The Truth Will Set Us Free
Abstract
Human beings have endeavored to discover the true nature of reality for thousands of years. Despite our efforts to determine the best practices for maximum human flourishing and harmony, our disagreements have often led to significant division and conflict. Our existence is largely characterized by the evolving nature of our moral convictions and ethical principles, which is reflected in the evolving nature of our systems of law and governance. In western civilization, these principles have grown from the soils of the theory of natural law; a widely contested and controversial theory due to its inherent obscurities and challenges. In spite of the persistent difficulties which inhibit our understanding and consensus, I argue that the theory of natural law can be conceived in light of pure reason, and it is this perspective which provides the strongest foundation for our surest moral convictions and deepest ethical principles. If peace within and among societies is the ultimate goal for humankind, then embracing the truth of the natural law is our most efficient path toward achieving that goal.
I. Introduction
This world is a mysterious, complicated, and often dangerous place. It has not been without significant struggle and sacrifice that our species evolved across the planet to become the internationally connected civilization that it is today. Trials in nature teach us how to survive, relations between people teach us how to live, and struggles for power illuminate what it means to live peacefully and well. Today, rivalries between nuclear-powered nations, combative conflict between others, political tension, environmental degradation, the rise of artificial intelligence, and developing trends in our technological capabilities are a few of many things that pose worldwide ethical concerns and moral questions about how we can best take care of ourselves, each other, and this planet we all share. Finding and establishing a general agreement that fosters productive dialogue, meaningful action, and positive change is one of our greatest challenges. I argue that the theory of natural law, when adapted through reason and logic-based understanding, illuminates a path through the world’s most painful obscurities and oppressive darknesses toward one that is truly just, peaceful, and harmonious.
The theory of natural law’s development through the Medieval period largely grounded it in religious understanding, providing its explanation through a theological framework. By separating the theory of natural law from this basis and choosing to approach it through reason instead, its greater implications and calls to action become clearer. Tracking its development from ancient times to our modern day, I analyze its influence on cultural beliefs about human rights and the role of government, then explain how we can understand the theory of natural law as a theory of necessary truths. I compare it to its modern opposition, and demonstrate the dangers posed by accepting legal positivism as opposed to the natural law. I offer a theoretical link between the theory of natural law and world peace, evaluate how it has motivated positive change, and respond to its most common critiques including the problems of relativism and interpretation. Finally, I illustrate how the natural law points us in the direction of truth, morality, and the individual and collective responsibilities we have to ourselves and each other. When embraced both individually and institutionally, the theory of natural law can deliver us to the greatest possibility for humankind where the liberties and dignities of every person are upheld in every dimension of life.
II. Historical Context
The theory of natural law holds roots in Ancient Greece, whose early philosophers laid its foundation on the notion of inherent, universal principles in nature and reason. In Plato’s Republic, the philosopher posits the existence of objective, immutable truths in morality and justice. In his Theory of Forms, Plato suggests that true knowledge exists in a higher, non-material realm beyond our world of sensory experience, and any ideal nation state would base its laws on these eternal, unchanging principles. Aristotle offered similar views, arguing on behalf of the universe’s natural order which can be understood through reason. Stoic philosophers also espoused universal principles, and encouraged that human beings should live according to this rational order. The stoic philosopher and Roman statesman Cicero said, “True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting.” In the Medieval period, the theory of natural law converged with the divine law, or the law of God. St. Thomas Aquinas famously synthesized the natural law with Christian theology, and argued that man-made laws should reflect the divine law, emphasizing our natural inclination to pursue the good. During the Enlightenment era, thinkers like John Locke used the natural law to argue on behalf of human rights, insisting that every person is endowed with equal, inherent rights to life and liberty. Immanuel Kant focused on the ethics of autonomy and duty as they relate to universal moral norms, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau promoted the notion that the general will of the people should guide government decisions on the basis of preserving and protecting their natural rights and the natural order of the world.
It’s development has been dynamic and controversial, but the common thread that strings its many perspectives together is the principle of universal and unbreakable truths. The theory of natural law played a significant role in influencing the founders of the United States of America, and later became the bedrock for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. For thousands of years, the theory of natural law has paved humanity’s way toward thinking critically about the nature of reality and our existence within it, and how people and societies ought to be structured to achieve lasting peace. The difficulty lies in its obscure connection to the notion of God, which tends to burn the bridge between the theory and its practical applications, especially in the age of scientific rationalism and pragmatism. For many, the theory errs on the side of mystical, leaving little to no stepping stones across the river of our understanding. Contrary to how the theory of natural law is most often interpreted, however, it can be viewed and embraced through a framework that does not rely on theological reasoning. By understanding the theory through reason alone, the natural law provides a basis to navigating our most challenging existential qualms.
