ABSTRACT: Throughout church history, some theologians have followed Aristotle’s description of woman as a “deformed” or “malformed” man. The Reformers, however, celebrated woman as “a most excellent work” of God, equally capable of virtue and worthy of love, respect, and justice. Together with their doctrine of male headship, the Reformers’ defense of woman offers a position close to what many call “complementarity” today.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Steven Wedgeworth (MDiv, Reformed Theological Seminary), pastor of Christ Church in South Bend, Indiana, to investigate the Reformers’ defense of woman.

As a whole, the tradition of the Christian church stands opposed to the modern commitment to sexual egalitarianism, especially when it comes to ministerial ordination and headship within marriage. This testimony, however, is frequently rejected on the grounds that the Christian church throughout history was misogynistic. Indeed, various statements that seem harsh or unfair toward the female sex are not hard to find. Perhaps the most notorious of these is Aristotle’s assertion that women are “misbegotten” or improperly formed, an assertion reaffirmed by Thomas Aquinas in several places.

While we should be willing to acknowledge gross errors and blind biases in church history, we also find a contrary testimony on this point. The normative Protestant tradition rejected the “traditional” definition of woman as malformed. More than this, in the history of Reformed theology, we also find the assertion that women are capable of true virtue and even political rule. Indeed, the Reformers and their heirs freely acknowledged that individual women often excel particular men in character and intellect, even their own husbands. They also condemned domestic abuse in the strongest of terms.

This fuller view of history is important because it shows the way in which a Christian tradition can maintain the scriptural doctrine of male headship while rejecting a philosophical notion of female deficiency. What emerges is a position similar to what we now refer to as complementarity. The theologians of the Reformation maintained that both men and women fully bear the image of God, are equally capable of virtue and spiritual graces, and yet are differently ordered in God’s good design. Due to the creation order, men and women have certain specific vocational directions and also make unique and essential contributions to both marriage and society. Instead of defining woman as a necessary evil, the Reformers defend woman as a most excellent work.

Against the ‘Deformed Man’

If you read Reformation commentaries on the book of Genesis or other treatments of the constitution of men and women, you will notice a peculiar line of argument that repeatedly shows up. When dealing with the creation of the woman, Protestant theologians go out of their way to show how the Scriptures refute the “pagan” and “vulgar” conception of the female sex. For instance, Martin Luther (1483–1546) writes,

This tale fits Aristotle’s designation of woman as a “maimed man”; others declare that she is a monster. But let them themselves be monsters and sons of monsters — these men who make malicious statements and ridicule a creature of God in which God Himself took delight as in a most excellent work, moreover, one which we see created by a special counsel of God. These pagan ideas show that reason cannot establish anything sure about God and the works of God but only thinks up reasons against reasons and teaches nothing in a perfect and sound manner.1

In his typically colorful prose, Luther is interacting with a longstanding conversation in classical biology and anthropology. Aristotle, as noted, had claimed that the woman was a “maimed” or deformed man. What he meant by this description strikes us as bizarre, as it has to do with the way he understood the mechanics of human reproduction and embryonic development. In short, Aristotle believed that all human life begins in one state of existence but possesses potential to develop into a more perfect state of existence. Those humans who activate this potency and move into the fully developed stage Aristotle classified as males, while those who remain in the initial stage were females. Various translations and restatements of Aristotle render his description of the woman as maimed, deformed, malformed, mutilated, or misbegotten.2

While contemporary readers will quickly reject Aristotle’s argument as based on an entirely false understanding of human physiology, Christian theologians in earlier times often gave Aristotle the benefit of the doubt. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) is perhaps the chief example. Though he qualifies and relativizes the Aristotelian view to a point, Aquinas still considers it to be basically correct.3

The Reformers had no time for this discussion. Martin Luther finds Aristotle’s claim offensive and impious, an affront to the very majesty of God. In his treatise The Estate of Marriage, he attacks the ancient statement that woman is a “necessary evil”: “These are the words of blind heathen, who are ignorant of the fact that man and woman are God’s creation. They blaspheme his work, as if man and woman just came into being spontaneously!”4 John Calvin (1509–1564) also rejects the description of the female sex as a “necessary evil,” arguing, “The vulgar proverb, indeed, is, that she is a necessary evil; but the voice of God is rather to be heard, which declares that woman is given as a companion and an associate to the man, to assist him to live well.”5

While the later Reformed scholastics were frequently more friendly toward the Thomistic and Aristotelian heritage, they too stood firm on the question of the origin and constitution of woman. Andrew Willet (1562–1621) attacks “the Philosopher” (i.e., Aristotle) as “heathenish” and “profane” for asserting that women cannot possess virtue in the full and “proper” sense.6 Writing in 1676, Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1676) says the notion that woman is an “error of nature” or an “imperfect male” is a “monstrous opinion that is refuted by Scripture and reason.”7 The overwhelming majority of Protestant theologians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries directly rejected the ancient position that the woman was deficient or malformed.

Upholding Hierarchy

While Reformation theologians rejected the notion that women were lesser creatures than men, they did not hesitate to use the language of hierarchy. In the relationship of marriage, the husband was said to be “superior” to the wife. To modern ears, this language may seem to parallel the position just rejected. But closer attention to the particulars reveals something different.

For example, John Davenant (1572–1641) writes, “The wife acknowledges in her mind, that her husband is and ought to be her head and governor, and that she is the inferior on the mere ground that she is a wife, although in birth, riches, virtue, and prudence, she excel her husband.”8 Notice that Davenant says that a wife might indeed “excel her husband” in birth, riches, virtue, and prudence. That is to say, she may be of nobler birth than her husband, she may come from greater riches than her husband, and she may be more virtuous and more prudent than her husband. (Davenant surely had met many such women in his career as a professor, priest, and bishop.)

The “inferiority” of the wife does not necessarily render her lesser in any of those areas. Instead, her inferiority is simply with regard to the marital relationship itself (“the mere ground that she is a wife”). The relationship of wife is like a rank or office, akin to that within an army or administration. Just a few sentences earlier, Davenant had compared this sort of hierarchy to that of magistrates or soldiers. The superiority and inferiority in view have to do with an order of authority in the specific organization, not with a difference of value, capability, or essence.

Another testimony to this perspective is Robert Leighton (1611–1684), a Reformed Scottish bishop writing in the late seventeenth century. He writes,

It is possible, that the wife may sometimes have the advantage of knowledge, either natural wit and judgment, or a great measure of understanding of spiritual things; but this still holds, that the husband is bound to improve the measure both of natural and of spiritual gifts, that he hath, or can attain to, and to apply them usefully to the ordering of his conjugal carriage, and that he understand himself obliged somewhat the more, in the very notion of a husband, both to seek after and to use that prudence which is peculiarly required for his due deportment. And a Christian wife, who is more largely endowed, yet will show all due respect to the measure of wisdom, though it be less, which is bestowed upon her husband.9

“Instead of defining woman as a necessary evil, the Reformers defend woman as a most excellent work.”

Again, we see that the wife is not presumed to be inferior to the husband in “natural wit and judgment,” nor even in the “understanding of spiritual things.” But the calling of authoritative leader nonetheless belongs to the husband because he is the husband. The authority is located within the “office” of husband; the duty to submit belongs to the wife because she is the wife.

Such a perspective is not substantially different from what we now call complementarity. The husband’s duty to lead and the wife’s duty to submit are based not upon an innate hierarchy of ability, capacity, or skill but rather upon the divine arrangement of husband and wife grounded in the creation order.

For the Regiment of Women

The magisterial Reformers were, on the whole, not revolutionary in their political thought. They did not promote a doctrine of liberation nor even the sort of social equality that we commonly understand today. Indeed, they frequently had to repel charges of promoting “radicalism” or political upheaval. Even arguments for political resistance were grounded in longstanding debates from classical antiquity, not any new breakthroughs in biblical exegesis.

Concerning women’s roles in public, the Reformers tended to assert traditional views. Women, for them, would generally hold a domestic position. But the controversy over England’s Queen Elizabeth gave occasion to reflect on the possibility of women holding the highest political offices. John Knox’s (c. 1514–1572) negative views on this topic are more well-known, but what several other Reformed thinkers had to say might be surprising.

John Calvin is usually considered to be a friendly associate (if not an ally) of Knox. Knox certainly wanted to maintain this impression, and it is likely that Calvin did indeed lend his support from time to time. Still, Calvin recognized the inconvenience that Knox could bring. In a 1559 letter to Sir William Cecil, the chief adviser of Queen Elizabeth, Calvin writes,

Two years ago, John Knox in a private conversation, asked my opinion respecting female government. I frankly answered that because it was a deviation from the primitive and established order of nature, it ought to be held as a judgment on man for his dereliction of his rights just like slavery.

Calvin is clearly not a progressive thinker on this question. “Nevertheless,” Calvin goes on, he also told Knox that

certain women had sometimes been so gifted that the singular blessing of God was conspicuous in them, and made it manifest that they had been raised up by the providence of God, either because he willed by such examples to condemn the inactivity of men, or thus show more distinctly his own glory. I here instanced Huldah and Deborah. I added to the same effect that God promised by the mouth of Isaiah that queens should be the nursing mothers of the church, which clearly distinguished such persons from private women.10

This section of the letter is not exactly inspirational prose. Calvin does not muster any kind of “trumpet blast” of his own, and he was wholly unsuccessful in his attempt to move into the queen’s good favor. Still, his admission is important. For him, while female magistrates are a “deviation from the order of nature,” they are not so unnatural as to be illegitimate in their rule. Indeed, in God’s providence, certain women rulers had been successful. In fact, Calvin argues that Isaiah had prophesied that women would be godly rulers (Isaiah 49:23), implying that Elizabeth is one of their number.

Voetius also offers a moderate perspective on female government, writing that “in the case of extreme necessity,” and upon the discovery of a woman possessing the necessary prudence, bravery, and spirit, “I think that such should be employed for a time.”11 Willet is even more supportive, writing in defense of “the regiment of women”:

The spirit of God can plant grace and virtue in the hearts of women, as well as of men: nay often the Lord chooses the weak things of this world to confound the mighty things, 1. Cor. 1.27. And the examples of so many virtuous and good women in the Scriptures, of Sara, Rebecca, Anna, the Shunamite, and the rest in the old: of Marie, Anna, Martha, Lydia, Dorcas, and many other in the New Testament, do evidently confute that prophane paradox of the Philosopher.

He adds a personal reflection regarding England’s own experience:

This country and nation of ours, as is hath found the government of a woman the worst, in the late Marian persecutions, when more good men and women, Saints of God, were put to death, than in any three Kings reign beside: so have we seen it in the next change, the best of all other Princes reigns that went before: famous Queene Elizabeth’s government, as for flourishing peace, honourable fame and name, enriching of the Land, subduing of foreign enemies, enacting of good laws, may be compared with the reign of any former Kings. So for the advancing of true religion, increasing of learning, propagating the Gospel, none of her predecessors came near her: That as the refining of coin, being reduced from base money to pure silver and gold, was her honour in the Civil State: so the purging of religion, according to the purity of the word of God, in the Church shall bee her everlasting fame in the world, and is her eternal reward with God.12

A final example is Johannes Althusius (1563–1638), one of the most important political thinkers of the post-Reformation era and a key forerunner to modern politics as we know it. In his 1614 work Politica, Althusius endorses the rule of women in provincial government, citing Deborah from the book of Judges, Nitocris of Babylon, Zenobia of Palmyra, Amalasuintha of the Goths, and “Elizabeth of the Britons.” He writes, “In this matter, the female sex does not stand in the way.”13 Althusius is especially noteworthy for his stature in political theory and in the fact that he does not use the typical qualification of extreme necessity, but merely “when the function is appropriate.”

The Grave Sin of Domestic Abuse

Another important area where the Reformation combatted misogynistic behavior was in its condemnation of domestic abuse. The second Anglican Book of Homilies has a homily titled “Of the State of Matrimony,” which contains an extended discussion of spousal abuse. It says that for a man to beat his wife is “the greatest shame that can be, not so much to her that is beaten, as to him that does the deed.” It even refers to classical “pagan” law to argue that domestic abuse can be a ground for ending a marriage:

This thing may be well understood by the laws which the Panims have made, which does discharge her any longer to dwell with such an husband, as unworthy to have any further company with her that does smite her. For it is an extreme point, thus so vilely to entreat her like a slave, that is fellow to thee of thy life, and so joined unto thee before time in the necessary matters of thy living. And therefore a man may well liken such a man (if he may be called a man, rather then a wild beast) to a killer of his father or his mother.14

Davenant echoes this same argument in his commentary on Colossians, where he writes,

It is the height of this bitter tyranny to act cruelly towards the wife by stripes or blows, which we do not read that any one among the heathen did unless he was drunk or mad. Hence the civil law permits the wife to avail herself of a divorce if she can prove that her husband has beaten her: and it gives as a reason that blows are foreign to a state of freedom. For no superiority whatever gives the power of coercing the inferior by blows.

He adds:

For although parents often chastise their children from love; yet both the experience and conscience of everyone will testify that no one proceeds to beat his wife except from anger, bitterness or hatred; all which are unlawful things and diametrically opposite to the matrimonial state.

Davenant explains that the husband does not have the authority to use physical violence against his wife because the marriage is not a master-slave relationship but instead “a certain amicable fellowship in life.” The wife is “subject to her husband and directed by him; but as a companion, not as a slave; by advice, not by stripes.”15

In the same vein, Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) says, “A husband’s power over his wife is paternal and friendly, not magisterial and despotick.” He explains that the husband must lead by love through counsel, instruction, and nurture. “The power a man hath is founded in the understanding, not in the will or force; it is not a power of coercion, but a power of advice.”16 To be an effective leader, the husband must actually lead. He must assume responsibility and carry out the duties of a loving and friendly family leader. On this point, Taylor gives a sort of proverb: “It is a sign of impotency and weakness to force the camels to kneel for their load because thou has not spirit and strength enough to climb.”

Against physical violence in the marriage, Taylor cites Marcus Aurelius, Basil the Great, and John Chrysostom. The husband, he asserts, should never strike his wife. “The Marital Love is infinitely removed from all possibility of such rudeness.”17

Perfectly Complementary

These observations do not establish any sort of proto-feminism or egalitarianism within the Reformation tradition. Rather, a fundamental human equality was said to coexist within a stipulated hierarchy — the husband’s loving governance over his wife, which established the basic paradigm for relationships of authority and submission. Still, the Reformers were well aware of areas of historic abuse and error in the tradition. Based upon Scripture and reason, they maintained the woman’s full integrity as a good creature of God, capable of virtue and even public rule. They argued that the woman’s strength could shine in and through her relative temporal weakness, all to the manifest power, wisdom, and glory of God.

