I’ve wondered about the presentation of Natural Law. Take the example you give. When talking about civil marriage in a secular government is it best to present how we get natural law from the Bible, or should we, as some Catholic philosophers like Robert George do, simple give an entirely secular argument from biology, social science and political arguments for the common good. Does a Christian’s influence on culture always have to be done in name as a Christian?

Adamantius

I think that DVD has done a lot of good work in the area of natural law and attempting to have the reformed world have a better understanding of natural law.

While I havent read all of his stuff, I have read some of his works. And I think that while DVD does have great education in this field, I notice that he tends to do his theology in more of an historical mode as opposed to a exegetical/philosophical mode.

For instance, I have gone through his dissertation, and it is more of a historical theological effort than anything else. While HT does have valuable contributions to make, I think that, especially in the realm of ethics, Patrick above is right on the money. There needs to be a stronger philosophical (he said metaethical specifically) presence within this whole theonomy/kuyperian/neo-calvin/NL2K debate.

Something that I also noticed is that DVD and Horton make great appeals to what common man already knows in terms of the natural law and they would make appeals to this as opposed to appealing to Scripture.
Now I as a (soft) theonomist, can appreciate very much what DVD and Horton are attempting to do here. And I do believe that to a limited extent, there is some value in doing this. I have even used natural law “arguments” at times as well.

But the issue is that DVD and Horton have stated on a number of occasions that we are not to use the Bible at all in the public square.

Epistemologically, this makes absolutely no sense. If we are to understand our source of knowledge and ethics comes from God, does it really make sense to actively ***exclude*** that source? that source, which is how we can understand what natural law (and revealed law) is in the first place…

To say that we can appeal to unaided man and that is somehow the end of the discussion is really misunderstanding the real nature behind all of these moral discussions. The nature of these discussions is really that of ultimate truth.

Ultimate truth arguments can never be argued when simply appealing to man. If this were actually true, they wouldnt be ultimate truth arguments. This is why I say that this doesnt make any sense from an epistemological standpoint.

And notice how their appeal to natural man’s understanding of natural law becomes the standard, and not the natural law standard itself. This ends up resulting in a sort of Christianized rationalism… In the end though, it is still simply rationalism.

Now, I am not saying you simply shove a bible verse down someone’s throat as if this means we are simply victorious in the debate with a non-Christian.. But, I do think that they way in which NL2K approaches natural law, even with the doctrine’s valuable contributions (which I have benefited from) ultimately has ruinous consequences in terms of how the doctrine applies natural law understanding towards ethics and epistemology.

And if you also think about the logic train behind NL2K, we can never actually be in a position to witness or evangelize.
VanTil never differentiated his presupp/TAG arguments from evangelism at all. And you are probably aware that his presuppositional approach calls for us to understand that we cannot logically place values and morals behind something without presupposing God.

Now, the presuppositional method is true regardless of the intent for which it is used.. whether it is for evangelism purposes or ethical purposes in the public square.

So, by what basis can DVD or Horton say that we cannot use the Bible in the public square? If their logic is correct, and we cannot use the Bible in the public square, we cannot witness at all either.

Confusion of the kingdoms? I dont really see how evangelising is ***less*** “confusing” of the kingdoms compared to simply correcting immoral ethics.

Quick example:
I was listening to a radio political talk show (conservative, but secular show, so probably many secular listeners) on Monday in which Terry Jeffrey (CNS news) was on talking about the Supreme Court case involving homosexual marriage.
What was interesting about this interview is that Terry Jeffrey consistently used exacting philosophy as his tools to promulgate a strong natural law argument concerning why homosexual marriage should not be favored.
Given the approach he was taking with natural law, he never actually quoted any Bible verses but he was absolutely clear in saying that we get this concept of natural law from the Bible..

He never used natural law in way to only appeal to natural man’s understanding of that it. He emphatically mentioned that the Bible was how we understood what that natural law was..

He didnt get into revealed law, but the point that I am trying to make is that I think that what Terry Jeffrey presented was probably the best way for natural law to be presented. I would probably say that DVD would have very similar understandings of natural law with Terry Jeffrey but I dont know that DVD would have appealed so strongly to the Bible (if at all) if he were doing this interview.

And although that may seem like a minor difference at the end in terms of appealing to the Bible, it actually has enormous consequences when we are dealing with ethics and how the church and the bible relates to political (and other) ethics..

As a theonomist, I felt that Terry Jeffrey’s approach to natural law was a biblical one. We can more into detail about how this relates to the theonomic/kuyperian/neo-calv system, but suffice it to say, I think that we on the other “side” of NL2K have a lot to learn in terms of fleshing out the biblical understanding of natural law in our doctrine(s)..

Anyway, there is a lot more to discuss, and I am leaving a lot of stuff out.. But, the reason I bring these points up is to simply say that there is a lot more out there to this debate and it isnt necessarily quite as easy as either side.. (yes, even for those philsophically sophisticated theonomists) thinks it is.

Patrick
Thanks for your insights.. Sounds good…
I am currently also interested in this debate, and you resonate with my own shortcomings in that I need to bone up more on the formal philosophical training in general, and as you mentioned, specific philosophical training in ethics.. I have currently started in basic logic, and I already do see the fallacies and jumps in reasoning that is commonly given by the NL2K crowd.
I generally notice that folks for NL2K tend to not espouse their doctrine in philosophical or exegetical ways.. Even with my limited training, I can already see this.

However, what you mentioned about the “other side” intrigued me..

Could you elaborate a little bit more about what you mean about both sides not being trained in metaethics and how this matters? I would love to hear this.

Also, where do you personally fall in this debate? Kuyperian, neo-calvinist, theonomist, NL2K-er etc…

Thanks.