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    The Flaw of Natural Law
    The Flaw of Natural Law
    The Flaw of Natural Law
    Ebook65 pages45 minutes

    The Flaw of Natural Law

    By Phillip Kayser

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    About this ebook


    What is natural law, where does it come from, and is it biblical?


    Pastor Kayser explains how people have derived law from nature in history, and compares it to the Bible.


    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBiblical Blueprints
    Release dateJan 1, 2018
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      Book preview

      The Flaw of Natural Law - Phillip Kayser

      The Flaw of Natural Law

      Phil Kayser

      This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      1. A Brief Historical Survey of Natural Law Theories

      Physical and Descriptive Natural Law

      Rationalistic and Idealistic Natural Law

      2. A Critique of Natural Law

      The Pagan Tradition

      The Christian Tradition

      3. Proper Use of natural law

      Apologetics

      Restraining Grace

      About the Author

      Notes

      Introduction

      Recognizing the potential tyranny of legal positivism,¹ many conservative political thinkers, both Christian and non-Christian, are speaking of the need for a higher law to which the state itself is subject. These thinkers realize that if justice and ethics are defined merely in terms of fiat law there is no way of legitimately complaining, like the Psalmist did, about wicked rulers…who frame mischief by statute (Ps. 94:20). Such a statement is meaningless in terms of legal positivist theory. For if there are wicked statutes, it must mean that there is a law above the statutes by which their wickedness is identified and judged. There is a transcendent principle, a higher law, that relativizes all statutes and all sovereigns."²

      However, while there is growing dissatisfaction with the legal positivism of today, there is a great deal of disagreement among its detractors as to exactly what that higher law is. Bahnsen,³ Rushdoony⁴ and Schlossberg⁵ are three among many writers who have eloquently argued for a return to Biblical law as the objective source of liberty and justice. Other theologians who are equally concerned over lack of accountability in government, and who see the dangers of fiat law, propose Natural Law⁶ as preferable to Biblical law since it is thought to be a common point of contact for working together with unbelievers. Though explicitly religious Natural Law theory has long been identified almost exclusively with Roman Catholics,⁷ many others are beginning to see it as the only hope for uniting diverse groups together in a defense against tyranny. Not only secular conservative political thinkers, but also religious New Agers,⁸ Jews,⁹ Muslims,¹⁰ Hindus,¹¹ Buddhists¹² and the Chinese¹³ have written in support of Natural Law theory. Even many Protestant Evangelicals are now explicitly rejecting Biblical civil law (or in some cases rejecting only Biblical penology¹⁴) in favor of some theory of Natural Law as a standard for the state.¹⁵ Indeed, a great deal of excitement and optimism has developed over the re-emergence of Natural Law theory in the last forty years. John Cavanaugh, though Roman Catholic, expresses the belief of many evangelicals when he says,

      Man once again faces the concept of a State claiming unlimited power over the human personality and refusing recognition to rights and duties not created by itself. To meet the Absolute of the State, Man has desperate need of an Absolute of his own. Such an Absolute the thinkers of over twenty-two centuries found in the Natural Law.¹⁶

      Edward Barrett seeks to illustrate the need for Natural Law when he says,

      We prosecuted the Nazi leaders at Nuremberg. The defendants pleaded that no Positive Law at the time of the commission of the acts charged in the indictment had made these acts crimes indictable before the victor’s court. The civilized world demurred to the plea. The demurrer could not be sustained without resort once more after decades of derision, to Natural Law doctrines which alone can show why there are wrongs against humanity which need no Positive Law to make them crimes and why there are rights of human beings which do not cease to be such even though all the man-made law on earth is, as to them, so strangely silent.¹⁷

      This booklet seeks to examine the various theories of Natural Law and determine if any of them can provide an adequate basis for justice and freedom in the face of government tyranny. It will also seek to explain the Biblical idea of natural law and show how this relates to Scriptural positive law.

      1. A Brief Historical Survey of Natural Law Theories

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