Cody Justice wrote,
If there is no natural law, no one dispossessed of Scripture can know right from wrong, nor can they be justly judged by God. But those dispossessed of Scripture do know right from wrong and are justly judged by God. Ergo etc.
BLMc responds
1.) Yes, they can know right from wrong since the Scripture clearly teaches that fallen man suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. I have never denied Natural Law exists. I have and do deny that NL can be used as a ordering mechanism for social order since fallen man as suppressing the truth in unrighteousness refuses to operate in terms of what he can’t help knowing to be true. So, I believe that God is sending NL but that fallen man, being a Christ hater, refuses to read it for what it is except when it serves his sinful necessity.
In Bahnsen’s words, the unbeliever knows and doesn’t know at the same time.
2.) Enforcing this is the Scripture that explicitly teaches that the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. (Romans 8:7).
This vs. alone immediately rules out all Thomistic NL theories.
3.) Even if the above were not true, man is responsible to God if only because God says “man is responsible to me.”
CJ wrote,
QED (for the thousandth time). Also: Drew is a goober for appealing to NL for egalitarianism just as much as Wilson is a goober for appealing to theonomy for legalizing pornography.
1.) If I was forced to embrace NL it would be of your flavor.
2.) However since Thomistic NL is a myth I can advocate for a better way.
3.) Wilson is not a theonomist. He has written that his goal is to be 0.5 of what RJR was. Wilson is a Libertarian. He’s also an idiot though he is a master marketer, propagandist, and has never met a false dichotomy he wasn’t intimate with.
4.) BUT…we do agree that Drewski is a “Goober.”
“I have and do deny that NL can be used as a ordering mechanism for social order since fallen man as suppressing the truth in unrighteousness refuses to operate in terms of what he can’t help knowing to be true.”
Ergo, Scripture cannot be used as an ordering mechanism for social order, since fallen man suppresses that too.
Except Presuppositionalists don’t argue that fallen man wants to order his social order by God’s Revelation. OTOH Natural Law advocates do advocate that fallen man can order his social order by Natural Revelation.
So… you see … your analogy does not work.
Summary of Turretin, Topic 1, Question 4:
Statement of question: not whether natural theology is useful, but whether it is sufficient for salvation. Natural theology is very useful for the following reasons.
a. It serves as a witness of God’s goodness towards sinners who are unworthy of natural light, Acts 14.16.
b. It serves as a bond of external discipline to keep the world from becoming totally corrupt.
c. It fits and equips man to receive the light of grace (in which God deals with man as a rational creature).
d. It motivates man to search for more illustrious revelation.
e. It renders man inexcusable, both in this life in the judgment of an accusing conscience; and in the future life (in the judgment of God)
a.) It does serve as a witness… a witness the sinner suppresses in unrighteousness
b.) No it doesn’t. Any lack of corruption comes from the enforcement of God’s revealed Law-Word
c.) No it doesn’t since fallen man suppresses the truth in unrighteousness
d.) No it doesn’t. Common grace (which this sounds like) is a myth.
e.) True… but that still doesn’t mean that the carnal mind is at enmity w/ God (Romans 8:7)
Turretin is just in error here.
What about the lack of corruption in Gentile nations that didn’t have God’s Word – like the noble Germans that Tacitus wrote about?
Answer: The commandment not to commit adultery is part of natural law, and they generally obeyed it (outwardly) much more than the Africans who were alive at the same time, though the Germans did not obey it out of love to God and still went to hell.
If you say that somehow they did have access to special revelation, there’s still a problem. Why do some unregenerate people do less evil than other unregenerate people? Why did some nations build much more orderly and prosperous societies than others? They were all at enmity against God, not subject to His law, neither indeed can be.
JA wrote,
What about the lack of corruption in Gentile nations that didn’t have God’s Word – like the noble Germans that Tacitus wrote about?
BLMc responds
Noble by what standard?
Luther would call this performance “splendid vices.”
In terms of “lack of corruption” you need to read Romans 3:9-21
I’m sure if you adjudicate these things on a curve that Tactitus’ Germans were far more noble than Stalin’s Bolsheviks.
Ultimately, we would say that all Christ hating worldviews (which translate into cultures) sneak stolen capital from a Christian Worldview into their Christ denying worldview. After all, no worldview is perfectly anti-Christ since such a culture would be one of complete suicide.
Presuppositionalists don’t contend that all cultures are all equally evil. They merely contend that none of them can be God glorifying since all are absent of Christ.
JA commented,
Answer: The commandment not to commit adultery is part of natural law, and they generally obeyed it (outwardly) much more than the Africans who were alive at the same time, though the Germans did not obey it out of love to God and still went to hell.
BLMc responds,
I neve denied that God is sending Natural Law. I said, following Scripture, that the unbeliever suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. The heathen know and deny they know. That Tactitus’ Germans snuck in fidelity in marriage into their Christ hating worldview is not surprising since the wickedness of various cultures varies.
The heathen can be very selective about what they do and do not suppress in unrighteousness.
JA writes,
If you say that somehow they did have access to special revelation, there’s still a problem. Why do some unregenerate people do less evil than other unregenerate people? Why did some nations build much more orderly and prosperous societies than others? They were all at enmity against God, not subject to His law, neither indeed can be. and they generally obeyed it (outwardly) much more than the Africans who were alive at the same time, though the Germans did not obey it out of love to God and still went to hell.
BLMc responds
As you see, I did not say that somehow have access to special revelation. Instead, I reminded you that the heathen do know and decide to selectively suppress what serves their purposes. In so doing they sneak Christian principles into their Christ hating worldviews. In doing so they climb up on God’s lap in order to slap Him in the face.
It seems you have a real problem with Romans 8:7?
The practical question in the debate is this: Nearly everyone in society is unregenerate today, spiritually blind, and suppressing the truth. What basis can there be, then, for law and justice?
When people who are new to the debate hear the arguments of presuppositionalists, it sounds like they are saying that all the unregenerate are so willfully blind that it’s pointless to even try to come to a common agreement with them about what is right and wrong. The basis for Law, justice, and government in society can’t exist. Therefore Christians should go to some unhabited place and form their own society.
Yes, the Pilgrims did that but there was a lot more land available then. And plenty of Christians have to “seek the peace of the city where they are captives” (Jeremiah 29 from memory), which surely involves co-operating with the unregenerate and coming to some kind of agreement with them about how the city/community/nation should be governed.
Paragraph #1 – God’s Law Word enforced by Magistrates. The current humanist “Law and justice” is enforced on me by the Magistrate. Why shouldn’t we advocate that God’s Law and Justice be enforced upon the heathen?
Paragraph #2 – Because all ground is common ground (God’s ground) it is not pointless to pray and expect conversion. But, it is true that no ground is neutral ground. If the heathen are given the whip hand though, it is true that the basis of Law, justice, and government in society can’t exist. This because increasingly obvious as the antithesis works out its implications on both sides. Therefore non-Christians should Kiss the Son, lest they perish in the way.
If you compromise with the heathen, the end will ALWAYS eventually be increasingly heathenism.