Grace Restores Nature … Against the Anabaptistified & Gnosticized Contemporary Reformed Church

Genesis 2:8 The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Genesis 3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Romans 8:20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; 21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of [f]corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.  22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?

In these passages we have the story of creation, fall, redemption and glorification. Some have said that here we find the macro outline of all of Scripture.

Now, we are going to talk a great deal about nature as well as sin and grace this morning so, just to be clear nature will be used synonymously for God’s creation or His pattern of creation. Nature here is the way God made things according to His original intent. For example, according to nature boys can’t be girls. According to nature boys marry girls. According to nature nations are Christian.

We want to spend a little time this morning talking about the interplay of sin, nature and grace.

I.) The effect of Sin on creation/nature – Sin mars nature

First, we say again that before the fall nature was in harmony. God created it as “Very Good.” There was no death. It is a paradise existence. After the fall we see that, in the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson, nature is now red in tooth and claw. Death has entered into the world. There is no longer a harmony of interest as seen in the blame shifting between Adam & Eve and as seen in the account of Cain and Abel. The harmony that was present before has evaporated and instead we the ongoing attempt for men to de-god God and en-god himself. Because of sin man acts contrary to his given nature. God’s creation that is all of nature as it fell from His hands as very good is now marred by sin.

However, and this is a fundamental point, keep in mind as we go on from here that the problem is not nature as it fell from God’s hand. The problem is the problem of sin as it has entered the world so that sin has marred God’s creational project. Because of sin nature is now no longer what it was intended to be. Because of the fall, nature can now be unnatural. We soon enough come across increasing moral degradation as seen in Lamech’s vile boasting in Gen. 4.

We read of sin marred nature in the family strife where Laban deceives Jacob who had deceived his father Isaac and who deceives Laban right back. We see the family strife of the Brothers selling their Brother Joseph into bondage. We Amnon, who is the half brother of Tamar raping Tamar. We see the adultery of David. We see magistrates who are supposed to be nursing fathers to their people turn into tyrants of the most wretched sort with Ahab going so far as to kill Naboth to seize his land.

All of this and so much more is the effect of sin on nature. And this effect remains with us and as we more and more consistently turn our backs on God and defy His grace with can anticipate that this effect on nature will cough up more and more vile twistings of nature.

However, in God’s economy we see that grace can restore nature.

And so we consider secondly,

II.) The effect of Grace on sin marred creation/nature – Grace restores nature

Here we have several options to consider in terms of how grace restores nature as among the major players that comprise Christianity.

1.) Aquinas argued in his Summa that “grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.” ( 1a 1.1.8 ad 2). Later Rome put a twist on this. Medieval Rome agreed that grace perfects nature but they insisted that in order for grace to perfect nature, nature had to be brought in under the umbrella of the Church where grace resided. Anything outside the umbrella of the Church could only be nature and being only nature and so fallen all it could ever be was fallen.

2.) The Radical Reformation (Anabaptists) held that grace unmakes and so destroys nature and replaces nature so that nature becomes grace in this life. This explains their complaint against “worldliness” and their conviction that they could escape worldliness by forming their own non worldly all grace communities. Outside their communes was sin marred nature. Inside their communes is the grace of heaven on earth. Notice the dualism. Inside their communities is all grace. Outside their communities is all sin marred nature. All this was and remains consistent with their belief that all of the future heaven could be brought near now. This explains why the Anabaptists have a pure church theory that is characterized by restricting baptism only to those who make profession of faith. You see, if it is all heaven now then the Church of all places must pure without tares, without dross, without false believers. Grace destroys nature so that all is grace.

We continue to have much of this Anabaptist view of nature and grace in the Evangelical Church. There are those who talk as if some nature/creation realities are evil in and of themselves. For example it is all the rage these days to speak as if our creational realities in terms of ethnicity or race are erased by grace. Once in Christ, so the current logic goes, then who God has made us creationally is now irrelevant. This is a Anabaptist case where grace is destroying nature. Race and ethnicity for the Christian is certainly not everything but neither is it nothing. To suggest that grace destroys physical nature because of our the grace found in our union w/ Christ is a new expression of Gnosticism.

Here we cite our own Mr. Calvin on this score. This from his Sermon on I Corinthians11:2-3;

“Regarding our eternal salvation, it is true that one must not distinguish between man and woman, or between king and a shepherd, or between a German and a Frenchman. Regarding policy, however, we have what St. Paul declares here; for our, Lord Jesus Christ did not come to mix up nature, or to abolish what belongs to the preservation of decency and peace among us….Regarding the kingdom of God (which is spiritual) there is no distinction or difference between man and woman, servant and master, poor and rich, great and small. Nevertheless, there does have to be some order among us, and Jesus Christ did not mean to eliminate it, as some flighty and scatterbrained dreamers [believe].”

19th century Dutch Theologian Herman Bavinck put it this way;

“Grace serves, not to take up humans into a supernatural order, but to free them from sin. Grace is opposed not to nature, only to sin . . . Grace restores nature and takes it to its highest pinnacle.”

Herman Bavinck,
Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 3: Sin and Salvation in Christ, 577.

So, what is now being hinted at is the the Reformed understanding which follows Scripture. Herein we find the idea that grace restores nature. Typically the Reformed argue that incrementally, slowly, imperceptibly over time grace restores nature to what it was originally intended to be as men are regenerated and won to Christ in any given culture or social order.

We find that expressed in the Kingdom parables in Matthew 13

31 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. 32 It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” 33 He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”

Clearly we are seeing here that grace restores nature. It spreads in the lives of men and having spread among men it spreads so as to touch their cultures and social order. Nature, because of grace, becomes more and more of what it was originally intended to be. Never perfectly on this side of heaven but more robust, more honoring to Christ, more Kingdom like.

So, the Kingdom of God as it expresses itself in creation does not work to the end of changing the creation realm into a grace realm. What Grace does do is that it restores nature. The Kingdom of God has the effect on the creation realm much like the effect a poultice has in its drawing the poison from a snake bite.

The creation, with the fall, has been snake bitten so that it is a present wicked age. What the Kingdom of God does upon the creational realm is that it sucks the poison of sin out of the Creation realm so that the creation realm is restored to what its original intent was so that this present wicked age is healed by the poultice power that is “the age to come” as expressed by the Kingdom of God at it works as leaven in restoring nature.

Dr. Albert Wolters put it this way in his “Creation Regained”

“The central point to make, biblically speaking, sin neither abolishes nor becomes identified with creation. Creation and sin remain distinct, however closely they may be intertwined in our experience. Prostitution does not eliminate the goodness of human sexuality; political tyranny cannot wipe out the divinely ordained character of the state; the anarchy and subjectivism of much modern art cannot obliterate the creational legitimacy of art itself. In short, evil does not have the power of bringing to naught God’s steadfast faithfulness to the works of his hands.”

And in one of life’s little ironies we find that it is not only the CREC which is taking the Church down the primrose path of Gnosticism but so does its arch-enemy R2K.

For R2K God is not faithful to the work of His hands since that which exists by way of creation is never Redeemed so that it can be considered “Christian.” Marriages can’t be Christian, States can’t be Christian, Education can’t be Christian, and art can’t be Christian because all these creational categories remain “creational” whether they are handled by rebels in opposition to God and His Christ or whether they are handled by Christians in submission to Christ. R2K does not have a category for “grace restoring nature,” choosing instead a paradigm where grace has no effect on nature.

So here we find the two strongest lads right now who are on the Reformed Mountain playing “King of the Hill,” trying to knock each other off so that they alone can be King. It’s David Van Drunen vs. Doug Wilson. And while that is all going on here the Biblically Reformed theonomic, postmillennial, presuppositionalist, Kinist, Agrarians are on the sideline saying… “A pox upon both your Gnostic Houses.”

However, we should say here that the enemy is not only internal on this matter but the enemy is also external. It is difficult to say which is more dangerous.

We have considered the Reformed Gnostics who want grace to destroy nature. But what of those who want nature as defined by the fall to destroy grace? The former camp is so otherworldly it forgets this world. The latter camp is so this world that it fights the world to come. The first camp wants to bring heaven to earth. The second camp wants to take earth for heaven. The enemy within the camp wants to immanentize the eschaton. The enemy outside the camp wants to echatonize the immanent.

