LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 160

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IV. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

that the evidences of the natural world “overwhelmingly impress us with the
appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker.”152
On a practical level, the recognition that even the professed unbeliever
does in fact possess some innate knowledge of God will serve as a reminder
that the Christian evangelist need not “prove” God’s existence. Understanding
that a natural knowledge of God is being willfully suppressed, the Christian
might instead focus his or her attention on questioning and challenging
those beliefs which serve to suppress this knowledge. In this regard, too, it is
noteworthy that even some prominent atheists can be quite candid about their
own motives for denying God’s existence, speaking in terms that come close to
admissions of being willing actively to suppress belief. One atheist writes, for
example: “I want atheism to be true…. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God
and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God!
I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”153
Moreover, one should not lose sight of the fact that, despite recent growth
in the number and percentage of those professing to be atheists or agnostics,
and the increased attention they have received in the media, the vast majority
even of non-Christians in America do in fact acknowledge God’s existence.154
Again, therefore, the task of establishing common ground need not be to
“prove” the existence of God. Most opportunities for Christian witness will
instead occur in conversation with those who, not unlike the Athenians of
Paul’s day, readily profess belief in a god—which might then, as it did for Paul,
serve as a starting point for proclaiming the nature and work of the true God.
What has been said above concerning the natural knowledge of God is
no less true with regard to man’s natural knowledge of the law. That is, man’s
innate knowledge of the law, even when suppressed or distorted, constitutes
some common ground shared by Christians and non-Christians alike. This
biblical confession, highlighted especially by St. Paul (Rom. 2:14–15), informs,
for example, Luther’s observation that, “if the natural law were not written
and inscribed by God on the heart, one would have to preach for a long time
before the conscience was struck.”155 Though the manner in which this natural
knowledge of the law might be appealed to in Christian witness will receive
further, and more specific, attention below, it is worth noting here that the bare

fact of such a knowledge is increasingly recognized even by non-Christians,
and on non-revelatory grounds. “Recent scientific research on moral reasoning,” for instance, “is beginning to converge on the idea that, from childhood,
people have a basic set of moral instincts, a grammar, or intuitions” and that
“[a]ll normally developing people have similar, basic moral intuitions.”156
As the above reference to moral “reasoning” suggests, another point of
contact between the Christian and the non-Christian is the shared human possession of reason itself. Given the Lutheran theological tradition’s willingness
to describe human reason both as a “bright light”157 and as a “dim spark,”158
however, particular contexts will necessarily dictate the extent and respects to
which appeals to logic or reason are appropriate in Christian witness. Thus,
for example, the Christian evangelist will want constantly to be aware that,
“[t]hough the wisdom of the Gospel is a higher gift than human reason, it
does not alter or nullify the God-implanted intelligence of the latter.”159
Because this is the case, and because it is both the biblical and Lutheran
confession that men not only possess an innate knowledge of God, but might
also, by use of their reason, acquire some knowledge of God’s existence and
attributes, there will be occasions on which it is entirely appropriate to appeal
to the skeptics’ own rational faculties and to the evidence available to their
senses. Indeed, such appeals may in some cases be especially appropriate not
only because the capacity for reason is shared by all human beings, but also
because it is often a pronounced conceit of skeptics that they are especially
rational and that, conversely, Christians and others embrace a belief in God
only because they are insufficiently so.160 This is apparent, to cite only one
example, in the suggestion of some prominent atheists and agnostics that they
dub themselves the “brights,”161 in not-so-subtle contrast to their allegedly
“dim” religious contemporaries.
Finally, and particularly in the context of the modern western world, the
particular species of reasoning that is scientific might also be particularly
156
Barrett, Born Believers, 121. Significantly, on the same page Barrett also notes: “One of these
basic moral intuitions appears to be the belief that moral codes are absolute and unchangeable,
whereas other norms are arbitrary and could be changed.”
157

152

Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: Norton, 1985), xii, 21. Indeed, this is
one of the conclusions suggested by recent scientific studies, that children as well as “adults,
even scientifically trained ones, possess a bias to favor purpose-based explanations,” and that
“we do not simply outgrow the tendency to see purpose in the world but have to learn to tamp
it down through formal education, and even then, it comes sneaking out when we are not paying careful attention.” Barrett, Born Believers, 54, 55.
153

Thomas Nagel, The Last Word (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 130.

154

Pew Research Center and The Pew Forum on Religions and Public Life, “Nones” On the
Rise: One-in-Five Adults Have No Religious Affiliation (Released 9 October 2012), 9, 22, available
online at http://www.pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Religious_Affiliation/Unaffiliated/NonesOnTheRise-full.pdf.
155

Martin Luther, Sermon on the Second Book of Moses (1 October 1525), WA 16:447.

Luther, Lectures on Jonah, AE 19:54.

158
FC SD 2.9. On this point, also see Tom G.A. Hardt, “Natural Knowledge of God and Natural Law According to the Teaching of the Evangelical Lutheran Church,” Lutheran Synod Quarterly 19 (1979), 8.
159
Martin Luther, Sermon on the Seventh Sunday after Trinity, in Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols,
ed. J.N. Lenker (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 8:159.
160
This is a point being made by critics of Christianity already as early as the second century,
when, e.g., the Roman pagan Celsus (c. 177) asserted that Christians “are able to convince only
the foolish, dishonorable and stupid, and only slaves, women and little children” of their religious claims. Celsus, On the True Doctrine: A Discourse Against the Christians, trans. R. Joseph
Hoffmann (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 73.
161
See Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York:
Twelve, 2007), 5.

