The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Natural Law

MORAL KNOWLEDGE COMMUNICABLE IN THEORY, LARGELY INCOMMUNICABLE IN PRACTICE
If a truth is capable of being rationally demonstrated, then it follows that this truth should theoretically enjoy common assent. So Simon: “Philosophical certainty is of a demonstrative nature and, consequently, enjoys unlimited communicability in principle.” In practice, however, moral truths—such as those belonging to natural law—are difficult to rationally communicate:

We often feel certain about right or wrong in a moral essence without being able to show clearly why it is right or wrong. Even in matters which admit of rational clarity, it often happens that available explanations are not airtight, and that there is a striking contrast between the firmness of our certainty and the vagueness of our explanation. Our intuitive acquaintance with the laws of the moral order is way ahead of our ability to connect moral essences with the first principles of morality, in other words, to show why an act is right or is wrong.

As a result, we cannot expect to reconstruct via rational argumentation the kind of consensus that once existed on the strength of inclination:

It can happen at any time in the history of a particular community that an issue on which sufficient agreement (an amount of agreement having about the same effects as consensus) had, so far, been ensured by affective communion no longer can be satisfactorily treated by such spontaneous methods, and demands to be treated by methods of rational communication. With regard to this particular issue, this particular society is in transition from the pre-Socratic to the Socratic age. Such transitions always have the character of crises, and they inevitably involve considerable destructions. One may not even be entitled to hope that the amount of agreement to be obtained in the future by methods of rational communication will ever equal the amount of agreement that was obtained in the past, spontaneously and silently, by affective communion.

Some good can be accomplished in attempting rational persuasion, provided we are under “no illusion about the possibility of bringing about demonstrative knowledge in a great number of minds.” But overly lofty hopes in the power of natural law argumentation are liable to end with a backlash against natural law:

For a number of years we have been witnessing a tendency, in teachers and preachers, to assume that natural law decides, with the universality proper to the necessity of essences, incomparably more issues than it is actually able to decide. There is a tendency to treat in terms of natural law questions which call for treatment in terms of prudence. It should be clear that any concession to this tendency is bound promptly to cause disappointment and skepticism.

Russell Hittinger powerfully recapitulates this point in his introduction to The Tradition of Natural Law:

In our time and culture, natural law is invoked as a response to the breakdown of tradition, to moral relativism and nihilism, to various species of utilitarianism, and to legal positivism. It is expected to be an all-purpose antidote to the estrangements of modernity. Called upon to remediate more than reasonably can be expected, natural law is liable to descend to ideology…. A society that perceives itself to have only the weapon of natural law to address the enemies of right reason is, no doubt, a society that will have trouble taking that measure.

Hence the general impotence of natural law in our society, notwithstanding sustained advocacy from contemporary proponents.

CONCLUSION
Yves R. Simon’s theory of natural law is but one among many. Yet its explanatory power for our current moment recommends Simon for wider attention than he has heretofore enjoyed.

The most obvious counterarguments to the perspective on natural law presented above are no arguments at all. Demanding an alternative approach to public engagement may be reasonable, but it also deflects from the need to answer for natural law argumentation’s own apparent weakness. I will not offer any such alternative here, as I have already done so at length elsewhere.

Neither is there any force to the charge that absent natural law argumentation, “there can be no political persuasion, only religious conversion.” Perhaps, and what of it? None other than John Witherspoon—the Witherspoon Institute’s eponymous inspiration—held that “the natural law was not a universal moral sense cultivating sociability in all citizens. A virtuous society requires regenerate Christians.”

Where divine law—a corrective to human reason via its republication of natural law—is shunned, natural law will be ignored.

The law of contradiction, for example, does not preclude transgenderism or abortion or even that 2+2=5 under a certain conception of reality, especially political reality. The anchoring axioms undergirding the worldview Arkes and myself share are encouraged, reinforced, protected by the customs, norms, and traditions that, in a way, they produce. But, in turn and in circular fashion, the maintenance of the effects is required to maintain the authoritative presence of anchoring axioms in a relative and subjective but no less real sense. Cultural sensibilities must be trained to notice the right things and draw the right conclusions therefrom. Constructed socio-political realities are either conducive to embrace of things per se nota or they are not. There is no neutrality even amongst ordinary people who are not magically insulated from the digressions of elite opinion. The first principle of practical reason depends on apprehension of the good and, conversely, privation of the good (evil).

The truth will always out, sure enough, but not always before a society or a civilization has descended fully down into the depths of what the apostle Paul describes in Romans 1—complete moral degradation accomplished only by the suppression of the knowledge of God at the behest of sophistical philosophers, as the traditional reading of the passage would have it.

Rev. Kevin DeYoung, Dr. James Skillen, Dr. Rusty Reno, and Dr. Carlton Wynne join Hugh Hewitt in this panel discussion on worldview and natural law. This was recorded at the Faith in the Public Square on October 7, 2016 at Westminster Theological Seminary. …

Romans 1:16-25 (KJV) 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed [it] unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified [him] not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

I truly enjoyed that video and at the same time I was rather disappointed in some of the responses and suggestions on how we as regenerated sinners whose lives are firmly dependent upon God in every aspect of life should interact with this world. If I may be extremely simplistic, which I believe is the key to all of life with its apparent complexities, our answer to every issue of life is found in SCRIPTURE and not rationalism nor solved with pragmatism. Nor is there "common grace" when defined as God's love for all mankind and to whom is given the ability to comprehend, accept, love and do the truth of God. Some on the panel iterated that "common grace" is actually and biblically defined as God's restraint of the depravity of fallen men. So, what is the answer to how should Christians approach this depravity of men? It is found in Romans 1:


The power to overcome the innate and deliberate hatred of God and all that He has revealed, both in supernatural revelation (Scripture) and the creation (what can be perceived) is through the Gospel and all that is contained in the Bible, which is truth (Jh 17:17). It is the Holy Spirit working through the truth that can and does radically change the hearts and minds of even the most corrupt and sinful men. Remember, what can be known of God is clearly seen in the things which are made but natural man upon realizing that truth suppresses that truth and substitutes that truth with a lie because they hate God and all that is true. Without regeneration of the soul, no argument will ever be truly won. There may be some diminishment of the sinner's objection to one degree or another, but that innate hatred will not be won over and eventually gain the victory in that person's life.

What is the Church's core problem today? In my opinion is the lack of sound doctrinal preaching and teaching. And likewise, professing Christians know woefully little of biblical truth because the Scriptures are not the manna of life that sustains them. Rather the Bible as a supernatural communication of God that is the source of true knowledge wisdom and life itself has become just another 'self-help' book that sits on the shelf and rarely read as intended never mind actually studied.

John Owen had it right when he wrote: "Without absolutes revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers."

2 Timothy 2:15 (KJV) 15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.