual pursuits. This is what virtue consists of - acting in accord with right reason habitually.
Thus, for the Catholic, to act in accord with nature means to pursue virtue.
Contrast this with the modern concept of 'nature.' The modern definition retains the classical
concept of nature as that which is innate, but fails to see it as formative. In other words, 'human
nature' becomes simply what human beings do "on their own" without reference to what makes
people distinctly human. The search for a uniquely characteristic feature of humanity is lost. If this
is the case, then it follows that any action that comes "naturally" to a person is in accordance with
"nature". Thus, for the modern, to "act in accord with nature" means to do what comes naturally.
If this is accepted, a whole slew of vices suddenly become "natural" acts. Men naturally experiences
intense movement of the sexual appetites, and since it is "natural" to gratify these, the fulfillment of
sexual desire, even in homosexual acts, becomes "natural"; romantic love between members of the
same sex becomes natural. It becomes natural for a man to lust after multiple women, and in fact
unnatural to assume man can be content with one wife, since monogamy requires moral restraint.
Gluttony, greed, drunkenness - anything that can be justified as arising from a "natural" urge
becomes morally licit. And in such a climate, we cannot speak of absolute rights and wrongs in
moral acts, because the final criterion of what is right and natural is whether or not we are
"following our heart."
Contrast this with the classical view. In the classical Catholic view, to act in accord with nature
means to act by virtue of that characteristic which is uniquely human: reason. This often means that
acting in accord with nature may be difficult, because we have to overcome our lower passions to
act in accord with reason. In the contemporary view, to act in accord with nature is to do what
comes naturally or easily. Rather than overcoming our lower appetites, we are encouraged to hand
ourselves over to them, satisfy them, and even identify ourselves by them. In the contemporary
view, it is easy to do what is natural, because "nature" is simply the mass of undifferentiated
passions, instincts, and appetites possessed by every man and animal in common.

It is important to bear this distinction in mind, especially when we are discussing the great moral
questions of our day with people who hold to this severely reductionist view of nature. If we fail to
understand how the concept of nature has been twisted, we lose the debate before it begins,
because we are arguing with terms provided to us by a morally bankrupt modernity.