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relevant in attempts to establish common ground with unbelievers. This is
especially the case since, as one atheist himself rightly notes, “[o]ne of the
things atheists tend to believe is that modern science is on their side, whereas
theism is in conflict with science.”162 Precisely because this is the case, those
otherwise tempted to avoid discussions of religious belief, or to dismiss such
belief as inherently irrational and lacking any empirical evidence, might be
more amenable to dialogue in cases where such discussion is framed, at least
partially or initially, by common scientific concerns such as evidence and
induction, verification or falsification, and inference to the best explanation.
Not only is science itself—popularly perceived as an unbiased and objective
method of establishing certain truths—a potential point of contact between
Christians and non-Christians, but it might also serve to reveal or establish
further common ground. In revealing, for example, that “the natural architecture of human minds in ordinary environments makes belief in gods entirely
expected,”163 scientific studies provide even non-biblical support for the Christian confession of man’s innate knowledge of God. Similarly, empirical data
derived from research in such disciplines as biology, astronomy, and physics
might prove fruitful conversation starters, raising the question of whether the
apparent “design” of the universe suggests, or even requires, the existence of
a transcendent designer.164

realm) of God, rather than God’s “right-hand” kingdom.165 That is, natural
knowledge finds its proper home in that realm in which God rules by means
of reason, law, and those orders, institutions, and vocations through which he
secures and preserves the penultimate good of temporal human flourishing.
It has no proper home, however, in that realm in which God rules by means
of the gospel alone, and where he communicates this gospel only by means of
word and sacrament, for the sake of the ultimate good of the sinner’s salvation. This, though, is not to say that natural revelation and the knowledge it
provides, while situated in the left-hand kingdom, cannot in important ways
beneficially serve the gospel and, thus, the right-hand kingdom of God.166
With reference to man’s natural knowledge of the law, for instance, it has
been said with only slight exaggeration that, “[t]here is no salvation in this
knowledge, but without it life would come to a halt. There would be nothing
to be saved.”167 Thus, as noted at the head of this section, the early Lutheran
dogmatician Martin Chemnitz (1522–1586) could name as the first of those
“reasons why God imparted the external knowledge of Himself to the minds
of all men,” the divine concern for “external discipline, which God wished to
be exercised by all men, even the unregenerate.”168 The maintenance of external discipline by which civil society is preserved, viewed in light of left-hand
concerns, may be deemed a good in and of itself. Because the church’s proclamation of the gospel takes place within society, however, it, too, is well served
by the establishment and preservation of a just and well-ordered society.

Again, this brief summary of potential “points of contact” with the
unbeliever is only suggestive, and by no means exhaustive. The reference to
science, rather than the arts, for example, is informed simply by the popular
esteem in which science is held, and should certainly not be taken to imply
that one is unlikely to find some common ground with reference to the literary
or visual arts. Further, it bears repeating that even the successful establishment of some common ground or point of contact—while sometimes difficult
enough in itself—remains merely a means to an end. A “legal knowledge” of
God, like a knowledge of God’s law itself, remains preliminary to or preparatory for the proclamation of the gospel, which will remain the ultimate goal of
any distinctly and uniquely Christian witness.

B. Christian Witness and the Two Kingdoms

The Christian, therefore, as a citizen simultaneously residing in both of
God’s two kingdoms, will necessarily be engaged by and with the concerns
and ends of each. The immediately relevant question thus becomes: In what
respects might the natural revelation of God and his law be of practical assistance in Christian witness which seeks to serve the goals or purposes of both
the right- and left-hand realms of God?
Though no logical priority necessitates treating the concerns of the
left-hand realm first, it is with respect to temporal and civic affairs that

Because a natural knowledge of God and his law does not and cannot
include a knowledge of the saving gospel, its proper use will remain restricted to what Lutherans have traditionally called the “left-hand” kingdom (or

165
For the development of Luther’s own thinking about the two kingdoms or two realms,
see, e.g., Bernhard Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), 314–324. For a concise and accessible introduction to its broader
contemporary application, see, e.g., Gene Veith, The Spirituality of the Cross: The Way of the First
Evangelicals (St. Louis: Concordia, 1999), 91–106.

162
Thomas Nagel, “A Philosopher Defends Religion,” The New York Review of Books (27 September 2012), 62.

166
By way of analogy, e.g., knowledge of a foreign language is not saving knowledge of the
gospel; language acquisition is thus understood to reside in the “left-hand” realm. And yet,
especially for a foreign missionary, knowledge of the relevant language will greatly facilitate
proclamation of the gospel. At an even more mundane level, keeping the churchyard mown
saves no one; but allowing it to become an overgrown eyesore might dissuade visitors from
attending, and thus hearing the gospel which does save.

163

Barrett, Born Believers, 4.

164

The famous philosopher Antony Flew (1923–2010), for example, attributed his late conversion from atheism to theism to such a line of inquiry. See Gary R. Habermas, “My Pilgrimage
from Atheism to Theism: An Exclusive Interview with Former British Atheist Professor Antony
Flew,” Philosophia Christi 6 (2004), 197–211.

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2016 Convention Workbook

167
Carl E. Braaten, “A Response,” to Russell Hittinger, “Natural Law and Catholic Moral
Theology,” in A Preserving Grace: Protestants, Catholics, and Natural Law, ed. Michael Cromartie
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 37.
168
Chemnitz, Loci Theologici, quoted in Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 110.

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