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Feature
4 September 2023

The end of the 19th century saw a resurgence in interest in natural law, not just in the field of Christian theology and ethics, but also in law, social sciences and politics. Several reasons have been offered for this.

Some writers have attributed the revival of natural law to the ascendancy of the natural sciences, which are premised on assumptions about the givenness and stability of the natural order which it investigates.

Others argue that natural law theories are revitalized because legal theorists wanted to correct the dominance of legal positivism, which holds that laws are merely a matter of convention.

Still others have attributed the recent retrieval of natural law to the atrocities and devastation that the two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century had brought in their wake. Heightened anxieties that these wars might have resulted in the eclipse of all moral principles have spurred the development of laws based on the principles of natural reasoning.

An eminent example of this is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948. The principles upon which this important document is based are the universal laws to which the whole human race—regardless of culture or creed—can subscribe to.

What is natural law theory?

The legal scholar and natural law theorist, David F. Forte, explains natural law in the following way:

On the day when humanity was first gifted with reason, the natural law moment truly began. On the day that man first felt the ego-tug of his passions, the natural law moment is in danger of passing. The ambivalence of that first day is with us still.

 

Natural law reasoning is therefore established on moral “first principles.” To put it differently, we may say that it is “law that is written on every human heart” (Rom 2:15, Heb 10:16).

Thus, natural law is “natural” because it is grounded in our shared human nature. It is “law” because it accords with moral principles that are universal because they are recognized and practiced by all people.

The origins of natural law theories can be traced to a time prior to the Christian era. It was developed in different ways by Greek philosophers as diverse as Heraclitus, Socrates and Aristotle.

Among them, Aristotle is doubtless the most sophisticated and influential. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle states categorically that “what is by nature just has the same force everywhere, and does not depend on what we regard or do not regard as just.”

In other words, what is just does not depend on our individual subjective assessment, but is a “given” in nature, and therefore universally the case. Like Plato before him, Aristotle rejects subjective and relativistic notions of what is good and just.

Natural Law and Christian Theology

Aristotle’s theory has shaped the thinking of one of the greatest (if not the greatest) proponent of natural law in the Christian tradition: Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).

However, it must be emphasized that, for Thomas, it is the Christian understanding of creation and revelation that serve as the ground and possibility of natural law.

The doctrine of creation not only informs us that God has brought the world into being “out of nothing” (ex nihilo). It also underscores the truth that God has ordered reality in such a way that makes its inner rationality discernible.

The Church’s theology of creation leads seamlessly to its doctrine of revelation, especially general revelation.  In creating the world and ordering it in a particular way, God has also disclosed something of himself and his will for his creation.

It is on the basis of the Christian doctrine of creation and general revelation that theologians such as Thomas Aquinas develop their concept of natural law. These laws of nature are therefore accessible by both revelation and reason.

Thus, in Summa Theologica, Thomas writes:

So it is clear that as far as the general principles of reason are concerned, whether speculative or practical, there is one standard of truth or righteousness for everybody… So we must conclude that the law of nature, as far as first principles are concerned, is the same for all as the norm of right conduct is equally known to all.

 

Following Thomas Aquinas, the Roman Catholic Church has developed a sophisticated and rich natural law tradition which is especially evident in its magisterial social doctrines.

But the natural law tradition is not the exclusive purview of Roman Catholic theology. Protestants should be reminded that despite his emphasis on the theologia crucis (theology of the cross), Martin Luther did not reject natural law but saw it as an integral part of the Christian theological framework.

For example, Luther maintained that natural law—whose basis is the revelation of God—can be said to be the first principle of universal morality. He writes:

Natural law is a practical first principle on the sphere of morality; it forbids evil and commands good. The basis of natural law is God, who created this light, but the basis of positive law is civil authority.

 

Luther could therefore argue that the Ten Commandments are “not Mosaic laws only, but also natural law, written on each man’s heart, as St Paul teaches (Romans 2).” He also alludes to the Golden Rule to which all people subscribe. “By nature,” he writes, “they judge that one should do to others what one wants done to oneself.”

Protestant theologians such as Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) have emphasized the importance of natural law because it presents principles that are common to all, serving as a bridge between Christians and the non-believing world.

Recently, theologians such as David VanDrunen and social ethicists such as J. Daryl Charles have been doing important work to retrieve natural law within the Protestant (especially Reformed) tradition.

