Recovering Natural Law: A Guide for Protestants

This concise yet thorough explanation of natural law lays out the argument that God's good moral order provides the basis for all human law and government, helping you understand the relevance and value of natural law as you consider political issues and questions of ethics and morality. Discover the moral foundation beneath every human law How do we engage in public debate with those who do not share our faith commitments? And how do we reason effectively about ethical and political issues that are not directly addressed by Scripture? Written at a level that all Christians can understand, Recovering Natural Law draws from the history of Christian political thought to provide a rich resource for thinking about ethics, law, and government. Natural law recognizes that because this world has been created by God, we should expect to find order and purpose within it. Creation's moral order helps us to distinguish right from wrong, and it provides a basis for all human law and government. Too often, Scripture and reason are pitted against each other, and the Bible's commands are seen as arbitrary. Natural law provides a guide to reasoning that expands our moral vocabulary without undermining confidence in Scripture. Anyone concerned with political and ethical issues of our day will discover this book to be an insightful and intelligent guide to understanding and explaining what we all know but so often choose to suppress. Discover the Moral Foundation Beneath Every Human LawHow do we engage in public debate with those who do not share our faith? How do we reason about ethical and political questions that Scripture does not directly address? And why do so many Christians feel ill-equipped to make the case for Christian ethics in public life without simply quoting the Bible at people who don't accept its authority? The answer, Benjamin Saunders argues, has been available since the church's earliest theologians--and Protestants have been too quick to abandon it. Natural law recognizes that because God created this world, we should expect to find moral order within it: an order that is accessible to reason, confirmed by Scripture, and capable of providing a basis for ethical and political reasoning that all people--regardless of their faith commitments--can engage with honestly. Because as Paul makes clear in Romans 1, they already know it. They just suppress it. Written at a level that all Christians can understand, Recovering Natural Law draws from the history of Christian political thought to provide a rich, accessible resource for thinking about ethics, law, and government. It shows how natural law expands our moral vocabulary without undermining confidence in Scripture--correcting the false opposition between Bible and reason that has left Protestants unable to make their best case in the public square. For pastors, seminary students, Christian lawyers and public servants, and anyone concerned with how to reason faithfully about politics and ethics--this is the theological foundation you have been missing. Anyone concerned with the political and ethical questions of our day will find in this book an insightful and intelligent guide to understanding--and explaining--what we all know but so often choose to suppress.