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History: European -- Natural Law Theory

Gary North

Natural law theory was born in a time of breakdown: the breakdown of faith in the Greek city-state. Alexander and then Rome had conquered them all. Stoic philosophers sought a substitute theory of the local religious rites-based theory of the city-state. The substitute was a theory of universal mankind, an idea foreign to classical Greek politics. This universal humanity possesses a common reason, they argued. Common reason allows men to come to agreement about ethics and law. Natural law theory was an attempt by philosophers to provide legitimacy for a world empire. Natural law theory died as a widely believed social philosophy when Darwin's theory of evolution through unguided natural selection destroyed intellectuals' faith in an ethically normative nature. Today, only a few conservative social thinkers, a few Protestant conservatives, and followers of Murray Rothbard still proclaim faith in natural law theory as a ground for ethics and society.

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? Natural law theory has always suffered from the dualism of all Greek thought: law vs. change. The unchanging pure logic of Parmenides cannot be reconciled to the constant historical flux of Heraclitus. Greek philosophy never resolved this dualism. No humanist philosophy ever has, either. The problem today is that the tiny handful of natural law theory defenders are trying to breathe life into a long-dead horse. They are wasting precious time. Natural law theory has never worked as the basis of any social order, but after Charles Darwin, the academic community abandoned natural law theory. arwin taught that nature is impersonal and not normative. There is no universal ethics. There is only a constant struggle for personal survival. I have written about this in Appendix A of my book, The Dominion Covenant: Genesis. Natural law theorists have yet to come up with a solution to this inconvenient fact: reason, meaning the never-proven, always sought-for "right reason" of natural law theory, has not led masses of people to adopt the same system of philosophy, ethics, or religion. Yet the theory rests on the assumption -- never proven -- that rational people can agree on these issues sufficiently to enable society to function both ethically and predictably, meaning rationally. If the vast majority of men refuse to accept a concept of a fixed, universal common logic, let alone fixed, universal social and ethical laws, we cannot build a society based on natural law. This has always been true, but after Darwin's theory of natural selection, it has become more obvious to all but a handful of natural law defenders. They defend the idea of a universal theory of ethics and social order, the details of which have yet to be presented in a form that more than a few social theorists are willing to accept. Natural law theory requires logical universality to be true, yet the supposedly universal practical details of the system have never gained anything like a simple majority. Christian social theorists (there are not many) are among the few remaining defenders of natural law theory. This is ironic, because natural law theory cannot be defended biblically. Paul wrote, "The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God" (I Corinthians 2:14a). He wrote that natural men turn to false Gods and suppress the truth that is in them (Romans 1:18-22). This undermines any theory of

natural law for a consistently Christian society. Natural law theory rests on these presuppositions, all of which are denied by the Bible: (1) the autonomy of man's mind; (2) the sufficiency of reason; (3) the autonomy of the universe; (4) the common ethics of all revealed religion. In short, the natural man does not need to receive the things of the spirit in matters of social theory and policy. In these areas, men do not need the things of the spirit, which are divisive. Natural men are therefore autonomous, and natural law theory rests on this presupposition.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS We need a detailed history of natural law theory that reveals the perpetual conflict between fixed law ("Parmenides") and changing circumstances ("Heraclitus"). The book should demonstrate that natural law theory has always been afflicted by this unresolved dualism: law vs. flux, logic vs. history. The Greeks did not solve this problem. The Greek city states exhausted themselves in continual warfare. Alexander the Great conquered them. Then Rome conquered the remains of his empire. Natural law theory was an attempt to provide meaning and hope in a world without the autonomous local Greek polis. Show from the sources that Christianity imported natural law theory and tried to make it correspond to the Bible's revelational ethics. Show how the attempt failed because of (1) the conflict between biblical ethics and natural law categories, and (2) the inherent dualism of fixed rational law and historical flux. The culmination of this failed attempt was Thomas Aquinas' philosophy. Show why the system he developed inevitably broke down: the Greek law vs. flux dualism and the Bible vs. Greek philosophy dualism. Show why modern social theory since Edmund Burke has suffered from dualism: universal natural rights (French Revolution) vs. the constitutional rights of Englishmen or whoever (conservatism). Show how Darwinism destroyed the acceptability of natural law theory among evolutionists.

WHERE TO BEGIN Begin with the works of Cornelius Van Til. Start with In Defense of the Faith: A Survey of Christian Epistemology (In Defense of Biblical Christianity, Vol. 2). Then go to A Christian Theory of Knowledge. Or buy his CD-ROM, which is searchable: The Works of Cornelius Van Til. For a survey of the dualisms in Greek, medieval, and modern (post-Kant) philosophy, consult Herman Dooyeweerd, In the Twilight of Western Thought (1960). For detailed discussions of specific philosophers and issues, consult his 4-volume study, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought (1953--58). On the local religious rites-based origins of the Greek city-state, see Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City (1864). On the breakdown of Roman philosophy, a standard treatment is Christianity and Classical Culture (1940), by Charles Norris Cochrane. It has been reprinted by Liberty Fund. For late-medieval philosophy, a good introduction to its inherent dualism is the little-known book, Bradwardine and the Pelagians (1957), by Gordon Leff.

Then go to Otto von Gierke's standard book, Natural Law and the Theory of Society, 1500 to 1800 (1957). On the substitution of the theory of evolution for natural law theory in economic theory, see my book (online, free), The Dominion Covenant: Genesis (1987), Appendix B.