What is commonly referred to as complementarity is sometimes opposed to the older “patriarchal” tradition. At times, this is done by complementarians themselves; at other times, their opponents insist on the discontinuity so as to deny the authority of the historic Christian witness. But the difference is not a fundamental or essential one. While certain terminology has changed and particular categories have become more or less familiar, the basic structure remains. While God has ordered men and women differently, in such a way as to complement and perfect one another according to his calling, both men and women are equally human, originally good according to God’s design, and worthy of love, respect, and justice.

“Effeminacy” is an old-fashioned word. It was once commonly used. Then it was banished from polite discourse. Recently, the word has enjoyed something of a comeback in evangelical debates over human sexuality and anthropology. Online, it is frequently chosen as a way to toe the line between acceptable apologetics and abusive rhetoric. Some people use the word to be tough. Some use it to be bad.

But “effeminacy,” understood rightly, is also a biblical word and concept, appearing in a text so relevant to modern debates that some detractors have dubbed it a “clobber passage.” The Presbyterian Church in America seems to have recognized just how loaded the word is. The denomination requested a study of 1 Corinthians 6:9 as a part of an Ad Interim Study Committee on Human Sexuality. But surprisingly, the committee relegated this aspect of their commission to a single footnote. They were, perhaps, not quite ready to talk about effeminacy.

But like it or not, people are talking about effeminacy. And like it or not, the word appears in the Christian tradition. So, we would do well to understand it — what it is, what it means for sexual ethics, and whether Christians should use this term today.

Effeminacy in the New Testament

The word “effeminacy” appears in older English translations of 1 Corinthians 6:9. The underlying Greek is malakoi, the plural of malakos. In its immediate context, Paul appears to apply effeminacy to men who engage in homosexual practices. The word is preceded by “adulterers” and then followed by an odd term, perhaps coined by Paul, once translated “abusers of themselves with mankind” but now usually translated as simply “homosexuals” (arsenokoitai).

Commonly, interpreters argue that the two terms (malakoi and arsenokoitai) refer to the passive and active partners of homosexual activity. So, for example, the ESV translates both terms together with the phrase “men who practice homosexuality.” The case for translating 1 Corinthians 6:9 in this way is strong, but it has the obvious weakness of reducing two distinct concepts to one.

It also removes a rhetorical subtlety present in the original. Malakos sometimes did refer to the passive partner in a homosexual relationship, but it did so as a figure of speech. The literal meaning of malakos is “soft.” Thus, when applied to those engaging in certain behavior, this was something of an epithet, analogous to calling someone a “Nancy boy.” Choosing the narrow, and presumably narrowly accurate, option loses this aspect of the way the word functioned. It was not a specific or technical term but rather a broad one that was used precisely to bring to mind a range of other, mostly unfavorable, connotations.

Malakos appears two other times in Scripture, in parallel passages where Jesus is describing the difference between John the Baptist and rich men. Rich men wear “soft [malakois] clothing,” Jesus says in Matthew 11:8. In Luke 7:25, this line is repeated, but an additional description is added: “Behold, they which are gorgeously apparelled, and live delicately, are in kings’ courts” (KJV). Soft clothes, then, are luxurious clothes, gorgeous and delicate. Here malakos is also used figuratively. Yes, the clothes are literally soft, but their softness indicates their relationship to luxury. They are fine clothes, expensive clothes. The reason John the Baptist doesn’t wear them is not because he inherently dislikes silk. He doesn’t wear them because he is an ascetic. John does not live a soft life of luxury but rather a hard life of self-denial and self-mastery.

A closely related word in Luke 7:25 is tryphē. Translated there as “luxury,” it also appears in 2 Peter 2:13: “They count it pleasure to revel [tryphēn] in the daytime.” This usage is trickier. The context has to do with pleasure but also with a lack of shame. The sin is committed openly or flagrantly. In his commentary on 2 Peter, John Calvin offers this translation: “luxuriating in their errors.” Tryphē, then, carries connotations of a lack of discipline or constraint. Both malakos and tryphē also could be translated as “effeminate” or “effeminacy.”

Does ‘Effeminate’ Mean Feminine?

Neither malakos nor tryphē carries the linguistic association with the female sex that the English word “effeminacy” does. This might be considered a strength in that it allows contemporary Christians to discuss the moral issue without being immediately pulled into a discussion of the sexes. But the New Testament does use a word that stands opposite of malakos, and this word does carry an association with one’s sex.

That word is andrizomai in 1 Corinthians 16:13. It was once translated as “quit ye like men” (KJV) but is now often rendered “be courageous” (NIV, NLT, NET). Once again, the privileging of a narrow sort of clarity obscures the literal word and its rhetorical force. In context, andrizomai does indicate courage, but it does so after the manner of the contemporary expression “man up.” The word invokes the concept of a man in order to symbolize strength. Interestingly, the next moral duty listed in verse 13 is “be strong.” “Quit ye like men” captures the fact that andrizomai indicates manliness.

Malakos and andreios (the adjectival form of andrizomai) can be seen, then, as opposites — and as corresponding to effeminacy and manliness, respectively. Effeminacy is a soft and indulgent character trait. Manliness is a courage that holds strong under pressure.

Importantly, both of these terms can be applied to both men and women. After all, Paul is writing to a group that includes both men and women when he calls them to “act like men.” One place where this interesting rhetorical convention has been preserved is in the Book of Common Prayer’s baptismal service. After the person, man or woman, is baptized, the minister makes the sign of the cross on his (or her) forehead and says, “[We] do sign him [or her] with the sign of the cross, in token that hereafter he [or she] shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil.” Female as well as male Anglicans are called to manfully fight. Andrizomai works the same way. Both men and women are called to “man up.”

Can women be warned against effeminacy, then? That sounds strange to modern ears. Understanding the full range of effeminacy, however, will show that the answer is yes. To be clear, effeminacy is not the same as femininity. And if a woman commits the sin of effeminacy, it is not because she is being overly feminine. Rather, she is abusing or distorting femininity in a way that creates vice. This claim will take some further explaining, and to make it easier to understand, we need to look at what effeminacy has meant in the broader tradition.

Effeminacy, Decadence, and Deviancy

Malakos and other language related to the concept of effeminacy appear widely in ancient literature. Philo of Alexandria and Josephus both use them, as do Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch. As a moral concept, ancient effeminacy could mean physical weakness, mental weakness, cowardice, a failure to live up to one’s duty, luxury, or sexual immorality. In this last meaning, the immorality could appear when the man assumed the role of a woman, and it could also appear when a man prioritized his lust for women over his duties and the pursuit of virtue. A few examples can demonstrate these meanings.

ARISTOTLE

Aristotle defines malakos as “luxury” in his Nicomachean Ethics (7.1.4). By “luxury,” he means indulgence or the lack of self-restraint. He states that the luxurious man is intemperate and beholden to his own passions. He gives in to his desires and violates what he knows to be right. This sort of “softness” can manifest itself in exceeding the bounds of propriety as well as in shrinking away from duty out of fear. Aristotle even applies this vice of softness to those who are not steadfast in their opinions but too quickly abandon them.

PLUTARCH

Plutarch was a Greek philosopher and historian who lived in the first-century Roman empire. Though not a Christian, Plutarch would have been a contemporary of the first generation of Christians, and so his cultural outlook is instructive for the literary and intellectual world of the New Testament. In one of his moral treatises, a character denounces the love of pleasure as “a soft [malakos] life” (The Dialogue on Love, lines 750–51). This soft life involves spending time “in the bosoms and beds of women.” It is criticized for being “devoid of manliness and friendship and inspiration.”