You see there are those out there who think that nature is defined by its fallen-ness. They think that it really is the case that nature it red in tooth and claw. Let us refer to these as the humanistic Utopians who believe not in the Kingdom of God that incrementally arrives by grace restoring nature but instead believe that the Kingdom of man arrives by fallen nature coming into full bloom. We will call these “the Utopians.”

The Utopians seek nature as fallen to destroy grace. In order to destroy grace they have been the most adamant of the enemies of Christ through the centuries. The Utopians, generally speaking and humanistically speaking, are the same enemies that Christ labeled “the synagogue of Satan.”

Listen to Bavinck about these folks and their project;

This is the difference between the work of the Kingdom of God upon the creational realm and the work of the Kingdom of man as it seeks to create Utopia in creation. The Kingdom of man identifies creation with the fall and so in order to restore creation it seeks to destroy creation (as it is defined Biblically) thinking that creation can be regenerated out of destruction and chaos.

Herman Bavinck — 1854 – 1921

Dutch Reformed Theologian

And so the Utopians seek fallen nature as the tool to destroy grace. We find these Utopians among the Marxists and we identify them as those, in the words of Bavinck;

“Seek to destroy family, destroy the Church and destroy the State so that out of the ashes a new order may arise Phoenix like. Again, they do this because they identify nature with the fall. To the contrary the Kingdom of God does not identify creation with the fall and the effect of the Kingdom of God upon creation, as we noted above, is to suck the poison of the fall out of creation so that creation reflects the beauty it was intended to reflect.”

The Utopians hate grace and so seek to use fallen nature to destroy grace. This is why the Utopians attack creation as it fell from God’s hands. They must eliminate the family. They must attack the family, they must attack the all in culture that is perfumed with Christ.

In closing though let us note that whether it is the camp of grace destroys nature or whether it is the camp of fallen nature destroys grace in the end both nature and grace are destroyed. There is no preferable poison here. We must fight our current battle on several fronts. We must fight the R2K lads. We must fight the Federal Vision “conversion makes nature unimportant” lads. We must fight the Utopians.

But thanks be unto God we have a target rich environment. We can point our guns in any direction and bring the enemy down. Thanks be unto God the that He has 7000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal. They are Elijah’s scattered all across the nation, standing often alone but still standing nonetheless. Thanks be unto God that He always gives us the victory in Christ Jesus.

Of Worldvision, Social Imaginary, Conglomerate Thinkers, Hollywood Film Sets and Reformation

Is the “social imaginary” of 21st century philosopher Charles Taylor the same thing as 20th century philosopher J. H. Bavinck’s “Worldvision?” These both in turn would have been what Glen Martin was talking about when he wrote about “Eclectic and Conglomerate thinkers.”

In all of these the idea is that people move in terms of a worldview that they do not self-consciously recognize as such. In other words in all these cases the individuals under consideration have not arrived at the way they are leaning into the world by being epistemologically self-conscious about the ideas that are forming the foundation for why they lean into life the way they lean into life. Instead, to use a metaphor, they are flowing with the cultural rivers current or whatever sitz-em-lieben they are in living in.

The way I have have often put it is with the analogy of a Hollywood film set. People, exceptions notwithstanding, are chameleons and they will blend into any film set that the culture gives them. So, if the culture is the equivalent of a Pirate film those who are not espistemologically self conscious about their belief system will dress in pirate hats, wear eye patches, and go around saying; “Arrrgh, Matey.” If, in their lifetime the cultural film set switches to a Western these same people will suddenly begin to wear ten gallon hats and speak with a Texas drawl.

Most people intuit “truth” and do not intuit it very well. In the words of Michael Polanyi they use “tacit knowledge” to ascertain what it will take to surf the zeitgeist and will accordingly adopt whatever it takes to fit into the “social imaginary,” (Charles Taylor) the prevailing “Worldvision,” (J. H. Bavinck) thus demonstrating themselves to be eclectic and conglomerate thinkers (Martin).

