By Angus Harley

If you were on Epstein Island, you’re in trouble! A Christian who hangs out in a bar will soon be given over to drunkenness. The ‘Christian’ doctrine of Natural Law (NL), especially Reformed Theology’s (RT) version of it, brings with it shady company. It is even more crucial in today’s climate to expose this bad company because more and more conservative Evangelical Christians are looking to ideas like NL to build a so-called Christian America.

This article exposes the shady company of NL. I will explain what NL is, first of all, giving it a bit of detail for the reader’s sake. Then I will explain who promotes it.  After this I will ask very hard questions of NL and its company. I will not get into theological details as such, for I will keep that type of critique for another article. This article is all about the obnoxious company that always goes with NL.

WHAT IS NL?

Definitions are crucial to this entire debate.

The two components of NL  

‘Natural’. Back in the day, ‘natural’ was another way of referring to the created order and the nature of things and beings issuing from that divine order (cf., WCF 1.1; 4.2). Nowadays, ‘natural’ is a term possible of so many   interpretations. RT is keen to tell us, in that light, that NL is divine law, creational, given, and implanted in man, by God as Creator.

Specifically, by referring to NL as ‘natural’, the reader is meant to understand a few things: the NL is part of man’s nature; it is grounded in man’s created state; and, also, it participates in a wider form of nature, namely, creation as a whole.

‘Law.’ NL is ‘law’ because it is a form of divine revelation within man that serves to impose on man a duty and obligation to God and to man. Thus, it is also ‘command’.

What NL isn’t Therefore, the Christian view of NL is not natural in the sense of arising from what is called today ‘nature’ or ‘mother nature’. Nor is the NL we are looking at a comprehensive form of ‘law’ in the universe considered materially or metaphysically, or a system of ethics embedded in the universe that serves as a moral basis for humanity.

Further refinements

As we will ask probing questions of NL, it is necessary to build upon its basic definition.

Internal to man. At its core, NL is internal. This does not mean that it is found in all creatures or every part of what God made. It is, rather, a series of intuitions and moral principles, or commands, hard-coded, as it were, into human beings, metaphorically written in their hearts by God (see ahead).

Non-verbal. As NL is specifically bound to humans, not the whole of creation, NL pertains to humans and their knowledge of God and man as derived from their merely creaturely condition, without God personally, or by agency, revealing himself to them in NL via verbal communications, whether spoken or written.[1] For humans know from creation and all its workings, even from God’s created work in them, that there is a God. They intuitively understand the obligations to worship this God and to love fellow men. They innately perceive that there is a principle of justice built into creation itself, and that God reveals himself in his divine nature and eternal power within creation (Rom.1:18). Man automatically knows that he relates to fellow men in a moral and spiritual manner as dictated by the Creator, and that man must worship, and submit to, the Creator. Man instinctively knows that God’s commands and order must never be violated, or any other god worshiped than the Creator.

Image of God. NL is woven into the divine image in man. God created man with the divine image, and it is this that provides the basic, intuitive, knowledge that man has of God, which separates man from all the creatures of this earth, and even from the angelic host, “Man, as one made in the image of God, has the impress of God’s moral law stamped on his reason and conscience. The moral law revealed through natural revelation is usually referred to as the “natural law.” “[2] 

Law-God and law-man. It is apparent from the above that when God created man, he acted as a Lawgiver, so that man himself became a being of law, a ‘law-man’. This internal, natural, law is of the warp and woof of man, as is the divine image of which NL is a part. One cannot separate NL from man any more than one can define humanity as a being without legs and arms and speech. Consequently, the Lawgiver/law-man relationship is fundamental to RT, to its view of creation, and of the divine image.


Romans 2:14-15. This is ‘the’ Reformed prooftext for NL. Based on it, integral to NL is that man has a moral conscience and a moral heart placed naturally within him (Rom.2:15), and they are distinct to God’s special revelation given in the Law of Moses, or any other form of divine law that expresses God’s verbal/written commandments. Indeed, this NL that is in the Gentiles serves in place of the Jew’s possession of the Mosaic Law. In that way, the Gentiles were a “law unto themselves”.[3]

WHO PROMOTED THE THEORY OF NL?

We won’t name all the main groups and figures here, only some.

Pagans

RT relies heavily on the fact that a form of the doctrine of NL has been around from ancient times, even among pagans. Scholars such as Aristotle and Plato used a NL model.[4] In particular, Roman society promulgated NL, as evidenced in the works of Cicero (106-43BC).

