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Podcast
Natural Moral Law
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Hi, this is Dave DeWitt. During years of teaching, we have encountered many questions which most
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groups don't tend to answer. Today I want to talk about what the Bible says about natural
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moral law. I suspect the most interesting book ever written and the most widely read
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book throughout all of history is the book of Genesis. Genesis tells us the history of
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the beginning of mankind, then narrows the focus to the beginning of the Hebrew people.
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But Genesis is also a book filled with moral decisions where people do things which are
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good and evil. But where did they get the idea of good and evil? Where did it come from
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since the law, such as the Ten Commandments, was not given until Moses several hundred
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years later? It was not right for Cain to murder his brother. It was not right for
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the Mesopotamian kings to kidnap Lot. It was not right for the men of Sodom to be homosexuals.
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It was not right for Jacob to lie to get his father's blessing. It was not right for Joseph's
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brothers to sell him into slavery. It was not right for Potiphar's wife to try to seduce
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Joseph and then lie about it to Potiphar. But how do we know that? Did they know that?
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None of these examples include a command from God. As a thesis, I'll demonstrate here that
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not only do we know about right and wrong, so does everybody. Every human being has a natural
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moral law built into them by God. We might call it a morality reality. Plants and animals don't
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have it because they don't have a morality. And I'm not suggesting there's a morality apart from
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God. I'm suggesting God created the natural universe with a morality all humans are aware
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of. God gave us a supernatural morality for special revelation and words, which we have
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recorded in the Bible. But he also built into every human being a morality apart from special
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revelation so everyone is without excuse. The sin nature perverts our sense of right and wrong.
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Natural moral law does not say we do the right things, but that we naturally know the right
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things to do. When we do not do what's right, when we operate apart from the way God made things,
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when we violate natural moral law, we suffer the consequences naturally. Thomas Aquinas argued,
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and I quote, because human beings have reason, and because reason is the spark of the divine,
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all humans' lives are sacred and of infinite value compared to any other created object,
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meaning all humans are fundamentally bestowed with an intrinsic basic set of rights that no
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human can remove. The light of reason is placed by nature and thus by God in every man to guide
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him in his acts, close quote. That's Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas taught that we tap into natural
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morality with reason. According to Aquinas, we can only know about God through his relationship.
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He must come to us, which is both in Scripture and in nature, but we can only understand
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revelation through reason brought to Scripture and nature. According to Aquinas, natural moral law
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generates general rules that any person can come to recognize. C.S. Lewis also taught the existence
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moral laws of nature. In Mere Christianity, he wrote this, and I quote,
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what was the sense of saying the enemy were in the wrong unless right is a real thing,
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which the Nazis at bottom knew as well as we did and ought to have practiced? If they had
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had no notion of what we meant by right, then though we might still have had to fight them,
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we could no more have blamed them for that than for the color of their hair,
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close quote from C.S. Lewis. Lewis makes the point that not only do we understand the Nazis
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are wrong, but we understand they should also have known they were wrong. They were wrong
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by some absolute standard of right and wrong. For example, we might have to kill varmints,
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moles, mice, rats, possums that are destroying our property, but we do not think that they're
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morally wrong. They're simply doing what they naturally do. But when people destroy our
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property, moral questions pop up because people have a natural morality. Now let's look at some
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biblical evidence for the natural moral law. Consider Noah. During the days of Noah before
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the flood, we read, and this is from Genesis chapter six, then the Lord saw the wickedness
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of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thought of his heart was only evil
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continually. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Both the wickedness of man and the favor
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or literally grace given to Noah were based on the character of God. But how would the men of
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the antediluvian pre-flood earth know they were acting wickedly? In what sense was it just for
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God to judge them for acting wickedly? Where would they get such a concept and why were they
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held responsible for breaking it? And where'd Noah get the concept of not acting wickedly?
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I'll deal with this further when I talk about our conscience, but here we should notice that it
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seems that both Noah and the other antediluvian people had a concept of good and evil, which they
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received from the natural world that God created and a conscience they received from Adam and Eve
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who got it from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. C.S. Lewis also addressed this issue
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which he called a law of nature. He wrote, and I quote again,
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if anyone will take the trouble to compare his moral teaching of say the ancient Egyptians,
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Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks, Romans, what will really strike him will be how very
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like they are to each other and to their own. Think of a country where people were admired
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for running away in battle or where a man felt proud of double crossing all the people who had
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been kindest to him. You might as well imagine a country where two and two makes five. Selfishness
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has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether they should have one wife or four,
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but they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.
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Close quote from C.S. Lewis. Consider Abimelech. In Genesis 20 we read about Abimelech who was
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willing to take Sarah into his harem until he learned she was Abraham's wife.
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Then he immediately released her because he understood adultery to be what he called a great
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sin. But where did Abimelech get the idea that there was such a thing as sin? The knowledge of
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evil requires the knowledge of good. When God warned Abimelech in a dream he did not need
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to tell him adultery was wrong. God just told him Sarah was married. Abimelech already knew
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adultery was wrong. But how did he know that? There seems to be a sense of morality that is
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understood naturally. Consider Joseph. As far as we know God never talked to Joseph,
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but when Joseph was enticed by Potiphar's wife he refused to lie with her. Although
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he did not know about the Ten Commandments, he said it was in Genesis 39.9,
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because you are his wife how could I do this great evil and sin against God?
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How'd Joseph know this was a great evil and sin against God? There was no commandment from God
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about adultery until he gave the law to Moses hundreds of years later. When his brothers were
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under Joseph's care in Egypt, Joseph said you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good
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in Genesis 50.20. But how'd Joseph know it was evil? At that time there was no command from God
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against kidnapping and slavery. There seems to be a sense of morality that Joseph understood
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naturally. Consider Job. In Job chapter 1 we read, now there was a day when the sons of God
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came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came among them. The Lord said to Satan,
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have you considered my servant Job? There's no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright
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man fearing God and turning away from evil. Job lived near the time of Abraham and hundreds of
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years before God gave Moses the law. Job is mentioned by Ezekiel along with Noah and Daniel
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as a righteous man in Ezekiel 14. But where did Job get the idea of being a blameless and upright
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man? How did he know what it meant to be a man fearing God and turning away from evil?
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And how did he know what was evil? There seems to be a sense of morality that Job understood
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naturally. The whole middle of the book of Job tells us about discussions between Job and his
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friends, which assumes a knowledge of morality. But they never referred to any verbal commands
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from God. Consider Jesus' command on the distinction between men and women. In Matthew 19
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4 we read, and he answered and said, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning
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made them male and female? Jesus did not appeal to the Mosaic law or any commandments when he
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discussed the distinction between males and females. He said they were created that way
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from the beginning. It seems that the distinction between males and females is to be understood
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naturally from creation. In the next two verses, Jesus comments on marriage. After stating men and
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women were created that way, he used that as a basis for marriage. He said in Matthew 19 5 and 6,
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for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and join to his wife and the two shall
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become one flesh. So they're no longer two but one flesh. It seems we know about the morality
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of marriage from natural law. Jesus did not appeal to the Mosaic law for his concept of marriage.
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He taught the concept of marriage as something which has been built into nature at creation.
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Consider Jesus' statement often called the golden rule, treat people the same way you want them to
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treat you. Most societies all over the world for all of history have used this basic principle
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to make civil laws and to find crime. All societies have civil laws and most of their civil laws
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are very similar to those of all other societies. They seem to be following Jesus'
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golden rule, but how'd they know to do that? They did not hear it from Jesus or an apostle.
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They had no biblical commandment given to them. It seems they knew about it from natural morality.
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How do we learn about natural moral law? There are two ways we recognize natural moral law
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through our reason and our conscience. Here's the definitions according to the New Oxford
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American Dictionary. Reason is the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by
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a process of logic, and they define conscience as an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a
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guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior. The definitions from the New Oxford
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American Dictionary. First, we know about natural moral law through reason. In Romans 1, Paul wrote
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this, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men
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who suppress the truth and unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within
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them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world is invisible attributes,
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his eternal power and his divine nature have been clearly seen and being understood through
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what's been made, so that they're without excuse. For the numeric standard Bible translation
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understood, Paul uses a word which means to perceive or think or consider, see or understand.
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All those words assume the use of reason. This agrees with the conclusions of Thomas Aquinas
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that human beings have reason, and reason is the spark of the divine. The second way we know about
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natural moral law is through our conscience. In Romans 2, Paul wrote, for when Gentiles
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who do not have the law do instinctively the things of the law, these not having the law
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are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the law written on their hearts,
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their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternatively accusing or defending them.
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For the numeric standard Bible translation of conscience, Paul uses the word synodesis,
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the NAS Greek dictionary translates it as a co-perception or moral consciousness,
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or more often just conscience. This is what we got from our parents Adam and Eve when they ate
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from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In the garden before they sinned, Adam and Eve
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only knew obedience and disobedience, but when they ate from the forbidden tree of the knowledge
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of good and evil, they had the idea of shame evidenced by recognizing they were naked.
