LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 157

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IV. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

of God, based on the law of nature and of Moses.”101 This reference to Moses
further highlights a repeated emphasis of Luther, as well as the later Lutheran
dogmaticians. A natural knowledge of God was not only confessed by the
reformers, but the broad outline of its content was also noted. The same is
true with their commentary on natural law: the fact of natural law is not
only asserted, but its content is briefly summarized with reference to Moses,
that is, the Ten Commandments given to Israel through Moses. It is with reference to these commandments that Luther, for example, can proclaim that
“Moses agrees exactly with nature,”102 and that “the natural laws were never
so orderly and well written as by Moses.”103 The same point is expressed not
only in the Confessions,104 but also by the later dogmaticians,105 who can speak
of “some knowledge of the divine law pertaining to the remnants of the
original divine image.”106
As with the doctrine of the natural knowledge of God, the teaching of a
natural law accessible to all men was deemed by the reformers to be plainly
taught in Scripture, and so embraced and asserted in their own exegetical,
confessional, and dogmatic works. The question thus arises concerning the reasons for the long neglect of, and even outright hostility towards, this teaching
among more recent Protestants, including sometimes even Lutherans. As with
the doctrine of the natural knowledge of God, it has been rightly noted that,
“[h]owever deeply entrenched the bias against natural law thinking is among
Protestant thinkers, it cannot be attributed to the Reformers of the sixteenth
century themselves.”107 As with the natural knowledge of God, “[t]he pressure
to abandon the teaching of natural law stemmed not so much from the Reformation as from post-Enlightenment developments in philosophy.”108 This point
being insufficiently recognized, much twentieth-century Protestant thinking

101

Luther, Sermons on the Gospel of St. John, AE 22:153.

102

Martin Luther, How Christians Should Regard Moses (1525), AE 35:168.

about natural law echoed neither Scripture nor the reformers, but “generally
mirrored the Enlightenment culture around it.”109
Still, and again, in common with many modern treatments of the natural
knowledge of God, there is no small irony here, as some of those who most
forcefully reject natural law do so largely because they deem it “a central
doctrine of the Enlightenment,”110 and “one of the principal factors in the
formation of the modern spirit.”111 It is certainly true that some thinkers of the
Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment era (as in the pre-Christian era) developed “theories” of natural law different from those of the reformers and other
Christian theologians; it is also true that these new “rationalist” theories were
less amenable, sometimes even contrary, to orthodox Christianity.112 Nonetheless, a distinction should be recognized between natural law as a “fact” and
any “theory” purporting to explain it; just as with the central Christian doctrine of the atonement, for example, one might object to certain “theories” of
the atonement while at the same time clearly confessing and defending the
atonement itself as a sure fact.
Moreover, while it is true that some Enlightenment thinkers were developing novel theories of natural law, it is also the case that other influential
representatives of the age were consciously attempting to undermine natural
law both as theory and as fact. Given the intimate relations between natural
theology and natural law, it is perhaps not surprising that David Hume, for
instance, would object to the latter as forcefully as he did to the former. He
does so most famously in the third book (“Of Morals”) of his Treatise of Human
Nature, where he develops the argument that moral truths are incapable of
being discerned by human reason. It is in this context that he lays down what
is sometimes referred to as “Hume’s Law,” often summarized as: “Ought
cannot be derived from is.”113 That is, according to Hume, morality cannot be
ultimately grounded or rationally discovered in any objective, unchanging
reality, whether that be the nature of the universe, of man, or of God himself.
109

Charles, “Protestants and Natural Law,” 35.

Martin Luther, Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and Sacraments (1525), AE
40:98. On this point, see also the whole of Luther, How Christians Should Regard Moses.

110
August Lang, “The Reformation and Natural Law,” in Calvin and the Reformation, ed. William Park Armstrong (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 93.

104
Ap 4.7 (German), notes, e.g., that “natural law, which agrees with the Mosaic Law, or the Ten
Commandments, is innate in the heart of all men and is written on it.”

111
Lang, “The Reformation and Natural Law,” 58. Lang is, however, ecumenical in providing a rationale for his condemnation, noting also on the same page that natural law thinking
arose “in Catholicism (and hence in false belief).” As noted above, other Christian rejections
of natural law are also sometimes predicated on its supposedly deriving from pre-Christian
pagan philosophy.

103

105

E.g., David Hollaz: “The law of Sinai is a sort of epitome of the natural Law.” Hollaz, Examen
Theologiae Acroamaticae (1707), quoted in Jaroslav Pelikan, “Natural Theology in David Hollaz,”
Concordia Theological Monthly 18 (1947), 262.
106
Johann Gerhard, Loci Theologici (1610–1622), in Herman A. Preus and Edmund Smits (eds),
The Doctrine of Man in Classical Lutheran Theology (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1962), 41; cf. also FC
Ep 6.2.
107
J. Daryl Charles, “Protestants and Natural Law,” First Things (December 2006), 33; cf. Carl
E. Braaten, “Protestants and Natural Law,” First Things (January 1992), 24, who also notes that
“none of the confessional documents of the Reformation, neither those of the Lutheran nor of the
Calvinist tradition, rejected the notion of natural law.”
108

Braaten, “Protestants and Natural Law,” 22.