III. The Natural Law: A Reasoned Understanding
If there are certain universal principles that cannot be changed or broken, then there are certain parameters that determine what is and isn’t possible in reality. Based on experiments of trial and error, we’ve figured out at least some of those determinations. They exist as arithmetic and geometric truths in mathematics, as conceptual and semantic truths in logic, and as the universal laws of physics, such as the laws of gravity, thermodynamics, energy and motion. The natural law is the set of fundamental maxims which are and remain true regardless of contingent evidence or understanding. Their existence is self-evident; they are true in themselves. It is impossible for these laws to be untrue at any given time or place; they persist always and everywhere, and they don’t require human understanding to do so. For these reasons, natural laws are necessary truths, and their existence within reality plays a role in the existence of reality itself. If any of these principles were different than what they are, reality would be different, too. Because they are true in themselves, they do not require human knowledge to exist. In this way, these truths ultimately go beyond any human language or semantic framework.
Gravity is a great example of a necessary truth that goes beyond human awareness. We didn’t have a word or any formal calculations for gravity until the work of Isaac Newton, who pushed the study of physics into the age of classical relativity, but that didn’t negate its presence throughout the world and universe beforehand. The advent of quantum mechanics adds confusion to this puzzle, and we have yet to determine how gravity works on the quantum scale of the universe. Establishing a theory that unites classical relativity with quantum mechanics is a challenge in contemporary physics, but our lack of comprehension does not negate the functions of gravity itself. We can name it anything we want and craft whatever written symbols we please in order to represent its calculations, and none of it holds bearing on the ultimate nature of its force. It is and remains true independent of our human conceptions.
Though these truths can be at least somewhat known through verifiable experiments and testable calculations in the physical world, its relationship to our moral conceptions is harder to determine. The nature of good and evil is often a gray area, both in theory and in practice. If we accept that killing people is morally wrong, then we strive to protect human life rather than harm it. In a situation where one’s life is threatened by another, however, self-defense may provide a moral justification for causing harm if it prevents another harm. The ambiguity and relative nature of morality speaks for itself in an endless number of varied circumstances. We’ve been debating morality for as long as we’ve been debating the nature of reality, and it comes through in different moral theories, from deontological ethics to utilitarianism to consequentialism. The subjective and obscure nature of morality, however, does not negate its fundamental truths. Rather, this nature precisely demonstrates the truth that we are conscious agents of active choice and change influenced by our moral understandings of right and wrong. We are active participants in a shared reality where actions have consequences. If morality was as cut and dry as the laws of physics, it would be impossible to commit injustices and cause harm to one another. It would also be impossible to help each other, and to take action that alleviates our individual and collective suffering. Just as we cannot escape the laws of the physical world, we cannot escape the moral laws that describe how we function in relation to one another. The theory of natural law holds that morality is indeed ambiguous and subjective. Maintaining this understanding points us toward the necessity of collaboration, cooperation, and compromise within and among societies in order to achieve maximum social harmony.
IV. Legal Positivism: the Opposition
By the 19th and 20th centuries, the age of rationalism overshadowed the theory of natural law, leaving it behind in many legal, philosophical, and other professional and personal spheres of society. Its indelible connection to a notion of universal but mysterious truths makes it a shaky courtroom argument. Intellectual ideas about legal structures and processes of law gave way to legal positivism, which emphasizes the notion that laws are a social construct created by humans, and are not inherently derived from moral or natural principles. According to legal positivism, laws are valid and binding by virtue of their enactment through legitimate human authorities, not because they are universally ethical or morally just.
Legal positivism and the theory of natural law intersect on the basis of morality’s ambiguity, and both reflect the notion of collective ethical principles determined by our social institutions. The danger of adopting legal positivism, however, arises in its acceptance of human authority as legitimate. It also exposes people to possibly unjust laws, and falsely proposes that human laws are binding in themselves. Human laws are not independently valid nor do they hold legitimate authority, however, because they can be broken. Natural laws are valid and legitimate because they cannot be broken. The only legitimate authority—that is, the only authority which cannot be overpowered—are the necessary truths which govern the functions of the universe. We are without their complete understanding, but, once again, their existence is not contingent on our knowledge or conception.
