“Traditional marriage is part of the created order that God sustains through his common grace, not a uniquely Christian institution, and society as a whole suffers when it is not honored. Christians are responsible to commend the goodness and benefits of marriage in the public square…. To call attention to that evidence in the public square is a way of communicating that marriage is not a uniquely Christian thing, but a human thing, and that all people have an interest in getting marriage policy correct.”
~ David Van Drunen
Chief of the R2K Tribe
There are several problems here before we even get to passages like Ephesians 5
1.) How do we know what “Traditional” is in “Traditional Marriage.” It simply is the case that in order to get to Traditional Marriage you need Christian categories to begin with. One can’t get to Christian categories without the Scriptures.
2.) There is an appeal here to a “Human thing.” And yet, apart from Scripture how do we know what it means to be Human? In point of fact I would contend that those who are outside of Christ are doing all they can to put off genuine humanness in favor of putting on beastliness. Man loses his manishness the further he goes in sin. So, all appeal to a “human thing” are question begging if we can only consistently determine what Human is using Christian categories.
3.) The fact that pagans embrace marriage has more to do with their being inconsistent with their own Christ hating presuppositions than it has to do with “being human.” Would Lamech have denied he was being “Human” when he took two wives? Does Justice Anthony Kennedy (he who penned the Majority opinion in the overturning of DOMA) believe that sodomites are less human for being coupled?
4.) The very fact that we are moving in the opposite direction regarding “getting marriage policy correct,” (i.e. — sodoomite marriage) is evidence that all people do not have an interest in getting marriage policy correct.
5.) It is true that Marriage is a Creational Institution but the mistake here on VD’s part is forgetting the Grace restores Nature. Creation itself has fallen and part of the effect of Redemption is to restore Creation to its original design. Redemption does so buy leaving Creational Creational while at the same time restoring Creational to what it would be minus sin.
Of course all this explains why recently well known Westminster California Seminary Professors have suggested that they could accept sodomite civil marriage. If marriage belongs to the Creational realm — a realm that is completely compartmentalized from the Redemptive realm –then why should the Church pronounce on it?
All in all what R2K is doing is what Van Til talked about long ago when he used the illustration of a child climbing up on their parents lap in order to slap them in the face. R2K assumes stable categories that couldn’t exist apart from Christian thinking and then uses those assumptions in order to deny the Christian faith in the common realm.
excellent!
I hope I’m not going too off topic here, but I wanted to relate this story.
I recently commented on a blog that, after exhorting Christians to stop blaming homosexuals, launched into the predictable dialectic of attacking Christians for every sin to the exclusion of homosexuality.
The thesis was that we should not expect unbelievers to adhere to God’s law. I commented that it seems that” we” should expect from unbelievers exactly what “God” expects from them. Later I queried whether or not God has the right to legislate the morality of his own creation. Both posts were met with verbiage claiming that my comments were irrelevant to the discussion. The moderated comments were a spectrum of love gospel cheerleading, that were innocuous at best, and creepy at worst. I am beginning to see how R2K theology breeds this dangerous type anti-law gospel in those flirting with christian teachings. Those who are not even aware of the kingdom issue, as well as other more basic doctrines, are syphoned off by the love/feel good/don’t judge gospel mojo.
I see no end to this dangerous dynamic of bait and switch for those who are already buying in on such a critical social issue. I can envision such believers legitimately substituting any advancing anti-christ agenda, and spin it off into a self examination/counterfeit confession fest for themselves. For that matter why don’t they just go all the way and advocate not blaming sinners for sinning. That cover’s all the bases, doesn’t offend, and makes everyone feel just fine.
Jeffery,
One only has to look at how God held Ninevah accountable to His Law Word in order to see the idiocy of an argument that says the pagan is not responsible to God’s law Word. Secondly, one is reminded that God cast the Canaanites out because they did not conform to God’s Law.
The Gospel is entirely free but the fact that the Gospel is God doing all the saving doesn’t mean that the wicked aren’t responsible to God’s standard.