112
The Dutch Arminian Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), for example, is often considered to have
inaugurated those “modern” and “rationalist” natural law theories that would predominate
throughout the Enlightenment; in this context he is often quoted for his claim that the principles of natural law would remain valid “even if we were to suppose (what we cannot suppose
without the greatest wickedness) that there is no God.” Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and
Peace, 3 vols, ed. Richard Tuck (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005), “Prolegomena to the First
Edition,” 3:1748.
113
See David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Ernest C. Mossner (New York: Penguin,
1969), 521.

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Instead, it is “but a sum of societary conventions that are adapted to serve
human needs and urges according to our experiences, which, however, may
be superseded by different experiences at some future time.”114 This influential
denial of natural law, the cornerstone of much legal and ethical thought from
antiquity through early modernity, was especially significant in facilitating the
rise to prominence of the more subjective and “utilitarian” moralities representative of the modern era.115

knowledge of the saving gospel—revealed only in Christ and his word—its
use and benefits remain limited to what is frequently referred to as God’s “lefthand kingdom,” that which is governed by reason and law.118

In this light, what became evident with respect to natural theology
appears also to be paralleled with regard to natural law: in their rejection
of natural law, many contemporary Protestants find themselves, perhaps
unwittingly, rejecting the conclusions of Scripture, Confessions, and orthodox
dogmatics, and instead aligning themselves with critiques set forth by skeptical Enlightenment philosophers. Yet, as similarly noted above with respect to
natural theology, this is not to say that all objections to natural law, especially
those raised by concerned Christians, are entirely without merit. As with the
critiques of natural theology, these concerns deserve some thoughtful attention by any who would make use of natural law in faithful Christian witness to
the contemporary world. Given the “inseparable connection” between natural
law and natural theology, then, further concerns regarding the validity of each
are given some attention below.

D. The Legitimacy and Limitations of Natural Theology
Though by no means exhaustive, the preceding sections sufficiently reveal
that the authors of Scripture, the Lutheran Confessions, and the orthodox
dogmatics are in agreement concerning the legitimacy of natural theology
and the related matters of natural revelation, natural knowledge of God,
and natural law. At various points, however, their agreement that each also
has its limitations was likewise observed. Most often and most emphatically,
the biblical, confessional, and dogmatic authors are quite clear that a natural
knowledge of God is entirely insufficient for salvation. As was rhetorically
asked in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, “[i]f we can be justified through
reason and the works of reason, why do we need Christ or regeneration?”116
Even more plainly, dogmatician Johannes Quenstedt insisted that “[t]he natural knowledge of God is not adequate to secure everlasting life, nor has any
mortal ever been redeemed, nor can any one ever be redeemed, by it alone.”117
Because a natural knowledge of God does not and cannot encompass a
114
Heinrich A. Rommen, The Natural Law: A Study in Legal and Social History and Philosophy,
trans. Thomas R. Hanley (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998), 100.
115

So, e.g., Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), the “father” of utilitarianism, specifically credits
Hume’s Treatise as decisively demonstrating for him that “the foundations of all virtue are laid
in utility.” Quoted in Ernest C. Mosser, “Introduction” to David Hume, A Treatise of Human
Nature, 25; emphases in original.
116

Ap 4.12.

117

Quenstedt, Theologia Didactico-Polemica, quoted in Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church, 110.

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157

Unfortunately, however, critics of natural theology are not incorrect in
noting that such distinctions are not always carefully made. Nor are they
wrong in suspecting that the use of natural theology is always prone to abuse.
This was evident, for example, in the above-noted Deistic reduction of natural
theology to a “natural religion” at odds with Christianity. More recently, and
more unfortunately, even the Roman Catholic Church has officially denied
that the limitations of natural theology and man’s natural knowledge prevent
its ever being a saving knowledge. Thus the Second Vatican Council (1962–
1965) decreed: “Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of
their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek
God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known
to them through the dictates of conscience.”119 Though the enshrining of this
conclusion in an official decree may in some respects be unique to the Roman
Catholic Church, the conclusion itself is not.120 As the Lutheran Church’s own
confessional documents rightly note, given man’s sinful nature, the temptation to abuse what natural knowledge we possess is ever present. The Apology,
for instance, observes that, “through the law they seek the forgiveness of sins
and justification” precisely “because to some extent human reason naturally
understands it since reason contains the same judgment divinely written on
the mind.”121
In the light of this propensity of sinful human beings to seek justification
on the basis of what may be known by reason alone, it is perhaps unsurprising
that one of the most frequent criticisms of a natural theology is that it places
too much confidence in human reason, failing to take seriously the damaging
effects of sin upon it.122 Indeed, even the Lutheran Confessions recognize that
one consequence of sin is “being ignorant of God.”123 As detailed above, however, the confessors did not mean to imply by this that any and all knowledge
of God is absent in the unbeliever; rather, while the unregenerate might—and
should—recognize the existence of God, their beliefs about him will remain

118

On the “two kingdoms,” see below at section IV, B.

119
Vatican II, Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution of the Church), 2.16, in The Documents of
Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott, S.J. (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), 35.
120
Thus, already in the second century Justin Martyr (100–c. 165) could propose that “[t]hose
who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among
the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them.” Justin Martyr, The First Apology of
Justin Martyr, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10 vols, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), 1:178.
121

Ap 4.7.

122
See, e.g., Evans, “Apologetics in a New Key,” 66, and VanDrunen, A Biblical Case for Natural
Law, 3–4.
123

Ap 2.8.

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