In his 1992 article published in First Things, Lutheran theologian Carl Braaten explains why Protestants should take natural law seriously. Reflecting broadly on the relativism that pervades modern culture, he writes:

Moral relativism joins political activism to sabotage the rules and standards needed to implement a societal system ordered by principles of justice and truth. When the normlessness and the nihilistic effects of the deconstructionist mindset are no longer confined to academic, but invade the wider public [as they have done], the way is prepared for the moral collapse of social institutions or for the enthronement of the totalitarian state… Perhaps it is time to expose current relativist and nihilistic theories as the underside of totalitarian ideologies and political authoritarianism. A revival of natural law can be of use in that project.

 

Eminent Detractors

However, not every theologian sees the importance of natural law. In fact, some vigorously reject natural law as a legitimate basis for theology, ethics and politics.

One of the most illustrious detractors is Karl Barth, arguably the most significant Protestant theologian in the twentieth century. Barth maintains that theological or philosophical concepts that are rooted in nature are not only deficient but heretical because they ignore God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.

Similarly, any ethical system that is grounded in “nature” must be rejected because it either denies or obscures “its derivation from God’s command” and seeks instead to “set up independent principles” which then serve as a “replacement” for God’s revelation.

Barth’s objection to natural law corresponds to his rejection of natural theology, which for him is developed apart from God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. This is clearly seen in his famous dispute with Emil Brunner, a theologian who, like Barth, belongs to the neo-orthodox camp.

Because the moral sense is embedded in the hearts of every human being, Brunner argues, man can glean from nature that which is good and bad, noble and ignoble. Human fallenness and sin do not eradicate reason and conscience.

Barth rejects this argument because for him the Fall has obliterated the possibility of natural theology or the use of natural law. After the fall, there simply cannot be an independent source and category of human knowledge apart from God’s self-disclosure in Christ.

This famous debate in the 1940s between Barth and Brunner casts a very long shadow in Protestant theology. It played a key role in Protestant theology’s suspicion and scepticism of not just natural theology but natural law as well.

Following in the footsteps of Barth is Stanley Hauerwas, arguably one of the most important voices in Christian social ethics in the twentieth century. In a number of his writing, but especially in his influential books, The Peaceable Kingdom and Truthfulness and Tragedy, Hauerwas argues eloquently against appealing to natural law in ethics.

Highlighting the dichotomies that are embedded in some Protestant theologies between nature and grace and Christian discipleship and natural morality, Hauerwas insists that “while the way of life taught by Christ is meant to be an ethic for all people, it does not follow that we can know what such an ethic involves objectively by looking at the human.”

Hauerwas acknowledges that there are contact points between Christian ethics and what he calls “other forms of moral life.” But he is quick to stress that these resonances “are not sufficient to provide the basis for a ‘universal’ ethic grounded in human nature per se.”

For these and other reasons Hauerwas concludes, quite categorically, that “Christian ethics theologically does not have a stake in ‘natural law’”.

Conclusion

While the concerns raised by theologians such as Barth and Hauerwas must not be hastily dismissed, their total rejection of natural law must nonetheless be called to question. For, in so doing, they have willy-nilly thrown the baby out with the bath water.

The natural law tradition is not an alien element introduced to undermine God’s revelation in Christ. It is not, as Barth contends, a set of “independent principles” whose aim is to “replace” God’s revelation. As we have seen, natural law is grounded in creation and revelation, and thus made possible by God’s grace.

To repeat Luther’s assertion quoted earlier: “The basis of natural law is God, who created this light…” As such, natural law is not at odds with God’s revelation in Jesus Christ but in harmony with it.

Natural law points not only to fallen humanity’s ability to discern—however imperfectly—good from evil and right from wrong. It also stresses that human reason has the capacity to attain some knowledge of God. It is therefore one of the conditions that makes evangelization—the communication and reception of the gospel of Christ—possible.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it:

In defending the ability of human reason to know God, the Church is expressing her confidence in the possibility of speaking about him to all men and with all men, and therefore of dialogue with other religions, with philosophy and science, as well as with unbelievers and atheists.

 


Dr Roland Chia is Chew Hock Hin Professor at Trinity Theological College (Singapore) and Theological and Research Advisor of the Ethos Institute for Public Christianity.