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 maneuvers (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 have some level of inspiration beyond the rest of this world:
- The system itself has baked-in override features to accommodate whatever God wants.
- On further inspection, God designed nature’s systems to withstand misuse and abuse, so the cult of scientism vastly overstates the risks of manmade climate change.
- Evil beings and institutions, including the devil, are effectively tools for God’s purposes.
Against God
Among the differences in beliefs that frame Christians’ views against the world’s, they believe in our sin nature. This creates a severe conflict:
- Natural Law exists.
- We don’t always want to honor Natural Law.
- We have a history of violating Natural Law, especially if it can serve our interests.
This worldly wisdom is foolishness to God, even when we profit in the short-term (1 Corinthians 3:19). History shows we will make unhealthy agreements for the purpose of personal gain.
God’s incomplete system
God isn’t stupid, and knew this would happen beforehand. For that reason, He designed security measures to protect His rules. The results are clearly obvious:
- Evil people typically receive some sort of comeuppance.
- Moral people typically have easier lives (Proverbs 3).
- God’s laws typically create a fair society, even when profoundly diluted.
And yet, it’s not a complete expression of righteous rule.
- Evil people still do prosper for long periods, victims aren’t indemnified, most of the world’s leadership are bullies and narcissists.
- This doesn’t mean God isn’t present or being slow, but is simply being patient to bring everyone possible to salvation (2 Peter 3:9).
Since God is not physically present right now delivering justice, we have a temporary situation: the “Unnatural Law”.
Uncomfortable stability
As applied to society, Natural Law is relatively easy to understand:
- Every person is important because God made them and loves them (Psalm 139:13).
- Loving others like 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.
- When someone fails, they should experience public humiliation 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.
We can most easily distinguish Natural and Unnatural Law by whether we’re focusing on the thing that is most loving or the thing that gives us the most power.
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.
Inevitable conflict
While we live in this world, we must be wise, which means understanding at least some Unnatural Law:
- Jesus heavily 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 God has commanded us to practice good boundaries and appropriately resolve conflicts (Matthew 10:16).
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 won’t specialize in learning the world’s ways, they have a high chance of falling into some hairy situations:
- As sheep, they wander into bigger trouble than if they had been street smart wolves.
- They experience real-life moral thought experiments, where they must make the most loving decision against the advice of their associates in the world.
- Whatever they decide, and however far they wander, God carries His will out, and He gets the credit for redeeming them.
Pushing against the world
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-timed connections with others who know exactly how to fix our 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 we must simply comes back to trusting God.