Reducing Static in the Natural Law Debate

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Hey everyone, I just wanted to share a quick thought with you about natural law or natural order or maybe natural revelation depending on the word you want to use.

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But one of the things that I find interesting about the critiques of natural law is generally they start with this understanding that natural law and sinful activities are somehow consistent with each other, related to each other, there's no contradiction between them and if you adopt a natural law framework then you are necessarily adopting sinful behavior as part of that framework.

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So it'll often go something like this, because nature exists in the context of a sin -cursed world and because terrible things can happen in nature, if you were to emulate those terrible things and do them as human beings, things you see in the animal kingdom for example, or this is more often the case they'll say, if you were to justify your sinful behavior by saying, well it just feels natural to me, then you are making an appeal to natural law and this is why we can't have appeals to natural law.

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And the first thing I just want to say is, I'm probably not as widely read as some on natural law, but the guys

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I have read who posit a natural law understanding, and this even goes back to Aquinas to be quite honest with you, but the

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Magisterial Reformers, Calvin being one guy I read a lot, and even modern guys like Paul Tyson who seem to advocate a type of natural law

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I suppose, they don't assume that. They actually think that sinful activities violate the natural law.

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And I have come to understand that actually the natural law tradition, the Christian natural law tradition, if you want to call it that, assumes this.

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Special revelation and natural revelation go hand in hand and to sin is to violate

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God's law because he's the one that governs nature and he's the one that has revealed himself in scripture.

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So I think that's a misunderstanding of what natural law is to probably start on that footing.

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Now there are probably guys who might start out with more of a secularist, modern version of natural law where instincts that seem natural to them or that they observe in nature perhaps are valid because of that and of course that would be a good critique against those.

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But a Christian understanding of natural law so far as I know says that the

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Bible and nature are consistent with each other. And so to sin would be a violation of God's order.

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And I think the more important thing for me to emphasize in this is it's not nature per se but it's this framework that we recognize and this is talked about in various points in scripture when the heavens declare the glory of God, when man suppresses the truth and unrighteousness, there's a communication happening that's not just looking at nature and making observations.

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That does happen of course, famously the book of Proverbs has a lot of examples of this,

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Job has examples of this, of looking at nature and drawing moral lessons and that kind of thing, seeing ants as that should be like the way we are.

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We should work hard and store up for the winter and not be lazy. But there is this framework that exists that God has designed us to apprehend and understand.

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So when the heavens are declaring the glory of God, they're not doing it in the way that scripture declares the glory of God.

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It's not postulations. It's not the logical statements that communicate to us in a particular language.

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It's not propositional truth in that sense. But the scripture nonetheless says that this is happening and we know that this is happening when we go to somewhere like the

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Grand Canyon or even look outside. Even if I look at my hand, I can see the complexities of this.

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And I know that there is something that's happening to me. There's something being communicated there.

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And I would be suppressing it if I were to say that this was not complex, that this did not come from a designer, that this wasn't something that was glorious and amazing.

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And so there is something that is hardwired into us, this natural law framework, if you will, that it's not just us with a blank slate approaching nature and trying to figure things out.

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There's this understanding that there is a pre -programming going on here. And this is why Jesus says, if you don't take care of your kids, you're worse than an unbeliever or your family, because, you know, even unbelievers have these instincts that God's given them.

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They know that there's certain things that are right and wrong. They know that they live in a universe that is designed.

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There's a certain order at play. And that order is often what's referred to as natural law.

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So I've just been thinking about this because, you know, all the critiques that were given about natural law, it's a word

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I don't actually use that much. I tend to use natural order more to maybe to sidestep some of this. But I don't know that those are actually valid understandings of what natural law is.

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And then the other thing I was going to say is that one of the objections

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I see often is that nature can't be interpreted. So because God's word in the

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Bible is propositional truth in a particular language, people can apprehend that and it is clear to them.

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But nature is not clear. Nature does cannot communicate. God cannot communicate through nature in these ways.

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And therefore, it is not clear and we shouldn't really trust it. We shouldn't rest. We shouldn't source beliefs in what nature and this kind of thing.

