Philosophy (especially from the Age of Reason) refers to the concept of “Natural Law”, a set of rules that govern all existence.
By logical deduction, any Christian automatically believes in this Natural Law, which is truly amazing to comprehend:
- There are scientific realities about the universe that God made, with laws that have well-designed wrinkles that permit complex manuevers (e.g., physics, star movements, quantum mechanics).
- God has formed animals and people with certain universal characteristics.
- We all have aspects of ourselves that don’t move, such as the mechanisms for how we perceive, our tendencies to identify stories, and our generally political nature.
However, Christians will come to believe other elements as well beyond what secular thinking derives:
- The system itself has baked-in override features to accommodate whatever God wants.
- The systems themselves are designed to withstand misuse and abuse, meaning the cult of scientism is vastly overstating the risks of manmade climate change.
- Evil beings, including the devil, are effectively tools for God’s purposes.
Among these differences, one major divergence Christians make from secular philosophy comes through the belief in a sin nature: we effectively don’t always want to honor Natural Law! We can often profit heavily by breaking God’s rules (1 Corinthians 3:19), and we have been known to make unhealthy agreements with unholy beings in the process.
God knew this would happen beforehand, though, so He created security measures to protect His rules. It’s why evil people typically receive some sort of comeuppance, moral people typically have easier lives (Proverbs 3), and God’s laws still typically create a fair society, even when profoundly diluted.
Thus, since God is not physically present right now, we have a temporary situation: the “Unnatural Law”.
As applied to society, Natural Law is relatively easy to understand:
- Every person is important because they were made by God and loved by Him.
- Loving others as oneself is best for everyone when everyone does it at once, which makes the entire community benefit.
- Love who a person is, not what they do.
- The stronger are responsible to assist the weaker in the body of people, so nobody has any shortage of things they need.
- When someone fails, everyone is there to support and encourage that person through their specific God-given abilities.
- Wisdom and truth are critical to making any of the above possible.
Unnatural Law, by contrast, is the fixed laws of God that commingle with sin’s relatively predictable decay within our souls:
- Every person matters proportionally to what they can create.
- Loving others is risky, but loving yourself is safe, so the safest form of love is for the self.
- Love what you are, but then do things to show the rest of the world why you’re worthy of others’ love.
- The strong will always prevail, and the weak will serve them.
- If someone ever fails, they should be publicly humiliated as an example to motivate everyone to do better.
- Shrewdness (the appearance of wisdom) and an image of truth are critical to making any of the above possible.
Natural and Unnatural Law are most easily distinguished by whether we’re focusing on the thing that is most loving or the thing that gives us the most power.
While we live in this world, we must be wise, which means understanding at least some Unnatural Law:
- Jesus was very engaged with the various sinners of His time, meaning He would have been learning at least some of the ways they lived by (Matthew 9:10-13).
- Many parts of society are highly dysfunctional, and we must learn to practice good boundaries and appropriately resolve conflicts.
- Scoped out, the entire hierarchy of self-interest arranges itself into the myth of Babylon: a pyramid structure where everyone takes from the people below them, enslaving the bottom ranks in the process while clawing for God’s position.
God uses all this trouble as a necessary trial to show who is righteous (1 Corinthians 11:18-19), and this situation is only a temporary tactical problem until Jesus returns.
Therefore, a certain bare minimum of street smarts is absolutely critical for us to maintain enough power to accomplish the purposes we push for (Matthew 10:16):
- Spreading the Gospel message via evangelism.
- Making disciples in our communities and church.
- Running various ministries, which all require money and power management.
But, since Christians aren’t specializing in learning the ways of the world, they have a high chance of getting dragged into some hairy situations:
- As sheep, they wander into bigger trouble than if they had been more street smart.
- They are exposed to real-life moral thought experiments, where they must making the most loving decision against the advice of their associates in the world.
- Whatever they decide, God carries His will out, and He gets the credit for redeeming them.
This world will pressure us to work more on our shrewdness. However, our knowledge of this world’s activities doesn’t directly create any eternal benefit.
Instead, it’s in every Christian’s interest to work on being more gentle and meek (Matthew 10:16), and trust the Holy Spirit’s work for whatever happens.
And, if we trust Him, the Holy Spirit has several possible avenues to fix our problem:
- Direct revelation within our spirits that supersedes worldly wisdom (Matthew 10:19).
- Well-placed connections with others who know exactly what to do to fix the problem.
- Miraculous events that give answers, opportunities, or put away risks.
Of course, how it will happen and what God uses is anyone’s guess, and comes back to trusting God.