Christianity in general

Christianity in general borrowed NL from the pagans:

“…the concept of one law of divine origin underlying all legislation was borrowed by the Romans from Greek and particularly from Stoic philosophy and eventually became commonplace in Roman legal theory and in Christian thought.”[5]

Roman Catholics

Thomas Aquinas(1225-1274AD) then systematized the doctrine of NL, RT believes, from a ‘Christian’ perspective (albeit a Roman Catholic one).[6]

Conservative Evangelicals

As time went on, the doctrine of NL was refined by Christian theologians. One major model is that given by Richard Hooker (1554-1600), the Anglican theologian.[7] He puts great stress on divine law as an organic system, even a hierarchy, that is grounded in the being of God himself. Hooker’s view of law I call ‘omni-law’ for it is everywhere to be found.

Hooker was ‘the’ Anglican scholar who advocated the value of omni-law. To him, eternal law is the ‘uber-law’ that “is essentially the mind of God in its providential relation to the things he has created- containing the “archetypes” of all created things.”[8] To Hooker, the being of God functions as a foundation of eternal, divine, law, which is then expressed in his eternal decree. In asserting these things, Hooker is following “the Thomist tradition”.[9] The angels were given “celestial law”, and man was given “natural law”. Both are expressions of eternal law.[10]

RT

Building on the past. RT specifically merely adjusted what was already there, thinks David VanDrunen:

“As far as I can tell, older Reformed theologians never made much effort to build a distinctively Reformed theology of natural law, but they all affirmed the existence of natural law, and they incorporated it into their theology. The Westminster Standards illustrate this. I have counted at least thirteen direct references to natural law in the standards (which uses various terms, such as “light of nature,” the “law of God written in their hearts,” and “law of nature”), and there are also indirect references. But perhaps more significant than the sheer number of references is the range of Reformed doctrines that the standards connect to natural law. This means that one cannot extract natural law from the system of doctrine taught in the standards without fundamentally damaging the system itself. Natural law is integral to the historic Reformed system of doctrine.”[11]

Herman Bavinck (1854-1921). A later, pronounced model of RT’s NL is found in the writings of Herman Bavinck. He writes of created man:

“But in order to rule, he must serve; He must serve God who is his Creator and Lawgiver. Work and rest, rule and service, earthly and heavenly vocation, civilization and religion, culture and cultus, these pairs go together from the very beginning. They belong together and together they comprise in one vocation the great and holy and glorious purpose of man.”

“…In the form of the Father, accordingly, God was operative as Creator and Lawgiver.”

“For the believers come to know the workings of the Father, the Creator of all things, He who gave them life, and breath, and all things. They learn to know Him as the Lawgiver who gave out His holy commandments in order that they should walk in them.”[12]

Notice how the entire scope of man’s original condition, including his calling, service, and even his status as son, are swept up into the Lawgiver/law-man relationship. That is because, to Bavinck, man’s calling and the innate law he possesses are considered part of the greater whole of God’s work in man and of man’s obligations to God. Even God himself is swept up into this law relationship, for God expresses not only his divinity via giving the law, but his Fatherhood, too. The Father-son relationship between God and man is fundamentally a law relationship.

David VanDrunen (1971-present). He is the ‘main man’ of RT’s NL doctrine. It was his article that stated that RT’s view of NL built on the past. He wrote it as a theologian within the OPC denomination, and is currently a professor in Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics at Westminster Theological Seminary.

VanDrunen develops the NL model for today, arguing strongly for it, along with natural revelation and natural theology. To VanDrunen, natural law is divine law for civil society, and spiritual law is for God’s spiritual or religious kingdom. Civil kingdom compared to heavenly kingdom. God has given to the world, to its civil kingdom, natural law, and the nations of the world can build on this law to create order for civil society. Even king Abimelech in Genesis 20, writes VanDrunen, had a natural knowledge of God’s will, even a form of the fear of God, and appealed to them, so that this “restrained the outbreak of sin”. VanDrunen then concludes, “natural law is an instrument of common grace.”[13]

WHY RELY ON A MODEL DEVELOPED BY PAGANS?

Does the reader not see how scarily similar Cicero (106-43BC) is to Aquinas (1225-1274AD), is to Hooker (1554-1600AD),[14] is to the modern Reformed promotion of NL? Why rely, fundamentally, on one who was a pagan writer, Cicero? Why are Plato and Aristotle held up as founding fathers? Why Abimelech the poster-boy?