Legal positivism ultimately prohibits human harmony and peaceful societies, because it fails to recognize the necessary truths which bind us to reality and each other. There has never been nor will there ever be a supreme or legitimate human authority, and accepting that there could be makes us vulnerable to manipulation and oppression. We sacrifice our own power and agencies to the whims of human rule, accepting authority even when it leads to injustice and harm. The necessary truths of the universe, however, renders every human being equal to every other by virtue of our shared reality. Nobody exists outside of the natural law; the natural law is all-encompassing and universally binding. The hierarchies of power that exist within the world are entirely constructed by human conventions and standards. Understanding the theory of natural law is understanding that we are all equal. Universal truths largely determine the reality of the world, but so do our individual and collective actions. True justice can only be achieved by the recognition that the natural law is our great equalizer.
V. The Theoretical Link Between the Natural Law and Peace
It may be beyond our current understandings in its entirety, but the theory of natural law as it stands provides a framework for navigating the world in a way that upholds the life of every human being on earth. It requires that we accept the ambiguous nature of morality, and commit to the collective discovery of wiser ethical principles and their application in our systems of law. Democratic systems of governance reflect this process by creating channels for people to directly influence the structures of their society based on the evolution of their moral understanding. In the United States of America, the vision of equal and inherently endowed rights to life and liberty has beat the drums of our fiercest efforts to expand and harness social justice, propelling us through various trials and tribulations to see those efforts yield positive outcomes. Despite that the United Sates, for example, was founded on these principles, the journey to their realization has continued throughout its history.
The myth of American exceptionalism and the vision of freedom it espouses is easily punctured by acknowledging the paradoxes within the nation’s development, from the enslavement of African people to the displacement of and cruelty over indigenous tribes. These hypocrisies, however, inspired and influenced many people on their own roads to justice, and continue to do so today. Former slave and famous abolitionist Frederick Douglas exposed the moral discrepancies between the vision of freedom and its application in thought-provoking language:
"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and the hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages."
It was Douglas’s appeal to the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence that gave his urgent call to moral principles steady ground to stand on. He recognized the profundity in the ideals of freedom and equality encased in the document’s language, and saw them as a guide for reforming American society. “The Declaration of Independence,” he said, “is the ringbolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny. So, indeed, I regard it, and in it I see the doom of your tyranny and the fulfillment of your destiny.” By drawing on the vision of the Declaration and embracing its ideals for what they are, men like Douglas added fuels to the fires of freedom, and pushed the moral needle of the United States closer to its purest ideal.
The ability to change the system by way of the system itself was built into its very design. Our voices give us the power to draw attention to our shared humanity and the communities deprived of justice, creating space to recognize the equal rights of all people and secure them in systematic changes of the law. The change is gradual, often painful and not without great cost, but our power to enact them reflects the very truth of the natural law. We are unique individuals with different strengths and weaknesses; we are not equal to each other on matters of size, ability, intellect, or moral developments, but we are equal to each other by way of the universe’s unbreakable truths. The powerful beauty of a democratic system is its recognition of the ever-evolving nature of humankind, leaving the door open for new scientific and moral discoveries to shape our legal and government systems.
Adapting the theory of natural law to mobilize our efforts for national and international peace is multi-dimensional. It requires adoption at both institutional and individual levels, which requires a general consensus about our desired future. If human freedom is the ultimate pinnacle of human flourishing, we need to understand what freedom is in the context of reality. We are not indefinitely free, because we are constrained by particular, necessary principles of the universe. We are not at liberty to make any decision we want to make whenever we want to make it; we never were, and we never will be. Even under the best of circumstances, the choices available to us have limits. Our freedom is at least partially determined by what is and isn’t possible in the physical reality of the universe, but it’s also determined by other people, their actions, and the consequences that arise because of them. Our actions affect our and others’ realities, and in a world where actions can have harmful consequences, both legal agreement and common ethical principles are necessary to a prosperous and peaceful future.