Still, like it or not the substratum underneath of all this is the handful of people who both play with and popularize and implement ideas which in turn eventually gets into the blood stream of a culture so that the social imaginary/worldvision can begin to gain traction so as to explain why the overwhelming majority of people lean into the times and so live the way they live.

To slightly change a quote from John Maynard Keynes;

“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct ideologue/theologian. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

The long and short of this is that the largest percentage people don’t live the way they live or believe what they believe because they have thought through matters. They have not spent their lives examining the whys and wherefores of life. They were born, so to speak, on ice and having been born on ice they just put on their ice skates and took off without a thought that just maybe that wasn’t ice after all. Most people live the way they live and believe what they believe because they have caught all their “convictions and lifestyle” the same way they catch a flu virus.

This means it is those who are the idea people who are the most dangerous people as combined with those who promote the ideas which they more often than not don’t even understand. These are the creators, producers and manufacturers of culture (Hollywood, Publishing Houses, Media, Universities, etc.). More often than not in their role as “cultural gatekeepers” they are even more instrumental for creating the cultural film background set by which most people live by than those whose ideas they are (often unwittingly) pushing.

So, to make this practical, if we as Christians are to be have a plan of attack for returning to something that approximates Christendom what needs to be done is as follows;

1.) Negatively we must give a deadly virus to this current cultural context so that the social imaginary/worldvision can no longer be sustained by the average person in the culture. As Biblical Christians we have to find a way to make what was once considered “odd behavior” to be odd behavior again. That likely won’t be done by just chanting over and over again “that’s odd.” Instead it will be done perhaps by being able to mock the odd. Right now using the absurd to illustrate the absurd may be one of our best friends.

For example … We could run an ad campaign where someone tries to run their appliance by plugging in a male cord into another male cord and then run a tag line … “Gay lately?”

Look, Elijah mocked the hades out of his and God’s enemies. I think it is time for Christians to start clever mocking.

2.) Positively we have to have some people who are idea people who are casting Biblical Christianity in such a way that the current pagan theology of the self (as one example) is challenged and some other people who can promote those ideas into pop culture.

“Is Thomistic Natural Law Legitimate? Part I”

Natural law as a concept in ethics goes back to ancient Greek philosophy, particularly Aristotelian and Stoic. These philosophers believed that there are natural laws, moral principles that can be discovered in nature (particularly human nature) by reason and conscience. Of course, Aristotle and the Stoics were not concerned about the role of Scripture in ethics. But early, medieval, and Reformation Christians, seeking to integrate Greek philosophy with the Bible, asked how natural law and Scripture are related in our ethical decisions.

 

The problem with this was especially difficult in Protestant theology was two fold. First, Reformed theology argued both for man’s total depravity – meaning that man, being dead in his sins and trespasses, uses his reason with an agenda in order to escape the God ordained meaning of the universe. Second a problem for Natural law in Protestant theology, is found in the Reformers insistence on both the sufficiency of Scripture and the authority of Scripture for all of life.

The fact that Natural Law is not to be leaned upon is even seen in the Canon’s of Dort where we read;

“But so far is this light of nature from being sufficient … that man is incapable of using it rightly even in things natural and civil. Instead, even this light, man in various ways totally distorts, and holds it in unrighteousness, and in so doing becomes inexcusable before God.”

-Canons of Dordt III/IV.4

 

Dr. David VanDrunen who serves on the Faculty of a prestigious Reformed
Seminary defines natural law as

“the moral order inscribed in the world and especially in human nature, an order that is known to all people through their natural faculties (especially reason and/or conscience) even apart from supernatural divine revelation that binds morally the whole human race.”

Other definitions takes from assorted encyclopedias and and standard reference works define Natural law as,

“Human beings by their own reason, can gain knowledge of the ethically good without reference to God’s revelation.”

“… those absolute and universal value imperatives that are innate in the reason of every individual and necessarily come into the consciousness with the development of the mind … a means of emancipation from the supernatural ontology.”


Natural moral law – “the notion that there are true, universally binding moral principles knowable by all people and rooted in creation and the way things are made.”

“A body of law derived from nature and binding upon human society … discernable … by right reason… but not directly revealed.”

