One of the sad consequences of living in a post-Covid world has been a general distrust of experts and institutions like the Center for Disease Control, local hospitals, and even doctors. Whatever one thinks about vaccines or lockdowns, all can agree that the conflicting information about the virus has led to an inability to know what is real.
Additionally, the prevalence of ‘fake news’ has resulted in distrust for news agencies that are no longer taken seriously as sources of truth. Beyond these ideological issues is the affect that digital technology has had on determining what is real. This is seen in the use of various forms of artificial intelligence and virtual reality as well as in the brain fatigue we all experience from the near endless information on the internet.
A further, and arguably greater, consequence of such instability is the culture’s abandonment of common-sense notions of reality. The primary example of this is the inability of cultural elites to provide reasonable definitions of human nature that are grounded in the real, which leads to growing rates of mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, drug use, and suicide, let alone the eventual collapse of society in the west.
Realism and common sense have become the battle grounds of the ‘culture wars.’ Therefore, we must ask questions like: what is it that grounds reality, how can we know it, and can we live in light of it to promote human flourishing?
Ancient philosophy and the Christian tradition answered such questions by giving us a description of reality and its knowability in the concept of natural law (lex naturalis). Though this concept has persisted throughout the history of Christian thought, in the last hundred years or so Protestants have largely ignored natural law ethics, believing it to be the domain of Roman Catholicism.[1]
Natural law is not capable of saving sinners; special grace is required (Eph. 2:8–9).
Catholics have indeed held the line on natural law theory, in large part due to their dogmatic adherence to the teaching of the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), its premier expositor. However, as Protestants have historically been influenced by Aquinas, they too have had their own parallel theories of natural law.[2]
Historic Protestantism stands in a larger stream of the natural law tradition as it has come down in the history of thought. A recovery of the natural law tradition will help us ground ethics in a universal and immutable law that is applicable to all humans in all periods of history – what C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) famously referred to as the ‘Tao.’[3]
A Brief History of Natural Law
Theories of natural moral law developed in Graeco-Roman philosophy in the generation before Christ. An early and significant theorist was the Roman senator Cicero (106 BC–43 AD), a Stoic philosopher who influenced Christian thinkers like Augustine of Hippo (354–430).
Cicero described law as “right reason in agreement with nature”—it is eternal and unchanging and is not something that can be tampered with.[4] Later Christian thinkers like Aquinas argued that law is ordered to ends directed by God and the end of the natural law is the “common good” of God’s creation.[5]
Natural law provides the moral structure for society such that citizens can live well within its bounds. A society that follows natural law will care for the general well-being of all of its citizens whereas a society that breaks it will result in its breakdown.
Natural law is grounded in the concrete character of God as the Good.
In Christian thought the natural law is not grounded in an abstract concept or in a neutral notion of ‘nature.’[6] Rather, it is grounded in the concrete character of God as the Good. The Triune Creator, as cause to effect, infused his creation with laws derived from his own eternal law (lex aeternus). As Aquinas put it, the natural law is “the sharing in the eternal law by the rational creature.”[7]
It is by this natural law that God providentially governs all of his creation—including humans, animals, non-animal life, and inanimate objects (cf. Col. 1:15-18)—according to his wisdom. God made human beings in his image (Gen. 1:27) with rational souls, giving them intellects that knows natural law. As thinkers like Aquinas argued, the first object that the intellect knows is ‘being.’ God is himself ‘pure being’ (purus actus) and is the source of all contingent being (like the universe), maintaining such being in its continued existence.[8]
As the natural law is grounded in the very ‘being’ of created nature, human minds know it and live accordingly. The human mind does not create these laws but discovers them from rational reflection on nature.
What does Paul say about Natural Law?