The character speaking these lines is not one of Plutarch’s examples of wisdom, but his words do help to explain what “softness” meant in the first-century Roman empire. It indicated sensuality or pleasure-seeking as its own end. A few lines later, another character states that men who allow themselves to be sexually abused by other men are guilty of “weakness and effeminacy [malakos].” The language used is quite crude, and it clearly has to do with the subordinate member of a male homosexual act.

And so, in Plutarch, effeminacy has to do with sexual profligacy (which is a sort of luxury) and the passive homosexual partner. The notion common to both meanings is that of decadence and forsaking duty. This sort of softness is a pursuit of pleasure that leads to prodigal living and even disgrace.

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

The early Christian bishop and theologian John Chrysostom uses the term “effeminacy” in largely the same way Plutarch does. Chrysostom applies the word to luxury and describes offenses like “delicate cookery” and “vulgar ostentation.” Under the first class, he includes “making sauces,” and under the second, “superfluous” art — that is, artwork, design, or fashion that exceeds the bounds of necessity and function.

Throughout his argument, Chrysostom twice alludes to men imitating or behaving like women as cases of effeminate luxury. By this, he does not mean that they are presenting themselves as women per se. He is not talking about actual cases of androgyny. Instead, these men were wearing the kind of expensive and luxurious clothing typically associated with women. Chrysostom writes, “When it perverts men to the gestures of women, and causes them by their sandals to grow wanton and delicate, we will set it amidst the things hurtful and superfluous” (Homily 49 on Matthew, section 5).

In this same section, Chrysostom points out that women also should avoid luxurious clothing. Alluding to 1 Timothy 2:9, he says, “In spite of Paul’s prohibiting the married woman to have costly clothing, you extend this effeminacy even to your shoes.” As strange as it sounds, women too could be guilty of effeminacy. Typically, this rhetoric was used against men; men dressed decadently were wearing clothing and jewelry meant for women. But Chrysostom was actually asserting a distinctive ethic for women too. They also were called to reject luxury, to reject effeminacy. Indeed, both men and women should “quit ye like men” and maintain a decorum of moderation and humility.

AUGUSTINE

Another piece of evidence in late antiquity is found in Augustine’s City of God. In book 7, Augustine describes a group of people he calls “the effeminates consecrated to the Great Mother.” These men have “pomaded hair and powdered faces,” and they “glid[e] along with womanish languor” (City of God 7.26). This “Great Mother” is the goddess “Cybele” or “Kybelis.”

Augustine goes on to say that Cybele turns her devotees into eunuchs. This was a real historical phenomenon. The Roman poet Catullus has a work where he describes Attis as being possessed by the spirit of Cybele and castrating himself. These “effeminates,” then, are described as such precisely because of the sexual element in the vice. They have been turned, as it were, into women. They then devote their lives to the service of this goddess and assume a female presentation.

We can see that ancient effeminacy combined elements of luxury or wantonness with sexual deviancy. The sexual deviancy could be effeminate in two ways. First, it could be an indulgence wherein the man “wasted” his strength and virtue. Second, it could be a case where the man took on the role of the woman, usually in an overly elaborate or decadent way. This androgyny was either uniquely cultic or a form of pleasure-seeking and indulgence within male social groups.

THOMAS AQUINAS

The medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas discusses effeminacy in his landmark Summa Theologiae. There he interacts with both Aristotle and 1 Corinthians 6 before concluding that the core problem with effeminacy is “withdraw[ing] from good on account of sorrow caused by lack of pleasure, yielding as it were to a weak motion” (ST II-II, q. 138). Thomas states that the opposite of effeminacy is perseverance.

In one of his replies, he also mentions the element of sexual deviancy, but he says that the term “effeminacy” is applied to deviancy by way of custom because the effeminate man has grown soft. Interestingly, Thomas believes this softness is primarily mental and volitional. The man in that case has “yielded” to a “weak motion.” He has not persevered in his duty and calling to be a man but has rather abandoned it for the pursuit of fleshly pleasure.

This understanding of effeminacy brings the two seemingly distinct meanings together. A passive or dominated man and a lecherous or libidinous man form two sides of the same coin. Both are failing in their pursuit of the good. They quit their duty and abandon themselves to vice. They do this, not merely out of ordinary fear, but because they sense a “lack of pleasure” in the ethical struggle.

On a similar note, “manliness” meant a strong and persistent battle against sin. Commenting on the use of andrizomai in 1 Corinthians 16:13, John Calvin summarizes it as “fortitude.” Matthew Henry’s commentary explains it this way: “Show yourselves men in Christ, by your steadiness, by your sound judgment and firm resolution.” If effeminacy is the tendency to fall away in the absence of pleasure, manliness is courageous perseverance through challenging struggle.

Effeminacy Today

This historical understanding of effeminacy can assist contemporary promoters of a renewed masculinity, but it also challenges certain assumptions. The Christian critique of effeminacy does promote strength and perseverance in the face of struggle, but it does not simply criticize perceived “girly men.” A man of slight build with a nasally voice might be effeminate, but those characteristics would not necessarily be what made him so. On the other hand, if a man of that physiognomy overcame his obstacles and achieved virtue, all the while embodying Christian faith, hope, and love, he could prove himself manly. Seeing the whole picture isn’t always easy.

We must always be on guard against simple prejudice. There’s nothing intrinsically effeminate about a man who sings, cooks, plays the piano, or pursues “indoor” vocations. In fact, all of those activities have historically attracted various elite men. Similarly, a woman pursuing intellectual rigor is not violating her femininity, as the example of Mary proves (Luke 10:39).

But terms like “effeminacy” and “manliness” do retain concepts that many today have largely rejected. In order to avoid effeminacy, you must have functioning concepts of cowardice, luxury, virtue, perseverance, struggle, and victory. You must also believe that people and endeavors have godly ends or points of completion that define their nature, value, and success. These terms can then be applied to men and women in more sex-specific forms, but they would do so by defining a manly man as one who acts in accordance with his created nature, in pursuit of godly purpose, persevering in the face of opposition and distraction — from the world, his own flesh, and the devil. He then does so in a masculine mode, or “as a man,” and continues in them.

Additionally, Christian manhood requires other characteristics like meekness, moderation, sobriety, and gravity. A godly man avoids “sinful anger, hatred, envy, desire of revenge; all excessive passions, distracting cares; immoderate use of meat, drink, labor, and recreations” (Westminster Larger Catechism 136). Health and fitness are good things, but they are good things in relationship to other goals. They must enable one to achieve godly ends, including protection, provision, and service. A flashy or excessively “manly” notion of masculinity is actually an artifice standing in place of the real thing. Insofar as these artificial versions of manhood give in to vice by way of the soft motions of indulgence or intemperance, they become “effeminate.”

Retaining the vocabulary of “effeminacy” and “manfulness” in our theological ethics is worth the hard work. While both terms need to be used with care, they capture specific biblical concepts that have held a stable place in ancient and Christian history but are in shorter supply today. Wrestling with their unfamiliar or unconformable associations, especially in the areas of sexuality, can help us appropriately criticize older errors as well as newer ones. It can expand our understanding of the ways the Bible retains features of the ancient world and the ways it transforms them. Finally, understanding these words can help men and women achieve their respective virtuous ends in the body of Christ.