Nice post Bret
BTW, Zrim is hating on you and presuppositionalism regarding this post
http://oldlife.org/2013/07/what-if-we-thought-about-marriage-the-way-we-think-about-driving/#comments
These 3 Bahnsen MP3’s are free right now
Dialog Over the Bible and Homosexuality
“On the John Stewart radio program, Dr. Bahnsen held a dialog with a man (Mr. Paul Johnson), who claimed to be a “Christian homosexual.” You will want to see how this man’s deceptions and faulty scholarship were exposed and refuted by Dr. Bahnsen. Includes a separate radio dialog with Jim Mitulski, pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church in San Francisco, the largest homosexual congregation in the city.”
http://www.cmfnow.com/dialogoverthebibleandhomosexualtity-2.aspx
Thank you so much for that audio link. The exchange between Mituski and Bahnsen is s great model, and should be heard by all.
Agreed.
“It is true that Marriage is a Creational Institution but the mistake here on VD’s part is forgetting the Grace restores Nature.”
If you grant that it’s a “creational institution” then it’s not a particularly Christian thing, but something which all humans share in common. Grace might restore “Nature” but that does not mean that it is not natural, as you seem to be assuming. One needs to be merely human to participate (and comprehend) marriage. Their ability to rightly (or wrongly) apprehend it is a different matter.
You presume far more that Van Drunen says. I’m curious if you even read his quote you posted: “society as a whole suffers when it is not honored” and “Christians are responsible to commend the goodness and benefits of marriage in the public square”
Strange indeed that you would use the phrase “Christian faith” and “common realm” in the same sentence.
“If you grant that it’s a “creational institution” then it’s not a particularly Christian thing, but something which all humans share in common. Grace might restore “Nature” but that does not mean that it is not natural, as you seem to be assuming. One needs to be merely human to participate (and comprehend) marriage. Their ability to rightly (or wrongly) apprehend it is a different matter.”
All because something lies in the “creational realm” does not mean its purpose can’t be bastardized, altered or morphed into something it wasn’t originally intended to be. All humans can share marriage in common with some human being married to their dairy cow, their sister AND Mother, or to Uncle Jack. The creational realm is fallen and so it can be handled in particularly non Christian way.
Eating is a creational realm activity and yet the Marquis DeSade advocated eating excrement in order to attack Christian understandings of creational eating.
So, I’m not assuming Nate, what you assume I am assuming.
And in terms of your 3rd paragraph I am not presuming in the least more than VD says. It is merely the case that R2K adherents are full of double speak and so what they say at one point they commonly take away at another point.
Of course things are distorted from their original intent, no one disputes that (Calvinists at least). What’s in dispute is if you need Christians to bring marriage back to a proper civil function. You’re in effect saying that unbelievers are incapable of comprehending the civil function of marriage and need us Christians to set the record straight.
You don’t need Christians in order to understand that marriage ought to be between a man and a woman. You just need to recognize human anatomy.
Nate,
Of course that is not true. Here is an article that invokes Natural law in favor of sodomy.
http://queeringthechurch.com/2011/07/23/how-natural-law-supports-gay-marriage-gay-adoption/
Apparently this person needs a person who reads general revelation via special revelation in order to get the issue correct.
That does nothing to disprove the point about Natural Law. Even you said fallen men distort Natual Law to their own ends. And the point made by that article is a very poor example – you need not Christianity to show the fault in this persons use of NL. Romans 2:14-15 shows the ability of of even fallen men to understand and (albeit imperfect and in a non-justifying manner) obey the law.
14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.
The point is that men, apart from Christ, are able to obey the law (in a strictly natural way). They do not need a Christian to first reveal the law to them in order for them to know its there and what is true about it. If men were incapable of comprehending and rendering obedience to even NL, the God could not hold them accountable. But God holds them accountable for what they already know – natural law. And if they are, in this life, capable of comprehending it, there need not be a redemptive aspect necessary to help men comprehend it.
But even more so, God has instituted the governing authorities, and these he has done irrespective of their awareness of the Christian faith. There could be no government if it were not for man’s innate ability to recognize and obey (in a strictly natural way) the law.
And that is the touchpoint we have with the civil realm. We have a direct awareness of the law because God has revealed it to us both externally and internally, whereas the unbeliever has it internally. Because of fallen man’s disposition to distort the law, the can never render perfect obedience nor fully comprehend it, yet it does not imply that they cannot, through their fallenness articulate it.
