Why isn’t common sense common? It is a simple question but one that provokes a plethora of answers. Some argue that a lack of shared experience produces this phenomenon and that proper education could get us all on the same page again. Theology-minded individuals may blame the curse of sin, along with all its rationale-reducing effects. But the question has puzzled many a philosopher, constantly presenting itself in new lights to be met with even more questions. The latest iteration of the argument seems to be a disagreement regarding natural law. For those who live and die by anecdotal evidence, the concept of a naturally-understood common law seems farfetched indeed. People certainly don’t act like such a thing exists, in any case. But the rudimentary case for natural law is so easily seen from Scripture that Christians would need to rip out entire sections of their Bible if they chose to deny its existence. Natural law is a thoroughly Christian concept.
But natural law is also natural. It is a law that is common to all of humanity, not just Christians. The conscience that probes each person answers directly to God. It is God’s natural law, and it is inscribed on every heart, not just the walls of the church. But to better understand natural law, we must first define it.
Defining Natural Law
To start, I would simply note that it is not possible for me to provide a comprehensive history of natural law development within the span of a single article. Such a daunting subject would require an entire book at minimum. There is, however, much to be gained from basic definitions and exegesis. With that in mind, one of the most important verses regarding natural law comes from the first chapter of Romans. For anyone building a biblical case for natural law, you will inevitably come across this iconic verse.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Romans 1:20
Paul indicates that attributes of God can be “clearly seen” from His creation — including the moral component that impresses guilt upon our conscience. Mankind is without excuse. Paul provides more insight in the second chapter, describing men who “do by nature the things contained in the law,” showing to others the law written on their very hearts, “their conscience also bearing witness” (Romans 2:13-15). From these few verses, we can already see a definition of natural law taking shape. The idea of an unwritten, universal law stems from God’s attributes affecting all of humanity.
Outside of Scripture, definitions of natural law become a bit more succinct. The Decretum, a collection of canon law created in the 12th century, emphasized the natural element of common law — that it exists through intuition, not action.
“Natural law is common to all nations because it exists everywhere through natural instinct, not because of any enactment.”
Gratian, Decretum 1.7
Others define natural law as a sort of “light of nature,” whereby all men created in God’s image still have His law engraved in their hearts. God and his attributes, the source of this light, can never be fully expunged from a man’s conscience, despite his sinful condition.1Recommended reading: https://purelypresbyterian.com/2015/11/09/the-light-of-nature/ Girolamo Zanchi, an Italian reformer, wrote a definition of natural law that expanded on these moral claims.
“Natural law is the will of God, and, consequently, the divine rule and principle for knowing what to do and what not to do. It is, namely, the knowledge of what is good or bad, fair or unfair, upright or shameful, that was inscribed upon the hearts of all people by God himself also after the Fall. For this reason, we are all universally taught what activities should be pursued and what should be avoided; that is, to do one thing and to avoid another, and we know that we are obligated and pushed to act for the glory of God, our own good, and the welfare of our neighbor both in private and in public. In addition, we know that if we do what should be avoided or avoid what we should do, we are condemned; but if we do the opposite, we are defended and absolved.”
Girolamo Zanchi, On the Law In General – Thesis 8
Based on these definitions, we begin to see a number of essential principles clearly. Namely, natural law is universal to all, it provides clear moral teaching, and it works primarily through conscience. Such concepts can be easily extracted from every worthwhile definition. But while these principles sound excellent on paper, the practical effects of a “natural law” often seem to be missing from our own experience. “Common sense” isn’t common anymore. Murderers walk the streets of society, guilt-free by all appearances. Even though philosophers throughout history affirm the existence of this universal law of nature, critics are quick to discount its clarity and usefulness. In many cases, these critiques originate within church walls.
The Ultimate Authority
Most people have a vested interest in the laws their community enacts, as it affects their daily life. The idea of a universal law is no different, forcing every living being to come to terms with it. In the immediate context, this means that every person must deal with their own conscience, both before God and how they act in front of others. In the broader context, this means shaping and upholding institutions that honor this natural law — this universal conscience.
The first step in this process is to acknowledge that God is both the author and object of natural law. As the Creator of all things, God is the ultimate authority, the definitive interpreter, and the absolute executor of this divine law. For most Christians throughout history, this is a relatively uncontroversial articulation. In recent years, however, it has become trendy to pit God’s natural law against God. Such arguments are often phrased as natural law vs. the gospel or function as an attempt to change the origin of natural law. Without careful wording, such arguments are often paradoxical and self-destructive, pitting God against Himself.
There is, however, a worthwhile critique out there that takes issue with the application of this principle. In many instances, the source of this critique often comes from our own hearts, as we wonder whether or not God has truly laid something upon our conscience or whether we have simply imagined it from a sin-inclined heart. In these instances, God has given to mankind something more than a general, natural revelation. He has given us specific, written revelation in the form of Scripture. But instead of conflicting with the attributes revealed in nature, God’s Word, coupled with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, provides even greater clarity to these matters.
Unfortunately, some have seditiously manipulated this clarity-based argument to assert unmerited authority over natural law. Catholic teaching, for example, goes to great lengths to claim that a single Roman Catholic institution is responsible for interpretations concerning natural law.
“The authority of the Magisterium extends also to the specific precepts of the natural law, because their observance, demanded by the Creator, is necessary for salvation.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition2Catechism of the Catholic Church (usccb.org)
Such an articulation is a blatant attempt to dethrone God as the ultimate authority over nature, putting a human establishment in His place. It defies the very definition of natural law. Unsurprisingly, this “authority of the Magisterium” also claims authority over conscience,3“As far as possible conscience should take account of the good of all, as expressed in the moral law, natural and revealed, and consequently in the law of the Church and in the authoritative teaching of the Magisterium on moral questions. Personal conscience and reason should not be set in opposition to the moral law or the Magisterium of the Church.” — ibid the method by which we become attuned to God’s natural law.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, by contrast, acknowledges that “God alone is Lord of conscience” and that requiring blind obedience to things that God has not required “is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.” The idea that we ought to give an ecclesial magisterium authority over natural law, personal conscience, and reason paradoxically runs against what we know from natural law, conscience, and reason. In fact, chapter one of the confession remarks that some aspects of church authority are to be ordered by natural law.
“…there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and the government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.”
Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1
Such a view does not pit natural law against revealed law but views it as complementary. The explicit instructions we find in special revelation pair perfectly with the less particular commands we glean from general revelation. In many instances, this understanding helps guard against those who would pit the letter of the law against the spirit of it. This antagonistic view of morality came to be known as Pharisaism, and it exists in force today. Girolamo Zanchi, a reformer from the 16th century, notes that “…those customs that oppose God’s Word that oppose nature or communal law, many of which exist in the Roman Church, these, I deem, are not good at all, should not be held in the place of laws and should not be observed.”4Girolamo Zanchi, On the Law In General
In God’s Word, Paul warns Timothy of the “doctrines of devils,” a creed so unnatural that its proponents have consciences “seared with a hot iron” (1 Timothy 4:1-4). Not only does the demonic dogma forbid natural relations and procreation among its members, but it also forbids the consumption of meat, calling some creatures in God’s created order “good” while condemning other creatures as “bad.” These things are an integral part of the natural order. God himself has given this natural ordering to mankind, so for a church to assume the ability to take them away — to override nature itself — is to cut a man’s conscience off from reality. This is the very definition of tyranny.
Yet tyranny has many forms and is often propagated by those who claim to fight it. Modern liberalism, the all-encompassing religion built on suppressing natural inequalities, illustrates this phenomenon perfectly.
Setting Natural Limits
Less than a month before June, NBC announced their intentions to release a sex-oriented television special, highlighting what they believed to be LGBT+ relations with animals. Titled “Queer Planet,” the show launched just in time for Pride Month, showcasing everything from gay penguins to sex-changing fish.5“NBC To Promote ‘LGBTQI+ Tolerance’ By Bombarding Audiences With Gay Animal Sex” – https://www.dailywire.com/news/nbc-to-promote-lgbtqi-tolerance-by-bombarding-audiences-with-gay-animal-sex For director Ed Watkins, this agenda-driven documentary helped him realize “just how common queerness is in nature.”6“‘Animals Are Nowhere Near as Straight as We Were Led to Believe’: Inside Peacock Doc ‘Queer Planet’” – https://www.indiewire.com/features/craft/queer-planet-doc-gay-animals-peacock-1235013087/ From the outset, the video clearly functioned as a not-so-subtle endeavor to portray perversions as “natural.” Most people, however, recognized the documentary for what it was: a poorly crafted appeal to natural law — one that can be easily dismissed by any rational being. There is nothing natural about sodomy, and it can only ever be performed in defiance of the natural order (Romans 1:26). Like acts of murder or rape, animals that practice “queerness” only prove that they are incapable of joining humanity.
No matter how much evidence is produced to the contrary, the LGBT+ community has doggedly claimed that unnatural perversions are natural. Without some sort of arbiter, it often feels like this argument is impossible to respond to. In some sense, it is. One of the significant flaws of natural law is that when men openly deny it, searing their conscience against this clearly seen morality, the usefulness of appealing to this unwritten moral code is dramatically reduced. This phenomenon is clearly seen in the modern iteration of liberalism, which often struggles to find its place within natural law. Rejection of the patriarchy, often combined with ludicrous notions of societal utopia, tends to turn the proper understanding of natural rights on its head. The concept of “reproductive rights” is built upon this upside-down notion of natural law, arguing that God has given every mother the freedom to murder her own child. “Freedoms” are created not as a natural outworking of God’s image but built upon a person’s license to perversion.
So often, Natural law is violated in the name of natural law.
Rampant liberalism, insofar as it refuses to provide justice for egregious perversions of nature, binds consciences just as easily as authoritarianism. Romans 13 reminds us that the minister of God, tasked with doing good and punishing evil, is an ordinance of the Creator. Civil government is a revenger, to execute God’s wrath upon evildoers. In Romans 13:5, we are encouraged to submit to this God-given ordinance, “not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.” Liberalism, by contrast, uses civil power to forsake its natural duties: to abandon God’s wrath upon the evildoer and to disable the ordinance of God. Such an exercise in licentiousness paradoxically binds men’s consciences all the same, creating tyranny where God created order.
The natural order — amplified by conscience — compels us to punish evildoers. In this way, the natural use of civil power is not antithetical to the gospel but complementary to it.
Such is the power of sin and corruption that many will not be restrained from the greatest enormities, and such as are most pernicious to human society, by any regard to the law of God and nature or the wrath to come; but only by the fear of temporal punishments, which the wilfulness and perverseness of degenerate mankind have made necessary. Hence it appears that laws with penalties for the lawless and disobedient (1 Tim. 1:9) must be constituted in Christian nations, and are agreeable with, and not contradictory to, the gospel.
Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume – page 2230
A Free Conscience Serves God
Though humanity often attempts to purge natural law from their lives, they still appeal to it daily. Everyone instinctively knows that evil ought to be punished, even though they sometimes delude themselves on what constitutes evil or good. Common knowledge isn’t common anymore, a phenomenon forged by our refusal to enact God’s wrath on those who violate nature. When your opponents openly defy the natural law, claiming a god-given right to evil, your instinctual moral compass should be crying out for justice. Your conscience ought to be pressed by the severity of God’s wrath and the desire to submit yourself to the revenger that restraints this aggravating evil.
The Lord of natural law is the same Lord over conscience. If they are pitted against each other, they confuse them both. Natural law must never be violated for the sake of conscience because doing so violates both. We ought to live with a good conscience before God, free from the tyrannical commands of men. This balance is best summarized in 1 Peter 2:16 – “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.”
Sources:
- 1Recommended reading: https://purelypresbyterian.com/2015/11/09/the-light-of-nature/
- 2
- 3“As far as possible conscience should take account of the good of all, as expressed in the moral law, natural and revealed, and consequently in the law of the Church and in the authoritative teaching of the Magisterium on moral questions. Personal conscience and reason should not be set in opposition to the moral law or the Magisterium of the Church.” — ibid
- 4Girolamo Zanchi, On the Law In General
- 5“NBC To Promote ‘LGBTQI+ Tolerance’ By Bombarding Audiences With Gay Animal Sex” – https://www.dailywire.com/news/nbc-to-promote-lgbtqi-tolerance-by-bombarding-audiences-with-gay-animal-sex
- 6“‘Animals Are Nowhere Near as Straight as We Were Led to Believe’: Inside Peacock Doc ‘Queer Planet’” – https://www.indiewire.com/features/craft/queer-planet-doc-gay-animals-peacock-1235013087/
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