Philosophy from the Greeks onward refers to the concept of “Natural Law”, a set of rules that govern all existence. And, by logical deduction, any Christian automatically believes in this Natural Law.
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:
- On further inspection, God designed nature’s systems to withstand misuse and abuse (e.g., bacteria eat hydrocarbons and have cleared oil spills, microorganisms under the earth have cleaned nuclear fallout sites), so the cult of scientism vastly overstates the risks of manmade climate change.
- God planned for false teachers to corrupt His simple Gospel message (2 Peter 2).
- Even evil beings and institutions, including the devil, are effectively tools for God’s purposes.
The results are clearly obvious for a general case:
- 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, and we don’t directly witness His justice sweeping across everyone at once, we have a temporary situation: the “Unnatural Law”.
Uncomfortable stability
Natural Law, as applied to society, is easy to understand:
- Every person is important because God made them and loves them (Psalm 139:13).
- We are all to love others like ourselves.
- When everyone loves others sacrificially, the entire community benefits.
- Our love for others should be in who they are, not in what they do.
- In all bodies of people, the stronger are responsible to assist the weaker, and this will practically eradicate most scarcity.
- When someone fails, everyone will be there to support and encourage that person through their specific God-given abilities.
- Wisdom, truth, and continual sacrifice make all of the above possible.
Unnatural Law, by contrast, is the fixed laws of God that commingle with the corrupting effects of sin 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.
- When anyone loves others sacrificially, at least some of the community will exploit it.
- Love what you are, and do things to show the rest of the world why you’re worth everyone else loving you.
- The strong will always prevail, and the weak will serve them. With enough submission, only the lowest-ranking will experience scarcity.
- When someone fails, they should be public humiliated. This serves as an example for others to do better, but also deflects attention from other issues.
- Shrewdness (the appearance of wisdom), an image of truth, and calculated sacrifice make any of the above possible.
The world is simply too damaged and broken to live by Natural Law, even if it wanted to (Romans 8:6-8).
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, Unnatural Law’s hierarchy of self-interest is always arranged as 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
Being a believer in this world means having wisdom, which means understanding at least some Unnatural Law:
- Jesus heavily engaged with the various sinners of His time, meaning He would have been aware of at least some of their lifestyle (Matthew 9:10-13).
- Further, in the same way, Jesus commissions believers to be in the world, but not of the world (John 17:15-18).
- While many parts of society are highly dysfunctional, God has commanded believers to practice good boundaries and be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9).
Therefore, a certain bare minimum of street smarts is absolutely critical for us to maintain enough power to accomplish God’s purposes for us (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 very hairy situations:
- As sheep, they wander into bigger trouble than if they had been wolves (Matthew 10:16).
- They experience real-life moral thought experiments, where they must make the most loving decision, which will often oppose the world’s advice.
- Whatever they decide, and however far they wander, God will still act out His will, and He will get 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 don’t directly create any eternal benefit.
Instead, Christians will make more gains by working toward gentleness and meekness (Matthew 10:16), then trusting 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 supersede 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 happens and what God uses is anyone’s guess, and we must simply trust Him. Eventually, His Natural Law will prevail, but it will be pretty lousy until then (Romans 8:22).