In all of these definitions the common theme is that fallen man, starting from himself, without presupposing the revelation of the God of the Bible, can interpret the world aright and come to proper conclusions regarding the order and meaning of reality. Man, by this theory, though he can not be saved by Natural law, he can, quite apart from the revelation of Scripture, order his life aright.

Of course we instantly begin to wonder how an attraction to and embrace of Natural Law escapes charges of some kind of humanism. We wonder this because the whole premise of Natural law is that man, starting from himself, quite apart from an acknowledged God or His revelation, can arrive at conclusions that are God honoring and respecting.

For the students in my Wednesday classes you need to know that this concept of Natural law as it came to be embraced by Christendom was largely the work of Thomas Aquinas. You see here some of what we spoke of last Wednesday and that is this idea of two ways to truth. One mediator of truth was Scripture but another mediator of truth was Natural law.

Today we are going to look at one of the texts in Scripture that Natural law theorists go to support their theories. I trust we will see that the text in Romans 2 in no way supports Natural Law thinking. However, before we start that I want us to see, in miniature that there are, from a Biblical understanding profound problems with Natural law.

1.) Though we concede that there is indeed General Revelation – the world is suffused with the reality of God and His truth – we do not concede that Natural law as a proscriptive model is a means of truth whereupon men can find meaning in the universe with the purpose of ordering their lives aright. We recall that Romans 1 clearly teaches that whatever Revelation God sends wicked men “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” Natural law is defeated by the truth that fallen men have an agenda to overthrow any agenda of God that is set forth in and by a putative Natural law.

Romans 1 says this explicitly’


26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.


You see here that the natural use is exchanged for what is against nature. Natural law proclaims that men and women go together but fallen man, determined to overthrow God’s order, rebel against God’s natural law.

 

We see here that the problem with Natural law is not that God isn’t sending but the problem is that fallen man isn’t receiving. Fallen man is a radio receiver that is determined to pick up any channel except WGOD.

This brings us to our second overall problem with Natural law

2.) Natural Law doesn’t take seriously the reality of the fall.


The fall has vitiated all of man’s intellectual, emotional, volitional and psychological capacities. This is not to say that fallen man is as wicked as he could possibly be but it is to say that fallen man has determined that God shall not rule over him. If we take the consequences of the fall seriously than we would have to say that any project (like Natural Law) which posits that fallen man can order his life aright apart from Scripture is a project that does not take seriously the effect of the fall in terms of human depravity.

Scripture teaches in Romans 8:7 that the carnal mind is at enmity with God. Now how can a mind that is at enmity at God interpret God’s Natural Law aright? Scripture teaches that

“14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

How can someone who does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, because he is dead in his trespasses and sins, supposed to collect and know truth starting from himself in consideration of a God drenched universe that only has meaning in relationship to the meaning that God gives the universe?

The whole testimony of Scripture points to the reality that fallen man does not order his life aright via Natural Law. Here is one pertinent portion that reveals that,

17 This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; 19 who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

 

The Ephesians passage gives us a glimpse of what the fall looks like as it works itself out to its consistent end in the life of the pagan. No amount of Natural law can stem the unraveling of society and culture once the effects of the fall begin to follow their logical course.

3.) A third problem that Reformed / Biblical people have with Natural law is that it defies what the Scripture says about God’s Law.

 

Scripture teaches that not some amorphous, un-agreed upon Natural Law but Biblical law is the standard for men,

16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Do not miss “thoroughly equipped for every good work.” I take every good work to mean every good work and not every good work circumscribed to some area that is religious that is cordoned off from some area that is secular. I believe that Paul in this passage in Timothy is just agreeing with the sentiments in Isaiah on the necessity to attend to the “law and to the testimony,” which is the corpus of Scripture.

Now we have looked at these problems but you need to know that Natural law theory has been embraced through the centuries by many leading lights in the Reformed world. Indeed, a case can be made that there is a sense in which Christian civilization was built upon Natural law. I don’t want to spend a great deal of time here but it is my contention that Natural law theorizing only worked because such theorizing existed in the context of a people who were grounded in Christian presuppositions and reared and saturated in a Biblical mindset. Natural law theory can work in that kind of societal order because the preponderance of people, being Christian or influenced by Christian categories, are going to read Natural law as communicating back to them their pre-existent premises with which they are reading the Natural law.