Nate,
1.) http://ironink.org/2008/02/still_working_on_natural_law/
2.) A non R2K look at Romans 2:14-16
14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) 16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.
This text is probably the main text that is seized upon by Natural Law theorists to justify the Natural law project. I hope to show in what follows that the text does not support the whole Natural Law project. The reason that I am pursuing this here is due to the fact that among some Reformed Churches, Jesuit trained scholars are seeking to revive the Natural Law tradition within the Reformed Church. One would have thought that given the thorough thrashing that the presuppositionalists in the 20th century gave to Natural theology and by extension Natural Law that this would be a battle that would not need to be fought again but alas memories are even shorter than lifespans.
From the passage above the Natural Law theorist posit three truths about the text that just are not so.
1.) Natural Law theorists are convinced that the text is a universal given for all men
2.) The word Law in vs. 15 is a reference to Natural Law or Laws found in nature.
3.) The Natural Law(s) are written in the hearts of all men
The background of this passage finds the Apostle making the case that fallen men will not be able to use the excuse of a lack of revelation for their insistence that they do not know God. This is due to the reason that the Gentiles have suppressed the truth of God’s revelation in unrighteousness and chose to worship the creation over the Creator.
The basis of God’s condemnation of the wicked is that they are ungodly and unrighteous, having inherited original sin and they are condemned having been imputed with the sin of Adam. The refusal to receive the message of General Revelation which teaches that there is a God and that man is condemned only ratifies the condemnation that fallen man is born under and with.
Some of these that come under God’s condemnation are those who have never heard of God’s Law (Torah). Yet, even these are condemned for
all who have sinned without the Torah will also perish without the Torah; and all who who have sinned under the Torah will be judged by the Torah. (Romans 2:12)
It is important to point out here that the “Torah” (Law) mentioned here is not reducible to the Decalogue. The Torah includes all of the Law in all of its detail that God gave to Israel. John Murray could comment on this text by offering,
“The law referred to is definite and can be none other than the law of God specified in the preceding verses as the laws which the Gentiles do not have, the law the Jews did have and under which they were, the law by which men will be condemned in the day of judgment.”
This is important to note because our Natural Law friends want to reduce the Law in Romans 2 to the Decalogue and they want to contend that the Gentiles did have the Law being referred to here if only as given by a different delivery system (Natural Law). The Law that the Apostle refers to here is a law that governed how one’s hair was cut, how one’s crops were planted, how sin was to be punished, etc. It was the whole Torah system. To assume that the law that is referred to in Romans 2 is only the Ten Commandments is to import something to the text that is not there. Clearly it is easier to make a case that Natural Law communicates that Murder is wrong. It is more difficult to contend that Natural Law teaches that if an animal gores and kills somebody it must be stoned. By reducing what the Torah is in Romans 2 the Natural Law aficionado makes it easier to successfully make his case.
Paul in Romans 2:14 emphatically states that some Gentiles do not have the Torah to guide them. It is important that we realize that there is no definite article in the Greek before the word “Gentiles.” This is significant because the Natural Law guys who learned from their Jesuit mentors assume, contrary to the text, that all Gentiles do have the Torah but from a different source – to wit, from Nature as read by autonomous reason.
You can imagine a bit of a conversation that might develop between a Roman Catholic Thomistic defender of Natural Law and the Presuppositionalist who reads the Scripture,
Presuppositionalist: A “Gentile” by definition is someone who does not have the Torah to guide him in all of life.
Thomist: No! The Gentiles do have Torah. They just get it from Nature, not Revelation.
Presuppositionalist: NO! Paul states twice in Romans 2:14 that Gentiles do not have the Torah. He is not saying that they have a Torah-without-God through a Nature-without-God. In Romans 2:12, Paul states that those who sin without Torah will perish without Torah. If they have the Torah, even through a Nature-without-God how can he say that Gentiles sin and perish without it?
The Apostle is stating that the “conscience” in the Gentile heathen takes the place of the Torah by sitting in judgment of what He thinks and says and does. This is key for it is this conscience that is the “work of the law written on the heart.” The work of the law is to adjudicate between right and wrong. It is the heathen Gentiles conscience that is doing that work. It is thus not the Law (Torah) that is written on the Gentile heart but the work of the Law as accomplished by the conscience that is written on the Gentile’s heart. Instead of the Torah the pagan has conscience. Meyer points out,
“their moral nature, with its voice of conscience commanding and forbidding, supplies to their own Ego the place the revealed law possessed by the Jews.”
