# Clarification on Natural Law



## TimV (Apr 12, 2011)

I've noticed that getting a straight definition of what exactly Natural Law is is like pulling teeth for some people.

Could anyone please help me by at least giving me a list of Reformed thinkers who have taught that NL is the Ten Commandments? And a list of others who say differently? And what it is that they say?

Thanks!!


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## PuritanCovenanter (Apr 12, 2011)

Francis Schaeffer didn't think the Ten Commandments were NL. If you go to the enlightenment Natural Law didn't seem to include the Decalogue. Natural Law came from observing Nature. It was violent and non violent and the reference points were very hard to distinguish.


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## VictorBravo (Apr 12, 2011)

Tim, I don't have such a list, but there is another thing going on that clouds the issue. If you read older writers in the legal field (like Blackstone), you may run across a distinction that many moderns miss:

"Law of Nature" means the revealed law of God in Scripture. Generally the 10 commandments but including exposition of God's law relating to civil and natural orders as opposed to cermonial laws. This means laws against theft, murder, etc. would be Laws of Nature. Sometimes you see the term "Laws of Nature and Nature's God." It means laws founded on special revelation. It is considered infallible and consistent.

"Natural Law" means using reason (acknowledging that reason is God-given but flawed) to derive what God's law must be based upon observation. It is, at best, an empirical best-guess and not considered infallible.

Nowadays the terms are conflated, and they may have been intermixed in 19th century commentary, so it is hard sometimes to pin down what a particular commentator is talking about.


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## cih1355 (Apr 12, 2011)

> "Natural Law" means using reason (acknowledging that reason is God-given but flawed) to derive what God's law must be based upon observation. It is, at best, an empirical best-guess and not considered infallible.



It is not considered infallible because man can have a twisted view of what is morally right and morally wrong due to the depravity of his heart.


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## VictorBravo (Apr 12, 2011)

cih1355 said:


> > "Natural Law" means using reason (acknowledging that reason is God-given but flawed) to derive what God's law must be based upon observation. It is, at best, an empirical best-guess and not considered infallible.
> 
> 
> 
> It is not considered infallible because man can have a twisted view of what is morally right and morally wrong due to the depravity of his heart.


 
Exactly, Curt. That is the express reason Blackstone used in making the distinction.


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## cih1355 (Apr 12, 2011)

When people say, "Natural Law", they are talking about the set of moral values that are known apart from God's special revelation. Suppose that there is a person who has not had any contact with God's special revelation and suppose he knows that certain things are morally right and morally wrong. His knowledge of what is morally right and morally wrong is what people would call, "Natural Law." Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is my understanding that proponents of Natural Law say that this knowledge is something that people are born with or something that comes from observation.

Natural Law is not infallible because people can have a twisted understanding of what is morally right and wrong due to the depravity of their heart. If a person is left in his depraved condition, he is going to reject God's truth about moral values. He may be right about certain things. For example, he may believe that robbing a bank or raping a young child is wrong, but his basic outlook on life is to reject God's truth. 

Natural Law and natural theology are related concepts because they both answer the question, "What truth can be known apart from God's special revelation?" 

If your starting point is Scripture and if you were to deduce from Scripture what is morally right and morally wrong, then this would not be called, "Natural Law."


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## ChristianTrader (Apr 12, 2011)

cih1355 said:


> When people say, "Natural Law", they are talking about the set of moral values that are known apart from God's special revelation. Suppose that there is a person who has not had any contact with God's special revelation and suppose he knows that certain things are morally right and morally wrong. His knowledge of what is morally right and morally wrong is what people would call, "Natural Law." Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is my understanding that proponents of Natural Law say that this knowledge is something that people are born with or something that comes from observation.
> 
> Natural Law is not infallible because people can have a twisted understanding of what is morally right and wrong due to the depravity of their heart. If a person is left in his depraved condition, he is going to reject God's truth about moral values. He may be right about certain things. For example, he may believe that robbing a bank or raping a young child is wrong, but his basic outlook on life is to reject God's truth.
> 
> ...


 
I think your comments are correct, but I would add, that one's interpretation of Scripture is not infallible just like their interpretation of natural law is not infallible. Also just because one claims that Scripture says X, while other say that it say ~X, does not mean that at Scripture is indeterminate, the same holds for natural law.