When we come together to decide how we want to live, we legislate which rules we are willing to obey in order to live harmoniously. We don’t then obey them because they become unbreakable as written law; we then obey them out of the recognition that they exist in our and our communities’ best interests. Law does not bind us to one another; our moral understandings and actions do. If our morality is characterized by the understanding of the natural law, then our morality accepts and upholds each individual person’s right to life and liberty, and the inherent dignity equally endowed to us all. The natural law renders us completely equal to one another. When our moralities encompass this understanding, our actions follow to uphold it.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. heavily advocated for the calibration of our moral compasses in accordance with the natural law, which he saw reflected in God’s divine law. King held the vision of a “Beloved Community,” an ideal society governed by universal love and justice. In such a society, all people are treated with equal dignity and respect. Encased in this vision is a personal responsibility. Human will is not determined or confined by human law; it is driven by moral principle and ethical understanding. According to King’s philosophy, laws are only just when they are in harmony with the natural law. Because the natural law does not need to be written into legislation, abiding by its moral principles is similarly independent. Morality cannot be legislated; it may be shaped and motivated by the law, at least in part, but it ultimately comes down to our individual understanding and interpretation. It may vary across time, space, culture and circumstance, but morality will always shape our social cohesion and collective functions. As Dr. King writes, we are held to “certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.” We have to abide by the universe’s necessary truths for our survival, and we have to understand the ethical principles that drive and guide us for our ultimate flourishing.
VI. Common Critiques
The most obvious critique to the theory of natural law is its inevitable connection to an elusive and controversial force, particularly as it relates to its religious conceptions. The necessary truths which govern the universe are shrouded in mystery, and are at least partially unknown to humanity. We can know, however, through logical reasoning, that these necessary truths do exist. Furthermore, we can accept that there is an ultimate explanation to the existence of the universe, and that its explanation goes beyond human language by its status as a necessary truth. In his book Mere Natural Law: Originalism and the Anchoring Truths of the Constitution, legal scholar and professor Hadley Arkes writes,
"An earnest undergraduate proclaims his insight that “there is no truth,” and the stock response of the philosopher is to ask, “What of the proposition—that there is no truth? Is that itself true?”…The necessary truth here is that there is indeed “truth.” It may be elusive and cloudy in many domains, but on many matters in this vast world, in all of its fields and crevices, there are truths to be known."
Arkes sheds light on a self-evident paradox that concludes the very point in question. If there was no truth to the universe, then this itself would be the truth. The natural law does not hold roots in any particular religion or God. The natural law holds roots in the principle of truth itself; what is and is not true about the nature of reality, and the nature of our existence within it. Our scientific explorations and logical reasonings point us in the same direction as the natural law does: toward the notion of a universal truth which cannot be negated or circumvented. Because it is a necessary truth, it is neither contingent nor explainable through language alone. From this perspective, we don’t need religion or theology to understand the natural law. We only need reason, and acceptance of its status as valid, binding, and legitimate in its own right.
Another problem with the theory of natural law is the matter of moral relativism. As established, however, this is not a bug of the natural law, but a feature. Contained within the natural law is our agency as free-willed human beings who act upon and shape the world that we live in. It is through our moral convictions that we take action. If our moral convictions fail to uphold the equality and dignities of our fellow human beings, then our actions will lead to harm, injustice, and the oppression of others’ liberties. If our moral convictions are grounded in the truth of the natural law, however, then our actions will uphold one another’s status as equal to one another. Additionally, our moral attitudes and behaviors will reflect the truth that human beings do not have legitimate authority over one another. It is only through cooperation along a path built by shared values and ethical principles that aids the efficacy of a system of law. A system of law does not and cannot provide its own validation. It is only valid on the basis of our moral understandings, and our willingness to abide by the laws which we collectively deem just and fair.
Similarly, the problem of interpretation poses challenges when navigating the theory of natural law. Again, however, this is a feature, not a bug. Because it goes beyond language by definition, it necessarily requires varied and flexible interpretations. The crucial point here is that we collectively recognize our responsibility to interpret it as universally as possible, and listen to one another when members of our populations point out injustice and disharmony. Just like every other dimension of human life, our moral understandings are constantly evolving. We are presented with new challenges, new landscapes of moral dilemmas, and new language which expands our understandings of reality. It is a constant process of learning and teaching, of trial and error, and of committing to a common good for all people. It is much less about the laws we write and enforce as societies, and much more about our moral senses as individual human beings. If everyone sought to uphold the equal rights and liberties of every other person, there would be no need for a system of law to curb greedy appetites or prevent selfish action in the first place.
