14 August 2022
I've been nudged a few times by some folks who are fans of Natural Law.
If you are aware of what Natural Law is supposed to be, then I need not summarize it for you. If you aren't aware, you can look it up, but it's simply the western approach to morality. It presumes that a body of objective truth exists separate from God. Thus, you have folks like CS Lewis claiming that Natural Law exists whether you understand it or not, and regardless of your support of it.
CS Lewis was arguing against Jesus Christ.
This is something I keep having to say over and over: Jesus was a Hebrew man. Everything He said, as recorded in the Gospels, is distinctly Hebrew in nature. It was founded on a wholly different philosophical outlook versus the Natural Law approach by western churchmen, theologians and philosophers. How is it that millions of so-called "followers of Christ" don't follow Him at all?
The God of the Bible is not onboard with most of western Christian religion. He consistently portrayed Himself in the Bible as an eastern potentate, what we would call a sheikh. It's utterly foolish to imagine He did that as a mere sop to some barbaric people He was obliged to deal with. That was the culture He built from scratch in which to reveal Himself to the whole world. If you are going to understand God, you must meet Him where He stands, and He created the Hebrew culture as His home ground. He did not somehow transform into a western deity just because the folks who received His Word decided they preferred a western outlook.
The Hebrew culture is also not at all like the Jewish portrayal. Judaism is a radical departure from the ancient Hebrew intellectual traditions. That was often the whole point of things Jesus said in the Bible. Why does everyone try to cover for the Pharisees? It's quite easy to discover from the events in the Gospel that they were barking up the wrong tree. Why is it so hard to discern that it was because they had left behind their Hebrew outlook in exchange for Hellenistic rationalism?
The Hebrew outlook is not that hard to learn. It presumes that all existence -- reality itself -- is the outflow of God's will. It's kept alive by His direct attention, and the moment He releases His hold, it all dissolves into nothingness (Colossians 1:15-17). He owes us nothing. We are just a thought experiment into which He breathed life. He can take it all back with a mere change of thought. The entire universe is just a hobby project He keeps in His pocket. The whole of reality is insignificant and kept on life-support at His whim.
Reality does not exist on its own. It is not independent of God's Person. It does not have an identity that is discernible with human capabilities. Rather, what we think of as "reality" is a deception. It's not that God is fooling us; we fooled ourselves in the Garden. Our mortal frame is in itself punitive in nature. We are denied the clarity of the understanding we were created to have, hidden by the Fall. We are supposed to be eternal, with eternal bodies and minds. Instead, we have fallen mortal bodies and fallen minds.
We cannot recognize ultimate reality, cannot even think about it. We can only begin to wonder about it through moving our egos into our hearts. Our hearts are separate from our intellects, and among the parts of us that we can become consciously aware of, is the only part of us that touches Eternity. The intellect is untrustworthy. Without saying it outright most of the time, the whole of western Christian thinking assumes that the intellect is not fallen. This is easily the biggest lie Satan has told the churches.
There can be no Natural Law. There is only the morality that extends itself as a living thing from God's own divine moral character. It is trustworthy because of its source, not because of its nature. That's the biggest mistake right there. It is because God is. We call it "truth" because it expresses our Creator's intent for us. He defines truth in His Person. It is "Law" because He said it to us. It is confined to those things He wants us to know and that we can know, and is scarcely a mere taste of things He could say if we weren't in a fallen state.
It's not that I suggest God is variable in any sense; we can't possibly comprehend or even usefully speculate about Him. Rather, it's that what He can tell us will vary because we are so totally incapable of receiving the truth in our minds. We are so utterly welded to the context that there is no part of our fleshly nature, which includes our intellects, that can pretend to know anything eternal. So, you cannot commit to learning Natural Law and assume you know God's will. You cannot expect to progress from one intellectual depth to another when it comes to God's will. No, we are obliged to remain dependent on Him moment by moment, and we must remain aware that what He demands of us can vary from context to context. You cannot simply nail it down intellectually. The truth of God is not static on that level.
Don't waste your electrons and time talking to me about Natural Law. It's a false concept arising from a false epistemology. Reality is not real. The universe is far more variable than western minds can imagine. The only way you can come up with Natural Law is to reject outright the teachings of Jesus Christ. This is very easy to show, because the folks who are so educated as to discuss Natural Law are also educated enough to discover that the ancient Hebrew epistemology is totally different from what western Christian traditions promote.
Your 2000 years of Church History is a mess of pottage that began to rot a long time ago. As soon as the Apostle John passed from the scene, the church leadership rushed off in the same direction as the Pharisees and never looked back. Until we see a significant restoration of Ancient Near Eastern intellectual traditions (AKA, Hebrew thinking), the tons of scholarship stand as vain and empty.
This document is public domain; spread the message.