Robert Haldane chimes in,
“We have here a distinction between the law itself, and the work of the law. the work of the law is the thing that that the law doeth, – that is, what it teaches about actions, as good or bad. This work, or business, or office of the law, is to teach what is right or wrong.”
A proper understanding of Romans 2:14-16 requires us to distinguish between what the text says (the work of the law written on their hearts) and what is passed off as the text saying (the law written on their hearts).
This error of rearranging the text is seen by reputed scholars like David VanDrunen
“God has inscribed the natural law on the hearts of every person (Romans 2:14-15), and all people know the basic requirements of God’s law, even if they suppress that knowledge (Rom. 1:19, 21, 32).”
Michael Horton has likewise made this common error,
Gentiles have the moral law indelibly written on their conscience (Rom. 2:15). Not only do they know the second table (duties to neighbors); they know the first table as well (duties to God).”
These incidents could be many times repeated by many Thomistic authors and in this habit we see theologians not only deleting the words “the work of” but adding the words “on the hearts of all men.”
The problem here is that Paul did not say that, “the law was written on the hearts of all men.” Indeed, given the context of Romans 2 Paul most assuredly does not have in view all men but only those Gentile pagans who do not have the written Torah. If our Natural law lovers were consistent with their misreading of the text they would have to admit that Jews do not have Natural Law because they have Torah.
Lenski explains,
“Jews cannot be included, for they are under the Mosaic code. The Greeks are also excluded … because the Greek is a pagan he is not necessarily included … Also those who sin and perish ‘without any law’ (vs. 12) are excluded… This interpretation will not be accepted by those who think that all Gentiles are here referred to. But Paul had looked around in this wicked world a bit. It still contains men who have no conscience at all, who in no way respond even to an inner law … Yes, ethne (Greek for Gentile) without the article is correct.”
So clearly the interpretation of Natural Law advocates is inaccurate here. The passage does not support the interpolation that “the law is written on the hearts of all men.” The Holy Spirit is not speaking universally of all mankind. Natural law theorizing fails on this account.
Now add to this that the word “Gentiles” does not have the definite article in Romans 2:14 because not only is Paul not making a universal statement about all mankind, he is also not even making a universal statement about all Gentiles. Some Gentiles of course had heard of Torah and thus those Gentiles who had heard of Torah cannot be grouped with the Gentiles who had not heard of Torah. John Murray offers on this score,
… there are some Gentiles who did have the law and on that account did not belong to the category of which he (Paul) is speaking.”
H. A. W. Meyer reinforce Murray’s observation by offering that what Paul was saying must,
“not be understood of the Gentiles collectively … for this must have been expressed by the (definite) article … and the putting of the case otan … poin with respect to the heathen generally would be in itself untrue – but Paul means rather Gentiles among whom the supposed case concerns.”
The next observation that seriously mitigates against the Natural law case is the reality that in Romans 2:15 the Greek verb for “work” and the Greek verb for “written” agree (accusative neuter singular). The case, gender, and number of the two words grammatically mean that the “work” of the Torah is what is “written” in the hearts of the Gentiles who do not have the Torah. This bolsters the case that is being made that it is not the case that the Torah itself is written on the heart. What the Apostle is referring to here is something else that is in the hearts of the heathen that functions in the place of Torah.
Next, in order to overturn Natural law eisegesis of Romans 2:14-16 we turn to the meaning of the phrase, “the law” in the text. In the context of the passage the meaning can only be a reference to the revealed Torah that the Jews possessed. The attempt by Natural Law theologians to interpret “the law” in Romans 2:14-16 as some kind of ethereal nebulous Natural law is just laughable and violates basic hermeneutics 101. John Murray again reinforces the point that we are laboring at here by saying,
“Paul does not say that the law is written upon their (Gentiles) hearts.”
For our next entry I will seek to set forth what Paul is getting at with the idea that the “work of the law written in their hearts”
CONSCIENCE
This “work of the law written in their hearts” The Apostle suggests is the conscience.