Cicero and the flattening effect. Modern theologians of all types who promote NL operate on the basis of flattening out the differences between Cicero, a pagan, and a ‘Christian’ view of NL. Sometimes one reads something like the following about Cicero:

“Cicero’s humanism and natural law theory is tied to his monotheism (or at least to his idea of the highest God being the God of Reason) and understanding – much like in Catholicism – that humans are sharers in the divine nature through the gift of reason.”[15]

This modern scholar re-interprets Cicero’s teaching so ultra-positively that he believes that there was a form of monotheism in Cicero’s teaching. 

To be accurate, Cicero’s Treatise on the Laws is riddled with a theology of the gods, of which there is the Supreme God who gives the laws. Cicero’s account contains copious references to the Old Testament and its God. In other words, what Cicero did was take some aspects of Judaism’s God and combine them with sheer paganism.[16]

What, then, is the difference in principle between Cicero’s theology and that described in Romans 1:18ff. and Acts 17:16ff.? Cicero gets some things right, but clearly denies the force of God’s revelation to man. Why would we think that a man who read the Old Testament yet continued in polytheism would come up with a doctrine of spirituality and morality that in essence was reflective of the bible’s teaching? Didn’t OT Israel indulge in idolatry that had Yahweh as one of the many gods, perhaps, ‘the’ god? Wasn’t Cicero a Stoic? And wasn’t NL founded upon Stoic teaching? Wasn’t Paul arguing against the Stoics in Acts 17?

‘In-common knowledge!’ A fairly typical counter-response to my position dismisses it as being overstated. Even pagans understand some facts about God and know moral truths, it is said. The apostle Paul recognized that one of the Athenian poet’s knew that men are God’s “children” and were expected to rely on him (Acts 17:28). One cannot rule out a doctrine, therefore, simply because it was conveyed by pagans.

Darkness, not light! I am willing to concede a morsel to the above objection, yet, only as heavily qualified by the Scriptural witness against paganism and its so-called revelations and theology. For the Scripture represents paganism of all kinds as very, very dark indeed. It is to RT’s partial credit that it recognizes that the Fall had a major negative impact on NL and its revelation. Mankind suppresses it, fighting against it and God, we are told. Yet, RT does not carry this foreboding, negative, assessment over into its formulation of NL. Why not? It never asks of its doctrine of NL if, perhaps, the deep and dark record of paganism in Scripture illustrates how paganism might have constructed an ugly and evil doctrine of law and of the divine that is a sinful distortion of God’s revelation to man. For how is it possible that fallen man, pagan man, as described in Romans 1:18ff., such as Abimelech was, is possessed with so much ‘divine wisdom’? Who is now overstating things? Nor does one swallow make a summer. Paul picks out a point of convergence with Christianity. Is that the stuff to build theories on? The Athenians were not praised by Paul for having an active comprehensive and accurate knowledge of God. Surely it is, rather, a broad, dark, and deep contrast that is brought out starkly in Acts 17:17-27 by the apostle, and this is the reason why he went on to proclaim the Gospel to these blinded and arrogant pagans. More relevant to NL per se, why didn’t the apostle Paul engage with these pagans on the level of NL? Why do we never find engagement based on NL in the OT or NT?

Abimelech? ‘But there was Abimelech!’ No, there wasn’t! Why did Abimelech, the pagan king, want what was probably yet another wife? Is this reflecting the so-called ‘NL principle’ built into man of a monogamous relationship? Why did no one around him impart to him a NL caution on this issue of having many wives, and warn him that he was breaking NL? And why did NL not convict him internally of this choice of an additional wife? Furthermore, why was it only after God warned Abimelech of death in a dream (special revelation!) that Abimelech changed his mind?

WHY RELY ON ROMAN CATHOLICISM’S TOP THEOLOGIAN, AQUINAS?

Enthusiasm is sky-high for support of Aquinas among NL scholars within conservative Evangelical circles.[17] The same is true for RT. From the Modern Reformation online magazine that “exists to equip and encourage thoughtful Christians in Reformational churches”, we get this opinion:

“[Aquinas] is both a doctor of the whole church as well as the chief theologian of the Roman Catholic Church, so reading Thomas as a Protestant involves negotiation of some ecumenical questions. Put these all together, and we must say that reading Thomas Aquinas is not easy. Yet we are the worse off when we ignore this great theological master.”[18]

How is it that the great modern Reformed historian Richard A. Muller defends Aquinas’s influence in his article, “Misrepresenting Aquinas with Prejudice: Why Reformed Theology is Not Sectarian”?”[19] Why does no less than the mighty online defender of RT, R. Scott Clark, endorse Muller’s defense of Aquinas?[20] Why such devotion to the greatest of all Roman Catholic scholars?