However, Natural law cannot work in a post-Christian culture, characterized by poly-pluralism, poly-faithism, and multiculturalism as a means of stabilizing a social order. In point of fact in that kind of setting – the kind of setting we live in today – Natural Law can only create chaos as each grouping of people insist that Natural law sets forth whatever ethics or lack of ethics that their respective faith systems advocate. The Muslim insists that it is self-evident that Natural law teaches Sharia law. The pagan insists that it is self evident that Natural law teaches homosexuality. The Christian insists that it is self-evident that Natural law teaches a Christian law order. Let the conflict begin.

Now all of this is then complicated a thousand fold by the reality that there is no one agreed upon theory on what Natural Law is or how it is arrived at.

The respected Natural Law theorist, Dr. Howard Kainz, was honest enough to admit in his writing that when you examine the Natural law theories of …

“Aristotle, Plato, the Stoics, Aquinas, Surez, Hobbes, Locke, Grotius, Pufendorf, and Kant … there are major differences in the approaches and presuppositions and tenets, so that it would seem to be oversimplifying and misleading to talk about multiple applications of “the” natural law … One thinks of the various “natural law” movements taking place now … which have by no means tried to arrive at a consensus about what is meant by Natural law, or about which theory offers the best expression of Natural law.”

The German scholar Erik Wolf in 1955 counted over 120 conflicting definition of the words “nature” and “law.” A recent effort reached over 200 definitions before they stopped counting. One dictionary has 36 different definitions of the word “nature.” Is reason a part of nature or is nature a part of reason? Inquiring minds want to know. Is “nature” out there? up there? in there? in here? Natural law doesn’t seem to know.

It seems that Natural law does not even clearly reveal what Natural law itself is. If Natural law can not even clearly reveal what Natural law itself is then how can we expect Natural law to be a social order governing mechanism by which societies and cultures can be structured?

Now add to all this that Natural law has been invoked over the centuries to support everything from infanticide among the Romans to homosexuality among the Greeks to chattel man stealing slavery among the West and you begin to see that the house of Natural law is a old dilapidated thing that only the most desperate of people would like to inhabit.

And yet the Natural law project marches on and is experiencing a slight revival today in some obscure corners of the Reformed Church.


We believe that what Dr. Cornelius Van Til in a letter he penned to Francis Schaeffer regarding Natural Theology is equally true for Natural law,

“I think you will agree then, that no form of Natural Theology has ever spoken properly of the God who is there. None of the great Greek philosophers, like Plato, Aristotle and none of the great modern philosophers, like Descartes, Kant, or Kierkegaard and others, have ever spoken of the God who is there. The systems of thought these men represent a repression of the revelations of the God who is there. However, no man has, from a study and of the facts of nature by means of observation and ratiocination, ever come to the conclusion that he is a creature of God and that he is a sinner in the sight of God, who, unless he repents, abides under the wrath of God.”


And John Frame,

“So the Biblical view of the natural world is intensely personalistic. Natural events come from God, the personal Lord. He also employs angels and human beings to do His work in the world. But the idea that there is some impersonal mechanism called ‘nature’ or ‘natural law’ that governs the universe is absent from the Bible. So is the notion of an ultimate ‘randomness’ as postulated by some exponents of quantum mechanics.”

Is Thomistic Natural Law … Legitimate?   Part II

 

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.”

 Now 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 “Cool.”

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.

With Apologies to Henry Lyte … A Christian Patient’s Prayer

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.

When danger comes; be thou my sole defense
Guard me as weak, Lord, be my recompense
When frailty visits, and my body tires

God of the ages to you I aspire

I need thy presence when on life support
I need thy Spirit to be my consort
Who, but Thyself, my breath and stay can be?

Through blood and scalpel, Lord, abide with me

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
But death still leers, and mocks as I confess
When night grows dark, and I find I want to flee

God of the Ages Oh abide with me

Hear Thou my prayer before my eyes do close
Restore my life to wage war against thy foes
Let Heav’n’s morning wait years yet for me
In life or death Oh Lord abide with me.