CT


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## discipulo (Apr 12, 2011)

cih1355 said:


> When people say, "Natural Law", they are talking about the set of moral values that are known apart from God's special revelation. Suppose that there is a person who has not had any contact with God's special revelation and suppose he knows that certain things are morally right and morally wrong. His knowledge of what is morally right and morally wrong is what people would call, "Natural Law." Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is my understanding that proponents of Natural Law say that this knowledge is something that people are born with or something that comes from observation.
> 
> Natural Law is not infallible because people can have a twisted understanding of what is morally right and wrong due to the depravity of their heart. If a person is left in his depraved condition, he is going to reject God's truth about moral values. He may be right about certain things. For example, he may believe that robbing a bank or raping a young child is wrong, but his basic outlook on life is to reject God's truth.
> 
> ...



I beg to differ that there is any problem with Natural Law, and I believe that being God morally the same, His revealed Law is the same He wrote in the hearts of men.

Ct in my opinion nails it, our interpretation can also be wrong, not to mention our obedience.

The problem is not the Law

*For we know that the law is spiritual,* Romans 7:12, see vs. 7

The problem is our fallen state and nature:

*but I am carnal, sold under sin.*Romans 7:12

Quote from Turrentin

_
The orthodox…affirm that there is a natural law, not arising from a voluntary contract or law of society, but *from a divine obligation of being impressed by God upon the conscience of man in his very creation*, on which the difference between right and wrong is founded and which contains *the practical principles of immovable truth *(such as: ‘God should be worshipped’, ‘parents honored’, ‘we should live virtuously’, ‘injure no one’, ‘do to others what we would wish them to do to us’ and the like). Also that so many remains and evidences of this law are still left in our nature (although it has been in different ways corrupted and obscured by sin) that there is no mortal who cannot feel its force either more or less. Now they wish this law to be called natural, not because it has its origin from bare nature *(since it depends upon God the supreme lawgiver), *but because it becomes known from the aspect of creatures and the relation of man to God, and the knowledge of it is impressed upon the mind by nature, not acquired by tradition or instruction._

Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 11:1:8


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## ChristianTrader (Apr 12, 2011)

Here is a good intro paper on what natural law is and why it matters - Metaphysical Foundations for Natural Law - Owen Anderson.pdf

---------- Post added at 02:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:00 PM ----------

A book on the topic of the history of the three fold distinction of the law found in Westminster (and the moral law meaning the ten commandments) is this one - CFP | From the Finger of God: The Biblical & Theological Basis for the Threefold Division of the Law | Philip S Ross


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Apr 12, 2011)

It is also worth remembering that the pre-Lockeian Reformers would have used "Natural Law" in a different sense than the post-Lockiean Reformed folk.


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## discipulo (Apr 12, 2011)

Backwoods Presbyterian said:


> It is also worth remembering that the pre-Lockeian Reformers would have used "Natural Law" in a different sense than the post-Lockiean Reformed folk.


 
Rev Glaser, are you suggesting that John Locke's Law of Nature influenced Reformed Theologians on Natural Law? If yes, whom and how?


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## Douglas P. (Apr 12, 2011)

It is my understanding that there are two definitions or understandings of Natural Law.

1) Natural law is an abstract norm/law that is separate from God that man through autonomous reason can come to have knowledge of. 
2) Natural law is that which God has revealed to man (about Himself and about mans duty towards God as being made in the image of God) via covenant relationship. Since man is a covenant breaker he suppresses that truth in unrighteousness.

WTS I Tunes U has a 28 part lecture series by Cornelius Van Til where he discuses various philosophies throughout human thinking (Van Til : Christ and Human Thought) It is well worth the listen if you have 30+ hours. If you only have 4-5 you may want to start with 12 Modern Theology Part 1 and listen through Modern Theology Part 4.


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## TimV (Apr 12, 2011)

So when dealing with Reformed thinkers who believed/s that Natural law is the 10 Commandments and who doesn't?


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## discipulo (Apr 12, 2011)

Douglas Padgett said:


> It is my understanding that there are two definitions or understandings of Natural Law.
> 
> 1) Natural law is an abstract norm/law that is separate from God that man through autonomous reason can come to have knowledge of.
> 2) Natural law is that which God has revealed to man (about Himself and about mans duty towards God as being made in the image of God) via covenant relationship. Since man is a covenant breaker he suppresses that truth in unrighteousness.
> ...