It is up to our collective efforts to determine how this might be accomplished, and this is where the practical concerns surrounding the theory of natural law come into play. Our existence may be equalized by the natural law, but we are unique individuals with differing wants, needs, and ideas about how the world ought to be. Our debates clash and our dialogues sometimes devolve into violence, furthering the difficulty of navigating our intractable connections to each other. This, however, is precisely the essence of our human existence: we are our own creators. If we want a future characterized by peace, harmony, and abundance for all people, then the actions we take in the present must be equal to those ends. The significance of this cannot be overstated. The future is up to us, and the collective actions we take in the present. There is nothing beyond our human lives which is going to shape them except the necessary truths of the universe, including the moral truth of our existence as free-willed agents of action and change. The quality of our lives is our choice, individually and collectively. We can lead each other to greater peace and justice by recognizing our fundamental equality and interconnectedness through the truth of the natural law itself. By fostering care and compassion on this common ground, we have a much better chance of manifesting a vision of freedom and peace for all human beings than we do if we relinquish the principles of truth entirely.
VII. Shaping the Future
There are multiple threats facing humanity today, including imbalanced systems of power that contribute to the world’s conflict and disharmony. The efficiency and validity of western democracy is consistently questioned, corporations plunder the earth’s resources for their own benefit, and fractures within societies perpetuate various divisions that keep all of us from realizing the truth of our ultimate connection to each other. War, social justice concerns, and economic disparities ravage the planet, pouring gasoline on the fires of human destruction. Institutions designed to preserve and protect human rights have swelled in their powers and prowess over the globe, taking actions which directly defy the principles of freedom and peace. By aligning ourselves with contingent truths rather than necessary ones, we have weakened our holistic efforts toward peace. We further the chaos of injustice by refusing to embrace the inherent equality of our fellow human beings. Until we can learn to understand the equalization of truth, we will remain trapped in the cycle of conflict. If we can embrace this truth as individuals, we can shape our institutions to reflect and uphold it. It is through our moral evolution as a culture, not our legal evolution as a society, that we capture the natural law in its purest form.
As individuals, we have a responsibility to the world around us to understand the consequences of our actions and moral convictions. If a person does not value human life and dignity, their actions will reflect this attitude. If a person recognizes the principle of our existence as mutually dependent and co-created, their actions will reflect this awareness. Our individual existences are inevitably intertwined; if we seek peace, we must motivate and support each other on the path to its fullest realization. Peace cannot be achieved by way of violence, coercion, manipulation, or any form of oppression or tyranny. Neither can it be achieved through a system of law alone. It can only be achieved by each individual person’s willingness to harness that peace for and within themselves, and by letting it be the primary mover of their words and actions within the world.
Because democratic societies are shaped by the people that compose them, they are also shaped by a people’s moral understanding. The ambiguity of morality gives significance to the democratic process by providing space for us to debate with, teach, and learn from each other. It is in this space that our own perspectives on the world evolve, which shapes our internal ethical principles in turn. Tyranny restricts this process entirely by removing the opportunity for positive change. Rather, tyranny assumes the false position of legitimate human authority, and prohibits an institution from evolving in tandem with the development of a people’s morality. Safeguarding democratic processes and principles is essential to the preservation of our human liberties and dignities. If we lose our power to influence, shape, and change the governments which rule over us, we lose our agency over our own lives. International relationships suffer too, because our convictions blind us to alternative perspectives and routes of cooperation, leaving us vulnerable to possibly devastating conflict. Again, the understanding of truth’s equalization over all human beings is the understanding that will guide us toward a more harmonious future.
In the United States, we espouse life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as the ultimate good toward which we strive. Freedom has become the favored word of the land, underpinning our most patriotic attitudes and practices. These values provide the bedrock of our institution, but political corruption, corporate collusion, and desperate grabs for power have largely rendered them as mere words on paper. We have used the guise of freedom as a trojan horse into endless global wars, driven by the warped idea that we can force democratic principles onto foreign lands in an effort to ensure our national security, sacrificing and displacing millions of lives while completely ignoring the needs of our own society. In our efforts to liberate the oppressed people of the world, we have, in many ways, become the oppressors ourselves. We divide each other with destructive ideologies that fail to encompass all human life, we kill each other and destroy the earth with weapons of war, and in our confused efforts to uphold justice, we continue giving power to those who do not represent or act in favor of any justifiable common good. It is our lack of understanding the principles encased in the theory of natural law that has given way to an even more complicated picture of injustice than any we’ve ever had before. We are not, however, without hope.
