re: Rehabilitating Theonomy
W.H. Chellis
Peter Leithart’s post has raised some very helpful questions.
Let me begin on an agnostic note. I do not know whether theonomists can be won over by the natural law approach of the Reformed scholastics. I do know that I meet a good deal more post-theonomists than theonomists lately. In fact, it has been difficult to find theonomic contributors for this blog!
Leithart asks:
What, if any, is the role of special revelation in formulating the principles of natural law? Very specifically, What is the natural law argument that supports the specific requirements of the Ten Commandments? What is the natural law argument that supports “You shall have no other gods before Me,” that is, before Yahweh, God of the Exodus? What is the natural law argument for saying, “You shall not bow down to graven images”? What is the natural law argument for saying, “You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain”?
First, for the Reformed Scholastics the natural law is synonymous with the moral law. The natural law is rooted in the being of God consistent with by His intellect and His will. It is not just naked authority but eternal moral truth. This natural moral law was written upon the heart of Adam at the creation. It is a part of the image of God.
The fall of Adam plunged the race into total depravity so that all of our faculties are distorted by the presence of sin. This includes not only the will but the intellect. Still, the fall has not totally obliterated man’s knowledge of God or His law. All men know of God’s invisible attributes, His eternal power and Godhead (Romans 1:19,20). Further, the law given to Moses provided on tables of stone what was written on Adam heart. Yet, the Apostle declares, even those who did not receive the law at Sinai, “by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having teh law, are a law to themselves, 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 (Romans 2:14,15).”
Paul declares that the same moral law given to Israel at Sinai also testifies to the consciences of the gentiles. Whether this is the remnant of the image of God naturally inherited through Adam or a common work of the Holy Spirit consistent with the common grace economy of the Noahic covenant I leave an open question.
The point is that nature and grace are not in conflict. The moral law given in nature and the moral law given Scripture are the same law (as to general equity,i.e. the Ten Commandments).
Can you get to the Ten Commandments without the Scripture? Yes, they are written on men’s hearts and are testified to by their consciences. Speaking of the 1st Commandment, the WCF 21:1 declares
the light of nature showeth that there is a God, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is good, and doth good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, and praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might.
But I am sure that this is the point. Rather, since we have an authoritative and infallible special revelation, we should use it. Grace restores and perfects nature.
Hi Bill,
This is an interesting and significant discussion for which we’re all grateful.
At the end of your post you say, however, that grace both restores and “perfects” nature.
Did you mean to say the latter?
Didn’t the Reformation reject that notion? Why does nature, per se, need perfecting? Do you mean to embrace all that phrase entails?
It seems to me that the Reformed confessions were at pains to deny that very notion. Adam was created in “righteousness and true holiness.” What’s to perfect?
He anticipated a consummation upon completion of the probation, but this was a change in status relative to God not a perfection of nature, was it not?
R. Scott Clark
http://www.oceansideurc.org/the-heidelblog
Thanks, Bill, for responding to my post. I’m left, though, with my original question. Can you outline the specific argument that leads from nature (presumably without any help from special revelation) to the Ten Commandments?
Peter,
I am saying that man is hardwired to know God and to know His law. This is what Paul says in Rom. 1 and 2. Paul says that without special revelation the Gentiles know Him (not some God but the God) and show that they have His law written on their heart. What law is written on their heart? The moral law… the 10 Commandments.
I do not think a Reformed natural law approach banishes special revelation from the discussion. To do so would be to grope in a dark room when you could simply turn on the light. Special revelation always expounds the general revelation even before the fall.
Yet, the natural law approach preserves us from biblicism by recognizing that general principles are universal but applications must be local and diverse.
Now, if you are asking me how do societies who do not have special revelation grope toward the Ten Commandments, that is a different question. Here I find myself looking at philosophical theories with suspicion. With Burke I declare the individual foolish but the species wise. I hold, therefore, that history is the best guide to the natural law that nature can furnish (a surer guide than individual use of reason).
Of course, history alone would lead us to historicism. But tradition normed by Scripture… that is the sure guide.
Thanks, Bill, that’s helpful. Maybe I should raise this in a separate post, but I’m also wondering what the purpose of natural law theory is. What is the “cash value”?
In my mind the cash value is natural law’s:
1. Historical continuity with the great Western tradition. Its realist approach to natural law follows a natural tradjectory from the fathers, medievals, reformers, right up until Barth destroyed the endevor. A Reformed ethics that ignors natural law arguments is necessarly less “catholic” and more sectarian.
2. Natural law allows us to be biblical without being biblicists. I mean that we can reason from the scriptures by way of causistry rather than by way of a fundamentalist type hermanuetic. As a chastened theonomist you know what I am talking about. Essentially you are talking about doing a natural law causistry without the label.
3. Finally, it preserves our bona fides as conservatives rather than radicals. The theonomic approach demands to much radical reconstruction of the Anglo-American tradition. Natural law hermanuetics ties us into the common law tradition.