 
Douglas, 1) non sequitur, there is no morality apart from God, God created us as moral creatures.

That would be what the empiricist John Locke would have us to believe that the mind starts morally blank - tabula rasa - and it acquires a moral.

2) I will be quoting here from 

*John Witte Jr, Law, Authority and Liberty in Early Calvinism, in Calvin and Culture, edit David Hall* et al, page 22

_*Calvin described the moral law as a set of moral commandments engraved on the conscience, repeated in Scripture and summarized in the Decalogue*: he use varying terminology to describe this law:

The voice of nature
Engraven law
The law of nature
The natural law
The inner mind
The rule of equity
The natural sense
The sense of divine judgment
The testimony of the heart
Amongst other terms._


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## ChristianTrader (Apr 12, 2011)

TimV said:


> So when dealing with Reformed thinkers who believed/s that Natural law is the 10 Commandments and who doesn't?


 
I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who believes that the moral law is something less than the ten commandments. Even WSC folks believe that; they however believe that some parts shouldn't be enforced by the civil magistrate. I am not sure how you could call yourself Reformed and believe that the natural law/moral law is less than that.

CT


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## discipulo (Apr 12, 2011)

ChristianTrader said:


> TimV said:
> 
> 
> > So when dealing with Reformed thinkers who believed/s that Natural law is the 10 Commandments and who doesn't?
> ...



Absolutely CT. Concerning the Civil Authorities and the enforcement of the 1st Table of the Law, we have been debating that on 2Ks thread, and it's been edifying.


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## Douglas P. (Apr 12, 2011)

discipulo said:


> Douglas, 1) non sequitur, there is no morality apart from God, God created us as moral creatures.
> 
> That would be what the empiricist John Locke would have us to believe that the mind starts morally blank - tabula rasa - and it acquires a moral.



Yes, i wasn’t trying to argue that my # 1 was actually a tenable position, just that all non-Christian philosophy operates on that paradigm in order to suppress the truth. I might also argue that that world view precedes John Locke, and in fact can be traced back to Satan in the Garden.


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## jwithnell (Apr 12, 2011)

> It is also worth remembering that the pre-Lockeian Reformers would have used "Natural Law" in a different sense than the post-Lockiean Reformed folk.



I agree the pre- and post-Lockiean is critical, but don't believe it would be consistent with reformed thinking at all. Locke started with what man could learn via his senses and what he could draw from that with his reason. It is the start of a materialistic viewpoint that man is autonomous and may make moral choices based on his own observations and rational discoveries. Descartes, Hume, the enlightenment and so forth were the logical outworking of this supposition.

In the last few years, I have heard those in the reformed perspective speak of Locke in a rather neutral way, generally equating his viewpoint with what one may learn by general revelation. I do not believe this is correct for the above reasons. 

The legal viewpoints raised by others, and the use of "natural law" apart from Locke, particularly before his time, are different matters. I am narrowly addressing Locke and Natural Law and the havoc that it brought to western philosophy.


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## discipulo (Apr 12, 2011)

jwithnell said:


> > It is also worth remembering that the pre-Lockeian Reformers would have used "Natural Law" in a different sense than the post-Lockiean Reformed folk.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
It is rather amazing, in the worst sense of the word, how all these guys, even Descartes in his "belief", all start in themselves, men in the centre, culminating with Kant were the individual is left by himself with no certainty whatsoever of whatever is out there.

I would rather have the pagan dualistic proto-gnostic Plato a thousand times. Thank God we have father Abraham !


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## TimV (Apr 12, 2011)

So if there is a difference in laws at creation and laws of Moses, are there any who deny Moses supersedes creation?


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## ChristianTrader (Apr 12, 2011)

TimV said:


> So if there is a difference in laws at creation and laws of Moses, are there any who deny Moses supersedes creation?


 
I think basically all Reformed would deny such because laws of Moses beyond the laws available at creation are either expired (laws at creation don't expire) or exist because they accurately continue to accurately reflect the laws of creation and not because Moses wrote them down.

CT


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## TimV (Apr 12, 2011)

So at creation a guy could marry his sister and it was fine. Moses comes along and says it's now wrong. What should the magistrate do?


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## ChristianTrader (Apr 12, 2011)

TimV said:


> So at creation a guy could marry his sister and it was fine. Moses comes along and says it's now wrong. What should the magistrate do?


 
If we only understand a person marrying their sister is wrong due to God having told Moses to write that law down then no the magistrate should not.

CT


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## TimV (Apr 12, 2011)

So those who say natural law is rooted in creation as opposed to Moses are in a small minority?


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## cih1355 (Apr 13, 2011)

discipulo said:


> cih1355 said:
> 
> 
> > When people say, "Natural Law", they are talking about the set of moral values that are known apart from God's special revelation. Suppose that there is a person who has not had any contact with God's special revelation and suppose he knows that certain things are morally right and morally wrong. His knowledge of what is morally right and morally wrong is what people would call, "Natural Law." Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is my understanding that proponents of Natural Law say that this knowledge is something that people are born with or something that comes from observation.
> ...


 
I see your point. The law written on men's hearts is infallible, but our knowledge of it is not.


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## InSlaveryToChrist (Apr 13, 2011)

For what it's worth, Dr. Robert A. Morey has recently written a book precisely on the subject in question:

Amazon.com: The Bible, Natural Theology and Natural Law: Conflict or Compromise? (9781609571436): Dr. Robert A. Morey: Books

Here are some of the applauses given to the book:



> Dr. Robert Morey's study of natural law and natural theology raises important questions that every Bible-believer will want answered. His careful study and explanation of various Bible passages will yield a useful orientation to the classic arguments furnished us by the Reformers and their faithful heirs.
> -Dr. Nelson Kloosterman
> 
> 
> ...


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## discipulo (Apr 13, 2011)

InSlaveryToChrist said:


> For what it's worth, Dr. Robert A. Morey has recently written a book precisely on the subject in question:
> 
> The present volume presents a devastating critique of natural theology and natural law. Its argument is solidly biblical, and its accumulation of biblical data is overwhelming. I hope that God prospers it so that many will read it and take heed.
> -Dr. John Frame



Samuel, thank you for posting. I will add a quote I posted on other thread concerning 2Ks

Calvin - Institutes 4.20.16 

_ *Now, as it is evident that the law of God which we call moral, is nothing else than the testimony of natural law, and of that conscience which God has engraven on the minds of men, the whole of this equity of which we now speak is prescribed in it. *Hence it alone ought to be the aim, the rule, and the end of all laws. Wherever laws are formed after this rule, directed to this aim, and restricted to this end, there is no reason why they should be disapproved by us, however much they may differ from the Jewish law, or from each other_


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## ChristianTrader (Apr 13, 2011)

TimV said:


> So those who say natural law is rooted in creation as opposed to Moses are in a small minority?



If it was rooted in Moses, then how can one call it natural law? It is natural in that it is fully accessible to anyone regardless of their contact with Special Revelation. I think the normal view is that binding aspects of the Mosaic law are rooted in natural law.

CT


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## discipulo (Apr 15, 2011)

From Turrentin


_If it is asked how this natural law agrees with or differs from the moral law, the answer is easy. It agrees as to substance and with regard to principles, but differs as to accidents and with regard to conclusions. The same duties (both toward God and toward our neighbor) prescribed by the moral law are also contained in the natural law. The difference is with regard to the mode of delivery. In the moral law, these duties are clearly, distinctly and fully declared; while in the natural law they are obscurely and imperfectly declared both because many intimations have been lost and obliterated by sin and because it has been variously corrupted by the vanity and wickedness of men (Rom. 1:20-22). Not to mention other differences: as that the natural law was engraven upon the hearts of men, the moral on stony tables; the former pertains to all universally, the latter only to those called by the word; the former contains nothing except morality, the latter has also certain ceremonials mingled in it. 


Hence is easily gathered the reason why God wished to recall that law by Moses, to deliver it to his people viva voce, and proclaimed it in a solemn manner, committing it to writing and comprehending it in the decalogue. For although in upright nature there was no need of such promulgation, still (after sin) so great was the blindness of mind, such the perversity of will and disturbance of the affections that only remains of this law survived in the hearts of all (like rubbed pictures of the same, which on that account ought to be retouched by the voice and hand of God as by a new brush)._
Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 11:1:22-23a

with its scholastic flavor that made Barth throw away the baby with the water


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## PuritanCovenanter (Apr 15, 2011)

InSlaveryToChrist said:


> For what it's worth, Dr. Robert A. Morey has recently written a book precisely on the subject in question:
> 
> Amazon.com: The Bible, Natural Theology and Natural Law: Conflict or Compromise? (9781609571436): Dr. Robert A. Morey: Books
> 
> ...