15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)
It is the conscience that does the work that the Torah does for those who do not have Torah. For those who have Torah, the work of Torah is to determine what is acceptable and what is not. For those who do not have Torah, the work of Torah written in the heart is the work of the conscience determining what is acceptable and what is not.
Matthew Henry in his commentary offers in support of this
They had the work of the law. He (Paul) does not mean that work which the law commands, as if they could produce a perfect obedience; but that work which the law does.
Hendrickson & Kistemaker in their commentary offers,
It is that individual’s inner sense of right and wrong; his (to a certain extent divinely imparted) moral consciousness viewed in the act of pronouncing judgment upon himself, that is, upon his thoughts, attitudes, words, and deeds, whether past, present, or contemplated. As the passage states, the resulting thoughts or judgments are either condemnatory or, in certain instances even commendatory.
And just one more … this from a chap named Mounce in his commentary on Romans
“Paul was not saying that God’s specific revelation to Israel through Moses was intuitively known by pagan peoples. He was saying that in a broad sense what was expected of all peoples was not hidden from those who did not have the revelation given to Israel. Their own conscience acknowledged the existence of such a law. Thrall suggests that Paul was saying that in the pagan world the conscience performed roughly the same function as the law preformed in the Jewish world.”
Now as we consider the Biblical concept of conscience closer we learn that like all words the meaning of this word depends upon which worldview matrix that we drop it in.
Brief Explanatory Story – The meaning of the word “fat.”
Conscience is one of those words that has been made to carry a great deal of foreign freight. In the philosophy of Stoicism “conscience” was made to mean the place where resides the infallible “sense of oughtness” resident in human nature.
The Biblical concept of conscience is different from the pagan notion of Stoicism.
Interestingly enough the Hebrew OT never refers to the “conscience.” There isn’t even a Hebrew word for it, though there are times where the KJV will translate the Hebrew word “Heart” as “conscience” but this is an example where people were interpreting instead of translating. No one who had the Law ever appealed to “conscience” as an inner judge for right and wrong. It was the Torah that served as judge for right and wrong. Since Jews had the Torah they did not need a conscience.
When we come to the NT, the word “conscience” does not appear in the Gospels and is never referenced by Jesus or His disciples. In the Epistles the Greek word we use for “conscience” can simply mean to be sincere in what one says and does.
Romans 9:1 I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit,
Barclay and Nida in their commentary on Romans point out
“conscience may be variously translated depending upon the particular set of associations connected w/ certain terms or phrases – for example, “my heart,” “my innermost,” “that which speaks within me,” or “the voice of my heart.”
The conscience does not have any ontological reality. It seems often to serve as a kind of “Deus ex machina” to communicate the source of ones convictions.
Vincent’s word studies give us insight into the meaning of conscience
“In Scripture we are to view the conscience as Bishop Ellicott remarks, not in its abstract nature, but in its practical manifestations. Hence it may be weak (I Cor. 8:7, 12), unauthoritative and awakening only the feeblest emotion. It may be evil or defiled (Heb. 10:22, Tit. 1:15), through consciousness of evil practice. It may be seared (I Tim. 4:2), branded by its own testimony to evil practice, hardened and insensible to the appeal of good. OTOH, it may be pure (II Tim. 1:3), unveiled, and giving honest and clear testimony. It may be void of offense (Acts 24:16), unconscious of evil intent or act: good as here, or honorable (Heb. 13:18). the expression and the idea, in the full Christian sense, are foreign to the OT, where the testimony to the character of moral action and character is born by external revelation rather than by the inward moral consciousness.
So we see that those who teach that conscience is the place in human nature where there resides the infallible “sense of oughtness” are those who are teaching the meaning according to the ancient pagan philosophy of stoicism and not Christianity.
REGENERATION
As we seek to wrest Romans 2 away from those who teach, by way of pagan Natural Law theories, that God’s Law is written on the hearts of all men, we would point to the idea of the work of Regeneration.
In all other references in Scripture to the law being written in the heart what we find is a reference to the work of regeneration.
Jer. 31:33″But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, ” I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
It would be odd if in Romans 2 Paul began to use the language of the promise of the New Covenant to teach that the pagans – those who were strangers and aliens to the covenant – had written on their heart that law written on the heart which was to be the blessing of the new covenant.
So, to say, as the Natural Law theologians are want to say that all men of the law written in their hearts is to take what was to be the privileged blessing of the new covenant people and extend it indiscriminately to regenerate and unregenerate alike. I would say the position of Natural Law advocates proves to much.
Based on what has been teased out in these two message on Natural law, I must conclude that Romans 2:15 does not teach Natural law as it is commonly taught by many in the Reformed camp.
I didn’t pick up on the homosexual article because it’s a red herring. My understanding is that the discussion concerns 2K’s use of Natural Law, not homosexuals.
Forgive me for brevity, trying to tackle your 3,000+ word essay was a bit laborious (this is a “comment” section after all).
1) You stated:
“This is important to note because our Natural Law friends want to reduce the Law in Romans 2 to the Decalogue and they want to contend that the Gentiles did have the Law being referred to here if only as given by a different delivery system (Natural Law).”
Show me where NL proponents reduce the Law in Romans 2 to the Decalogue. If their reduction so essential to the demonstrating their faulty interpretation of Romans 2, then certainly you can show where they make this reduction.
This is so crucial because you state:
“The case, gender, and number of the two words grammatically mean that the “work” of the Torah is what is “written” in the hearts of the Gentiles who do not have the Torah. This bolsters the case that is being made that it is not the case that the Torah itself is written on the heart. What the Apostle is referring to here is something else that is in the hearts of the heathen that functions in the place of Torah.”
As far as I understand and have read, no 2K proponent states that it is the Torah that is “written on the heart” nor do 2k proponents equate Torah with Natural law.
So you can see why I call this a straw man argument. You need to show 2K proponents stating that the “law written on the heart” is the same as Torah. Otherwise you may be guilty of attacking a fiction.
Hence why I can’t continue – you haven’t represented 2K fairly in your post.
“Natural law was promulgated by God at creation and implanted in the human consciousness. We only know God because he has revealed himself, but he has revealed himself to us from the very beginning. Thus to say that a law is natural is to say that it is revealed in and constitutional to creation.
In the Institutes, he (Calvin) equated explicitly natural law to the Decalogue. At the beginning of his exposition he said ‘that interior law’ (lex illa interior) ‘which we have described as written, even engraved upon the hearts of all, in a sense asserts the very same things that are to be learned from the Two Tables.’ In book four, discussing civil polity, Calvin made the same point.
It is a fact that the Law of God which we call the moral law is nothing less than a testimony of natural law and of that conscience which God has inscribed upon the minds of men.
R. Scott Clark
And the homosexual appeal to Natural law is not a red herring because it demonstrates that a naked appeal to Natural law can not be the basis of a social order, unless of course one combines force with Natural law. However, if one does that it is not the case that Natural law is the foundation of such a social order but rather force is.
I believe the thrust of the intention so far, as I understand it, is that Christians are simply an agency by which God’s law is proclaimed.
With regard to your last paragraph, are you advocating civilization form its “marriage” structures by human consensus, or by each individual’sl sexual preference?
Jetbrane,
I followed this exchange closely and learned a lot.
A concern that kept coming to my mind for me, beyond the robust and necessary textural analysis, was the major biblical distinction between man and the animals that humanism denies and repeatedly tries to erase, especially with regard to concepts such as thought, behavior, volition, and instinct.
Pastor McAtee
I appreciate the response to Nate.. I also read your previous post about still working on natural law.
If you could help me out with some questions that I had:
1) Based on your assessment of Rom 2 not actually teaching that men have the natural law written on their hearts, in general, would you say that natural man does not have the moral law in his heart? Or is it simply conscience?
2) The reason I ask is that from a presuppositional standpoint, if we are confronting the unbeliever with what he already knows about God (he believes God and knows that God exists, but that belief and knowledge are suppressed), wouldn’t this imply he know whats the standards of right and wrong are (but it is suppressed to varying degrees)?
3) Wouldnt then this mean that the Gentiles know what is right and wrong… and therefore have the law in their hearts… ??? I am trying to reconcile this line of thinking with the direct quotes that Gentiles do not have the law (Rom 2)…
4) In terms of the implications of the exegesis you give for Rom 2, it still is not clear to me how this actually helps the theonomic (or anti-R2K) case…
For instance, R2K always says that the pagan is not under scriptural norms, and I can see that R2K folks using this exact same exegesis but using it to say since Gentiles do not have the law, we (Christians) cannot give it them (hence, an even stronger case for R2K..)
