Natural Law and Outhouses – What Do They Have in Common?
What is the fatal flaw among the natural law proponents? The natural law proponents have greatly underestimated the power of sin in the unbeliever apart from some form of the influence of the Christian Faith. The Westminster Confession of Faith VI.2 states that in the Fall man “became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.” Without the influence of the Christian Faith in society, man will be exposed for what he truly is—a hater of Christ and opposed to God and his law.
When I was a child, my family would visit my grandparents who lived on a farm. They had no bathrooms, so we all had the grand experience of using a real outhouse. My mother persuaded my grandfather to build a small bathroom in his house, and he did. However, even with the bathroom in the house, he still preferred to go to that antiquated outhouse. Old habits are hard to break.
In reading an article recently about the topic of natural law, it reminded me of my grandfather’s outhouse. Both outhouses and natural law have been useful in their own day, but now they have become nothing but a blight on our landscape. Yet, people still go back to them as if they were given by God as the standard for all ages.
What is natural law? Basically, it is the belief that man by nature (natural), as being created in the image of God, knows right and wrong (law); and this knowledge is inherent in all men apart from any knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. We may need the Bible to teach us about such things such as redemption in Christ and the Lord’s Supper, but most truths, especially those distinguishing good and evil, men know instinctively. This natural law, apart from God’s law, is sufficient for directing and regulating culture, especially the civil government in creating and maintaining a peaceful society.
The official line of most American seminaries today is that the Bible was given for the church, but natural law is sufficient to inform us of the laws that should govern our society. One of the biblical passages supporting this view is Romans 2: 14-15, “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.” It should be noted that this verse appears in the context of man’s accountability to God and not man’s ability to rule over man. Men may know right and wrong as creatures made in the image of God, but they suppress it (Rom. 1:18-19). Men do not legislate what they stifle in unrighteousness.
Another phrase used by the general populace which demonstrates this view of natural law is the idea of “common sense.” It has long been considered common sense that a man should marry a woman rather than another man, and that sex (or gender) is determined at birth and cannot be changed. “What’s wrong with people today, are they going crazy!” I hear this all the time. The problem however, as we all should know by now, is that common sense without the Bible is neither common nor sensible.
Also, this view of natural law complements the idea of the church-state separation in the United States. Church-State separation is biblical, but religion can never be separated from the State. So, we are told that the Bible is for regulating the church, and natural law is for regulating everything outside of the church. We hear from them that to impose biblical law on secular society is a form of religious tyranny in a pluralistic nation, and if implemented, could only become second to the Holocaust in horrific disasters.
American pluralism (polytheism), is a sacred cow in most evangelical churches. The idea of a Christian nation is anathema among religious pluralists, even though we are still living off the capital of America as a Christian nation. However, I believe that this capital has just run out.
Just as the old outhouse on my grandfather’s farm is not viable anymore, so the parallel concept of natural law, which may have been useful in the past, is not viable anymore either.
Natural law was useful and accepted without debate in Christian cultures of the past, whether in Calvin’s Geneva, Queen Anne’s England, or Eisenhower’s America. The culture was based on biblical law, so men were free to sing the praises of natural law without objection. Natural law stood tall and strong and was viewed in awe like the great tower of Babel. Christians and non-Christians alike sang the hymns of praise to this great wonder, especially as the age of science dawned in the West. Mathematical equations were independent of the Bible (except they really were not because predictability assumes a sovereign God who orders the universe). Enter Isaac Newton, but we do not have enough time for him in this article.
However, people in their own pride forgot that the great tower of natural law had to have a foundation, or it would collapse quickly. All towers do. Man in his pride forgot that with the removal of a distinctly Christian culture based on the Bible as the foundation of a nation, this new secular tower would fall to the ground into pieces like the chandelier in a great cathedral after an earthquake. “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3).
What is the fatal flaw among the natural law proponents? The natural law proponents have greatly underestimated the power of sin in the unbeliever apart from some form of the influence of the Christian Faith. The Westminster Confession of Faith VI.2 states that in the Fall man “became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.” Without the influence of the Christian Faith in society, man will be exposed for what he truly is—a hater of Christ and opposed to God and his law. How some theologians who have been trained as Calvinists, can promote hope in natural law in the present decadent society, is beyond me. However, they have done so in the past, and we see the results today in our land.
Sinful man will not be restrained apart from the threat of the penalties included in biblical law (the second use of the law), but rather he will be released to revel in debauchery and licentiousness. Without the fear of God’s law in civil society, there is no bottom to the depth of shamelessness that that will befall man. Today, there seems to be little resistance to drag queens reading to children in public libraries. Young people are being groomed as potential sex-partners. Teenagers are being surgically mutilated in esteemed hospitals in the name of transgenderism. Popular evangelical singers are hosting gay weddings.
Reprobates and Christians cannot live in peace with one another because they are at war. Both are today quickly becoming “epistemologically self-conscious,” and the war is getting out of control. Christians have been asleep. We did not see what was coming. American Christians currently are in a self-esteem stupor while our nation drifts toward something worse than Sodom, and while the people are being pacified with bread and circuses.
