Natural Law. A Lutheran Reappraisal.

Quote from "Natural Law.  A Lutheran Reappraisal"

It is a well-known historical fact that both Martin Luther and John Calvin believed in natural law...  "there is no real discontinuity between the teaching of the reformers and that of their predecessors with respect to natural law.  Not one of the leaders of the Reformation assails the principle."  


... The pressure to abandon the teaching of natural law does not arise from faithful biblical interpretation or from arguments internal to the logic of christian theology;  rather it derives from developments in modern philosophy, especially utilitarianism and positivism.  Combined with the loss of confidence in the truthfulness of Scripture and the competence of the church to interpret it aright, there arose a widespread skepticism about the ability of reason to discern a universal moral order in human society.  That prepared the way for the administration of law to become subject to those who hold the instruments of power.  The slogan "might makes right" expressed the prevailing sentiment within the totalitarian states ruled by Fascist and Communist ideologies.  The totalitarian states under Hitler and Stalin manipulated laws to promote the self-interests of dictators who held a monopoly of power and disregarded the welfare of citizens.  For the most part, the churches were powerless to mount any effective resistance; a measure of their impotence can be traced to their own lack of support for the validity of a universal natural moral order as the highest court of appeal.

(A Lutheran Affirmation of the Natural Law.  Carl Braaten. in Natural Law.  A Lutheran Reappraisal.  pp. 6,7.)

Footnotes:

Utilitarianism is the theory of morality that asserts that what determines right from wrong conduct is the degree of its usefulness in providing pleasure and happiness.

Positivism is a theory of knowledge that holds that all real knowledge must be based on sense perceptions subject to empirical verification.

Luther and probability vs. certainty of faith.

This Becker is important.

p. 37.

While it is clear therefore that Luther did not deny that there was such a thing as natural theology and an objective revelation of God in nature, and while he did not consider the so-called "proofs" unworthy of notice, yet he laid little stress on this natural knowledge for several reasons.
First of all, Luther recognized, as do all those who understand this problem, that at best a rational approach to the knowledge of God can never go beyond a high degree of probability.  But to Luther the commonly accepted rule, "Probability is the guide of life" would have been an abomination in the area of religious knowledge.  Luther says that the very essence of unbelief is that men say,  "I do not know.  I am not sure."

So the proofs are not without value.  There is inherent knowledge.  The heathen, too, can know something about the law of God, the existence of God and the goodness of God.  BUT he cannot be sure of anything.  And probability just does not cut it in the area of religious knowledge.  You don't know that you have a gracious God this way, that your life has any meaning or that God is willing to help you.

Faith is a God-created certainty and assurance.  He says,  
Properly speaking, faith is that which endures in extreme evils and holds fast to the Word of life and in this way conquers all the might of the devil, all terrors and all dangers, through which it enters with glory and confidence into eternal life.
Even the most ardent defenders of natural theology will generally agree that such a firm and settled assurance cannot be found in natural theology.
Luther saw that natural theology can maintain itself only with the greatest difficulty.  Long before the antinomies of Kant were announced to the world, Luther had already laid down the rule:
No reason is so firm that it can not again be overthrown by reason.  There is no counsel, no matter how wise, no thing, no edifice, no matter how magnificent or strong, which cannot again be destroyed by human counsel, wisdom, and strength.  And this can  be seen in all things.  Only the Word of God remains to all eternity (Solum verbum Dei in aeternum manet).

I'm not really familiar with the antinomies of Kant, and I should be looking it up.  Here they are.  Interesting.  One could learn more about that.  Anyhow, we see the limits to such intellectual pursuits.  We can be sure of nothing, even science.  (Science makes truth claims, but it is always being tested and changed.  What kind of truth is it?)  Only the revealed word can have any certainty. -- Wow.


p. 38.

Precisely because he rejected "probability" as the enemy of faith, he considered the natural knowledge of God to be of limited value.  "The right faith," he says, "is complete trust of the heart in Christ."
But the natural knowledge of God is by its very nature subject to doubt, and human reason can never come to a sure knowledge of God.  but sure knowledge is what we must have, if we are to have peace of conscience.  This, to Luther, was always basic to the whole problem.
It is just at this point that Luther parts company with neo-orthodoxy and its emphasis on the unreliability of the natural "proofs."  Up to this point there is a certain similarity between Luther's thought and that of Kierkegaard, although, so far as I know, Luther never said that the proofs were "harmful" to faith, as Kierkegaard did.  But the new fashion in theology has reduced all religious knowledge to the level of natural theology, at least so far as intellectual certainty is concerned.  Emil Brunner, for example, says that when the church seeks for certainties she is doing something that always turns out to be disastrous.  For that reason he opposes the concept of divinely inspired, and therefore "infallible,"  doctrine.  He calls upon the church to recognize the "element of untruth which clings to every human formulation of divine truth" and the fact "that in our hands the divine revelation is always mingled with error and arrogance."  
[However]  For Luther the doctrines of faith were infallible and certain.  He would have criticized the spirit of intellectual doubt and uncertainty that neo-orthodoxy has introduced into the church much more severely than he criticized the vacillations of Cicero and the heathen.