C.S. Lewis’s Pilgrim’s Regress is an allegory about the life of the mind — Lewis’s mind — as it wrestles with the soul’s desire for God. Filled with allusions to Lewis’s own intellectual development, the book is equal parts fascinating and impenetrable. Its full original title gives you a taste of what you’re in for: The Pilgrim’s Regress, or Pseudo-Bunyan’s Periplus: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason, and Romanticism. No wonder Lewis would later apologize for its “needless obscurity” in an afterword to the third edition (207).

Still, Pilgrim’s Regress is worth the work — especially if you can find the recent annotated edition, which supplies explanatory notes, including some written by Lewis himself. What you find is that Lewis’s pilgrimage reflects not merely the familiar desire to lose the burden of guilt, but also the desire to satisfy his soul’s thirst, his soul’s longing. Pulled between the competing demands of intellectual consistency and bodily passions, the pilgrim is led by a glimpse of eternity. It pulls him in and through the false offers of the world, often in spite of his own weaknesses.

The Stern North

Since The Pilgrim’s Regress is about Lewis’s own “return,” it has all the features of the early-twentieth-century academic class. Lewis’s pilgrim struggles with classic temptations like lust and pride, but they frequently take the form of ideologies. His allegorical foils include “Puritania” and “Victoriana,” as well as personifications of Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche. Lewis even makes space for his contemporary pilgrim intellectuals on their own journeys, both divine and devilish.

In one of the more arresting scenes, Lewis shows us the northernmost extremity of the journey. Described as the “sterner regions of the mind” (94), the northern territory is where “the tough-minded” go. Their great opponent is what they view as a childish sentimentality, the tendency to still hold to emotions, hopes, and dreams — all of which they believe are illusions. The northern men are intellectual, but harsh and cynical. They believe they have seen through all the deceptions.

But they are not the final mountain peak. No, the top of the mountain is something more: a figure called Savage. Dressed in a Viking helmet and quoting Nietzsche and Wagner, Savage is terrifying, “almost a giant.” He’s joined by a Norse sorceress and sings the philosophy of heroic violence in epic verse. Here are a few of his convictions, the first about ordinary simple men and the second about self-important intellectuals:

These are the dregs of man. . . . They are always thinking of happiness. They are scraping together and storing up and trying to build. Can they not see that the law of the world is against them? Where will any of them be a hundred years hence? (105)

The rot in the world is too deep and the leak in the world is too wide. They may patch and tinker as they please, they will not save it. Better give in. Better cut the wood with the grain. If I am to live in a world of destruction let me be its agent and not its patient. (106)

This northern Savage has rejected attempts at morality and even rationality, at least as traditionally understood. To him, everything is ultimately meaningless because it will crumble. All men will die. The only eternal thing is “the excellent deed.” A more common expression today might be “the will to power.”

Servants of Savage

Savage is giant, but there are many varieties of dwarves that work for him. These dwarves can “reappear in human children” and take on many variations, though they are ultimately animated by the common spirit of Savage.

Among these dwarves are the Marxomanni, Mussolimini, Swastici, and Gangomanni (105). Here Lewis is illustrating the social and political breakdown of the 1920s and ’30s by showing us violent Marxists, Fascist revolutionaries, and American gangsters. Each movement, whether highbrow or lowbrow, had given up on the ordinary rules of society, had given up on law and order, and had instead decided to impose its will through brute force. They are dwarves, but they regularly show up among the children of men. They are, all of them, servants of Savage.

“It’s quite remarkable that Lewis was able to see fascism for what it was: the dwarf-servant to savage nihilism.”

The Pilgrim’s Regress was originally written in 1933, the same year Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. While the savagery and mania of Nazism can be taken for granted by modern writers, this was not true in the 1930s. Indeed, one of Lewis’s own heroes, G.K. Chesterton, was more than partially taken in by fascism. And while never a proponent of Nazism, Chesterton did frequently explain its attraction as an understandable response to modern social decay (The Sins of G.K. Chesterton, 183–84, 213–22). When considered from that context, it’s quite remarkable that Lewis was able to see fascism for what it was: the dwarf-servant to savage nihilism.

Three Pale Men

There’s another layer to Lewis’s tale, though. One of the more obscure parts, he singles it out as a “preposterous allegorical filigree” (215). Yet, when decoded, it speaks to our moment in a powerful way. This is the scene of the “three pale men.” These are men of the north. They conceive of themselves as fully rational and realistic. They have no interest in romantic ideals. Indeed, they are a sort of intellectual reaction against Romanticism (which was itself a reaction against the first round of the Enlightenment). They consider themselves extremely deep thinkers who have worked through all the other failed theories and movements. They represent a sort of “return” to older ways.

One of these pale men is Mr. Humanist, representing an embrace of Renaissance and Enlightenment thought, though stripped of all idealist and romantic elements. Another is Mr. Neo-Classical, a character obsessed with antiquity, but also without its mystical or religious elements. The third pale man is Mr. Neo-Angular, and Lewis’s notes describe him as “the more venomous type of Anglo-Catholic.” Neo-Angular insists on dogma and what he takes as “Catholicism.” This seems to mean the universal and undiluted faith, but Mr. Neo-Angular’s true defining characteristic is his opposition to experiential religion. He has no time for “subjective” motivations (98). He rejects the pilgrim’s affective “soul longing” as a form of escapism and “romantic trash” (99).

The pale men do not expect to find good in this world, so they turn their attention to a distant past and an ever-stoic lifestyle. In the case of Mr. Neo-Angular, affection is also reserved for the future, the eternal life in heaven. Until then, a strict sort of spiritual segregation is expected. This world is not home. The men are “very thin and pale” (94), and their food is described as perfectly cubic in shape and “free from any lingering flavour of the old romantic sauces” (95). As an allegory, they are the various paths the reactionary mindset can take, varieties of elitist intellectual retreats to philosophy or religion without any of the affections or social graces.

Reactionism’s Dead End

When these pale men hear about Savage, two of them are put off, but Mr. Neo-Angular is attracted. “I should like to meet this Savage,” he says. “He seems to be a very clear-headed man” (107). From Savage’s own point of view, Mr. Neo-Angular has the most potential. “He said that Angular might turn out an enemy worth fighting when he grew up” (106). What is Lewis telling us about the relationship between a wholly institutionalized and stoic “Catholicism” and the savage spirit that animated Marxism, Fascism, Nazism, and Gangsterism?

Lewis’s point is not a simple slippery slope. He is not saying that a harsh and rigid “high church” Christianity leads to fascism. Instead, he is saying that those represented by Mr. Neo-Angular are caught in the same reaction to modernity as is fascism. What they believe to be a sophisticated and mentally strong rejection of “romance” is simply another version of the nihilism hollowing out the broader society.

Mr. Neo-Angular “relegates” and “transfers” the mystical and affective elements wholly to the life to come (and perhaps within the particular bounds of a worship service), but this leaves the rest of life to follow the same harsh rules as the non-Christian follows. That Mr. Neo-Angular likes what he sees in Savage shows us that he also has a certain quest for the “heroic” that could lead to prioritizing the will, power, and even violence. Professing to reject all romance, or to limit it wholly to the spiritual realm, the deepest hunger of the soul nevertheless expresses itself, but through political domination and anti-social violence.

Led and Kept by Longing

Lewis’s core apologetic in The Pilgrim’s Regress is that a sort of romance is natural, good, and inescapable. In fact, it is the way that God draws all of us to himself. He wants his creatures to find satisfaction, fulfillment, and joy. These desires are not to be cast off and rejected but rather embraced as means by which we might find our eternal satisfaction: life with God himself.