Not everyone reading this is presently mandated to attend gay celebrations at work. Not everyone must take an oath to uphold CRT. Not everyone is required to pledge allegiance to the rainbow flag. Not everyone has lost their income because of their commitment to the teaching of the Word of God. However, you should realize that they may be coming for you and your children next.
Lastly, we must also understand that where men hate God’s Law, they only bring judgment upon themselves. “All those who hate me love death” (Prov. 8:36).
America is in a crisis today. The evangelical church is in shambles. In addition to expository sermons, preachers need to supplement their preaching by adding a few sermons on the issues of the day like Neo-Marxism, CRT, and inflation. I would not say this unless I had done it myself. Our culture is in decline and the pulpit is still holding onto the sacredness of the natural law, and a faulty view of the separation of Church and State. Instead of sending our people out the door each week to be more than conquers, I am afraid we are sending them out to be doormats for Jesus.
Apart from a Reformation inside the church, the sins of America will probably grow exponentially over the next few years. Expect nothing but an increase in sex outside of marriage, homelessness, depression, drug abuse, and tyranny by civil magistrates. God may soon judge our nation in a more dramatic fashion in real time and space. Older Christians such as I may escape, but may God have mercy on our children and grandchildren.
God save us not only from our real enemies who are outside of Christ, but also from our brothers and sisters inside the church who are bewildered, and who like my grandfather, still go to the outhouse, when something much better is available. Natural law worked in ages past, but today we must preach the crown rights of Jesus Christ over all of life.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
-
A Call to the Church: Teaching Post-Dobbs
Written by David J. Ayers |
Thursday, June 30, 2022
A major concern I have had for a long time has not been so much political, as it has been pastoral and personal. This includes what will now be a growing need to care for pregnant women in difficult circumstances before and after they give birth. It includes compassionate ministry for post-abortive women and others, such as the biological fathers of these aborted babies and the families of these women. And this last thing includes, for too many who were comfortable with that decision to abort, helping them see the sin of abortion, encouraging confession and spiritual restoration. We have done a lot, and now will need to do more.So now it is official. The Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has overturned Roe v. Wade, and the legal issue of whether and how to restrict abortion has been returned to the states.
I cannot imagine how much this is going to be discussed in the coming days, months and even years—from every conceivable angle. Moreover, many states will become legal and political battlegrounds for this issue. This includes my own Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Dobbs shifts and even intensifies the struggle between pro-life and pro-choice, but it certainly does not end it.
Still, those who have stood for the pro-life cause, many of us for decades, have much to be thankful for. Not least among them are the many Evangelicals and Catholics who have stood for life, voting, pressuring, picketing, appealing, funding, manning legal organizations, lobbying, and educational organizations focusing on state and federal efforts, and a lot more. We stayed in the fight and have seen a wonderful victory.
However, a major concern I have had for a long time has not been so much political, as it has been pastoral and personal. This includes what will now be a growing need to care for pregnant women in difficult circumstances before and after they give birth. It includes compassionate ministry for post-abortive women and others, such as the biological fathers of these aborted babies and the families of these women. And this last thing includes, for too many who were comfortable with that decision to abort, helping them see the sin of abortion, encouraging confession and spiritual restoration. We have done a lot, and now will need to do more.
Which brings me to one of the issues I tackled in my recently released book, After the Revolution: Sex and the Single Evangelical. That is, the degree to which abortion is far more common among believers associated with conservative churches which are overwhelmingly opposed to it than most people realize or want to know.
Read More
Related Posts: -
Be Angry and Do Not Sin
Slow down. Reaffirm that you put your trust in your Father who judges justly. Pray that the Spirit would anoint you with wisdom and grace, as you remember the grace that you have received from Christ. If you have missed this path, you have yet to find the place that Paul gives to righteous indignation.
Ephesians 4:26–27 makes room for anger that is not sin.
Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. (Ephesians 4:26–27)
The problem is that we are happy to exploit what seems to be a legal loophole. Anger, in its very nature, is self-justifying. My anger is righteous; your anger is not. So if we are to find some righteous wiggle room here, we must proceed very carefully.
Let’s begin with what is clear. The passage names anger as a close neighbor of the devil. At a moment’s notice, anger can drift toward his murderous ways, and we transform into something less than human. With this in mind, Paul also writes, “Let all… anger… be put away from you” (Ephesians 4:31). Our anger, therefore, puts us on high alert. Best to put ourselves in chains until it passes.
Since Paul’s words in Ephesians give no specifics on anger without sin, we turn to the illustrations on which he relied. We turn first to Jesus who, indeed, could be angry without sin. He was angry when money changers interfered with the Gentiles’ worship of God (John 2:13–16). He was angry when children were kept away from him (Mark 10:14). He was angry with Pharisees who opposed a healing and preferred to use the law to place a burden on the people (Mark 3:1–6). He was angry when his disciples wanted judgment rained down on a Samaritan village rather than mercy (Luke 9:5–55). Paul, too, could be angry in his rhetoric against those who hoped to put Christians under the law of Moses (Galatians 5:12). What these and similar passages have in common is that this anger was never in response to personal attacks, but it was on behalf of those who had been wronged. What did Jesus do with personal attacks? He followed the ways of the psalmists and entrusted judgment to his Father (1 Peter 2:23).