 
You can read portions here. 

The Bible, Natural Theology and ... - Google Books


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## discipulo (Apr 15, 2011)

Randy, I was a bit surprised and quite disappointed with the several reasoning points I saw in the few Morey’s pages that I could read. 
Maybe I’m wrong but he seems not to be concerned to present shallow generalizations like the ones on page 295-296

Breaking Natural Law has no consequences - and he gives a very lame example of Natural Catholic Law on masturbation and going blind.

Let me ask something, do we see immediate consequences of breaking the Mosaic Law?

James tells us the consequence of sin: _and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death._ James 1:15

Do we see people dropping like sparrows? Well they are, but the full consequences of sin as the full consequences of salvation are not to be seen right now.

There is coming judgment to the unbelievers as there is coming glorification of the saints.

Several times he points - like page 302 - quoting 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 that man is blind, of course he is blind to the gospel, that is what the passage refers too.

Reformed Theologians with Calvin maintain a Duplex Cognitio Dei, of course Natural Law and Natural Revelation are insufficient for the Natural man to know God in a salvific way and to understand the Gospel.

Only by God’s Revelation in Scripture and the Holy Spirit application of redemption and inward illumination can men understand the gospel.

Natural law rather derives from Romans 1 and 2, or Psalm 19, amongst other passages, that men have a certain non redemptive knowledge of God, His Law, His Attributes and final judgment.

On Page 308 Morey builds a straw man out of a book I quoted on another thread, questioning first Grabill Methodology as quoting sparsely and out of context, 

And stating again against Natural Theology in the Thomistic way, but no one is defending that, Grabill to start with, states the clear differences between Natural Law and Natural Thomistic Theology

as understood by major figures in Church History, it is a book on Theological History, not on Dogmatics or Ethics per se. 

*Stephen J. Grabill, Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics* by Eerdmans, 328 pages.

From the reviews, emphasis and notes () mine

_This book is both a historical and topical approach to the foundations of ethics in the Reformed tradition. Those already familiar with the historical methodology of *Reinhold Seeburg, Heiko Oberman, David Steinmetz, and Richard Muller *will find this survey in the history of doctrine a comfortable read. Grabill examines in detail a limited number of interrelated doctrinal topics (natural revelation, natural theology, natural law) as they were formulated by Reformed founders (*Calvin, Vermigli*) and developed by later successors (*Zanchi, Althusius, Turretin*). _

_According to Grabill, it was a consensus that was shared by patristic, medieval and late-medieval, and early-modern Christian thinkers: the conviction that *God promulgated a natural law that directs and binds human creatures; that this “law of nature” has been written on every human heart; that conscience and reason serve as natural lights leading people to act in accord with the natural law; that the Decalogue, in terms of its moral content, defines the contours of the natural law*; that despite the pervasive effects of sin in the moral order, the natural law still yields adequate data for humans to distinguish between good and evil; and that, while the natural law is not sufficient for theological justification or redemption, it is crucial to maintaining just and well-ordered civil polities.

Calvin himself not only inherits the natural-law tradition but also grounds his understanding in two sources: Scripture and creation. That Calvin is explicit in his affirmation of a duplex cognitio Dei makes Barth’s and contemporary Protestants’ rejection of natural-law thinking all the more remarkable. Protestants today commonly presuppose that Calvinism’s account of total depravity obscures humans’ ability to use reason rightly and therefore to discern basic good and evil. But this is not the case. Universally imprinted non-salvific knowledge of God as Creator serves as a “preconception” of God for Calvin; therefore all people are accountable for their moral agency. This conviction is predicated on human beings’ creation in the image of God and their awareness of God’s existence. While Calvin views the human heart as deceitful and implacably wicked, he observes that the imago Dei is not eradicated; otherwise, there could be no order in civil affairs whatsoever, no holding human beings to any sort of moral accountability. 

The theological system of Francis Turretin (1623–1687) is for Grabill particularly instructive. While Turretin, with the magisterial Reformers, acknowledged the role of natural revelation, he is cut in the mold of Melanchthon and Vermigli owing 
to his speculative philosophical method. Moreover, the precision with which he formulated Reformed doctrine in the late seventeenth century is, for Grabill, grounds enough to examine his theological system. And yet despite Turretin’s towering stature as a theologian—what one historian called a “champion and grandmaster of Reformed polemics”—his theological ethics has been strangely ignored. 
This absence is all the more remarkable to the extent that Turretin’s formulation of natural-law doctrine is “systematic and integrated seamlessly with the adjacent doctrines of natural revelation and natural 
Natural Law _

I will continue to post from Vermigli, Zanchius and Turrentin, as it seems in my opinion that the old Barthian twin fear against Scholasticism and Natural Law + Natural Revelation concerning the dichotomy of Nature vs Grace or Calvin vs Mature Reformed Orthodoxy is coming back through Morey et al.


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## PuritanCovenanter (Apr 16, 2011)

Cesar,

Thanks for you kind input and challenges based upon your prior quotes above. I am having a problem with some of the definitions of Natural Law. Like all human epistomology things tend to migrate from one definition to another. Terms get hi-jacked and used in common vs. uncommon ways. They also get brought down to basic elements or lifted out of context depending on the context they are used. Context is a big problem here. When you quote how the terminology was used by the Reformers it means one thing. When it is brought into the next few centuries after that it is reduced (in the mind of some) to something meaning just what it implies to the natural man without God. If I were to use the term Natural Law today in our setting it would have a context that is lifted out from the Church and placed in the Academia of today. It would look to nature for a source of law. It would have a foundation that references an observation of things that are set up in natural order and how they work outside of the Context of a Creator. Therefore I would tend to agree with with Francis Schaeffer's view of Natural Law. The world's reference point of what is natural is a far cry from something that is supposed to be referenced from a revealed order from God in the minds of todays man and I would venture to say before most of the World outside of Mono Theism. If you look at species and how they react the reference point is lost. If you look at how nature erupts and destroys you have a very strange reference point because it is random. Man is blind and thus he doesn't naturally see nor can he see without some revealed will of God. Nature appears to be cruel and non-cruel. And the reference for its responses are all over the place. What makes nature turn out cruel and destroy millions of lives at will and then leave untold millions more unscathed. What makes one child to be born in a situation that is cruel and lay another in the lap of Luxury? How do we even define what cruel is? Our natural mind uses sensory and thus it is examined and used as the reference point for most natural men. Superstition becomes very relevant in this discussion when we start to think metaphysically as natural things go. The natural man has no reference point because he is only looking at nature. Thus the term Natural Law is a hindrance to many in this discussion. Just because of the Word Natural in my estimation. 

I don't much like the term Natural Law. It is too far removed because of the word nature in my estimation. If man is the highest order in this creation of physical nature (and that is a big if to the natural man because he also looks at the Planets and the forces of law that hold them in place) then the reference point becomes to look Hitlerish in my estimation. Or you could say Darwinistic. I like what Francis Schaeffer said, "For, if nature as it exists is the standard for men to live by, cruelty becomes equal to non-cruelty."

This discussion is purely academic and the references of context play a big role here. It is like trying to define what good is. You can only use a word if it is understood properly and in its context. So if you are going to refer to Natural Law you are going to have to define it based upon its context and with whom you are communicating with. A 15th or 16th century theologian will not do in our understanding of today. When they referred to Nature it had a presupposition that God was the reference point for it and held all things together. That is where they were coming from. Today and I would even say back then the natural man who was not from that context came up with a whole different understanding of the order of what naturally occurred and where their reference points came from. 

Am I making any sense here? How do we define natural or nature and from what context? Even in your thoughts you are referencing a presupposition that creation is a creation. As a child I just assumed it had always been and time had always existed. It always naturally was. My presuppositions were naturally different.


