What Plato’s Cousin Knew

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Theological disputes are often matters of great moment, even when those outside the dispute cannot track with what is going on. I think it was Gibbon who once displayed his ignorance by saying that the debate over homousia and homoiousia was somehow over the letter i — which is pretty similar to saying the debate between atheists and theists is over the letter a.

But at the same time, theologians are capable of talking past each other simply because they are used to different terminology, or perhaps because they are worried about the trajectory of those who use that other terminology. Take, for example, the distinction between natural revelation and natural law.

Now before opening this particular worm can, I want to acknowledge that two positions represented by these phrases can be quite different indeed. But this is a historical fact, not a logical one. I believe the two essential positions can be collapsed into one another with 5 minutes of questions.

Say you are comfortable with the phrase natural revelation. You believe that the triune God of Scripture revealed Himself through the things that have been made, and that this fact leaves all men everywhere without excuse. It sounds to me like this is an ethical obligation, and another fine word for natural ethical obligation would be natural law. Honoring God as God is not optional, and it is therefore law.

Say you are comfortable with the phrase natural law. Laws do not arrive by themselves, coming from nowhere in particular, but rather laws come from a lawgiver. And the giving of law is a form of communication, is it not? One might even say that communication reveals things — natural law is therefore a form of natural revelation.

No, no, no, someone will cry. Cornelius Van Til disagrees with John Locke and Thomas Aquinas. And I cheerfully grant it. This doesn’t mean that the hearts of the two positions are inconsistent. The God who reveals Himself through the things that have been made, and the God who embeds His law in the natural order of things, and even deeper in every human conscience, is the same God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Father of The Lord Jesus Christ.

I mean, the source of natural law is what? The true God or another one? Right, it couldn’t be another one, because he isn’t there — non-existence presents certain barriers. This means that the source of natural law would have to be the true God, there being no other options. This means the world and the Word are not two books from two gods, but rather two books from the one and the same God.

Now this does not mean that we somehow have to induct Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle into our honorary Christian hall of fame. We know too much about what they taught to put them on the “same page” with us, as some overly charitable Christians have sought to do. But it does mean we have to accept Plato’s cousin, the one who studied with rabbis at Westminster East for a bit. There were plenty of pagans who knew about the Most High God — Jethro, Nebuchadnezzar, Melchizedek, the king of Nineveh, and others, not excluding Plato’s cousin. I called them pagans, but it would be better to call them Gentiles — those for whom God reserved a special place in His Temple. “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of thieves.”

When special revelation tells us that a hymn to Zeus — declaring that we are all His offspring — is a hymn that is tracking with something good, then special revelation is telling us that natural law, and natural revelation, and special revelation provide us with a three-fold testimony to the triune God. No autonomy anywhere, no neutrality anywhere, and the ghost of Van Til, who haunts my dreams, is perfectly happy with me. So is the ghost of C.S.Lewis, who visits me in my waking hours. Not only that, but those two get along with each other now, and this gives me the chance to say something I have been aching to say for years, which is, “I think we’re all saying the same thing, really.” Of course, you can only say this every once in a while, like every decade or so.

This is just like the two kingdoms issue. I don’t care how many kingdoms you think there are, I care how many kings you think there are. I don’t care how many forms of “natural” communication you believe have happened, but rather how many gods you think fit under the heading of “Nature’s God.” There is only one — the true God.

The problem arises when advocates of either position adopt, for whatever reason, a silo mentality — a silo that they will not allow to connect at the top with what every form of creational law or revelation must connect to, the Lord Jesus. Ardent Vantilians can give the raspberry to natural law theorists because of party spirit. And natural law theorists can reject the rigor of Vantilian thought because they imagine a generic Enlightenment God spending eternity humming “Don’t Fence Me In.”

But it all connects. All of created reality is Christian at the top, and for the consistent Christian, Christian at the bottom. All of created reality is Christian at the top, and for the Gentile, partial at bottom. All this is just another way of saying that natural law is just fine if Jesus is the Lord of it.

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Brett
Brett
10 years ago

“Ardent Vantilian” sounds like a great comic villain.

Eric Stampher
Eric Stampher
10 years ago

Still trying to shape my lips around “pagan Melchizedek”. Abel too?

Mike Bull
10 years ago

Perhaps this is a symptom of the scale of the task of figuring out the Bible. Some brave explorer lands on the eastern shore, and another on the western shore. They give the same continent different names and bring a different culture. I haven’t read a great deal of theology, a fact which sometimes lets me down, but other times allows me to see beyond the quibbling and name dropping to the heart of the matter. What if we turned back to Genesis and followed the order given to us? In Genesis 1, Adam is a physical creature, part of… Read more »

Seth B.
Seth B.
10 years ago

My only complaint is still with you saying that you’ve become comfortable with the terminology of natural law theory. What difference does terminology make? That’s like saying you’ve become more comfortable with people using French. Van Til was criticized for using idealist philosophical language instead of (if I recall correctly) analytic philosophical language. His defense was the same: what difference does it make what vocabulary I use as long as it’s Christian in content? You can’t say just, “Well Christ is the king of natural law.” If Christ is king of natural law, then certain things cannot be true. If… Read more »

Doug Sowers
10 years ago

Simply brilliant Pastor Wilson!

Keep pressing on!

Andrew Lohr
10 years ago

More at Mike Bull than at pastor Wilson): Infant baptism is believers’ baptism, for infants are saved by faith, so to deny infant baptism and infant communion is to throw out sola fide (justification by faith alone). So make sure you preach the gospel to your infants, so they can hear and believe, and later on express their faith.

echarles1
echarles1
10 years ago

Beautifully said. I would only add that like the elephants of the old joke, it’s Christian all the way down.

Matt Robison
10 years ago

Andrew,

Infants might be saved by faith alone, but as I’ve heard someone else say, saving faith is never truly alone. Several things bear fruit out of it. So some works must be manifest from true faith. Is that true with infants?

This is coming from someone who truly goes back and forth on the issue.

Andrew Lohr
10 years ago

Matt, Yeah, saving faith is active faith: Jesus, and Paul and James, did things. An infant can’t do much (John the Baptist jumped for joy in his mom’s womb). My sub-3-years Sophie has said “Jesus loves me best,” and she sometimes offers someone something she thinks they want. I pray she (and I) mature in showing faith, but maybe she’s started. Above I wanted to offer Mr Bull a quick reason, on his own terms, to change his view of infant baptism. (The rest of what he says is rather interesting.) I think the Bible’s doctrine of infant capacity is… Read more »