Natural Law in Protestant Christianity

Bibliographic Data

ID23201366
AuthorsJennifer A Herdt (0000-0003-2138-9134, University of Cape Town, corresponding author), Jennifer Herdt
Year2019
Pages155-178
Publication date2019-11-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeCHAPTER
VenueCambridge Companion to Natural Law Ethics (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/9781108525077.009
OpenAlexW2981868035
ISBN9781108525077
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited223

In the mid to late twentieth century, it was the norm for Protestant thinkers to reject natural law ethics. Karl Barth repudiated natural law as insufficiently Christocentric. Reinhold Niebuhr criticised natural law thinking for absolutising the relative. Stanley Hauerwas argued that 'natural law functions ideologically to justify the assumption that Christians have a responsibility to fulfil the demands of the state and institutions associated with it', thereby compromising loyalty to Christ. Natural law was regarded as an essentially Catholic approach to Christian moral thinking. It seemed to constrain divine freedom, deny the radical character of the Fall, render scripture secondary and interfere with the intimacy of the divine–human relation. The Reformers, as the story had it, embraced divine command morality, not natural law. Even if there were a natural law embodying God's will for creation, the Fall rendered access to that law impossible.

Black letter law · Christianity · Comparative law · Divine law · Ideology · Morality · Natural (archaeology) · Natural law · Natural order · Philosophy of law · Political science · Politics · Positive law · Private law · Protestantism · Theology · History · Law · Medieval Philosophy and Theology · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religious studies

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