Mr. Neo-Angular represents a sort of Christianity that claims to reject affections. It has no interest in emotions. It will “taste and see” when it gets to the life to come. But this is self-deception. Such forms of religion can never eliminate the human urge and its spiritual longing. To the extent that they refuse to be satisfied by God in this life, they will invariably be satisfied by something else in this life — and probably by dark and sinister things.

“The promise of the ‘heroic’ is an echo of the divine. But imitation gods are demons.”

Put in a positive conception, Lewis also explains why intellectual and “tough-minded” Christians can go in for extreme reactionary movements. The fascist movements in Portugal and Spain both clothed themselves in the garb of Catholicism. In our own day, Vladimir Putin makes overtures to the “trad” Christian base, with more than a little fanfare. This works because such people are longing for a natural satisfaction that has been obscured by secularizing ideas and movements, but they respond in a newly disordered way. The promise of the “heroic” is an echo of the divine. But imitation gods are demons.

This isn’t a warning only for Lewis’s opponents. Throughout his literary corpus, “the north” is typically a good place for Lewis. He favors Norse tales. His own brand of Anglicanism, while not quite fully Anglo-Catholic, was certainly more “high church” than anything else. In The Pilgrim’s Regress, these symbols that might otherwise symbolize Lewis himself are shown to have their own dangers and temptations — dangers that could lead to destruction.

And so too for readers of Lewis, for intellectual Christians who appreciate the classics, for traditional and “tough-minded” pilgrims — we also need to see the dangers that most threaten us. Our “return” must be along a path of truth. Our enlightenment must expose ourselves. And we must bare our hearts so that their true desires might be fulfilled by God forever.

The Reformation didn’t “really say” there were five solas. If Wikipedia can be believed, the big five were not put forth as a slogan until 1965! Earlier Lutheran attempts at marketing only offered three: Scripture alone, grace alone, and faith alone. But even this construction isn’t that old. When Philip Schaff wrote his 1845 book The Principle of Protestantism, he only had two. Recently, some church historians have questioned whether sola Scriptura is even a Reformation expression at all!

Before we let this etymological iconoclasm run too wild, we should say that even if the two Latin terms sola and Scriptura don’t occur in immediate succession in the earlier sources in an obvious way, the concept of Scripture holding an exclusive position in matters of religious authority can certainly be found at the time of the Reformation.

In his famous book The Bondage of the Will, Martin Luther wrote, “We are willing to fight each other, not by appealing to the authority of any doctor, but by that of Scripture alone.” Similar references to “Scripture alone” or “only Scripture” can be found in Zwingli’s and Calvin’s writings, and longer articulations show up in most of the major confessional documents. So, there is something like sola Scriptura in the magisterial Reformers.

But one reason modern scholars are pushing back on the slogan is that, if taken purely in the abstract, the expression “Scripture alone” could lead to many misunderstandings.

Only Standard for What?

Christians somewhat regularly say, “The Scriptures are our only standard.” But our only standard for what? Is Scripture the only source of truth of any kind whatsoever, leaving no need for, say, physics textbooks or instruction manuals from IKEA? That kind of interpretation would be silly. And qualifying the statement by saying, “The Scriptures are our only authoritative standard” doesn’t really help. What kind of standard isn’t authoritative, at least in some sense?

“When the Reformers appealed to Scripture in this way, they were not debating science or mathematics or grammar.”

So, we need to explain what sola Scriptura is supposed to mean. This is where our nitpicky historians are helpful. Expressions like “Scripture alone” always showed up in particular contexts. When the Reformers appealed to Scripture in this way, they were not debating science or mathematics or grammar. They were having religious and doctrinal debates. That means that sola Scriptura does not apply to matters related to the natural world in and of itself. We can learn about butterflies from studying butterflies and reading books by people who have studied butterflies. The same is true for literature and even politics.

Sola Scriptura also did not rule out natural revelation about God. This is a more controversial claim, but the Reformation confessional documents are straightforward on this point. The Belgic Confession says, “We know God by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God” (article 2).

The confession goes on to cite the apostle Paul’s argument in Romans 1 that “what can be known about God is plain. . . . For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:19–20). We could also add Psalm 19:2: “Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.”

Reason also leads to a kind of knowledge of God. For its part, the Westminster Confession of Faith appeals to “the light of nature” five times and “reason” or “common sense” at least three more. In its 21st chapter, it says, “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, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might.”

The Scriptures are not then our only source of knowledge, not even of knowledge about God. But what they are is a sufficient source of saving knowledge.

Our Need for Other Sources

Since this knowledge is sufficient, the Scriptures do not need additional knowledge from outside sources for man to know what is necessary to be saved. And so, the 39 Articles of the Church of England state,

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. (article 6)

Sola Scriptura could then be defined as the conviction that the Holy Scriptures are the only source of origin for those doctrines necessary to be believed for salvation.

Even this statement requires further explanation, however. There might be secondary sources for these necessary doctrines. Any Christian who accurately relayed the content of the biblical message would be such a source. Whether it’s Saint Augustine or Aunt Betsy from Sunday School, if they taught a biblical truth, their teaching could be good and helpful. But the confessional claim makes clear that all secondary sources are themselves dependent upon the first source, the Holy Scriptures, for their authority, and cannot appeal to other sources, whether they be kinds of direct spiritual experiences or oral traditions that were alleged to descend from the apostles.

No “new revelations of the Spirit” could establish necessary doctrine, nor could “traditions of men” (WCF 1.6). Every doctrine must be expounded from the Old and New Testaments.

Our Need for Interpretation

This statement also does not rule out the need for interpretation and rational argumentation. It is not saying that we may only repeat biblical verses. Rather, doctrines must be “proved by” the Scripture or “deduced . . . by good and necessary consequence” (WCF 1.6). And so the laws of logic and grammar are essential for sola Scriptura.

Christians are expected to be able to interpret biblical passages, combine various teachings, and make sound conclusions from them. Even Luther’s famous “Here I stand,” was preceded by, “Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason . . . I cannot recant.” Plain reason is not a competing source with Scripture but a necessary, and inescapable, means of interpreting and applying Scripture.

The business of interpreting Scripture is, of course, where most of the debate actually takes place. And interpreting some matters will be easier than others. Since the only interpreters will invariably be humans, mistakes will be made and people will disagree. If you put three theologians together in the same room, sometimes you’ll get five opinions. This means that church councils and synods are still necessary.

Our Need for Councils

None of the Reformers rejected the concept of church councils. Several hoped for a pan-Protestant ecumenical council to unify the various branches of the Reformation. Others were content with regional and national councils. But no one at the Reformation rejected the concept of drafting confessional statements.

“No one at the Reformation rejected the concept of drafting confessional statements.”

Still, the belief in sola Scriptura maintained that these interpretative bodies always had the possibility of being mistaken and so could not be made “the rule of faith” but only a “help” (WCF 31.1). This means that all human councils, even the most ancient and famous, carry derivative authority. They may not create new doctrine but only interpret the content of the Scriptures.

In terms of the ability to enforce a certain religious confession, this would always be after a temporal manner. Creeds and confessions can bind those under their jurisdiction (whether through the establishment churches of old Europe or the voluntary associations of American Christendom), but only in a stipulated, fallible, and mutable way. They can always be revised and must therefore themselves be judged by the higher standard, the rule of the Holy Scriptures.

