Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
‘Reforming Natural Law’
‘Reforming Natural Law’
May 8, 2025 9:19 PM

The January 2007 issue of First Things features a lengthy review of Stephen Grabill’s new book on Protestant natural law thinking (no link to the review, unfortunately). J. Daryl Charles, an assistant professor at Union University, has this to say about Grabill’s Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics (Eerdmans, 2006):

Grabill’s examination of theological ethics in the Protestant Reformed mainstream is pelling, and it represents a shot across the bow of theological ethics, as it were. Protestants for the past 250 years have found practical as well as theological justification for ignoring or vehemently rejecting natural-law theory. And despite its bewildering diversity, there exists across Protestantism a broad consenus that rejects the natural law as a metaphysical notion rooted in divine revelation. This consensus is mirrored in the fact that one is hard-pressed to identify a single major contemporary figure in Protestant theological ethics who has developed and defended a theory of natural law.

The Charles review, titled “Reforming Natural Law,” goes on to say that Grabill “has performed a valuable service in plumbing the rich texture of Reformed theological ethics.”

For a limited time, the book is on sale in the Acton Book Shoppe for only $20.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Libertarians in Black Cassocks
Jordan Ballor wrote a provocative post about fusionism today, titled “Libertarians in Black,” modifying Jonah Goldberg’s suggestion that there should always be a libertarian in the room during political discussions with a little help from Johnny Cash: I think we might be able to bring Jonah Goldberg and Johnny Cash together on this point, to say that there always ought to be a “libertarian in black” in the room, asking the right questions about what government policies do for the...
Can whistleblowing be Biblically justified?
Last week, 29-year-old Edward Snowden, a tech specialist who was contracted for the NSA and works for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, leaked the details of a classified surveillance program to the media. As Christians debate the ethics of Snowden’s actions we should consider the question, “Under what circumstances can there be biblically justified ‘leaking’ or whistleblowing?” What does being a “good neighbor” or a “Good Samaritan” (à la Luke 10) mean, obligation-wise, when es to warning others against...
Digitization of Newman Archive Announced
The University of Manchester has announced plans to digitize the holdings of the Cardinal Newman archive. Among the roughly 200,000 items of handwritten and other unpublished materials are 171 files of letters to (and from) “particular individual correspondents.” One such correspondent of particular interest is Lord Acton. A selection of Acton’s correspondence with Newman is available digitally courtesy of the Online Library of Liberty. Lord Acton’s periodical, The Rambler, is also the subject of seven separate files of Newman’s correspondence...
Socialism Will Not Save Europe
Last night in Dublin I was having a conversation with a 65-year-old man who was ranting about the high unemployment rate in the European Union, which in the 17-nation currency area rose to 12.2 percent in April. The current unemployment rate is a new record since the data series began in 1995. My new friend was very open about being an outright socialist and said that Europe’s problem is that people are not being treated fairly. Capitalism, he explained, promotes...
The Vocation of Earning-to-Give Donor
The Washington Post has an interesting story on young people who feel their vocation is “earning to give”—making as much money as possible in order to give away as much as possible to worthy causes. An example is Jason Trigg, an puter science graduate who works as a programmer for a high-frequency trading firm: Trigg makes money just to give it away. His logic is simple: The more he makes, the more good he can do. He’s figured out just...
Do Corporations Have Religious Liberty Rights?
Three years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the same rights as individuals to engage in political speech. As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the Citizens United decision, the “corporate identity” of a speaker did not justify a reduced level of free speech protection. Can that same concept about corporate identity be applied to religious liberties? Do corporations have religious liberty rights too? Some legal scholars are claiming they do not: The raft of ACA cases raises...
What Do Entrepreneurs Pray About?
“How is religion related to entrepreneurial behavior?” As Joe Carter pointed out last week, a new study by Baylor University sought to examine this very question. Focusing specifically on American entrepreneurs, researchers Mitchell J. Neubert and Kevin Dougherty found that although entrepreneurs “appear no different than nonentrepreneurs in religious affiliation, belief in God, or religious service attendance,” they do “tend to see God as more personal, pray more frequently, and are more likely to attend a place of worship that...
‘Morning-after’ Medication Now Available To All Ages
12 year old girls are a lot of things, but keenly aware of their own bodies, biological functions and the side effects of medications are typically not among their strong suits. Imagine a 12 year old girl who isn’t even sure how she might get pregnant, let alone if she is. Imagine a 12 year old who’s been coerced into having sex or has even been raped. Imagine she may or may not be pregnant, but has contracted an STD...
Audio: Acton-St Vladimir’s Poverty Conference
Many thanks to Ancient Faith Radio for graciously sharing its podcasts of the Conference on Poverty at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y. The May 31-June 1 event was co-hosted by the Acton Institute. The conference was offered as a tribute to Deacon John Zarras, a 2006 alumnus of the seminary who earned his M.Div. degree over a period of several years as a late–vocations student. Deacon John, who fell asleep in the Lord last year, also served...
Give In To Evil Or Give Up: What Should The Catholic Bishops Do?
National Catholic Reporter writer Michael Sean Winters has a message for the United States Catholic Bishops: plicit with evil or toll the death knell for the Church in the U.S. Unlike the Amish, who choose to live in a manner outside of modern culture, Winters exhorts the bishops to not only engage the world, but realize that being part of evil is simply part and parcel of that engagement: I bring up the Amish for a reason. They are lovely...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved