Description

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.

Table of Contents

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

Product details

Published 16 Nov 2012
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 304
ISBN 9780739173220
Imprint Lexington Books
Dimensions 235 x 160 mm
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Jesse Covington

Anthology Editor

Bryan T. McGraw

Anthology Editor

Micah Watson

Contributor

Vincent Bacote

Contributor

J. Budziszewski

Contributor

Paul R. DeHart

Contributor

David VanDrunen

Contributor

Matthew Wright

Related Titles

Get 30% off in the May sale - for one week only

Environment: Staging