Abstract

Natural law (and, by proxy, religion) covertly informs the relative legal weight attached to empirical studies in the United States. To substantiate that claim, this Note establishes three subsidiary conclusions in Parts I, II, and III. Part I contends that the modern (ostensibly secular) natural law theories popularized by John Finnis and others share religious purpose and effect with Thomistic, theological natural law. To create an analytical framework incorporating that overlap, I synthesize Finnis’s theory of the “common good” with the Calvinist perspective of natural law as a tool by which God mitigates anarchy (“Finnis-Calvin natural law”). Under Finnis- Calvin natural law, laws are not adjudged valid or invalid according solely to their adherence to the natural law, but they are presumptively disfavored if they counteract religious principles of Truth. Part II asserts that U.S. law is uniquely susceptible to Finnis-Calvin influence due in part to the history and structure of the United States Constitution. Part III proposes ways in which religion relates to and animates science and outlines American law’s historical use of empirical studies. These three premises, posited together, strongly suggest that American jurisprudence is uniquely susceptible to religious influence—most prominently in (a) issues of first impression, that (b) rely heavily on empirical data, and (c) touch on precepts corollary to religious tenants. Part IV conducts a Finnis-Calvin case study on equal protection jurisprudence and environmental law to demonstrate that susceptibility. This posture demands a heightened investigation of the law’s hidden use of universal, objective, divinely ordained norms.

Keywords

NATURAL LAW