God Gave Us a Guide

The proper understanding of sola Scriptura does not rule out other standards. There is a necessary place for natural wisdom, the role of reason, and even church history and ecclesiastical piety. But sola Scriptura says that all of these authorities are lesser authorities that are themselves judged by the Scriptures. Since the Scriptures are divinely inspired (2 Timothy 3:16), they are the only standard that can judge saving truth and righteousness without the possibility of being wrong. As such, the Scriptures judge all other standards and serve as our final measuring rod.

Not to be lost in the more technical aspect of this discussion is the very good news that God did indeed give us a sufficient guide to his will. His word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 119:105). All Christians can read their Bibles with the sure knowledge that its pages are absolutely true and its promises cannot fail. We have everything we need to know and please God, and we have the path to eternal salvation.

ABSTRACT: When some hear the phrase “natural law,” they think of animal instinct, survival of the fittest, or the laws of physics. In Christian history, however, natural law refers to basic moral principles woven by God into the fabric of creation. Political laws derive from the natural law, and they carry the force of God’s standard only insofar as they accurately reflect nature. The biblical writers also assume the relevance of natural law, both in establishing proper customs and testifying to our need for forgiveness. Even still, nature cannot teach us where our deepest hope lies: not in the law itself, but in the Christ who saves the law’s transgressors.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Steven Wedgeworth, pastor of Christ Church Anglican in South Bend, Indiana, to offer a biblical introduction to natural law.

The issue of natural law may confound the people . . . you and I at least know what we are talking about here. . . . You know and I know it is a big, big deal. (Joe Biden, from 1991)

I have no idea what he was talking about. (Clarence Thomas, from 2020)1

Discussions over natural law can be just as confusing within the church as they are in American politics, demonstrated by the two quotes above. Some hold strong feelings about natural law, whether it exists at all and, if so, what it teaches. Others argue that it’s a foreign influence fundamentally opposed to biblical revelation. Others still try to understand what natural-law thinkers are even talking about.

In this essay, I would like to help us understand the key terms and concepts involved in a philosophy of natural law. I discuss what these terms and concepts mean and how they can be used, and then I discuss a few passages of the New Testament that use the logic, and even occasionally the language, of natural law. The Bible does indeed show that nature can teach, and this is important. But just as importantly, the Bible shows there are some lessons that nature cannot teach, or at least not well enough. So, I conclude with a look at the limits of natural law.

What Is Natural Law?

In the twenty-first century, the average person hears nature and thinks of modern biology or even zoology. Natural law, then, is assumed to be something like animal instinct. Worse, some might interpret it along the lines of the survival of the fittest, thus making natural law merely a contest of appetite and might. This is not what natural law meant in older Christian thought. Another misconception is that natural law is an invisible textbook in the sky. Most humans have “always known” certain things, and so the assumption is that if we simply go back to the appropriate time in history or look at the appropriate cultures, we will find the true list of moral laws that can be our standard. This is a sophisticated trump card, but it’s a trump nonetheless.

More accurately, natural law is a method of moral reasoning. Instead of only discussing a positive set of do’s and don’ts, natural law is instead an attempt to locate and demonstrate the rational foundation for a particular duty or prohibition. Thomas Aquinas calls it “participation of the eternal law in the rational creature.”2 More properly, it is an exercise in reasoning from the most basic rational moral principles applied to various moral questions, eventually leading to specific legal cases. Considered wholly on its own, natural law is the earliest philosophical stage of this exercise. As we move from speculative argument into practical application, we quickly move into politics — not the sometimes-unseemly business of cutting deals or building a coalition, but rather the art of ordering human society. Even the early stages of natural-law reasoning, however, imply the need for further application, since the law imprinted in our nature causes various inclinations.3

Sixteenth-century Reformed theologian Franciscus Junius explains the natural law this way: “The natural law is that which is innate to creatures endowed with reason and informs them with common notions of nature, that is, with principles and conclusions adumbrating the eternal law by a certain participation.”4 While impressively tight, this is a loaded definition. Innate reason informs the creature by way of common notions that highlight both principles and conclusions. This means that the applications and eventual positive laws are themselves contained, at least in seed form, in the basic teaching given by the natural law.

But this still requires a process of argument. As Junius goes on to note, the natural law has never been “equally perceived by all.”5 Human sinfulness tends to distort or suppress the natural law, and error increases as men move from general principles to particulars.6 So natural-law thinking has always included the need for teaching, as well as social and moral formation in particular settings.

“The content of the natural law can be explained most basically as ‘seek the good and avoid the evil.’”

The content of the natural law can be explained most basically as “seek the good and avoid the evil.”7 Christian authors have universally argued that this also implied the moral content of the Ten Commandments. John Calvin writes, “The very things contained in the two tables are, in a manner, dictated to us by that internal law, which, as has been already said, is in a manner written and stamped on every heart.”8 The Westminster Confession of Faith states, “This law [given in Eden], after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables.”9 The Confession, citing Matthew 22:37–40, explains that this law can be understood as teaching our duty toward God, “Love the Lord your God,” and our duty toward our fellow man, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This means that “the good” that we are seeking is the love of God and then, following that, the love of man, and “the evil” that we are avoiding is the opposite.

Human Law, Custom, Decorum

So then, the natural law, in its most basic form, is the root understanding of goodness and the inclination toward actions that are consistent with that goodness. However, to go much further, humans need actual legislation, the passing and enforcing of positive laws, as well as moral formation through social relationships and teaching.

The most basic distinction in this discussion is between natural law and human law. Thomas Aquinas explains it this way:

Just as, in the speculative reason, from naturally known indemonstrable principles, we draw the conclusions of the various sciences, the knowledge of which is not imparted to us by nature, but acquired by the efforts of reason, so too it is from the precepts of the natural law, as from general and indemonstrable principles, that the human reason needs to proceed to the more particular determination of certain matters. These particular determinations, devised by human reason, are called human laws.10

This means that natural law, as such, consists of the moral principles themselves, known innately and immediately, whereas the “particular determinations” of a person or group applying those principles in conversation with other sciences is “human law.” To call it human law is not to denigrate such laws, but it is to admit that they are more particular and more varied between peoples.11 It is also to acknowledge that human law can be changed as necessary.12 Importantly, the distinction between natural law and human law also explains the limits of human law. If a human law is inconsistent with the natural law, if it violates more basic principles of justice, then it is not a true law at all and rightly can be resisted.13 “Every human law has just so much of the nature of law, as it is derived from the law of nature. But if in any point it deflects from the law of nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of law.”14

Another important category for understanding this latter idea is that of custom. A custom is any activity commonly enacted and respected by a particular community in order to teach a certain concept, particularly a moral one. In modern times, people often speak of something being “merely a custom” and so therefore less authoritative or perhaps not authoritative at all. But for classical thinkers, customs were powerful and important means by which to train people for virtue. As such, they were said to sometimes obtain the force of law. Aquinas puts it this way: “When a thing is done again and again, it seems to proceed from a deliberate judgment of reason. Accordingly, custom has the force of a law, abolishes law, and is the interpreter of law.”15 John Calvin interprets the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:14 as speaking of custom when he writes, “Does not nature itself teach?” Calvin writes, “What was at that time in common use by universal consent and custom . . . he speaks of as being natural,” and “he reckons as nature a custom that had come to be confirmed.”16 Elsewhere Calvin states, “When there is an accepted custom, and it is a good and decent one, we must accept it. And whoever tries to change it is surely the enemy of the common good.”17

One more important concept in the broader natural-law discussion is what has been called fittingness or becomingness. This concept is discussed by the Roman lawyer and philosopher Cicero in his book On Moral Duties. Cicero uses the term “becoming” to explain when something is “in accordance with nature” and presents itself in an appropriate way given the occasion.18 A simple way to describe this idea would be to say that something is proper. Something that is proper is moral, because it is based on the natural law, but it is also carried out in the right manner. It fits the occasion. The maintenance of fittingness on a social scale is sometimes called decorum. Calvin and others make use of this concept in their ethical teaching. It is important to note, however, that an idea like decorum necessarily involves a greater level of subjectivity than does the moral law itself, and so it also requires a respect for order and submission to the appropriate authorities.