Omni-law. Just like Cicero and Hooker, Aquinas promotes a system of omni-law, which states that the divine being and his extended reason is the cause of all good laws. Within that setting is placed NL, and also, of course, the “old law” of the Old Testament and the “new law” of the New Testament. One giant system of law!

NL: the foundation of justification. Aquinas’ omni-law model, in which all law is in a system, comes into play in his doctrine of justification. Aquinas deals with the objection to his view that said that the law written in the heart was mere NL and had no part in man’s justification before God. In his Summa Theologica I-II, Q.106, reply to objection 2, Aquinas answers this by arguing that the new law is distinct to NL, yet only by way of addition:

“There are two ways in which a thing may be instilled into man. First, through being part of his nature, and thus the natural law is instilled into man. Second, a thing is instilled into man by being, as it were, added on to his nature by a gift of grace. In this way the New Law is instilled into man, not only by indicating to him what he should do, but also by helping him to accomplish it.”

Aquinas goes on to say that the law of Christ and his apostles “added very few precepts to those of the natural law; although afterwards some were added, through being instituted by the holy Fathers.”[21] Thus, the Gospel law- and the laws of those church fathers after the Lord and his apostles- builds upon NL, so that both are of the same fabric that characterizes Aquinas’ holistic view of law.

Aquinas goes on in the same main question to speak about how “the New Law justifies” by way of its two elements:

“…there is a twofold element in the Law of the Gospel. There is the chief element, viz., the grace of the Holy Spirit bestowed inwardly. And as to this, the New Law justifies. Hence Augustine says (De Spir. Et Lit. xvii): There, i.e., in the Old Testament, the Law was set forth in an outward fashion, that the ungodly might be afraid; here, i.e., in the New Testament, it is given in an inward manner, that they may be justified. The other element of the Evangelical Law is secondary: namely, the teachings of faith, and those commandments which direct human affections and human actions. And as to this, the New Law does not justify. Hence the Apostle says (2 Cor 3:6) The letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth: and Augustine explains this (De Spir. Et Lit. xiv, xvii) by saying that the letter denotes any writing external to man, even that of the moral precepts such as are contained in the Gospel. Wherefore the letter, even of the Gospel would kill, unless there were the inward presence of the healing grace of faith.”[22] [Bold text is my emphasis]

The above is the standard Roman Catholic dogma concerning justification by healing-faith through inward renewal in the Spirit. Nothing to this day has changed in the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification. The point for us to note is that Aquinas is speaking about the New Law, the Law of the Gospel, in that the Holy Spirit brings that new law, writes it, on the heart. This new law, one could argue, in essence replicates and revivifies, and also adds to, the same demands of NL; even so, to Aquinas, NL is not sufficient in and of itself; however, it is essential to justification in that “grace presupposes nature, so must Divine law presuppose the natural law”.[23]

WHAT’S WITH THE ECUMENCIAL DIALOGUE IN RT?

How do Rters deal with the clear evidence for an ecumenical spirit within RT arising from devotion to Aquinas? For surely when someone embraces the ultimate Roman Catholic scholar one is pulled into his sphere of influence in so many ways. The receipts speak for themselves. Carl F. Henry, who was a conservative Evangelical, writes as far back in 1995:

“Recent ecumenical conferences have endeavored to narrow Protestant-Catholic differences over natural law. Some participants have argued that the Reformers in fact supported natural law, or that they advanced a different variety of it.”[24]

Patently, this ecumenical discussion between RT and Rcism over NL has been going on for decades.

From the Reformed pen of Jordan J. Ballor comes a very specific and enthusiastic account:

“In the wake of Grabill’s book, a new era of Protestant engagement with the natural law tradition (broadly understood) has flowered. J. Daryl Charles’s Retrieving the Natural Law appeared two years later, grappling with the significance of natural law for Protestant ethics. David VanDrunen’s work further expanded the discussion, engaging with the Bible and later developments in intellectual and theological history from the eighteenth century onward. Protestant thinkers have also reevaluated Thomas Aquinas, with implications for virtue ethics as well as natural law. Lutherans as well as Reformed have begun to grapple anew with the natural-law legacy of the Reformation and post-Reformation eras.

