Roman Catholics & Natural Law

“… The image was equated with the soul’s natural attributes, while the … likeness, was equated with man’s moral conformity to God; the former were retained after the fall, the latter lost. This disjunction of image and likeness, and their segregation in each case from innate knowledge of God, became characteristic of scholastic and Roman Catholic doctrine. The Roman Catholic view is that man was created morally neutral, and that original righteousness was a superadded divine gift. While the fall eliminates this divine bonus, it produces no radical distortion of man’s original nature. Since the fall leaves the natural attributes unimpaired, man’s grasp of theological realities by the natural reason is not seriously affected by sin. The compartmentalization of man through the sundered image and likeness moderates the impairment of human nature by sin, and allows to the natural reason a positive significance in theology which finally inverts the Augustinian epistemic priority for divine revelation.”

Dr. Carl F. H. Henry
God, Revelation & Authority Vol. I pg. 332

Alright, this explains why Roman Catholics (RC) can appeal to Natural law without blushing. Now, clearly they don’t have a leg to stand on from Scripture since there is no distinction to be made between likeness and image and since Scripture teaches the complete vitiation of man’s intellect in the fall. Secondly, no Reformed Theologian worth his salt would ever say that, ‘while the fall eliminates this divine bonus (original righteousness), it produces no radical distortion of man’s original nature.’ Now, since that is true, how do Reformed Theologians consistently get from a ruinous fall to the teaching of Natural law which depends on Thomistic Roman Catholic categories?

Henry notes the ‘compartmentalization’ of RC thinking and when he notes that we can’t help but immediately think of a similar ‘compartmentalization’ that advocates of Natural law thinking are likewise involved in. On one hand, redemptively speaking man needs God’s regenerating grace in order to understand aright special revelation, while on the other hand, in the other compartment, man doesn’t need God’s regenerating grace in order to understand and embrace God’s Natural revelation in the creation realm.

Can Reformed people consistently compartmentalize the Creation realm from the Redemptive realm in order to save Natural law theory? Does their inconsistency on this matter reveal an unwarranted captivity to categories alien to Reformed ideas regarding the extent of depravity?

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane