“There is, in other words, no radical dichotomy between the mind and the universe. Logos is common to both, or as Aquinas would say, ‘the light of reason is placed by nature in every man to guide him in his acts.'”
E. Michael Jones
Logos Rising — p. 96
Jones is Roman Catholic and the problem here for Roman Catholics– and the problem for all Natural Law aficionados (R2K; I’m looking at you) — is that Natural Law doesn’t take into account the noetic effects of the fall. It is true that Logos is common to both the mind and the universe but the mind because it ‘suppresses the truth in unrighteousness,’ will not have Logos except in the most accidental manner until man is converted. Natural law is like a radio station putting out a signal on the airwaves but fallen man insists on pushing every other radio button except the button that would hone in on the signal of Natural law.
Our Fathers restricted the value of Natural law to the knowledge of God’s existence and the inescapable awareness of sinfulness while conceding that it provided the ability to give some knowledge of God with a bare subsistence of information touching living in this world.
Article 4
There remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some knowledge of God, of natural things, and of the differences between good and evil, and discovers some regard for virtue, good order in society, and for maintaining an orderly external deportment. But so far is this light of nature from being sufficient to bring him to a saving knowledge of God and to true conversion, that he is incapable of using it aright even in things natural and civil. Nay, further, this light, such as it is, man in various ways renders wholly polluted and holds it in unrighteousness, by doing which he becomes inexcusable before God.
The problem we are facing in many Reformed quarters today is that Natural Law is being looked to as all that is sufficient and necessary in order to live in the common realm. For these “Ministers,” and Professors teaching this view, Natural Law goes beyond “some knowledge” to be all that which is necessary to order the public square. These same men even insist that Natural Law teaches that the Magistrate is not responsible to uphold the first table of God’s law in the social order they rule over. For these men, God’s revealed Law is cordoned off from the common realm because natural law is all we need in the common realm. This despite the fact that the Canon’s of Dordt even says the because of sin man “is incapable of using it aright even in things natural and civil.“
One of the most intelligent men in the 20th century gives us a good insight into how useless natural law is. Betrand Russel testified that he didn’t even know himself. If Natural law cannot give fallen man sufficient knowledge of himself how can it give fallen man sufficient knowledge of anything? Russel wrote,
“Even when one feels nearest to other people, something in one seems obstinately to belong to god and refuse to enter into any earthly communion—–at least that is how I should express it if I thought there was a god. It is odd isn’t it? I feel passionately for this world and many things and people in it, and yet………what is it all? There must be something more important, one feels, though I don’t believe there is. I am haunted! Some ghosts from some extra mundane regions, seem always trying to tell me something that I am to repeat for the world, but I cannot understand the message.”
Bertrand Russell
Autobiography
“Feels” “Seems” “If I thought” “disbelief” “haunted” “ghosts” “extramundane” “trying to tell me” “cannot understand.” Russell was the consummate natural man and yet the sensus deitatis and Natural Law elicits nothing in him but confusion. It is ridiculous speculation that apart from the divine revelation of God’s word one has sufficient and necessary knowledge even to operate in the common realm or even to understand himself. If Russell cannot even understand himself via Natural law then how could he understand anything else?