“Grabill himself began a series of translation works that included significant primary sources in Protestant ethical thought (including offerings from Wolfgang Musculus, Althusius, Jerome Zanchi, Franciscus Junius, and Matthew Hale), and which continues in a second series. Other translation works of important and more recent Reformed theologians, particularly Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck, are significant for an evaluation of the relationship between Protestantism and natural law. More specialized studies continue to appear as well. David Sytsma and Manfred Svensson, for example, document and explore how Reformation and post-Reformation moral philosophy and theology received ancient and classical philosophy, particularly Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics….

“…And Protestants’ social teaching will differ from that of Roman Catholics and Orthodox in the genre and authority of resources. Appreciation for this diversity should strengthen efforts to use natural law traditions to find ecumenical common ground.”[25] [Bold text is my emphasis]

In perhaps the most ‘put together’ pro-RT account of Aquinas to date, edited by David VanDrunen, there are numerous positive references to Aquinas as an ecumenical influence for today; but, I will cite only one example that comes from the pen of the NL man himself, David VanDrunen:

“Alongside these changes in the way we view the past, at least two changes in the current intellectual climate deserve mention. First, ecumenical dialogue has led to a renewed reciprocal reading of each other’s traditions. Just as the image of Luther and Calvin has undergone significant modification among Roman Catholic scholars (Pesch 1971; Zachman 2008), so also with the image of Thomas among the Protestants. Many people justifiably suspect that ecumenical politeness can lead to giving up well‐grounded insights, but, as Theodor Dieter (2008) has exemplarily shown with respect to the Reformation’s relation to medieval theology, an ecumenical disposition can also go hand‐in‐hand with intellectual integrity. A recent volume on the historical problems we have just sketched, Reformation and Scholasticism, is aptly subtitled An Ecumenical Enterprise (van Asselt and Dekker 2001). The present volume is not primarily a contribution to ecumenical theology, its chief concern being the role Aquinas can play in the vitality of Protestant thought. But it has benefited from some of these efforts and it may also contribute to them in its own way.

Beside ecumenism in the strict sense, we find something which is not wholly unrelated and yet distinct: the fact that Protestants and Roman Catholics face many similar intellectual challenges, and that at least some of these challenges can be faced together while relying on their common tradition.”[26] [Bold text is my emphasis]

Please, no more denials, Reformed folks; it’s right there before your eyes!

WHY DO REFORMED CIRCLES ENCOURAGE SUCH SCHOLARS?

Why has VanDrunen not been kicked out of Westminster Theological Seminary?

It’s in the DNA! RT cannot dismiss a theologian who upholds principles fundamental to RT itself. VanDrunen told us, correctly so, that NL underlies some of RT’s teaching.

The scholastic heritage. How do Bonhoeffer, Aquinas, Barth, and others, fly under the Reformed radar? It is in great measure due to a scholastic heritage in RT, one which bathes in philosophico-theological principles, appeals to systems and epistemologies, and advocates for ‘reasonable’ theology.[27] In two local-ish Reformed Baptist assemblies I know, they have books promoting Bonhoeffer. These assemblies ardently defend ‘sabbath observance’, and teach regularly the ‘1689 Confession’, but are entirely clueless to the details of Bonhoeffer’s theology and its multiple heresies.

ONE FINAL QUESTION…

It goes without saying that the vast majority- if not all- reading this article will most likely question my criticism of NL, saying that one does not need to ‘fling out the baby with the bath water.’ NL is okay, it will be said. Don’t confuse the doctrine with its abuses, others will say.

To be fair, I have not engaged on the theological level in this article. Yet, I will ask this: could it be that all the bad company that NL keeps is a red light warning Christians to end their relationship with NL?

[1] Cornelis P. Venema, “One Kingdom or Two? An Evaluation of the Two Kingdoms’ Doctrine as an Alternative to Neo-Calvinism”, Mid-America Journal of Theology (2012): 108; John Frame, “Is Natural Revelation Sufficient to Govern Culture?”, Frame-Poythress.org., May 21, 2012, https://frame-poythress.org/is-natural-revelation-sufficient-to-govern-culture/.

[2] William O. Einwechter, “The Reformed View of the Law,” Chalcedon Foundation, February 28, 1999, https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/the-reformed-view-of-the-law.