 From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

Publishing House (www.nph.net). All rights reserved. Reprinted with
permission.

Luther and Proofs from Natural Theology

Becker, p. 26.

Contrary to the approach of neo-orthodoxy, Luther held that the fault for man's failure to know God and to read the record correctly lies not at the doorstep of the revelation, whether in the works or in the Word, but in the depravity of human nature.


It would be difficult, for example, to imagine Luther agreeing with the views of John Hutchison, who writes,



"Concerning their subjective or persuasive force, it may be pointed out that the arguments, while they tend to sustain the faith of those already convinced of belief in God, are seldom convincing to those without that faith. It is characteristic of genuine proof that it communicates conviction to minds hitherto unconvinced.  What kind of proof are they which lack this quality?  It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they are covertly circular, assuming what they ought to conclude."


...  He [Luther]  would never have asked, as Hutchison does,  "What kind of proofs are these which lack this quality?"  He just did not think that way.  Instead Luther would has asked, "how fallen, how blind, and how wicked is man, that he can not and he will not see what God has so clearly and so graciously revealed!"  In the final analysis, Luther and Hutchison and neo-orthodox theologians agree that natural man is without sure and certain knowledge of God, but they would undoubtedly disagree vehemently on the premise on which that conclusion is built.  Neo-orthodoxy would say that man lacks faith in God because no revelation has taken place.  Luther would say that man lacks sure knowledge because he refuses the revelation.  In spite of everything that has been written since Kierkegaard became the fashion in theology, the "proofs,"  for Luther, have a great deal more validity than is commonly supposed.  This is not difficult to establish.


p.28.


In one of his sermons Luther observed:

If the natural law were not written in the heart and given by God, one would have to preach a long time before the conscience would be touched.... But because it is previously written in the heart, although it is dark and completely faded, it is reawakened by the Word, so that the heart must confess that what the commandment says is right:  that one should honor a God, love and serve him, because he alone is good and does good not only to the pious but also to the wicked.

It is evident that Luther would sooner have agreed with the Platonic doctrine of anamnesis than with the dictum of Aquinas, "There is nothing in the intellect which is not previously in the senses."  

end of quoting Becker

This whole thing is totally fascinating to me because it comes up again and again.  When talking with Atheists, the question of morality relates to this.  Can you live moral lives without God?  (The last atheist I talked to had a slogan:  Be good without God!)  The teaching and the usefulness of proofs of God's existence ties in and how often have we disagreed on that.  My doctrine professor for one person insisted that they can do nothing in advancing faith.  I had told him that I found the cosmological proof cogent and he said:  "That's because you believe already."  I didn't like the answer.

Then there is also this new book on Natural Law which we have started and should dovetail here.

I am also quite glad that there could be things in the intellect which have not been first in the senses.  Aquinas was so smart but he messed so many things up.  There we hit again the limits of reason.

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern
Publishing House (www.nph.net). All rights reserved. Reprinted with
permission.

Luther and Natural Law

I'm supposed to lay paving stones, but such slave labor is not my favorite thing and thus have detoured myself to a new book.  "Natural Law:  a Lutheran Reappraisal."



This book contains a collection  of essays on the subject by a number of current authors, some of whom or their families I know via Facebook.  The world has shrunk and scholarship is amazing.

The essay I just finished is titled:  "Luther's Pragmatic Appropriation of the Natural Law Tradition" by Thomas D. Pearson who is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Texas.  It delineates what Luther rejects and affirms in the Natural Law Tradition.  Apparently, he makes quite a mish-mash out of it over the course of his career, yet it becomes clear that he does believe in the existence of something called "natural law". (p. 49).  The essay finishes with this summary:  "Ultimately, Luther creates a new account of natural law morality:  instinctive, not rational;  provisional, not ontologically secured;  pragmatic, not divinely commanded;  chastened by sin, not robust with natural human possibilities.  When Luther invokes natural law, it is with a different insight than that supplied to him by the classical natural law tradition." (p. 63).

So much for that.