Wisdom and the Natural Moral Order: The Contribution of Proverbs to a Christian Theology of Natural Law

2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
David VanDrunen
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (XVIII) ◽  
pp. 151-169
Author(s):  
Dariusz Rozmus

In the course of a few thousands of years of their history, the ancient Egyptians developed a very complex concept of cosmic order represented by the notion of maat and personified by the goddess Maat. It involved many of the cardinal laws described by subse¬quent philosophers, such as the Truth, the Law and Justice. One may claim that the principle of cosmic balance which involved both the forces of nature (physics) and the moral order is the earliest example of the activity of an all-embracing principle of natural law (You exist because Maat exists. Maat exists because you exist). The principle of maat which is ensured by the king operates permanently (for Maat embraces you day and night). A righteous man may rely on its protection both during his lifetime as well as during the judgment of the dead. The rules of the material law (referred to with the word hp, hepu), which were merely at the stage of development in Egypt, operate according to the law of Maat. Unfortunately, this refined holistic concept of natural law is underexplored and it was rarely referred to in the considerations about the beginnings of human thinking


2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-164
Author(s):  
Gilbert R. Prost ◽  

This essay is about a life-affirming social revolution grounded in what theologians call Natural Law or the Orders of Creation, that innate universal Ground Plan within us which informs men everywhere how to live. It is about a social experiment in communicating a meta-culture of meaning and life to a dying monolingual, semi-nomadic Amazonian tribe living on the edge of extinction. As the Bolivian command culture slowly impinged on every aspect of the Chácobo lifestyle, this primitive, egalitarian, command-less, duty-based structured society, like so many other tribes before them, would eventualty disappear into the fabric of the dominant culture within a generation. The Chácobo would cease to exist as a tribal people. To prevent this, the society had to restructure itself from a defensive culture designed to reduce anxiety over existence in isolation to a pro-active culture designed to maximize human freedom within a universal moral order. Following the Plan of the Maker, Chácobo society, within a span of twenty-five years, moved from the edge of extinction to vigor and health, and from day-to-day existence to long-range planning while experiencing a five to six-fold irncrease in population growth.


2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (3 (243)) ◽  
pp. 73-85
Author(s):  
Paweł Szuppe

Nazism in Pius XI's Encyclical Mit brennender Sorge The article presents Nazism in Pius XI’s encyclical Mit brennender Sorge. The genesis and context of this papal document, which was written in the German language and directed to the German nation, are presented, as well as reactions from the German state it evoked. This encyclical constitutes a synthesis of numerous statements by the Church in its struggle against the anti-Christian ideology and practice. In it we find references to the breaches in the concordatbetween Germany and the Holy See, and falsifications of Church teachings and language undermining the moral order, hope and love, as well as natural law. It is addressed to young people, the clergy and the laity. In it we find attempts to uncover the Nazi bestiality in the time when Hitler was admired and praised by many contemporary politicians. It does express hope that the German nation will return to the true faith and mission prepared for it by God


2020 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-334
Author(s):  
Wonho Jung

Calvin formulates an ethical framework in which the idea of natural law is interwoven with divine command ethics in a way that leads to a new awareness of the unique relationship between God’s authority and human autonomy with regards to morality. For Calvin, God’s creational order is the ultimate source of natural law and the natural moral order perceived by natural reason still provides true sources for human morality. He does not underestimate, however, the noetic effect of sin on natural reason. In fact, Calvin takes seriously the epistemological limitation of the created but fallen natural reason with regard to understanding the true intention of creational moral order in its full scope and meaning. So, he argues that the scriptural revelation does not just complement natural morality, but it redeems it. His view thus successfully rules out extreme views of both natural law and divine command ethics that render morality either utterly autonomous or rigidly heteronomous. For Calvin, God’s authority in morality and the natural moral order are reconciled because the heteronomy of revealed laws and the autonomy of natural law are reintegrated in redeemed reason. In this view, humans can acknowledge the God-commanded biblical moral law by their natural reason because the biblical moral law is a written manifestation of natural law. The regenerate can wholly acknowledge it through the renewal of their natural reason while the unregenerate can partly acknowledge it through common grace of God that preserves functionality of natural reason in fallen humanity to a certain degree.


2005 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-351
Author(s):  
J. Leon Hooper

For most of his life, the Jesuit John Courtney Murray rejected the possibility of ecumenical theological discourse, while insisting that Protestants and Catholics could and must speak with each other in the languages of natural law ethics and natural theology. At the very end of his life, he insisted that all future Christian theology must be ecumenical in its inspiration, sources, and methods. This article traces two roads that led to his final ecumenical stance, one through his political theory and a second, more sure path, through his cognitional theory.


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