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In Genesis 3.22, we read, then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us,
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knowing good and evil. So we all come out of the birth canal with these two unavoidable,
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undeniable, irrefutable abilities. We all have the built-in capacity for reason,
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and we all have a moral conscience. So unlike the rest of the natural world,
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we cannot avoid reasoning about morality. Natural moral law is self-policing.
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In Romans 1.24-27, we read, therefore God gave them over in their lusts of their hearts to impurity
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so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For this reason, God gave them over to
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degrading passions, for their women exchanged the natural function for what's unnatural.
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In the same way, also the men abandoned the natural function of the women and burned in
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their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts
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and receiving in their own person the due penalty of their error.
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In Romans 1, Paul deals with the self-policing, self-judging, self-punishing nature
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of deviating from the sexual order God created into the natural world.
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Paul said homosexuals will have a punishment that comes with the sin. This is not an injected
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punishment from God. This is a consequence of perverting the way God created things to be.
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Suppose I use my eyeglasses to stir my coffee. Will that work? Yes, for a while.
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But after a while, I'll not be able to see out of my eyeglasses. Why? Because glasses were not
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made to stir coffee. God made things a certain way, and when we do not use things the way God
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made them, they'll break, they'll fall apart, they'll cause problems, they'll be destructive,
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because things are made to work a certain way, morally.
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A society can establish evil cultural norms that violate natural moral law,
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such as a terrorist slaughtering people, depriving women of basic freedoms,
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or training children to murder people who do not believe the way they do.
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There are underdeveloped tribes practicing headhunting, cannibalism, infant sacrifice.
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There are progressively developed societies that are discouraging male leadership,
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aborting babies, rewarding divorce, promoting sexual deviant behavior.
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Societies can violate natural moral law, but they cannot avoid the consequences of
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violating natural moral law. Violating natural moral law will cause unnecessary suffering
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for the people of that society. For example, the CDC reported, and I quote,
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research also shows that compared to other men, gay and bisexual men have a higher chance of
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having major depression, close quote. I know several healthcare personnel who
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say the homosexuals they treat are on antidepressants.
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The Natural Center for Biotechnology Information reported, and I quote,
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because depression is a known risk factor for suicide, gay men are also at high risk for
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suicidality, close quote. The basic answer for this is that homosexuals are not accepted by society.
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But that's no longer true. Actually, homosexuals are not only welcomed but promoted by society.
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Many public organizations, including many churches, welcome homosexuals
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and criticize any who do not. Another example is abortion. Medical Science Monitor records
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the results of a clinical study to determine if abortion causes depression.
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Here's what they report, quote, women who had an abortion between the first and second follow-up
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interviews were almost twice as likely to have symptoms of major depression as women who did not
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become pregnant. This difference would not be explained by factors such as race, ethnicity,
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age, education, household income, number of children, or prior depressive symptomatology.
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In fact, after adjusting for these factors, abortion was still associated
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with a more than two-thirds increase in likelihood of having depressive symptoms, close quote.
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Another example is divorce. In Matthew 2.16, Malachi wrote, I hate divorce, says the Lord
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God of Israel. So will you. The site YourDivorceQuestions.org gives this conclusion,
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and I quote, research indicates most adults divorced have lower levels of happiness and
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more psychological distress compared to married individuals, close quote.
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Another example is self-judging natural moral law are obvious but harder to qualify with a survey.
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Things like taking God and the influence of the Bible out of schools and replacing them
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with evolution. And we wonder why we have school shootings and LGBTQ is being taught to our younger
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children. We have replaced male leadership with feminism and wonder why our families
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are full of divorce, depression, and chaos. On March 21, 2023, the United States Census Bureau
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reported that, quote, almost a quarter of the U.S. children under the age of 18 live with one parent
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and no other adults. So I want to make this conclusion about natural and supernatural moral
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law. First of all, natural moral law exists. All of us humans have the idea of good and evil.
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Number two, natural moral law does not change. It's the same for everyone everywhere at all time.
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Number three, natural moral law is accessed through our reason and our conscience.
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Number four, natural moral law can be violated. Our conscience and our reasoning are
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perverted by sin, but not without consequences. Five, supernatural moral law also exists.
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There are commands given by revelation of God recorded for us in the Bible. Six,
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supernatural moral law may just put specific words into natural moral law,
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or seven, supernatural moral law may interrupt and assert natural moral law,
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but they do not change or eliminate the natural moral law. Thank you for listening. A longer
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paper on this subject with the footnotes that I've referred to is available on our website,
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relationalconcepts.org.
