all persons without exception and, at least in
theory, provides a common reference point—
Rev. Martin Luther King thought it did—for
all persons to talk about morality. In his
1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” King,
echoing Aquinas, brilliantly applied natural
law theory to the evil of segregation: “An
unjust law is a human law that is not rooted
in eternal law and natural law.”
Not even culture—or creed or country or
color, for that matter—provides an exception
to the natural law; although it may condition
the way we understand and follow it. It is,
moreover, a permanent feature of the created
moral order by which all men can be held
accountable for their deeds, including those
who do not know the revealed law of God.
As St. Paul teaches, “For when the Gentiles
who do not have the law by nature observe
the prescriptions of the law, they are a law
for themselves even though they do not
have the law. They show that the demands
of the law are written in their hearts, while
their conscience also bears witness and their
conflicting thoughts accuse or