Sola Scriptura

At this point in the discussion, some readers might wonder if this is a philosophy that Protestants should endorse. After all, most of the argument has relied on tradition, including non-Christian sources. Shouldn’t we instead want to adhere only to biblical law?

This sort of concern is well-meaning, but it is based on a misunderstanding. The Reformation principle of sola Scriptura does not mean that the Bible is the only authority at all. Instead, it means that the Bible is the highest authority, the authority by which all others are judged. It also means that the Bible is the only source of authority for matters absolutely necessary — that is, necessary for salvation, true worship, and righteous living.19 But sola Scriptura does not mean that no other authorities are legitimate, nor does it deny that the light of nature supplies true knowledge from God. In fact, the Westminster Confession of Faith refers to the light of nature at least five times.20 In one section, the Confession states that Christian liberty does not allow for “the publishing of such opinions, or maintaining of such practices, as are contrary to the light of nature.”21 This is because, ultimately, the light of nature and the natural law are aspects of general revelation and therefore reflections of God’s own character.

The Scriptures themselves presuppose a certain amount of natural knowledge. After all, the Bible nowhere lays out the basic laws of logic or attempts to defend the legitimacy of causation. Indeed, the Bible proclaims that certain attributes of God can be seen “in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20). It even says that man knows God’s righteous decree concerning the demands of justice (Romans 1:32). In short, the Bible presumes the existence of natural law and appeals to it on multiple occasions.

Natural Law in the Bible

Romans 1 is the most common source for natural law in the Scriptures. There, the apostle Paul states,

What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. (Romans 1:19–20)

Thus, one of the lessons nature teaches is that God exists. Paul goes on to say that people knew this fact but refused to worship God or give him thanks (Romans 1:21), and so we can also say that the natural law teaches that the worship of God is a moral imperative.

Paul also speaks of “natural relations” between men and women, by which he means sexual relations. He is clear that homosexuality is unnatural since it goes against the design of creation. Romans 1:32 even says that fallen humanity “know[s] God’s righteous decree” concerning morality, as well as what we deserve if we violate it, “that those who practice such things deserve to die” (Romans 1:32). So a basic knowledge of justice, as well as the satisfaction for violating justice, is also taught by the natural law.

Philosophy with the Greeks

The New Testament also maintains that nature testifies to the difference between the Creator and the creature. In Acts 14, Barnabas and Paul say,

Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. (Acts 14:15)

Interestingly, the Greek term translated as “like nature” is actually homoiopatheis, which means more literally “like passions” or “like affections.” And so Paul claims not only that humans have a qualitatively distinct nature from God’s but also that God does not have human passions — and he assumes that his Gentile audience can learn this truth from natural law. Interestingly, when he is on Mars Hill, Paul also argues against idolatry and appeals to what his Greek audience already knows. He explains that it is wrong to think of the divine nature as “an image formed by the art and imagination of man,” since even man is prior to and above such creations (Acts 17:29). Interestingly, throughout the book of Acts, Paul argues from nature and local philosophical literature when he evangelizes Greeks, but he argues from the Old Testament when he evangelizes Jews.

Head Coverings and Submission

Paul also makes use of custom, fittingness, and decorum. We see this especially in 1 Corinthians 11:1–6, but also in 1 Timothy 2. The head covering in 1 Corinthians 11 confounds many modern readers. It clearly seems to be a cultural artifact, a custom from Paul’s time and place, and Paul even calls it a custom in 1 Corinthians 11:16 (the term sometimes translated “practice” is also translated “custom,” and this better fits the intellectual context of the passage). But just as clearly, or so it seems, Paul is commanding the custom, and he links it to nature itself. This does not make much sense if we use only modern categories, but in light of the natural-law reasoning found in earlier eras, it is perfectly intelligible and consistent. Paul’s point is that the practice of women wearing head coverings in order to speak in the assembly is consistent with the natural-law principle of submission and good order. Therefore, to preserve that good order, Paul instructs the church to retain the custom. Seeing this as an application of the natural law through the maintenance of decorum also helps us to understand how we can apply this passage faithfully today, even in a time when the specific custom has been lost in most places. We must teach the same principles, but we can find new ways to apply them to our cultural context if we follow the same concepts of propriety.22

“Our God is a God of order, and so his creation reflects that same reality.”

We also see an emphasis on decorum in 1 Timothy 2. There, Paul is not only discussing the relationship between men and women but in fact submission to all appropriate authorities. He begins by asking for prayer for “kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:2a) and then moves to discuss “a peaceful and quiet life” (1 Timothy 2:2b). Everything that follows is a further discussion on the same theme. An important concern is modesty, and Paul even says that certain sorts of apparel are “proper” to this goal (1 Timothy 2:10). Again, modern readers do not immediately see how this is a sort of specialized discourse, but it comes precisely from the natural-law reasoning and rhetoric that this essay has been explaining. Paul’s goal is to promote social harmony by way of submission to one’s proper authorities. He then instructs the church about actions and customs that will help them live in such submission.

This means that what we now call “complementarianism” is a reflection of the natural law, but as one component of the larger concept of obedience to authority and peaceable order within human society. Rebellion is contrary to the natural law, as is disrespect for authority and disregard for propriety. This is because our God is a God of order (1 Corinthians 14:33), and so his creation reflects that same reality.

What Nature Can’t Teach

Nature teaches that there is a God, that he is worthy of worship, and that he has given us a basic moral order, the sum of which is equivalent to the moral content of the Ten Commandments. But there are some crucial lessons that nature cannot teach us. Ever since the fall of man into sin, natural law reveals the right way to live, and as such, it also reveals that men are not living that way. It shows that something is broken, that there is a problem. But natural law cannot explain why the order is broken. It cannot tell us what the problem is (sin) or how it came to be. For that, we need God’s special revelation, the revealed law. As Paul writes, “If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin” (Romans 7:7). From the context, it is clear he is speaking of God’s revealed law.

“Natural law cannot explain why the order is broken. It cannot tell us what the problem is (sin) or how it came to be.”

And just as the natural law cannot explain the source of the problem, it also cannot explain the solution. “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). The only answer is Christ, and this requires the light of the gospel, special revelation from God (Hebrews 1:2; Isaiah 49:6; Acts 13:47). And special revelation further requires a message and a proclaimer. “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Romans 10:14). And so, while Christianity has taught the importance of nature as a teacher and a means of accountability, it has also taught the absolute necessity of grace. The only name by which men may be saved is the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12), and that name must be preached by his people.

Finally, it’s important to note that the natural law does indeed teach basic compassion. The New Testament everywhere assumes that unbelievers take care of their own (Luke 6:33; 1 Timothy 5:8). Paul even states, “Perhaps for a good man one would dare even to die” (Romans 5:7). But the natural law would never direct someone to sacrifice himself for a person who didn’t deserve it. It would never teach self-sacrifice with no earthly reward in view. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The gospel does not contradict the natural law, but it does go above and beyond it, and in this we find our salvation.