Civilizations in every age ask what makes a society just, good, and ordered. For centuries, broadly speaking, Christianity offered a clear moral framework for answering that question. But in our present eschatologically fractured age—marked by a lamentable pluralism and accelerating moral divergence—we face a sobering reality: there will never be total moral agreement this side of the eschaton. The Tower of Babel has become a metaphor for moral fragmentation.
This is not a surrender to relativism. It is an acknowledgement of the constraints of a postlapsarian view of history, the effects of what theologians refer to as the “antithesis,” and the realities of fallen human nature.
Yet, in the absence of a moral consensus, societies must still find a way to reason together and coordinate their existence toward a moral agreement where possible. In such a world, the natural law offers that platform for moral agreement. And yet, paradoxically, the natural law will never suffice as the complete moral balm we need it to be. Still, the natural law is all we have. It is an ethic fitted to the eschatological age.
The natural law, the rational participation of God’s creatures in the eternal law, remains a universal grammar—a moral architecture etched into the human conscience by the Creator. It is not wholly dependent on special revelation but is, in principle, accessible to all, precisely because it is woven into what it means to be human. But its clarity is not always perceived because of sin; its application is not always agreed upon; its tenets are stubbornly rejected. Still, it is the most reasonable and stable foundation on which diverse peoples can seek a common life in a world that has largely forsaken divine authority. Where biblical revelation is rejected, the natural law will be the inevitable default from which society will find ways to reason together, albeit imperfectly.
The Christian, unlike the secular utopian, does not believe in the perfectibility of man through politics. We live in what Augustine called the saeculum—a temporal, interim order between the Fall and the final redemption. This age is marked by sin, striving, contestability, and ambiguity. In such an age, the project of building a society must begin not with fantasies of unanimity but with realistic anthropology. Man is not a blank slate, nor a perfectible being, but a creature both made in God’s image and tragically marred by sin.
Because of this duality, any attempt to construct a moral and political order must grapple with two competing truths: the imago Dei makes moral reasoning possible, but original sin ensures that moral reasoning will often be contested, suppressed, corrupted, or ignored. This is the paradox of our moment. The natural law is written on every heart (Romans 2:15), but hearts are wounded and reason clouded. We have access to moral truth, but not consensus. Hence, the natural law is not enough. But it is still the best we have. As a Protestant, ultimately, we rely on God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture as the definitive disclosure of His moral will.
The Minimal Grammar of Civilization
This is where the natural law enters—not as a utopian fix, but as a minimal moral grammar. It does not eliminate disagreement. It sets a boundary within which debate can occur and freedom can flourish. The natural law, understood in the Reformed and Thomistic traditions, is not simply a list of rules. It is a vision of moral order grounded in God’s eternal law, human nature, teleology, and the flourishing of persons and communities.
But consider the most basic principles of natural law: do good and avoid evil; preserve life; honor parents; seek truth; uphold justice; protect the innocent. These are not sectarian claims. They are the axioms of civilization. You do not need to be a Christian to recognize that murder is wrong or that children deserve the care of their parents. These are truths discoverable by reason, even if they are often denied in practice. People may not know whence those moral intuitions even originate, yet they will believe that their self-evident basis is nonetheless a brute fact of human existence.
The tragedy of modern politics is that we have lost confidence in our capacity to know such truths. We have confused the difficulty of moral agreement with the impossibility of moral knowledge. But the existence of disagreement does not mean the absence of truth—it means that truth must be pursued, argued for, and defended.
Still, we must be honest: the natural law is never fully obeyed. The history of civilization is the history of natural law, both revealed and resisted. As Paul says, though the Gentiles “by nature do what the law requires,” they also suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). Sin clouds reason. Passion extinguishes deliberation. Pride distorts justice.
The biblical doctrine of the antithesis, stretching from Genesis 3 to Romans 1, teaches that sin has so profoundly disordered human nature that people suppress the truth, including the truths evident in the natural law. This means that moral disagreement is not merely an intellectual matter—it is spiritual. The problem is not simply one of ignorance but of willful rebellion. Thus, Christians must adopt a realism about the limits of moral persuasion through reason alone. Many contemporary skeptics are right to note that natural law arguments often fail to persuade, especially on deeply contested issues like sexuality, abortion, and gender identity. These debates vividly illustrate how even the most rational and coherent natural law appeals are ultimately impotent apart from spiritual renewal. At the same time, the biblical storyline also demonstrates that even possessing Special Revelation is no assurance of obedience when man’s heart is set on disobedience.
Therefore, we must not idolize natural law as if it were a sufficient savior, as critics of natural law theory are right to insist. It is not. It points to the good but cannot bestow the power to do it. It informs conscience, but it cannot regenerate the will. For that, we need grace. We need Christ. We need God’s Revelation of Himself in His Word.
But again, I ask: what is left for society to reason together if not natural law? The error of natural law’s critics bears a resemblance to the error of secular utopians—a belief in the elimination of moral divergence through a comprehensive regeneration that undergirds society. We are given no such promises in Scripture’s depiction of the storyline of history.
Reformed Realism and the Limits of Shared Reason
The Reformed tradition has long exhibited a creative tension with the concept of natural law. On one hand, John Calvin affirmed the twofold knowledge of God—both general revelation through nature and Special Revelation through Scripture—while remaining deeply realistic about the noetic effects of sin and human fallenness. Building on this realism, thinkers like Cornelius Van Til and Abraham Kuyper critiqued the idea of moral neutrality and questioned whether fallen humans could genuinely share a common rational ground for ethics. Yet, despite this skepticism, Calvin—and the rest of the Reformed tradition up to the Reformed scholastics—did not abandon natural law. In his Institutes and biblical commentaries, he affirmed the role of civic morality and the enduring testimony of conscience, demonstrating that natural law, though impaired, still functions in God’s providential ordering of society. Natural law is a civil morality God implanted in the consciences and hearts of man, enabling a modicum of stability.
Despite its limitations, we must still appeal to natural law because it remains a form of common grace. Though dimmed by sin, the natural law is rooted in the imago Dei and continues to surface in human conscience and cultural norms. Even in a fallen world, people often respond to moral claims grounded in the created order. This is evident in ten thousand subtle ways—in the care of a mother for her child, in the obligation of children to aging parents, in the crying pangs for justice. The apostle Paul demonstrates this in Scripture, appealing to natural law in his letter to the Romans and in his address at Mars Hill. Moreover, any functioning society requires some shared moral grammar to sustain social cohesion. Without a lowest-common-denominator ethic like natural law, society is left with only power struggles or tribalism to adjudicate moral disagreements.
Avoiding the Twin Errors: Rationalism and Sectarianism
In deploying the natural law, Christians must thus avoid the twin errors of overplaying or underplaying the role of natural law. On one hand, the rationalist error treats natural law as an all-sufficient foundation for social order, naively assuming it can bear the full weight of moral persuasion in a fallen world. It cannot. On the other hand, the fideist error retreats into revelation alone, ghettoizing Christians in an intellectual cul-de-sac and refusing to engage the world on common terms, or refusing to demonstrate why Christian ethics retain rational coherence. This leads to a sectarian withdrawal from public life—or shouting Bible verses to an audience that rejects inspiration and transcendence. The proper path is a middle way: Christians should use natural law as a means of witness, persuasion, and restraint in the public square—never muting our faith in the transcendent claims of Scripture or the Lordship of Christ—while remaining fully aware of its limitations in a world marked by sin and spiritual blindness.
A Role for Natural Law—But Not a Redeemer
Natural law serves an important but limited role: it restrains sin and provides some moral guidance, yet only Special Revelation—found in Scripture and fulfilled in the Gospel—can redeem and transform the human heart. While natural law may shape societies to a degree, it cannot regenerate them. Christians must therefore never substitute natural law for the full moral clarity of biblical revelation, especially in the life and teaching of the Church. In an age of confusion and moral drift, the Church is called to be a counterculture, modeling a coherent, revealed moral order that stands as a light in the darkness and a witness to the world.
Christians cannot retreat into sectarian enclaves or demand theocratic control. We must enter the public square with clarity, humility, and conviction. We must appeal to conscience, reason, and nature. And when those fail, we must not despair. We are not promised final victory in this age, but only a faithful witness.
But grace does not negate nature. Revelation does not erase reason. The moral order of creation is not abolished by redemption—it is restored, fulfilled, and illuminated. Therefore, the Church has a dual calling: to proclaim the gospel of salvation and bear witness to the moral order that accords with creation.
Grace Restores Nature, But Nature Still Matters
In 2024 after the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on IVF, Vox media interviewed me for their morning podcast. The subtext of the interview was religious objections to IVF under the belief that Christian theology treats embryos as bearing the divine image. I did not disguise my convictions that I believe God is the author of life and all human beings are made in His image.
But in addition to my beliefs from Genesis, I also made biological and philosophical arguments in opposition to IVF. I told the hosts that we were former embryos now having a conversation. The only distinction between two individuals having a discussion on a podcast and embryos in a cryopreserved chamber is that our development was not suspended. However, we are humans, possessed of an identical nature.
Do I believe God is the ultimate source for human life’s value? Yes. Do I believe that a concept like “dignity” is best explained by reference to God? I do. But did I believe that my citing Genesis 1 would be the primary way that my argument could possibly be persuasive to them? I did not. Vox is notoriously secular and progressive. Had I proceeded to make a religious argument only, the hosts would have more easily dismissed me. Because I made rational arguments in opposition to IVF, I could tell that the hosts took my arguments more seriously. Though the hosts and I did not agree on theology, they could not deny the philosophical prowess of my argument.
It is a mistake to pit Special Revelation against natural law. Natural law is, I believe, inexplicable apart from ultimate reference to God. But Special Revelation and natural law are complementary, though distinct modes of argument useful for different purposes.
In the end, to say that the natural law is not enough is to recognize that political life is marked by limits, tension, flaws, and tragic choices. But to say the natural law is all we have is to affirm that even in a world marred by sin, God has not left Himself without a witness.
We will never have perfect agreement. We will never fully escape moral conflict. But we can still speak, argue, persuade, and legislate in ways that honor the created order and resist the chaos of relativism. We can still build families, institutions, and communities that reflect moral truth. We can still call our neighbors to a better way—not by force, but by a faithful witness tempered by faithful reason.
The natural law cannot save us. But it can guide us. It can preserve the fragile bonds of civil life if we commit to reasoning together. It is not the fullness of the kingdom. But it is a trace of Eden, a flicker of Sinai, a signpost pointing to Calvary and beyond.
We must rely on natural law, even as we confess that it cannot bear the full weight of moral resolution. Why? The natural law is not enough, yet the natural law is all we have as denizens of a fractured age.
This article originally appeared at Public Discourse on July 29, 2025.
