Natural Law and Evangelical Political Thought

by Covington, Jesse; McGraw, Bryan T.; Watson, Micah; Bacote, Vincent; Budziszewski, J.; Charles, J. Daryl; Couenhoven, Jesse; DeHart, Paul R.; George, Robert P.; VanDrunen, David; Wright, Matthew

• ISBN13: 9780739173220
• ISBN10: 0739173227
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-11-16
• Publisher: Lexington Books

Summary

Natural law has long been a cornerstone of Christian political thought, providing moral norms that ground law in a shareable account of human goods and obligations. Despite this history, twentieth and twenty-first-century evangelicals have proved quite reticent to embrace natural law, casting it as a relic of scholastic Roman Catholicism that underestimates the import of scripture and the division between Christians and non-Christians. As recent critics have noted, this reluctance has posed significant problems for the coherence and completeness of evangelical political reflections. Responding to evangelically-minded thinkers' increasing calls for a re-engagement with natural law, this volume explores the problems and prospects attending evangelical rapprochement with natural law. Many of the chapters are optimistic about an evangelical re-appropriation of natural law, but note ways in which evangelical commitments might lend distinctive shape to this engagement.

Author Biography

Jesse Covington is assistant professor of political science at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. Bryan McGraw is assistant professor of politics and international relations at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Micah Watson is director of the Center for Politics and Religion and assistant professor of political science at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction	p. ix
Understanding Evangelical Discomfort with Natural Law
Burying the Wrong Corpse: Evangelicals and Natural Law	p. 3
Karl Barth's Eschatological (rejection of) Natural Law: An Eschatological Natural Law Theory of Divine Command	p. 35
The Doctrine of Creation and the Possibilities of an Evangelical Natural Law	p. 57
Evangelicalism and Natural Law: Continuing Questions
Natural Law and Mosaic Law in the Theology of Paul: Their Relationship and Its Social-Political Implications	p. 85
Natural Law, God, and Human Dignity	p. 109
Reason and Will in Natural Law	p. 125
Natural Law: Friend of Common Grace?	p. 153
An Evangelical Natural Law Tradition? Charting a Path Forward
The Grammar of Virtue: St. Augustine and the Natural Law	p. 167
C. S. Lewis as Natural Law Evangelist: Evangelical Political Thought and the People in the Pew	p. 195
Natural Law, Civic Friendship, and Stanley Hauerwas's Counter-Polis Thesis	p. 225
More Than a Passing Fancy? The Evangelical Engagement with Natural Law	p. 251
Editorial Epilogue	p. 277
Index	p. 281
Contributors	p. 285
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