[3] John Calvin, commentary on Romans 2:14, 15, Studylight.org, accessed 12/7/24, https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/cal/romans-2.html.

[4] E.g., David Haines, “Why Protestants Need Natural Law”, American Reformer, May 17, 2022, https://americanreformer.org/2022/05/why-protestants-need-natural-law/.

[5] Irena Backus, “Calvin’s Concept of Natural and Roman Law”, in Calvin Theological Journal 38 (2003): 8.

[6] Matthew Taininga, “What is Natural law?”, The Aquila Report, February 6, 2013, https://theaquilareport.com/what-is-natural-law/.

[7] Not to be confused with Thomas Hooker, Richard Hooker was not, strictly speaking, a Puritan. However, he was Reformed-like in some of his theology. The modern Reformed resurgence in NL not only takes to Hooker’s doctrine of NL in his book The Law of Ecclesiastical Polity in Modern English, for some defend him as Reformed.

[8] David Haines, “Why Protestants Need Natural Law”, American Reformer.org, May 17, 2022, https://americanreformer.org/2022/05/why-protestants-need-natural-law/.

[9] Matt Marino, “The Laws of Richard Hooker, Part 1”, Reformed Classicalist, June 8, 2024, https://www.reformedclassicalist.com/home/the-laws-of-richard-hooker-part-1.

[10] Ibid., “Laws of Hooker”.

[11] David VanDrunen, “Natural law in Reformed Theology: Historical Reflections and Biblical Suggestions”, The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, April 2012, https://www.opc.org/os.html?article_id=301.

[12] Herman Bavinck, Selected Shorter Works of Herman Bavinck, ed. John Hendryx (Monergism books, n.d.), file:///C:/Users/John/Downloads/Selected%20Works%20of%20Herman%20Bavinck.pdf.

[13] David VanDrunen, Timothy Gateword, “What is Natural Law?”, Credo Magazine, July 18, 2023, Vol.14:2, https://credomag.com/article/what-is-natural-law/; VanDrunen, “Natural Law in Reformed Theology”;

[14] See Richard Hooker, The Laws of Ecclessiastical Polity in Modern English, eds. Bradford Littlejohn, et. al., ebook, https://davenantinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Hookers-Laws-of-Ecclesiastical-Polity-vol-1-excerpt.pdf.

[15] Paul Krause, “Cicero and the Foundations of Natural Law”, Discourse on Minerva, February 19, 2019, https://minervawisdom.com/2019/02/09/cicero-and-the-foundations-of-natural-law/#:~:text=Cicero’s%20humanism%20and%20natural%20law,through%20the%20gift%20of%20reason.

[16] Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatise on the Laws, The Online Library of Liberty, ebook,, chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/545/Cicero_0044-02_EBk_v6.0.pdf.

[17] E.g., Norman Geisler, “Does Thomism Lead to Catholicism?” Norman Geisler, accessed January 5, 2025,  https://normangeisler.com/tag/aquinas/.

[18] Michael Allen, Fergus Kerr, “ “Aquinas: A Very Short Introduction” by Fergus Kerr”, Modern Reformation, September 1, 2010, https://www.modernreformation.org/resources/articles/aquinas-a-very-short-introduction-by-fergus-kerr.

[19] In Credo Magazine, July 2, 2022, https://credomag.com/article/misrepresenting-aquinas-with-prejudice/.

[20] R. Scott Clark, “A Defense of Aquinas’ Writing on “The Light of Natural Knowledge””, The Heidelblog, September 2, 2022, https://heidelblog.net/?s=aquinas&submit=Search.

[21] Summa Theologica I-II, Q.107, Art.4, answer.

[22] Summa Theological I-II, Q.106, Art.2, answer.

[23] Summa Theological I-II, Q.99, Art.22, reply to objection 1.

[24] Carl F. Henry, “Natural Law and Nihilistic Culture”, First Things, January, 1995, https://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/01/natural-law-and-a-nihilistic-culture.

[25] Jordan B. Ballor, “Reviving Protestant Natural Law”, Public Discourse, January 17, 2022, https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2022/01/79936/.

 [26]Manfred Svensson, David VanDrunen, “Introduction: The Reception, Critique, and Use of Aquinas in Protestant Thought”, in Aquinas Among the Protestants, eds., Manfred Svensson, David VanDrunen (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2018), 7-8.

[27] Cf., Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1985), 175.