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And one of the things I was thinking about is really the argument is nature is a matter of interpretation, but God's word is not.

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And the only dividing line I can see here, because obviously there's a lot of people who interpret the Bible wrongly, is that the

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Christian has the Holy Spirit to illuminate the scripture, right, to make certain things certain. Even scriptures that who have the

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Holy Spirit, Christians who have the Holy Spirit will disagree with one another on certain secondary and tertiary doctrines, right, and even interpretations of scripture.

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And so I don't think that that gets away from the root issue here. The root issue seems to be, can

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God communicate to human beings in such a way that they know things through nature and through scripture?

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And I think he can do both. And we even find in scripture that God communicates to man through nature in such a way that he can know things.

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So natural law is about the nature of a thing, the order of a thing, the telos of a thing, if you will.

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It is not about just as a blank slate without any preconceived notions sitting there in nature and just trying to apprehend truth by your own observations.

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There is an understanding that God has given, that there is a function that even human beings have that they are aware of as part of being in God's world and in a framework

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God has created in a context where they are supposed to take dominion and populate the earth and do certain things.

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Now, this does not give them, there are people who erroneously argue this, but this does not give them knowledge of redemption and salvation in Jesus Christ.

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This does not give them the understanding of what the church is, does not give them the understanding of God as a trinity or many of the core things we find in the scripture.

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You need scripture for that. Scripture is necessary. So you can't have a spiritually fulfilling life.

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You can't please God apart from the knowledge that comes from scripture.

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And of course, the illumination of the Holy Spirit in the process of conversion and understanding what actually pleases

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God in a more specific way. But there are certainly general things

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God has put in nature that we as human beings, even apart from knowledge of scripture, can understand.

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And God communicates some things through the Holy Spirit. He can actually even convict people who aren't

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Christians right through the work of the Holy Spirit. But Christians, of course, have this added benefit of the illumination of scripture through the

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Holy Spirit. But he can also communicate in nature. And so I just wanted to say that.

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I think that that's important to put out there because I see so many, what

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I would consider misrepresentations and things people say that you get in discussions and kind of waste your time because there's just a basic misunderstanding at an early stage.

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And I would love to see maybe more fruitful discussions on this. I'm actually very interested in seeing discussions of natural law or natural order, natural revelation, special revelation, the

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Bible, and how these things complement one another. I'm interested in seeing even debates about, do you need the

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Bible to govern society? Or are these principles in nature that God has laid down, are they sufficient?

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And that kind of thing. I happen to believe I think the Bible is necessary for these things. And at least if you're going to do them right, it doesn't mean that you can't get some things right without the use of special revelation.

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But I do think that at least in Western societies in particular, we have a heritage of distilling through our traditions, ideas and principles that come from natural revelation.

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And these are moral principles that are universal. So I do think that the

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Christian has no other option but to appeal to special revelation for some things.

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But I think it does matter, though, that God has laid down a framework that gives us a common ground with unbelievers, in some cases, to be co -belligerents in things like, you know, even this modern pushback against the transgender ideology.

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Much of this does come from people who are not Christians, but who recognize that there is an order in nature that the Creator has put down.

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They may not even understand who the Creator is, but there is this kind of incomplete understanding that there is an order.

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Well, where does that come from? It has to come from God, right? It has to come from the true God. And we can introduce people to that God, but we can also work with them in a co -belligerent sense, and even vote for people that are going to restore the natural order in some respect.

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So those are just some thoughts that I have that I thought were worth sharing. And I would love to hear your thoughts.

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Maybe you have some pushback and you think that I'm getting it wrong, and if that's the case, I would love to see where you think that I'm wrong on this.

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But I am very interested in making sure that we get our definitions right so that when we have discussions, we can have intelligent ones.

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So that's my short video today. As many of you know, I am traveling. I appreciate your prayers, and I'm putting out some of these short videos because of that.

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So hopefully they're thought -provoking, challenging, and maybe illuminating for you as you think about your own life and politics and all the rest that goes with life.