Natural Law: An Introduction, Part 5

By Nicholas K. Meriwether

There is no civil law, nor can there be any, in which something of natural and divine immutable equity has not been mixed. If it departs entirely from the judgment of natural and divine law (jus naturale et divinum), it is not to be called law (lex). It is entirely unworthy of this name, and can obligate no one against natural and divine equity.

Althusius, Politica

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.

George Washington, Farewell Address

Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. 

John Adams

[NB: Please see the following previous articles in this series: 1, 2, 3, and 4.]

We’ve now reached the point where the question can be asked, What role does natural law play in government and society?

Two stipulations to begin. First: Christians should be fully involved in civic affairs, vote, influence legislation through petitioning public officials, seek elected office, etc. Of course, Christians have at times acted imprudently, and even destructively, nor do I mean to suggest that involvement in politics does not incur moral risk, as does political quietism. But let us not neglect the immensely positive impact Christians have had upon their state and society, such as William Wilberforce, William Booth, Abraham Kuyper, and Evangelical opposition to slavery prior to the Civil War.

A second stipulation: While there are fine works on natural law and the state written by Catholics, and much of it is compatible with Protestant approaches, the work of Protestants, especially Reformed Protestants, has been comparatively neglected. A comprehensive program for Protestant political engagement can be developed from within its ranks, as it were, with one critical addition, which is the political theology of Augustine. It is wholly unnecessary that Protestants rely on Catholic thought, even when Catholic ideas are compatible with Protestantism. My thoughts below reflect engagement with John Calvin (d. 1564), Peter Martyr Vermigili (d.1562), Heinrich Bullinger (d. 1575), Richard Hooker (d.1600), Johannes Althusius (d.1638), Samuel Rutherford (d.1661), John Winthrop (d.1649), Richard Baxter (d.1691), Samuel Willard (d.1707), James Wilson (d.1798), Friedrich Stahl (d.1861), and Groen van Prinsterer (d.1876).

The Program and the Conundrum

These theologians would all agree with the following:

1) The purpose of law is to serve the common good. The laws of the state are not merely for protecting citizens from harm, or protecting private property, rather they are for encouraging virtue, or moral decency, in the citizenry in order that the society may flourish.

2) The common good is based upon the Ten Commandments. Recall that the Ten Commandments include the First Table, requiring the worship of God. Thus, laws should also encourage spiritual development in the citizenry.

As an example, here is a quote from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which provided a policy for admission of new states to the union. Note the integration of religion, morality, and learning:

Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.[1]

3) The consent of the governed is the basis for state authority. This is the most “modern” part of their consensus.[2] Almost any formulation of the basis of state authority in the modern period draws from the consent of the governed, including our American constitutional order.

The Conundrum: Does Consent of the Governed Undermine Natural Law?

Unfortunately, as most of us know by now, the third point does not comport well with the first two. One has only to consider that laws that codify and extend abortion, LGBTQ ideology, and socialist redistribution, violations of the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 10th commandments, respectively, and thus inconceivable on the basis of natural law, are the products of democratic voting procedures that have elected legislators, governors, and in some cases, judges, who affirm such rights and policies.[3] In fact, the most electorally powerful plank in the Democratic Party's current political campaigns is to protect and extend abortion rights, arguably up to and including the birth of the child. This would be political suicide if there were not millions of Americans, arguably a majority, who want elective abortion to be fully legal and accessible to all women. Our country is essentially divided between “Red States,” which generally support natural law, including recognition of the First Table as well as a natural law understanding of human sexuality, marriage, and family, and “Blue States” that reject it, including the rejection of the First Table, and the celebration and promotion of non-Christian religions and recognition of and support for alternative sexual identities. The affirmation vs. rejection of natural law is the most fundamental division in Western politics, because this division is both moral and spiritual, the most fundamental human commitments.

The American people have it in their power to uphold the original, natural law-friendly US Constitution through voting for people willing to do so to restore prayer in the public schools, outlaw abortion, and end same-sex marriage, but there are seemingly no longer enough voters to achieve this. And increasingly, the Christian faith is coming under attack, such that citizens who are known to hold to traditional natural law are no longer able to win elections in many parts of the country.

As desirable and attractive as “government by consent of the governed” may appear, it is not an absolute. No sane person would call for it in an elementary school, a prison, or any time wolves outnumber sheep. It is applicable only in certain contexts, especially those in which winners and losers believe in the rule of law and at least some degree of tolerance for the rights of minorities, and where the majority acknowledges and insists upon the codification of natural law in our polity. Where natural law isn't followed or is explicitly rejected, civilizational decline inevitably occurs, as we see in Romans 1 and 2. It was a common saying among the ancients that economic prosperity leads to decline, because once they are well-fed and free of fear of conquest, the people turn to sensuality and decadence. In principle, however, this can be prevented with a healthy respect for God's law, as we've seen in much of the history of the United States. But not if the majority turns from following it.

What Then Are Our Options?

1) Creating our own “intentional” communities in the midst of the gradual collapse of the state and civil order. This is similar if not identical to Rod Dreher's Benedict Option.[4] This is not an endorsement of any specific form of intentional community, rather it is the recognition that church, family, and education should be closely integrated. Of course, this has always been the case, but the quasi-Christian culture of the past lulled many Christians into complacency, especially in the assumption that our public educational system would support our faith and values. Now that it has become obvious that this is no longer the case, the need for such integration has become acute.

2) A tyranny of the minority in which Christians stage a coup d’état, and require non-Christians to abide by natural law. I assume “throne and altar” Catholic integralists have something like this in mind, and perhaps some Protestant versions of Christian Nationalism are tacitly in favor of a takeover of some kind. I prefer any form of government over a tyranny, especially one which would follow a bloody civil war, which I believe to be the only way to achieve a Christian state without the consent of the governed. My confidence that a flourishing state would emerge from the enormous suffering and chaos, with powerful enemies exploiting opportunities to destroy the United States, is close to zero.

3) A far more robust federalism, that is, state and regional independence, if not secession. For a variety of reasons, this is much to be preferred: It is compatible with Reformed theology, since “magistrates” would lead it, not revolutionaries; it is part of our history, since originally the states had far greater independence from the federal (central) government, and so it doesn't require “regime change,” a new constitution. It is “the smallest change necessary,” as Plato said regarding the need for the rule of philosophers. Whether this is achievable remains to be seen, but it is far and away the best of the three. It should also be noted that it can be combined with the intentional communities of Option 1.

Rather than predict which is more likely, I will assume the first option: federalism will be stymied by authoritarian central government, and Christians will have to endure the languishing of our civic order, the possible gradual collapse of civil society, and an increasingly hostile tyrannical state, as we're now seeing in some of our blue states and major cities.[5] How should this impact our political engagement?

If we reject Option 2, and regardless of whether we are in circumstances which permit Option 3, we should nevertheless be politically engaged. But we are in an environment in which it is unlikely, and increasingly rare, that we can vote for a natural law-affirming Christian. In fact, the best candidates may be adherents of another religion, heretics, sexual deviants, adulterers—people who could not join, let alone be elders in our churches. How do we justify voting for candidates who are theologically or morally unacceptable?

The City of Man vs. the City of God

Considering the difficulty of maintaining a genuinely Christian polity, and assessing the current state of culture and politics in the West, if Christians are to have any role in politics, we must vote for people and policies that are less than ideal. A truly godly state is a rarity, and when it occurs, it doesn't seem to last long. The Old Testament recounts example after example of a period of national obedience followed by national apostasy. Although 2 Kings 17 provides the reasons Israel fell, the same warnings serve for many such attempts. One has only to think of Calvin's Geneva, Cromwell's Commonwealth, or the Massachusetts Bay Colony for examples of attempts to create a polity that was expressly biblical, but was impossible to sustain over time. Typically, we must do what we can under the circumstances, praying for the best possible outcome.[6]

To understand this dynamic, we can do no better than turn to perhaps the most influential political theologian of all time, Augustine. In his magisterial The City of God Against the Pagans, interestingly, written not long after Rome had established Christianity as the official religion of the Empire (AD 380), Augustine rejects the idea that church and state should or could be combined. He lays out a Christian vision of the meaning and purpose of human history, and locates in this history two “cities.” The City of God is the universal Church, composed of God's elect from every nation, tribe, and culture.[7] This City is eternal, and will be perfectly instituted only with the return of Christ. The other is the City of Man, the earthly City, composed of all forms of government outside the Church—cities, states, nations, empires, monarchies, aristocracies, democracies. This City is mortal, full of sinful pride. It frequently arrays itself against the City of God, and will be judged harshly when Christ returns (Rev. 20:7-8). However, both Cities are subject to natural law.[8]

While the two Cities are distinct, they aren't “separate.” The City of God should seek the flourishing of the City of Man (Jer. 29:7), and when and where possible, influence it for the good. This may include holding political office,[9] serving in the military, but also supporting law, public policy, and public symbolism (monuments, holidays, state mottoes, etc.) that reflect the First Table. Still, we should not apply criteria to the City of Man that are appropriate only for the City of God. Some degree of compromise will typically be required. The City of Man is deeply sinful, and the problem of “dirty hands” will inevitably raise its head, that is, you often can't do good without some degree of moral compromise. Consider that King David sent Hushai, essentially a spy, to mislead Absalom against taking Ahitophel's advice, undermining his son's revolution (2 Sam. 15:32-34). David at one point feigns insanity to escape death, a deception (1 Sam. 21:13-15). The Egyptian midwives lie to Pharoah about how they spared the lives of the Hebrew women, and God is pleased with them (Exod. 1:15-20). To avoid being killed by Saul, Samuel tells a half-truth as to why he comes to anoint David as king; moreover, God himself instructs him to do so (1 Sam. 16:1-5).

So, in deciding whom to vote for, we should not look to any criterion other than the degree to which the candidate is likely to support natural law in law and policy, the fundamental law for all mankind. It may be that a professing, practicing Christian is less likely to support natural law than an atheist or agnostic, or someone who hypocritically calls himself a Christian, but acts consistently otherwise in his private life.

Character certainly counts, and a morally compromised political leader will have a negative influence on the national character. However, the more important thing is the law that God laid down for all people everywhere. Ideally, the candidate will be a Christian, but he may also be a Cyrus or a Nebuchadnezzar.

Notes

[1] It should be noted that the Northwest Ordinance forbade slavery.

[2] An interesting exception is Groen van Prinsterer, who believed the idea of popular sovereignty implicitly denied the sovereignty of God, leading to the spirit of Revolution. I will discuss Groen (as he's often referred to) in Part 6.

[3] Obviously, many judges are appointed, most significantly the members of the Supreme Court. However, they were appointed by elected representatives, and constitutional amendments can be passed through democratic procedures that override judicial decisions.

[4] See Dreher's Live Not by Lies for an analysis of how Christians maintained their faith behind the Iron Curtain. Rod Dreher, Live Not by Lies (Penguin), 2020.

[5] Around 6,000 public schools have policies which forbid teachers and counselors from notifying parents if the child identifies as transgender:

https://nypost.com/2023/03/08/us-public-schools-conceal-childs-gender-status-from-parents/#:~:text=At%20least%20168%20districts%20governing,and%20shared%20with%20The%20Post.

[6] In the next installment (Part 6), I will have more to say about the role of culture, and explore some of the reasons for the hostility towards Christianity and natural law in contemporary Western politics.

[7] I don't mention “race” because biblically speaking, there's only one (human) race. My major concern with what goes under the heading of Christian Nationalism is that some of the theorists do not clearly reject kinism, or the view that races shouldn't be integrated via marriage, or argue that Christians of other cultures shouldn't be part of a joint polity. By the same token, some left-leaning Evangelicals emphasize race to the point that it makes race more morally consequential than natural law itself. Both views are flatly unbiblical, as we see in Gal. 3:28, and in the cases of the “mixed multitude” that left Egypt with the Israelites (Exod. 12:38); Rahab, a Canaanite, who eventually marries Salmon, begetting Boaz (Josh. 2; Matt. 1:5); and Ruth, a Moabite who marries Boaz, King David's great-grandfather. Though David had killed countless Philistines, when he murders Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, a Hittite, he suffers a violent attempt to overthrow him from within his own family as divine judgment (2 Sam. 12:7-12).  Discrimination on the basis of race is unbiblical, whether it's motivated by those on the Right or the Left.

[8] “The state is not subject to the church, but together with the church it is subject to God's commandments.” Groen van Prinsterer, quoted in: https://original.religlaw.org/content/blurb/files/Chapter%2032.%20van%20der%20Vyver.pdf

[9] The examples of Joseph (Gen. 41:40), Daniel (Dan. 2:46-49), and Mordecai (Esth. 10:3) are instructive.

— Nicholas K. Meriwether is Professor of Philosophy at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, OH. He has taught the Ethics requirement at SSU for 26 years. He received an MA in Christian Thought from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a PhD in Philosophy from Purdue University. He has published in the areas of moral psychology, Critical Theory, Islamic militancy, and the role of ethics instruction in higher education. He and his wife, Janet, have three grown children. They are members of the Presbyterian Church in America.

Image by David Mark from Pixabay

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