While we can know natural law through conscious reflection on the created order, the domain of philosophers and theologians, we also know it through intuition, the act whereby the mind immediately knows an object or concept. The mind also knows natural law in terms of conscience (conscientia, synderesis), the innate moral knowledge grounded in disposition towards right moral action.[9]
In Romans 2:15 the apostle Paul says that Gentiles “show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences [syneidēseōs] also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.” Paul makes clear that that Jew and Gentile alike follow the law written on the conscience. The Gentile who does not have the law of Moses nevertheless accesses it through nature and conscience. Thus, all humans, to varying degree, live in accord with natural law.
Yet, as Paul said earlier in Romans 1:20, in connection to general revelation (revelatio generalis), this knowledge only leaves the unbeliever “without excuse” before the judgment seat of the Law-giver. In the prelapsarian state the human mind could know and follow natural law due to the first humans’ upright moral condition. However, because of their rebellion against God’s good command (Gen. 2:16–17) the first humans—and by virtue of covenantal headship, all of Adam’s posterity (Rom. 5:12–21)—inherited a corrupted nature that affects the faculties of the soul, including the mind (Eph. 4:18; cf. Rom. 8:5-8).
Thus, natural law is no longer sufficient to guide humans in their relationship with their Creator as it did in Eden. In this sense, natural law is not capable of saving sinners, special grace is required (Eph. 2:8–9). Jeremiah 31:33 indicates that a sinner needs a new heart with the law rewritten on it to have a right relationship with God, which the gospel accomplishes. Nevertheless, natural law can still be known and followed by sinners in a postlapsarian condition, if not to restore a sinner’s relationship with God, but for the temporal good and just ordering of society.
Romans 2:15 makes it clear that natural law has an analogue in the moral law (lex moralis). The Mosaic law is a republication of the natural law given by God to help guide his people in their obedience to him (Ex. 20:2–17) whether as the theocratic nation of Israel or the church. The decalogue is the same as the natural law in terms of substance, but different in terms of form (stone tablets vs. heart). As part of their sanctification both natural and moral law are to be followed by God’s people to help believers please God and to flourish in his creation.
Examples of Natural Law in Scripture
In many respects, because the bible is grounded in reality, one could argue that the entirety of Sacred Scripture points to the natural law.
More specifically, there are texts that advocate the sapiential use of nature. The most obvious texts in the Old Testament are those that appeal to nature for ethical practices.
Consider Jeremiah 8:7: “Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the Lord.” Here Israel is chastised by God for failing to do what birds by nature know to do, that is live in accord with God’s rule. Most famously Proverbs reminds us to “follow the ant” in order to obtain wisdom (Prov. 6:6; 30:25).
Likewise, in the New Testament appeals to nature are often made as object lessons for wisdom. In Matthew 6:25–26 Jesus admonishes his followers not to worry about food, drink, or clothing because just as God cares for birds and clothes the lilies of the field, so much more will he care for humans because their value is greater.
Paul, in Acts 17:26–29, reminds Stoic and Epicurean philosophers in Athens (even quoting one of their poets) that God made nations with boundaries in order that they might seek and find him, not the idols crafted from their hands – thus idolatry is a violation not only of the Mosaic law but also the natural law.[10]
It is interesting that Paul stood before the Stoics, themselves advocates of natural law, and used a natural law argument to chastise them for failing to believe in the God of the bible!
Practical Use of Natural Law
Instrumental reason is used to determine right living in light of natural law as applied in three estates: family, church, and state.
In terms of family, parents or guardians function as the governors who follow the precepts of natural law that is supplemented by precepts given for child-rearing. This pertains to the basic provision of life and health, but also to matters of virtue and vice.
For the church, the leadership (bishop, pastor, or elder) govern by natural law that is supplemented by divine positive law that is relevant to the covenanted community at specific periods in redemptive history.[11]
Ministers of state (monarchs, presidents, senators, governors, etc.) govern politically by natural law, grounding the respective civil positive laws whether of independent or associated sovereign states (Rom. 13:1–4).
This explains why a pagan magistrate can still govern justly, because his or her created intellect can know natural law that can be utilized for the temporal flourishing of his or her citizens. Such laws can be further broken down into matters of local or military laws. In all three estates the natural law can (and should) be informed by divine moral law found in scripture. A resultant harmony should then exist between the three estates as they follow natural law that would lead to the flourishing of humans in each.
