I don't intend for this thread to turn into a heated debate, I just want to see PB members' views. If your view is not represented in the poll options, please say so and perhaps it can be added. I want to know what views exist and which are the predominant ones.

So, if you want to state and explain your view, please do. But let's not have debate or argumentation on this thread (if moderators deem this request inappropriate, please strike it from my post; also, I defer to the wisdom of the moderators to determine what is and what is not debate).

Thanks!

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Casey Bessette
Westminster OPC
La Grange Park, IL
Blog: Paradise Regained

At the moment I voted 2.

Ditto.

If #2 is correct, then when people who do not have access to the Bible, sin, do they have the excuse that they do/did not know any better?

CT

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Hermonta Godwin
Christ The King PCA
Raleigh, NC

I'm not dogmatic on it. I am still working this out. Without trying to cop out, I really do see pros and cons with both positions. I used to erect straw-men against natural law. I repent of that (though some of my critique was probably accurate). I then read Budidzewksi and St Thomas. They corrected much of my misunderstandings.

That being said, I don't have what epistemologists call "cognitive rest" on the subject.

I voted number 3. It is the fallen man's knowledge of God and his law that condemns him (Romans 1 and 2). He has some access to it, just as he does to the rest of general revelation, but he will suppress what he does't like and/or twist it to selfish ends.

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Patrick
OPC
MDiv Student, RTS Jackson.

"He does well, that discourses of Christ; but he does infinitely better, that by experimental knowledge, feeds and lives on Christ." Thomas Brooks.

I guess I can go with #3 if we allow for the "correlativity" (to use Van Til and Frame's term) of natural law and special revelation. In other words, they can't contradict each other (obviously, both being revelatory of God and God can't have contradictions in his being).

The implication of #2 is that natural law may not be used as a common ground ethic between Christians and unbelievers. The implication of #3 is that it may so be used. That's how I intended to form the poll, sorry if that was unclear. Should I have worded it differently?

If the law is a priori, is that considered "epistemologically accessible"?

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Davidius
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

And though the really inspired artist may complain that, with the majority, piano-playing is mere strumming, and painting little more than daubing, yet, the exuberant feeling of having a share in the privileges of art is so overwhelming, that the scorn of the artist is preferred to the abandonment of art training in education. To have laid a production of your own, however poor, upon the altar of art becomes more and more the characteristic of an accomplished civilization. - Abraham Kuyper

#3 because of the passages in Romans, especially with what Puritan Sailor and Ivanhoe said above in their posts!

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Timothy Johnson
First United Presbyterian of Moline
PCUSA (Yea, I know)
Theology/Philosophy Sunday School Teacher
Davenport, IA

Casey @ #8:
That is what I figured you meant. I don't think anyone, even Barthians, would deny that unbelievers know they are doing wrong.

But at the same time I really doubt that I can go up to Billary or Barak Osama and say, "Look. Look at the natural order. Look at your conscience. Don't you think you should stop the baby-killing in America?" His/her conscience is seared with a hot iron.

Secondly, I honestly, in good conscience, cannot meet unbelievers on "common, neutral ground." I really cannot concieve of political ethics apart from the Resurrected and Ascended King Jesus. Maybe I should, but then again I do not have cognitive rest on the subject.

Don't get me wrong. I have benefited from Natural Law theologians. I really do like reading Roman catholics. St Thomas has been very helpful to me and in some ways I do appreciate and draw from his social ethic.

The distinction I'm talking about is that believers know of the existence of natural law by Scripture and maybe, or maybe not, through nature per se. I've probably used the wrong language to communicate this!

Our common ground with them is that both believers and unbelievers are made in the image of God and live in God's world. And both know God because they stand in a relationship to him. Unbelievers have a relationship of wrath and hostility, beleivers have a relationship of grace.

I think I would agree. I just wouldn't go to the City Council and say, "You use your 'right reason' and I will use mine. I won't mention King Jesus. Let's come up with a good ethic."

It is important to remember that for the Medievals natural law participated in God and for Grotius it most certainly did not. In other words, for Grotius Natural law would be true if there were no God. I do not think St Thomas could imagine such a proposal.

Could some, but not all of the natural law be epistemologically accessible for fallen men?

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Curt Hayashida
member, Community Bible Church (Non-denominational)
Vallejo, CA

I'm trying to put my finger on what separates one natural law position from another. Perhaps I put my finger on the wrong spot since there aren't a lot of people voting.

I'm voting #3...

Unbelievers fight the knowledge, suppress it...and can't make sense of why they use it (selectively).

It does not lead to a saving knowledge...

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Craig French
Married and father of a beautiful daughter.
Member of Christ The Word, PCA
Toledo, OH

My avatar is not me...it's my daughter (in case anyone was wondering!)
MY BLOG

I voted for #3 for right now.

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Benjamin P. Glaser
Pittsburgh, PA
Fairmount ARP Church

Student of Theology
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary
My Blog

We also need to make a distinction between "natural revelation" and "natural law."

Well, I voted 1, and then saw I was among the fewest voting for that option.

Here's why: I view "natural law" as a sort of secular way of invoking God's law. RC's like that concept a lot, and don't like God's law.

I like God's law, so I don't like "natural law."

Doesn't mean I won't discuss it, or even rely on it, in some contexts.

But I feel it's flawed, because only God's law is foundational law.

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HaigLaw, ruling elder
Grace PCA, Shreveport, LA
http://www.xanga.com/HaigLaw

Van Til would say there is no neutral common ground. Paul appealed to the statues to the "unknown God," and said that God they did not know, he would tell them about. I.e., he adopted their presumed-neutral or even -hostile ground and made use of it for the kingdom. That is our model.

On second thought...I was kind of viewing "natural law" as natural revelation...I think the poll's results are now innaccurate!

I don't think I really even know what is meant by "natural law"...if it simply refers to the aspect that God's Law is clear in our hearts, then I'm sticking with #3...

#3 depending on how we define our terms. I disdain the term "natural law"...There's nothing 'natural' about it. If we are voting #3 because of Romans 1 then we have to cry uncle and say that it is the law of God written on men's hearts. No God = No Law. But that is exactly the purpose of using natural law. I don't have a problem arguing from a natural law perspective just would rather push t