Beschreibung:
This volume explores the problems and prospects attending evangelical engagement with natural law as a key feature for political thought. Engaging theology, philosophy, political theory and biblical studies, many contributors are optimistic about the prospects of evangelical re-appropriation of natural law, but note ways in which evangelical commitments might lend distinctive shape to this engagement.
Natural law has long been a cornerstone of Christian political thought, providing moral norms that ground law in a shareable account of human goods and obligations. Despite this history, twentieth and twenty-first-century evangelicals have proved quite reticent to embrace natural law, casting it as a relic of scholastic Roman Catholicism that underestimates the import of scripture and the division between Christians and non-Christians. As recent critics have noted, this reluctance has posed significant problems for the coherence and completeness of evangelical political reflections. Responding to evangelically-minded thinkers’ increasing calls for a re-engagement with natural law, this volume explores the problems and prospects attending evangelical rapprochement with natural law. Many of the chapters are optimistic about an evangelical re-appropriation of natural law, but note ways in which evangelical commitments might lend distinctive shape to this engagement.
Introduction
Part I: Understanding Evangelical Discomfort with Natural Law
Chapter 1: Burying the Wrong Corpse: Evangelicals and Natural Law
J. Daryl Charles, Bryan College
Chapter 2: Karl Barth’s Eschatological (rejection of) Natural Law
Jesse Couenhoven, Villanova University
Chapter 3: The Doctrine of Creation and the Possibilities of an Evangelical Natural Law
Bryan McGraw, Wheaton College
Part II: Evangelicalism and Natural Law: Continuing Questions
Chapter 4: Natural Law and Mosaic Law in the Theology of Paul: Their Relationship and Its Implications
David VanDrunen, Westminster Seminary California
Chapter 5: Natural Law, God, and Human Dignity Robert George, Princeton University
Chapter 6: Reason and Will in Natural Law
Paul DeHart, Texas State University—San Marcos
Chapter 7: Natural Law: Friend of Common Grace?
Vincent Bacote, Wheaton College
Part III: An Evangelical Natural Law Tradition? Charting a Path Forward
Chapter 8: The Grammar of Virtue: St. Augustine and the Natural Law
Jesse Covington, Westmont College
Chapter 9: C.S. Lewis as Natural Law Evangelist: Evangelical Political Thought and the People in the Pew
Micah Watson, Union University
Chapter 10: The Natural Law and the Church as ‘Counter-Polis’Matthew D. Wright, Biola University
Chapter 11: More Than a Passing Fancy? The Evangelical Engagement with Natural Law
J. Budziszewski, University of Texas, Austin