I have mixed feelings. On one hand "natural law" is a part of the Christian tradition, but on the other hand, the political theologies of Aquinas and Augustine are noticeably different (and both are noticeably different from the secular faith proponents today).

Augustine saw two societies. Aquinas saw a unified society comprising that was not (at least overtly) dependent on divine revelation.

Modern political theories, suffering from the Enlightenment strain of trying to unify everything, have given us (or will give us) a cracked society, the brokeness of which we already see in postmodernity.

Therefore, appeals to Aquinas' natural law (of which I have become more fond recently) have the ironic task of doing what they aren't supposed to do: Prolegomena. It was supposed to give us a common ground but with postmodernity denying precisely that, where are we?

In this case, Augustine's 2 Cities might be more helpful. But even then, facile appeals to the 2 Cities are not without there problems. For Augustine defines a society as a group of rational members united by a common object(s) of love. A common object? A common telos? We are back where we started. What if the telos is faulty or idolatrous? Is it still a true society? Would then the only true society be a Christian one?

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J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College