The theory of natural law is, by definition, obscure, but embracing this ambiguity is precisely how we pave a better path forward. We have to learn from each other, and be willing to grow our own personal understandings of reality, morality, and the existence of the universe at large. The vision of the natural law fully realized is a state of peaceful coexistence in harmony with ourselves, each other, and the world we all share. It is the vision of the kingdom of heaven; of peace on earth, and of justice and liberty for all. It is the highest ideal for human life, and our existence within the universe. It does not start within the institution; it begins within our own hearts and minds, for it is within this place that we can take meaningful action toward shaping an institution characterized by true justice. Heaven may or may not be a destination after this life, but it is definitely a possibility within it when we capitalize on our moral virtues as human beings. The only way to secure the values of peace and freedom is to act in direct service of those values themselves. For all our faults, past and present, humankind has everything it needs to live up to its greatest potential, but it will only happen if we understand the all-encompassing, universal truths of the natural law.
In order to march collectively on the path of peace, we must be willing to let our understanding of the natural law shape every aspect of our society, from our educational institutions to the structures of our government to our own individual moral convictions. It’s the same work we’ve been doing since the American Revolution, and it will be the same work we must continue to do if we are to create a just and peaceful world. Freedom is not about uninhibited ways of life nor the false notion that might equal right; freedom is about embracing all people as human beings endowed with equal rights, and constructing systems of law based on frameworks of morality that uphold this understanding. It requires taking care of the earth to ensure access to quality resources, engaging in diplomatic practices that do not elevate the importance of some people over others, and systematically checking the power and influence of those writing and upholding the written law to ensure they are not or do not become unjust. Most importantly, it requires that we know and understand the theory of natural law itself, and do not shy away from its deepest and most profound implications. Its truth is our guiding light of hope toward a future of peace, and it is in this truth that we free ourselves to realizing the greatest possible state of existence for all human beings.
VIII. Conclusion
The theory of natural law is elusive precisely because it is a necessary truth. We will never pin it down in its exact entirety; if we could, it would no longer be a necessary truth, because necessary truths go beyond our linguistic capacities. This does not render it useless or meaningless. Rather, this clarifies the nature of human relationships and dynamics as being necessarily cooperative. It is invariably connected to the notion of a larger, higher truth, but not one that needs religious doctrine or theological reasoning. It is discoverable through reason and reason alone on the basis of what constitutes a necessary truth; how we relate it to the divine from that point is up to our own unique perspectives and spiritual undertakings. There is a reason that every major religious tradition points to an explanation of the universe which is ultimately beyond human conception. Both the Holy Bible and the Quran describe God’s ineffability in numerous passages, Hinduism describes the Brahman as incomprehensible, Taoism says the Tao is nameless, Buddhism espouses that the Ultimate or Absolute Truth is silent, and in early Judaism, the word YHWH represents the inexpressibility of God’s truest form. Any explanation of the universes’s existence ultimately comes down to a theory of necessary truths that cannot be captured by language or calculated with numbers. Its understanding necessarily comes from within. As individuals, the pursuit of truth goes hand in hand with the pursuit of moral principles, for it is within that endeavor that we come to understand the relationship we have with the world and people around us.
The matter of importance lies in this: it doesn’t matter what we call it, what words we give it, what books we write or what stories we tell to ourselves in order to understand it. The truth of the universe exists beyond our ability to comprehend or name it. What matters is that we understand its existence as a necessary truth, and that we seek deeper understandings and positive action in its pursuit. We are completely bound by and through this truth, and so we are completely bound to each other. The nameless, necessary truth which governs the foundational functions of the universe includes everything, everywhere, all the time. If peace is what we seek, then it starts with our understanding of the natural law. It is only through our recognition of, endeavor toward, and surrender to the mysterious, inevitable truths of the universe that we have any chance of rectifying the world’s injustices. If we seek to banish the shadows of oppression that cloud this world in darkness, then we must commit ourselves to the path of truth, justice, and peace for all human beings illuminated by the timeless wisdom of the theory of natural law.