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How Then Shall We Live: Can Natural Law Mitigate Our Moral Mess?
Part 2
As noted last week, natural law is a Christian, not exclusively a Roman Catholic, tradition.[1] Yet, many Protestants have developed a form of amnesia on this point until recently. Now, almost like young children gleefully engaged with bright and shiny Christmas gifts, a growing cadre of neophyte natural law evangelicals seem enamored with retrieving natural law notions, often over-zealously so.
This zeal for retrieval should be tempered considering what Scripture teaches us about the Creator, His cosmos, the Fall, and how we ought to live. Many significant obstacles to deploying natural law exist and should be faced honestly before glibly trumpeting simplistic supposed natural law solutions to our moral morass. Natural law is neither a panacea nor a pitfall – let the prudent reader understand. Let’s get to the gist.
Five Obstacles to Applying Natural Law
Intoning generally about natural law, whether a Thomistic version or Finnis’s “new” natural law version – without more – hardly effectively impacts the public square. Rather, if such moral knowledge exists – and it does – it needs to be applied at the retail level. Yet it is exactly here that significant obstacles arise which should not be ignored or soft-peddled. Consider five of them.
- Creation: Governed by Special Revelation
Law should be applied to the world as it exists and as it has been designed to exist: dependent on and designed by God – not severed from it. As Frame notes:
The law was designed to be used in the world. God revealed His law to be used, to be applied to the situations of human life. To use law, some knowledge of the world is necessary. . . . No matter how elaborate a linguistic explanation is, it is always the responsibility of the hearer to relate the explanation to the situation in which he is living and thus to understand the language. . . . Therefore, any law will require knowledge of the world if it is to be properly applied.[2]
With Christian cosmology, special revelation – not natural theology – governed the created order. Severing life from God and His word never produces optimal human flourishing. Man – whether redeemed or not – is to “live by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”[3] Any ethical system that severs itself from God’s word is suspect: incomplete at best and dangerous at worst.
God not only spoke the cosmos into existence, but He directed His will to His image – Adam and Eve – verbally. In other words, the Lord did not place Adam and Eve in the garden to “figure out life” for themselves aided only by their own empirical observations of nature and by reasoning from them. Note carefully: in the garden before the Fall occurred, God did not leave Adam and Eve to rely upon their own innate human faculties, including their reasoning. They were to do as God verbally instructed them. They were to act in accordance with special revelation, aligned with God’s command or law. To be sure, reasoning plays an important role because it reflects being created imago Dei, but it’s a tool, not a judge.[4] Its object is special revelation; it’s a tool for understanding and applying it.
Too often natural law advocates dispense with special revelation or contend that it’s not necessary. Or, natural law advocates take harbor by contending that they are making a “philosophical argument, not a theological one.”[5] Whatever the motivation for these moves, they structurally sever special revelation from ethical methodology. It’s one thing to fire a weapon with only iron sights; it’s quite another to do so blindfolded. And, this is often where natural law thinkers run aground. Why?
A major idea underlying natural law methodology is that reason alone[6] can reliably guide the moral conversation. Two problems arise, however. First, in a post-lapsarian world – the only world humans can know – what counts as “natural” may not be morally desirable. In other words, observing facets of a fallen world creates no reliable moral standard. And, we can only know pristine pre-lapsarian reality by using special revelation, which corrects our observations of the sin-marred world.
Second, many morally repugnant things have arisen and recur naturally: Kinism, racism, polygamy, segregation, miscegenation. Most recently, advocates of so-called “Christian Nationalism” explicitly predicate their ethic on a people’s natural affinity to prefer their own – all (supposedly) based on reason, observation, and natural law.[7]
While special revelation may not be necessary to establish certain mediate moral points, it certainly is necessary to fully understand and guide justice as designed by God. Frame notes the proper balance:
What use is natural law, when we have the bible. [citing Budziszewski’s answer: apologetics] . . . [P]rinciples that cannot be established from Scripture cannot be established by natural-law arguments either. When people try to add to God’s word by natural-law arguments, they violate the sufficiency of Scripture. This is not to say that it is wrong to use natural-law arguments. . . . [N]atural law is an important apologetic tool, but it does not provide ethical norms in addition to those in Scripture.[8]
Plainly, natural law extracted from the cosmos God created and interpreted does not – and cannot in the nature[!] of the case – suffice. This obstacle foreshadows the next obstacle.
- Pilot Error: The Noetic Effects of Sin v. Assuming Something Like Unaided Reason
The realities conveyed by the Bible do not disappear simply because they are ignored, whether through ignorance or by intention. For example, Nazis claimed that Jews were not human. Yet, every Jew exterminated at Dachau had been made in the image of God. The Nazi narrative could only occlude, not obliterate real reality.[9]
One of the revolutionary claims of Christianity involves the shift from shame to sin.[10] A culture predicated on shame behaves very differently from one based on sin. The latter includes sin’s remedy: redemption and reconciliation. The “category” of sin “behaves differently” from the “category” of shame. Yet, whether acknowledged culturally or not, sin remains a reality that impacts reality, including humanity’s faculties. Natural law thinking on occasion ignores or downplays the reality of sin’s pervasiveness, and by sidelining theology, likewise sets aside sin as a factor precipitating societal malady. This distorts the natural law project quantitatively – it leaves out a key ethical ingredient. Put differently, the natural law method is incomplete and can lead to a distorted calculus. But there’s more. Sin causes an additional problem for natural law jurisprudence. This additional problem is qualitative.
The Fall of man is totalistic in the sense that sin affects every aspect of reality, including creation.[11] Scripture also notes that sin impacts mankind’s thinking, distorting his reasoning – in other words, the notion of “unaided” or unfallen reason is illusory. Scripture’s witness is unmistakable:
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.[12]
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,[13]
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.[14]
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,[15]
But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away.[16]
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.[17]
To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.[18]
Accordingly, our fallen minds must be opened and renewed:
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.[19]
and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,[20]
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,[21]
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,[22]
The reality of this noetic effect of sin[23] spawns consequences, particularly for those natural law advocates who seek to “put aside” theology or special revelation. Someone quite familiar with the natural law tradition (Pope Benedict XVI), who’s also a stellar theologian, recognizes this problem:
Of course, the attempt to use a strictly autonomous reason that refuses to know about faith, to pull ourselves out of the slough of uncertainties by our own hair, so to speak, can hardly succeed in the end. For human reason is not autonomous at all. It is always living in one historical context or other.[24]
How can one reliably trust fallen supposedly autonomous reason to propel proper moral conclusions? At some point that enterprise needs the corrective lens of what is called – mixing the metaphor – “both books” – creation and revelation: they go together.[25] Invoking and relying on reason alone – without accounting for noetic sin and thereby ignoring revelational insight and correction – will collide with ethical reality and ultimately leave the advocate ethically disarmed. Natural lawyering cannot ultimately succeed without accounting for this reality. As one man also familiar with natural law put it, faith and reason must go together.[26] The problem of applying natural law compounds as the next obstacle illustrates.
- A Big Gap: The Lack of Epistemological Granularity, Specificity, and Breadth
To illustrate this obstacle to applying natural law at the retail level, consider this thought experiment. Suppose as you are working at your desk or cubicle, a co-worker approaches you. He says that upon entering the building today, he had to “step over” a “body” near the doorway. Do you call 911? If so, what do you tell the operator? You plainly need more information:
- Was the body human?
- Was the body lifeless?
- If lifeless:
- Was it a natural death?
- If not: Was there a crime committed?
- If so:
- Was it murder?
- Was it manslaughter?
- Was it suicide?
- Was it “assisted” suicide?
- Was it a justified killing in self-defense?
- Was it an excused killing due to mental defect or diminished capacity?
Each of these questions – and the key distinctions made from them – arise from and occupy significant places in the Western legal tradition.[27] However, none of them can be infallibly derived from the “basic goods” of the natural law.[28] The natural law morally informs us that life is a good, for example, but lacks substantive specificity to go much beyond that axiom. Just how does one distinguish between murder and self-defense? Or between murder and manslaughter? Scripture makes these distinctions.[29] In contrast, we only possess “natural knowledge of general principles of natural law.”[30] One scholar explained the problem this lack of granularity poses:
Thus, assuming the command, “Thou shalt not kill,” to be a divine one (and arguendo equating divine with natural law), there merely means that a very general divine norm must be concertized by human beings, after their own fashion, to answer such problems of whether, and to what extent, self-defense shall be an excuse to kill; whether one may, or should, kill the enemy in battle; whether criminals, and if so which kind, should be killed, and so on. The biblical commandment perhaps might claim universality, but without concrete application it remains an empty shell, and the concretization has vastly differed in every civilization.[31]
Moreover, Western law includes the notion of repose and finality. An ordered society with a functioning legal system faces situations to coordinate the flow of disputes and the finality of them. Doctrines arose by necessity to regulate the limitations upon actions and collaterally attacking final judicial rulings. How soon must a claim be made before it’s time-barred? If a matter has been adjudicated, how or under what circumstances can it be reconsidered by attacking it collaterally? None of these can be reliably deduced from “basic goods” or other natural law traditions. The natural lawyer may claim these are “prudential matters” beyond the ambit of natural law.[32] Fine. If this is thoroughly so, then what becomes of moral transcendence?[33] Does natural law mean anything for such situations? Is natural law therefore only a partial or hybrid tool? Who decides and how?