Christians love God’s law, both in nature and in scripture, because we love God the Law-giver.
Modern society has not only abandoned natural law, but is in outright rebellion against it, and this is becoming more obvious as western society turns away from the Triune Creator. Because natural law is derived from God himself and reflects his own moral character, to violate natural law is to violate God’s own character, which is the very definition of sin (1 John 3:4).
The hatred that sinful humans have for God explains why they want to destroy nature, because the law that they are rebelling against is embedded in its very structures. Christians love God’s law, both in nature and in scripture, because we love God the Law-giver.
Conclusion
Natural law grounds reality and provides tools for humans to live well in their respective spheres of existence. Common sense (sensus communis)—the immediate apprehension of the intellect of sensible reality—only makes sense given the reality of natural law and its livability.
Hence why the average person who lives wisely in the world can be a better philosopher than those with advanced degrees and who philosophize themselves away from reality and into various forms of nominalism, idealism, or materialism, all of which unmoor the human person from that which is objectively real and strips us of all purpose and meaning.
This results in plastic people who are entirely malleable and susceptible to any cultural wind, no matter how irrational or wicked. Hence why Lewis, in his book on natural law, speaks of the ‘abolition of man.’
The task of Christian thought is to ground Christians in God’s reality, providing them the philosophical and theological tools by which they can live in light of it—Christians need to align with what is real in order to live well and please God.
More broadly conceived, to function well, all humans also need to live in light of the natural law. As Lewis reminds us, if we kick against the natural law, the natural law will kick back—harder.
Resources:
Aquinas, Thomas. On Law, Morality and Politics, trans. Richard J. Regan, ed. William P. Baumgarth and Richard J. Regan. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2003.
Budziszewski, J. Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1997.
George, Robert P. In Defense of Natural Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Grabill, Stephen J. Recovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2006.
Haines, David and Andrew A. Fulford, Natural Law: A Brief Introduction and Biblical Defense. Lincoln, NE: The Davenant Press, 2017.
Lewis, C. S. The Abolition of Man. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.
Levering, Matthew. Biblical Natural Law: A Theocentric and Teleological Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
[1] Karl Barth (1886–1968) famously said that a decision must be made for Protestants: Jesus Christ or natural law. For Barth’s views on natural law see Louis C. Midgley, “Karl Barth and Moral Natural Law: The Anatomy of a Debate, Note,” Natural Law Forum (January 1, 1968): 108–126.
[2] Stephen J. Grabill, Recovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2006).
[3] C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). See also Michael Ward, After Humanity: A Guide to C. S. Lewis’s Abolition of Man (Park Ridge, IL: Word on Fire Academic, 2021).
[4] Cicero, On the Republic. On the Laws, trans. Clinton W. Keyes, Loeb Classical Library 213 (1928), 211.
[5] Thomas Aquinas, On Law, Morality and Politics, trans. Richard J. Regan, ed. William P. Baumgarth and Richard J. Regan (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2003), 12–13.
[6] I discuss this in Ian Clary, “Puritans and Theonomy, Reconsidered,” Mere Orthodoxy (January 2022) https://mereorthodoxy.com/puritans-and-theonomy-reconsidered, my review of Joseph Boot, The Mission of God: A Manifesto of Hope for Society, 2nd ed. (2014; Toronto: Ezra Press, 2016).
[7] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II.Q91.a2.
[8] For more see Frederick D. Wilhelmsen, Man’s Knowledge of Reality: An Introduction to Thomistic Epistemology (Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2021).
[9] Aquinas, On Law, Morality and Politics, 1–2.
[10] For a survey of the bible’s use of natural law see David Haines and Andrew A. Fulford, Natural Law: A Brief Introduction and Biblical Defense (Lincoln, NE: The Davenant Press, 2017).
[11] Positive law refers to laws that are not grounded in the moral law primarily, but are subject to change based upon reason and circumstance.