You may have mentioned the implications, but I am still having a hard time seeing how this actually helps against the anti-R2K thesis..
In general, after reading both this comment section and your original post that you linked, I would tend to agree with what you are saying about what Rom 2 says… But, after I read through both the original blog post and your long response to Nate, the questions above came into my mind..
I have actually previously thought of Rom 2 in the same way as DVD (that natural man does have the natural law), but I used that as reason to say that we must use Scripture to clarify and properly understand what God has ordered in nature etc…
Assuming that your exegesis is true, I would have a little bit more trouble using this to disprove the R2K thesis… (I do think that your statement about how natural man totally distorts natural revelation and how it is then contradictory to use Rom 2 in support of man properly understanding natural law is a good point, so a different understanding of Rom 2 is needed…
However, I still cant wrap my head around the questions that I asked you..)
Any help would be great.
Thank you!
Christopher Lee asked,
I appreciate the response to Nate.. I also read your previous post about still working on natural law.
If you could help me out with some questions that I had:
1) Based on your assessment of Rom 2 not actually teaching that men have the natural law written on their hearts, in general, would you say that natural man does not have the moral law in his heart? Or is it simply conscience?
Bret responds,
Fallen man still retains the image of God. The image of God cannot be effaced from man though he does his best to rip it from himself. This image of God testifies to man of his mannishness and His responsibility to God. Fallen man, being the image of God, thus can’t escape God’s moral law — a moral law which has the function, to remind man of His obligations to God.
In all other references in Scripture to the law being written in the heart what we find is a reference to the work of regeneration.
Jer. 31:33– ″But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, ” I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
It would be odd if in Romans 2 Paul began to use the language of the promise of the New Covenant to teach that the pagans – those who were strangers and aliens to the covenant – had written on their heart that law “written on the heart” which was to be the unique blessing of the new covenant.
So, to say, as the Natural Law theologians are want to say that all men have the law written in their hearts is to take what was to be the privileged blessing of the new covenant people and extend it indiscriminately to regenerate and unregenerate alike. I would say the position of Natural Law advocates, Christopher, proves to much.
Christopher asked,
2) The reason I ask is that from a presuppositional standpoint, if we are confronting the unbeliever with what he already knows about God (he believes God and knows that God exists, but that belief and knowledge are suppressed), wouldn’t this imply he know what the standards of right and wrong are (but it is suppressed to varying degrees)?
Bret responds,
The unbeliever knows about God because he is the image of God. For the unbeliever to deny God is the same as the fingerprint denying the finger that impressed the print. Fallen man, being the image of God, thus can’t escape God’s moral law since God and His Law imply one another. (i.e. — God can’t be known and suppressed by the fallen man, without at the same time knowing and suppressing God’s moral law.)
Just to be clear here, man himself, is his own testimony to himself of the reality of God and His moral law. Man can not escape that intuitive sense of knowing God though as fallen he uses his epistemological apparatus to deny what he can’t escape knowing intuitively because he is the image of God. Thus what he can’t escape knowing ontologically and so intuitively (the fact He is the image of God and so responsible to God and His moral law) fallen man denies epistemologically thus suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.
Christopher asked,
3) Wouldnt then this mean that the Gentiles know what is right and wrong… and therefore have the law in their hearts… ??? I am trying to reconcile this line of thinking with the direct quotes that Gentiles do not have the law (Rom 2)…
Bret responds,
The Gentiles know right and wrong because as Image bearers of God they can’t get away from that knowledge though they justify their rebellion via the rationalization process of their avowed epistemology. There we find their suppression game.
Christopher asked,
4) In terms of the implications of the exegesis you give for Rom 2, it still is not clear to me how this actually helps the theonomic (or anti-R2K) case…
For instance, R2K always says that the pagan is not under scriptural norms, and I can see that R2K folks using this exact same exegesis but using it to say since Gentiles do not have the law, we (Christians) cannot give it them (hence, an even stronger case for R2K..)