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## discipulo (Apr 18, 2011)

PuritanCovenanter said:


> Cesar,
> 
> Thanks for you kind input and challenges based upon your prior quotes above. I am having a problem with some of the definitions of Natural Law. Like all human epistomology things tend to migrate from one definition to another. Terms get hi-jacked and used in common vs. uncommon ways. They also get brought down to basic elements or lifted out of context depending on the context they are used. Context is a big problem here. When you quote how the terminology was used by the Reformers it means one thing. When it is brought into the next few centuries after that it is reduced (in the mind of some) to something meaning just what it implies to the natural man without God. If I were to use the term Natural Law today in our setting it would have a context that is lifted out from the Church and placed in the Academia of today. It would look to nature for a source of law. It would have a foundation that references an observation of things that are set up in natural order and how they work outside of the Context of a Creator. Therefore I would tend to agree with with Francis Schaeffer's view of Natural Law. The world's reference point of what is natural is a far cry from something that is supposed to be referenced from a revealed order from God in the minds of todays man and I would venture to say before most of the World outside of Mono Theism. If you look at species and how they react the reference point is lost. If you look at how nature erupts and destroys you have a very strange reference point because it is random. Man is blind and thus he doesn't naturally see nor can he see without some revealed will of God. Nature appears to be cruel and non-cruel. And the reference for its responses are all over the place. What makes nature turn out cruel and destroy millions of lives at will and then leave untold millions more unscathed. What makes one child to be born in a situation that is cruel and lay another in the lap of Luxury? How do we even define what cruel is? Our natural mind uses sensory and thus it is examined and used as the reference point for most natural men. Superstition becomes very relevant in this discussion when we start to think metaphysically as natural things go. The natural man has no reference point because he is only looking at nature. Thus the term Natural Law is a hindrance to many in this discussion. Just because of the Word Natural in my estimation.
> 
> ...


 
Randy, first of all thank you for the encouragement and sorry for taking so long to answer.

I think your concerns make all sense, and as you say we are in a post-enlightenment context.

Often we think of Post-modernism as the 2nd half of the XXth century philosophy of language trend, but
its evilness - autonomy - started much earlier in Rationalism and Empiricism. (In the Garden of Eden, you may wisely say...)

For the sake of the topic, it was first Kant (and not Foucault) who was the first *modern becoming post-modern* avant la lettre so to speak.

Rational becoming irrational is the kind of synthesis Kant engendered from the age of lights and away from the Father of lights.

Your concern for the expression Natural Law thus being wrongly understood today makes all sense, actually makes all sense on both directions, as we move away from Reformed orthodoxy.

Going forward towards Hobbes and Locke, we sense how self centred Modernity has no more God as the centre and origin of morality.

Natural becomes derived from Nature, read it Universal law.

Paganism closes full circle with paganism as it seems. Renaissance was not about spiritual rebirth, was about classical Greco-Roman cultural rebirth and Neo-Classical Modernity accomplishes its heyday. 

Going backwards to its Medieval use of Augustine and Aquinas, with all its differences, we sense we are back in the quick sands of auto-soterical Natural Theology territory - isn’t NT after all Rationalistic and Empiricist too ? Augustine and Aquinas were both finding some firmitas on Grace, but at what cost?

That I think is Morey’s great concern that Natural Law is a subtle, yet dangerous, denial of depravity, an open door to a natural knowledge of God, a synergistic stairway to heaven.

How to reconcile the noetic effects of the fall without the absolute loss of morality?

Natural Law?

How can natural man still know God?

Natural Revelation?

Wait a minute, these guys Vermigli, Zanchius, Turrentin, sound just like old Aristotle Songbook played by the same Aquinas’ Christian Ipod ! Or is it Plato Songbook played by Augustine’s Jukebox. 

Who knows anymore, all those greeks slept with each other. We want nothing to do with pagans right? And Natural sounds very Anima Mundi, listen, it is Philip Glass composing 600 times the same melody, like Stravinsky, that insatiable necrophafugus, would say of Vivaldi. 

Synthesis, Anima Mundi, Hegel's Absolute Mind rings a bell...

Well, we don’t throw away language just because of Derrida, Barthes, Lyotard, or we will end up saying nothing like the later Wittgenstein or playing pictionary like Roland Barthes.

So we better not throw away scholastic methodology either, just because it sounds confusing, medieval or worse, classic greek.

It is just how it says it, and not what it says, it is a language, a method, a taxonomy.

It may be apples or oranges, and we still have to tell the difference. 

We may prefer to use other terms or to qualify those terms, but we will still need to understand each other.

Morey in my opinion built a straw man and beat him down. 

Natural Law (the real thing, I mean!) is here to stay!


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