Natural law also manifests deficiencies as to its breadth; it is underinclusive. Briefly, simply note that while natural law cannot contradict the Eternal Law and the revealed Law of God, which Aquinas calls “Divine Law”,[34] it’s not the case that natural law is co-extensive with them. Paul makes this point on epistemological grounds:
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”[35]
Paul is saying he could not have reasoned to the wrongfulness of covetousness, absent the law of God. Plainly, on Paul’s testimony, natural law, though meaningful and instructive to a point,[36] remains morally incomplete and thereby insufficient.
- Incomplete Anthropology: The Absent Imago Dei
Law applies to people. The object of law attaches to humans, humanity, and their lives, relationships, and endeavors. What kind of thing is a human? Special revelation trumpets the creational norm that humans – all humans, pre and post Fall – are made in the image and likeness of God.[37] This norm supplied a crucial predicate for valorizing humans and erecting a just system of law.[38]
The imago Dei is also fundamental to grounding and justifying numerous legal doctrines: The sanctify of life;[39] the inherent dignity of each person;[40] equality under the rule of law;[41] the basis for just desserts and proportionality in criminal matters,[42] to name a few.
Here’s the problem: Just as no traditional “proof for God” arrives at the true and living Triune God,[43] no natural law theory deduces that humans are made Imago Dei of that true and living Triune God: No Triune God, no imago Dei of that God. While fallen man knows God’s attributes from the creation[44], he lacks knowledge of being made in His image and worse, he unrighteously suppresses the truth he does know.[45]
This presents a large problem when doing cultural apologetics involving “gender identity” claims. The predicate for opposing “gender transition” requires the foundation that humans exist as immutable sexual dimorphs, male and female.[46] Natural law, assumes it, but cannot prove it rationally. As law and culture begin to challenge metaphysics, rebutting those challenges requires a knowable immutable and firm metaphysical anthropology that reflects real reality. Natural law may assume this, but cannot on its own terms, prove or justify it. Yet, it needs to do so in order to provide real solutions to today’s pressing problems.
- Tension: Telos and the Naturalistic Fallacy
Natural law thinkers often rely on teleology in advancing moral claims. For example, the purpose of the eye is to see; but gazing into the sun, while possible, undermines the eye’s purpose and should be avoided. The purpose of the lungs is to oxygenate the blood; but inhaling water, instead of air, while possible, undermines the lung’s purpose, and should be avoided. Both uses are misuses based on the design of the implicated organ.[47]
The challenge here is to justify how one knows that what one observes is “right” in a moral sense. Non-consensual sex (sexual assault) and fornication (non-married sexuality) also exist naturally, but no natural lawyer would condone these practices as moral – a sociopath, however, using his own reason, could do so. The problem percolating under the surface here is known as the is/ought fallacy: how can one derive an “ought” from an “is” reliably?[48] Unaided and fallen reason lacks reliability at this very point.
To avoid this problem, natural lawyers often argue that some “ought’s” can be derived from “is’s” IF they embody the Creator’s purpose. Budziszewski puts it this way:
An “is” which merely “happened to be” has no moral significance because it is arbitrary; that’s why it cannot imply an “ought.” But an “is” which expresses the purpose of the Creator is fraught with “ought” already. Such are the inbuilt features of our design, including the design of deep conscience.[49]
Note carefully: to avoid the naturalistic fallacy, reliance on the Creator’s purpose becomes necessary. How are the Creator and His purposes known? By special revelation, not natural law alone.
Yet to conclude that Creation is neutral or lacks design, as contoured by the Creator’s purpose, produces a number of dangerous implications. As Nancy Pearcy explains:
If nature [creation] does not reveal God’s will, then it is a morally neutral realm where humans may impose their will. There is nothing in nature humans are morally obligated to respect. Nature becomes the realm of value neutral facts, available to serve whatever values humans may choose.
And because the human body is part of nature, it too is demoted to the level of an amoral mechanism, subject to the will of the autonomous self. If the body has no intrinsic purpose, built by God, then all that matters are human purposes. The body is reduced to a clump of matter—a collection of atoms and molecules, not essentially different from any other chance configuration of matter. It is raw material to be manipulated and controlled to serve the human agenda, like any other natural resource.[50]
Understanding God’s purpose for the human body in turn informs us how to best love others. Oliver O’Donovan makes this point, predicated on the God-given human telos:
“Responsibility in sexual development implies a responsibility to nature—to the ordered good of the bodily form which we have been given.” [fn omitted] In a teleological ethic, the way to love people is by supporting their telos— what is genuinely good for them in light of the way God designed us to function and flourish.[51]
If law applies to real people, which it does, law must be informed by the reality about people as they really are. Consequently, law requires both nature and special revelation that sets forth the purpose and design of Creation, including the human person. Natural law alone cannot justify a reliable teleology.
A Natural (??!!) Way Forward
The foregoing considerations necessitate that the Word of God must be consulted and applied to all of life – this is one aspect of confessing that Jesus is Lord – every square inch of reality is His: He created it; He sustains it; He redeems it – all of it. To attempt to live apart from Him and His Word is to grope in darkness, because it’s only in His light that we truly see light.[52] Accordingly, what we must “retrieve” is the whole counsel of God applied to all of life.[53] Any other proposal would rely, at its essence, on a law naturally unnatural to human flourishing.
[1] And, as noted in Part 1, pagans too articulated versions of natural law.
[2] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (1987), 66
[3] Matt. 4:4
[4] Greg L. Bahnsen, Ready to Reason, https://graceonlinelibrary.org/apologetics/presuppositionalism/ready-to-reason-by-dr-greg-bahnsen/
[5] This is the tact taken by the authors (George, Girgis, and Anderson, in their fine book What is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense (2012)
[6] Aquinas rejects that notion that the will, as opposed to reason, occupies primacy as to the law. See, Summa Theologica, Q:90.
[7] For a devastating critique of this effort, see, Brian Mattson, A Children’s Crusade – Stephen Wolfe and the “Great Restoration.” https://brianmattson.substack.com/p/a-childrens-crusade See also the essays collected in these volumes, all edited by P. Andrew Sandlin which address these and adjacent matters: Virtuous Liberty: A Christian Defense of Classical Liberalism and the Free Society Against Cultural Leftism and the New Right (2023); and The Sanctified State: Politics in the Christian Worldview (2024)
[8] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life (2008) 246, 248
[9] Unsurprinsgly, vile racism and/or antisemitism now populate the more extreme voices for this perspective such as apostate Corey Mahler and deposed minister Michael Spangler.
[10] Kyle Harper, From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2016)
[11] Romans 8:19-23: creation itself “awaits” release from sin’s bondage.
[12] Romans 8:5-7
[13] Romans 1:21,22
[14] Eph. 4:17
[15] Col. 1:21
[16] 2 Cor. 3:14
[17] 2 Cor. 4:4
[18] Tit. 1:15
[19] Romans 12:2
[20] Eph. 4:23
[21] Luke 24:44,45
[22] 2 Cor. 10:5
[23] Parsing the implications stemming from this reality quickly becomes nuanced and complicated. See, e.g. “Noetic Effects of Sin” Objections, https://www.reformedclassicalist.com/home/noetic-effects-of-sin-objection; see also, David Haines, Thomas Aquinas on Total Depravity and the Noetic Effects of Sin, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/thomas-aquinas-on-total-depravity-and-the-noetic-effects-of-sin/ and Dewy J. Hoitenga, The Noetic Effects of Sin: A Review Article, https://www.calvin.edu/library/database/crcpi/fulltext/ctj/88052.pdf The simple point here is that one cannot simply or glibly invoke “unaided reason” as if that human faculty is unaffected by sin. Yet, “reason” often carries a heavy, but leaky, bucket of water in natural law exercises.
[24] Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance – Christian Belief and the World Religions (2003), 135-36. It may well be that Ratzinger, as a theologian, rather than being a philosopher, grants more gravitas to the Scripture’s witness to the noetic effects of sin. Philosophers tend to rely more on reason; theologians tend to rely more on revelation.
[25] Briani Mattson, The Two Books Go Together – On Natural Theology, https://brianmattson.substack.com/p/the-two-books-go-together See also, N.T Wright, Eschatology and History: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology (2019). Further note that Paul confesses he “would not have known” what it meant to covet unless the law [special revelation] had so informed him. (Rom.7:7). Plainly, natural law is not as comprehensive as, nor co-extensive with, the Law of God.
[26] Fides et Ratio, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html. Note the title’s intentional use of the conjunctive – “and” [et] – not the disjunctive “or” [aut]; this idea is to link – not separate – faith and reason.
[27] See, e.g., Harold Berman, Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (1985)
[28] As one commentator summarized Finnis’s theory: “Finnis thinks that these 7 ‘basic goods’ are universal – they apply to all humans at all times. To flourish as human beings we need all of these basic goods. • Let’s look at them in more detail (see handout for even more detail): o Life = the drive for self-preservation; it includes every aspect of life which puts a human being in good shape for self-determination; it includes bodily health, freedom from pain; also the transmission of life by procreation. NOTE: in a 2011 postscript, Finnis added the institution of marriage (a man and a woman) to this category.” https://rsthomastallis.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/6/7/23674516/johnfinnis.pdf Query: Why did Finnis originally omit the supposedly knowable “basic good” of marriage from his system until 2011? Finnis is brilliant and a treasure; the point is that his system reflects a lack of granularity, even at a basic fundamental societal level. This facet highlights concerns of using natural law in a way that operates at the legal retail level. While “New Natural law” is certainly profitable, it’s simply not a panacea. And, to be fair, the better natural law advocates recognize this and do not claim natural law to be an ethical cure all.
[29] Ex. 22:2,3 (self-defense); Deut. 19:1-13 (manslaughter). For further and more comprehensive insight into the taxonomies of biblical law see Jonathan Burnside, God, Justice, and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible (2010)
[30] J. Budziszewski, Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Law, (2014), 54
[31] Reginald Parker, Legal Positivism, Notre Dame Law Review, Vol. 32, Issue 1, 39 (1956) – notes omitted. This author, of course, fails to fully utilize the biblical witness which does supply needed granularity, unlike the bare natural law.
[32] Does this mean that such inquiries lack moral ballast altogether? If so, the retail use of natural law seems truncated considerably. And, if these are only purely prudential matters, WHO and WHAT determines the best and wisest approach(s) for resolving them? And, by what standard?
[33] This begins, if pushed, to operationally sound almost like Deism: yes, there exists this higher moral standard, but functionally, it contributes nearly nothing actually helpful at the retail level.
[34] If one arrives at a conclusion that undermines or contradicts the revealed law of God, error has occurred. This is the case of the Kinists and racialists such as Corey Mahler and Michael Spangler claiming that natural law justifies their vile positions.
[35] Romans 7:7
[36] Romans 2:14, 15
[37] Gen. 1:26, 27, 9:6
[38] Ironically, even pagans acknowledge this point often gratefully: Larry Sidentop, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism (2014); Luc Ferry, A Brief History of Thought (2011); Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (2019); Steven D. Smith, Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac (2018)
[39]See, e.g., Gen. 2:7; Acts 17:25; Ps. 36:9; 1 Sam. 2:6
[40] James 3:9
[41] Scripture condemns the sin of partiality. See, e.g., Jeffery J. Ventrella, The Ugly Monsters of “Baptized” Partiality, https://truthxchange.com/the-ugly-monsters-of-baptized-partiality/
[42] Gen. 9:6 and Matt. 5:30, Ex. 21:24, and Lev. 24:20
[43] The “traditional proofs” like Anselm’s ontological argument or the various cosmological proofs (whether that’s Jonahtan Edwards’ or William Lane Craig’s Kalam argument), never “prove” the Triune God of the Bible. Rather, the certain proof that the God of the Bible exists is that without Him, one couldn’t prove anything and thus must be based on special revelation. See, Greg L. Bahnsen, Arguments for the Existence of God, https://www.bahnseninstitute.com/arguments-for-the-existence-of-god/
[44] Romans 1:19-21
[45] Romans 1:18
[46] When natural law thinkers address this issue, they often smuggle special revelation into their contentions; in other words, they do not – and cannot – solely rely on natural law principles.
[47] These illustrations involve personal morality; query whether they justify imposing societal prohibitions on such conduct.
[48] Philosophers banter and debate this point, but at the retail level, how can one persuade a jurist or a jury that just because something is X, it’s supposed to be X? See, e.g., Has the “Is/Ought” problem finally met its match? https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/94028/has-the-is-ought-problem-finally-met-its-match
[49] J. Budziszewski, What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide (2003), 108
[50] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body, (2018), 24
[51] Cited in Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body, (2018), 171
[52] Ps. 36:9b
[53] Acts 20:27; 2 Cor. 10:5