Bret responds,
Except that Scripture everywhere teaches the contrary. God held Assyria as under scriptural norms and so Jonah is sent to preach to them. God held the Canannites under scriptural norms and so the land vomited them out because of their wickedness. So, Scripture is against R2K seeking to go the route that you suggest Christopher.
Christopher asked,
You may have mentioned the implications, but I am still having a hard time seeing how this actually helps against the anti-R2K thesis..
In general, after reading both this comment section and your original post that you linked, I would tend to agree with what you are saying about what Rom 2 says… But, after I read through both the original blog post and your long response to Nate, the questions above came into my mind..
I have actually previously thought of Rom 2 in the same way as DVD (that natural man does have the natural law), but I used that as reason to say that we must use Scripture to clarify and properly understand what God has ordered in nature etc…
Assuming that your exegesis is true, I would have a little bit more trouble using this to disprove the R2K thesis… (I do think that your statement about how natural man totally distorts natural revelation and how it is then contradictory to use Rom 2 in support of man properly understanding natural law is a good point, so a different understanding of Rom 2 is needed…
However, I still cant wrap my head around the questions that I asked you..)
Any help would be great.
Thank you!
Bret responds,
A good book to help you on this Christopher might be,
http://www.amazon.com/The-Bible-Natural-Theology-Law/dp/1609571436/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373743417&sr=8-1&keywords=Robert+Morey+natural+law
Please find yourself free to continue to ask questions should it be the case that I have muddled things up for you even more Christopher.
Hodge may be of some help to you. His summary at the end of his commentary on Rom 1:18-32 includes this:
“8) Religion is the only true foundation, and the only effectual safeguard of morality.”
I would take that by religion Hodge means Christianity and also that he means special revelation here.
http://books.google.com/books?id=BX8fAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
The summary begins on p 40
Also, Hodge writes concerning, Since that which may be known of God, is manifest in them in Rom 1:19
“the English version seems to prove too much; for the Apostle does not mean to say that everything that may be known concerning God was revealed to the heathen, but simply that they had such a knowledge of Him that rendered their impiety inexcusable,”
Pastor Brett,
As I followed these discussions, the best I could as a Christian layman, I was greatly blessed. One thought that came to mind, that I don’t believe was addressed yet, was how the bible describes the “heart” as being “fleshy”, “hard”, “hardened”, “stoney”, etc.
I was wondering how the “mutability” of the heart, as expressed in scripture, is relevant to the way unbelievers suppress the “image/morality” of God that you describe. Both God and man are described as being able to “condition” even the unbelieving heart.
I’m was thinking this relevant to your propositions, but have not considered it for very long yet.
I do have a personal tendency to want to see connections where they may not exist.
Any thoughts?
Pastor Mcatee
Thanks…
So, immediately after I sent you the questions, I thought over the questions.. and based on your responses –>
Would you say that this statement is accurate?:
Though natural man does not have the law of God in his heart (only the work of the law, his moral conscience), and is made in the image of God, he understands morality (right and wrong).
And we know that through Rom 1, natural man knows what is right and wrong because of what has been revealed to him (Rom 1:20), which includes the standards of God…
This also means that natural man is accountable to the law of God (Torah), but that does not imply that he actually has the law written on his heart…
(For instance, an analogy: natural man knows that God exists, but that doesnt mean that he has faith in God or that the Holy Spirit is in his heart, yet he is still accountable to believe and obey God..)
So, again, to recap, he knows these things not because of any natural law in his heart (Rom 2), but because it has been revealed to him, he understands it (to a certain extent) because of his conscience (work of the law) though still a fallen conscience, and he has no excuse not to obey because it has been clearly revealed to him…
Hence, the law of God is expressed through the Scripture, and it is imperative that we confront unbelievers about not only the gospel but also the law…
Not to confront them with something that is already in their hearts, but to confront them what what has already been plainly revealed to them (externally, not written in their heart), and to confront them with what they are under and held to account for.
Just as Jesus commanded us to make disciples of all nations and teaching them to obey everything that the Lord ***commanded***…
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Yes, your quotes of OT Scriptures are very relevant and plainly clear… I would also add the admonishment that Daniel gave to Belshazzar and the account of Nebuchadnezzar.