The Ephesians passage is a quote from Psalm 4:4—a reference that might give more insight.
Read More
Related Posts: -
The Diversity We Need
Written by P. Jesse Rine |
Thursday, November 30, 2023
This is the diversity we need: Christian colleges and universities that are unafraid to pursue their distinctive missions regardless of the spirit of the age. When acting in accordance with its trademark commitment to curricular intentionality, faith integration, and programmatic integrity, Christian higher education offers something different in the marketplace than the vast majority of educational options available to prospective students. Professional handwringers may lament the lack of conformity to regnant ideologies, but the rest of us should applaud principled independence as a buttress to academic freedom, religious autonomy, and freedom of association. In an age of capitulation, American higher education—and the public it serves—are better for it.Have you heard? Writers for The Chronicle of Higher Education are concerned. Very concerned.
It turns out that not all colleges and universities are exercising their academic freedom in the same way. In fact, some have even proposed alternative approaches to engaging diversity contra the antiracism of Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi.
Now, you may be thinking this sounds exactly like what academic freedom should entail—different people approaching important issues from their own considered perspectives. But don’t worry, the higher education commentariat will set you straight.
You see, the only way for colleges and universities to foster success for all students is to implement Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Gender Ideology. It’s just a fact. People who question this fact are dangerous to democracy.
One such person is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Keith E. Whittington declares that DeSantis has unleashed a “terrifying plot against higher education” via his Stop WOKE Act, which threatens majors in Gender Studies and CRT. Presumably the threat to democracy also includes the 6 in 10 state lawmakers who voted for the bill, as well as the 6 in 10 Floridians who returned DeSantis to the governor’s mansion for a second term after the bill became law.
Lest you conclude that the problem could be limited to just one state, Megan Zahneis is here to alert you to the insidious consequences of anti-woke activity. She reports that the spread of anti-DEI legislation “is having a chilling effect on the recruitment of faculty members and administrators in Florida and Texas.” Even more worrisome is the totally real threat of brain drain from these states—plus Georgia and North Carolina—where a staggering one-third of faculty “said they were actively considering employment in another state.”
Conditions are so dire that colleges have begun building a modern-day underground railroad for beleaguered students. Amita Chatterjee profiles Colorado College’s Healing and Affirming Village and Empowerment Network (HAVEN), a program targeting students from the anti-DEI states of Florida, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas. This altruistic initiative aims to give refuge to as many as 10 transfer students, each of whom will receive credit for previous coursework, guaranteed campus housing, and full consideration for financial aid.
A clear picture emerges from these stories. Threats to democracy have so damaged American universities that faculty and students alike must seek shelter in the remaining academic enclaves that still know how to properly honor diversity. The situation is bleak, or so we are told.
By this point, you may have developed the sneaking suspicion that a certain political agenda is directing the reporting of one of our nation’s leading trade publications for higher education. Unfortunately, the next story will do little to disabuse you of that notion.
Helen Huiskes, herself a senior at Wheaton College (IL), reports that the woke wars have claimed another casualty—the integrity of Christian higher education. It seems many Christian colleges are reacting to the DEI controversy in ways both cynical and craven. Some are policing the content professors teach in class. Others are writing statements on CRT to attract more applicants. Few will host Jemar Tisby on campus anymore, and one can only assume that Tisby’s former boss, the aforementioned Kendi, won’t be receiving many more speaking invitations either.
In Huiskes’ telling, these developments point to Christian higher education’s willingness to abandon racial justice in pursuit of stronger enrollment. Hers is a shopworn progressive framing: “Don’t subscribe to critical theory’s worldview of power, privilege, and intersectionality? You must care more about the bottom line than about loving your minoritized neighbors.” Against the backdrop of recent trends in American higher education, however, the institutional behaviors she describes should be viewed as praiseworthy acts of courage and conviction, not recalcitrant avoidance of the real issues surrounding race in America.
For decades, leftist ideology steadily advanced through key American institutions, laying the groundwork for the cultural revolution that erupted in the summer of 2020. Colleges and universities were central sites for this advance, the activist spirit of which became more aggressive and transparent after the election of President Donald Trump. The trajectory of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), a national organization of scholars of postsecondary institutions, is illustrative.
The 2016 ASHE Annual Conference commenced the day after Trump’s election, which sent shockwaves through the left-leaning association. The following year, ASHE President Shaun Harper described American higher education as an enterprise conceived in racism and declared that scholars must fight the abuses of white power in the academy. The 2018 ASHE conference theme, “Envisioning the Woke Academy,” was promoted by an eight-minute video of scholars declaring that “current higher education research is in an awakening process.” The ultimate goal? To cultivate a critical consciousness that recognizes existing forms of systemic oppression, such as inequality and microaggressions, and brings about institutional “transformation for justice.”
Read More
Related Posts:
