The laws of nature and of nature’s God

Over the July 4 weekend, Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., preached a sermon on Romans 13. Expounding a central text for understanding the God-given role of government, Dever’s sermon is squarely in a long tradition of Protestant thought. And notably, Dever links it to the natural law tradition. Dever was not seeking headlines or attention when delivering the sermon. But it’s a worthy example of pastoral, expository engagement on this important issue. And the ties to natural law are worth highlighting.

The Bible speaks to law and government. Paul says in Romans 13 that the civil government wields its authority to be “not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.”

Again, Dever’s exposition is squarely in the Reformed Protestant tradition. On the one hand, the rightful exercise of authority by civil magistrates is a good and godly thing. On the other hand, in our fallen world, there are times when a government run by fallen human beings exceeds its authority. Sometimes, the correct response is not to passively acquiesce but to resist or disobey. This tradition of Reformed thought was crucial for American Christians who supported independence in the 1770s. Dever provided a sketch of historical arguments offered by Americans in the 1770s for the lawfulness of their position, opposing violations of the laws of nature and of the nation by the Parliament and king. It was a subject that was discussed extensively by the American preachers of the founding era.

To explain the principles of right and wrong that provide the basis for evaluating human law, Dever—again, in line with a longstanding Christian and Reformed tradition—framed the analysis in terms of natural law. He explained that the central claim of his sermon was that natural law took priority over national law. Justice and rightness, in the end, existed independently of the laws of any particular nation. And ultimately this natural law provides a way of critiquing the actions of the state.

Dever planted a seed, and I hope it grows. Natural law was an important topic for much of church history. It was well known to the Reformers. But it has not received much attention among modern American Christians (including the segment that I am a part of, which is Protestant, evangelical, Baptist, and Reformed). That is to our loss. Having preachers like Dever bring the subject into view is a positive development.

Some Protestants are ambivalent about whether natural law is a retreat from a full-throated embrace of Scripture’s sufficiency. Others have been content to merely appreciate that there is some reference to God in the founding era’s natural law discourse—passing over serious engagement with the laws of nature. The greatest ongoing engagement with natural law from within any Christian tradition has come from Roman Catholicism.

But natural law need not be, and ought not be, viewed as the exclusive possession of Roman Catholicism. Reformed thinkers did not turn their backs on the natural law tradition, but instead engaged with it. Reformed political thought from Calvin forward was in dialogue with Aquinas and the great Christian tradition of natural law.

So what is this tradition? It is a tradition that recognizes that basic principles of truth and justice are deeply ingrained into human reason. People cannot casually discard the principles of right and truth and justice that are present in the heart. Yes, people are sinful and fallen, and yes, they suppress truth in unrighteousness. But man, created in the image of God, does not totally suppress the image of God and does not totally divorce reason from truth.

This leaves a crucial space for discussion and analysis of how to live out a just society. And it need not be disconnected from the special revelation of Scripture. Working out the details of what one can learn from Scripture, what is accessible through reason, and how to interpret and apply these sources are the bread and butter of the Christian conversation about government.

To make it more concrete: We know from special revelation (Scripture) as well as from general revelation (reason and the created order) that murder is wrong. We also know, downstream of these principles of general and special revelation, that it is good to have a traffic system that provides order and safety in transit. But neither special nor general revelation is going to provide guidance as to which side of the street one should drive on. Developing workaday policies, in light of the broader principles of right and justice that we know from the natural law, is the day-to-day business of government and politics.

Pastor Dever’s sermon on July 5 in Washington, D.C., did not undertake to provide a full account of the natural law. But it is one small mark of interest and engagement with Christian political thought, and with the natural law in particular, that I hope will only grow. Filling in the details is historically not the job of the pastor anyway. Scripture provides a crucial moral framework. It points, in turn, to the natural law and the right use of reason in God’s created order. All this is good and right. And then Christians—both citizens and as government officials—can seek to act wisely in light of these guiding truths.